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Units of time/Continuity

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Transformers, being extraterrestrials, are often overheard stating measurements in units that are unfamiliar to humans. Further, Transformers in different universes often use different units for measurement, and sometimes even use the same unit name but define it differently. Following is a list of units of time that Cybertronians have been observed using.

Contents

Specific unit definitions

Marvel Comics continuity

Marvel The Transformers comics
Name Duration Description
Breem 8.3 minutes Originally defined in "The Smelting Pool!", also used in Dreamwave's comics. In the Marvel UK story Meltdown! it was further defined as approximately 8.35 minutes.
Orn ??? A unit of undetermined duration; defined by "Yesterday's Heroes!" as "one Cybertronian lunar day".
Vorn 83 years Originally defined in "The Smelting Pool!", also used in Dreamwave's comics.
Marvel UK comics
Name Duration Description
Cycle 12 hours In "Target: 2006", Ultra Magnus had ten cycles to find out what happened to Optimus Prime and the Creation Matrix until Operation: Volcano began. Emirate Xaaron equated this to five Earth days.
Groon ~1 hour Roughly equivalent to an hour. In "The Magnificent Six!", Megadeath let his broken Autobot prisoners go with a neutronic blast imminent in two groons. Retelling this event to Silverbolt in 1990, Jazz described the time as two hours.
Joor ??? Used idiomatically like "hour", but of unknown duration. In "The Magnificent Six!", Steamhammer had an inspection parade scheduled at 0700 joors, not long after Cybertron's lunar dawn.
Marvel Generation 2 comic
Name Duration Description
Paracycle ??? When Jhiaxus came to inspect the eco-structuring of a new planet in "The Power and the Glory", the overseer said they were "almost a full paracycle ahead of schedule." The term was also used in "Schism".
Regeneration One
Name Duration Description
Deca-phase ~8 hours Mentioned in "The War to End All Wars, Part 1", the deca-phase is a unit of time used on Nebulos. Six deca-phases is approximately equal to two Earth days.


The Transformers cartoon

Name Duration Description
Astro-minute ??? Astro-minutes are referenced in the episode "Fire in the Sky" and could be anything from actual minutes to hours.
Astro-second .273 seconds? First mentioned by the episode "Transport to Oblivion". In the original script (available on the Shout! Factory season 1 DVDs), astro-seconds were not used. Instead, Shockwave defines the time until the next space bridge launch window as occurring in 183 minutes; when the scene was recorded, the line was changed to "3000 astro-seconds". Dividing 3,000 astro-seconds by 183 minutes (or 10,980 seconds), the end result is 1 astro-second per ~.273224 Earth seconds. Dreamwave Productions later provided their own spelling and definition.
Quartex ??? A unit of undetermined duration. In the very first Transformers cartoon episode, "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1", Wheeljack complains that the shoddy energy conductors he and Bumblebee picked up don't have enough juice in them to last a quartrex, so make of that what you will. Although the original script of the episode spells the term "Quartrex", Wheeljack audibly pronounces it without the second "r" in the episode itself.


Beast Wars & Beast Machines cartoons

Name Duration Description
Nano-klik ~1 second As with the Beast Wars cycle, this unit is on the order of a second, as defined by the series' story editors. Used similarly in 2005 IDW continuity.
Nano-cycle ~1 second Used in the Beast Machines episodes "Forbidden Fruit" and "End of the Line".
Milli-cycle ??? A unit of undetermined short duration. Mentioned (at least) in the Beast Wars episode "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)" and in the Beast Machines episode "Spark of Darkness.
Cycle ~1 minute Beast Wars cartoon story editors Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio stated that the "cycles" used in their series were very roughly equivalent to a minute. Maybe more, maybe less, but something of that order of magnitude.
Mega-cycle ~1 hour As with the Beast Wars cycle, this unit is on the order of an hour, as defined by the series' story editors. Used incongruously in "The Agenda (Part 1)" to refer to a much longer span of time. (One of the Tripredacus Council says, "His ship and the Axalon both vanished last megacycle. The Maximal probes never found them.") Ben Yee cites a statement from DiTillio that another unit—the deca-cycle—is roughly month-like in length.[1] This may be the unit that was intended for that line of dialogue.
Solar cycle 1 Cybertronian day/20 Earth hours Rotational period (a Cybertronian "day") for Cybertron as volunteered by information provided to Ben Yee by Larry DiTillio.[1]
In the Beast Machines episode "The Weak Component", Rattrap uses the term "half a solar cycle" to describe the amount of time the Maximals would leave Megatron alone in order to regain his strength: one night, from dusk-to-dawn.
Deca-cycle ~1 month (~36 Solar cycles[2]) As defined by the series's story editors, this unit is on the order of 30 days.
Stellar cycle 1 Cybertronian year/400 Earth days

(480 Solar cycles[3])

Orbital period (a Cybertronian "year") for Cybertron as stated by Larry DiTillio in information sent to Ben Yee.[1]


Robots in Disguise (2001)

Name Duration Description
Solar Cycle 24 hours Mentioned in "Koji Gets His Wish"; one Solar Cycle is 24 hours. Presumably Earth hours since that where everyone was at the time.


