Sun missing

[quozaxx]

In a recent commercial, (hair commercial, I believe), 2 men show a newspaper headline that says "sun missing" and asking the lady where she put the sun.

 

So; What would your character do if the sun was missing. I mean literally one minute it's there and the next it isn't.

 

Note: It would probably take a couple of minutes for the Earth to realize the sun is missing, since light, heat, and energy from the sun takes a couple of minutes to reach us (OK, I'm not exactly sure, how long that is. I think it says it in the new Star Hero, but I don't have that book in front of me).

[McCoy]

Re: Sun missing

 

Eight minutes. Gravity stop along with the light & heat?

[Lucius]

Re: Sun missing

 

Hang a mirror

 

Lucius Alexander

 

What do we do? asks the palindromedary at one end and the other end responds simply, we die.

[Christopher]

Re: Sun missing

 

If my character has the ability, veryfy if the sun is really gone (no gravity, no non-visible spectrum energy, not just cloaked/phase shifted).

If she is really gone, hopefully a clue to how your get it back in time pops up*.

If she is gone and no clue, hope that you have a plan to at least delay the end (to come up with a plan).

Try to find a new home for earhtlings and a way to get them there fast enough.

Hope that somebody else has any of the above abilities/ideas and that you can help him.

If all that does not work, prepare for the inveitable.

 

 

*Darkness is our least worry. Without the center of gravity our solar system will literally fly apart. And the planet will quickly radiate off heat and propably be inhospitable for humans within mere days.

Seeing that the sun is missing, is just like seeing the death-star the moment it fires - you are too late to do anything - unless you can become a new sun or teleport the earth to a different system really fast.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Sun missing

 

we die.

 

Pretty much. In about a week the global average surface temperature will have dropped 40 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, the weather suddenly changes completely, meaning during that week we'd experience odd weather (with major heat sources, like cities, producing significantly more heat than the surroundings they would be expected to experience heavy winds if not full blown tornadoes).

 

Humans could survive, either under water (A thick level of surface ice would isolate the water beneath at a constant 4 C for centuries) or in well isolated habitats powered by nuclear or geothermal energy (I suppose oil plants could provide some energy in the beginning). If there is a careful and coordinated survival mission I could see nearly a hundred thousand people surviving in submarine cities (parked nuclear submarines, and other submarines drawing power from said nuclear submarines). Another couple hundred thousand could possibly survive on the surface, setting up a habitat by a nuclear power plant or a geothermal plant.

 

A martian or lunar base, coincidentally, would fair far better (as usual).

 

Captain Citadel: Would use all his corporate assets and money to save as many as possible in a surface habitat. More long term he would develop a low cost cold weather exosuit, so the colony could go out and loot resources to expand. He would provide the colony with as much of a technological advantage as he could before old age claims him (he started the campaign a retired 70 year old).

[Marcus Impudite]

Re: Sun missing

 

As McCoy pointed out, light and heat are only part of the sun's function in our system. If it were suddenly gone, Earth (and pretty much all the other planets) would careen off into space like an LA police car into a fruit stand.

 

Most of my characters would assume someone is pulling a Mr. Burns by blocking the sun's rays somehow. What to do about it depends of what sort of apparatus, spell, whatever they are using.

[Beast]

Re: Sun missing

 

My character Wraith would be the only one who could tell if the sun was being blocked or was gone

She is a gravity based mutant,that has a gravity based sense

[phoenix240]

Re: Sun missing

 

Assuming the sun is really gone...

 

Knighthawk: Die with billions of others...

 

War Toy: As a robot, she could survive the coming disaster. She's try to use her intellect to save many as possible and probably go a little mad when she couldn't save so many.

[Christopher]

Re: Sun missing

 

A martian or lunar base' date=' coincidentally, would fair far better (as usual).[/quote']

How so? I always thought at least for a moon Solar Power is the main enegry resource. And you need a lot of more tech/assistance from outside to keep everything running.

[hfergus]

Re: Sun missing

 

Olorin - "Again?" "Another Dark Lord wanna be. Now to find out what spell was cast and nullify it." - and he probably could given time. - if it was a spell. In any case, he could take many people to another dimension where this is not an issue - given time

 

Futurian - "Neat effect. How'd you guys do that? I thought you did not have the tech. ... What do you mean you don't?" - if tech - he could fix it given time.

