A Different Take on a Terraformed Venus

Sorry, I may have worded that incorrectly. I meant 29 Venusian years, which would be about the equivalent of 18 Earth years. Having the characters retain their Earth year ages would've been weird and out-of-place. The only other alternative would be to shorten human lifespans on Venus to exactly match ages on Earth, but that would've been impractical especially in the context of my story lore. In short, the human lifespan of Venus is relatively the same as on Earth, just numbered differently because of the shorter orbital period.

For reference, here are some stuff to help out with this problem.

• Humans become officially adults at 29 Venusian years, which is still considered 18 on Earth. 29 is the standard legal drinking age on Venus, with variations depending on culture (Japan's legal drinking age would be 30 Venusian years instead).
• To avoid cheesing the system, anyone who arrives on Venus from Earth will automatically have their age converted to Venusian standard, therefore teenagers who are 13 Earth won't be offered alcohol as their age is converted into 21 Venusian. Not like immigration between planets matters much in my story anyway, but ehh... Just an oversight I need to correct.

Yes, this is very confusing, but I have no other way of explaining this better. I'm not opting for the "shorten lifespan to match Earth" approach since I feel it's a cop-out.

EDIT: Giving out the math. I figured out the misunderstanding.

• 365 divided by 224 x 18 = 29.
• In reverse, if you do 224 divided by 365 x 29, you get about 18.
• However, if you do 224 divided by 365 x 18, you get 11.
• The error comes from directly inserting Earth age onto Venus without conversions.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Sep 16th 2019 at 8:59:28 AM

Wouldn't every human and animal on the planet be super strong due to being descended from inhabitants of a high gravity environment?

Only about 10%, which is not much when you compare it to, say, the Moon or Mars.

Also, apologies for skipping you out on your "core" question. About that, I rather have the status of Venus' core remain ambiguous because unfortunately, we don't know much about it, and any new discoveries in the future could render my plot points a victim of Science Marches On. I want to mitigate that as much as possible.

For example, if I said in my story that Venus' core has heated up again, only to find out that future missions to Venus discover that its core is truly "dead", that could be the death knell for my explanations. For the sake of clarity, I'm leaving Venus' core activity and volcanism unmentioned and only implied.

UPDATE: I'm ditching my age conversion method. It's too convoluted and presents all sorts of problems and confusion to readers. I'm sticking with the original Earth ages and method of time-keeping, so in my story, Alice is 18-years old.

Slightly lower gravity might slow the aging process. Less wear and tear on the joints and such.

Apologies for leaving this be for a while. I had to take a break after my embarrassing age conversion mistake, which I now abolished due to presenting too much Unfortunate Implications. The characters in my story will be referred to by Earth ages, which in the context of my story lore, is called EO (stands for "Earth Orbit"). For example, Alice is 18 EO.

I also came up with the concept of a religion based on the worship of the Venera probes. I've already mentioned before that the Venera probes are sacred relics to the people living on Venus, since to them, they're the original pioneers of the Venusian world. So I decided to expand on it even more and have the Venera probes be worshiped as "deities"; holy relics from the pre-terraforming era. Churches dedicated to the Venera religion are located all across Venus, but the sub-continent of Phoebe (Phoebe Regio) is the center of this religion due to being the location of four Venera landing sites. The site of Venera 13 is the location of the Grand Venera Cathedral, which houses the probe itself in the main alter.

Important cultural objects, yes, but what would make people worship these probes as actual deities?

Also, don't worry too much about time conversions. I've seen loads of people try that but usually it's more hassle than it's worth, and often requires a lot of investment on behalf of the reader. It could make for an interesting plot twist, but generally you want to relay this sort of things to the human experience of the reader.

Edited by devak on Sep 29th 2019 at 3:12:42 PM

If they have a religion based around the probes, and the probes orbit the planet, than it's not at all unreasonable for them to have a calendar that's based on the probe's rotation. Which means you wouldn't have to use "EO" as a marker of aging, as it would seem clunky in this scenario, and just have the years be close to Earth years. I have a question though; are the Venusians meant to have forgotten their Earthly origins? Because if so, using "EO" really is a weird way to mark time.

In any case, I didn't have a problem with the age conversion? As long as it's used consistently in universe it should be fine.

As Fighteer pointed out, using the age conversion presents all sorts of problems related to legality, especially drinking age and age of consent. It's for this reason that I've decided to abolish the age conversion system, and some of my friends off-site told me it would be too confusing for the reader anyways. At the same time, I do not want to go for the cop out method of shortening human lifespans to match ages on Venus because that would be nonsensical and impractical. While this may come off as a Hand Wave of sorts since my story is still very early in development, I plan for the Venusian humans to retain their Earth time keeping methods since it's more convenient than just switching over. I'll think of something as I go.

Also, when I'm referring to the Venera probes, I'm referring to the Venera landers (see here◊). The Venera orbiters are in heliocentric orbit away from Venus, and the Magellan and Venus Express orbiters have long since been de-orbited into the atmosphere. The only current probe orbiting Venus right now is the Akatsuki probe, but even that will be de-orbited into the atmosphere once its mission is complete. Using these probes as a reference point for time keeping is simply not an option. The only orbiting body I can use for time keeping is my fictional, artificial moon Alstroemeria, which orbits Venus every three days in my story.

As for why the Venusian humans worship the Venera probes as deities? Well it ties into the Earth-Venus Civil War, where a cult wrestled control of the probes from Russian colonists. The victory then marked a point where the cult viewed the probes as the original pioneers and guardians of the planet, and as years passed, evolved into a major religion.

And yes, while I plan for the Venusian humans to eventually leave behind their Earthly origins, the time frame between the war and the current time of my story is about 100-200 Earth years, long enough so that the war is still in relatively recent memory and recordings. The Venusians have to constantly monitor Earth in case they invade, and doing so allows for the use of the "EO" system of ages to be used.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Sep 30th 2019 at 9:12:04 AM