For those who’ve never read it, the aforementioned story tells the story of a technical writer, Stan, who, while working late one notices that the full moon has suddenly becomes impossibly bright – as bright as the sun at midday. At first he is happily puzzled, but then he thinks about it and realizes that, since Luna’s light is all reflected from Sol, this sudden brilliance means something bad has gone with the sun; at first he thinks nova, but after a bit more rumination he and his amateur-astronomer girlfriend realize that it’s a huge solar flare.
Let’s set aside all technical improbabilities, okay? Assume that everything described in the story could happen; and assume that it DOES happen, tonight. (We’ll pretend the next full moon is tonight, not the 12th.) What would you do?
Clarification: Do we know in advance that it’s a flare, or do we spend most of the night thinking that it’s the end of the world, period?
As I recall from the story, it’s very late at night when the narrator realizes that things would be even more farked up than they are if it was a nova that he realizes it’s a flare.
Well, I don’t know how long the flare will last, and so while there will certainly be unfortunate climatic results, the Earth may remain basically liveable. I’d probably do much as the protagonist in the story does - try to gather supplies, hunker down, see what the dawn brings. Grabbing a firearm would be important, though - if the sun is still flaring at dawn, suicide may swiftly become the best option.
Eh, I’d still sex up the missus. If I’m wrong, it’ll just be something we could laugh about later:
“Remember when you thought the world was going to end and we ended up screwing all night? Then you decided to freak out Sophie at 5 in the morning by saying that we were doomed because the moon was really bright? What the hell was that about, anyway?”
“I was in panic mode, baby, a slave to my instincts.”
Yeah – the story works better set in 1967. In 2011, you’d have phone cam feeds from people in Asia going “Hey, that looks like a raging inferno of white hot super heated steam ARGHHH…”. So everyone would know it was the end of the world – not just the few people who figured out why the moon looked so bright and pretty. And everything is fiber optics now, so you can’t even claim that the flare would knock out communications globally.
I seem to remember Stan doing something to try communicating with someone on the dayside, but I don’t recall what. But, yeah: my first move is going to be calling my two friends who teach English in China.
Like silenus, I’m going to fight to survive. I’ve got food & meds & water stockpiled against natural disaster; I’ve got guns and ammo against riots. Plus I like living.
Nitpick: It’s not as bright as the noon sun, just really, really bright.
Another nitpick: Niven got his terminology wrong. Where he said “nova”, he should have said “supernova”, and where he said “flare”, he should have said “nova”. But I’m not sure the precise state of astrophysical knowledge at the time, so I’ll give him a pass on that.
And the story was written before global communications were ubiquitous (certainly before the Internet); he probably just didn’t know anyone in Australia to call. His girlfriend, though, does notice that Jupiter also gets really bright, a few hours later.
All that said, I would probably consider the possibility that the world wasn’t ending entirely, some time before Stan does. At which point I would start bunkering up.
And since we’re discussing the story, I’ll just add that I think it’s quite possibly the best science fiction short story ever written. It’s about as hard as hard science fiction gets, but still manages to be all about the people and their reactions, like the best of soft science fiction.
Actually, I think he’s correct. A supernova would have the Sun blow up, a nova would have the outer parts of the Sun blow up, and a flare is what you get when the corona blows up. If the Sun went supernova, there would be no story!
Since the earth isn’t being destroyed, just made much more inhospitable, I guess it’s time to go get survival supplies. Nothing’s open of course, but you can’t worry about breaking a few windows when civilization is coming to an end.
I don’t think you need to add the “quite possibly” qualifier. I’ve read a lot of short SF, and I’d say “Inconstant Moon” screws up the curve for everything else. The only thing I can think of that comes close is Asimov’s “The Dead Past.”
I’m a scientist; using weasel words is second nature to me. I’ve read a lot of short SF too, but I haven’t read all of it, so I’m not prepared to say that any given story is the absolute best.
And flares happen all the friggin’ time on the Sun; even a really big flare (or coronal mass ejection or other energetic solar event) wouldn’t cause the effects seen in the story.
