If one were asked the time shortly before midnight, one might reply that it is the 69th Ock of the Evening.
Most people on Didome use common methods of time keeping. Generally speaking people use the moon moon Ock to keep track of time periods roughly equivalent to an Earth day {16 hour}. The second moon
Ides is used to keep track of a time period close to a Earth week {5.75 days}. Finally while a day on Diome is only about half an Earth year, people use a day in a similar manner to years on Earth; they keep track of their age in days and history books refer to on what day something happened. Some cultures have gone further and put collection of days into seasons and ages to further keep track of time of long history.
The close moon of Didome has a orbital period of about 16 Earth hours and many culture use this amount of time as an equivalent to an Earth day. Culture that do this generally sleep for 5 hours and spend the rest of the time on work and chores. Since Didome has not experienced an industrial revolution people generally don't need any more fine grained sense of time. Alternatively, some cultures use two orbits of
Ock to define their day. These culture sleep for around 8 hours and then have a 2 hour nap halfway through the second cycle.
The second moon appears to complete one orbit every 5.76 Earth Days. This cycle is often used in a similar manner to a Earth week. Additionally, in one day the moon Ides orbits exactly 32 times. That an Ides cycle is useful for keeping tack of the time of day on Didome; 8 orbits separates sunrise to noontime. For convivence the Ides are often grouped by 8 and referred to by the time of day: Morning, Afternoon, Evening, and Night. So if one was asked the time shortly before midnight, one might reply that it is the 69th Ock of the Evening.
A day on Didome is about half and Earth year, but is used in a similar manner to a year. For example, people keep track of their age in days, and historical events are often recorded in days.
In a Didome day there are exactly 32 Ides Cycles, and 280 Ock cycles. This means that between midnight and sunrise there are exactly 8 Ides cycles, and 70 Ock Cycles. By keeping track of the moons the people of didome can easily track the passage of time during the long nights.
Many of the
Nil Yeni peoples have divided the days into seasons of 92 Didome days. The four seasons are, Rising, Climbing, Falling, and Setting. Some of the mystically inclined believe that during different seasons different spirts gain of lose power.
The
Nil Yeni have further utilize the concept of a Age, which they say is a complete cycle of the four seasons. The concept of Ages and Seasons is an ancient concept, and most modern people simple report the date as the number of days since the mythical
First Descendants settled
Promethus. For example soon after the sun rises, a modern person would simple say that this was the 1st Ock of the Morning on the 4517 day of descent. Where a religious scholar would record the data formally as, The 1st Ock of the 1st Ides on the 34th day of the Climbing of the 13th Age.
The second star of the
Novus System orbits 2.92 times for every day on didome. The stars light just provides a dim twilight when it is in the nighttime sky allowing limited vision during the long night. The star is also used as a way to keep a rough track of the passing of time on Didome. However since it it's number of cycles per day is not evenly divisible the star does not factor prominently in the calendars of Didome.
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