Birthday

Happy... how old are you?

Don't you think you're too old to throw a birthday party? How old are you, anyway?

When you live for centuries in a space so grand years seldom have a meaning, it becomes hard to keep track of time. Even though there is a global calendar based on the time that elapsed between two interventions of the Voice, it is not used the same way throughout the galaxy.

Due to the inexactitude and weariness of celebrating a shifting date at semi-consistent intervals, most people ignore birthdays and the party that once accompanied them. It is viewed as old-fashioned and eccentric to still care about such a vague concept once an adult. After fifty years, it is frowned upon to refer to the age of a person by the exact number rather than by an interval. This interval usually lengthens the older a person is, becoming ridiculous when referring to Preserved ones.

The youngling exception

The age of the children is still counted by most parents, and each year is a pretext to flood them with gifts and love for a day. However, even this touching mark of affection leads to complications. Depending on the calendar used to calculate the age, the duration of the planet's revolution, and the time spent in outer space, some kids reach their twenties about four times faster than others.

This creates further issues when a parent does not reside in the same gravity well as their child for extended periods of time. On multiple occasions, sons grew older than their fathers in age while remaining younger physically, which caused great headaches and major administration failures before the age ceased to be included in one's identity.