From the Journal of
Jason Forrester
30 December 2012
The government just left us. They knew this was coming. The fact they had the National Guard
pre-positioned to secure the Hospitals confirms this. The fact they did secure the hospitals is the
only piece of good news. We have had our
first case of Pneumonia. Without the
Hospital, Arturius might have lost his daughter.
Angry as I am at them, I can't say
I am surprised. They were all
politicians, out to play us against each other for their own sake. Fraking politicians. At least they helped keep the Luddites at bay
in the old world. I never thought I
would miss having police officers patrolling the streets this much.
The Deputy says he has heard rumors
about a private law enforcement agency hiring themselves out to some of the
various colonies around the city. If he
is right, it might mean civilization's torch will remain alight for a moment
more.
It is too bad we have already come
too far.
At this point, we just have to keep
the candles lit, we have to keep the light of knowledge alive.
We must not allow the luddites to
plunge us back into the dark.
Goddard Institute
of Space Studies
13 November 2012
Dr. O'Rinn had to rest his eyes. He had spent all day in front of a computer
terminal, entering data into the NASA Columbia Supercomputer. The fact the data had to be sent all the way
out to California meant he had to be more careful with how he entered the data. Those guys loved the computer and hated
anyone who typed the programs in wrong.
Now, he was just waiting for the
computer to spit out the results. One
reason he was here late at night, that computer still had a massive amount of
demand in spite of them installing the Pleiades. Still, Columbia was good enough to filter the
data from the Solar and Heliospherical Observatory and its ancillary and
support satellites.
The beeping from his computer woke
him a half hour later, and he cracked open an eye lid. Both eyes flew open and he almost fell out of
his chair when he saw what was on the screen.
"That cannot be right."
Reaching for the phone, he
contacted the IT Department, "Jacob, its Sean with Goddard Institute, can
you contact the guys in California. I
think Columbia might have a virus."
"Because I just entered some
solar observations, and the computer is predicting an 82.3% chance of a solar
maximum worse than any seen before.
Thanks."
He muttered to himself about the
results. There was no way they were
going to get more than one CME a month above 1000 nT this cycle, let alone nine
a day. He was looking over the data,
trying to find what had gone wrong. That
was at least 50 times the expected level for this solar maximum.
He was still browsing through the
data when the phone rang from the NAS in California.
"Dr. O'Rinn, this is Dr.
Richardson, I am in charge of the computers down here. I can assure you there are no viruses on our
systems. I was surprised by the results
as well, and ran a quick double check.
Still nothing. I already have two
more simulations of the same thing being run.
Results should be back…" Dr.
Richardson's voice trailed off.
"Same results. My God, Dr O'Rinn what does this mean?"
"It means that the world as we
know it could come to an end sometime in the next three years. Can you send me the results, I am going to
need to kick this up the chain to the director."
Washington, D.C.
14 November 2012
Dr. O'Rinn walked into the FEMA
headquarters, nervous about the data on the laptop in his contractor's bag. It was the kind of data that could make a man
who understood it piss himself in fear.
He had run the entire thing five more times. He now had a probability of between 79% and
85%. That was enough for him to be
concerned. Enough for him to be
convinced the entire government had to be concerned.
Stepping into the briefing room, he
was surprised to see that the director of FEMA himself was there, waiting for
him.
"Dr. O'Rinn, thank you for
coming right away. This could be very
serious."
"Thank you, Director. How much information do you have?"
"I read the reports NASA wrote
about it a couple years ago, but there wasn't much we could do to prepare
beyond just having stockpiles of food, medicine, and water filtration systems
ready we thought."
NASA's liason to FEMA, Dr. Harmon,
nodded his head. "That's right,
there isn't much we can do. Too make
matters worse, each state will face their own problems. For this one, it is going to be up to the
states themselves to act.
The Director turned to Dr. O'Rinn,
"What are we looking at? What do we
need to prepare for?"
"We are going to be seeing an
average of nine Coronal Mass Ejections a day.
The average during a solar maximum is three. This is eighteen times the highest prediction
we had previously. And that was the
pessimistic view. It is over a hundred
times what we were realistically predicting."
Dr. O'Rinn plugged his computer in
to the over-head and pulled the power-point presentation up.
"The maximum this cycle, looks
like it will produce Coronal Mass Ejections with an intensity of up to 2500 nano-Teslas."
Dr. Harmon looked astonished, but the
Director just looked confused.
"I can tell from your
colleauge's face that is a strong storm, but what exactly does that mean?"
Dr. Harmon spoke up, "The tesla
is a unit of magnetic fields. The
average solar storm is usually between a hundred and two hundred millionths of
a tesla, or about one to two hundred nanoteslas. The March 1989 solar storm which knocked out
power to Quebec for nine hours and destroyed the transformer sub-station had a
strength of 640 nanotesla. The
Carrington Event back in 1859,"
"The one which knocked out the
telegraph network and sent the northern lights down to the Equator,
right?" The Director interrupted.
"Correct," Dr. Harmon
nodded, "The Carrington Event had a strength of 1760 nanoteslas."
Comprehension dawned on the
Director's face, "My God. If that
hit us…"
"Total collapse," Dr.
O'Rinn finished the thought.
Dr. Harmon spoke up, "I need
to point out the chances of this happening are slim."
