03-26-2014, 10:28 AM | #11 |
Join Date: Oct 2011
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
With at least 60 days until the scope of the problem is fully realized, followed by mass starvation, people have time for a lot of odd final statements. Blowing up the IRS buildings, or bizarre sculptures in the middle of freeways, or any number of things I'm insufficiently caffeinated to come up with right now. I would imagine a subset of the artistic community to find this world fascinating.
While there would be looting and savagery, the sheer scope of the problem makes the end clear to basically everyone; in the end, I suspect most people would choose to go in an orderly (if deranged) fashion. Lots of mass graves, bodies neatly laid out and cataloged, people executed by their "loved ones", etc. There's lots of biomass that can and will be preserved and eaten if it's dying anyway. I suspect people in very rural areas of the developed world would be able to hold on for a few years (or until the flashfires get them). I can't seriously expect there to be any survivors anywhere. That requires enough greenhouse space to feed them, already in operation and defensible at the time of the event. |
03-26-2014, 11:08 AM | #12 | |
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, U.S.A.
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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But oxygen would get depleted very fast in the water. All that dead material would be a bonanza for any decomposer that can survive UV by being buried in its food and/or catch dead stuff falling into the aphotic zone. Deep ocean anoxia also appears to have cascade effects that could kill huge swaths of the biosphere -- it was probably a significant factor in the Permian mass extinction. With decomposition overtaking photosynthesis both on land and in water, I'd expect a CO2 and CH4 increase -- though when offset by a rapid end to industrial activity and possible darkened skies, it may not accelerate global warming. Some marine life would survive, after all it survived a 96% die-off at the Permo-Triassic. But I think that all or nearly all land and freshwater life would be gone. Keep in mind that Earth plants are exquisitely vulnerable to radiation, compared to animals. Unless humans already had self-sufficient underwaters cities, I doubt any of us would make it. People would have to last on stored food until the ozone layer fully recovered, before agriculture would become viable again. Then they'd have to cope with soils that might be changed -- essential microbes and fungi might be gone, replaced by large quantities of decomposers.
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I have Confused and Clueless. Sometimes I miss sarcasm and humor, or critically fail my Savoir-Faire roll. None of it is intentional. Published GURPS Settings (as of 4/2013 -- I hope to update it someday...) |
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03-26-2014, 12:36 PM | #13 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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03-26-2014, 01:10 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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-- MA Lloyd |
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03-26-2014, 02:01 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
I haven't found a plausible mechanism for directly killing off the humans while still leaving the atmosphere intact, which is why I've been taking "sterilized" to specifically mean "subjected to lethal doses of solar UV." GRBs are too short to affect more than one hemisphere at a time, although the possibility exists for "aftershocks." A supernova event might last a full 24 hours and cover the entire globe, but in most scenarios the damage would either be limited to the upper atmosphere or strip the atmosphere entire.
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03-26-2014, 02:26 PM | #16 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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It would be kind of a strange event that killed everyone so quickly. |
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03-26-2014, 02:54 PM | #17 |
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, U.S.A.
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
What if it was a very nearby supernova, one close enough to sweep Earth with plasma waves from the supernova remnant?
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I have Confused and Clueless. Sometimes I miss sarcasm and humor, or critically fail my Savoir-Faire roll. None of it is intentional. Published GURPS Settings (as of 4/2013 -- I hope to update it someday...) Last edited by Vaevictis Asmadi; 03-26-2014 at 10:05 PM. |
03-26-2014, 05:09 PM | #18 | |
Untitled
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: between keyboard and chair
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
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Consider Beta Hydri. I don't know whether it's a supernova candidate, but Beta Hydri is the closest near-end-of-life star to Earth, slightly over 20ly away. It's close enough to damage the Solar System if it goes nova, although we don't expect it to go nova any time soon - something would have to happen to it. (But in an alternate universe, something could happen to it.) Trouble is, it's almost due south of the South Pole ... so you've got the "one hemisphere only" issue to deal with.
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Rob Kelk “Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” – Bernard Baruch, Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950 No longer reading these forums regularly. |
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03-26-2014, 06:18 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Los Angeles
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
There is this from NASA, linking the Ordovician extinction to, possibly, a GRB.
And here is a link to a NOVA site on what would happen to the ozone. Aside from the stuff already mentioned C-14 is also produced in the upper atmosphere. If the GRB was the result of a pair of neutron stars in a mutual, decaying orbit (apparently thought to be a common cause of GRBs), you'd get high energy particles just after the gamma rays, lasting for weeks. If it was close enough the particles would come right on the heels of the gamma rays. As Mr Lloyd points out, I think the intention was that Lucifer worlds be killed off relatively quickly - at least that's how I read it too. But as Mr. Thrash points out, that is hard to do without blowing off the atmosphere. So does a pair of neutron stars colliding, within about 3000 light years, do it? A GRB knocks out most of the ozone in the southern hemisphere, resulting in skin cancers and dying plant life over a period of a few weeks. C14 and other radioactive fallout adds to the destruction. Then several weeks later a new rain of high energy particles sleets through the atmosphere, causing more fallout like material. In anycase if it was going to take weeks, with skin cancers suddenly appearing, crops and life in general dying in the fields, fallout raining down, people would panic on a grand scale. I'm sure people in the outskirts, away from communications, would swarm into the cities looking for food, medicine and protection. People in the cities would hunker down, hoping for the government to come up with something - especially when people figure out going outside is deadly (at least during the day). Famine, deaths from cancer and, very quickly, things like cholera and associated diseases pile up. Most cities decay into chaos. Military hardened areas, set up to deal with a nuclear attack, would have supplies and shelter to keep some people alive for a while. Like the government leaders of the US, Soviet Union, and most of the other major countries, along with many military bases. Although you'd probably get mutinies pretty quick when the soldiers realize they're going to die while their leaders live, just because of where they stand in the ranks, not for any nationalistic reasons. Longer term you'd have to have access to foodstuffs. Deep sea animals would survive, so maybe you'd see submarines used for fishing. Somehow. Or the pockets of survivors would raid surrounding ruins for a few months to years for food, then gradually die off. I suspect you'd have survivors for years at coastal military bases, San Diego, New London, or Pearl Harbor. Maybe with a still President Carter at one of them, or Acting-President Cyrus Vance. |
03-26-2014, 06:52 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: [IW] Imagining Lucifer-3
I'd think there's a fairly straightforward if physically improbable way to get the required effect.
Lethal neutrino flux. If you sweep earth that way there's going to be some serious property damage.
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gamma ray bursts, infinite worlds, lucifer-3, supernova |
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