Units of time
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Transformers, being extraterrestrials, are often overheard stating measurements in units that are unfamiliar to humans. Further, Transformers in different universes often use different units for measurement, and sometimes even use the same unit name but define it differently. Following is a list of units of time that Cybertronians have been observed using.
Contents |
Specific unit definitions
| Name | Duration | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ano-cycle | Cybertronian year? | Mentioned in "Devastation". It was used in context of a set period of time, rather than a relative timespan. |
| Arc | Minutes? Hours? | First mentioned in "Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading" when an explosion occurred at the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology, specifically at "arc 1-13 on the 5th chord of the 4th Cycle 501." Given its use to mark the moment of an explosion and the division between two numbers, arcs may be a unit similar to minutes and hours, such as something happening at 10:15. |
| Astro-minute | ??? | Astro-minutes are referenced in the Generation 1 cartoon episode "Fire in the Sky" and could be anything from actual minutes to hours. |
| Astro-second | ~3.66 seconds? | First mentioned by the original Transformers cartoon episode "Transport to Oblivion". In the original script (available on the Shout! Factory season 1 DVDs), astro-seconds were not used. Instead, Shockwave defines the time until the next space bridge launch window as occurring in 183 minutes; when the scene was recorded, the line was changed to "3000 astro-seconds". Dividing 183 minutes (or 10,980 seconds) by 3,000 astro-seconds, the result is 3.66 Earth seconds per astro-second. |
| Astrosecond | .498 seconds | Defined by Dreamwave's More Than Meets The Eye #8 as 1/1000th of a breem. Astroseconds as referenced in the original The Transformers cartoon seem to be much shorter, but were never defined. In particular, in "Divide and Conquer" Shockwave states that the space bridge will materialize within 72 billion astroseconds, an interval exceeding a millennium if Dreamwave's definition is applied. Even ignoring this extreme case, astroseconds in general cartoon use appeared to be much less than one second each. |
| Breem | 8.3 minutes | Originally defined in the Marvel Comics story "The Smelting Pool!," also used in Dreamwave's comics. In the story Meltdown! it was further defined as approximately 8.35 minutes. |
| Century | ??? | In the Transformers Animated premiere, "Transform and Roll Out", several references are made to the Great Wars ending "centuries ago", all prior to first contact between Transformers and Earth. This is probably a case of dialogue being written for human observers rather than indicating the existence of a "Cybertronian century", but it is included here for completeness. Similarly, the history video at the very beginning of the episode refers to "millions of years", an Earth unit. It is unclear how this time should be interpreted. Starscream also refers to the search for the AllSpark as lasting "centuries", which is at odds with Megatron's own statement that it has been "four million solar cycles" (see below). |
| Chord | Days? Weeks? | First mentioned in "Shadowplay, Part 1: Post Hoc" as an aspect of the calendar (Drift's encounter with Ratchet and Orion Pax occurred on the 4th chord of 4th Cycle 501). The final events of the flashbacks in "Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading" occur only one chord later. Given the pacing of events, a chord can't be shorter than a few hours, but certainly shorter than a month. |
| Cyber-week | A week? | A measurement used in the Shattered Glass universe. It is probably equivalent to a week. |
| Cycle (Animated) | ~1.5 minutes | In "Rise of the Constructicons", Bumblebee asks Prime if he can take a coolant break. Prime responds that he just had a break "two cycles ago". From this it sounds as if a cycle is relatively short — less than a day, certainly — but its actual duration is unclear. In "Black Friday", Prowl challenges Bumblebee to stay quiet for "ten cycles", and he talks 30 to 40 seconds later. Prowl then informs Bumblebee that he managed to stay quiet for "barely half a cycle", implying that it is close to a minute. The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 100 nanokliks or about 1.5 minutes. |
| Cycle (G1 UK comics) | 12 hours | In the United Kingdom comic story "Target: 2006", Ultra Magnus had ten cycles to find out what happened to Optimus Prime and the Creation Matrix until Operation: Volcano began. Emirate Xaaron equated this to five Earth days. |
| Cycle (Beast Wars) | ~1 minute | Beast Wars cartoon story editors Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio stated that the "cycles" used in their series were very roughly equivalent to a minute. Maybe more, maybe less, but something of that order of magnitude. |
