> So it is unlikely that magnitude-1000 time measurement with no cycles in-between can work for them either.
Oh, maybe I didn’t describe it very well. They use precise scheduling whenever possible, and use kiloseconds and megaseconds in casual conversation. For example, you might be scheduled to go on–shift at 1664204400, and every shift is 30 kiloseconds, meaning you go off–shift at 1664234400. Of course the book never gave exact timestamps like that, it only discussed shifts and watches in general terms.
In casual conversation they use “kiloseconds” or “thousand seconds” the same way we use phrases like “half an hour”. For example: “We got the same scut-work shift starting in two thousand seconds. I thought we could go down to the bactry together, trade gossip.” They also use shorter approximations, like “hundred seconds” the way we might use minutes: ‘In his huds, he could see his ships climbing slowly up the sky, still hidden from the naked eye by the nearest tenement. “Another four hundred seconds sir, and you’ll see them come out past the roof just about there.” He pointed at the spot.’
They just don’t have a calendar based on astronomical cycles. When your STL ship needs 400 years to complete a single journey, and each crewmember spends a very small percentage of that time awake and on watch, you don’t need to care about cycles or calendars. And since each of the hundreds of star system that humans have colonized has a completely different calendar based on whatever astronomical cycles are available locally, so Earth’s calendar just doesn’t matter very much.