[IW] Apocalyptic World, Maya-12

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by SpaceGurper

All in all I don't think an EMP type effect would bring civilization to a coping halt.

It's becoming a traditional disaster convention though. It's at least as reasonable as worlds where civilization dies from oil eating bacteria or a wildfire rate cross genus plague that kills every known crop plant. And way, way more convincing than the Gotha plagues as presented in the IW book.

Yes real pulse events are pretty much limited to killing sensitive electronics connected to antennas (radio, radar, and integrated circuit stuff with relatively long bits of cabling between them and the last circuit breaker), with electrical stuff being down only until somebody resets the breakers, and most electronics being fixable by replacing the lost chips with stuff from the nearest repair shop (stuff in a package isn't connected to a long wire to pick up energy from the pulse). But you ignore that for these scenarios. And yes for half of the planet there is this giant mass of rock shielding protecting the electronics. You ignore that too.

I will say that any flare this intense probably should cause some radiation effects even at sea level. Even if you don't want to have a big chunk of the dayside population dying of radiation poisoning, lots of plants and animals are less radiation tolerant than humans.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Yes real pulse events are pretty much limited to killing sensitive electronics connected to antennas (radio, radar, and integrated circuit stuff with relatively long bits of cabling between them and the last circuit breaker), with electrical stuff being down only until somebody resets the breakers, and most electronics being fixable by replacing the lost chips with stuff from the nearest repair shop (stuff in a package isn't connected to a long wire to pick up energy from the pulse). But you ignore that for these scenarios. And yes for half of the planet there is this giant mass of rock shielding protecting the electronics. You ignore that too.

Plus, it doesn't have to be limited to a single flare; a series of flares over a few days' time would affect more of the planet.

And I kinda liked the image of several square miles of sensitive electronics going up in flames, unrealistic as it may be.

Originally Posted by malloyd

I will say that any flare this intense probably should cause some radiation effects even at sea level. Even if you don't want to have a big chunk of the dayside population dying of radiation poisoning, lots of plants and animals are less radiation tolerant than humans.

This is plausible, given that I have the flare "weakening" Earth's magnetic field. And who's to say that many of the dead are solely due to exposure? Yeah, it looks as though the deaths were due to exposure, but can the average person really tell the difference between "exposure to the elements" and "radiation poisoning" when it's happening without medical instrumentation?