 

The rest would go "Oh ...." and try to find out how to fix it.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Sun missing

 

In a superhero-genre game, no hero just says, "we die." Obviously some cosmic-level menace is behind the sun disappearing, so any self-respecting super immediately breaks out the super-science technobabble or mystic mumbo-jumbo to find out who took it, track him/her/it down, and kick his/her/its butt until the sun is restored.

[Christopher]

Re: Sun missing

 

In a superhero-genre game' date=' no hero just says, "we die." Obviously some cosmic-level menace is behind the sun disappearing, so any self-respecting super immediately breaks out the super-science technobabble or mystic mumbo-jumbo to find out who took it, track him/her/it down, and kick his/her/its butt until the sun is restored.[/quote']

Sometimes the planet just blows up.

It happens in comic books. Luckily it is almost always the "other" Reality that blows up, with a few desperate survivers (that escaped in the last minute) warning us of the impending doom for our world.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Sun missing

 

Well in this scenario it's the sun disappearing, not the Earth blowing up. But if it did blow up, the surviving superheroes would go back in time to prevent it.

 

There's almost never a "no-win scenario" for superheroes. It's like all comics were written by Jim Kirk.

[Christopher]

Re: Sun missing

 

Well in this scenario it's the sun disappearing, not the Earth blowing up. But if it did blow up, the surviving superheroes would go back in time to prevent it.

 

There's almost never a "no-win scenario" for superheroes. It's like all comics were written by Jim Kirk.

That's why I wrote any Comicbook Solution down I could find, before finally getting to "the heroes can't do it".

 

Of course this could all just be a Dream or a Virtual Reality "Kobajashi Maru", so I wrote down that option as well.

[Hermit]

Re: Sun missing

 

Doctor Sanguine : "Intriguing... " The mystic would head to meet with the sun gods of various pantheons to get to the cause. As he knows the avatar of Horus (a team mate) Ra and the gang might be easier to get to.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Sun missing

 

Pretty much ditto for Kurzhaan the Conqueror, though Koyash would be the sun god he'd consult for info.

 

This is one of the few scenarios where Earth Girl would be fully cooperative with groups of super heroes. Though her powers probably wouldn't be much use unless it's something like an energy-absorbing force field generated from an earthly location.

 

Super Model would either be muscle to help people who can figure out how to fix the problem or work crowd control back home.

 

Young Scratch would probably comment "sucks to be people who can't make their own heat. Or need to eat and breathe, in a few days." But ultimately he'd pitch in to help, either with a group looking for the source of the problem or one trying to find a way to keep people and crops from freezing in the meantime.

[Badger]

Re: Sun missing

 

My actual self: Celebrate......until my @$$ starts freezing (my eyes' light sensitivity has really turned me nocturnal)

[Drhoz]

Re: Sun missing

 

Well, Zero would have an advantage - one of his teammates is a portion of the Sun's soul.

 

Vitus would be annoyed at the expense added to his candle purchases.

 

ROVER would probably be assigned to guard duty at the bunkers or food depots.

Girl Anachronism would probably say something like "Oh, I remember when this is going to have happened" and pop forward a few weeks, come back with a suntan, and assure her team members that everything is going to work out fine just as long as remember to take the aardvark.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Sun missing

 

How so? I always thought at least for a moon Solar Power is the main enegry resource. And you need a lot of more tech/assistance from outside to keep everything running.

 

A lunar or martian base would likely be fission powered; which is a good sunless energy source. And both places are better protected from temperature change than earth, the moon being a vacuum and Mars having a really thin atmosphere. The colonies in both places have to designed to be self-sufficient, as importing stuff is hellishly expensive.

 

Of course, "fare far better" is relative. If only one in 10,000 people survive the first week on earth, it doesn't take much to do it better. A colony designed to maintain a 20 man crew for 2 years in -40 C without outside help is easier to modify for this kind of disaster than a submarine is.

[Zen Archer]

Re: Sun missing

 

The sun going missing is the sort of thing that in our games would be almost immediately followed with someone showing in our HQ and saying, "Come with me if you want your world to live!" or somesuch. It's the intro to a cosmic or time-travel style adventure.

