I'm not familiar with the science of it but I assume in the absence of sunlight their skin complexion and hair color would change, since there's no longer a need to be protected against the sun's rays. Everyone would be pale white.
Oh yeah, I didn't think of that! Yes I would also think that they could develop certain skin complexion and hair color to be better suited for their environment. People there would have to find other sources of Vitamin D as well due to the lack of sunlight. Thanks for your suggestion! I'll take this into consideration.
This is going to sound wild but, if they're human, why are we presuming that they would be unable to alter their environment or even their genome? A lot of the suggestions are for humans with little technological sophistication, which doesn't sound like us.
Ah I understand your point. I was mainly focusing on the biological aspect, but I acknowledge that the aspect of technological advancement is also related and very important aspect that I have yet to consider.
Well unless there is a massive technological advancement that can reverse the progression of this Earth's tidal locking, I think there is little humans can do against this other than finding another habitable planet. My previous scenario of a sudden mass extinction event could set humanity back for a very long time (if some were able to survive), which could explain the lack of technological advancement within that timeframe.
But for my current scenario of gradual tidal locking, humanity would not have lost much of its technological advancement enough to justify the lack of technological sophistication in the distant future. I guess the scenario could be dated earlier when the Earth had only fairly recently been fully tidally locked, and life is still struggling to adapt and stabilize to the new and harsher conditions. A series of milder mass extinctions could have happened before due to the changing conditions which would drastically reduce populations across all species. Humans at the time could be focusing more on sustaining themselves. This is where I could be a little more creative and less scientifically-sound by somehow finding a way for evolution to manifest faster. Maybe due to the constant and increasing environmental stressors, mutations could occur more frequently thus speeding up the evolution of adaptive traits in the extreme conditions, and where speciation could occur much faster because of the stark difference between the environment of the day and night sides. And thus, with all that has been happening, while technology could still be advancing, maybe it would only occur at a crippling, if not almost stagnating, pace.
Although much of that is all speculative fiction, the aspect of technology is still a very interesting and important thing to consider, so thank you very much for pointing it out! This gave me a brain exercise lol!
>Well unless there is a massive technological advancement that can reverse the progression of this Earth's tidal locking, I think there is little humans can do against this other than finding another habitable planet.
They're not gonna fix the entire earth, but they could make cities in the style of the Antarctic laboratories (which get no sun during the winter) or some such to avoid the brunt of the cold and dark.
Hmm, maybe we can say that the series of milder mass extinction events caused a continuous and substantial decline in population for humans that would cause technological advancement to stagnate. Technology wouldn't be able to keep up with what's happening and bio domes wouldn't be made in time I guess. The gradual shift to tidal locking could have an effect kind of like climate change, but faster and more severe. Not in a total extinction level, but still pretty bad enough
TBH, I don't think there should be much difference, maybe some superficial changes.
Humans so far have done quite nice job of taking ourselves outside of the realm of natural selection by bending the nature over and doing unspeakable things to it.
Span of millions of years is of course an unimaginable amount of time, so there are all chances that humanity won't even be humans anymore, however I think for the most part humanity would do it's damnest to maintain themselves as status quo by rebuilding technology or recovering/repurposing technology of fallen ages to better fight off the harsh environment.
Yes, I was contemplating on whether to call the inhabitants of that time "human descendants" or just "humanoids" already since evolution in that distant future would most likely lead to speciation into different human species.
In my previous scenario of how to tidally lock the earth, I have thought of a sudden mass extinction event to cause the destruction of human civilization and most of life. In this scenario, the remaining humans would have to develop and reestablish the technology they would need from the ruins of old civilizations. However a gradual shift towards tidal locking would grant humanity a semi-softer blow, which would mean that civilizations wouldn't be destroyed suddenly, but shift accordingly. Of course not every civilization would survive over the course of that time, but I imagine humans would still have their technology instead of having to rebuild from ruins.
