Mr Ask

Could a low-frequency EMP like a strong solar flare reach the bottom of the ocean where Internet cables would be laying? A specific scenario being that a large EMP reaches underwater Internet cables and fries Internet-related systems in Japan and America. And since that sounds like an oddly specific scenario I should mention again that this is for a sci-fi story. If large EMP’s can reach those cables, I am guessing that they would have to be laid wrapped in a flexible Faraday cage, and there would be frequent disruptions as sharks nibble at the cages (as they are known to do frequently with our cables now). Mr. Ask

The first strike is something like that, but the following EMP’s are not as strong and are separated by 3-4 hours. So in my story we are not just recovering from a single event. Events are a daily part of life. Mr. Ask

As mentioned before, I am working on a sci-fi project and in my fictional world the earth is being hit by repeated EMP’s, one every few hours. But these are not EMP attacks—they aren’t designed to target electronics by covering a wide range of frequencies, they are like solar flares and just cover a lower set of EMP frequencies. I am trying to design how the world will have changed to live under these conditions. As an example, electric and communication lines will have moved underground, with communication access points poking above ground here-and-there. They are covered in Faraday cages that block low-frequency pulses but allow high-frequency signals through, so you can access them with your cell phones. Cell phones are also mostly susceptible to higher frequencies and are not bothered by the repeated bursts. I would like to gather other ideas for how things would work. Common forms of protections around generators, etc., and especially how street lights, traffic signals, and other outdoor electronics would work. Also ideas for safety measures that would commonly be built into all structures. If you took an ax to the Faraday cage around a communication access point, the next EMP would travel down the cables to the source and cause destruction. It should be protected externally by some structure, but also have the ability to detect the surge and disconnect that wire before the full pulse does any damage. I am guessing lots of large structures such as elevators will have plenty of components separated with rubber, but how can a large generator for powering such a thing be encased in a Faraday cage yet be able to control things outside of the cage? For it to attach to large rods the Faraday cage will have to have sizable holes in it. These are the kinds of details I would like to flesh out, and especially right now for things such as traffic signals, outdoor digital clocks, street lights, etc. Mr. Ask

That’s quite a story. There may be bits I can use, but an important aspect of the series I am creating is that the enemy is fate, rather than military, terrorists, etc. Of course terrorists, military, etc., all exist during the story and existed 70 years prior (during the time of this moon explosion), but these will be background elements at most, and I am currently considering that mankind is not at a point of private space exploration—everyone on the moon will be heavily tested and trained astronauts as we think of them today (working pretty well with each other, responsible, etc.) I want to break free of a few tropes with this series and its follower. For the majority of both series, the villain is fate. Women don’t trip when running away, no one walks down a dark alley after being told of danger, etc. People make intelligent decisions throughout, but fate always catches up to them. The explosion has to be accidental, but I can shift some ideas around so that their best efforts may accidentally make things worse (barely missing the timing, lack of communication with other bases, etc.) I’ll think about the slice. But I don’t see a plausible way to keep it in place suspended away from the moon. It would have to be propelled exactly so, and it is significantly more likely to float away, fall to Earth, or fall back onto the moon (which may be fine for my story). Mr. Ask

The blast will not cause auroras, they will be the result of the following EMP bursts (properties similar to a solar flare, but other forms of energy mixed in too) sent to Earth every few hours. I expect that the auroras will linger for a bit after bursts rather than immediately disappear. I will look into the book, imatfaal. Mr. Ask

This helps a lot. I think I can work with several parts here. As for the moon explosion, I tend to think that most moon rocks would fall into orbit and most that fell to Earth would evaporate. Only a few chunks would do damage. And I have control over how much damage there would be by picking the site of the explosion. There would be no damage at all if it were on the far side of the moon for example. But I am leaning towards a point facing Earth because it would create a cavity that would direct the following energy (and EMP) bursts directly towards Earth. But that means the blast pushes the moon away from Earth rather than just adding spin, etc. Decreasing the size of the blast is an option, but I do want a changed sky in my story. A misshapen moon, a ring forming around Earth, and very frequent Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis. Mr. Ask

Thank you for the input. There are things to consider there. I've been planning that the end of the series comes by them finally getting to the moon, with the EMP bursts being the main obstacle, but EMP bursts powerful enough to go from the moon to Earth seem unrealistic. I may instead have to make the obstacle related to all that debris. I have been doing my own research into EMP's as well, and am happy to find out that I think my general impression of the civilization should mostly be accurate. I want cell phones to work, but larger devices not to, for example. EMP's come in different frequencies, and cell phones may be subject to disruption from higher frequencies, but solar flares and the types of frequencies I plan to use from the moon will be lower. So I shouldn't need Faraday cages around phones etc., just around power supplies and certain types of equipment. (Someone let me know if I am completely off here.) I also understand that only about 15% of big trucks in America (though my story takes place mainly in Japan) would stall, some with permanent damage, 70% would experience some other anomalies, but mostly would keep working. I'm wondering if anyone has any informed ideas as to how civilization may have to adapt to constant EMP attacks (let's say of low frequencies). Phones may work, but how will the network have to be shielded? Perhaps the lines will be moved underground with shielded access points that poke above ground. How deep must something be buried to be free of the EMP influence? Mr. Ask