[assault]

Re: Sun missing

 

"Tuesday again".

 

Usual questions: is it the Sun or Earth that has moved? Has the Sun actually moved, or does it just appear to have done so? Magic or Science? And so on...

 

Hooray for the Silver Age!

[Lucius]

Re: Sun missing

 

Crossposted

 

Crimes Against Humanity, And For It

 

Scene: The International Criminal Court, The Hague, the Netherlands.

 

(Top of Page) This is Juan Olmec

 

(Page 1: A grim faced man of lean build and dark complexion is walking towards the viewer. His hair is black with white streaks and he is wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and handcuffs attached to a waist chain. Behind to his left is a younger and paler man in a suit carrying a briefcase. To either side march soldiers in powered armor bearing blaster rifles. To the rear is a robed graybearded man with a pointed hat adorned with astrological symbols and a staff, the tip of which glows with some arcane energy)

 

(Bottom of Page) He was until recently one of the most powerful and wealthy drug lords in Central America. To his tribe, who owed schools and hospitals to his generosity, he is a hero. The rest of the world knows him as a ruthless racketeer whose criminal empire smuggled narcotics, weapons, and people back and forth across a dozen borders. But that is not why he is on trial.

 

(Splash Page – Two pages)

(A huge courtroom scene. A panel of judges sit at an intimidating height. Reportors and cameramen are visible being restrained by armed bailiffs. More armored soldiers stand guard before the judges and spaced around the chamber.)

 

Olmec stands accused of having, at a time when the fate of the world was in the balance and the Human Race was at war with an invading force intent on omnicide, directly participated in at least 520 murders and of instigating thousands more. A trivial fraction of the casualties of that war, but these were not combat deaths, but methodical and brutal slaughter.

 

(Page showing views of the parties in the court as dialogue takes place.)

 

Olmec has taken his place in the witness box

 

Defense Counsel: Mr. Olmec, would you like to read the statement you have prepared?

 

Prosecutor: Objection. The purpose of this court is not to provide the defendant a platform from which to speak.

 

Magistrate: Overrruled. The defendant may speak, as long as it is brief and to the point.

 

Olmec: Thank you. I want to say how happy I am to be here, and how grateful. How glad I am that there is still an International Criminal Court, that this building and this city and this world are still standing and that I yet live. I fully expect to be convicted of the charges against me and this does not trouble me. Though the whole Human race may condemn me, the only vindication I desire is this: that the whole Human race yet lives to condemn me.

 

Defense: Prosecution has entered into evidence a set of videos allegedly created at your direction, documenting certain events prior to and during the War of the Abominations. Did you direct your organization to produce such videos?

 

Olmec: I did.

 

Defense: Were you aware that they might be used as evidence against you?

 

Olmec: I was.

 

(Page showing scenes from the videos)

 

Video, photographs, written testimony....Olmec's supporters have distributed his account of events far and wide among what remains of Earth's population.

 

(A Mesoamerican pyramid)

 

“They pay to study old pyramids, and preserve them, but to build a new one? I found only one way to raise the money for that. My people love the schools, the clinics, the new wells, but it was the pyramid and temple that made my tribe feel reborn....”

 

(A collection of stone knives)

 

“Making tools of flint, of obsidian, of chert, nearly lost arts. We made a video showing how to make a sacrificial knife. It's not just knapping flint. Not just saying the right prayers.”

 

(A panel showing Olmec garbed in loincloth, a jaguar skin over one shoulder)

 

“We have already forgotten so much....it is good that we remembered enough. Enough to make it work.”

 

(two men and two women hold a woman down on an altar and Olmec plunges a knife into her bare breast)

 

“Hold the knife so the blade slips between the ribs.”

 

(Olmec holds aloft a dripping heart)

 

“Then twist to force the ribs apart. It must be done swiftly. The heart must be offered still beating, quivering, alive. It is the heart of a living person that is the proper sacrifice.”

 

(Back to the court. Even the counsel for the defense looks shaken.)

 

Defense: I will spare opposing counsel the need to ask this in cross examination and ask now. How many people did you sacrifice in this manner?

 

Olmec: Enough.

