Re: Some FT background stuff (guidelines for writers)

On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Jonathan white wrote:

> >is 25 hours; most humans work better on a 25 hour clock. On a
> >starship, a clock is completely artificial. Unless the ship always
> >docks at Earth, chances are they will be docking at a planet that
> >doesn't have a 24 hour day. I could see a future where starships
> >change to a 25 hour day for efficiency sake. Just a thought.
> While ergonomically you are correct, I don't think we can overlook the
> value of keeping a consistent clock throughout the fleet (presuming
you
> have trans-light comms). That being a given you would probably have
the
> clock of your centre of operations, which is 99% likely to be on
earth..

Moot point where the headquarters is.  US nuclear submarines are
obviously
based on Earth and their daily schedule for the crews while underway is
18
hours, 6 hours on and 12 off with 3 shifts.  When your environment is
isolated you can run any schedule you'd like.  Plus in the military as
with any large organization that requires rapid response you are more
likely to have people on duty all the time regardless of whether there
is
daylight outside or not.  All the key stations would be manned round the
clock and for front end units there might even be three full crews on
board so that the ship can be run under combat conditions 24/7 barring
mechanical failures.

--Binhan