Title: The Proper Calendar
Fandom: Imperial Radch - Ann Leckie
Content notes: No spoilers, just general world discussion
Author notes: Brought to you in part by my recent timezone-hopping trip and week-long jet lag
Summary: Civilization has a single, proper calendar. Downwell is, by definition, not completely civilized.



I've been thinking about the way that the Radch is very biased against planets. Downwell cultures are backwards, no matter how civilized (ie, assimilated) they've become over the centuries. Anyone who chooses to live downwell is clearly also backwards, or slightly mentally mal-adjusted. (This doesn't apply to everyone who -- rightly -- desires to live on a station but can't get off their planet. They are merely to be pitied.)

This makes sense to me for a culture that is completely focused on a Dyson sphere. The Radch (the location, rather than the extended empire) is an artificial construct under human control.

One of the ways I believe this plays out is in time. The books never mention shifting calendars to account for differences in time, unless there's a planet involved. It occurs to me that the entire Radch -- ships and stations, at least -- can all keep the same clock and calendar as the Sphere. How long is a day in an artificial environment? As long as we want it to be.

But planets have their own cycles. There is sunlight and darkness at various intervals. Moons rise and set. The planet orbits its sun, setting the year. None of these are likely to synchronize with the Sphere, whose calendar has been determined to be, of course, just, proper, and beneficial.

So time is another way that downwell people are backwards. They're attuned to the wrong calendar and clock.

This would also be true of lighting and gravity. What is the proper color and brightness of light for "daylight"? What is the correct level of gravity? Why, exactly what the Sphere has.

Planets, obviously, have their own sunlight and gravity. Which, by extension, is not the proper, beneficial light of the Radch.

A person who travels from one Radch station to another has very few adjustments to make. Time is the same, light is the same, gravity is the same. But coming from a planet, all of this would be new, and difficult to get used to. It's just another way that the Radch is prejudiced against planet-dwellers. They're just a little more awkward, all the time. At least until they adapt to civilization.