Department of Standards and Measures
The Illuminatia Department of Standards and Measures (DSM) is the agency of the Illuminatian government responsible for determining and standardizing the units of measure used in Illuminatia. The DSM works in conjunction with scientific, industrial, and commercial interests to maintain standards for Illuminatia's units of measure.
The eventual popular adoption of units of measure superseding Earth's International System of Units began aboard the Lucidus ships as civilians in their daily lives found a desire for a common, everyday linear unit of measure shorter than the meter. People also commonly found the day was too short and the second too long.
This sentiment was reinforced upon arrival on Illuminatia, where the solar day was discovered to not be in harmony with the wake-seep cycle generally observed during the Lucidus mission. Additionally, occupying a planet with a somewhat different magnitude of gravity from what was engineered on Lucidus caused a plurality of settlers to desire a different way to express mass.
Things got further complicated as settlements of Lucidus survivors continued to discover each other throughout the expansive Illuminatian continent. Different settlements had established varying units of measure. As the democratic structure of the Illuminatian nation solidified, the DSM was established to borrow from these differing traditions and arrive at a definitive solution.
The DSM has adopted a number of standard measures, all of which observe the metric decimal system for multiplying and dividing the base unit. The DSM decided to use neutral terminology for the definition of the units, so as not to disproportionately honor or dishonor any particular person or tradition in the naming of the units of measure, and also decided not to use any terms associated with historical or informally-adopted units of measure. The DSM also most definitely avoided the risk of adopting any of the antiquated earthly units of measure.
Units of measure
The following is an incomplete list of the units of measure accepted by the DSM for use in science, industry, and trade:
- Length: Linear Unit (LU)
- Area: Square Unit (SU), equal to one Linear Unit squared
- Volume: Cubic Unit (CU), equal to one Linear Unit cubed
- Mass: Massive Unit (MU), Metric Shittonne (MST)
- Time: Temporal Unit (TU), Circadian Unit (DU), Annual Unit (AU)
- Currency: Monetary Unit (μ)
- Frequency: Recurrence Unit (RU)
- Karma: Karmic Unit (KU)