Urban fantasy: plot help needed

[Daigoro]

This Popular Science article suggests 0F (-17C) in a week, but if it's magical darkness then I'd just give whatever magical effects I felt like. Roiling black clouds covering the Earth (dropping it's albedo) would actually heat up the atmosphere more than normal.

[hal]

Mankind is a curious beast if I might state. Let's take for instance, what happened during the Hurricane Katrina landfall. There has to be a few here on the boards that actually lived through that. Point is - rumors of dark happenings cropped up within 24 hours of Katrina's landfall and within 48 hours, we had rumors of rapes, armed vigilantes taking over bridges etc.

Multiply that by a factor that involves the entire world for a span of time.

Now, that's for "RATIONAL" events. Mankind tends to rationalize things and tries to understand things relative to what is already known. Toss in the supernatural darkness - and what you end up with are the following:

People who state that this can't be happening, largely because there is no NATURAL way for it to occur - will turn to the supernatural. Some who are convinced there is no god, no higher power, no supernatural - will be hard put to refute the evidence of their eyes.

Do I think that a sudden cooling in atmospheric temperatures will cause any undue hardship? Having watched what happened when Western New York was hit by an October Storm unexpectedly (relatively warm weather and suddenly blizzard conditions) did not kill off a lot of the trees and such despite the fact they still had their full foilage (some hadn't even really changed color all that much due to the unseasonably longer summer). If temperatures drop enough to reach the frost level, some plants will die unexpectedly due to frost to be sure - but not the entire biosphere of Earth. I wouldn't even expect the greatest repository of oxygen producing plant life in the oceans to suffer unduly from the darkness.

So, let me stress this STRONGLY:

If you throw even ONE major unexplained event on the order of a global darkness that is total, and it lasts for even a single HOUR, let alone a day, let alone 5 days (which is no longer in the works), then you are postulating an event that will NEVER be forgotten as long as mankind keeps records. The oral legends that will arise from the event will be pretty accurate initially (or as accurate as is possible - since seven blind men touching different parts of an elephant will describe the same beast in totally and mutually different manners) - but it will over time mutate as each teller either mis-remembers or deliberately embellishes the oral record. Long story short - having a singular event will be something that will have a similar effect on man as a species, to where "if it happened once, it may happen again - and we need to know not only WHAT happened, what WHY it happened, and HOW it happened.

I mentioned scientists probing the skies to see what the could discern. If for instance, one could see stars and the moon, but not the sun - is the moon reflects sunlight. Why would the moon show but not the direct sunlight? If the darkness is a function of clouds or something of that nature - then people might think "oh, usual weather, but noting totally out of the norm".

In the end? I would expect people to at first DENY what their senses are telling them. Then they're going to try to explain what is happening - and failing that, will start to panic. Once in the grip of panic, they will start to act on their emotions rather than by means of reason. Some will be made of sterner stuff, but some won't. Any survival situation or unexpected hardship situation that occurs ALWAYS has both the weak and the strong at opposing ends of the spectrum of behavior. Hero? Coward? Criminal? Paladin? Cop? Criminal? These are words to describe potential behavior on a given scale.

Now, let's say for the sake of argument - that society doesn't go off its rails as a result of this supernatural event. Let's further stipulate that rioting does happen, that massive killing sprees are engaged upon, and that the people defend themselves against these killers, rapists, and criminals simply through sheer numbers etc. Let's stipulate that people turn to religion to get answers - answers that the Priests likely can't give them. Why? In all of recorded history, we've only got ONE (think about it a moment...)

ONE world wide event that became a part of cultural oral traditions or written traditions?

Next post with spoiler space in case you can't figure it out on your own...

[hal]

Spoiler Space...











More Spoiler Space...


(Someone needs to teach me how to use that anti-spoiler thingie somewhere!!!)








The great flood.

Not only do we have multiple cutures divided by oceans talking of a great flood, but we also have multiple language based cultures having essentially the same story regarding the great flood. Scientists are only NOW finding evidence of the Great Flood to back up the story.


And that was a FLOOD. That we don't have the long night story any where would imply that this is not something mankind has ever dealt with before. All of the rational minds will be confronted with something that can't rationally be explained, and THAT is going to leave a massive psychic scar on people in the sense that a saying "Does the sun rise in the east" will now no longer have the meaning it once had - because for a period of time, the sun did not shine at all!

Local disasters have demonstrated just how disorganized man can become in a very short span of time. Recovery from the disasters is only possible because of the areas not hit by disasters manage to keep the "fires" of civilized behaior etc - burning. Have everyone suffering from this massive event, and man will be reduced to an ape or monkey screaming emotional defiance against something it can't understand at a rational level. All that will be left will be...

Emotions.

So - it isn't a function of governments being rational or more enduring or what have you. Governments govern because they are RATIONAL. They depend on Rational behavior. If I point a gun at you, you are rational enough to realize you might die if I pull a trigger. If on the other hand, in the grip of massive fear, you simply throw yourself at me to where I MUST shoot - well, that's one more body to be buried as a result of the darkness.

As others have mentioned, the recovery from THAT episode won't just occur in a matter of hours or days. It may well happen that people who live through it won't ever forget it and will be constantly anxious over what happened.

I could say more, but I'll leave it at this:

The emotional impact of the primary event will have devastating effects that will be long term. It won't be something that people will shake off, as it will be fundamentally transformative. But - this is YOUR story. If your friends enjoy it - then no problem. ;)