| Cycle (Energon comics) | 1 year | Instead or referring to the period between "Armada" and "Energon" as ten years, Councilor Avalon instead referred to it as ten cycles in "Multiplicity, Pt. 2". |
| Cycle (2005 IDW continuity) | 1 hour 15 minutes (1.25 hours) | Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[1] |
| Cycle (2019 IDW continuity) | 1 day, shorter than an Earth day. | Defined for use in the 2019 IDW continuity by Brian Ruckley.[2] |
| Deca-cycle (Animated) | ~10 days | In "A Fistful of Energon", Ultra Magnus calls to report that Starscream has escaped. He says that it happened "a decacycle ago", and that he would have called sooner but their Tachyon transmitter was missing. The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 10 solar cycles. |
| Deca-cycle (Beast Wars) | ~30 days | As defined by the series's story editors, this unit is on the order of 30 days. |
| Deca-cycle (IDW comics) | ~3 weeks | Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[1] |
| Deca-phase | ~8 hours | Mentioned in "The War to End All Wars, Part 1", the deca-phase is a unit of time used on Nebulos. Six deca-phases is approximately equal to two Earth days. |
| Gigacycle | ??? | A unit of undetermined duration that was used in the 2001 Robots in Disguise episode "The Hunt for Black Pyramid", the Cybertron comic "Revelations Part 4", the Shattered Glass stories "Dungeons & Dinobots" and "Do Over", and the Aligned novel Exiles. |
| Groon | ~1 hour | Roughly equivalent to an hour. In "The Magnificent Six!", Megadeath let his broken Autobot prisoners go with a neutronic blast imminent in two groons. Retelling this event to Silverbolt in 1990, Jazz described the time as two hours. |
| Joor | ??? | Used idiomatically like "hour", but of unknown duration. In "The Magnificent Six!", Steamhammer had an inspection parade scheduled at 0700 joors, not long after Cybertron's lunar dawn. |
| Klik | 1.2 minutes | Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[1] The term first appeared as a unit of distance in the Marvel UK story "City of Fear!". |
| Kilocycle | 1 year | Defined for use in the 2019 IDW continuity by Brian Ruckley.[2] |
| Lightyear | (a very long time) | Used exclusively in the Unicron Trilogy, a lightyear is an epochal unit of time.[3][4][5] |
| Megacycle (Animated) | ~2.6 hours | In "Lost and Found" Ratchet estimated that it would take 10 mega-cycles to repair the Autobots' ship even with the help of the AllSpark Key. The Autobots seemed to consider this to be a moderately long time, but not so long for it to be unrealistic that they might repair the ship before the Decepticons come at them in force. Later, in "Rise of the Constructicons", Bulkhead defends the Constructicons' behavior, asserting that "they've been online two, three megacycles tops." The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 100 cycles or about 2.6 hours. |
| Mega-cycle (Beast Wars) | ~1 hour | As with the Beast Wars cycle, this unit is on the order of an hour, as defined by the series' story editors. Used incongruously in "The Agenda (Part 1)" to refer to a much longer span of time. (One of the Tripredacus Council says, "His ship and the Axalon both vanished last megacycle. The Maximal probes never found them.") Ben Yee cites a statement from DiTillio that another unit — the deca-cycle — is roughly month-like in length.[1] This may be the unit that was intended for that line of dialogue. Also used in the Wings Universe story Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur. |
| Mega-cycle (2005 IDW comics) | 93 hours | Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[1] |
| Megacycle (2019 IDW comics) | 1000 kilocycles | Defined for use in the 2019 IDW continuity by Brian Ruckley.[2] |
| Meta-cycle | 13 months | Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[1] |
| Micro-breem | ??? | A unit of time mentioned by the Aerospace Extermination Squadron in "The Age of Wrath Pt.2". |
| Milli-bleep | ??? | Mentioned in the original script for The Transformers: The Movie. |
| Milli-cycle | ??? | A unit of undetermined but short duration. Mentioned (at least) in the Beast Wars episode "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)" and in the Beast Machines episode "Spark of Darkness. |
| Minicon | ??? | A unit of unknown duration used in the Shattered Glass universe. Judging by its usage, it may be roughly equivalent to a minute. The term first appeared in the G1 episode "City of Steel", though its usage there does not make clear if it is meant to signify a unit of time. |
| Nano-cycle | ~1 second | Used in the Beast Machines episodes "Forbidden Fruit" and "End of the Line". |
| Nanoklik (Animated) | ~1 second | In "Home Is Where the Spark Is", Optimus Prime enters Prowl's quarters asking, "Prowl, got a nanoclick?" Also, in "A Fistful of Energon" Lockdown tells Prowl to "Wait a nanoclick." The AllSpark Almanac defines it as the duration of 8,589,934,592 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom, or about a second. |
