7 ms·

I wonder if there are any sci-fi books with a doomed planet along these lines. Pick up 10 years before the planet gets destroyed. People of the past lived with

I wonder if there are any sci-fi books with a doomed planet along these lines. Pick up 10 years before the planet gets destroyed. People of the past lived with the futility of trying to escape, doing almost nothing, and now people are desperate and taking insane scientific risks to try to save the species.

paul_f 6y ago
Neal Stephenson's Seveneves is a great read kinda along these lines.
- abecedarius 6y ago
  Seconded. There's a trilogy starting with The Last Policeman with a similar scenario: kilometer-scale asteroid projected to hit in about a year. To a first approximation everyone just says "Well, fuck, guess we're going to die." Thinking about the ways that seemed unrealistic and how I thought it would go instead, Seveneves turned out a lot more like it (though with exciting-story elements injected, and also in Seveneves they're starting from maybe a decade ahead of us in space tech). (The Last Policeman is still interesting in other ways.) Egan's Diaspora is another good match, with an astrophysical cataclysm instead of a merely planetary one. It happens to a much more advanced future society, though.
- qubex 6y ago
  I loved Seveneves but I disagree that it provides an indication of how one would face this kind of emergency. For sure one would not venture into space if one fears an onslaught of harsh gamma-ray radiation. It’s an entirely different kind of disaster. (SPOILER: Admittedly, the underground and underwater subplots might be more applicable but... they’re side-shows at best.)
hvis 6y ago
Three Body Problem has this as one of the premises.
jandrese 6y ago
If you're talking about a massive gamma burst sterilizing life on the surface of the planet there are some continuation of the planet options with a 10 year timescale. Ark submarines full of embryos that are mass produced by a world that somehow puts aside their differences and comes together for the singular goal of saving life. Restarting the carbon cycle would require a massive effort, but with planning and lots of hard work it might be possible. The post apocalyptic world would be a strange place full of dead plants and animals that take a long time to start decaying because all of the microbiota that normally cause decay were also killed off. It would be interesting to see how fast they would spread afterward. It would give humanity a small buffer before they start releasing gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere at least. It really depends on how well the oceans survive. If algae can come back reasonably quick the planet can be saved.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  I don’t think there would be much in the way of dead plants and animals lying around. In an oxygen atmosphere any organic material would ignite, and a sufficiently intense burst would melt anything on the surface of the crust that doesn’t burn.
- ivalm 6y ago
  I think there is also the issue that that level of gamma will mess up atmospheric chemistry. Something like N2+O2 -> dissociated N and O plasmas -> NO2 Which means the air might become not breathable.
narag 6y ago
In Ring World there is a massive burst in the galaxy center and there is a race that, instead, puts its planets in formation and moves them to the edge of the galaxy.
cgriswald 6y ago
Years ago, and it might have stolen the story from somewhere else, there was a Twilight Zone/Outer Limits/Tales from the Darkside type show and in one episode space explorers are visiting the remains of a charred planet ~2,000 light years away. They learn the star that went supernovae and that it is the star the three wise men followed to Bethlehem.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >Years ago, and it might have stolen the story from somewhere else, Yes they did. It was Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star"[0]. And it was "The Twilight Zone" (1980s version). While the TV episode was interesting, the short story itself is much better. I highly recommend it. The story was in the "The Nine Billion Names of God" collection[1]. The title story is also interesting in its religious focus. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20080718084442/http://lucis.net/stuff/clarke/star_clarke.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080718084442/http://lucis.net/... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God_(collection) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God_...
hirundo 6y ago
See the classic Larry Niven short story Inconstant Moon, collected in All the Myriad Ways.
brandmeyer 6y ago
It was the plot of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, and a pretty good one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_%28Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_%28Star_Trek:_...
sliken 6y ago
Larry Niven has a short inconstant moon where the main character looks up at the moon which brightens to 1000 times normal brightness, what that means dawns on him shortly later.
1_player 6y ago
There's Outer Wilds, a video game where you're 22 minutes away from your star going supernova. It's pretty good.

paul_f 6y ago

Neal Stephenson's Seveneves is a great read kinda along these lines.

abecedarius 6y ago
Seconded. There's a trilogy starting with The Last Policeman with a similar scenario: kilometer-scale asteroid projected to hit in about a year. To a first approximation everyone just says "Well, fuck, guess we're going to die." Thinking about the ways that seemed unrealistic and how I thought it would go instead, Seveneves turned out a lot more like it (though with exciting-story elements injected, and also in Seveneves they're starting from maybe a decade ahead of us in space tech). (The Last Policeman is still interesting in other ways.) Egan's Diaspora is another good match, with an astrophysical cataclysm instead of a merely planetary one. It happens to a much more advanced future society, though.
qubex 6y ago
I loved Seveneves but I disagree that it provides an indication of how one would face this kind of emergency. For sure one would not venture into space if one fears an onslaught of harsh gamma-ray radiation. It’s an entirely different kind of disaster. (SPOILER: Admittedly, the underground and underwater subplots might be more applicable but... they’re side-shows at best.)

hvis 6y ago

Three Body Problem has this as one of the premises.

jandrese 6y ago

If you're talking about a massive gamma burst sterilizing life on the surface of the planet there are some continuation of the planet options with a 10 year timescale. Ark submarines full of embryos that are mass produced by a world that somehow puts aside their differences and comes together for the singular goal of saving life. Restarting the carbon cycle would require a massive effort, but with planning and lots of hard work it might be possible. The post apocalyptic world would be a strange place full of dead plants and animals that take a long time to start decaying because all of the microbiota that normally cause decay were also killed off. It would be interesting to see how fast they would spread afterward. It would give humanity a small buffer before they start releasing gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere at least. It really depends on how well the oceans survive. If algae can come back reasonably quick the planet can be saved.

dodobirdlord 6y ago
I don’t think there would be much in the way of dead plants and animals lying around. In an oxygen atmosphere any organic material would ignite, and a sufficiently intense burst would melt anything on the surface of the crust that doesn’t burn.
ivalm 6y ago
I think there is also the issue that that level of gamma will mess up atmospheric chemistry. Something like N2+O2 -> dissociated N and O plasmas -> NO2 Which means the air might become not breathable.

narag 6y ago

In Ring World there is a massive burst in the galaxy center and there is a race that, instead, puts its planets in formation and moves them to the edge of the galaxy.

cgriswald 6y ago

Years ago, and it might have stolen the story from somewhere else, there was a Twilight Zone/Outer Limits/Tales from the Darkside type show and in one episode space explorers are visiting the remains of a charred planet ~2,000 light years away. They learn the star that went supernovae and that it is the star the three wise men followed to Bethlehem.

nobody9999 6y ago
>Years ago, and it might have stolen the story from somewhere else, Yes they did. It was Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star"[0]. And it was "The Twilight Zone" (1980s version). While the TV episode was interesting, the short story itself is much better. I highly recommend it. The story was in the "The Nine Billion Names of God" collection[1]. The title story is also interesting in its religious focus. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20080718084442/http://lucis.net/stuff/clarke/star_clarke.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080718084442/http://lucis.net/... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God_(collection) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God_...

hirundo 6y ago

See the classic Larry Niven short story Inconstant Moon, collected in All the Myriad Ways.

brandmeyer 6y ago

It was the plot of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, and a pretty good one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_%28Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_%28Star_Trek:_...

sliken 6y ago

Larry Niven has a short inconstant moon where the main character looks up at the moon which brightens to 1000 times normal brightness, what that means dawns on him shortly later.

1_player 6y ago

There's Outer Wilds, a video game where you're 22 minutes away from your star going supernova. It's pretty good.