Orbital elevators and long, long days

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Too long and you might not even get a really Earth-like atmosphere. Plants have to subsist on stored energy during the night cycle and algae-analogies are very likely to come before macroflora. A cycle that had many, many hours of light followed by many, many hours of darkness might be too much of a stretch for early microflora.

Since early microflora aren't unlikely to be subsisting on the abundant geothermal energy of a young world, possibly not so much of an issue. Also of course worlds aren't limited to native life.