Fifteen Years Afterward

Fifteen Years Afterward

Day One
The earth is pelted with a massive, once in a million years, solar magnetic storm which overloads and knocks out all electronic systems globally. All financial transactions and records disappear. Trains, cars, trucks and most ground transport comes to a permanent stop. While some planes manage to land safely, others hurdle to the ground. The power grid shuts down across all countries. Billions are plunged into darkness, trapped in elevators, underground in subways or at the tops of high rises.

Day Two
The governments of the world are powerless, blind and deaf. They cannot communicate or organize relief efforts. Some parts of the military are still functioning, but they have lost satellite and electronic communication and navigation. In short, they are flying and sailing blind. There is no coordination except at the lowest level and in the most limited geographic area. Stores are watching their stocks deplete as the enormity of the situation weighs on the population. Money is non-existent and rapidly losing its value.

Day Three
Many in hospitals and nursing homes, the most vulnerable, are dead or dying. Fires are starting to spread unchecked in some areas. No longer able to get water pumped to their homes, people begin the trek to find clean water for drinking, cleaning and cooking. More are made sick by poor water and sanitation.

Day Seven
The first victims due to lack of medication and prescriptions begin to succumb to their illnesses. Persons with depression, bi-polar or other mental conditions begin to lapse into their conditions. The migration from burning, crowded, dirty cities begins. Most people begin to run out of stored food at this point and join others looting stores, restaurants, warehouses and sometimes, other people's homes for anything to eat. Law and order meted out by police on foot, begin to retreat to their homes and enclaves.

Week Two
Many of the cities on earth have become home to rats, gangs and starvation. Those who were fortunate to leave now wander the highways, banding together in camps, eating anything they can find and avoiding road gangs who prey on the helpless. Hospitals, those still open, are wards to the dead and dying, understaffed and out of nearly any kind of useful drug. The government has ceased to function and only operates in limited areas with the aid of large groups of armed soldiers and police.

Month Two
The starvation around the world is underway. With half the world in winter, cold takes many. In the other parts of the world, the effort to grow and harvest as much food as possible and avoid theft is a race against time. Communes and fortified villages are the norm as groups try to hold together and survive.

Month Six
The cycle of starvation and death from the elements will be remembered by survivors as the Year of Death. Starvation, injuries, infection, murder and disease run rampant. In many places, pre-Storm supplies have dwindled to nothing including batteries, fuel, ammunition, canned and package food.  Only locations with large numbers of defenders and producers of food are sustaining themselves. But it comes at a price. The elderly, young, sickly and weak have no place among their numbers.

Year Two
The cycle of death has stabilized. Whole geographic areas world wide have been abandoned as they could not support any sort of population. Areas with good soil, abundant water, fuel and native foods are desired and fought over. No one is sure, but the majority (more than half) of the world's population has perished. Any remaining government bunkers, hideouts or retreats at this time have also been abandoned, overtaken, destroyed from within or are being used as bases of operations by the former residents or newcomers to assert control over the local area.

Year Five
The world has been completely depopulated. Groups live in fortified villages and towns surrounded by precious agricultural fields and livestock. The militias and guards that protect these towns are given preferential treatment for food and supplies. Everyone lives a subsistence lifestyle and contact with outsiders is rare. By this time, nearly all pre-Storm supplies have been exhausted. In many cases, even firearms are used sparingly and replaced with bows, spears and other primitive weapons. All medical treatment is done with herbal medicine and primitive surgery.

Year Ten
Contact between some areas springs up as the need for supplies and variety become paramount. Salt from the ocean is traded for rice in the coastal plains which is traded for wheat from the north or cloth made from animals or flax. Trade groups are large and well armed. The roads between civilized areas are dangerous and unknown. Warlords and strong men begin to assert dominion over groups of villages and populated areas.

Year Fifteen
Those who survive in the new world were post-puberty to the age of forty when the storm hit. They also have the highest life expectancy as they benefited from pre-Storm living and medical conditions. Those older are dead. The youngest, bereft of vaccines, simple medications and modern medicine  have the highest mortality rate until the age of five or older. The first mini-nations and states begin to slowly return during this time period.