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just something i thought of. during the time peroid of CE, that first year (actually first few months, but i'll be generous here) of the cataclysm....would the GPS network still function? GPS relies on sat's, which are, as far as i know, uneffected by the cataclysm at that time.

Satellite communications die soon after the Yellowstone supervolcano goes.

why would it though? if yellowstone blew big enough to take out sats, not much of the planet would be left. and i don't think there was much going on in orbit at the time.


though there might have been enough magic roiling around the planet to cause interferance* and make it less reliable...



since the old BTS said you could find leylines using EM detectors there has to be some, albiet minor, connection.

ash from the supervolcano shrouding the planet is what cuts off communications.

I'd also add that the ley line eruption must have played merry hell with electro-magnetic spectrum communications... distortions of radio waves and the like, at the very least. Modern (c. 100 PA) radiomen know how to compensate, but in the first bit after the blast, they would be stuck.

GPS sats orbit 20,200 km up, 'medium earth orbit". (geostationary is 42,300 km up, low earth orbit goes from ~200km up to 2000km). well above any volcanic debrie that could have been thrown up into orbit. which is in itself highly unlikely to occur. stratosphere maybe, but not orbit.

GPS sats are currently designed with an ~8 year lifespan, with 24 sats active constantly, 6 spares kept at ready for emergencies, and new sats being launched on a regular basis. left to it's own devices, the GPS network could probably, IMO, last about 10 years before being rendered useless due to lack of upkeep. (orbit wise the sats are good for many decades.) though accuracy would likely suffer within a few years.

as for the orbitals, all the fluff we've gotten talks about them watching the chaos unfold. i find it highly unlikely they'd begin shooting down tools humanity could have used on earth to survive. they are not evil. the containment was a later development after they watched long enough to realize earth was lost to them. during CE they were probably more in the "oh no, my home!" stage.


as for D-shifting, unless it takes the people off earth, GPS would still function. it would just not match up with recognized map features. remember, GPS is a merely a co-ordinate finding system. it does not require a map to do so. but you do need a map to actually use the co-ordinates found.


apparently strong EM events can render GPS signals unintellegible, this might be a good explanation for the failure in CE.

I think the main point is being missed, unless I am misunderstanding the question. The primary reason that satellite communication is not possible is that the entire Earth is shrouded in a cloud of volcanic ash suspended in the atmosphere. That ash interferes with communications between the ground and the satellites.

gotcha. I agree with others, then, that most of the satellites would cease operation long before the ash cloud falls, though I think that ARCHIE still has some that function (don't remember the specifics).

Jason Richards wrote:gotcha. I agree with others, then, that most of the satellites would cease operation long before the ash cloud falls, though I think that ARCHIE still has some that function (don't remember the specifics).

He's found a new satellite put in place by the Cyberworks facility on the moon. His older codes work, so he's gotten permission from ARCHIE 7.

No question that the Earth is totally fubar, but don't underestimate the ability of humanity to cope, or the ability of the Earth to recuperate from basically any level of damage. Chaos Earth (to date) takes place in only the opening weeks of the Great Cataclysm. Things are certain to get worse before they get better.

I'll also point out that it's somewhat difficult to gauge how big of an effect that Yellowstone will have, due to rifts. Some of that atmospheric ash might drift through rifts, while influxes of foreign air might calm it a bit.

whipped4073 wrote:

Jason Richards wrote:gotcha. I agree with others, then, that most of the satellites would cease operation long before the ash cloud falls, though I think that ARCHIE still has some that function (don't remember the specifics).

Wait, how long is it taking for the ash clouds to dissipate enough that they allow radio signals through with less static?

weeks. ash is not particulalry well suited to staying in the upper atmosphere. most of it would be gone after the first month.

the question is "how long do the volcanic uphevals last during CE?". if volcano's continue to erupt, non-continiously, signals could be screwed up globally for many months, although not quite as bad as those first few days when nearly every volcano went up. any that didn't blow it's top would settle into a sequence of eruptions interspersed by brief dormant periods.


of course, technically the ash clouds can't remain up too long in any event. the combination of lack of light, sudden climate change, and all the toxins from the volcanic eruptions would screw up the global ecosystem pretty bad, a massive phytoplankton and plant die off. once thats gone, the rest of the ecosystem goes to heck pretty quick there after. certainly no more than a couple of months, otherwise everything is dead...as it is, we get just an extinction level event where a good percentage of life dies. but with the rifts, there is greater diversity immediately afterwards once things stabilize.

