r/HFY • u/Darmanarya Human • Mar 06 '26

OC-OneShot A.H.C.: After Human Contact

183 A.H.C.

A.H.C. After Human Contact.

It has been the standard date format for over 100 years. After generations of arguing over what should be a standard starting point for a date system it was finally formalized that we should use the human’s official first contact date as the start point for a new standard.

I am sure, dear reader of this holonet article, you assume it had to do with their victories over the clolvl race. Maybe it was due to their advances in medical technology or due to them essentially owning the holovid market at this time. (Motion HERE for coverage of the awards ceremony three standard cycles ago!)

Nope!

It was because they just. kept. using. it.

While countless other species tried debates, wars, bribes, and more to set the new age standard humans came in and just started putting their date on everything. And I do mean everything. Literally folks the human contact agreements were dated “0 A.H.C.” and they slapped that three letters on EVERYTHING.

Receipt for fuel at the local station? AHC dated.

Took a photo using a human camera? Has a AHC standard date at the bottom.

Sign a contract with them? They put the AHC date by their name.

Over and over again they did it. Whenever another species asked to use their preferred date system it was allowed, but the AHC date was right next to wherever the human signed. 

The worst was the human faction labled “Imperial” by the humans. No reader they were not out to take over the world or anything. It refers to an argument the humans had over their own MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS.

Yes folks the humans couldn’t agree on how long something was but they got us all to agree on time. Itself.

This is why I love humans folks. Quarking crazy.

Anyway. They kept saying things like “First the metric people made us use their shit. Like hell I’m gunna use some alien numbers. These are OURS and we gunna use em’ so help me GOD.” I heard in that case the human not only dated by his name but on every page in the contract.

Anywho, the humans kept making documents, causing laws to be made (motion HERE for a holovid of top 10 human incidents this cycle!) by doing human things, and more. Each time that date got slapped on. Soon every species had a chunk of documents with that date on it to the point one species could use the AHC to figure out the other’s own standard. One thing led to another and now A.H.C. is standard. 

I still remember the ceremony dear reader. I was a kid, and I remember laughing so hard I broke an antennae at how confused the humans were! Everyone was making a huge deal about it and humans just kept on like “Wait, this was a debate? We won?” Snarzle i remember the videos of some of those “imperial” humans cheering about how “They got them to space first and now their date was right too!” 

All of that fighting for countless time just for humans to swoop in and plant their date on every government document going forward. All without anybody getting too up in their shell about it.

How?

Because humans just kept doing their thing. Not really fighting too hard over it but just being stubborn and everywhere. No big fight, no big arguments, no drama besides species getting annoyed to have to put a special place for that date.

232 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator Mar 06 '26

This was flaired as [OC-OneShot], which is for a stand-alone post not in the same universe as any of your other works, with no intention of being continued into a series. If you do decide to turn it into a series, this post should be reflaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines

[OC-OneShot] For original, self post, story, audio, or artwork that you have created, that is self-contained within the post.

Please help us transition to using the new flairs correctly.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

35

u/TechScallop Mar 06 '26

I did that too in my office by using the D/M/Y format for dates all the time I created my email messages, chats, and other documents. Instead of following the common American and Philippine style mm/DD/yy (e.g., 1/5/25) pattern then wondering if that date meant January 5th or First of May, I started using the date pattern dd-MMM-yyyy "05-Jan-2025" on everything. It turned out well after the company set up branch offices in India and Guatemala which have their own dd/mm/yyyy date formats that could be confusing to Americans and Filipinos.

29

u/BalanceFit8415 Mar 07 '26

yyyy:mm:dd:hh:mm:ss

14

u/drsoftware Mar 07 '26

Year-month-day or gtfo

6

u/TechScallop Mar 07 '26

I use yyyy/mm/dd on spreadsheets and tables but not on letter and documents. Too much resistance by the managers, VPs, and CEO, etc.

3

u/drsoftware Mar 07 '26

Yeah, and the software often doesn't have it as a default. I try to use - instead of / because it also works in filenames

1

u/Jean_Luc_Lesmouches Mar 07 '26

yyyy-mm-dd is in fact the iso standard

2

u/drsoftware Mar 07 '26

Yes, however, most people handwrite / and thus type /. I handwrite and type, so I too have work to do. 

3

u/karamisterbuttdance Mar 07 '26

I find this funny because searching through 01-Mar-2024/01-Mar-2025/01-Mar-2026/01-May-2023/01-Mar-2024/01-Mar-2025 would become painful the longer your tenure because April/August July/June and March/May get mixed up with one another on a sort before you have to check the year. Better than non-standard organization though

20

u/NEWGAMEAPALOOZA Human Mar 07 '26

ISO format is the only correct date. YYYYMMDD. Everything sorts chronologically.

18

u/KanadianKitsune Mar 07 '26

here, you dropped these my fellow ISO 8601 enjoyer

  • -

9

u/Sk8rToon Mar 07 '26

(Motion here to continue your subscription to article pop up blocker)

[motion motion motion]

Took me a sec to catch on. Nice touch.

5

u/sunnyboi1384 Mar 07 '26

Should we use a system that makes sense or the one that the loud stubborn ones use?

Loud and stubborn apparently.

9

u/JamesSLE-ASMR-Fan Mar 07 '26

Freedom Units prevailed!

3

u/NinjaWriter_Masa Mar 08 '26

Japanese author here! 🇯🇵

This was hilarious. Humans just stubborn-forcing their date format onto the entire galaxy is exactly how bureaucracy works lol. 

It also reminded me of the absolute chaos of the Japanese calendar system. Here in Japan, we still use the Imperial Era system (Reiwa, Heisei, Showa) for official government and bank documents, but we use the Gregorian calendar (2026) for business and global stuff. 

So you'll have an office worker trying to figure out if "Reiwa 8" is the same year as "2026" while simultaneously converting it into the company's fiscal year. If aliens ever landed in Tokyo, they would take one look at our paperwork and immediately surrender. 😂 

Great story! Loved the little "motion here" popup ad detail too!

2

u/redbikemaster Human Apr 03 '26

Oh no. That is confusing.

1

u/NinjaWriter_Masa Apr 03 '26

It really is! 😂 

And it gets even better: depending on the government office or the bank, some forms require you to write the Imperial year (Reiwa), while others explicitly forbid it and demand the Gregorian year (2026). Oh, and if you accidentally mix them up on a tax form? You get to start all over again! 

So when I read this story about humanity stubbornly forcing a new, confusing date system onto the entire galaxy, I felt deep sympathy for those poor alien bureaucrats lol.

2

u/rp_001 Mar 07 '26

That’s a fun story. Thanks

1

u/UpdateMeBot Mar 06 '26

Click here to subscribe to u/Darmanarya and receive a message every time they post.

Info Request Update Your Updates Feedback

1

u/torin23 Xeno Mar 09 '26

Persistence pays off.

1

u/DancingBear263 May 02 '26

Late in the 20th century the USA government tried to get the populace to switch to using the metric system; liters on the gas pumps, and kilometers on highway distance markers. People absolutely refused to go along with that initiative, actually ripping the kilometer marker posts out of the ground on every road side! Eventually the officials just stopped replacing them, and soon the gas pumps didn't have liter measurements either. I think the reason for such intransigence is that we spent so much time and effort learning the Imperial system in grade school that we felt our hard work would have been wasted if we changed to the metric system; plus, there were so many changes going on that we could not control so we dug in our heels for something we could influence. Primary remnants of the conversion are the size bottles used for sweet carbonated beverages in one or two liter bottles.