“For god’s sake, I just woke up!” Aron grumbled. He hadn’t even been awake for an hour before Gaia and Nova had dragged him back into the simulation for a briefing on the upcoming Carrington event.
[The situation is critical, Your Majesty. So there’s no time to waste, since we’ll need to respond to the situation as early as possible, depending on your approval,] Gaia said. She knew that Aron was still feeling lethargic after coming out of his induced coma, especially since he was still dedicating a portion of his mind to sorting the new knowledge that had been downloaded into him.
“What is it with shit always happening when I’m out of commission? What kind of bullshit is that?” Aron continued grumbling as Nova massaged his headache away. Still, his briefing had been thorough and included the options presented to him by the people in the earlier meeting.
[It’s the opposite, sir. Things are always happening, but while you’re ‘in commission’, they immediately get dealt with. It’s only when you’re unavailable that things pile up awaiting your decisions,] Nova coaxed. She increased the strength of her massage, the medical pod connecting her virtual actions to real world effects.
Aron groaned in relief as his headache rapidly faded, then took a moment to think about what he had just heard about the ongoing situation.
“I agree with Nyx. Let the coronal mass hit. Gaia, develop an action plan with Minister Al-Mutairi and bring it to me for approval in... let’s say one hour real time.” An hour in reality was almost four days in the simulation, which would be plenty of time for them to develop an action plan. “We’ll implement it as soon as it’s finalized.”
[Yes, Your Majesty.] Gaia’s virtual figure flickered as she sent a message to Youssef. She was just about to move to the next topic when Aron spoke again.
“What about Mars? Will it be impacted as well?” Mars was currently on its nearest approach to Earth, so it would definitely be in the affected zone when the CME happened in a week. There were still millions of kilometers between them—roughly 58 million, give or take—but in astronomical terms, that was virtually like the distance between one apartment and the apartment next door.
[I was about to mention that,] Gaia said. [The answer is yes, but not really. Even though the upcoming CME is predicted to be the worst we’ve ever faced, Mars should be plenty far enough away that the disruption there will be minimal. The mass isn’t thrown out in a concentrated shape, but more like a very broad cone, almost fan-shaped. So while it’ll still be concentrated enough when it reaches Earth, by the time it hits Mars, it’ll be too dispersed to cause much of an issue there.
[Even though Mars lacks a molten core, it contains an immense amount of iron in its crust. That iron generates localized magnetic fields around each of the tectonic plates that are up to ten times as strong as Earth’s magnetic field. So it’ll effectively block what little solar mass actually hits them, at least for the most part. And any negative effects, like the resulting EMP, will easily be countered by the hardened nature of ARES equipment. After all, the Mars base is an important military base, so it’s designed to take quite a pounding without crumbling.]
As she spoke, Gaia threw Aron a file with the simulated effects of the upcoming Carrington event, both on Earth as well as Mars.
Aron sighed in relief as he looked at the simulated CME and read the data on its effects. “That’s a few trillion END I won’t have to explain spending in our military budget.”
The entirety of Mars was being built up to create a solid fortress that could weather any number of storms. The surface installations were almost all weapons, and the reinforced underground tunnel network would allow for rapid transportation of men and materiel anywhere within a very short amount of time. And Mars’ solid core was perfect for housing the immense reactors, capacitor banks, and even the living areas for the millions of ARES personnel that would soon be stationed on the red planet.
The budget, even considering that the construction and materials involved were free, was still considerable and ran into the trillions of END. Most of that cost was in certain rare earth and other minerals procured through the empire’s burgeoning asteroid mining industry, as Mars still lacked a lot of the materials needed for the massive construction processes. Even with constructor swarms, GEMbots, and atomic printers, they couldn’t create something out of nothing.
And even though Aron was personally shouldering 70% of the budget, if the Mars base was delayed by the impact of the upcoming CME, it would still have cast a shadow over the empire. After all, 30% of the cost was still multiple trillions of END, which was a lot of money to lose in a single incident.
But that was only by the Terran Empire’s current standards. Once the diaspora and colonization efforts began in earnest, trillions would be a much smaller amount by comparison.
Aron swiped the file closed and paused for a moment, updating his plans. “Looks like I’ll need to visit Mars sooner than I’d originally planned,” he said. He would need to personally erect a planetary defense shield there regardless, but the upcoming Carrington event had lit a fire underneath him. Just because the solar system had survived billions of years, if not trillions, it didn’t guarantee that something would happen the very next day that would render the entire area uninhabitable.
[I’ll add it to your upcoming itinerary,] Nova said. She was responsible for all of Aron’s movements, making her perhaps the most powerful secretary in the history of Earth.
As she spoke, everyone who would be going with him in his entourage, all the way from his emperor’s aegis down to his personal chef, received notice of the upcoming trip and immediately began making preparations.
