And get that earthship with the super huge windmill and greenhouse cause when the sun wakes up, we're gonna be in trouble.

The sun has been quiet for years, at the nadir of its activity cycle. But since February, our star has been spitting out flares and plasma like an angry dragon. ... Sept. 1 of that year saw the largest solar flare on record, witnessed by British astronomer Richard Carrington...Within hours, telegraph operators found out. Their long strands of wire acted as antennas for this huge wave of solar energy. As this tsunami sped by, transmitters heated up, and several burst into flames. ... Such a "Carrington event" will happen again someday, but our wired civilization will suffer losses far greater than a few telegraph shacks.

Communications satellites will be knocked offline. Financial transactions, timed and transmitted via those satellite, will fail, causing millions or billions in losses. The GPS system will go wonky. Astronauts on the space station will huddle in a shielded module, as they have done three times in the past decade due to "space weather," the scientific term for all of the sun's freaky activity. Flights between North America and Asia, over the North Pole, will have to be rerouted, as they were in April during a weak solar storm at a cost to the airlines of $100,000 a flight. And oil pipelines, particularly in Alaska and Canada, will suffer corrosion as they, like power lines, conduct electricity from the solar storm.

But the biggest impact will be on the modern marvel known as the power grid. And experts warn that the grid is not ready. In 2008, the National Academy of Sciences stated that an 1859-level storm could knock out power in parts of the northeastern and northwestern United States for months, even years. Report co-author John Kappenmann estimated that about 135 million Americans would be forced to revert to a pre-electric lifestyle or relocate. Water systems would fail. Food would spoil. Thousands could die.

The solar activity is expected to peak between 2013 and 2014. Whether or not a solar storm of this magnitude will occur during this cycle is unknown. Hopefully not, since, as usual, we're not ready. The president of the North American Electric Reliability Corp (who came up with this name? it's terrible) is already downplaying the the severity of the threat, saying "the idea of 130 million people out of power for 10 years is an overstatement."

Ok, but how about being out of power for 5 years? Or 1 year? You know how much we whine when we have a power outage that last hours? You think we can deal with years, let alone days? It's summer right now, so picture not having any a/c (unless you're me, this is prolly a horrifying prospect).

Also, water systems would fail - no clean water. I might not need air conditioning, but by god, i NEED clean water.

So...let's go.

Isn't this the scene from the opening credits in Thundarr the Barbarian?

that was a comet that broke the moon by flying by.

i suppose we need to learn sorcery, too, then. just to be completely prepared.