You reminded me of the 11-year cycle. That may play an important role in picking the year of the story. Thank you for that. Mr. Ask

Keeping things simple, are you trying to say that any pulse at all will either do all or nothing? It should be a gradient. Strong pulses can permanently fry equipment, weak pulses temporarily disable them, and weaker pulses can just mess with them. This person makes an EMP that requires no explosion and does not fry the iPhone (the first phone might have been fried but the iPhone turns on again): http://hackaday.com/2016/10/12/become-very-unpopular-very-fast-with-this-diy-emp-generator/ This follows closely with what I am planning. The pulses from the moon are a result of built-up pressure which, when discharged, creates a strong EMP at the source which is fairly weak by the time it hits Earth. There may be pockets of stronger pulses getting through, so larger unprotected equipment will eventually become disabled. Any unprotected long-distance digital signals will never be reliable, so underwater Internet cables have to be laid again with shielding. Handheld devices such as phones will have disruptions similar to in the video before the device died. Screen distortions, but remaining functional. Possibly corrupt data or system states requiring rebooting. I'm looking for plausible ways to scale this up, what's possible, what is impossible, and how civilization may have changed as a result. As for lunar rocks, I am expecting that much of the debris goes into orbit and evaporates when falling into our atmosphere, with only some chunks actually doing damage on the surface, but that will be another topic for another sub-forum. Mr. Ask

This is a sister to my first topic: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/108036-moon-explosion-and-radiation-for-sci-fi-book/ In my story, a major explosion sets humanity back in technology, and there is a major explosion on the moon. It could be the moon explosion that generated an EMP, or it could be a major solar flare that generated the EMP on earth and also caused the moon explosion. I'd prefer to have it all caused by the moon explosion (NEMP). If the explosion has to be nuclear, that fits my current idea as to why it happened at all. But here I want to ask another question. For my story it is important that the EMP bursts continue several times each day, providing a major technological hurdle for mankind, but I also need (crucially) some electronics to work, and I am having trouble squaring this hole. #1: I am planning to say that the EMP bursts don't necessarily fry all electronics (aside from the first major one), but more complex machines with more circuits are more likely to encounter failures. So cell phones and computers will mostly be fine, but electric cars and (importantly) space shuttles will not. How plausible is this scenario? Is there a "magnitude" of EMP bursts that just causes interference rather than full shut-down, or should I instead find an alternate explanation such as, "The larger they are, the more likely a part of them gets hit"? Or if EMP's travel through the ground, would phones be safe as long as the person is wearing rubber boots or such? And cars could be fine if their tires are designed properly? I'm not really sure of the physics behind EMP's. They travel through the ground, but they would still zap a space shuttle in space coming close to the source on the moon, right? #2: The EMP aftershocks are coming from the moon. If there is a magnitude of bursts that does what I want by the time it reaches Earth, how large would it have been at the source on the moon? Things will definitely fry close to the moon, which is why a space shuttle to go there and fix the problem is impossible. #3: The first explosion takes a gigantic chunk out of the moon (between 20 and 25%), so an NEMP suits that situation fine, but the following aftershocks will continue for hundreds of years and can't be violently destroying the moon each time. Violent aftershocks would also destroy the source of the aftershocks. So I need the following EMP bursts to be strong enough to hit Earth from the moon, but not generated through violent reactions such as nuclear explosions. Is this possible? How can I set up repeated EMP bursts strong enough to reach Earth but not trough violent explosions? #4: This question may be fun to answer as you can use your imaginations. My story takes place around 70 years after the initial explosion (the sequel will revolve around the events of the explosion), which happens around the year 2110. After the initial NEMP sets humanity back and continues to send smaller EMP aftershocks daily, what are your ideas for how humanity has dealt with this during the next 70 years? Here are a few of my example ideas: - A: Some elevators have been restored with shielding. - B: Satellites have all been destroyed and there is no way to put any back up, and the previous underwater cables connecting countries today aren't shielded. Communications have only been restored between a few countries (Japan and America as one example) by laying down new cables with shielding. - C: Rubber boots designed to prevent pulses from traveling through the ground up into people? - D: Cars tend not to fry people when hit by lightning do to their tires. Any changes needed to protect from EMP bursts? - E: Are my ideas stupid? How would daily global EMP attacks change our world over 70 years? Changes to the home, changes to attire, changes to anything. Thank you, Mr. Ask [NOTE: I had just read about EMP's traveling along the ground, but I had never heard that before and wasn't originally thinking that way. I am fairly sure they do not.]