| Nano-klik (Beast Wars) | ~1 second | As with the Beast Wars cycle, this unit is on the order of a second, as defined by the series' story editors. Used similarly in IDW comics and in the Wings Universe story Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur. |
| Ngs | ??? | Mentioned in "The Age of Wrath Pt.3" by Perceptor. It may be an homage to Joe Ng, who drew the issue. |
| Orbital Cycle | ~1 month | In "A Bridge Too Close, Part I", Starscream, after hearing all his clones, mutters to himself: "This is going to be a LONG orbital cycle." The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 32 solar cycles or about a month. |
| Orn | ??? | A unit of undetermined duration. It is apparently defined as "one Cybertronian lunar day". Yesterday's Heroes! |
| Paracycle | ??? | When Jhiaxus came to inspect the eco-structuring of a new planet in "The Power and the Glory", the one in charge said they were "almost a full paracycle ahead of schedule." The term was also used in "Schism". |
| Quadricycle | ??? | A unit of unknown duration used in the Shattered Glass universe. Presumably "4" of something. |
| Quartex | ~1 Earth month | Starscream commanded the Decepticons for "nearly a Quartex" after the battle of Mission City.RoS#4 When Barricade summoned him back to Earth after he was deposed, exactly one month had passed.Alliance #1 |
| Quartex | ??? | Wheeljack lamented that the energy in the conductors that he and Bumblebee had found "wouldn't last a quartex", indicating a brief duration. More than Meets the Eye, Part 1 The episode's original script spelled it "quartrex", but Wheeljack is audibly not pronouncing a second "R" in the finished episode. |
| Solar cycle (Animated) | ~1 day | In "Transform and Roll Out, Part 1", Megatron says he has spent "the last four million solar cycles searching the galaxy" for the AllSpark. The parallel to Generation 1's famous "four million years" implies that this unit is meant to be year-like. In "Part 3" Starscream refers to the 50-years of searching between the battle where "he defeated Megatron" and the present as 50 solar cycles, cementing this definition. However, in "Part 2", Optimus Prime and Ratchet have an exchange in which they use "solar cycle" in a way that is a better idiomatic match for "day" than "year". Further episodes continue with the "day" definition. The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 10 megacycles, or about a day. |
| Solar cycle (Beast Machines) | ~1 day | In the Beast Machines episode "The Weak Component", Rattrap uses the term "half a solar cycle" to describe the amount of time the Maximal would leave Megatron alone in order to regain his strength: one night, from dusk-to-dawn. |
| Stellar cycle (Animated) | ~1 year | In the Animated episode "Along Came a Spider", Blackarachnia says that her accident occurred "a thousand stellar cycles" ago. Further, in "Megatron Rising - Part 2" Megatron refers to both "fifty stellar cycles" and "four million stellar cycles", using the term in the way that solar cycles had previously been used. The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 320 solar cycles, or about a year. |
| Stellar cycle (Beast Wars) | ~400 days | Orbital period (a Cybertronian "year") for Cybertron as stated by Larry DiTillio in information sent to Ben Yee. DiTillio also volunteers that Cybertron's rotational period (a "day") is ~20 hours. |
| Stellar cycle (IDW comics) | ~7.5 months | Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[1] |
| Sub-cycle | ??? | A unit of time mentioned first in "Fragmentation". |
| Trimara | ??? | Used in Transformers: Beast Wars: The Ascending #2. Likely "3" of something, but who knows what. |
| Vorn | 83 years | Originally defined in the Marvel Comics story "The Smelting Pool!," also used in Dreamwave's comics. |
| Decivorn | 8.3 years[6] | The New World |
Calendars
Marvel The Transformers comics
In the Marvel UK Transformers Annual Cybertronian time uses a calendar system involving cycles but is otherwise not elaborated on. An example is Optimus Prime's inauguration as Autobot leader, which occurred on 1st Cycle 820. In the Beginning... The Quest!
2005 IDW continuity
The 2005 IDW continuity picked up the cycles calendar system mentioned in the Marvel UK Annuals and ran with it, even introducing new units known as arcs and chords. It began with Last Stand of the Wreckers, and various dates have since appeared in works written by James Roberts. For a while some given dates seemed to contradict others, until "Before & After" mentioned "the switch to the new calendar", confirming that the calendar is divided, albeit at an unknown point. Nevertheless, some discrepancies remain, as Ironfist was apparently constructed after the events of Shadowplay, which he played a small part in, and his quote on the Wreckers' survival rate in "Dead Men's Boots" appears woefully out of date. Roberts indicated that the first number represents a time span similar to years, while the second number is a larger span like centuries or millennia. Arcs and chords, introduced by Roberts[7] Whether this is true for both the old and new calendar is unknown.