Unicron Trilogy

Name Duration Description
Cycle 1 year Instead or referring to the period between "Armada" and "Energon" as ten years, Councilor Avalon instead referred to it as ten cycles in "Multiplicity, Pt. 2".
Gigacycle ??? A unit of undetermined duration that was used in "Revelations Part 4".
Lightyear (a very long time) Used exclusively in the Unicron Trilogy, a lightyear is an epochal unit of time.[4][5]


Dreamwave Productions

Name Duration Description
Ano-cycle Cybertronian year? Mentioned in "Devastation". It was used in context of a set period of time, rather than a relative timespan.
Astrosecond .498 seconds Defined by Dreamwave's More Than Meets The Eye #8 as 1/1000th of a breem. Astroseconds as referenced in the original The Transformers cartoon seem to be much shorter, but were never defined. In particular, in "Divide and Conquer" Shockwave states that the space bridge will materialize within 72 billion astroseconds, an interval exceeding a millennium if Dreamwave's definition is applied. Even ignoring this extreme case, astroseconds in general cartoon use appeared to be much less than one second each.
Micro-breem ??? A unit of time mentioned by the Aerospace Extermination Squadron in "The Age of Wrath Pt.2".
Ngs ??? Mentioned in "The Age of Wrath Pt.3" by Perceptor. It may be an homage to Joe Ng, who drew the issue.
Sub-cycle ??? A unit of time mentioned first in "Fragmentation".


IDW Publishing (2005 continuity)

Name Duration Description
Arc Minutes? Hours? First mentioned in "Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading" when an explosion occurred at the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology, specifically at "arc 1-13 on the 5th chord of the 4th Cycle 501." Given its use to mark the moment of an explosion and the division between two numbers, arcs may be a unit similar to minutes and hours, such as something happening at 10:15.
Chord Days? Weeks? First mentioned in "Shadowplay, Part 1: Post Hoc" as a aspect of the calendar (Drift's encounter with Ratchet and Orion Pax occurred on the 4th chord of 4th Cycle 501). The final events of the flashbacks in "Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading" occur only one chord later. Given the pacing of events, a chord can't be shorter than a few hours, but certainly shorter than a month.
Klik 1.2 minutes Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[6]
Cycle 1 hour 15 minutes Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[6]
Mega-cycle 93 hours Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[6]
Deca-cycle ~3 weeks Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[6]
Stellar cycle ~7.5 months Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[6]
Meta-cycle 13 months Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[6]


IDW Publishing (Beast Wars)

Name Duration Description
Trimara ??? Used in The Ascending issue 2. Likely "3" of something, but who knows what.
Astro-second ??? Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Astro-minute ??? Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Breeem 8.3 Earth minutes Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Orn One Cybertronian lunar day Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Vorn 83 Earth years Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Nanoklik 1/10th of a second Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Klik One second Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Cycle One minute Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Mega-cycle One hour Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Solar cycle One day Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Deca-cycle Roughly one month Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Stellar cycle One Earth year Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.
Meta-cycle 500 Earth years Defined in the Beast Wars Glossary.


IDW Publishing (2019 continuity)

Name Duration Description
Astrosecond 1 second? Mentioned in Galaxies #10
Nano-cycle 1 second? Mentioned in Tread & Circuits #1.
Breem 1 minute? Mentioned in Galaxies #10 and Tread & Circuits #2.
Cycle 1 day, shorter than an Earth day. Defined for use in the 2019 IDW continuity by Brian Ruckley [7]
Demicycle 1 week? Mentioned in Galaxies #8.
Kilocycle 1 year, approximately 1000 cycles Defined for use in the 2019 IDW continuity by Brian Ruckley. [7]
Megacycle 1000 kilocycles Defined for use in the 2019 IDW continuity by Brian Ruckley. [7]


