History Main / FantasticMeasurementSystem

[[caption-width-right:249:The green line represents a hypothetical offspring of [[WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians Cruella de Ville]] and [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Sauron]].[[note]]It's useful to have a baseline for comparison for these things.[[/note]]]]

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'', all ships and equipment are measured in [[SpaceX space tons]]. We know it's ''not'' the same as a "groundling" ton. UnitConfusion in some {{sourcebook}}s raises to the level when it's not clear even whether a space ton is a unit of mass or volume. [[SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfUnits This may indicate the authors don't get units]], but it may also be an [[SpaceIsAnOcean intentional reflection of real-life naval usage]]. Depending on nation, year, and the other words in the phrase, a naval measurement with the word "ton" in it may reference a weight, mass, volume, or even [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_tonnage a dimensionless quantity]]!

* TheVerse of Literature/TheCosmere has several inhabited worlds, each with [[MagicAIsMagicA its own magic system]] powered by some form of [[{{Mana}} Investiture]]. By the time period of ''Literature/TheSunlitMan'', interplanetary FantasticScience measures Investiture by Breath Equivalent Units -- a handy natural unit because, on ''Literature/{{Warbreaker}}''[='=]s planet Nalthis, everyone is born with a consistent quantity of Investiture attached to their soul in the form of their Breath.

* UsefulNotes/AdobeFlash uses twips internally. It's short for twentieths of a pixel.

* The majority of MediaNotes/{{game engine}}s use some sort of map unit to measure distances - for example, the Source Engine by Creator/ValveSoftware uses "Hammer Units", named after its map editor, Hammer. A UsefulNotes/PhysicsEngine might also use its own unit.

* The majority of UsefulNotes/{{game engine}}s use some sort of map unit to measure distances - for example, the Source Engine by Creator/ValveSoftware uses "Hammer Units", named after its map editor, Hammer. A UsefulNotes/PhysicsEngine might also use its own unit.

* ''Fanfic/TriptychContinuum'': To measure unicorn's [[PowerLevel magical capability]], with the Celestia Meter (Adjusted) for raw power and the Luna Meter (Adjusted) for manipulative ability. Basically, strength and dexterity for horns. Both range from 0 (nonexistent) to 10 (alicorn).

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles'' has done this in a few places. ''Xenoblade 2'' had characters measuring distance in "peds", which appear analogous to meters or feet (the name suggests they are based on the size of a specific Titan's foot). ''Xenoblade 3'' mentions "metris" and "cetris", which would again appear to be similar to meters and centimeters.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', the official unit of measure for fecal mass is the katie couric, which is approximately 2.5 pounds.

* In ''Fanfic/WithStringsAttached'', the Baravadans have "longsteps"; how long these units are is never explained. Also, John's Kansael doesn't understand any Earth measurements and can't tell him how distant Ehndris is from Ta'akan; he figures out that the distance is roughly comparable to that between London and Glasgow. On the other hand, the Hunter's world uses miles.
* Problematic for a lot of people in ''Fanfic/TheKeysStandAlone: The Soft World'', since, with so many people from different worlds, hardly anyone has any measurements in common. For example, when Ringo is trying to provide Mindy with an estimate of how far he can reach with his [[MindOverMatter telekinesis]], she's puzzled by his “feet” and “miles,” and he ends up having to say “From here to the jump gate.”

* ''Fanfic/TriptychContinuum'': To measure unicorn [[PowerLevel magical capability]], with the Celestia Meter (Adjusted) for raw power and the Luna Meter (Adjusted) for manipulative ability. Basically, strength and dexterity for horns. Both range from 0 (nonexistent) to 10 (alicorn).
* A footnote in ''Fanfic/TheNextFrontier'' briefly mentions that the Kerbal "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit Astronomical Unit]]" is slightly shorter than its human equivalent. At all other times, either TranslationConvention applies or they use the same measurement system as humans.
* In ''Fanfic/BeyondHeroes: Of Sunshine and Red Lyrium'', when [[VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition Varric meets the Iron Bull]], he estimates that Bull is "at least two Varrics tall, probably closer to three."
* In the ''Fanfic/{{Sagittarius|Destiny}}'' series, the [[VideoGame/{{Destiny}} Cabal]] measure distances using units of ''chrens''.

* Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs' ''Literature/{{Barsoom}}'' stories have their own take on the metric system. On the series' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barsoom Wikipedia article]], distance units were as follows, from shortest to longest: sofad (11.68 inches), ad (10 sofads, 9.75 feet), haad (100 sofads, 10 ads, 32.44 yards), and karad (1,000 sofads, 100 ads, 10 haads, 36.92 miles). The difference is that the karad is based on the length of an arc-degree on the Barsoomian equator, whereas the real-life meter/metre was originally based on a ten-millionth of the length of the Earth's circumference from the Equator to the poles as measured through the Paris meridian.

* In ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'', a mage's power level is based on a scale of one to four, with higher numbers being more powerful. Level 1 is Dot, level 2 is Line, level 3 is Triangle and level 4 is Square. Mages need to be at least Line rank to be able to use two kinds of ElementalPowers, though it's unclear if this is a matter of training or natural affinity, and even single-element mages are exponentially more powerful in that element depending on their rank. It's unclear if rank is simply something a mage is born with or if it can be trained to make them stronger.

