8.5 — Cosmic Fluctuations: What Is Plausible and What Is Not

The brief asked for cosmic events, and the useful thing here is the sorting: some of these are real, monitored, and worth a paragraph of practical advice; some are real and beyond any preparation; and some are not physically possible.

Knowing which is which is the skill.

Real, likely, and worth preparing for: a solar storm

The one on this page that will actually happen and that has practical consequences.

The sun periodically ejects large amounts of charged particles. When one hits Earth's magnetic field it induces currents in long conductors — power lines, pipelines, cables.

The historical benchmark is the Carrington Event of 1859, the largest observed geomagnetic storm, which set telegraph systems on fire and produced aurorae visible near the tropics.

A comparable event today would affect a technological civilisation that did not exist in 1859: potential damage to high-voltage transformers, satellite disruption, GPS degradation, radio blackouts, and — in the worst credible scenarios — regional power outages lasting a long time because large transformers take a long time to replace.

And a smaller storm in 1989 blacked out Quebec for around nine hours, which is the useful reference point: this happens, at some scale, regularly.

What to do

Nothing exotic.

It is 8.3's infrastructure chapter. Power out, water pumping down, payments down, communications degraded.

The preparation is identical: water, food, cash, light, radio, medication, sanitation, and neighbours.

And there is warning. Space weather is monitored and a significant event gives hours to a day or so of notice, which is enough to fill containers, charge everything and get cash.

One specific note: aviation and satellite navigation are affected, so a major storm is a bad day to be flying polar routes or depending on precision GPS.

Real, monitored, and mostly not your problem: asteroid impact

Genuine, and the risk is far better characterised than it used to be.

Large near-Earth objects — the ones capable of a global effect — have been extensively surveyed and the great majority of the largest are catalogued and none of the known ones are on a collision course in the foreseeable future.

Smaller ones are more numerous and less completely catalogued, and the plausible scenario is a regional event rather than a global one.

And the encouraging development: deflection has been demonstrated. A spacecraft was deliberately crashed into an asteroid's moon in 2022 and measurably changed its orbit — the first demonstration that the technique works.

What to do

For a regional event with warning: it is an evacuation, and the guidance is 5.1's.

For a global one: nothing you can do, and it is not going to happen this century on current evidence.

Proportionate response: none, beyond ordinary preparation.

Real and not survivable, and extremely unlikely: gamma-ray burst, nearby supernova

A gamma-ray burst is an enormously energetic jet from a collapsing massive star. One aimed at Earth from close enough would damage the atmosphere.

A nearby supernova would do similar.

Both require a specific kind of star within a specific distance, and there are no known candidates positioned to do this.

And there is no preparation. This is worth stating plainly because it is the honest answer: some risks are real, are very low probability, and admit of no personal action.

Which is itself a useful category to be able to recognise.

Not physically possible

Because the sorting is the point of the chapter.

"Cosmic fluctuations" affecting your daily life through some vague energetic mechanism. Not a thing. Volume VII's chapter on quantum mysticism covers the general pattern: physics vocabulary attached to claims physics does not support.

Planetary alignments causing earthquakes or disasters. The gravitational effect of the planets on Earth is negligible — the Moon and Sun dominate by an enormous margin, and their effect is the tides.

A pole reversal causing catastrophe. The magnetic field does reverse, over thousands of years, and the fossil record shows no associated mass extinction.

And solar flares "frying all electronics" instantly and globally. The real risk is induced currents in long conductors and satellite damage, which is serious and is not the same as every device failing.

The general skill

Which is what this chapter is actually for.

When you meet a claimed catastrophic risk, sort it with four questions.

Is the mechanism physically real? Is there an actual process, or is it vocabulary?

What is the base rate? Has it happened before, and how often?

Is it monitored? A monitored hazard gives warning; an unmonitored one does not.

And is there an action? If there is no action, the correct amount of attention is very little, however dramatic it is.

That last question is the most useful and the least applied. A great deal of anxiety attaches to risks about which nothing can be done, and almost none attaches to house fires, road accidents and financial insecurity, which are far more likely and entirely actionable.

The honest summary

Of everything on this page, exactly one thing is worth preparing for: a solar storm.

And the preparation for it is the ordinary infrastructure preparation you should have anyway (8.3, 9.2).

Which is the pattern of this entire Part: the exotic scenarios resolve into the ordinary kit.

What to do with this page

Solar storms are real, recur, and give hours of warning. The response is 8.3's power-cut plan.

Asteroid deflection has been demonstrated. This is genuinely good news and it is recent.

Some risks are real, low probability, and admit of no action. Recognising that category is a skill.

Planetary alignments do not cause earthquakes.

And apply the four questions: is the mechanism real, what is the base rate, is it monitored, and is there an action. The fourth one settles most of it.

Next: 8.6 — multiversal incursion, which is entirely fictional and is a physics-literacy exercise.