Do we sleep at night?

[Marauder Moe]

Is a Zalanthian hour the same as an Earth hour (not an OOC hour)?  If so, then a day is only nine hours long, with night lasting only two of those.  Do people sleep every night?  Or maybe just every other night?  Or perhaps just whenever they want?  I suppose in a desert environment it might make more sense to sleep during the middle of the day.   :?

[Kankman]

The way I figure it life is just too damn hard to have the luxory of sleeping every night. I mean sure, maybe nobles can. But what about a mercenary who is on contract. A merchant who needs to fill an order of toilet paper for some rich noble's arse.. A slave who has to clean the kitchens. I figure you've gotten my point already, so I'm almost about to shut up.

People sleep when they are tired.

[Angela Christine]

Forget the hours, figuring out the hours is a pain in the ass.  Go straight to years and work backward from there.

We know that an Earth year and a Zalanthian year (not to be confused with a RL year and a game year) are roughly the same length.  A 17 year old human on Zalanthas will be developmentaly similar to a 17 year old human on earth.

So, since the years are the same length we can now compare the days.  An Earth year has 365 days, a Zalanthas year has 693 days.  Since I dislike decimal points I'll just say that there are approximately twice as many Zalanthan days, therefore a Zalanthan day must be approximately half as long.  So sleeping every night would be like sleeping for 3-4 hours at night and then having a 3-4 hour nap in the middle of the day.  Staying awake for 4 days in a row in Zalanthas would be like staying away for 2 days (48 hours) on Earth.

If we assume that Zalanthan humans, like Earthlings, sleep about 1/3 of their life then idealy you would want to sleep 3 hours of each 9 hour day.  Or 6 hours every other day.  Or 9 hours every third day.  Most people consider coded "rest" to be close enough to a light sleep without having the disadvantages of using the "sleep" command; staring at a blank screen for 20-30 minutes is dull.  Occasionally taking a rest shows that you are paying attention to fatigue, without being too boring or inconvinient.

We assume that they do sleep, but maybe not every day and maybe not at night.  Some people might prefer to work in the cooler evening hours, and sleep during the heat of the day.  Other people might stay up for a day and a half (or more) and then have a long sleep.  You can assume that your character catches up on his sleep while you are logged off.

AC

[Cyrin]

I try to get my PC an hour of sleep every other night at the least.  Mainly because I hate having her sit about the taverns all night, and she's got work in the morning.

Please note I said "try" though..

[Angela Christine]

My other, less plausible, theory is that the day and night are actually the same length.  There are the 5 hours of true day, 2 hours of dawn/dusk, and 5 (rather than just 2) hours of true night, so the entire day is 12 hours long, not 9.  Where do these other 3 hours go?  An ancient spell that causes every living thing in the known to fall unconcious at the end of Late at Night and not wake until Before Dawn.  They wake with no memory of what happened, and continue what they were doing.  If you've seen the movie Dark City you know what I mean.

I don't know what the purpose of such a massive magickal undertaking would be, but one effect is that everyone is "asleep" for 1/4 of their lives without ever realizing it.  This explains why they are able to stay away for weeks at a time: they aren't really awake all that time.   :wink:

AC

[Fedaykin]

I've sort of loosely held to a similar theory, AC.

I always figured that it was mainly a playability issue.  Not much typically gets done during the nights other than tavern sitting.  If those nights were then twice as long, going for an RL hour, people would have a hell of alot of boring downtime.

Then again, I suppose having shorter nights is possible, but I believe you'd have to have one heavily screwed up and wobbily orbit to do so, heh.

[RideTheDivide]

This seems like something that could actually be RP'd more I suppose.  To pay attention to how long its been since you've caught some winks (either by logging off or by actually sleeping in game) could lead to some good roleplaying.  Yawning or just being groggy would be great.

I know that when I know I have duties that are going to "keep me up all night" I try to get in a nap earlier in the day so that I'll be fresh for those duties.  Or if I haven't had a chance to do that, I try to RP being worn out by the end of the shift.  Adds some flavor...

[X-D]

Mine almost never use coded sleep, but do rest about every other night.

If we assume that Zalanthan humans, like Earthlings, sleep about 1/3 of their life then idealy you would want to sleep 3 hours of each 9 hour day.

Funny thing about that, I remember in 3rd grade a teacher told us that, I did the math, live to be 60 then you have slept for 20 years! thought, This simply will not do! Luckily, since most of my family are medical types the books for me to do research with were available. One month later I began my plan to cut sleep to the minimum needed to survive and not go insane, (3-4) hours. I simply cut 15 minutes every six months, in that amount of time, you do not notice it is missing.
Later I changed that to 15 minutes every 3 months cause I was young and impatient:) but, sleeping only 1/6 of your life essentually gives you another ten years of life if you live to be 60, means I've gained 3 already:)

I just figured this would come in useful to all of you who are trying to figure out how to get that 28 hour day so you have extra time for arm.

[Noname]

Angela Christine said,

An ancient spell that causes every living thing in the known to fall unconcious at the end of Late at Night and not wake until Before Dawn. They wake with no memory of what happened, and continue what they were doing. If you've seen the movie Dark City you know what I mean.

Im a newbie, but by tek's missing left testicle, you should know what im about to say.

Tek' and The sun king take those extra hours away from us because thats when they dance naked around Meks, play chess with each other and plan
wars, did you really expect someone who lives for a hell of a long time and dwell in towers peering over millions of people with sallow eyes to remain sane?

[Shinigami]

For the sake of arguement, He Who Rescued Us, the Mighty Dragon Tektolnes is not missing a testicle.  All three are accounted for.

-Shinigami, Don't Ask

[creeper386]

Ooh... Hmm...

Lets just forget this whole thing... Wait... If there are three... Hmm... Never mind.


Creeper

[Nakki' Historian.]

I beg to differ, Tek lost his left one in the great Mek disaster of 73'
Why else would he ban spice? He was smoking the stuff at the time and
mistook A Mek for a cute little number and well....Lets not go into details hmm?

[creeper386]

He meant all three are accounted for AFTER that incident. Gosh. AND the incident with the horde of halflings and a few kegs of flame... AND the incident concerning that slip up around the Gaj... And... Well you get the point.

And he's sure to know where those others are so they aren't really missing. Just not in the right place...

Then theres the few that he doesn't have on him but ARE in the right place... But I regress.


Creeper