Four Great Disasters
The Four Great Disasters were a series of multiple major catastrophes that occurred all throughout the worlds of the Polytinaris System during the year 2007. A series of defining events within the history of the Tessian Hegemony, the Great Disasters consisted of four natural disaster events which wreaked havoc within the Polytinaris System and in surrounding areas, causing an estimated total of 254 million fatalities and tens of trillions in economic losses.
The disasters
Unusual flare activity in the Genenia System
The First Disaster of the Four Great Disasters was an unexpected and dangerous outburst of stellar flares beginning in the fall of 2006 from the red dwarf star Genenia, the third and smallest component of the Polytinaris System. Genenia had been long known as a flare star for centuries prior, having experienced three similar bouts of eruptions in the years 1353, 1729, and 1946. However, its eruptions of 2006-07 were an exceptionally powerful event - claimed by several scientific agencies as the "largest on record by a factor of three". The flares within the system caused significant disruption to communications satellites and were responsible for widespread power failures not only on the surfaces of planets, but on several large orbital habitations and interplanetary stations as well. For this time period, a significant uptick in radiation cancers, insomnia, and unwellness were also reported. Even Genenia itself also brightened substantially: it reached a maximum absolute magnitude just barely within naked-eye limits during May, when the eruptions were at their highest.
The Tessian government began issuing radiation advisories to ships travelling within the Genenia System in mid-October of 2006, but the situation grew much worse after a particularly large flare scathed the system's sixth planet Etezan (a habitable Earth-like world with several billions of sentients populating it) on December 2 of that year. While the system's outer gas giants and its larger terrestrial planets such as Ragauno, Odelia, and Etezan had magnetic fields to protect their surfaces, the smaller rocky worlds and many of the populated asteroids/minor planets within the system were less fortunate and were greatly exposed to hazardous stellar radiation; it increased to such a degree that the planet of Yansh had to be completely evacuated in March. The Tessian Hegemony's government initiated a lockdown on the Genenia System on March 18, 2007 due to the dangerous flares: all non-government or Benevolent Star Navy ships were banned from travelling to, from, or within the system without prior approval from the government. In keeping with the Hegemony's practices of supremacism to aerlons and disenfranchisement of others, most non-aerlon residents of the Genenia System were excluded from evacuation orders or moved out at much later times than their aerlon counterparts.
After peaking in May 2007, Genenia's flaring steadily decreased, and by September it had lowered to the point where a systemwide lockdown was no longer needed. By the end of 2007, the star had returned to its normal level of radiative activity.
Jakebuu 2003731 impact event
The second of the disasters occurred on March 11, 2007, when a large asteroid by the name of Jakebuu 2003731 collided with the surface of the planet Tertan. Jakebuu was a moderately large asteroid about three kilometers in diameter and having a mass of several million tons. It was not detected until only a few days before impact thanks to its extremely dark, almost pitch-black coloration and its corresponding albedo value measuring close to zero. Jakebuu struck the planet in the central Flozarian Ocean, about 400 miles west of the Soilafph Islands archipelago. Due to the unexpected nature of the asteroid and the very short window between detection (March 6) and the time of final impact, redirection or destruction of the asteroid was impossible.
Jakebuu made impact very close to a large undersea trench, which minimized its land effects but created exceptionally powerful earthquakes that rocked the Soilafph Islands and caused billions in damages. The impact shockwave crossed Tertan twice and was felt even on the other side of itself. A blistering-hot fireball created by the asteroid burned thousands of square miles of ocean and killed anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in its path. From orbit, the explosive fireball was regarded as "unimaginably bright and hot". Additionally, smaller impact rocks ranging in size from centimeter-wide chunks of dust to large boulders as big as cars flew all across the planet and struck several other locations on Tertan, causing further distress and damage. Fortunately, the Tessian Hegemony's capital of Ovzeria City was left relatively unscathed by the asteroid impact. The government of the Hegemony and several other relief agencies confirmed roughly 75,000 fatalities in the Jakebuu impact event - a number that could have been much higher had the asteroid struck land near a major city.
Extreme tropical cyclone activity in 1701 u.t.
A side effect of the Jakebuu 2003731 impact was an unprecedented increase in undersea volcanic activity and a shocking increase in water temperatures all across Tertan, but concentrated mostly within the Flozarian Ocean. Over the remainder of 2007, all major ocean basins on the planet experienced record levels of tropical cyclone activity spurred by the rapid rise in sea surface temperatures. Almost two hundred systems of tropical storm intensity formed on the planet during 2007 (which was the year 1701 u.t. in the Tertanian calendar), a historic high. Six storms of hypercane strength (500+ mph winds) also formed, including two alone in the Flozarian itself. The strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded on Tertan, Hyper Spiral Onelisse, occurred during early September, reaching a maximum strength of 545 mph & 536 mbar. Dozens of other records were also broken, including triple 400+ mph hurricanes during August in the Flozarian, a storm lasting for over 40 days in the Ajaeon, and several more.
All of these tropical cyclones were responsible for damages approaching an incredible $10 trillion (about 11.4 trillion Tessian Krans) and wrought severe, long-lasting economic and societal effects that spread across not just Tertan itself but also across the Hegemony itself. The Hegemony's capital city of Ovzeria City was badly damaged by numerous immensely strong cyclones, with much of its underlying structure and tens of thousands of its gigantic skyscrapers being crippled by the extreme winds, storm surges, and flooding brought by the hurricanes of 2007/1701 u.t. - as a result for almost three years between 2007 and early 2010 the Tessian Hegemony moved its capital to the Station-47 complex as Ovzeria was almost completely rebuilt from the ground up.
Ungad hypernova and Great Basking
Adding further insult to injury was the explosion of a blue supergiant star about 900 light years from the Polytinaris System named Ungad. At a mass of about 84 solar masses and being over 400,000 times as bright, Ungad was a very bright first-magnitude star in the Tertanian sky prior to its explosion on September 27, 2007, at which point it collapsed into a black hole. Ungad exploding was deemed of particular hazard to the Polytinaris System (along with some very close stars to it such as the Lanaia System) as its rather fast rotation deemed it likely to produce a high-energy gamma-ray burst and lots of dangerous, life-threatening cosmic rays.
When Ungad’s explosion became visible from Tertan, at its greatest it was a clearly apparent, very bright star and could even be seen in the daytime. High-energy radiation passed through the Polytinaris System, exposing lifeforms to hazardous gene-destroying gamma rays, in addition to lower-energy X-rays and ultraviolet. Despite the supernova being widely postulated as “the end of everything” by conspiracy theorists and fringe scientists, no severe societal impacts occurred from Ungad’s explosion. Scientists working in the Tessian government advised citizens to refrain from widespread interplanetary travel, and individuals who were elderly, very young, or otherwise particularly vulnerable to the cosmic radiation were moved off of space stations and other orbital habitations. The Ungad hyperexplosion reached its peak on September 29 and then began fading quickly over the next few weeks: by the end of October, it was no longer visible to the naked eye.
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