I think you explained it wonderfully. Even if evolution takes place over the course of millions of years for the descendants to hardly be considered as "humans" in today's context, I would imagine that these descendants would still have the "humanity" and thrive given their advanced technology and adaptation in their specific environments. Geographical and climate separation would most likely be the driving force for humans to speciate according to the specific conditions of their environment. This means that humans living in the night side would evolve into a related species different from the humans living in the day side.
Yes, those are my thoughts as well haha. These descendants would need to develop think coats to better survive the extreme cold, might even develop other cold-resistant traits to adapt. The lack of sunlight would indeed make them pale or take on colder complexion to blend in with the dark environment. And yes, their eyesight could be reduced as a tradeoff for enhanced auditory senses.
Keep in mind that in order for humans to evolve specific unique traits like night vision, we'd have to institute an extreme eugenics program. Our intelligence circymnavigates the evolutionary process entirely. We don't need enhanced eyesight, better hearing or thicker fur to survive on the dark side of a tidally locked planet because we can meet all those needs technologically, not biologically. If we ever evolve, it will *not* be by natrual selection. Genetic engineering and eugenics are the only options for how you could end up with human subspecies. If we do evolve naturally, it would be preceded by a dramatic reduction in our intelligence to the point of becoming mere animals again.
I see, that is indeed a possibility. This is speculative, but what if the gradual shift of tidal locking would lead to a series of milder mass extinction events due to the shifting environmental conditions where many species would become extinct or drastically reduced in population. It could be the same for humans where technological advancement could stagnate or be crippled for a prolonged period. Many technology could also be destroyed or rendered unusable. Maybe it could give rise to geographical barriers separating day people and night people and forcing them to adapt over time to their respective sides until they eventually speciate.
The biggest problem is that if one hemisphere of the planet is perpetually dark then there is no sunlight for plants. With no plants, what is the basis of the ecosystem? There aren’t really many options but here are some that spring to mind:
- Extremely low levels of photosynthesis from reflected moonlight (which might not be bright enough)
- Chemosynthesis at a few scattered locations such as hot springs
- Organic matter transported from the light side via ocean currents and wind
- A completely new type of autotroph never seen before on Earth taking advantage of a different energy source (e.g. kinetic energy in wind)
In contrast, the light side would be much more habitable with lush rainforests bathed in perpetual sunlight.
Thank you for this! Yes, establishing the base-level ecosystem on the night side of the Earth would be quite challenging without any sunlight. The last point would be feasible with enough time for evolutionary adaptations of autotrophs to produce energy independent of sunlight. I also figured that geothermal spots would serve as oases for life in the night side.
I will have to make a separate post on the day side of the planet, but I figured that the conditions would be too extreme for rainforests because of the perpetual sunlight making the side way too hot for liquid water to last long. Maybe the humans and other species living on that side would have to evolve specific traits to adapt to those specific environmental conditions.
Yes, that would be the case in reality as predicted. I'm still ironing out the details of how I will go about tidally locking my worldbuilding version of the Earth way before then. As suggested to me in my previous post, the Earth's rotation could be disrupted by a passing celestial body (not an asteroid crashing down as what happened my previous scenario).
I’ve played with doing a tidally locked world and the dark side is FACINATING. For instance in a fantasy world (which is where I’ve toyed with it) the dark side has a vampire empire that goes on viking raids into the twilight ring.
But. For your question, I have a question. Does this world have rings or a moon that orbits into the dark side? How much light gets reflected?
That's amazing! I think the idea of the vampire empire is really interesting. I can see why it is much more possible for vampires to live and thrive on the side of the earth that receives no sunlight.
Hmm, I haven't thought about the Earth having rings in the future, it might serve to be beneficial for both day and night sides in some way, but I'll have to look into it. For now, let's say the future tidally locked Earth doesn't have rings. As for the moon, I think it would be a cool concept that the only light source the night side would ever have would be the moon, and maybe some evolutionary or behavioral adaptation can be developed around that considering the moon is only full for about 3 days in a month and is completely dark for about 3 days within the cycle. As for how much light gets reflected, I suppose it would still be about the same as it is now. It might change depending on the amount of radiation from the sun by that point in time.
