An Oral History of the Pulse

€ 5,14

It is well known to astronomers that every eleven years, the Sun goes through a period called the Solar Maximum, during which sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections become frequent. When this solar energy hits the Earth, it disrupts the Earth’s magnetic fields and can interfere with electronic transmissions, damage satellites and cause power outages.

In 2024, the Solar Maximum was the strongest ever recorded, with very large ejections of plasma occurring several times a day. On August 17, 2024 an extraordinarily large blast of solar energy hit the Earth at the same time that a cluster of four asteroids was passing on both sides of the planet. The makeup of these asteroids was then and still is unknown but what is known is that they were unlike any asteroids previously encountered. In some manner, these asteroids reflected, magnified and focused the solar energy onto the Earth, creating a massive electro-magnetic Pulse that covered all of the planet’s surface except its most northern and southern extremities.

The “Pulse” as it became known, instantly destroyed all modern electronic devices in its path except a few that were shielded, either by design or by happenstance. The immediate effect was that the computers that manage the generation and transmission of electricity stopped working as did the computers that operate vehicles and radio transmissions. Within seconds, the world was without modern infrastructure: no electricity, no cars, no trucks, no diesel engines, no TV, no radio, no locomotives, no aircraft, no communications, no radar and no satellites. The effect was that the World degraded from an integrated, urbanized, post-industrial society that was highly dependent on computers into an early industrial society that lacked the balanced infrastructure necessary to support it.

By the end of a single week, cities ceased to function effectively and as food became scarce, the main focus of all residents became the quest to feed themselves and their families. During the ensuing two years, hundreds of millions of people died of starvation; governments became ineffective; lawlessness became the norm; moral behavior became a distant memory and chaos reigned. It became a period of survival of the “fittest”, where fittest often meant the vilest.

Several years later, in a manner reminiscent of its role during the Dark Ages, the Pope decided that the Catholic Church should prepare a comprehensive social history of the recent cataclysmic events. To that end, he directed that a number of its qualified and experienced members, priests and the like, should travel the world gathering information on the experiences of people in the aftermath of the Pulse. These findings would eventually be incorporated into the planned history by a team of professional historians.

One of these collectors, an American Priest and former scientific researcher named Father Meredith Browning decided that it would be appropriate to publish some of the personal histories that he had collected. Being a researcher and chaplain rather than a writer, he chose to let the people being interviewed speak in their own words. He would be a recorder rather than an interpreter; hence, “An Oral History of the Pulse”.