1500date

1500date is a fictional calendar epoch and date notation used in some science fiction and fantasy settings as well as in worldbuilding datasets. It treats the year 1500 CE as a fixed origin from which all dates are measured, allowing dates to be represented as offsets from that epoch.

Notation and examples: The core form is 1500date+N for years after 1500 and 1500date-N for years before 1500, where N is a nonnegative integer. For example, 1500date+0 corresponds to the year 1500; 1500date+23 corresponds to 1523; 1500date-50 corresponds to 1450. Some variants add day or month information using additional suffixes, but the exact syntax varies by setting. In digital implementations, the date is commonly stored as a single integer offset from 1500.

Usage and purpose: 1500date is used in worldbuilding to simplify arithmetic on dates, compare durations, and archive events without repeatedly converting between BCE/CE or other calendars. It supports cross-setting consistency in fictional archives, manuscripts, and databases within a given universe. The system is predominantly a narrative and data-model device rather than a globally adopted standard.

Origins and adoption: The concept arises in in-universe scholarly texts and chronologies within the fiction, where researchers adopted a year-epoch anchored at 1500 to standardize dating across diverse calendars depicted in the story. Variants proliferate across different works, reflecting local conventions for precision and granularity.

See also: Epoch concepts, ISO 8601, Unix time, Julian day, Calendar reform in fiction.

References: In-world manuals and scholarly editions such as The Chronology of 1500date and the Archivist’s Guide provide foundational explanations. Outside of fiction, 1500date is treated as a fictional construct used for storytelling and worldbuilding demonstrations.