It wasn’t Friday everywhere. But for Europe and North America it was. Early evening for Europe, sometime in the morning for the Americans. Right in the middle of June on the solstice. Right at its peak, the sun higher in the sky than any other moment that year… it left. Actually, it had left about eight and a half minutes earlier, but Earth only realized it then. The sky went from day to night in a blink. Drivers whose eyes could not adjust to the sudden dark found themselves careering into one another. People going for a morning hike were suddenly lost. But mostly, everyone was just confused. Although there was a panic and the religious declared the end of days, mostly nothing happened. It was just dark. It was a little bit scary, but the streetlights turned on and electricity was the new daylight.
For the less industrialized parts of the world the sun vanishing was a much bigger deal. Eternal night without electricity was a dangerous proposition. The first day of night was scary but tolerable, even in the least technological regions of the world. There was still the thought that tomorrow things would be different. But tomorrow didn’t come. Without the sun the Earth cooled, by the end of the weekend it felt like early winter even in the hottest of climates. By the time a week had gone by the surface of the earth had dipped below freezing.
As ice began to creep over the beaches of the tropics, the wind began to slow and in some places even stopped. The balance of warm and cool currents had stagnated. In America borders were closed and exports stopped. The military was activated and among discussions of controlling oil reserves to keep America from freezing, the notion of securing food became forefront. Cold was something that could be mitigated. But with no sunlight, now for a whole week (if one can even measure time in days when there is no sun), there would be no agriculture. With no agriculture no food. It hadn’t come to that yet, but it was clear things would head in that direction very soon. Already grocery stores we finding themselves swarmed and picked clean. Hydroponic systems had rapidly become the hottest product in the developed world.
As ice began to creep over the beaches of the tropics, the wind began to slow and in some places even stopped. The balance of warm and cool currents had stagnated. In America borders were closed and exports stopped. The military was activated and among discussions of controlling oil reserves to keep America from freezing, the notion of securing food became forefront. Cold was something that could be mitigated. But with no sunlight, now for a whole week (if one can even measure time in days when there is no sun), there would be no agriculture. With no agriculture no food. It hadn’t come to that yet, but it was clear things would head in that direction very soon. Already grocery stores we finding themselves swarmed and picked clean. Hydroponic systems had rapidly become the hottest product in the developed world.
It only took ten days before the wars began. As bigger countries like the US, Russia, and China started to close off it became clear to less stable governments that intervention of the super powers was unlikely. Skirmishes escalated into battles, battles into wars, one war spreading into another and entire regions became destabilized. Russia, the US, and China watched and did not involve. Other countries tried to contain the fighting, and just found themselves pulled in. The bitter cold made the pain of war all the more unpleasant. In places across Africa, South America, and Southern Asia more people died from the cold than the violence. Every day was colder than the last, and China was the first of the superpowers to act. Their power came from their population and it would take massive resources to preserve them. They entered into the fighting in the smaller Asian countries, sweeping through them mercilessly, the army was more like looters than conquerors. They came for food and fuel. Russia and the US both struck at the same time. Russia expanding into the Middle East and into northern Africa while the US started working south through Central America and through Panama. The European Union struggled to maintain itself as factions within it began to fight.
By a month in, the world was well below freezing, agriculture was as good as forgotten, and there were only three countries and the EU left standing. The population of the Earth had dropped by almost half, some from war, many from starvation, more from the cold. The poor were the first to die, including in the now expansive superpowers. As starvation drove the poor to violence they were gladly cut down by the wealthy with the power… fewer mouths to feed. Fewer lungs to fill. When the immediate fear of the cold passed, and those who survived had enough fuel to keep warm, and the danger of starvation passed, stockpiles enough to last for years were secured, the question of oxygen arose.
By a month in, the world was well below freezing, agriculture was as good as forgotten, and there were only three countries and the EU left standing. The population of the Earth had dropped by almost half, some from war, many from starvation, more from the cold. The poor were the first to die, including in the now expansive superpowers. As starvation drove the poor to violence they were gladly cut down by the wealthy with the power… fewer mouths to feed. Fewer lungs to fill. When the immediate fear of the cold passed, and those who survived had enough fuel to keep warm, and the danger of starvation passed, stockpiles enough to last for years were secured, the question of oxygen arose.
Without plantlife refreshing the air, it had begun to grow stagnant. The question became how long there would be breathable air. With all the population that had been lost, and all of the animal life that had been killed by the cold, things looked favorable for those still alive. There was hundreds of years of oxygen left for them in the atmosphere. But the Earth was still getting colder, what remained of humanity would need to leave the surface where the atmosphere was plentiful, and move underground, or underwater where they could use geothermal heat to keep civilization alive.
It was more than a decade after Black Friday when the surviving 200,000,000 humans seemed to escape uncertainty. The stars in the sky had started to vanish by then, just a few here and there. Those that were close, they all had vanished at the same time as our sun, but the last photons of light they sent our way were just reaching us. For ten years it had been eternal night, the moon only visible as a huge dark circle in the sky blocking out the stars. But somehow, humanity had survived. They moved into the seas, under the mile thick ice sheet that covered the world’s oceans. They brought with them the last plants, kept going by lights powered by electricity. Fission reactors to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen, providing all the fuel they needed, and all the oxygen. Humanity persisted in fleets of submarines floating through a dark ocean, as the Earth itself, a ball of ice, went hurtling through the void of space, every day fewer stars shone on it as the last of their light struck the surface. Spaceship earth had no destination, but humanity’s journey was not yet over.
No comments:
Post a Comment