this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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This reminds me of that part of that space opera I read where there was a nomadic colony on mercury which needed to always be moving at exactly the right speed to stay on the dark side of the terminator.
Wow. I was in middle school and had to do a creative writing assignment, and I wrote a science fiction short story set in a colony on that boundary of Mercury. I thought Mercury was tidal locked. I was praised for my creativity.
I was today years old when I found that Mercury is not tidal locked.
Same here. I was so going to ackchyually that guy, but I did a quick check before and turns out there is a day/night cycle.
Apparently one Mercury day takes exactly two Mercury years due to some fuckery involving "3:2 spin-orbit resonance" which is something I'm too drunk to comprehend right now.
Gonna be an interesting wikipedia binge at work tomorrow tho
The 3:2 resonance Klear references is considered a type of tidal locking.
That was in the Red / Green / Blue mars trilogy, one of my favorites. Though I think I've seen the concept in other works as well.
Basically the temp difference between day / night caused contraction of the rail tracks, pushing the whole city forward so it was always just ahead of dawn.
The nomadic colony got expanded on in KSR's novel 2312. I don't actually remember much about it in the Mars Trilogy.
But I've seen the concept before in an old EU Star Wars novel, one of the Solo books maybe, where Lando was operating something similar as his new venture.
And before that maybe mentioned by Sagan. And before that...
I'll have to get 2312, haven't heard of that one. Same universe?
Adjacent, probably. Very similar, and seems to purposefully be set a hundred years after Blue Mars ends (2212).
But it starts and ends on Mercury after a voyage through the solar system, not spending much story time on Mars.
Damn, that's a great idea. I gotta go back and finish that series.