Terra Day
Terra Day is a holiday celebrated by various human and human-descended cultures throughout Starweb space. For most of these cultures, this is a time to remember their origins on humanity's homeworld.
The exact origins of the practice vary from place to place. It is thought to have started as early as humanity's Wormhole Rush, when colonists on the new extrasolar colonies found themselves still needing to keep track of time as it was measured on Earth. Many religious and secular holidays were (and still are) based on occurring on a particular day as measured by a Terran calendar, and inhabitants of other worlds had to keep track of this in order to celebrate it properly. Science and trade played a role as well, Earth in that time was still the cultural center of human civilization and so many things happened on its schedule. It was the responsibility of offworld dwellers to convert that into their own time systems.
Over time, it is thought this earlier practice of keeping track of Terran time for cultural, scientific, economic, and political reasons eventually gave rise in some places to dedicated holidays for remembering their ancestors' origins there. This is most commonly seen among humans, aliens of course have no natural connection Terran time outside of occasionally using it in dealings for humans, and posthuman and uplift species created after the interstellar age began do not have as much affinity for the old human homeworld as their human peers tend to. Cultures which deliberately try to break from past ones with roots on Terra do not celebrate these sorts of holidays, either.
Perhaps the most common day chosen for a Terra Day celebration is New Year's Day as measured by the old Terran Gregorian calendar. (I.e., January 1st.) Because years on other planets are of course of different length, the placement of this holiday as measured by the local calendar will shift over time. On planets with wide orbits around bright stars, it may be celebrated twice in a single year, while close-in worlds around K-type stars or M dwarfs may experience local years with no celebration at all.
Actual celebration ceremonies vary as well, but usually they involve rememberance of a culture's origins with its ancestors on Terra.
The exact origins of the practice vary from place to place. It is thought to have started as early as humanity's Wormhole Rush, when colonists on the new extrasolar colonies found themselves still needing to keep track of time as it was measured on Earth. Many religious and secular holidays were (and still are) based on occurring on a particular day as measured by a Terran calendar, and inhabitants of other worlds had to keep track of this in order to celebrate it properly. Science and trade played a role as well, Earth in that time was still the cultural center of human civilization and so many things happened on its schedule. It was the responsibility of offworld dwellers to convert that into their own time systems.
Over time, it is thought this earlier practice of keeping track of Terran time for cultural, scientific, economic, and political reasons eventually gave rise in some places to dedicated holidays for remembering their ancestors' origins there. This is most commonly seen among humans, aliens of course have no natural connection Terran time outside of occasionally using it in dealings for humans, and posthuman and uplift species created after the interstellar age began do not have as much affinity for the old human homeworld as their human peers tend to. Cultures which deliberately try to break from past ones with roots on Terra do not celebrate these sorts of holidays, either.
Perhaps the most common day chosen for a Terra Day celebration is New Year's Day as measured by the old Terran Gregorian calendar. (I.e., January 1st.) Because years on other planets are of course of different length, the placement of this holiday as measured by the local calendar will shift over time. On planets with wide orbits around bright stars, it may be celebrated twice in a single year, while close-in worlds around K-type stars or M dwarfs may experience local years with no celebration at all.
Actual celebration ceremonies vary as well, but usually they involve rememberance of a culture's origins with its ancestors on Terra.
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