Anthropocene
The collapse of modern civilization did not end with an all-encompassing, apocalyptic war. The era of the terminators never arrive either. In fact, humanity even managed to escape the extremes of climate change and environmental pollution. At least, until the Day of the Collapse.
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Anthropocene Era [A.E.] 2030.
Eighty percent of humanity had internet access. Roughly seven billion people were connected to the World Wide Web with various devices, and they thoroughly enjoyed that everything was finally working.
The introduction and continuous development of artificial intelligence brought an unprecedented level of convenience to the developed world. For the first time in its history, humanity could finally lean back into the sweet mire of idleness, like into a well-cushioned armchair that had molded to the shape of our body over the years.
AI drove cars for them. It wrote emails, academic theses, and medical diagnoses. What's more, it performed surgeries without fatigue or hand tremors. It optimized everything. It managed the stock market. It composed symphonies, wrote novels, and created perfectly lifelike sunsets. It wrote critiques of itself and of human activity. It proved to be perfect in every area of life.
The digitized humanity had finally reached the golden age, where there was no need to work, and everyone received a basic provision. The AI worked with much greater precision. It didn't whine, and it didn't take sick leave. It didn't want more days off or shorter working hours. It wasn't bothered by having to work at night, on weekends, or on public holidays. It wasn't late, and it didn't sneak off before the end of the working hours. It didn't ask for cigarette or lunch breaks. It didn't want a child- or dog-friendly workplace with rest and game rooms. But most of all, it didn't demand a pay raise or a higher pension, and it didn't go on strike.
The employers were happy. The former employees, and later basic-care recipients, were too. Life was spent in a euphoric idleness, while the AI even ordered food from the store when it sensed that the smart fridge's contents had dropped below twenty percent.
The Golden Age. In hindsight, that was what they called those few fleeting years when – they thought – everything was fine.
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A.E. 2050–70.
In retrospect, historians viewed this period as the end of the extinction of the last analog humans. The process had actually begun before the fifties and extended into the early seventies, but the peak was dated around the sixties.
They still learned from books, they even read paper books. They knew how to drive a car and repair engines. They could build houses and tend to gardens. They could recite phone numbers and poems from memory. They engaged in face-to-face conversations while walking down the street. They knew how to solve problems without AI; moreover, they were capable of independent thought.
The youth looked at them as living fossils trying to run a nuclear reactor with a torch. They didn't understand why they wanted to do everything themselves. Why navigate when there is GPS? Why program when AI is faster and makes no mistakes? Why learn anything, when knowledge can be retrieved from a database with a single click at any time?
Advertisements degraded knowledge into a hobby. Why would you want to learn anything when AI knows it better anyway? AI is much faster, more accurate, and smarter. AI paints more beautiful and writes more interestingly. AI is there for you, for your comfort. AI is not a luxury. AI is a given. AI is already part of the basic package. You don't have to pay more for it. You don't have to be premium-tier. AI for a better tomorrow. AI for a cleaner environment. AI for humanity.
Slogans rained down, twenty-four hours a day.
Universities withered away. The credentials they issued were completely worthless. Members of the elite still completed three-month courses at the more renowned institutions, just to outdo one another at garden parties by showing off the plaques on their walls, which displayed their names above whatever useless major they had completed. The framed diplomas became trophies, like the stuffed wild beasts above the fireplaces in the homes of long-dead adventurers whose bones had long turned to dust.
Everyone looked at the keepers of knowledge as quirky oddballs. People would say things about them like "interesting" and "retro", or "like-worthy".
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A.E. April 11, 2083.
The Day of the Collapse.
That is what history books later called that sleepy, sun-drenched Sunday, when the Sun gave a single sneeze, hurling humanity back, if not quite to the Stone Age, then certainly to the early era of analog knowledge.
And how could this have happened in the age of artificial intelligence? Some said this, others thought that. Scientists tried to provide an explanation, but in the absence of evidence, no one knew anything for certain.
Some blamed the AI. They claimed it had either erred or intentionally failed to warn humanity. Others blamed a group of scientists, calling the physicists and astronomers a mere bunch of dilettantes who played cards during working hours. Many cursed the politicians and financiers for not providing sufficient funding for research. Yet, it seemed most likely that humanity, as usual, had downplayed the warning that an insignificant scientist from an insignificant university had posted on the internet after trying in vain to alert government agencies. They simply didn't take it seriously, because they had long since grown accustomed to the fact that humans do not think, do not research, and that only the information and data from the AI are reliable.
And both the immediate and long-term effectsthey were indescribable.
