Timekeeping in the Voltron Universe
This post is a guide of all the information that I’ve discovered or calculated over the course of writing my various analysis posts about the VLD story on how the intergalactic timekeeping units that are used throughout the series compare to those of Earth. I've been putting this together for a while as a resource for me and anyone else who intends to write VLD fics so that those who plan on incorporating the differences in time measurements into their stories can have a baseline to build off of.
(I'm aware that others in the fandom have made similar posts, but I haven't seen any that have done the math on some of the time comparisons)
Ticks are established early in the show as the equivalent of seconds, and the Let’s Voltron podcast actually timed the team’s little ticks vs seconds comparison from S1E06 Taking Flight and found that a tick is 1.399 seconds.
Dobashes are the equivalent of minutes. How many ticks there are in one dobash is not something than any official sources have provided any indication of.
Vargas are the equivalent of hours, and S3E03 The Hunted implies that they are very close in length. When the paladins are pursuing Lotor’s ship at the start of the episode, Pidge says “At our current rate of speed, we’ll be in attack range in an hour.” When we cut to Lotor’s ship barely a minute later, Acxa says “the lions will be on us in one Varga.”
While the number of dobashes in one varga is unknown, it at least gives us an indication that the amount of time elapsed is still about sixty minutes in Earth time.
Quintants are the equivalent of days, and the show actually tells us how many Vargas are in one day. In S2E08 The Blade of Marmora, the path to the Blade of Marmora’s base is said to close for two Quintants once Keith and Shiro reach it. When we cut back to the Castle of Lions in the middle of Keith’s trials, it’s been “roughly ten Vargas” according to Coran, and when Allura asks how much longer they have to wait, Lance correctly estimates “thirty more Vargas.”
This means that 2 Quintants is the equivalent of 40 Vargas, meaning that one Quintant is 20 Vargas long.
In Earth time, this means that a Quintant is only about 20 hours compared to the 24-hour days of Earth. Dividing 20 by 24 to find the percentage establishes that 1 Quintant = 0.833 Days
Movements are the equivalent of weeks, and while it’s never explicitly confirmed, Coran’s mention of the paladins forming Voltron “six times a movement” in S1E02 Some Assembly Required implies that there are 6 Quintants in a Movement.
Since Quintants are only 20 hours, six of them would be the equivalent of five 24-hour Earth days.
Phoebs are the equivalent of months and Deca-Phoebs are the equivalent of years. The Deca indicates that there are 10 Phoebs in a year, and I actually managed to figure out the comparison to Earth years while crafting my second VLD timeline guide.
When Shiro and Allura are detected during their infiltration of a Galra cruiser in S1E10 Collection and Extraction, the computer identifies Shiro as “Fugitive prisoner 117-9875.”
The format of his prisoner ID number indicates the year on the empire’s calendar that Shiro was captured, meaning that the Galran calendar places the beginning of Season 1 in imperial year 9876, since the discovery of Voltron occurs a year after Shiro’s capture.
Initially, I thought this meant that the references to Altea being destroyed “10,000 years ago” were a generalization and that it wasn’t exactly 10,000 years.
However, Coran’s insistence on correcting Hunk that the Castle of Lions is 10,600 years old in S1E01 indicates that it was indeed exactly 10,000 years between Altea’s destruction and the return of the Blue Lion.
So, dividing 10,000 by 9876 to compare gives me the math of 1 Deca-Phoeb = 0.9876 Years.
Since 1 year on Earth is 365 days, 365 times 0.9876 gives me 360 days in a sincle Deca-Phoeb.
And since there are 10 Phoebs in a Deca-Phoeb, 360 divided by 10 gives us approximately 36 days in 1 Phoeb. Since 1 Quintant is 0.833 days, 1 day is the equivalent of 1.2 Quintants. 1.2 times 36 gives me approximately 43 Quintants in a Phoeb.
This means that there are a total of 7 full Movements (or 5 7-day Earth weeks) in a Phoeb with one extra Quintant at the end, and 1 Deca-Phoeb is approximately 430 Quintants.
Final Time Comparison Chart
1 Quintant = 20 Vargas = 20 Hours = 0.833 Days
1 Movement = 6 Quintants = 5 Days
1 Phoeb = 43 Quintants = 7.167 Movements = 36 Days = 5.14 Weeks
1 DecaPhoeb = 430 Quintants = 71.67 Movements = 360 days = 51.4 Weeks
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