Trope-a-Day: Binary Suns

Binary Suns: Reality may be unrealistic, but that’s the way it is.  Quite a decent number of the systems of the Associated Worlds, including many of the inhabited ones.  Most prominent among these is the eldrae homeworld, Eliéra, which orbits one component of a far binary, with (essentially) the effects listed under Subtype IIa (“Bright And Dark Seasons” – With low axial tilt or near the equator, at one point both suns will appear close in the sky, and it becomes night when both set. About half a planet year later, usually one sun will be in the sky, and there will hardly be a real night).  This effect also provides Eliéra’s seasons, and the long orbit of the second sun about the first also creates a regular, multi-year climatic variation, “deep summer” and “deep winter”.