Electrical power is the power behind our society, and the relative calm created by our veneer of civilization. But when that power goes, so does that veneer. Let’s try a little experiment, and see what happens…
At last, I have a pencil so I can scribble some kinda record of this fuckshow. Ahead of me are huge mountains towering above a chalky green channel of the sea. Selena thinks there used to be waterfalls. It is pretty, I’ll grant her that. She and Claudia are trying to be optimistic, but it’s hard on them. If it was just me, I’d’ve stayed home, had a shot of whiskey, and waited for the end. Instead, we’re in the middle of nowhere.
In all honesty, I’m surprised we made it this far. People are lunatics now. It’s like there being no power means all bets are off, and you’re likely to get shanked over canned food. Things were bad enough with the economy, but then the whole world suddenly lost all electricity, and everything—I mean EVERYTHING—went to shit.
I hope to God that by the time someone reads this, everything’s fine again. The worst part is there’s no internet, no phones, and no computers, so nobody knows what the hell’s going on. When this all started, rumors went around that we’d run out of fossil fuels or that foreigners had cut our power, but Selena noticed that even batteries and solar cells don’t work. Kinda blows when your own kid has to point stuff out to you, but she’s smart for a teenager. So something else is happening with the power.
Come to think of it, something spooky happened in the beginning. The sky was glowing at night, sort of a greenish yellow haze. Claudia hoped it meant the blackout was only in Harrisburg, and the lights from Philly or Allentown were bouncing off the clouds. Who the hell knows what it was—a fire a ways off, aliens—the point was, the power wasn’t coming back. Selena painted a picture of the weird glow, but we must’ve lost it somewhere along the way.
Harrisburg went belly up within a week. No banks. No fuel pumps. No one could work anymore as there’re no payment systems other than whatever cash people had. But what does cash mean anymore? When people busted into the supermarkets, Claudia said it served bankers right for sky-high inflation. But then, asshats started looting homes or outright taking them over. Gangs demanded high trade for medicine left at the pharmacy. When people started killing each other over territory, I knew it was time to get out.
Claudia’s parents had this place way the hell up north, so we decided to go. Cars don’t work, so we’ve had no choice but to walk. People say we’re crazy for going north, since there’s no such thing as electric heaters anymore, but the number one danger is other nutjobs out there, which is realistically everyone nowadays.
For two years, we’ve been hoofing across the continent, never in one place for more than a couple days because of the jackals. The cities, we try to go around because they’re always overrun with gangs. Anyway, now we know what life was like before sunscreen and deodorant and toothpaste and mosquito spray, because you can’t get that shit anymore. So our skin is always cracked, and even after gargling scalding water, my tongue can feel fuzz coating my teeth. And for months, the mosquitoes were making me lose my mind. I wanted to detonate a mega-nuke just to fry the bastards.
Around Centerville, we met this guy Rhys who had a bunch of horses. People begged to trade for the horses, since without cars, even ten miles is a big journey, but they didn’t know how to take care of horses, much less ride one. Claudia liked a tan one with black eyelashes, but we didn’t have anything to trade, and wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a horse anyway. Some asshat stole one of them. It was a little chocolatey one that folks think bucked for its life. After that, Rhys always kept a gun.
He said he was thinking of restarting the old Pony Express because people might write letters again, now that there’re no phones or social media. As Rhys was taking his horses to a field, a few low-life fuckers cornered him and shot him, and took off with all the horses. One of the horses turned up dead and butchered.
This is what we get for having cars with electricity, including regular car batteries. One of those old steam-powered cars would be so awesome right now. Instead, we’ve crawled along the highways in the blazing heat and freezing nights. We’re always looking for firewood and food, but all that’s disappearing in a frenzy. People have offered to carry stuff in exchange for food. After many weeks of hauling a heavy load, a smiling guy who promises not to harass your wife and daughter seems good. But the next morning, the kid, fucking Christoph, had run off with the pack he carried.
Now, I’m staring at these dumb mountains. I was telling Selena there are bears up there, but she says they’re extinct. To get here, we found a boat to paddle up the coast, and then saw all these nutjobs living in weird little houses. It turns out squatters are in Claudia’s folks’ place, and getting them out is not gonna happen. I’ve almost wanted to set fire to the place to drive them away, but we’ve settled on living with them: Mike and Liz and their adult son. They keep looking at us with some kind of plan in their eyes. How long until we get knifed in the night? And some mob always has control of the town and demands payments of firewood and supplies. I can’t keep track of who’s in charge, as some new asshole keeps taking over, thinking he’s Soapy Smith.
We might need to leave before winter if things keep up like this. If we could get a boat again, we could go to somewhere warmer. At night, with the three of us in one room, I test the waters with Claudia, who’s not too keen on leaving her parents’ place to the jackals. I get that. But we could head down to Haida Gwaii or even further. For now, I’m keeping an eye on the season. There’s no way to know the date for sure, but this is the second summer of dealing with all this, so it must be 2065. And around two weeks ago seemed like the longest day of the year—18 hours and 40 minutes by the grandfather clock here, the only clock I’ve seen that works—so we’re probably a week into July.
—Boris Fernandez
Skagway, Alaska
July 7th, 2065
****************INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANISATION***************
* अंतरिक्ष विभाग इसरो *
*************INQUIRY OF ELECTROMAGNETIC INTERFERENCE************
Commissioned by Parliament of the Interim Government of India/ भारत सरकार
Executive Summary
This study commemorates the resurrection of India’s government agencies after a shutdown lasting 25 years, having faced major restructuring efforts in the wake of anarchy like all other nations. Three years ago, the reformed ISRO/ इसरो was tasked by the Interim Government of India to conduct an inquiry into the global electrical blackout that precipitated societal collapse, done in collaboration with other members of the reinstituted United Nations.
Data recovered from several spacecraft, including the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), indicate that the source of the disruption was a massive solar storm in August 2063, which occurred in the solar maximum of Solar Cycle 28. These spacecraft documented 240 sunspots during the maximum, and found evidence of irradiance increasing by 0.1%, followed by a coronal mass ejection. Although ground-based observatories became inoperable, data salvaged from the Nobeyama Radioheliograph and the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope recorded an X-class solar flare corresponding to the increased irradiance.
Earth’s magnetic field is generated by electrical convection in its outer core with a dipole oriented with the geographic poles (a magnetic deviation of 11.3° from the axial poles). The resulting magnetosphere, ranging thousands of kilometers away from the planet, normally protects the planet from solar wind. Its horizontal intensity varies across Earth’s surface. In parts of South America, South Africa, and Hawaii, the strength is ~0.3 Gauss, whereas in Canada, Siberia, and southern Australia, the strength is ~0.6 Gauss. It is compressed on the side of the Earth facing the sun. The strong magnetic field released by a coronal mass ejection, however, interferes with Earth’s magnetosphere, leading to a geomagnetic storm.
Observations of aurora visible from Pennsylvania, Indonesia, and Ecuador support the hypothesis of a geomagnetic storm causing the 3-year global disruption in electrical activity (see attached diaries). The immediate outcome was mass casualties and the dissolution of virtually every human enterprise, including nullifying most technological advancements, and the world’s digital infrastructure. The consequences have been catastrophic, with masses of displaced people, widespread anarchy, and reorganization of governments, even after the restoration of electricity.
The following report details the evidence of solar activity and overviews its ongoing impact on civilization.
Dated/ दिनांक 11.10.2094
END
