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Author Topic: Day and Night  (Read 854 times)

Saede Riordan

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Day and Night
« on: 20 Feb 2013, 08:10 »

So I thought something that rarely comes up in RP would be to look at the effects of differing day/night cycles on the people of New Eden, and how these day night cycles might influence their culture. I feel you can tell a surprising amount about a society based on how they structure their days in response to changing temperature, food production, and light levels.

Caldari Prime: Because of the way it was half terraformed, I suspect only the tropics are remotely habitable, with the landscape turning into massive polar glaciation as one moves north and south to any significant degree. The extent these glaciers have pushed would leave glacial till and runoff water, good for farming. Because of their likely position equatorially, the Caldari likely have a very distinct idea of when day and night are supposed to be, contributing to the regimented nature of their society.

Intaki Prime: This was the place I was originally curious about. Because the poles themselves are habited, we can infer some really interesting things about the climate. Assuming the planet has any axial tilt at all, most of the time the sun will either be overhead, not sinking below the horizon but just spinning around and around in the sky for weeks, or it will be night, with no sun at all for weeks. Because of the heat of the tropics, conventionary air currents will push warm water up to the poles, even during the nights, meaning it is unlikely to ever drop below freezing. Temperature range during the winter is likely to be 1-20c depending on how hot the tropics actually are. Breezy, comfortable, no growing season, so while the most comfortable time of the year is night, without the sun, there's no growing, so there's not really much to do. This could be the reason the Intaki have such a spiritual and artistic society. During the long day, average temperatures could reach upwards of 40c, and severe thunderstorms would be common. Perhaps we'd see underground or partially underground structures, to get away from the summer heat?

These are just sort of starting points to get a discussion going. How do YOU think the cultures of New Eden have been effected by their differing day/night cycles and weather patterns?
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Sakura Nihil

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Re: Day and Night
« Reply #1 on: 20 Feb 2013, 16:38 »

Can't contribute much to this thread, other than to say I like the path you're going down.  I've always thought that the best way to figure out things like culture, personality, etc. was to get information like geography, climate, amount of water, etc. and let it inform the likely decisions people (and civilizations) made.  Case in point, look at the Vherokior, from what I remember the geography they lived on influenced their lifestyle pretty severely.

The same can probably be applied to people, too.  The Nihils' grew up on an ice planet, so it's not too hard to infer that their social nature and strong family bonds flow from the fact that when you're cooped up inside for long periods of time, you'd better learn how to love being around other people everyday.
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lallara zhuul

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Re: Day and Night
« Reply #2 on: 20 Feb 2013, 17:02 »

I don't think there are differing time cycles in the planets that have been terraformed by humans.

Mainly for two reasons.

The plants that they brought along need a clear day/night cycle to grow.
Human brain needs a clear day/night cycle to stay sane.
Even human eyes need times of darkness to function properly.

On Caldari Prime: The terraforming was not finished during the time of the collapse, it has finished since.

On Intaki Prime: Earth has 23 degree axial tilt. As far as I can tell there is no tropics in Northern parts of the world and the warmth that the Scandinavia is getting is mainly because of the Golf current. The sun can only be overhead (zenith) between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, both are pretty close to the equator. To the North of the Arctic Circle and South of the Antarctic circle you can get these times that the night or the day does not end. The day does not just get longer and the sun stays overhead longer, the dusk and the dawn get longer because the sun stays longer near the horizon for a longer time.

If there was such a case that there would be a great difference in the planetary day/night cycles I would think that the people on these worlds would have learned to build houses where they can keep an artificial cycle going so that they would not go insane.
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Svetlana Scarlet

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Re: Day and Night
« Reply #3 on: 20 Feb 2013, 17:35 »

Keep in mind that Caldari Prime is also quite far from Luminaire...in all likelihood, even the day there would be considerably darker than most habitable planets.
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orange

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Re: Day and Night
« Reply #4 on: 20 Feb 2013, 19:52 »

Unless they change Luminaire (the star) to something very bright, neither world really falls within the habitable zone.
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