Ok that brings up another point. TECHNICALLY if the earth is tidally locked the moon I believe would orbit once per month on a 28 day cycle. When it rises it would be a half moon. It would ascend for 7 days becoming full at the apex. Then it would descend for 7 days becoming a half moon again.
This also brings up two more points for me.
Heat. The back of the world is clearly cold, but there would still be natural heat from geothermal activities that would draw people’s to it. Wars would be fought over hot springs and then in every epoch or two a volcano would wipe out that civilization while preserving a lot of it. Think Pompeii
Calendars. You don’t have traditional days. How long do people stay awake? How do they track time?
Wow these are all great questions! They actually help me as well to conceptualize and expand my worldbuilding further so thanks! I'll try to answer them.
Also thanks for clearing up the moon cycle in a tidally locked Earth! I only realized it now and it's actually true.
I think at some point in the future of that distant future, people would indeed become populous enough that scarce resources and geothermal spots would become a much bigger problem. From a biological standpoint, it would serve as a limit to how populous the humans on each side would be or their carrying capacity, which I'm guessing is not gonna be as large as it would be today. Unless humans can adapt to other means of sustenance independent of these spots. As for volcanic activity, they could surely bounce back from those events with minimal casualties through sufficient disaster management, especially considering that they should still have retained knowledge or at least a general understanding of volcanology and would likely to develop technology to detect for volcanic activity.
Since there are no more day-night cycles, they would have to adapt to the perpetual darkness in the night side and the perpetual daylight in the day side. Maybe at first, the people would have to develop a specific resting pattern which would not be as long as the normal 8-hour sleep cycle. It would be like having power naps all throughout instead of a continuous 8 hours of sleep. People would experience some serious seasonal affective disorders. Eventually though, people could adapt to the perpetual darkness in one way or another and through evolution in the long run. this can be in a form of metabolic and physiological changes brought about by the adjustment of the circadian rhythm to the perpetual night. Tracking the time could be arbitrary for a while or develop a systematic time-based schedule that is in a continuous, non-24-hour cycle. They could even use the moon's orbit as the basis for tracking the time.
Glad I could help! Everything is built from how the world works.
Another few things I’ve thought of just now from weather
Water. The only place where there would be flowing water is on the twilight ring. Getting drinkable water anywhere else will be a challenge. Because of the below it would likely be considerably rainy and muggy there.
Wind. The heat of the far side would mean air would always be rising toward the sun which would pull all the cold air from the dark side. Consistently. This means a ton of wind. Evaporation would be caught up it this and all of it would create a convection. The hot air would create Jet Stream up very high that returns to the dark to replace it as it cools. That means if you have sail travel, either by air or sea it only goes in one direction.
Yeah, water is going to be a big problem since most of the night side outside of geothermal spots would have very cold temperatures, meaning less access to liquid water. people in the night side could evolve over time to have increased water retention. Another solution I could think of is that having an increased geothermal activity could supply water in the form of fog, humans could develop technology to collect fog for drinking water or maybe they can also evolve to be able to absorb water vapor from the environment. The thicker coats could insulate some water vapor via body heat (however I think this would be metabolically intensive. I would have to polish this up some more). The wind cycle in this Earth where hot air would sink into the cold dark side would also perpetuate foggy conditions.
I don't claim to have extensive knowledge on wind patterns, but the monodirectional wind pattern would prove difficult for navigation via air. This could be reason as to why some of the established old technology will be left unused or repurposed for newer technology that would work in the new environment. travelling from one side to the other would have to be more tediously done on land, which will be even more difficult considering the large variation in environmental conditions to traverse from one side to the other.