 

Defense (frowning angrily): Can you give a number?

Defense thought balloon: I told him not to say that. I have the most impossible client in the history of law....

 

Olmec: I lost count but I think it was well over five hundred and twenty.

 

(Panel showing a mass of corpses piled at the foot of a pyramid)

 

Olmec: There were two other altars to the side where my co-priests were at work. And then there was the ball court. This was all going on at the same time.

 

(Splash panel. Image of a long stone alley. Boys wearing wooden “yokes” on their hips are using their hips to propel a rubber ball. The wall at the far end of the court is adorned with a huge stone snake head with gaping mouth and a human face visible in the mouth.)

 

Olmec: At the end of each game, the losing captain was beheaded. Young boys were playing. The men, especially the best fighters, were on the front lines. As dark as it got, I could still see the abominations getting closer...one flew overhead.

 

(Image of a jellyfishlike creature drifting in a dark sky, a bloody body gripped in its tentacles)

 

Defense: You obviously do not deny the acts you stand accused of. Please tell the court why it is that you plead not guilty.

 

Olmec: Because it was not a crime. Sacrifice is not murder.

 

Prosecutor: Objection. Religious motivation is no excuse for murder or genocide. In fact, it's probably the most common motivation for genocide.

 

Magistrate: Defense is reminded that religious belief is no defense against the charges.

 

Defense: I acknowledge that your honor. May I continue?

 

Magistrate: Proceed.

 

Defense: Eventually you stopped. Did you run out of sacrifices?

 

Olmec: No. All of Tenochtitlan* seemed to be in line to volunteer.

[*Panel note: The Olmec Tenochtitlan, not the Aztec Tenochtitlan]

 

(Image of a line of people climbing the pyramid, as a corpse tumbles down the other way)

 

Defense: Then why did you stop?

 

Olmec: Because HE came.

 

(Two Page Splash: scene of the pyramid, with three lines of people snaking up it. Stormy sky. Over the pyramid, central to the image, is a fantastic Feathered Serpent, brilliantly colored, wings spread) “Q'uq'umatz, the Resplendent One, had come!”

 

Defense: Let the record show that photographic and video evidence and the testimony of survivors agree that at this point something manifested in the sky that matches the description of the mythological being known as Q'uq'umatz, Quetzelcoatl, or by several other names.

 

 

(Panel of the Feathered Serpent diving into the ground)

 

Olmec: Then I was in despair, for He vanished into the ground – He passed into the earth as if it were no more substantial to Him than smoke, or a mirage. Even the abominations had fallen back in awe. Then they began to attack again.

 

(Image of the Feathered Serpent bursting out of the ground in the middle of a horde of monsters, scattering them) 'Then Q'uq'umatz returned!”

 

Defense: Let the record show that it appears to have been at about this time that the planet Venus vanished from our solar system.

 

Magistrate: There were a number of astronomical anomalies during the War. Was the disappearance of Venus relevant?

 

Defense: Possibly, your honor. Mr. Olmec, did Kookoomatz return alone or did he bring someone with him?

 

(Half page splash of the Feathered Serpent with two muscular men attired like the boys seen previously playing the ball game leaping out of the gaping mouth. Their waist yokes are gray and appear to be stone rather than wood.) “He brought Hunahpu and Ixbalanque, the Hero Twins!”

 

Olmec: The twins challenged the invaders to meet them in the ball court.

 

(Image of the Hero Twins in the previously seen ball court, seen from behind, facing a humanoid monster with lobsterlike claws for hands and an octopus head, and a giant ant)

 

Defense: I can hear the whole court murmering now, so I'll ask what's on everyone's mind. In the middle of destroying the world, why would they drop everything and stop to play a game? Even if, or perhaps especially if, it's a game that involves people getting their heads chopped off?

 

Olmec: Stormwalker said it better than I can. “Mythology is as real as physics, and its consequences are as ineluctable.” *

[*Panel Note: Stormwalker, November 2006. Write today for back issues!]

 

Olmec: Traditionally, the winners play ball for a bit with the heads of the losers, but after the first game the Twins stopped doing that.

 

(Image of Hunahpu looking down in disgust at the octopus head slithering off of his waist yoke)

 

Olmec: They won every game, and slew many monsters. A slow way to destroy an invading army, but at least it had stopped the battle and no more of our people were dying. Then came the Voice.

