Calendars have long been an interest of mine, especially when applied to my favorite sci-fi settings. I wanted a useful tool to convert dates in Heavy Gear to and from the Gregorian calendar we use today, and I've finally been able to write one that I can share with other Heavy Gear fans.
Converting the Terranovan Calendar
The Terranovan calendar is based on a local year of 168.2 local days, with each local day being 36 local hours long and a local hour being 62 minutes long. (The various editions of Life on Terra Nova described this in more detail.) Moreove, three dates listed in LoTN give us a basis for conversion:
| Gregorian Calendar | Terranovan Calendar |
| April 3, 4752 AD | 1 Winter TN 1 |
| January 1, 6132 AD | 10 Winter TN 1933 |
| January 1, 1995 AD | 41 Autumn TN -3862 |
With these dates and the rules of Terranovan timekeeping, I've created a JavaScript-based function which converts between the Gregorian and the Terranovan calendars. The results aren't perfect, but I've come pretty close. (Take a look at the source code if you'd like to see how the function works; if Terranovan dates do not appear below the dates in the table, you'll need to allow active content to run on your browser.)
| Today's Date | Check Date 1 | Check Date 2 |
There are bound to be some discrepancies given how the two conversion methods work, so my suggestion is to use both tools for a given date and average the two results. For instance, inputting the Gregorian date "January 1, 3001" returns the Terranovan date of 38 Summer TN -2453, while inputting "38 Summer TN -2453" into the T-to-G tool returns the Gregorian date of December 31, 3000. In such a case, pick the one you like the best; either date should be just fine for game purposes.
(This conversion tool should accept most date formats; if you get a return value with an "NaN" error, reenter the date in another format. For instance, January 1, 2001 can be entered as "1/1/2001," "January 1, 2001" or "1 Jan 2001.")