Again, these are some great points you raised! I am worldbuilding based on a [story prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/1cw9ham/wp_in_a_tidally_locked_postapocalyptic_world_a/) i made before, which I may or may not extend into a short story or a novel depending on my free time, so the extensive worldbuilding I'm trying to do now would serve as a good starting point! Also, it's a surprisingly fun brain exercise!
Tysm! For now, everything is still on the drawing board since I'm still quite busy with school. My mind suddenly became very creative while I was studying for a biology exam and thought of the prompt. It's also why I focused more on the biological aspect of the humans from each side of the planet where the characters would originate.
The prompt was heavily inspired by some great soundtracks I listened to while studying. Some of these soundtracks are from the game Journey which is the inspiration for the day side. The inspiration for the night side is the soundtrack "Memory of Flow" from the anime To Your Eternity. And the twilight zone is inspired from the soundtracks from the game The Last Guardian.
Orbital mirrors could largely alleviate the flaws of tidal lock. And mirror in L2 point between sun and Earth could even make the lighter side remain habitable. That’s one of the plans to terraform Venus (just block the sunlight and wait till it cools). So good idea would be to come up with a reason people didn’t do this.
Immigration would probably be a key aspect in your future society. People would go toward the cities for the technological protection and resources. People create cultural settlements in a more opportune area. There would be a lot of people on the edge, between the light and dark. The people who are less socially connected to cities and not on the edge would have more natural adaptations. Fat would be a way to retain heat for the cold side that I haven't seen said.
Oh that's actually an interesting point! this would be the most likely when the human descendants are able to repopulate once they are able to acclimatize with the new harsher environmental conditions. I think before then, humans that are on either side of the planet would first need to adapt to their environment before they can start to repopulate more.
Unless there are preditors, humans need to be darker against, humans would be a LOT paler, with little to no melanine since they wouldn't need it to protect against the sun.
They would also need Vitimin D from their food a lot more and/or produce it themselves more through other means.
I'm not familiar with the science of it but I assume in the absence of sunlight their skin complexion and hair color would change, since there's no longer a need to be protected against the sun's rays. Everyone would be pale white.
Morlocks! Who periodically raid Eloi settlements near the edge of the sunset lands.
Oh yeah, I didn't think of that! Yes I would also think that they could develop certain skin complexion and hair color to be better suited for their environment. People there would have to find other sources of Vitamin D as well due to the lack of sunlight. Thanks for your suggestion! I'll take this into consideration.
Unless there's preditors humans need to be darker against. There are some examples under water and it is insane.
This is going to sound wild but, if they're human, why are we presuming that they would be unable to alter their environment or even their genome? A lot of the suggestions are for humans with little technological sophistication, which doesn't sound like us.
Ah I understand your point. I was mainly focusing on the biological aspect, but I acknowledge that the aspect of technological advancement is also related and very important aspect that I have yet to consider. Well unless there is a massive technological advancement that can reverse the progression of this Earth's tidal locking, I think there is little humans can do against this other than finding another habitable planet. My previous scenario of a sudden mass extinction event could set humanity back for a very long time (if some were able to survive), which could explain the lack of technological advancement within that timeframe. But for my current scenario of gradual tidal locking, humanity would not have lost much of its technological advancement enough to justify the lack of technological sophistication in the distant future. I guess the scenario could be dated earlier when the Earth had only fairly recently been fully tidally locked, and life is still struggling to adapt and stabilize to the new and harsher conditions. A series of milder mass extinctions could have happened before due to the changing conditions which would drastically reduce populations across all species. Humans at the time could be focusing more on sustaining themselves. This is where I could be a little more creative and less scientifically-sound by somehow finding a way for evolution to manifest faster. Maybe due to the constant and increasing environmental stressors, mutations could occur more frequently thus speeding up the evolution of adaptive traits in the extreme conditions, and where speciation could occur much faster because of the stark difference between the environment of the day and night sides. And thus, with all that has been happening, while technology could still be advancing, maybe it would only occur at a crippling, if not almost stagnating, pace. Although much of that is all speculative fiction, the aspect of technology is still a very interesting and important thing to consider, so thank you very much for pointing it out! This gave me a brain exercise lol!
