On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 8:19 PM, Greg Chalik <mrg3105@gmail.com> wrote:


On 17 February 2016 at 10:36, Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 2:53 PM, Greg Chalik <mrg3105@gmail.com> wrote:

Synchronise planetary orbits also?


The Imperium ignores individual planetary time, clocking everything on Sylean (e.g. Imperial) time. This drives the locals crazy, of course.

​Drives them crazy literally


I'm going to assume this is a joke?

Just in case it isn't, I guess I should spell out just what my above statement was meant to imply:

When I said "the Imperium ignores individual planetary time," I did NOT mean that individual Imperials on an actual planet - let alone the locals themselves thereon - will necessarily ignore planetary time. I simply meant that anything officially Imperial will be time/date stamped using Imperial time, never local time. Whenever translation between Imperial and local time becomes important, there will be all sorts of automated means - such as mobile phone aps - to enable easy conversion back and forth.

Day/night cycles will be maintained by whatever means are easiest in the particular situation. If the natural situation is fairly close to Sylean-normal, then no adjustments are normally made to people's behavior. But if the divergence is enough to prevent easy acclimitization/adaptation, then humans (both local and Imperial) will live under conditions of artificial illumination that closely mimics a Sylean-normal day. In situations without a natural day/night cycle - such as on a space station or an asteroid colony - such an artificially illuminated Sylean-normal cycle will be the standard.

--
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein
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"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.