Day/Night cycles in the main belt.

[Pagnatious]

I've been reading Deep Beyond in preparation for a game I'm planning on running, and I've been wondering what makes sense for day/night cycles on ships or colonies in the main belt.

Would people living on an asteroid use artificial light to reproduce a 24hr cycle? Might people incline to a different length day if raised with no natural light?

It says that Tennin II have Less Sleep 1, but that doesn't necessarily tell anything about how long a day is.

People that go to the effort to adapt their bodies and society to the new environment strike me as the type to redefine what a day is as best suits without the constraint of the earth's rotation. I can just say it's a 20:7 day/night or similar, but if there is a plausible known cycle I'd defer to that.

[sir_pudding]

It probably depends on the vessel or habitat. Hir Majesty's naval yards on Althea Station are probably set to GMT while on Silas Duncan Station probably whoever owns a light does whatever they want to do with it.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Pagnatious

Would people living on an asteroid use artificial light to reproduce a 24hr cycle?

Unless they have biomods that adjust their circadian clock, which is perfectly reasonable for THS (0 point feature if it's just different, 1 point perk if you can adjust it at will, major effect is immunity to jet lag), probably.

[Flyndaran]

The only main rules effect would be staying awake past the 16 hour mark.
People already can adapt quite well to unusual light/darkness rates assuming no S.A.D.
I might assume that public areas have continual day light levels, and leave "night time" a personal choice in quarters.
Meds in THS are more than capable of allowing one to quickly fall asleep when needed.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It probably depends on the vessel or habitat. Hir Majesty's naval yards on Althea Station are probably set to GMT while on Silas Duncan Station probably whoever owns a light does whatever they want to do with it.

The Duncanites would probably end up with a de facto standard anyway. If a majority or a very large minority of the population starts using a given cycle, the rest would tend to end up following it just because it would be more convenient for interacting and doing business. It might not be a 24 hours cycle, but I'm pretty sure you'd end up with a fairly standard cycle from necessity. That would tend to happen the moreso because it would be so very easy to coordinate from habitat to habitat, compared to (say) across the day-night cycle on Earth.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

The Duncanites would probably end up with a de facto standard anyway. If a majority or a very large minority of the population starts using a given cycle, the rest would tend to end up following it just because it would be more convenient for interacting and doing business. It might not be a 24 hours cycle, but I'm pretty sure you'd end up with a fairly standard cycle from necessity. .

Everyone doing serious business with Earth is going to have to pay some sort of heed to the 24 hour cycle and might simply sync up with whatever marketplace they thought most important.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Everyone doing serious business with Earth is going to have to pay some sort of heed to the 24 hour cycle and might simply sync up with whatever marketplace they thought most important.

And the most important marketplace is likely run by SAIs who don't have a 24 hour cycle

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

And the most important marketplace is likely run by SAIs who don't have a 24 hour cycle

That marketplace however is one where everything off-Earth is a tiny appendage to the market of Earth. The SAIs who may be the actual bosses and may be just the chief data-shufflers will be set up to deal with Earth's 24 hour cycle.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That marketplace however is one where everything off-Earth is a tiny appendage to the market of Earth. The SAIs who may be the actual bosses and may be just the chief data-shufflers will be set up to deal with Earth's 24 hour cycle.

The timing of the marketplace per se doesn't matter, you're not going to be playing the stock market from the belt. What matters is the timing of the people who you you need to talk to, and even then it might not matter much, since a 24 hour turn around time on messages may be fine.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The timing of the marketplace per se doesn't matter, you're not going to be playing the stock market from the belt. What matters is the timing of the people who you you need to talk to, and even then it might not matter much, since a 24 hour turn around time on messages may be fine.

I doubt the stock market follows local business hours in THS. I doubt any non-physical business with access to A.I.s follows business hours, really.

As the world becomes less and less dependent on fleshy micromanagement, sleep and the whole day/night cycle becomes less and less important.

Your personal A.I.s can follow your preferences during the night at least until you get up and have breakfast.