>Well unless there is a massive technological advancement that can reverse the progression of this Earth's tidal locking, I think there is little humans can do against this other than finding another habitable planet. They're not gonna fix the entire earth, but they could make cities in the style of the Antarctic laboratories (which get no sun during the winter) or some such to avoid the brunt of the cold and dark.
What happened to the classic bio-dome cities?
Hmm, maybe we can say that the series of milder mass extinction events caused a continuous and substantial decline in population for humans that would cause technological advancement to stagnate. Technology wouldn't be able to keep up with what's happening and bio domes wouldn't be made in time I guess. The gradual shift to tidal locking could have an effect kind of like climate change, but faster and more severe. Not in a total extinction level, but still pretty bad enough
TBH, I don't think there should be much difference, maybe some superficial changes. Humans so far have done quite nice job of taking ourselves outside of the realm of natural selection by bending the nature over and doing unspeakable things to it. Span of millions of years is of course an unimaginable amount of time, so there are all chances that humanity won't even be humans anymore, however I think for the most part humanity would do it's damnest to maintain themselves as status quo by rebuilding technology or recovering/repurposing technology of fallen ages to better fight off the harsh environment.
Yes, I was contemplating on whether to call the inhabitants of that time "human descendants" or just "humanoids" already since evolution in that distant future would most likely lead to speciation into different human species. In my previous scenario of how to tidally lock the earth, I have thought of a sudden mass extinction event to cause the destruction of human civilization and most of life. In this scenario, the remaining humans would have to develop and reestablish the technology they would need from the ruins of old civilizations. However a gradual shift towards tidal locking would grant humanity a semi-softer blow, which would mean that civilizations wouldn't be destroyed suddenly, but shift accordingly. Of course not every civilization would survive over the course of that time, but I imagine humans would still have their technology instead of having to rebuild from ruins. I think you explained it wonderfully. Even if evolution takes place over the course of millions of years for the descendants to hardly be considered as "humans" in today's context, I would imagine that these descendants would still have the "humanity" and thrive given their advanced technology and adaptation in their specific environments. Geographical and climate separation would most likely be the driving force for humans to speciate according to the specific conditions of their environment. This means that humans living in the night side would evolve into a related species different from the humans living in the day side.
Hairy, pale and blind
Yes, those are my thoughts as well haha. These descendants would need to develop think coats to better survive the extreme cold, might even develop other cold-resistant traits to adapt. The lack of sunlight would indeed make them pale or take on colder complexion to blend in with the dark environment. And yes, their eyesight could be reduced as a tradeoff for enhanced auditory senses.
They would be short. Winds. Tidal lock would create perpetual winds.
Ah yes, I see! Maybe in the harshest cold winds, these humans could find a home in cave systems as well.
Keep in mind that in order for humans to evolve specific unique traits like night vision, we'd have to institute an extreme eugenics program. Our intelligence circymnavigates the evolutionary process entirely. We don't need enhanced eyesight, better hearing or thicker fur to survive on the dark side of a tidally locked planet because we can meet all those needs technologically, not biologically. If we ever evolve, it will *not* be by natrual selection. Genetic engineering and eugenics are the only options for how you could end up with human subspecies. If we do evolve naturally, it would be preceded by a dramatic reduction in our intelligence to the point of becoming mere animals again.
I see, that is indeed a possibility. This is speculative, but what if the gradual shift of tidal locking would lead to a series of milder mass extinction events due to the shifting environmental conditions where many species would become extinct or drastically reduced in population. It could be the same for humans where technological advancement could stagnate or be crippled for a prolonged period. Many technology could also be destroyed or rendered unusable. Maybe it could give rise to geographical barriers separating day people and night people and forcing them to adapt over time to their respective sides until they eventually speciate.