 

Defense: The voice in question was heard in widely separated locations on Earth, and each person heard it in their own language – and no device recorded it. But for the record, please state what you heard.

 

Olmec: It said “Too late! We are devouring the sun, and then the stars!” At that moment Q'uq'umatz sprang into the sky.

 

(Full Page Splash: In the center is the sun. At bottom, something shadowy and ill defined, with dark tendrils spreading across the sun's face. In the upper left, the Feathered Serpent, drawn in an art style reminiscent of Aztec art. In the upper right, the Goddess Kali, four armed and black faced, depicted in a wrathful aspect, in a traditional Hindu style.)

 

Defense: What happened then?

 

Olmec: Nothing, for about 8 minutes....even the beasts seemed to be waiting. Then it was as if the sky turned even darker somehow, and they made this noise...hissing and roaring and clattering, like all the horrors of Xibalba rejoicing. Then they attacked, and the Hero Twins fought back...then in another 8 minutes they fell back in confusion as, yet again, Q'uq'umatz returned, and fell on them like an eagle striking a horde of mice!

 

(Half Page Splash of the Feathered Serpent falling upon a shadowy army like an eagle striking a horde of mice)

 

Defense: Are you aware that 8 minutes is the time it takes light to reach the Earth from the Sun?

 

Olmec: I did not know that then. I have learned it since.

 

Defense: Go on.

 

Olmec: They retreated then, and we all gave chase.....there I was, waving a stone dagger, thinking I was going to fight one of those monsters! I'm lucky I fell from exhaustion without meeting one. Lucky if it's lucky to be alive while most of my people are not. Q'uq'umatz and the Twins did not stop until they reached Mexico City, but the Battle of Mexico City was basically over by then, and I can tell you nothing of it.

 

Now it is the Prosecutor's turn.

 

Prosecutor: Not since the Nuremberg trials have we seen a case in which the people responsible for such atrocities, took such care to document their own crimes. Please tell us: Why did you have those videos made? Why have you seen to it that so much documentary, photographic, and video evidence has been not only preserved, but widely propagated?

 

Olmec: I will answer, because I want everyone to know and to understand. But first, if I may ask a question – where are the abominations now, who killed billions and destroyed so much of our planet?

 

Prosecutor (frowning) : The extra-dimensional entities who invaded our world? They have gone back to where they came from.

 

Olmec: Precisely. They went home. They were driven off, not destroyed, not even really defeated. They'll be back. I won't live to see it, it may be millenia as we account time, but it will happen, and our descendants will need to know what to do. That is why I recorded everything. So it will never be forgotten. And when the time comes, as I know it will, I hope someone else will do what must be done. Kill me, imprison me for life, let generations curse my name, it doesn't matter.

 

(three panels of the Prosecutor standing and staring.)

 

Prosecutor: You stand convicted out of your own mouth. I have no further questions, your honor.

 

Magistrate: We will adjourn for today and resume in seven days.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The trial did not resume in seven days, or ever. Although Crimes Against Humanity - And For It appears to be meant to kick off a miniseries, Palindromedary Enterprises never published anything following up on it, although a spokesbackandforthtrian has suggested a possible revival if there is any interest among fans.

 

edit: 1 vote to continue. There'd be more but I'm not letting palindromedaries vote.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Sun missing

 

First things first, make a pun about 'sol searching'.

[Clonus]

Re: Sun missing

 

Note that in the ad, the sun isn't really gone. The sky is just continuously overcast and the cops are superstitious idiots.

 

The first thing to do would be to define the nature of the problem. Are the planets of the solar system careening outward because the sun has been teleported away, or are they still in orbit around an unseen centre? Has the planet actually been encircled with a sun-screening forcefield that is blocking the light? Or, as in the commercial, dense cloud conditions? Has the planet been actually been teleported out of the solar system and into interstellar space? Or is this some kind of projected hallucination? Is it actually getting colder and are the plants acting as though they've been cut off from light? You have to get an idea what happened before you can have an idea how to reverse it.

 

I suspect Louhi. Or the vampires.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Sun missing

 

Sleep in.