Sci-Fi Shenanigans

Sci-Fi Writing Topics: CME

For those of you who haven't figured it out, I'm on a quest to cut movies completely out of my life. So while there will still be movie reviews in here, they will start to slide off as 2012 rolls on. So what will take its place? I've decided to go with science topics that would make for interesting stories but could also pose many logistical challenges. The first topic up for discussion? Coronal mass ejections.

Coronal mass ejections (CME) are part of a star's life, and they appear to come in fairly regular cycles. That's good news for us when you consider what magnetized plasma can do to a planet. Now on uninhabited planet a CME will disrupt surface magnetic activity, but the planet itself will stay in tact. Earth, though, is a completely different story, as seen in this fantastic Popular Mechanics article  . If an area loses complete control of its power grid, it's pretty much game over from there. And think of all the people who depend on GPS units to get around. Boy, would they be screwed. That's actually kind of funny.

All kidding, though, CME's are serious business. They're also serious candidates for becoming fodder for sci-fi stories. In fact, there are a fair number out there, although very few are even remotely popular. I actually received my first exposure to them through Daria fanfiction. The Daylight series   depicts the (mis)adventures of the characters of this MTV classic as they weather the aftermath of a CME that came without any warning. The various stories depict how people get around; what they do for food; and how they protect themselves from other humans (who are the still the top predator in light of this madness). The breakdown of civilization is intriguing to develop from a writing perspective, as it takes creativity and unorthodox thinking to figure out how to survive without electricity. This is especially true in today's society. As the Popular Mechanics article shows, CME's that blasted Earth with great intensity in the past did not have as significant an impact on civilization due to the reduced amount of electricity use. Present day Earth would collapse in many parts of the world. Only the most remote areas would escape the most immediate effects. They could still experience the effects of air quality degradation brought about by fires that can't be extinguished due to water pumps that are non-functional without electricity. With both immediate and long term effects that are so devastating, though, it is questionable of anyone surviving for an extended period of time.

The other challenge with writing about CME is how you want to tackle it. There are a number of angles that could be taken with it, all of them ripe for investigation. Unlike the 20th Century's nuclear annihilation trend in sci-fi, CME's are a little easier to explore from a political standpoint (namely contemplating how to get different governments to prepare for them). This would involve a ton of research in various fields from electrical engineering to comparative politics. If you go with the social meltdown angle, you have to look into how quickly things would break down, covering a wide range of topics from telecommunications to emergency services and basic plumbing. The Daylight series suggests that a lack of electricity would lead to a huge spread of disease if everything went to crap. If that ends up being an element in a CME story, it could possibly take over and make the story more about the outbreak than the CME. And if you're really up for a challenge, you could always try your hand at writing about the effects of a CME in Somalia. THAT would be both interesting and very research intensive. On top of that, developing characters to be able to really depict the changes in Somalia would be a tall order. Since so little is known about Somalis, character development could go very wrong very quickly.

Until I get the guts to try my hand at a CME story, though, I might check out Ron Foster's Preppers books  . They strike me as rather fascinating and have gotten decent reviews.