• What if the Earth's rotation was knocked on it's side by a solar flare? A novel idea.
    123 replies, posted
Excuse the bad pun in the title. I'll be writing a novel or two based off this idea I thought of the other day. Basically, the premise is: What if the Earth's rotation was knocked on it's side by a solar flare? Scientific improbabilities aside, what would the political, socioeconomic, and environmental implications be if large solar flare (or some suitably catastrophic event) managed to change the Earth's orbit and/or rotation, so that the northern hemisphere would directly face the sun while the southern hemisphere was left eternally in the dark? One of the themes of my book would be dependency (on people, on luck, on China to make our Happy Meals etc), and industrial civilization prior to the flare would be full of them. Firstly, my idea is that this world would perhaps be in the year 2030, not near the Singularity but still be sufficiently advanced enough as to have room for gadgetry to be a part of us in a Deus Ex-y, William Gibson cyberpunk sort of way. Computers and communications would be heavily ingrained into our way of life even more so than they are now. Secondly, urbanization continuing how it is, North America, Europe, Russia and China are quickly running out of usable land to grow food on. Lastly, I'd imagine that even with the fast tracking development of third world countries, we'd eventually come to be dependent on their land in order to grow food, because even though much of the land isn't necessarily arable, it's unused and fresh for a privatization picking, and growing crops would be the primary business in a vastly food short globe. Also, most of these countries are in the Southern Hemisphere, like Brazil, or, say, Egypt. ----- So now that the sort of economic climate is established (in what I hope is a believable manner), what would the world be like post-flare? A southern hemisphere suddenly stuck in the dark would be disasturous. No sun means no photosynthesis. No photosynthesis means no food. In this world, no food coming from the South means not only a global economic crash but worldwide starvation. Land would freeze over and become permafrosted waste. Millions would be out of work. Criminals would run amok in their natural environment, turning the South of the world into anarchy. The North fares no better. Although it has a large amount of advanced industrial technology, the flare may have an EMP of some sort that atrociously knocks out that part of the world. However, the world's greatest superpowers reside on those upper continents, and I'd imagine what and who still works would emerge as one large, dystopic society in order to survive, to calm down massive riots, to survive environmental pressures such as the Arctic melting and raising sea levels, and to put the world back in check. This sort of society is possible in contrast to the South due to the fact people can be monitored via the gadgets they use and the information they store on them, the left over technology, and the reason that they still, in a matter of fact, have the sun. ----- So here we are with two heavily contrasting new civilizations, one that's in the dark and one that's in the light, one that's total anarchy and one that's dystopia. It's a theme of dichotomy that I hope to play on. Along the equator where the darkside and sunside meet in a slightly twilight state, there is an underground traffic of people who want to switch the sides they're on (criminals and rebels would want to escape to the darkside, while innocents, however deluded, would want to seek refuge in the sun), which encourages the efforts of the dystopia to strengthen in order to keep order. Places such as Central America, or that thin area between Morocco and Spain, became walled checkpoints, which didn't deter the refugee's efforts anyhow, resulting in bloody patrols and massacres. The book I want to write would focus on the story of a man from Sunside who is looking for his wife who is trapped on the Darkside. Either that, or a person trying to get from Darkside to Sunside, unaware of how terrible the sun really can be... ------ Anyway, I just wanted to know what you guys thought before I started developing an outline. Is there anything that should be pointed out in the backstory?
Disaster
inb4 2012
Afaik, only time zones and seasons would change.
The resulting turning moment, combined with the moon orbit and the ecliptic movement would regulate it back. Lets say that doesn't happen. The moon would drive off or fall onto us and we would all die. Lets say that doesn't happen. We'd still all die from the heat + cold.
Farewell Atlantis [editline]03:08PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Denzo;16016843]Afaik, only time zones and seasons would change.[/QUOTE] lol That's all? No, Tides, everything the moon affects, and saying "ONLY Time Zones and Seasons" is like saying "ONLY 12 billion people died!"
If it has tits and exploding jars of shrapnel then i'm interested.
[QUOTE=Take_Opal;16016854]Farewell Atlantis [editline]03:08PM[/editline] lol That's all? No, Tides, everything the moon affects, and saying "ONLY Time Zones and Seasons" is like saying "ONLY 12 billion people died!"[/QUOTE] But there's only 6.7 billion people on Earth.
Um, north pole towards the sun, pretty obvious, global sea levels will rise dramatically, kill a load of people, remaining countries will war with each other over lack of space, etc.
Every good story needs exploding jars of shrapnel.
