Not Post-Apocalyptic but Post-Solar Storm

[Jeff Gerke]

If you're wanting to write a near-future story about a technological society that has fallen back into near medieval technology level but you don't want to resort to the ol' post-nuclear war scenario, check this out:

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,478024,00.html

The gist is that a severe solar storm could wipe out pretty much our entire infrastructure, leading to the failure even of potable water within hours, and complete governmental collapse within days.

No solar pun intended, but that's a pretty chilling thought.

Jeff

[J Jack]

Interesting concept. I like it.

[ezlo]

Sounds like Fallout without the nuclear part.

[J Jack]

Wait wait, wouldn't it leave buildings intact? Wouldn't it merely crash all electronics and leave everything else intact? So, what if someone found a way to channel that...the ultimate weapon, destroys all means of defense but leaves the place together for an easy take over.

Unless I'm wrong and the solar storm would destroy everything.

[scintor]

They have those. They're called neutron bombs. They kill everyone through radiation while leaving most structures and equipment intact.

Scincerely,

[e-mail]

[torainfor]

Imagine New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina--but no one had evacuated. Everyone has a gun (because they all rushed out to buy one for fear Obama would illegalize them), but no communications. Not even the cops' radios work. No alarm systems, no cell phones. NORAD can't track the damaged satellites, not because they can't see them (satellites are tracked by plain-ol' telescopes although if their tracking motors are computerized or their imaging digitized, that would be a problem) but because they can't communicate with the telescope tracking outposts. So, satellites are (eventually) falling from the sky, but no one knows when or where. What would still work? Land-lines with underground cables?

Would the solar flares affect the Earth's magnetic polarity? The poles drift, anyway. If they catastrophically changed, migrating animals would be shell-shocked.

It seems to me that in most post-apocalyptic scenarios, the initial massive destruction of human life actually makes it more manageable. It would be easier to survive in the Road Warrior's world than in Snake Plissken's. Still, as has been mentioned before in this forum, I think the most urgent matter would be water.

Take my phone, take my ham, I can live without my RAM.
But pretty soon, I'll have to pee; don't take my plumbing from me... *

* Sung to the tune of the Firefly theme song.

[J Jack]

I love firefly, for the record. Would water really be the most urgent need however? Cause even if technology fails, you can get water other ways for anyone who's taken a survival course or has decent sense about them. The chaos though, communication fails, suddenly people think Russia is invading, and all those nuts with guns start shooting people left right and center. Soldiers can't control, and any warning systems only serve to increase chaos. It would be New Orleans on a massive scale, without the water of course...that is a scary thought.

[torainfor]

Yeah, you could theoretically get water if you had survival skills. But when? If water purification plants break down...I live in Colorado Springs, one of the driest places in the country. We have to pipe our water up from Pueblo. And we have about 600,000 people in the county. We've gotten about 1.5" of precip in the last month and a half. Most of that melts into the ground before we can get to it. (Not that I'm asking for a blizzard. Cus I'm not!)

Eventually, populations would disperse to even out the burden on natural resources. But for the first few weeks, that's a lot of people drinking out of contaminated creeks and trying to figure out what to do with their poo.

[J Jack]

That would be unfortunate, I didn't think about the dry places. Vegas, and the entire states too, Texas, Arizona...Millions of lives, there would be a lot of dead people very quickly. Especially without survival skills. Do you think it would become a law enforcment and military oriented situation very quickly? You can't trust politicians to help you survive, and the regular office workers can't be either. I wonder how that would work.

[Divides the Waters]

*cough* www.amazon.com/Solar-Flare-Novel-Larry-Burkett/dp/1881273075

[jdogink]

Whoah...and it's titled Solar Flare even...so much for that, I guess. But, you know, the world is going to end in 2012, so why are we bothering to hone our writing skills anyway.

[mongoose]

There's been how many stories based in a post nuclear war era? There's a good one on TV now, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" So why not have a few about a post solar flare world?

As for the most urgent needs:
1. You can survive 2, maybe 4 minutes without oxygen. Would that be threatened by a solar flare?
2. You can survive 2, maybe 4 hours in harsh environmental conditions without shelter. Would that be threatened by a solar flare?
3. You can survive 2, maybe 4 days without water. Would that be threatened by a solar flare?
4. You can survive 2, maybe 4 weeks without food. Unless you're fasting by the power of God, in which case I guess you've got 5.5 weeks. I never understood these 40 day fasts, unless God's empowering the fasting person. But, in any case, would a solar flare threaten the availability of food?
5. would radiation poisoning from the solar flare be a problem? Lack of medical care in general?

There's so much that could be done with this, as with any post-apocalyptic scenario.

[dizzyjam]

Of course, even with the more blatant analogy of Larry's novel, think of the situation after Captain Trips in The Stand. Just make sure you don't come across the Walkin' Dude. ~*~*~shudder~*~*~

[newburydave]

Jan 9, 2009 22:14:46 GMT -5 mongoose said:

As for the most urgent needs:
1. You can survive 2, maybe 4 minutes without oxygen. Would that be threatened by a solar flare?
2. You can survive 2, maybe 4 hours in harsh environmental conditions without shelter. Would that be threatened by a solar flare?
3. You can survive 2, maybe 4 days without water. Would that be threatened by a solar flare?
4. You can survive 2, maybe 4 weeks without food. Unless you're fasting by the power of God, in which case I guess you've got 5.5 weeks. I never understood these 40 day fasts, unless God's empowering the fasting person. But, in any case, would a solar flare threaten the availability of food?
5. would radiation poisoning from the solar flare be a problem? Lack of medical care in general?

There's so much that could be done with this, as with any post-apocalyptic scenario.

Hey Mongoose; I found the survival essentials on a Civilian website. Apparently you Special forces guys are tougher than we Civies. The "expert" site I found made it the 'rule of 3's'

3 minutes, 3 hours, 3 days, 3 weeks

But he added another category

3 months without love.

This guy was a wilderness rescue expert and he told about rescues he'd been on when the time really stretched out. He said after three months without positive contact with other humans the lost ones gave up and died.

Perhaps this would be a way to make this post Flarian story into a Christian themed narrative.

SGD