Time

Page maintained by Fluffy (OP). Excuse my usage of first person.

Preface
Since a Minecraft world is flat, it obviously doesn't orbit around the sun. Astronomy in Minecraft is extremely unrealistic, and so I figured that all units of time would be canonically irrelevant. If we get our years from how long it takes for the earth to go around the sun, and our months from how long it takes for the moon to go around the earth, our units of time would not hold up in game. Thus solar years, months, days, hours, ect. do not exist in the Phoenix universe.

Instead of commonly used measurements, each clan has independently developed their own methods of keeping track of how much time has passed. More below.

I've been asked about what year it is in lore, and until now I've thrown around this vague nine million years number. Since then I have narrowed down the exact year. As of A.D. 2021, it's believed to be A.P. 9114504. However due to the reasons stated above, no character would realistically have access to these numbers. Consider A.P. 9114504 to be a point of reference- a great deal of time has passed, and the clan beings have different methods of interpreting that.

Murex time
Murex clan recognizes the current time as being Aurae Vita Novem, or, in English, Aura's ninth life.

The phrase refers to how many average mortal lives have passed since the current Murex godess, Aura, has been in power. Due to the term "mortal" being so overarching, the actual length of a Vita is debated. A mortal's lifespan varies drastically, especially considering that everything from short-lived insects to ancient trees are considered to be mortal. Previous Vitae have averaged 150,000-300,000 horae long.

Every new Vita, Murex clan holds a "birthday party" festival called the Nova Vita. Aura has refused to make an appearance during the past several festivals. Traditionally, it's an extreme show of Murex clan's creative power that can last for 30-250 horae. Mountains are created, fortresses are formed, and the mortals celebrate relentlessly.

Disadvantages
The most obvious disadvantage of this system is that it's impractical for mortals. Although ideal for referring to times long ago, a mortal can go through its entire life without the current Vita changing.

Murex clan has no laws regarding how long a god or godess may remain in power. A god may stay in power for 1 Vito, 12, or even 500. They step down when they want to, with no limitations. This is impractical because without prior knowledge of Murex's history, it's impossible to tell how many Vitae have passed between, for example, Minui Vito Unus and Aurae Vita Unus.

Without any obvious numbers, those who are unfamiliar with Latin may miss the phrase's meaning and significance.

Latin notes
Vita is used if the current god is feminine, and Vito is used if it is masculine.

The plural of Vita is Vitae, and the plural of Vito is Viti.

Mora time
Mora clan recognizes the current time as being Morae XMI, or Mora Age 91.

Due to Clou'dea and Mora's forgetting, not much is known about how long a Mora should be, or what it even measures. The average Mora consists of around 1,500 of Murex's Vita.

According to legend, Morae might be related to how Saxum experiences time. One Mora could be a unit of age for Saxum.

Disadvantages
Since a Mora is much, much longer than a Vita, it is less practical for mortal use. It is only relevant to rocks.

Malacus time
Malacus clan measures time in Horae. One Hora is equivalent to, conveniently, six real life hours. This is coincidental.

Due to the nature of Horae being so short, the current Hora is constantly updating. As of writing, I am looking at creating a Frin'gil command that would always have the current Hora. Calculating how many Horae have passed since now and nine million years ago is a hassle, hence why I am automating it. Until then, it can be calculated as follows:"((the number of days the server has been open: (the current date) -(8/3/2020)) x (4) ) + (79897736730) = current Hora"I recommend googling a date calculator. For the rest of the article, I will be assuming the current Hora is 79897736730.

Sometimes the Hora is displayed as (798977)36730 Horae. Mortals commonly leave off the first six digits, while immortals commonly leave off the last five. Any of the following methods are acceptable. Horae (798977)36730, Horae 79897736730, Horae 798977, and Horae 36730.

The exact Hora is occasionally debated by those interested in the subject of timekeeping. The great argument is, that, because it took someone a while to develop the concept of time and units of time, they couldn't have been counting since the beginning of time. Thus, the current Hora isn't a measurement of how much time has passed since Clou'dea created the universe, it's a measurement of how long Malacus clan has been counting time for. Certain groups will add or subtract Hora from the widely agreed upon number based on their estimations of when time started. This results in multiple numbers being used in records.

The most commonly agreed upon Hora is 79897736730 + (the number of Hora that have passed since PhoenixSMP started). For the sake of the calculations provided in this article, I have assumed that the universe was created that long ago. If the number is incorrect, the world could be much older (or younger) than I portray it. Nobody knows if its accurate or not, and frankly I don't care.

Disadvantages
Horae are fictional units of time and are thus difficult to keep track of. I tried to explain how to calculate them over Discord and was met with confusion.

They're extremely small compared to Vitae or Morae.

Trivia
Horae are based off of the obscure Time Cube conspiracy.

Humain13 may try to introduce the concept of months to Malacus clan, however I don't authourize this.

In summary
Since the clans are more focused on war than organization, they will never agree on a universal calendar system. Using another clan's time system is probably considered treachery, or something. However, beings not associated with any one clan have concluded that you can use all three units to get a good idea of what time an event has occurred. In the future, I will start to label events with all three measurements, as follows: Morae XMI, Aurae Vita Novem, 79897736730, (the date in A.D. and the year in A.P, if applicable).

I literally sat down and thought about how time would function in a block game universe where mortals and gods would need to use the same units of measurement. This took like three days of my time. Nobody cares that time functions differently in a video game as opposed to real life. Kill me.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.