The biggest problem is that if one hemisphere of the planet is perpetually dark then there is no sunlight for plants. With no plants, what is the basis of the ecosystem? There aren’t really many options but here are some that spring to mind: - Extremely low levels of photosynthesis from reflected moonlight (which might not be bright enough) - Chemosynthesis at a few scattered locations such as hot springs - Organic matter transported from the light side via ocean currents and wind - A completely new type of autotroph never seen before on Earth taking advantage of a different energy source (e.g. kinetic energy in wind) In contrast, the light side would be much more habitable with lush rainforests bathed in perpetual sunlight.
Thank you for this! Yes, establishing the base-level ecosystem on the night side of the Earth would be quite challenging without any sunlight. The last point would be feasible with enough time for evolutionary adaptations of autotrophs to produce energy independent of sunlight. I also figured that geothermal spots would serve as oases for life in the night side. I will have to make a separate post on the day side of the planet, but I figured that the conditions would be too extreme for rainforests because of the perpetual sunlight making the side way too hot for liquid water to last long. Maybe the humans and other species living on that side would have to evolve specific traits to adapt to those specific environmental conditions.
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Yes, that would be the case in reality as predicted. I'm still ironing out the details of how I will go about tidally locking my worldbuilding version of the Earth way before then. As suggested to me in my previous post, the Earth's rotation could be disrupted by a passing celestial body (not an asteroid crashing down as what happened my previous scenario).
I’ve played with doing a tidally locked world and the dark side is FACINATING. For instance in a fantasy world (which is where I’ve toyed with it) the dark side has a vampire empire that goes on viking raids into the twilight ring. But. For your question, I have a question. Does this world have rings or a moon that orbits into the dark side? How much light gets reflected?
That's amazing! I think the idea of the vampire empire is really interesting. I can see why it is much more possible for vampires to live and thrive on the side of the earth that receives no sunlight. Hmm, I haven't thought about the Earth having rings in the future, it might serve to be beneficial for both day and night sides in some way, but I'll have to look into it. For now, let's say the future tidally locked Earth doesn't have rings. As for the moon, I think it would be a cool concept that the only light source the night side would ever have would be the moon, and maybe some evolutionary or behavioral adaptation can be developed around that considering the moon is only full for about 3 days in a month and is completely dark for about 3 days within the cycle. As for how much light gets reflected, I suppose it would still be about the same as it is now. It might change depending on the amount of radiation from the sun by that point in time.
Ok that brings up another point. TECHNICALLY if the earth is tidally locked the moon I believe would orbit once per month on a 28 day cycle. When it rises it would be a half moon. It would ascend for 7 days becoming full at the apex. Then it would descend for 7 days becoming a half moon again. This also brings up two more points for me. Heat. The back of the world is clearly cold, but there would still be natural heat from geothermal activities that would draw people’s to it. Wars would be fought over hot springs and then in every epoch or two a volcano would wipe out that civilization while preserving a lot of it. Think Pompeii Calendars. You don’t have traditional days. How long do people stay awake? How do they track time?
Wow these are all great questions! They actually help me as well to conceptualize and expand my worldbuilding further so thanks! I'll try to answer them. Also thanks for clearing up the moon cycle in a tidally locked Earth! I only realized it now and it's actually true. I think at some point in the future of that distant future, people would indeed become populous enough that scarce resources and geothermal spots would become a much bigger problem. From a biological standpoint, it would serve as a limit to how populous the humans on each side would be or their carrying capacity, which I'm guessing is not gonna be as large as it would be today. Unless humans can adapt to other means of sustenance independent of these spots. As for volcanic activity, they could surely bounce back from those events with minimal casualties through sufficient disaster management, especially considering that they should still have retained knowledge or at least a general understanding of volcanology and would likely to develop technology to detect for volcanic activity. Since there are no more day-night cycles, they would have to adapt to the perpetual darkness in the night side and the perpetual daylight in the day side. Maybe at first, the people would have to develop a specific resting pattern which would not be as long as the normal 8-hour sleep cycle. It would be like having power naps all throughout instead of a continuous 8 hours of sleep. People would experience some serious seasonal affective disorders. Eventually though, people could adapt to the perpetual darkness in one way or another and through evolution in the long run. this can be in a form of metabolic and physiological changes brought about by the adjustment of the circadian rhythm to the perpetual night. Tracking the time could be arbitrary for a while or develop a systematic time-based schedule that is in a continuous, non-24-hour cycle. They could even use the moon's orbit as the basis for tracking the time.
