The Dark Ages - Space Economy Edition:
Life, Culture, and Society After the Next Carrington Event
By Samson Williams, Anthropologist-in-Residence
In the world of the Space Economy, we imagine boundless horizons, limitless connections, and endless data flowing across a planet-web so finely tuned that even the most remote stretches of wilderness are just a satellite beam away from the digital world. It's a dream, a frontier we can reach – until nature reminds us just how fragile our castles in the sky really are. We live in a time where technology touches every corner of our lives, and yet, ironically, we are perched on the edge of a new kind of darkness: the threat of a Carrington Event, a solar superstorm that could fry the very circuitry of our modern lives, silence our webs, and bring our glowing screens to a pitch-black halt.
The original Carrington Event in 1859 was powerful enough to disrupt telegraph systems across continents. Today, a storm of similar magnitude could knock out satellites, transformers, and entire power grids, plunging us not only into darkness but into a collapse of the intricate systems on which modern life hinges. The question is not “If” the next Carrington event happens but rather when. Let’s take a journey through the hypothetical future that awaits us after a solar storm that resets civilization as we know it.
Before the Storm: A House of Glass
Life before a modern Carrington Event is a tale of astonishing connectivity and fragility. Our economy floats on the invisible scaffolding of microchips in satellites orbiting Earth, undersea cables threading continents, and data centers humming with market sentiment. Meanwhile, everything from agriculture, cargo delivery, airplanes and your kid’s commute to school depends on GPS-guided tractors, trailers, ships, vans and cars; riding on a GPS enabled global supply chain. Banking relies on instantaneous transfers and online systems. Even food delivery is a marvel of digitized logistics.
The Space Economy, with its foundation in satellite technology, provides critical support for global communication, weather forecasting, navigation, and internet connectivity. But beneath this marvel lies a vulnerability no firewall can patch. A solar storm doesn’t need malware or brute force to dismantle our infrastructure; it needs only physics.
The warning signs would come too late for many. Aurora borealis would dance across Miami Beach’s white sands, providing a dazzling show for a doomed audience. Solar radiation would fry satellite circuits, rendering billions of dollars of equipment as useless as scrap metal. Transformers on Earth, overwhelmed by geomagnetic currents, would explode in dramatic failures. And then: silence. No power, no internet, no satellites. Just the sounds of nature restored.
After the Storm: The New Dark Ages
The aftermath of a Carrington Event would look eerily like the Dark Ages following the collapse of Rome. When the Roman Empire fell, Europe spiraled into a time of disconnection, decentralization, and loss of knowledge. Similarly, the Space Economy’s collapse would sever the global village, forcing humanity into hyper-localized survival.
Economy: From Global to Local
The global supply chain would crumble without satellites to coordinate shipping and communication. Food, medicine, and goods would no longer traverse oceans at the speed of commerce. Cities, once reliant on distant farms and factories, would face starvation and economic collapse. Local economies, trading in goods rather than currency, would emerge to replace global markets.
Culture: A Return to Analog
Art, entertainment, and communication would regress to analog forms. Radios, books, and handwritten letters might become the primary mediums of cultural exchange. Stock up on pens and paper. The vibrant, interconnected digital spaces where ideas and movements flourish would fade into fragmented communities isolated by the lack of internet and long-distance communication.
Society: Survival Over Progress
In the absence of power, refrigeration, and modern medical systems, survival would become a daily challenge. Communities might regress into self-sufficient enclaves, echoing the feudal villages of the medieval era. The weakest would be hit hardest, as cities hemorrhage populations to rural areas where food and resources are more accessible.
Lessons From History
The parallels to the Black Death and the Dark Ages are stark. Just as the plague reshaped medieval society, the collapse of the Space Economy would force a fundamental reorganization of human life. The Black Death decimated Europe’s population but also paved the way for labor reforms and the Renaissance. Could a modern Dark Age, birthed by a solar storm, similarly lead to a rebirth?
Resilience could rise from the ashes of collapse. Societies might prioritize redundancy in infrastructure, investing in hardened power grids and localized food systems. Technology could pivot to designs that thrive offline, decentralizing critical systems to prevent cascading failures.
Too this reshaping of society comes with it the reshaping of wealth. Who is the wealthiest person on a planet devoid of satellites, GPS enabled weapons of war and stock markets fueled by the emotions of speculation and greed? Probably the man or woman with coffee, cotton and chickens.
A Warning and a Call to Action
We stand at a crossroads, perched between the stars and a potential fall into darkeness. The Space Economy has brought us closer than ever to becoming a truly interplanetary species, but it has also left us perilously dependent on systems we scarcely understand and cannot control.
A Carrington Event isn’t just a possibility; it’s an inevitability. The question isn’t if but when. Preparing for such a storm isn’t merely a matter of technological resilience; it’s about envisioning a society that can adapt to both the brightest and darkest days. If history teaches us anything, it’s that darkness is temporary, and every age has its dawn. Whether we stumble blindly or light the path ahead is up to us.
The next Dark Ages will be of our own making—or unmaking.
PS - The moral of this story is that we need to invest in rad-hardened space infrastructure, especially edgecompute.