Writing science fiction is difficult, but not in the same way that other kinds of fiction are difficult. I just spent the past hour figuring out if I wanted to include a different set of units for time and distance. Usually I would ask myself, why am I doing this? And the answer this time around was: because I want to sound cool. I want to have that moment in a bar on the dark side of the moon, in the corner booth, with a grouchy pilot discussing fares for an odd job, when he says “I traveled 300 krutons for a whole cycle collecting these, and you’re only giving me 5 credits!?” I really like the thought of this, but I wish that it didn’t become so difficult so immediately. What do you call these units? What even *are* these units?? Do you base these units on the second, like in A Deepness in the Sky? Do you come up with weird-sounding synonyms for the same units that we regularly use (a second becomes a marbec, etc)? Do you follow Isaac Asimov and just use metric units and throw shade on writers who do the prior option? I’ve been watching Dropout’s new Dimension 20 season, A Starstruck Odyssey, and the setting is based on the Starstruck comics, written by Brennan Lee Mulligan’s mother. I’ve been enjoying it a lot, and I admit I will be stealing some ideas from it (it’s only fair, they used a bunch of ideas I had before the show came out-). They do this. They use different time units than seconds and minutes and hours and years, instead they use marbecs and whatnot. I really like that. I wish I could do that. But I feel like it just detracts from the purpose of the game, which is to feel cool and look cool. After this long hour, I have decided to simply use the normal units. Why does it matter?