[QUOTE=Quickoatz;16016881]But there's only 6.7 billion people on Earth.[/QUOTE] That's the point
[QUOTE=ThePunisher1;16016885]Um, north pole towards the sun, pretty obvious, global sea levels will rise dramatically, kill a load of people, remaining countries will war with each other over lack of space, etc.[/QUOTE] But maybe the freezing at the south pole will counteract the melting at the north by locking up more water.
[QUOTE=Yannick;16016891]Every good story needs exploding jars of shrapnel.[/QUOTE] And car chaces.
We would all probably die. If the change in rotation happened as fast as you said the forces generated would crumble everything.
I don't know about you, but being in Israel, I'd enjoy my eternal beautiful dawn. Edit: Wait, shit, it won't be dawn it'd be an eternal 9 o'clock.. Which just happens to be my happy hour.
[QUOTE=ThePunisher1;16016885]Um, north pole towards the sun, pretty obvious, global sea levels will rise dramatically, kill a load of people, remaining countries will war with each other over lack of space, etc.[/QUOTE] hurf durf i guess the water in the southern hemisphere wouldnt freeze over then You oversimplify things. Besides, I don't think a solar flare could knock earth on its side.
[QUOTE=Angua;16016917]And car chaces.[/QUOTE] You can't really do car chases in books, can you? "HE DROVE REALLY FAST" doesn't feel like the movies.
[QUOTE=Denzo;16016843]Afaik, only time zones and seasons would change.[/QUOTE] failtroll
Aliens would make "Your anus" jokes about earth.
[QUOTE=Angua;16016917]And car chaces.[/QUOTE] With tits. Actually scratch the car, we need tit chases. Actually scratch the chase. We need tits.
I already told you what would happen you loon
It's not just a scientific improbability, it's a scientific impossibility. Solar flares do not have anywhere close to the amount of energy required to change earth's axial tilt. But let's play along. Sol has released a solar flare that will change the earth's tilt another 67 degrees. Every living thing on this planet would be destroyed by the radiation. You could really go somewhere with the effects, but you need to think of a better way to substantially tilt the earth without killing everything on it.
RetaDepa isn't funny.
He said scienctific improbabilities aside guys, why do you have to be dicks?
[QUOTE=mrkaki;16017007]He said scienctific improbabilities aside guys, why do you have to be dicks?[/QUOTE] Because we can. :smug:
We'd be in a little bit of a pickle now wouldn't we.
Well, to be honest, I think your idea on how it would happen is more than a little far fetched, but the actually story bit doesn't sound bad at all. I think you should find a more suitable reason for how it happened.
[QUOTE=Take_Opal;16016854]Farewell Atlantis [editline]03:08PM[/editline] lol That's all? No, Tides, everything the moon affects, and saying "ONLY Time Zones and Seasons" is like saying "ONLY 12 billion people died!"[/QUOTE] You make it seem like we wouldn't get on with things and just alter clocks and calendars.
[QUOTE=ryandaniels;16017086]Well, to be honest, I think your idea on how it would happen is more than a little far fetched, but the actually story bit doesn't sound bad at all. I think you should find a more suitable reason for how it happened.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I know. Any thoughts? If the moon went drastically out of orbit somehow, maybe the gravitational forces would sway the Earth into a different facing... An asteroid crashing into the planet would definitely fuck with the orbit, but humanity would still have to be sufficiently alive somehow. An asteroid smashing into the moon, perhaps? You'd end up with a rock shower situation as well ala Cowboy Bebop.
[QUOTE=ThePunisher1;16016885]Um, north pole towards the sun, pretty obvious, global sea levels will rise dramatically, kill a load of people, remaining countries will war with each other over lack of space, etc.[/QUOTE] Sea levels wouldn't rise that much because the ice at the north pole is floating in water, it's already displaced all that it can. The south pole is the one with the ice on land. If it keeps the current rotation, but it's just rotated 90 degrees (so it still rotates around the poles, but the north pole now faces the sun) there would be fairly interesting climate effects, the north pole would be equatorial all year round, the closer you get to the current equator the colder it would get, and the dark side would have no sunlight what so ever at any time, and would get much colder (half our planet would be covered in ice, the other half would be hot) Pretty much the entire southern hemisphere would have to migrate to the northern hemisphere, which would cause many issues over resources and land (where do you store these people?). Edit: And it would take a hell of a lot of energy to change our orbit in such a way, probably so much so that a more likely situation would be the Earth just being destroyed. A Q like alien race dicking around with us for fun would make more sense :v:
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