Mass Effect - Asari/Krogan lifespans

 

This is part of a series about lifespans in Mass Effect. The previous entries were both about salarian lifespans compared to humans'. Now we're moving into the question of krogan and asari. 

The asari are the sci-fi equivalent of Lord of the Rings elves and the krogan are the sci-fi equivalent of Tolkein's orcs with a little bit of the Australian cane toad problem (a species tougher than the rest of the environment).

The asari can live to about 1,000. 

The krogan can live to 1,000 or more. Wrex, the primary representative of the krogan, mentions fighting in a thousand-years-past war and still doesn't seem to be hitting an upper limit. However, the krogan's aggressive homeworld and subsequent predilection for violence means that most of them don't get the chance to enjoy that. For the purposes of simplicity it's worth just rounding down to 1,000 for them. 

The interesting question is - what does their lifespan look like compared to a human's? 

In previous studies, we found that a human is much longer-lived compared to a salarian, but not to an elf's level. By the time of Mass Effect, humans live and are awake for about 3 times what salarians are, even accounting for salarians' much lower sleep requirements (1 hour per day). 

But now it's the humans' turn to be left behind. 

Let's do the math

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No different sleepspan is mentioned for either species, so let’s assume an average of 8 hours of sleep per day, same as the human's. 

With the same sleepspan, we can divide by the number of years instead of having to compensate for a sleep difference and do it by hours. 

If we divide the krogan/asari lifespan by the human lifespan, we'll get the number of times the human lifespan "fits into" it. Or rather, how many times more the krogan and asari get to live compared to humans. 

1,000 / 150 = 6.666

 

An asari or salarian lives 6.66 times longer than a human. Damn! 

This isn't surprising. The first thing they tell you about the asari in 2 is that they don't mind waiting decades for things to pay off. But it's still crazy to see the numbers. Imagine living ripe into old age and then getting to do that 5 more times. No wonder the asari are capable of creating utopias. If I knew I was going to be alive that long, I would too.