What's wrong in this picture?

[piddy3825]

Took this shot during an Aurora.  Seems that the Aurora is a lot more powerful than we previously suspected...?

 

[Shrike Arghast]

Can I just take the opportunity to say that the aurora mechanic is the silliest thing ever? I love the pretty skies, but the idea that the air would be so ionized by solar wind that it could power electrical circuits spontaneously is just... dumb. 

[ManicManiac]

@Shrike Arghast

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

 

 

[odizzido]

Some telegraph operators could continue to send and receive messages despite having disconnected their power supplies

That's quite something

[piddy3825]

1 hour ago, ManicManiac said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

 

 

very informative and a plausible explanation, indeed.

[piddy3825]

1 hour ago, odizzido said:

  Quote

Some telegraph operators could continue to send and receive messages despite having disconnected their power supplies

That's quite something

Not so surprising  considering in those days they didn't use shielded wiring so electrical conductivity thru  induction would a common occurrence.  But as far as the car's shielded electronics becoming electrified by induction via Aurora?  That's gotta be a lot of power, huh?

[ThePancakeLady]

Christine.

 

I'll just leave that here. And run like hell...

[stratvox]

9 hours ago, piddy3825 said:

Not so surprising  considering in those days they didn't use shielded wiring so electrical conductivity thru  induction would a common occurrence.  But as far as the car's shielded electronics becoming electrified by induction via Aurora?  That's gotta be a lot of power, huh?

Insulation won't do anything in this case. The only way for a seriously massive solar storm to not affect a wire would be if it was in a Faraday cage (i.e. surrounded by a net of wires that are grounded). This is because it's not about the atmosphere getting ionized; it's about the large number of charged particles and magnetic flux inducing current in long wires.

Oh, and while the 1859 event was big, it's become very clear to scientists that while it was big relative to baseline, the sun could in fact hammer the earth much harder than that one did.

In the real world, there'd be one event like that followed by centuries to millennia of calm. I sort of head canon this by having a few things happen simultaneously: magnetic pole flip greatly weakening the Earth's protection from the solar wind coupled with the Earth being hit by a CME from the sun flattening out the magnetic field even further; during the time it takes for the pole flip to complete solar events would be greatly magnified so normal solar activity such as aurorae get greatly magnified.

[Jimmy]

It's something I think deserves real kudos for the Hinterland team that their Quiet Apocalypse has such a realistic basis.

My inner biologist just cringes whenever I try to look at a zombie game from any type of realistic position. The geomagnetic event in this game, however, could well actually occur, and our society is woefully unprepared for it should it eventuate.

[ajb1978]

7 hours ago, Jimmy said:

The geomagnetic event in this game, however, could well actually occur, and our society is woefully unprepared for it should it eventuate.

Well think of how much background radiation would be required to power an elevator through induction alone.  Not to mention powering lights deep underground in abandoned mines!  I think the cold would be the least of our worries....or perhaps it would be more accurate to say we would have nothing to worry about at all, as pretty much everything except maybe a tardigrade would already be dead.

[piddy3825]

8 hours ago, stratvox said:

Insulation won't do anything in this case. The only way for a seriously massive solar storm to not affect a wire would be if it was in a Faraday cage (i.e. surrounded by a net of wires that are grounded). This is because it's not about the atmosphere getting ionized; it's about the large number of charged particles and magnetic flux inducing current in long wires.

Oh, and while the 1859 event was big, it's become very clear to scientists that while it was big relative to baseline, the sun could in fact hammer the earth much harder than that one did.

In the real world, there'd be one event like that followed by centuries to millennia of calm. I sort of head canon this by having a few things happen simultaneously: magnetic pole flip greatly weakening the Earth's protection from the solar wind coupled with the Earth being hit by a CME from the sun flattening out the magnetic field even further; during the time it takes for the pole flip to complete solar events would be greatly magnified so normal solar activity such as aurorae get greatly magnified.

ah, yes the ole Faraday Cage...  the only way to properly insulate oneself from the harms of electrostatic radiation.  

[Jimmy]

14 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Well think of how much background radiation would be required to power an elevator through induction alone.  Not to mention powering lights deep underground in abandoned mines!  I think the cold would be the least of our worries....or perhaps it would be more accurate to say we would have nothing to worry about at all, as pretty much everything except maybe a tardigrade would already be dead.

Actually, there's research on this topic if you're interested. Most of what I've read deals with high atmospheric nuclear detonation EMP rather than solar super-flares, but the net result is the same: total collapse of any infrastructure dependent on electronics, which encompasses pretty much every aspect of modern logistics. There's little risk of toxic radiation fallout with this method, since most of the gamma radiation spends itself in the E1 reaction, but that's not gonna matter much when the lights and water go off for good.

