jmtorres: Quinn from Sliders asleep with book open on his chest. Text: Sweet dreams. (sleep)
jmtorres ([personal profile] jmtorres) wrote2011-06-23 01:52 am

On the planet I am from

The actual rotational period is nearly 9 hours; for the convenience of the settlers from Earth, whose descendants comprise most of the citizenry, a "day" is considered to be three rotational periods. Typical time management is sleep a cycle, work a cycle, play a cycle. But there's no particular preference for what cycles to do which in, beyond trying to match one's life partners or social set, since each cycle has its own sunrise and sunset (for what that's worth; Sol's about as bright to us as Venus is in Terra's skies). Therefore even the insomniac doesn't have problems like the utter inability to find an open sushi joint at three in the morning, because it's never really three in the morning, it's always three in someone else's afternoon.

Living on Earth, I am used to my "day" being a couple of hours longer than the Earth day, so that my bedtime is perpetually two hours later than yesterday until I have to reset or miss commitments. In the last couple of days, though, I've running something like sleeping three hours out of every nine--which has made me extremely glad my work shift is only three and a quarter hours on summer time, let me tell you. I thought it was odd! But I realized it is actually not that weird. I've just downcycled; instead of spanning three cycles for a "day," my day is now one cycle, one rotational period. It's atypical; it's more common for people to upcycle and run on the ~35 hour or sometimes the ~43 hour day. Or if they downcycle, to run on the ~17 hour day, not the ~9 hour day. But it is not unheard of. Our planet shapes us; we shift to fit her as best we may.

Which, you know, would be fine if I were actually living at home instead of in exile on Earth.
jackandahat: A brown otter, no text. (Default)

[personal profile] jackandahat 2011-06-23 09:26 am (UTC)(link)
This is ringing so many bells. (Maybe that's why I can't sleep. The bloody bells are keeping me awake!)
jackandahat: A brown otter, no text. (Default)

[personal profile] jackandahat 2011-06-23 09:48 am (UTC)(link)
My planet has a couple of tourist-oriented sushi joints, but it's not something the locals eat.

We operate on roughly 28-hour days - 6 hours sleep, 22 hours awake. Which really screws things up trying to adapt to 24 because it's just a little too long to map across properly.

You go to sleep when it's pitch black, and wake up when it's light enough to head straight out and do things. Shops and services are open from sunrise, which means that you can wake up, shower, and be picking up your groceries 15 minutes later. None of this having to wait 3 hours until 9:30 like Earth. Most of them shut down during the 6-hour sleep period, but a few stay open for immediate needs - toilet roll and oranges.
heavenscalyx: (Default)

[personal profile] heavenscalyx 2011-06-23 02:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I love this piece. I understand what you're writing about, but it's a really intriguing beginning for a story.
niqaeli: cat with arizona flag in the background (Default)

[personal profile] niqaeli 2011-06-23 03:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh. It's actually part of worldbuilding we've done on a science fiction story that... may or may not ever see the light of day, but we have a hell of a lot of time and characters and, um, chunks of our hearts invested in it.
heavenscalyx: (Default)

[personal profile] heavenscalyx 2011-06-23 04:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Then I hope to see a lot more of it! The voice for this is really striking/gripping!
niqaeli: cat with arizona flag in the background (Default)

[personal profile] niqaeli 2011-06-24 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
Horrifying, and yet. So totally kind of would be. Bran totally never adapts to the 24-hour cycle and finds it bizarre that people can DO this.