Zone:
Venus
Venus’s terraforming was a technological marvel, but a controversial one. The planet’s sulfuric atmosphere was replaced and its magnetic field rebuilt. Custom life forms were created to populate the planet. And its long, slow day cycle wasn’t compatible with busy modern life–a Venus day was longer than a Venus year! In the process of terraforming Venus, its rotation was sped up to match Mars’s day length, and its orbital direction was reversed.
Backdays is an anarchic holiday, a week-long celebration of Venus, its challenging terrain, and the frontier/backwater culture it’s held onto even centuries after its terraforming. It marks the “missing” days created by the reversal of Venus’s rotation. For younger, crazier creatures, Backdays is a party holiday, a week of bar-hopping and trying to stay awake for days on end.
For more sensible vector’s it’s a spring vacation with the family. There’s usually a local carnival on the last weekend of Backdays in most corptowns, either in the biggest park or a nearby green area. Backdays games usually involve a lot of reversal, general perversity, “opposite day” banter, and sometimes a backward marathon (medics will be on hand.)
Another Backdays festivity, popular with everyone but corptown leaders, is the annual tradition of suing Marsco for missing time, one more day added to the total bill every year.
Need to Know (before you go)
Celebrated mid-spring when the weather starts to warm up. An exact calendar date would be difficult, since the Venusian calendar didn’t really match the Sol calendar.