M31 is the Andromeda galaxy. It's the part about alien races that polled poorly, so regardless of the place aliens are out. One non-religious person said he would prefer an act of god over alien races. I will post a few sister topics to this one in other sub-forums. Mr. Ask

I come from a background in video games. I've been a video-game programmer for over 14 years and was a senior graphics programmer on Final Fantasy XV. I'm a bit tired of programming and this is my beginning into a more creative line of work. But I can't pretend I am not a technical person and it is that part of me that prefers to have all the details fleshed out and solid. Although you are thinking of one side pointing away from earth (as someone pointed out), near the poles we would expect very long nights or days, and there are regions that are permanently dark as it's noted here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_outpost_(NASA)#Reference_architecture So it can still work. The permanently dark areas have been conjectured for a long time to be the best places to find water (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_water), making it that much more reasonable. I originally set this story on another planet in the M31 galaxy with the "ability" people being an alien race and passed that story off to a few people for a temperature reading, and it was universally cold. The less the story relies on "just make up whatever you want" the better it polls. I agree with this mentality since I appreciate scientifically accurate movies and little details such as explosions not making noise in space (and I am conversely bothered by explosions that do make noises in space). We can still burn from UV radiation and direct hits by solar flares still get through our magnetic field. This moon explosion is intense enough to remove a large portion of the moon (20% or so). It looks from earth as if it has had a bite taken out of it. If we can define the cocktail of energy it released, it should be strong enough to have an impact on people on earth, and again this may be a time of magnetic flux for the earth too (the poles are expected to flip soon). In any case, I appreciate the input. Keep it coming. Mr. Ask

I am working on a sci-fi book revolving around an impossible human ability (think "the force") and would like to create an as-plausible-as-possible explanation for it. Godzilla can't actually exist, but still we have a background story involving nuclear bombs and radiation. Hopefully this will be a fun way for you to flex your scientific knowledge, as there isn't necessarily a single correct answer, as long as the end result is a good solid detailed way of getting to the situation in my story's plot. The easiest way to ask what I need to know is probably to outline my skeleton story with some variables (X, Y, Z, etc.) that I would want the more scientifically in-the-know people to fill in. In my skeleton story taking place X years into the future, a moon base has been established primarily for Y. A cataclysmic explosion takes a chunk out of the moon and showers Earth with Z, a cocktail of radiation that primarily kills off the people heavily exposed to it via cancer, but their children and their children's children start to gain this purely fantasy-based ability. But they can only use this ability when exposed to W, which is given off several times each day by aftershocks from the moon base (the sister base on the other side of the moon still somewhat functions and automatically feeds materials to the destroyed site, which leak, build up, improperly mix with chemicals from the destroyed site, and non-violently give off bursts of W which shower the earth). The moon base is important because the aftershocks of W need to continue happening so that ~50% of the population can use this ability briefly a few times each day and night, so the source needs to be something that follows Earth through space. The series ends when they are finally able to get back onto the moon and shut down the sister base. Another important point is that the moon explosion also destroys tons of electronics on Earth, so either the explosion itself created a strong electromagnetic pulse or a strong solar flare may have caused the explosion and also destroyed electronics on Earth. I am fine with working a magnetic shift in Earth's poles into the story, but if so I will have more questions to follow regarding how it would impact humans after being set back by the initial explosion. As for the variables, I will explain my initial naive ideas and then hope someone can fill in holes etc. X: Enough years into the future that we have made a moon base which I expect to be used for refueling and research. I'm thinking around ~2100 is a safe bet. Y: I expect it to be for refueling and research. In my vision I see a small group of scientists and engineers at each base, one on opposite sides of the moon. In helping me define Y, the purpose of the moon bases may also impact their locations on the moon. I'm currently expecting them to be near the poles. The purpose of the moon bases needs to lend itself to catastrophic explosions and is tied to Z. Maybe they just installed a nuclear power source? Help me fill this in. Z: People need to get exposed to something that kills them of cancer but not everyone. I need a way to say that only about half of the population got hit. If we say that it was the half facing the moon, then I need a type of radiation that won't pass all the way through Earth (blocked by the iron core?). Or I need a way to explain why pockets of people were protected, such as by being under city domes (in that case then I also need to explain the dome material and the X year will have to increase). At the same time, electronics are fried. If this is because of the explosion, I would need an example of what happened to cause the explosion and what was in the explosion to create an EMP. Or it could be that a solar flare caused both the explosion and the world-wide EMP. In either case I would also need to know how much earth's magnetic field would get in the way of this, so I can make it in flux at the time (in the process of reversing or etc.) This would later lead to questions about the impact on daily lives of this, but that will be another post for later. W: Lots of ways to be creative here. The functional moon base still automatically pumps chemicals to the other base even though it is gone. We have a build-up of something that releases a shockwave of something that hits earth and temporarily triggers this special ability in humans. Then it builds up again and repeats a few times per 24 hours. Help me out here. Since this is the thing that triggers the fantasy ability, we're bordering the sci-fi line here. I would appreciate any help filling in these points. If I did it on my own I'm sure I would later get ripped upon scrutiny for "using chemicals that wouldn't actually react that way" etc. And this does need to be detailed too, since the 2nd series takes place during these events. Regards, Mr. Ask