The earliest cited date in the calendar(s) so far is Megatron's birth, also identified as "five million years ago" and in the middle of the Silver Harvest, the rediscovery of stockpiled sparks from Tyrest's "sparksplicing" experiments. Orion Pax also mentioned that Megatron "wasn't that old" after hearing his birthdate in All Our Parlous Yesterdays. Taken in context, all this seems to indicate the calendar started sometime after Nova Prime's era, and an even earlier dating method may have existed before that.
If divided into rough pre-war and war periods, dates so far include:
Pre-war period
- 1st Cycle 012 — Megatron is created. Chaos Theory Part 1
- 4th Cycle 496 - Megatron is involved in a barroom brawl that sets him on a path of revolution. Towards Peace Reported as 4th Cycle 499 in Elegant Chaos Part 2: Stet.
- 51st Cycle 500 — Megatron's mind is assault by Trepan and he loses Terminus when the mine is evacuated. Stet
- 4th Cycle 501, 1st Chord, Arc 0-09 — Senator Sherma is found dead. Post Hoc
- 4th Cycle 501, 4th Chord — Ratchet operates on Drift, saving his life. Post Hoc
- 4th Cycle 501, 6th Chord — Orion Pax meets with Whirl at Garrus-1. Patternism
- 4th Cycle 501, 5th Chord, Arc 1-13 — Rodion's police headquarters is destroyed. This follows previous events, so the Chord is apparently an error. An Intimate Beheading
- 1st Cycle 502 — Orion Pax, Roller, and the JAAT Outliers defend a hot spot in the Alyon region; Megatron's uprising and first kill in the mines of Croteus 12. All Our Parlous Yesterdays
- 5th Cycle 522 — Ironfist is constructed. Last Stand of the Wreckers #4 The Nova Prime memorial lectures are held. You, Me, and Other Revelations
- 1st Cycle 598 — Ironfist is Autobranded. Last Stand of the Wreckers #4
War period
- 2nd Cycle 087 — The Battle of Sherma Bridge: Optimus Prime and Megatron meet in battle for the first time. Chaos Theory Part 1
- 3rd Cycle 199 — Optimus Prime defeats Megatron during the Vorsk Offensive. Chaos Theory Part 1
- 6th Cycle 356 — Rewind, Chromedome, and Shimmerstick were fighting Scorponok in the Manganese Mountains. Confirmed as "half-a-million years ago". The Custom-Made Now
- 1st Cycle 598 — Ironfist is Autobranded. Ironfist's profile
- 11th Cycle 987 — The survival rate of Wreckers members is at 42%. Dead Men's Boots
- 3rd Cycle 1102 — The Battle for Hell's Point takes place. The Gloaming
- 2nd Cycle 1874 — Ultra Magnus suffers an apparently-mortal injury from a K-Class Decepticon during the battle over the Nightmare Engine. The Gloaming He miraculously gets better.
- 11th Cycle 3012 — The Decepticon social network The Big Conversation was founded by the M.T.O. Biteback.
- 1st Cycle 3178 — Ultra Magnus suffers an apparently-mortal injury from a Cybernought during the Simanzi Massacre. The Gloaming He miraculously gets better.
- 2nd Cycle 3819 — The opening of Crosscut's play "Information Creep" on the Lost Light B, a few weeks after launch. The Road Not Taken
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Simon Furman defines IDW units in an IDW forum post
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Yep. A cycle is a Cybertronian day, shorter than an Earth day. A kilocycle is the equivalent of our year (not precisely a thousand cycles, technically - but close enough), a megacycle is a thousand kilocycles."—Brian Ruckley, Twitter, 2019/06/01
- ↑ "A unique digital entity came into being lightyears ago, and created the Transformers." ("First Encounter")
- ↑ "Omega Supreme fought Unicron lightyears before Optimus Prime's Autobots even existed." ("Omega Supreme")
- ↑ This is technically incorrect, as a lightyear is a unit of distance and not time.
- ↑ Assuming the prefix "deci" works the same here as in the metric system.
- ↑ IDW Forums James Roberts Q&A