Transformers Animated

Name Duration Description
Cycle (Animated) ~1.5 minutes In "Rise of the Constructicons", Bumblebee asks Prime if he can take a coolant break. Prime responds that he just had a break "two cycles ago". From this it sounds as if a cycle is relatively short—less than a day, certainly—but its actual duration is unclear. In "Black Friday", Prowl challenges Bumblebee to stay quiet for "ten cycles", and he talks 30 to 40 seconds later. Prowl then informs Bumblebee that he managed to stay quiet for "barely half a cycle", implying that it is close to a minute. The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 100 nanokliks, or about 1.5 minutes.
Deca-cycle (Animated) ~10 days In "A Fistful of Energon", Ultra Magnus calls to report that Starscream has escaped. He says that it happened "a decacycle ago", and that he would have called sooner but their Tachyon transmitter was missing. The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 10 solar cycles.
Megacycle (Animated) ~2.6 hours In "Lost and Found" Ratchet estimated that it would take 10 mega-cycles to repair the Autobots' ship even with the help of the AllSpark Key. The Autobots seemed to consider this to be a moderately long time, but not so long for it to be unrealistic that they might repair the ship before the Decepticons come at them in force. Later, in "Rise of the Constructicons", Bulkhead defends the Constructicons' behavior, asserting that "they've been online two, three megacycles tops." The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 100 cycles or about 2.6 hours.
Nanoklik (Animated) ~1 second In "Home Is Where the Spark Is", Optimus Prime enters Prowl's quarters asking, "Prowl, got a nanoklik?" Also, in "A Fistful of Energon" Lockdown tells Prowl to "Wait a nanoklik." The AllSpark Almanac defines it as the duration of 8,589,934,592 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom, or about a second.
Orbital Cycle ~1 month In A Bridge Too Close, Part I, Starscream, after hearing all his clones, mutters to himself: "This is going to be a LONG orbital cycle." The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 32 solar cycles or about a month.
Solar cycle (Animated) ~1 day In "Transform and Roll Out, Part 1", Megatron says he has spent "the last four million solar cycles searching the galaxy" for the All Spark. The parallel to Generation 1's famous "four million years" implies that this unit is meant to be year-like. In "Part 3" Starscream refers to the 50 years of searching between the battle in which "he defeated Megatron" and the present as 50 solar cycles, cementing this definition. However, in "Part 2", Optimus Prime and Ratchet have an exchange in which they use "solar cycle" in a way that is a better idiomatic match for "day" than "year". Further episodes continue with the "day" definition. The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 10 megacycles, or about a day.
Stellar cycle (Animated) ~1 year In the Animated episode "Along Came a Spider", Blackarachnia says that her accident occurred "a thousand stellar cycles" ago. Further, in "Megatron Rising - Part 2" Megatron refers to both "fifty stellar cycles" and "four million stellar cycles", using the term in the way that solar cycles had previously been used. The AllSpark Almanac defines it as 320 solar cycles, or about a year.

Transformers Roleplaying Game

Name Duration Description
Nano-klik ~1 second Defined as such by the Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. These measurements are noted by Wheeljack to be rough estimates that "work well enough for the average 'bot".
Klik ~1 minute Defined as such by the Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. These measurements are noted by Wheeljack to be rough estimates that "work well enough for the average 'bot".
Cycle ~1 hour Defined as such by the Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. These measurements are noted by Wheeljack to be rough estimates that "work well enough for the average 'bot".
Solar cycle ~1 day Defined as such by the Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. These measurements are noted by Wheeljack to be rough estimates that "work well enough for the average 'bot".
Orbital cycle ~1 month Defined as such by the Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. These measurements are noted by Wheeljack to be rough estimates that "work well enough for the average 'bot".
Stellar cycle ~1 year Defined as such by the Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. These measurements are noted by Wheeljack to be rough estimates that "work well enough for the average 'bot".
Vorn ~1 century Defined as such by the Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. These measurements are noted by Wheeljack to be rough estimates that "work well enough for the average 'bot", so its precise length may still be 83 years as in other continuities, but rounded up to a century for the sake of simplicity while interacting with humans on Earth.



Note

The names of the units used in more than one continuity are:

  • Cycle
  • Deca cycle
  • Mega cycle
  • Solar cycle
  • Stellar cycle


References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Ben Yee's "general info" on the BW cartoon includes DiTillio's list of time units
  2. ↑ By mathematical calculation: ~30 Earth days times 24 Earth hours equals ~720 Earth hours; ~720 Earth hours divided by 20 Earth hours equals ~36 Solar cycles.
  3. ↑ By mathematical calculation: 400 Earth days times 24 Earth hours equals 9600 Earth hours; 9600 Earth hours divided by 20 Earth hours equals 480 Solar cycles.
  4. ↑ A unique digital entity came into being lightyears ago, and created the Transformers. First Encounter
  5. ↑ Omega Supreme fought Unicron lightyears before Optimus Prime's Autobots even existed. Omega Supreme
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Simon Furman defines IDW units in an IDW forum post
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Yep. A cycle is a Cybertronian day, shorter than an Earth day. A kilocycle is the equivalent of our year (not precisely a thousand cycles, technically - but close enough), a megacycle is a thousand kilocycles."—Brian Ruckley, Twitter, 2019/06/01
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