Mass Effect - How Long Do The Salarians Live, Really?



In the first Mass Effect, the in-universe encyclopedia explains that the salarians have much higher metabolisms than other species and thus have much shorter lifespans, about 40 years or so. 


However, Mordin explains in the sequel that they also need much less sleep and can get by on one hour per day. 


My question is this - does the less sleep make up for the shorter lifespan? 



Let’s do the math 



Salarian numbers


24 hours in a day. 


1 hours sleep per night. 


365 days a year. 


24 - 1 = 23 hours per day. 


23 x 365 = 8,395



A salarian is awake for 8395 hours per year. 


A salarian lives for 40 years. 


8395 x 40 years =  335,800 hours. 


A salarian is awake for 335,800 hours of life, on average. 




Human numbers 

Let’s assume humans still have 8 hours per night as a healthy amount. 


24 hours in a day. 


24 - 8 = 16 hours. 


16 x 365 = 5840


A human is awake for 5,840 hours a year. 



Now, the question of human lifespans. 


They say that healthcare has improved enough (easily cloned organs, less diseases, gene treatment, better preventive care) that humans can live to about 150 and keep a lot of quality of life. 


Since part of the reason for this study is comparing salarians to us real-life humans, I’ll do a few different versions - 


80 - to reflect real life old age


100 - to reflect a common old age conceivable in the next century or so 


150 - to reflect the old age in the Mass Effect universe



5,840 x 80 years = 467,200 hours


Humans today beat salarians by a healthy margin 



5,840 x 100 years = 584,000 


Aw geez, humans in the next century beat salarians by almost twice that amount. 



5,840 x 150 years = 876,000


Humans in Mass Effect beat salarians by more than 2.5 times their lifetime! 



Yikes! Well, I guess it’s about the amount of life in the years, not the amount of years in the life. 




 

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