PART II - INTRODUCING SOLARIAN
The Solarian Calendar Protocol

The previous three chapters established the problem without assuming the answer.

If humanity becomes a civilisation of many worlds, its calendars will need to reflect radically different astronomical environments while still supporting recognisable human rhythms, shared chronology and practical coordination. They need enough common structure to remain mutually intelligible, but not so much that communities millions or billions of kilometres apart inherit every convention chosen on Earth.

The Solarian Protocol is my proposed answer.

The important word is protocol.

Rather than designing every destination independently, Solarian defines a small common grammar from which locally appropriate calendars can be built.

That grammar develops through five pieces:

PEOPLE — create a portable human operating cadence.

ORBIT — preserve a locally meaningful astronomical calendar.

BRIDGE — connect the two with the Repeat Factor where synchronization works.

FLEX — absorb real astronomical remainder without breaking the week.

GRID — place compatible calendars onto one shared weekly coordinate.

Each step solves one problem and exposes the next.

By the end of the Part, Solarian will not yet have been tested on many actual worlds. But its complete conceptual machinery will be in place.

Then we can give it to the Solar System and see whether it survives.