* In ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', a spellcaster's magical prowess is determined by two of these applied to {{mana}}: pool capacity and bucket capacity. Pool capacity is how much {{mana}} a caster can safely store at one time, and this increases with practice and regular use of spells. Bucket capacity is how much {{mana}} a caster can actually take from their pool at any one time, and this limit is fixed from birth. For this reason, bucket capacity is what really defines how powerful a spellcaster is, since all spells have a minimum amount of mana that they need before they can be cast. The most powerful [[PlayingWithFire Fire Shamanism]] spell, [[FantasticNuke Blast Bomb]], has effectively been lost to humanity because no person in centuries has had a bucket capacity high enough to cast it. To put this in perspective, ''[[PersonOfMassDestruction Lina Inverse]]'' doesn't have the bucket capacity to cast Blast Bomb without wearing power-booster talismans!
* The Underworld in ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline Alicization'' uses cels and mels in place of centimeters and meters.

** Ponies and others occasionally measure time in "moons" -- which ''might'' just be another way of saying month, but this a world where the lunar orbit is perfectly synced with the sun, so who knows? It's basically a way for the writers to imply a great length of time (like a portal to another world that only opens for three days every thirty moons) without giving anything too specific. Moons apparently aren't converted into years, which implies that they don't have a set ratio of moons to years, but that still doesn't answer how long they are relative to anything.

* ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'': Distances are measured in "Iles," which are just "miles" with one letter removed. Not to mention, the unit of money is called "Double Dollars", represented, of course, with "$$" (seems like just a waste of time and ink really).

* ''Manga/{{Toriko}}'' manages to go along with and avert this by using (kilo)calories to describe maximum energy levels, or the amount of energy that attacks use up. Although the kilocalorie is a real and quantifiable unit of measurement of energy, the numbers reach the hundreds of millions of kilocalories (the energy an average person would exert in 140 years or so) so frequently and without the backlashes that would come from the real-life use of these real units that the actual units bear little meaning whatsoever.

* In ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero'', a mage's power level is based on a scale of one to four, with higher numbers being more powerful. Level 1 is Dot, level 2 is Line, level 3 is Triangle and level 4 is Square. Mages need to be at least Line rank to be able to use two kinds of ElementalPowers, though it's unclear if this is a matter of training or natural affinity, and even single-element mages are exponentially more powerful in that element depending on their rank. It's unclear if rank is simply something a mage is born with or if it can be trained to make them stronger.
* In ''Anime/DeathNote'', the {{Shinigami}} keep time in their own system, which we see as numbers floating above people's heads, which measure the time left until that person's natural death. These numbers are apparently not random: [[WordOfGod the author]] claims to have had a mathematical formula for converting between human and Shinigami timekeeping systems, but he's forgotten it.
* In ''Anime/DairuggerXV'', distances are measured in "space kilometers." Exactly how big a space kilometer is varies widely from one episode to the next.

* In ''Anime/BackArrow'', height is measured in "gents", with appears to be an equivalent of meters, since a character of average build states that he's 1,78 gent tall.

[[caption-width-right:249:The green line represents a hypothetical offspring of Cruella de Ville and Sauron.[[note]]It's useful to have a baseline for comparison for these things.[[/note]]]]

* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' frequently deals in Humes, which is a unit used to measure baseline reality in the event of reality warping. They also measure religious faith in terms of "Akiva radiation" (using centiakivas).

* ''Literature/TheMartian'': Mark gets tired of calculating the power needs of his survival gear in kilowatt-hours per sol [[note]]Martial solar day[[/note]], so he dubs that unit the "pirate-ninja". {{Defictionalization}}: Andy Weir comments in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SemyzKgaUU this interview]] that the team monitoring the ''Curiosity'' rover has started referring to watt-hours per sol as milli-pirate-ninjas.

* The force of the final [[QuicktimeEvent Climax move]] in ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' is measured in "Infinitons" (most other moves are measured in "Megatons" and "Gigatons"). SerialEscalation indeed, and possible FridgeBrilliance since the idea of different values of infinity is a real concept in mathematics. Or, y'know [[RuleOfCool it just sounds cool.]]
** And of course you ''are'' using it to punch an omnipotent God in the face hard enough to make it fly from the outer rings to the center of the sun. Theoretical mathematics for theoretical deities.

* In ''Fanfic/BeyondHeroes: Of Sunshine and Red Lyrium'', when [[VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition Varric meets the Iron Bull]], he estimates that Bull is “at least two Varrics tall, probably closer to three.”

* In ''Literature/TheFifthSeason'':
** Discussed by Essun when she and several other people with the FunctionalMagic of orogeny are discussing a strange seismic event: in her internal narration, she's frustrated that they don't have words to describe most of the phenomena related to their powers.
** In ''Literature/TheStoneSky'', the AdvancedAncientHumans of Syl Anagist have standard units of measurement for generating, storing, and transferring their SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic. [[spoiler:However, their scientific approach overlooks that the magic comes from a planet that's alive, aware, and [[GaiasVengeance furious]].]]

'''Malcolm:''' Don't be silly. That's [[Series/TheQuatermassExperiment Quatermass]].

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'': According to its Wiki/TheOtherWiki [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(1978_TV_series) article]], the only distance unit that wasn't an Earth name was "metron" (1 meter). However, the fact something had the same ''name'' as an Earth unit didn't mean it had the same ''meaning'' as the Earth unit: "microns", for example, were time units in BG (as opposed to distance units on Earth).

* The FantasyMap at the back of the ''Literature/{{Shannara}}'' novels has a scale that measures distance in "weeks"; presumably how far an average person can travel in a week. (Of course, later books, which introduce {{Magitek}} airships, have people traveling a distance of several weeks in a matter of hours.)

* ''ComicBook/IncredibleHulk'': When Amadeus Cho studies magical phenomena, he measures the reality-warping field strength in "hercs", one herc being equal to the field strength of his friend Hercules. It sounds like "hertz" so it's pretty natural to tack on SI prefixes like megahercs or gigahercs, but most of the measurements he gives are between zero and five hercs.