Cactuscat wrote:I wonder how much native Earth flora and fauna was replaced by unharmed specimens from alternate Earths. An entire ecosystem could collapse from environmental degradation caused by the volcanic eruption only to, months later, be swapped out with a fresh patch of land from another Earth, or alien world, or what-not.

That would be my vision of Hawaii... wiped out by the explosion of volcanos, and then repopulated by opening Rifts.

This is a very cool discussion! Keep talking as I drain your brains for ideas.

How many weeks would you expect ash to stay in the high atmo?

Is there any canon on how rifts or ley lines affect weather conditions?

Also some malfunctioning killer satellites might fail to recognize the positioning satellites and destroyed them, the Rifts era debris ring had to come from somewhere.

At this point I would like to refer you all to my signature picture, as it fits perfectly with the subject at hand.

and with the break down in governments and military commands, not to mention the natural disasters and loss of communications, means that getting a replacement system like LORAN back up and running is effectively impossible. and even if it could be brought back up, it's unlikely to operate long with all the demon plague.

Cactuscat wrote:If Yellowstone went off with the strength of its previous eruptions would anyone even be around to care whether GPS worked or not? I'm seeing estimates of 65-70% of all plant and animal life on the North American continent wiped out, sulfuric acid clouds hanging out in the stratosphere for decades and potentially causing global temperature drops of up to -15C, disruption of every climate on the planet--including the delicately balanced rain cycles in the southern hemisphere that bring the yearly rains that are the only water plants have to grow on for most of the year...

I'd imagine that by 2098 they'd have hydroponics setup in areas. There was a popular science article on this (yes, I know, many/most of their predictions are wrong, but this one I could kinda see becoming a reality). Towers of hydroponics farms can grow more plants on the same square footage of land as a normal farm. It will be needed if population keeps going up. So if some of those survive the initial catastrophes, and the knowledgable people around them are quick to react, they could string up UV lights, heat lamps, whatever is needed to keep the plants growing without the sunlight. Everything else they need is in place already.

Plus you have to realize a large part of the population is gonna be toast, so there's plenty of canned food for a much larger population scattered around in grocery stores ripe for the looting.

Also, once the sky clears up, I think I've heard volcanic ash is rich in nutrients, so plantlife would bounce back quickly with that to grow in.

Cactuscat wrote:Well that would certainly be a fine how do you do to the rest of the Multiverse, dousing random worlds with huge clouds of ash from dimensional rifts...

They'd probably think it's some hell dimension they've connected with and set up defense until the rift closes.

As Jason Richards and others have stated, the ash enshrouding the Earth prevents satellite feed, even from those satellites whose orbits allow them to remain intact.

How long does this ash remain in the sky?

I believe the answer to that might be answered with the climate comments.

The Rifts Chaos Earth RPG book page 15 suggests that a global temperature drop of 30-40 degrees Fahrenheit (16-22 Celsius) turns our world into a frozen place of snow and twilight.

Rifts World Book 17, Warlords of Russia, pages 13-14 lets us know that a very large longitude/latitude area of the Earth experiences these climate conditions for Eighty Years.

Given the nature of the jet stream, it is logical that North America might also have a climate change and ash experience inducing an Eighty Year Winter, and 80 yrs disruption to GPS.

That's what I take from this... What are your thoughts?

