Comparison of standards

This page is meant to be a collection of standard measurements in the First Contact universe.

Gravity
Standard gravity acceleration, as measured by the Unified Science Council and converted to metric equals to 7.355 m/s^2 and is defined as 1 Standard Gravity. In contrast, the Terran Confederacy uses Earth Gravity (or 'G'), measured at 9.8066 m/s^2.

Ergo: "1 Standard Gravity = 0.75 Earth Gravity". A few common conversions are listed below:

Some interesting factoids from that:


 * Cheekeet Longflight can fly in 1.5 Standard G; a little over 1.1 Earth G.

Time
A Cycle converts to roughly 10 Earth Hours, and a Great Cycle roughly to 1.5 years. Yet what exactly they measure is uncertain. A Cycle has been referred as one shift of work.[citation needed]

Measuring time in Cycles and Great Cycles only occurs in early chapters; later chapters use human measurements for time. There are roughly 1314 Cycles in a Great Cycle.

Military Units
One reoccurring issue in the earlier chapters is the difference in scale when it comes to forces fielded by the Unified Military Council compared to the Confederacy. The United Council of Systems possesses more personnel, but the units themselves are lighter—prioritizing cost, standardization, ease of use and collateral damage avoidance over power.


 * The Aerial Powered Armor the 12th Air Mobile (led by Old Iron Feathers) used were some of the best the Unified Military Fleet could supply to Neosapients species. Terrans considered it Search and Rescue gear.
 * Kistimet Corporation's security forces fielded a 150-ton hovertank as its Main Battle Tank. Terran Confederacy forces fielded those as Cavalry Scouts. An M1A2 Abrams, an MBT from the 21st century weighs 62 to 66 tons depending on its configuration, while typical Confederacy MBTs start at 2800 tons.