Before I even started this blog, I would occasionally pose a SyFy Question of the Day to my facebook friends. Sometimes, it was directly related to what I was writing, and I really did want some input to help me decide what direction to take with the story. Other times, it was purely fun. Here’s one of my favorites, from February 2011:

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If you were part of a multi-cultural group going off to found a colony on another planet, what holidays would you want to keep celebrating? Which would you leave behind?

Rebecca               I’d leave Valentine’s day behind

AB                          I was wondering how long it would take for someone to say that…

Jaana                     According to Ministry, Everyday is Halloween. Its a keeper.

Rebecca               lol i’ll keep Halloween though

Al                            Families and like-minded communities might choose to celebrate all of them. It would work just like it does here when we have New Year on Jan 1st, then a Jewish New Year, Chinese New Year, etc… Even though the Government doesn’t recognize the others officially, families still follow them, and communities still have celebrations.

Unless you posit a totalitarian government, most likely it will be Laissez Faire and let the people celebrate what they want. Just because it’s a new planet doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to redesign every aspect of daily life. People will hold onto the familiar for psychological reasons. Eventually, a distinct culture will emerge as what happened between Britain and America.

AB                          The most interesting aspect to me is that when you combine even just a dozen countries, you get SO many holidays! It would be interesting to see what developed naturally… and as a writer, to extrapolate what would happen naturally. So many countries celerate Christmas, whether they take it from the Christian tradition or the celebration of solstice or some other belief, it is widely celebrated.

Jess                        No holidays allowed and I would have signs.

Glenn                   Keep them all. Celebrate diversity.

Erica                      I’m torn betwenn Jess’ opinion and Glenn’s….

AB                          Jess is voted off the island. And I’m not speaking to Glenn till he publishes the second Solfleet book and resolves the @&)##)% cliffhangar!

Glenn                   hehehehehe

I would love to hear what you think! Even if you are reading this post a year or more after publishing, I hope you will leave a comment with your own ideas on this topic.

The previous SyFy Q of the Day is at http://wp.me/p1qnT4-bI

The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-ck