When I first stumbled across Oolite (v1.65), I didn't visit the forum, and was unaware of the Wiki. I just jumped into my Cobra and hit launch. I already had the 'game in the head' from Elite, so everything was familiar. Apart from the HUD, that is - yuck! But I was flying a Cobra again, and was as happy as a pig in a trough full of truffles! I then spied a blue circle, and my eyes lit up - could it be a wormhole? Only one way to find out, so I dived into it - and found myself in another of the old worlds, but still with a tankful of fuel. Deep joy - hitching a lift was a thing!
It took a while for the ship's clock to register on me, so engrossed was I in the game. But when I began to watch it, and saw it accelerate during a jump, I had to fit it into the 'game in my head'. I soon came to the conclusion that the first four digits were the year, with each year having a thousand days. The time acceleration obviously represented wormhole transit time, and 2084 seemed entirely reasonable to me - exactly a hundred years after the release of Elite. A nice touch, thought I. Sorted!
Now of course, I'm aware of a different interpretation: the numbers are merely seconds counted from an arbitrary start date (or something like that - see
here). According to Winston and Giles, that is. I'm having none of it! In my frazzled old brain, 2084 is simply too significant a date to be a coincidence, so I've stuck with my own interpretation!
My ship's clock (from my original long-running save-game) currently shows 2099923 - almost 16 years in-game (and 12 years in RL due to time dilation), which sounds about right. In conclusion, I've invented my own lore! But...
Crikey, rather too prolix methinks! <grins> A bad case of the Redspears, perhaps!