The cosmic calendar, popularized in 1980 by Carl Sagan and 2014 by Neil deGrasse Tyson, is a visual tool that compresses the universe's entire known history into a calendar year. The calendar's final day contains all of human history, including that time Kentucky's quarterback sacked himself.
Here is the history of the SEC star system's rise to prominence and its descent into universal alienation.
December 31, 23:59:59.7
The mighty Southern Conference solar system's star began going nova, spewing forth the deep-fried particles that would form both the SEC and ACC. Though the SoCon would shine on, and though its power was still sufficient to threaten its neighboring systems, at one point turning the SEC's gravity inward upon itself ...
... it would fade over time.
The SEC, however, became the brightest star system in the galaxy. Well, flashiest. Easiest to see? The Big Ten complains if we call the SEC "bright." Let's say it's shiny like it just got driven off the lot.
GIF via BuzzFeed.
December 31, 23:59:59.8
The planets Georgia Tech, Sewanee, and Tulane broke from the SEC's gravitational pull. Georgia Tech -- not actually a planet, but rather the biggest Lego Death Star ever assembled -- wound up in the ACC's system, Tulane became a lonely moon of LSU, and the hurtling Sewanee grew into a roving pirate world ruled by an immortal space tyrant.
Our galaxy thinks it's safe. But Sewanee waits.
December 31, 23:59:59.9
The SEC's solar system absorbed the unruly forest planet Arkansas (after it had been hurled into the darkness by a massive galactic disaster) and the free-floating South Carolina, then added Missouri and Texas A&M from an unstable nearby galaxy in which the star actually does orbit around a single planet, a planet whose gravity was so immense that not even NFL Draft picks could emanate from it.
However, there was no room for this many objects in one solar system, not even one as mighty as the SEC's. Beings on the wild planets Alabama and Tennessee feared their eternal war would end without resolution due to the upheaval, as did those on the lush but lawless worlds of Auburn and Georgia. The Pac-12 interdimensional cyborg mind federation declared the SEC system weakened.
Complicating matters, the awakened intelligent consciousness at the heart of the SEC decreed its planets must establish trade with at least one planet from a nearby galaxy per revolution. Only powerful galaxies, that is. And the Sun Belt was not as powerful as its name suggested.
Communications between planets within the SEC system cooled. Several civilizations lost contact entirely. The planet Mississippi State was considered lost to the void for centuries, until SETI satellites discovered a since-deleted Instagram photograph of cash in a high school athlete's hand.
The next cosmic year
While the cosmic calendar was once intended to be thought of as a living document, expanding to always encompass the entirety of universal history, everyone agreed on May 20, 2014 to start a new one. No one knows why.
Over the next 20 billion years, the SEC continued to expand.
First, it and four other extremely powerful solar systems broke away from the galaxy entirely, with desolate chunks of matter, such as Wake Forest, trailing along. Then, the SEC's incredible gravity, fueled by its ever-increasing defensive tackle weight, swallowed up those other four systems, though Big Ten overmind Jim Delany maintained many interstellar television broadcast rights.
Having swelled to incomprehensible size and density, the SEC then consumed first the galaxy itself, and then the rest of the universe, at an exponential rate of speeeeeed. Soon, all matter and energy in all universes swirled around a single entity: a Birmingham automobile-and-steroids dealership.
In the year 19,534,681,913 (on the 19,534,680,000th anniversary of cyberdeity Bear Bryant's birth), the SEC's central consciousness (now revealing its true name: "Vanderbilt") revealed its plan was complete. It had sought for millenia to acquire so many planets and wormholes and FCS cosmic dust that few of the universe's football teams would ever actually come into contact with each other.
The new SEC schedule featured eight conference games per year, but the chances of any individual fan from the SEC West ever actually getting to travel to Athens or Nashville were infinitesimally small.
At last, it was perfect.