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[Euld]

This question is a little different.  I have a sci fi story in mind.  I need astronomical units of measurement that do NOT use any sort of Earth-based measurements.  Aliens don't use Earth-based measurements, of course.  Light years and parsecs are out of the question, the first using an Earth year as measurement and parsecs using the distance of the Earth from the sun.

So I'm curious, fellow nerds and geeks, if anyone knows some alternatives o_O

[GiglameshDespair]

Quite frankly, I'd recommend using lightyears. Just say the alien homeworld has a similiar year length or something. You could just use soem alien measurement like gorblaxes but that would also mean no reader has any true understanding of distances.

Kilometres are an arbitary scale based on 10s, but as far as I know they're unrelated to any earthly measurement. Maybe use gigametres or terametres.

All large astronomical units of measurement use measurements based on Earth because we need something to use a frame of reference, such as a year.

[Shook]

(Kilo)meters actually do have basis on something quite eartly; originally, the meter was defined as 1/10,000,000th of the distance from Earth's equator to the north pole, which is probably also why our planets circumference is unbelievably close to 40,000 km.

Also, Euld, this is all assuming that aliens would have anything that even remotely resembles the measurements we have on Earth. :U
Every single one of our measurement units assumes a human mind, and in the vast majority of cases, is based on something related to Earth. There are things such as the Planck units, which can probably be adapted to any numerical system, along with other so-called natural units that might be interesting to you. Most of these are REALLY SMALL, however.

If you don't mind it though, you can always have the aliens have units related to THEIR home planet/system instead of Earth. That wouldn't be too far out, would it?

[Willfor]

This question is a little different.  I have a sci fi story in mind.  I need astronomical units of measurement that do NOT use any sort of Earth-based measurements.  Aliens don't use Earth-based measurements, of course.  Light years and parsecs are out of the question, the first using an Earth year as measurement and parsecs using the distance of the Earth from the sun.

So I'm curious, fellow nerds and geeks, if anyone knows some alternatives o_O

Just remember that everything you intend to explain has a cost to both your word count and your narrative flow as you explain it. The majority of your audience won't put your book down if you have the aliens use light years. There's a larger portion that will if you have pages of explanations of how each and every measurement in this alien culture is different from earth.

This isn't me being "don't do it", this is me being "BE VERY CAREFUL," and putting yellow (purple?) warning signs up to prevent a 20 car exposition pileup.

[Euld]

Thanks for the responses, guys :3  I've asked around and the consensus seems to be to avoid coming up with something new and not risk too much exposition.  I may still fiddle with the idea and store it away somewhere.  I'm a sucker for fun, technical explanations in sci fi shows... I maintain rapt attention during Star Trek technobabble sessions @_@;;

On the other hand, parsecs could work.  Supposedly life can only evolve in planets within the Goldilocks zone, so parsecs could potentially only vary slightly from one alien race to another.  Something like that.

[Willfor]

I may still fiddle with the idea and store it away somewhere.  I'm a sucker for fun, technical explanations in sci fi shows... I maintain rapt attention during Star Trek technobabble sessions @_@;;

Strangely enough, so am I. >___>; I like a lot of detail so long as it isn't carried across in a very dry manner. But then again, I like Dwarf Fortress. I'm pretty used to having to tailor things to a broader audience despite my preferences.

[Draignean]

Bear in mind that every single measurement in the history of mankind started out pretty arbitrarily. Feet, meters, etc. Over time we've hardened them into more distinct and terms (the SI rods and Cesium atoms in the case of meters and seconds), but they started from arbitrary measurements.

The reason it’s impossible to find the unit of measurement you're looking for is that no developing species will create a scientifically based measurement system. Sure you could create a perfectly reasonable measure of distance that would be true and comprehensible anywhere in the universe using circles, radians, and the electric field of sub-atomic particles, (Or just the diameter of a subatomic particle) but no civilization is going to jump to that as a system of measure before they have a need for complex mechanics. (Largely because you need complex mechanics to even discover universal systems of measure.) The use of complex systems will lead to uniform systems of measure as scientists seek to reproduce one another’s results, thus cementing arbitrary systems over potentially universal ones.

Tl;dr

All measurement is likely to be arbitrary. Pick something friendly.