Basically, a single big nuke detonated high over Kansas, for example, could destroy almost all complex electrical equipment in North America.

Edit: See Starfish Prime and Project K for great examples of this in real life.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Jimmy

[ajb1978]

Oh yeah it doesn't take much to destroy complex electronics like microprocessors, but everything?  An EM field of such magnitude that it can power an elevator through induction alone, or knock out a diesel engine (which isn't even electronic) I should think would strip electrons off of atoms entirely, annihilating life at the biochemical level.  Remember that elevator brakes default to "on", and those brakes are designed to hold the elevator plus max occupancy...so say 1000kg just ballpark.  Imagine how powerful the field must be to be able to generate enough induction current to release the brakes on that elevator....  And the diesel engine, sure maybe knocking out the lights wouldn't be too hard, but to completely knock out a non-electronic engine?  Daaaaayuummm....

I know at some point we have to suspend disbelief, but if we're talking about an actual EM pulse capable of the total systemic breakdown of all modern technology, including those that don't require electricity, would be several orders of magnitude greater than a nuke going off over Kansas. Just saying!

[stratvox]

The sun is quite capable of making a big nuke over Kansas look like a firecracker.

ETA: read the number of amps induced in the 570 km telephone wire in the K Series article: 1500-3400 amps were measured at different points along the wire before the whole thing melted (that's what "was fused" means)... and that wasn't actually that big of a bomb. That's significantly more than enough current to move an elevator, and don't forget Winding River has wires running all along it that connect to the dam and who knows how much further after you leave the river to go to PV.

Edited August 20, 2019 by stratvox
premature enterculation

[Jimmy]

18 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Oh yeah it doesn't take much to destroy complex electronics like microprocessors, but everything?  An EM field of such magnitude that it can power an elevator through induction alone, or knock out a diesel engine (which isn't even electronic) I should think would strip electrons off of atoms entirely, annihilating life at the biochemical level.  Remember that elevator brakes default to "on", and those brakes are designed to hold the elevator plus max occupancy...so say 1000kg just ballpark.  Imagine how powerful the field must be to be able to generate enough induction current to release the brakes on that elevator....  And the diesel engine, sure maybe knocking out the lights wouldn't be too hard, but to completely knock out a non-electronic engine?  Daaaaayuummm....

I know at some point we have to suspend disbelief, but if we're talking about an actual EM pulse capable of the total systemic breakdown of all modern technology, including those that don't require electricity, would be several orders of magnitude greater than a nuke going off over Kansas. Just saying!

I think we can assume that the supply of power to the elevator in Episode 2 is a special case due to it being literally located in a power plant chock full of coiled copper wiring designed to transmit electricity. That's a great spot to leverage the power of the EM field generated by the solar flare. As for diesel engines, I personally chalk that up to Great Bear having no shipments of fuel. The Quonset buffer memories indicate that shipments from the 'up-island refinery' were infrequent.

Still, my original comment is pointed at the fact that even a single EMP event would basically destroy modern society and plunge us into a new Dark Age. It's probable more than nine out of ten people would die in the first ten years if a major disaster such as this were ever to eventuate.

Edited August 20, 2019 by Jimmy

[Guest jeffpeng]

Quite interesting discussion, really. I personally am on the doubting side, as @ajb1978 is when it comes to moving elevators, even if you take massive copper coils in the power plant's turbines into consideration. For this to work the EM field would not only have to be very strong, but also be continuously rotating aligned with the coils at somewhat the right frequency. It's probably more realistic with the power lines as @stratvox insinuated, but even then it would require a somewhat stable current to make the electronics in the elevator work and still not explain why they aren't fried in the first place. It's a bit of a stretch for me. Not saying impossible, but overwhelmingly improbable.

In the grand scheme of things I think the scenario depicted in TLD is very much realistic, including spontaneous current induction in conductive materials. Not that unconnected stray wires should electrocute you, but certainly that electric lights could spontaneously flash. Plus it seems plausible to me that animals more sensitive to magnetism than we are would react more strongly to such circumstances. Even some sort of neurochemical imbalance seems plausible if we take into consideration that the world in TLD is being exposed to a high powered EM field repeatedly and for a prolonged period of time.

But one thing I would like to keep in mind is that some amount of artistic freedom is certainly warranted. I'm happy that it isn't the dull, borderline cringy zombie trope, but actually roots in actual physics, albeit mabye not entirely scientifically accurate. And I can forgive a purely fictional game like TLD some improbable overdramatization if people can forgive overdramatization by orders of magnitude by other works that claim a certain degree of historic accuracy, such as "Chernobyl".