Ezlo
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In "The Eighth Pinned Down" the date is given as "148 B.D. - B.D. meaning Benedat's Discovery." Who is Benedat? And what did he discover? Knowing the type of humor all the canon has, my bet is that he discovered the calender. Anyone else have any ideas?

Niccus
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He went far north to measure a certain angle. He found that The Eighth wasn't really an eighth after all.

He was promptly executed.

Ezlo
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But if he was executed, why would they start the years all over again and add a BD to the end? Wouldn't they just add a chapter to the history books called "The Madness of Protractors?"

zex20913
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They added the BD to remind people not to try to change the status quo.

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NiroZ
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Ezlo wrote:
In "The Eighth Pinned Down" the date is given as "148 B.D. - B.D. meaning Benedat's Discovery." Who is Benedat? And what did he discover? Knowing the type of humor all the canon has, my bet is that he discovered the calender. Anyone else have any ideas?

well manhood is always a possiblity, but it would have to be a great discovery of it to make it a speical event

Watcher
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Ezlo wrote:
In "The Eighth Pinned Down" the date is given as "148 B.D. - B.D. meaning Benedat's Discovery." Who is Benedat? And what did he discover? Knowing the type of humor all the canon has, my bet is that he discovered the calender. Anyone else have any ideas?

Straight from Erik himself:

B.D. stands for "Benedat's Discovery", when he proved the world was a pie--one eighth of a pie, to be exact. This realization prompted a modern age of Constructed Thought. Educated people began calling their world "the Eighth" and acting really snooty at certain parties.

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Mattcrampy
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I knew I knew that. But I couldn't remember how I knew it.

But yeah, his discovery was that if you keep going east you end up back where you started. No-one saw that coming, they thought it was turtles all the way down.

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jbluestein
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Ezlo wrote:
In "The Eighth Pinned Down" the date is given as "148 B.D. - B.D. meaning Benedat's Discovery." Who is Benedat? And what did he discover? Knowing the type of humor all the canon has, my bet is that he discovered the calender. Anyone else have any ideas?

Benedat is in actuality a collaborative duo. Together, they discovered many important landmarks around the Eighth.

The name comes from the first half of one fellow's name and the last half of the other: Benedere & Donedat.




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[Last edited by jbluestein at 08-24-2006 06:19 PM]

eytanz
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Erm, the official, canonical answer has been given before and referenced a few posts back. I think it's pretty confusing for people to just make up alternate explanations at this point.

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jbluestein
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eytanz wrote:
Erm, the official, canonical answer has been given before and referenced a few posts back. I think it's pretty confusing for people to just make up alternate explanations at this point.

Sorry...it never occurred to me that anyone would take my answer as anything other than a joke. I could have marked it up with smilies, I suppose, but I've always been of the opinion that if you need a smiley to tell people you're making a joke, then your joke probably isn't very funny.

Josh

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eytanz
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Oh - I guess it didn't register as a joke for the simple reason that it could have been a perfectly reasonable answer.

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jbluestein
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eytanz wrote:
Oh - I guess it didn't register as a joke for the simple reason that it could have been a perfectly reasonable answer.

Probably my ignorance of the source material shining through. Ah well, I have marked my comment appropriately, just so nobody gets confused.

Josh

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Ezlo
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So then, what was before BD?

Syntax
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Ezlo wrote:
So then, what was before BD?

Well... BBD - Before Benedat's Discovery.

Ezlo
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But what did the people who lived before Benedat's Discovery call Before Benedat's Discovery?

eytanz
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Maybe they didn't have one unified calendar then. Each country could have had its own, named after an important hero or something like that. Benedat's discovery, by giving a shape to the world, made everyone think more globally and they adopted a single calendar.

(The above is non-canonical)

What the people called the time before *that*, however, is a *very* interesting question, probably more than you think. You'll probably learn the answer to it in a future canonical hold, though not anytime soon... And that's all I'll say on the matter

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zex20913
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Ezlo wrote:
But what did the people who lived before Benedat's Discovery call Before Benedat's Discovery?

Similar question: What did people call it before BC and AD were introduced? And to spite those who would bring up the Chinese calendar, I'm only going to care about the standard calendar of the USA (The Christian, I think.)

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silver
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zex20913 wrote:
Similar question: What did people call it before BC and AD were introduced? And to spite those who would bring up the Chinese calendar, I'm only going to care about the standard calendar of the USA (The Christian, I think.)

It wasn't until around 300 or 400 AD that "AD/BC" came into use. Somewhere in that time, the Roman church (they didn't need to distinguish themselves as Catholics yet because there weren't other sects yet) decided to start numbering years that way. Over time this became convention all over Europe. long before the US was founded.
The calendar in use at the time was different than the Gregorian calendar we use today, but only somewhat. It was based on the ancient Roman calendar.

Before this, there was no BC or AD (even though we were well after the birth of Christ) - instead different nations and towns reckoned years differently. In Rome, for example, they'd speak of the "Xth year of Y's reign" or "Xth year of the Republic" (since they had various forms of government in their 800 year history).

edit: cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini . it was the 8th century, not the 4th or 5th, in which AD started.



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[Last edited by silver at 08-24-2006 11:22 PM]