Krakatoa erupted in 1883 with a force of 200 megatons, and dumped 25 cubic kilometers of ash into the air. most of which stayed aloft in the jet stream. resulted in a 1.2 degree global temp drop and chaotic weather. it wasn't until 1888 that the climate started to return to normal.

a smaller eruption in 1815 generated the year without a summer.

the great cataclysm was a thousand times worse than krakatoa in terms of scope. although the amount of ash in the atmosphere is not too much higher. (the main climate effects are the result of sulphur dioxide created as the result of the eruptions and ashfalls.)

the ash clouds in the upper atmosphere would subsist for several years, although after a few months they'd stop being circumglobar and stop blocking all sunlight.

well before that the GPS network would be unusable, as pointed out by wolfe.

Cactuscat wrote:Y'know, I'm cruising the web, reading everything I can about supervolcanoes and now I have to wonder...

If Yellowstone went off with the strength of its previous eruptions would anyone even be around to care whether GPS worked or not? I'm seeing estimates of 65-70% of all plant and animal life on the North American continent wiped out, sulfuric acid clouds hanging out in the stratosphere for decades and potentially causing global temperature drops of up to -15C, disruption of every climate on the planet--including the delicately balanced rain cycles in the southern hemisphere that bring the yearly rains that are the only water plants have to grow on for most of the year...

Add to that the ley lines, storms, monsters and demons and other dimensional fun...

Maybe Chaos Earth should be renamed "Hey, who killed my planet!?!"

I do have a thery on that, it states smiply that the comeing of the rifts saved north armaraca. becouse it is true that the yellow stone super valacon would be vary bad news, unless you take into account the rifts, in which large amouts of valcanic, and nuke fall out would be rifted else ware.... and that may even shorten the wenter in some parts of the world to north amraca actrealy haveing short cool growing seasions in as early as 3 years, thow the temps would still be blow modern avrage. but I do think that is not unreasanable to think

Mark Hall wrote:I'll also point out that it's somewhat difficult to gauge how big of an effect that Yellowstone will have, due to rifts. Some of that atmospheric ash might drift through rifts, while influxes of foreign air might calm it a bit.

In RWB7 it specifically mentions the atmospheres of linked worlds don't mix, and that's why people end up in dead pools (the water doesn't come gushing out). This rule could of course only apply to Rifts since the leylines are more stable.

The Beast wrote:

Mark Hall wrote:I'll also point out that it's somewhat difficult to gauge how big of an effect that Yellowstone will have, due to rifts. Some of that atmospheric ash might drift through rifts, while influxes of foreign air might calm it a bit.

In RWB7 it specifically mentions the atmospheres of linked worlds don't mix, and that's why people end up in dead pools (the water doesn't come gushing out). This rule could of course only apply to Rifts since the leylines are more stable.

Atmospheres, generally not. What about the ejecta of volcanos?

Besides, the image of a Rift with sulphorous gas pouring out is COOL.

Mark Hall wrote:Atmospheres, generally not. What about the ejecta of volcanos?

Besides, the image of a Rift with sulphorous gas pouring out is COOL.

Well the gas wouldn't do that, as its part of the atmosphere (technically speaking). Ash on the other hand is a solid and could disipitate that way I guess.

with the improved tech levels at the time of the great cataclysm
i would think the gps sats would be a little better made and they could
have moved the control station to one of the orbital stations or the
moon saving the system from serious damage

Ground monitoring stations/bases could have been more automated and self-sustaining.

kevarin wrote:with the improved tech levels at the time of the great cataclysm
i would think the gps sats would be a little better made and they could
have moved the control station to one of the orbital stations or the
moon saving the system from serious damage

Possibly, but it's still going to have problems with ash and, IMO, ley lines.

the GPS network can't be 'overloaded". that would suppose it requires you to send signals to the sats. GPS works by having a bunch of sats sending out constant radio signals which include time info. that time info is number crunched by a computer in the GPS receiver and turned into a location. the use of the system is purely passive on the part of the user.

the reason for ground stations is to keep all the sattelite based and ground based atomic clocks in synch.

presumably by the 2090's the GPS networks (not just NAVSTAR, several other GPS networks exist, including russian and chinese ones) would include advanced onboard AI to make them self-regulating, with ground stations being backup and observation only. a skelebot level AI, if programmed right, would be sufficent. especially if every sat had one, and they ran in parrarel to augment each other.