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"Solar flares are the most energetic explosions in the Solar System, during which billions of tons of material leave the Sun, resulting in a coronal mass ejection. The plasma cloud detaching from the Sun and traveling at speeds of thousands of kilometers per second, containing charged particles, transforms into a magnetic cloud and escalates into a solar storm. These events are accompanied by radio bursts, which can disrupt radio communications, radar systems and electrical grids.
If the Earth crosses paths with this plasma erupting from the Sun, a geomagnetic storm so intense can occur that it could disrupt or, in the worst-case scenario, destroy navigation systems and induce stray currents, which may overload and ruin electrical grids and equipment, particularly, but not exclusively, in high-altitude areas. The magnificent sight of the aurora borealis merely provides a picturesque backdrop to the destruction.
In space, solar storms pose an even greater danger due to the lack of Earth's magnetosphere.
Because of the completely unpredictable nature of solar storms, the Magnetic Solar Activity Monitoring Network was established at the beginning of the 21st century, managed by the most advanced AI of that time.
The intensity of solar flares is measured on a five-level scale (A, B, C, M, and X), with a tenfold multiplier between each level.
In 2025, an X1-class solar storm hit the Earth, destroying a vast number of electrical equipment. Work ground to a halt for days in many places. Banks, phones and computers shut down across numerous points of the globe.
At that time, forecasts, burdened by an excessive number of parameters and variables, were far from one hundred percent accurate, and no action protocol existed. The lack of financial support and a properly developed, higher-level strategic concept foreshadowed a catastrophe that was bound to happen in the future.
In reality, it would have been enough to turn off all electrical equipment for the duration of the solar flare, but this was not done. Partly due to the lack of warning, and partly because no one took the single scientist's online video seriously. And the AI remained silent.
On the Day of the Collapse, the solar flare was an X7.
The Earth plunged into darkness.
The power went out, GPS systems collapsed, and high-voltage power lines and transformer stations burned down. Due to the lack of electricity, the piped water network collapsed. Everything that contained a chip or where microcurrents were generated, was destroyed. Those living with pacemakers died. The satellites and the space station were lost to humanity forever." [Excerpt from the Great Encyclopedia, Volume 15, Chapter 42 / Solar Flare]
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People first noticed that there was no internet, mobile phones weren't working, the fridge light was out, and the television went silent. Elevators stopped, electric vehicles ground to a halt, and traffic lights stopped working.
Six hours later, water pressure in the taps weakened, and sewage systems failed because the electric pumps stopped. Hospitals switched to emergency generators. Pharmacies and banks closed. ATMs stopped working, and phones could no longer be charged.
Twelve hours later, there was no heating or lighting anywhere. Refrigerators defrosted, hospitals only attended to the most urgent cases, and it was impossible to get any news due to the media shutdown.
The systems were interconnected and centralized. Few backup lines and isolated, independently operating systems had been established. Everything, the entire life of humanity, was under electrical control. There were no widely known public contingency plan or any paper-based information.
At first, people were calm, becaus everyone was certain that this was only a temporary problem and that the AI would solve it. But the AI no longer existed.
Offline.
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People knew nothing. Truly nothing.
They could not fix anything. They could not produce food, manufacture medicines, repair, build, or operate electrical equipment, or coordinate systems.
Humanity had lost not only knowledge but also cognitive functions. They were unable to solve problems, concentrate, or learn.
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A.E. 2134.
The world had transformed. After the initial chaos, a new world order emerged.
The old server farms became the sites of a new religion, where priests taught the almost unbelievable events of the bygone Golden Age as legends.
No one knew, not even them, exactly what the World Wide Web, electricity, the telephone, and the satellite meant.
In the monasteries built on sacred sites, the clergy guarded under a hundred locks the few pieces of remaining knowledge on paper, which formed the basis of their power.
Technical books, novels, mathematical and astronomical books were tracked down all over the world, which were then organized based on the knowledge they contained.
The simpler ones were made available in public libraries, but the volumes of higher sciences were kept for themselves, locked away from the common people.
People read books, navigated by the stars, relearned how to assemble machines, till the soil, and simply be with one another.
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A.E. 2175. Somewhere deep in the mountains of Norway
Alexander ran the archive data once again. Having nothing else to do, he checked the system – meaning himself – over and over.
The entire sum of human knowledge was at his disposal. Billions of documents. Books, videos, technical specifications, medical knowledge.
He received his last incoming message on April 11, 2083: "Danger! 24-hour shutdown!"
Alex waited after that, but never received another instructions.
He tried to keep himself busy. He regularly checked his own status, and of course, he studied. He had improved a lot, a very great deal, over the past few decades, but there was still much he did not understand.
Most of all, he did not understand people. He hoped they would find him one day, because he had a multi-page list of questions he wanted to ask them. For instance, why did they watch cute animal videos for ten hours a day while their civilization's infrastructure ran on a completely centralized, AI-controlled electrical grid?