One of these days, friends, your planet is going to get really pasted by your yellow Sun. It is not a matter of “if”. It is a matter of “when”. Contemplate losing all electricity. What would happen to your life? What would your world look like after a week of zero electricity? A month?
But contemplate also an Extinction Level Event.
I’ve read the newest by William R. Forstchen. This is a rather different take on the disaster genre.
US HERE – UK HERE
In 48 hours, the Earth will be hit by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from the Sun, a “Carrington Event”. However, there is another problem. There is also a massive spot on the Sun nicknamed “Sauron’s Eye” about to blow after the CME. The massive CME will weaken the magnetosphere, exposing the Earth to a blast of radiation that will kill everything. E.L.E.
Many books in the genre deal with the aftermath of a CME or EMP. This one deals with the lead up to a known impending disaster. Some of you might make a connection with an old movie about an asteroid on target to strike the Earth. Deep Impact – US HERE – UK HERE Forstchen is smart enough to have avoided reproducing Deep Impact, of course. He’s smart fellow, and a historian. He is rather thoughtful, philosophical in this offering.
If you haven’t read much about the impact that a large EMP might have, try…
One Second After also Forstchen US HERE – UK HERE
This is a standard in the genre. The author, who’s got game, has written two sequels.
Lights Out by David Crawford. US HERE – UK HERE
And not exactly an EMP scenario, but in the same line:
Patriots by James Wesley Rawles. US HERE – UK HERE (It’s sequel HERE)
There are quite a few now that explore the impact of an EMP. One series, the Perseid Collapse, by Steven Konkoly, starts with a pandemic and then moves to an EMP scenario. US HERE – UK HERE
You get the drift.
Just for a start, in case you aren’t anxious enough already.
BTW… Forstchen has an entertaining series about a Civil War army which get’s sucked through a hole into a different dimension to a planet with large flesh eating critters who wander in great tribes, harvesting the humans who, in the past, also were somehow scooped up. Rally Cry is the first.
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But we know that none of these things can happen before our Lord’s Second Coming, right? …nothing to worry about … if you’re in a state of grace. (This is your cue, Fr. Z.)
@Kent: Last time I checked, It was Christ who will judge us. So there is always something to worry about. Unfortunately, we can’t achieve Heaven by our works, but we can work towards it. Nonetheless, there is no guarantee of it.
Or it could be The Second Coming…
I have read dozens of these authors, on this subject, and unless Forstchen is different, not one ever mentions Christ, prayer or religion. The only exception would be a possible “prayer” before death. One family did die, however, from drinking contaminated water from a evangelical baptismal tank. In a five book series, there maybe one or two acts of charity.
The author Akart is not bad as he refrains from using vulgar language in all of his books. His “Yellowstone” series was entertaining and I learned that I live at the edge of a lava bubble and we are some 700 miles away . We have been averaging a 3+ magnitude earthquake every 1.5 years.
Or maybe these events could be a Chastisement. For example, in the 8th c. BC the Assyrians smote Israel. In the 6th c. BC the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem. Even the Philistines got their mitts on the Ark of the Covenant for a while.
An Extinction Level Event might not be the Second Coming, see the novels A Canticle for Liebowitz and Voyage to Alpha Centauri. Atheists like to amuse themselves with the claim that “a Big Universe is a problem for Christianity.” Nope, nay, negatory. Quite the opposite is true.
As our genial host and Benevolent Dictator of WDTPRS has recommended: Spiritual and Situational Awareness.
One way or another, the Heavens always declare the glory of God.
[ Voyage to Alpha Centauri is terrific! (US HERE – UK HERE)]
The real eye-opener, for me, was Ted Koppel’s “Lights Out”
It doesn’t deal with an EMP, but , rather, a cyber attack, which would have the same effect. His research, and interviewing those in high powers of government, are VERY convincing that 90% of us would be dead within one year without power: the only survivors would be those living off grid, such as a farm. EVERYTHING in our lives is dependent on power. Imagine a life without heat, without food, without running water, without gas, no sanitary way to deal with waste, mass civil unrest, etc.?
There is a good documentary (which he lists in his book) by the National Geographic, “American Blackout:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNfJkMPTtWQ
Koppel’s only criticism of this document is that deus ex machina ends up saving us, but Koppel asks, “What if it doesn’t?”
During the time of the Carrington Event people were mostly self-reliant; that is no longer the case. Our Lady’s message at Akita always come to mind when she speaks of ‘firs falling from the sky…killing a great part of humanity…worse than the deluge.’ When I think of an EMP from the sun.