Dr. O'Rinn nodded, "Space is
massive, and the average CME in comparison to the sun is small. Even the Carrington event was only about twenty-times
the diameter of Jupiter when it lifted off."
"Only?" The Director was
clearly having trouble imagining how anything twenty-times the diameter of
Jupiter could be considered small.
"Relatively speaking sir,
that's smaller than Rhode Island."
Dr. O'Rinn said. "In fact,
the chances that the storm will even graze us if it is created in the first
place is so low it's not worth calculating until we have to cross the bridge,
sir."
"Ten seconds too soon or too
slow, and the storm would miss us entirely." Dr. Harmon pointed out.
"But with nine a day…"
The Director trailed off.
Dr. O'Rinn nodded, those kind of odds
didn't make for a good night's sleep, "And too make matters worse, the
climate division is predicting cold, bitter winters both this year and next
year."
"Christ," the Director
didn't want this on him. There was no
way he could adequately prepare for something like this. Not even with full co-operation of every one
of the 50 states. And to make matters
worse, he was out of the job at the beginning of next year. His successor would still be having to deal
with the clean up from Frankenstorm at the rate things were going in New York
so far. Maybe if he knew who the new guy
was going to be, he could start briefing him on this threat, but no one had
been suggested yet.
"What do you want me to do,
beyond increasing your funding?"
"Block grants to the states,
have them start preparing. Any storm
with less than 750 nT will be ignored if the grid is shut down in time. But above 1000 nT, I don't know if shutting
down the grid would help."
"How do you mean?"
"During the Carrington Event,
the telegraph stations were able to disconnect their batteries and run off of
pure auroral current. There was so much
static in the air that they were sheathed in St. Elmo's Fire even with no
current on the lines. It is possible
this could still happen."
"And that is assuming that we
have enough warning," Dr. Harmon added.
The Director turned to Dr. Harmon,
"Damage assessment."
"Depends upon the size of the
storm."
The Director fixed him with a death
glare, "Worst case scenario."
"I'm not an expert,
understand, but I will do my best. The
entire power grid is knocked out, and every nuclear plant goes into an automatic
stand-by position. Liquid chlorine tanks
over-pressurize and burst, poisoning anything nearby, the same thing in Valdez,
Alaska with the oil pipelines. Liquid
natural gas tanks begin to fail for similar reasons, starting massive fires at
the refineries. By the end of the next
day, every subway on the planet will have filled with water. The pumps at dams and aqueducts across the
planet shut down and the water supply to cities such as Las Vegas and Los
Angeles begin to run out of water."
"Within three days, the rivers
and lakes are poisoned with sewage from the treatment plants as they fail. The first rain storm in Chicago will flood
the city unless they are able to close the gates first, and those Asian Carp
the Interior Department has been trying to kill-off will invade the Great Lakes. Within a week, any building in New York which
was painted with Linseed oil based paints will spontaneously erupt into flame,
burning down the city. By the end of the
second week, the cooling pools in the nuclear power plants will begin to boil away and the rods will
catch fire, irradiating thousands of square miles."
"By the end of the first
month, DC, Chicago, New Orleans, and any other city which requires a system of
pumps to remain dry will have flooded.
Zoo animals will have escaped, if Eco-Terrorists haven't released them
earlier. Tigers and Lions will roam the
cities alongside wolves and bears for the first time since the last Ice
Age. When the rainy season comes,
thunder storms will spark fires which burn down entire cities and towns."
The Director just looked up at the
ceiling and muttered out yet another, "My God."
He was remembering what had
happened in New Orleans after Katrina, what was STILL happening in New York
below 34th Street. He, and his
predecessor before him, had learned the hard way that civilization was only nine
meals deep. The thought of what was
coming was going to keep him up late at night.
"Get me a full write up on
dangers, warning times, and work with my people to create best and worst case
scenarios. I must know what to tell the
various state-level Emergency Management Agencies to expect."
"I already have the
preliminary report," Dr. O'Rinn responded, "If you want to use it to
brief the President."
"Yes, thank you."
Topeka, Kansas
18 November 2012
The Adjutant General, a Major
General of the Kansas Army National Guard, stared at the report in
disbelief. The Governor was not happy,
but he knew this was a very real threat.
The Deputy Director of the Kansas Emergency Management Agency had
already read the report and asked the Governor to call a meeting to discuss the
situation.
"General, your thoughts?"
"Where to begin?" he
asked. "I think FEMA has the right
of it, secure the Hospitals and use them to stockpile food and medicine. I would suggest water as well."
"The rural communities should
be fine for a while," the Deputy Director commented. "They have local farmers and produce to
help them survive. But the cities will
eat themselves alive. Kansas City, Wichita,
Topeka, Hutchinson, are all going to collapse and die quickly, and possibly
totally and completely. Once the fuel
for the generators runs out, there will be no more food coming into the cities. And the average grocery store has only enough
food to serve its customers for a day.
Once the food runs out, people will start to turn on their neighbors in
desperation."
"Okay. General, I want you to cut orders for the
National Guard which will mobilize them immediately to secure hospitals in the
major cities. Tell them to bring their
families with them. I don't want them
deserting because their families are in danger.
They are to keep the hospitals open and operating for as long as
possible. If they can secure as many
teachers as possible as well, do so."
"Yes sir, Mr. Governor. Let's hope that we never have to make that
order."
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