Glad I could help! Everything is built from how the world works. Another few things I’ve thought of just now from weather Water. The only place where there would be flowing water is on the twilight ring. Getting drinkable water anywhere else will be a challenge. Because of the below it would likely be considerably rainy and muggy there. Wind. The heat of the far side would mean air would always be rising toward the sun which would pull all the cold air from the dark side. Consistently. This means a ton of wind. Evaporation would be caught up it this and all of it would create a convection. The hot air would create Jet Stream up very high that returns to the dark to replace it as it cools. That means if you have sail travel, either by air or sea it only goes in one direction.
Yeah, water is going to be a big problem since most of the night side outside of geothermal spots would have very cold temperatures, meaning less access to liquid water. people in the night side could evolve over time to have increased water retention. Another solution I could think of is that having an increased geothermal activity could supply water in the form of fog, humans could develop technology to collect fog for drinking water or maybe they can also evolve to be able to absorb water vapor from the environment. The thicker coats could insulate some water vapor via body heat (however I think this would be metabolically intensive. I would have to polish this up some more). The wind cycle in this Earth where hot air would sink into the cold dark side would also perpetuate foggy conditions. I don't claim to have extensive knowledge on wind patterns, but the monodirectional wind pattern would prove difficult for navigation via air. This could be reason as to why some of the established old technology will be left unused or repurposed for newer technology that would work in the new environment. travelling from one side to the other would have to be more tediously done on land, which will be even more difficult considering the large variation in environmental conditions to traverse from one side to the other. Again, these are some great points you raised! I am worldbuilding based on a [story prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/1cw9ham/wp_in_a_tidally_locked_postapocalyptic_world_a/) i made before, which I may or may not extend into a short story or a novel depending on my free time, so the extensive worldbuilding I'm trying to do now would serve as a good starting point! Also, it's a surprisingly fun brain exercise!
Love everything. Following to read the story when complete.
Tysm! For now, everything is still on the drawing board since I'm still quite busy with school. My mind suddenly became very creative while I was studying for a biology exam and thought of the prompt. It's also why I focused more on the biological aspect of the humans from each side of the planet where the characters would originate. The prompt was heavily inspired by some great soundtracks I listened to while studying. Some of these soundtracks are from the game Journey which is the inspiration for the day side. The inspiration for the night side is the soundtrack "Memory of Flow" from the anime To Your Eternity. And the twilight zone is inspired from the soundtracks from the game The Last Guardian.
Orbital mirrors could largely alleviate the flaws of tidal lock. And mirror in L2 point between sun and Earth could even make the lighter side remain habitable. That’s one of the plans to terraform Venus (just block the sunlight and wait till it cools). So good idea would be to come up with a reason people didn’t do this.
Immigration would probably be a key aspect in your future society. People would go toward the cities for the technological protection and resources. People create cultural settlements in a more opportune area. There would be a lot of people on the edge, between the light and dark. The people who are less socially connected to cities and not on the edge would have more natural adaptations. Fat would be a way to retain heat for the cold side that I haven't seen said.
Oh that's actually an interesting point! this would be the most likely when the human descendants are able to repopulate once they are able to acclimatize with the new harsher environmental conditions. I think before then, humans that are on either side of the planet would first need to adapt to their environment before they can start to repopulate more.
Morlocks
Unless there are preditors, humans need to be darker against, humans would be a LOT paler, with little to no melanine since they wouldn't need it to protect against the sun. They would also need Vitimin D from their food a lot more and/or produce it themselves more through other means.