If The World Ends

There are moments when we wish an asteroid or something would just go ahead and take out the whole planet. One moment of shining bright light, a massive bump, and then everything is over. No more presidents trying to be dictators. No more Salvadoran prisons housing innocent people. No more xenophobes, transphobes, or any other kind of phobes. Just the leftover dust of energy.

Humanity has considered this outcome for eons. Scientists assure us that it’s unlikely to happen and that, if it looks like it might, we would have time to come up with an alternative to keep it from taking out everyone on the planet. They mean for their words to be reassuring. But if there are survivors of a cataclysmic event, then we create a ‘Mad Max’ type situation, and no one really wants to put up with that nonsense. Not really.

Some have imagined what the effects might be of a sudden, rapid cooling of the planet. Think of it as a new ice age that no one survives. That theory is interesting in that it leaves the planet intact so that, should the planet ever evolve past the snow, new forms of life could start fresh and clean. The part of that theory we don’t like is that such a freeze wouldn’t eliminate everyone at once. The rich would likely buy up the land around the equator and charge outrageous fees for people to only die there instead of dying at home. There would be a higher level of anticipation and a higher level of fear, and that would likely lead to a higher level of pain.

No, after talking this over, we’ve decided that a run-in with an unexpected interstellar object of planetary size would likely be over the fastest, not missing anyone so that we all die equally. There’s a strange peace in that scenario. No one gets out of it. We all go together.

There’s still a problem, though. Interstellar objects don’t move so fast that we can’t track them with the many telescopes scattered around the country. This thing isn’t just going to sneak up on us from hiding behind the sun and boom blow us away. We’re going to know, and making matters worse, we may know quite a while before the damn thing gets here.

So, we talked about what would be the best possible, most likely case scenario that would still achieve the results we want. We have to assume that every logical attempt, and perhaps a few illogical attempts, at moving either the planet or the object heading toward us have already been attempted. We’re within a timeframe where there are no other alternatives. We’re all going to die.

What would that look like?

Thinking about something like that – the world ending in just 30 days, with absolute certainty and nothing to be done – is really mind-bending, isn’t it? Imagine that clock ticking down… it changes everything.

You’d have to assume the world’s governments, once they confirmed the information was absolutely real and unavoidable, would face an unprecedented situation. Their first instinct might be to try and maintain order, perhaps through emergency declarations or even martial law, mostly to prevent immediate, widespread panic and chaos like riots or score-settling. They’d likely make global announcements, trying to convey the certainty of the situation, maybe urging calm, though you have to wonder how effective that could be.

We might see attempts to keep essential services like power and water running for as long as possible, maybe just to provide some minimal comfort or allow people to connect. But the motivation for anyone to show up to work – doctors, power plant operators, anyone – would just evaporate without a future. Long-term projects, defense spending, international diplomacy- all instantly irrelevant. Some governments might release classified information – why not? Others might focus on messages of unity or spiritual guidance. The Pope would likely speak daily. Ultimately, though, any real governmental control would probably dissolve incredibly quickly as people everywhere turned to their own immediate priorities.

The emotional toll across different age groups would be immense and varied. Imagine young children – they wouldn’t grasp the finality, but they’d absorb the fear and grief from the adults around them like sponges. They’d be confused, scared, maybe asking heartbreakingly simple questions, mostly just wanting comfort and closeness from their parents.

Then you have college-age students, maybe just starting to figure out their lives. For them, it would likely feel like a profound betrayal – a future stolen just as they were reaching for it. You might see a mix of intense anger, deep despair, and nihilism, but also maybe a desperate urge to connect, to experience something meaningful in the final days. Dropping out of school, seeking out friends and family for intense bonding, perhaps huge parties or travel home – it would be a scramble for meaning or sensation.

For middle-aged parents, the pain would be unimaginable, focused heavily on their children. Their own mortality would be scary enough, but seeing their kids’ futures erased? That’s a unique kind of agony. Their focus would shift entirely to protecting and comforting their children, trying to create moments of love and normalcy in an utterly abnormal situation, all while grappling with their own terror and regrets. Trying to answer impossible questions and just be there would be everything. Perhaps the older the kids are, the less it might hurt, but ultimately, parents have given their hearts to these kids. Knowing that you’re all going to die, even if it’s painless and together, holds little comfort.

Retirees might face it differently again. Perhaps more reflection on a life lived, immense sadness for grandchildren, but maybe, for some, a slightly more philosophical perspective than younger people facing abruptly canceled futures. Still, the fear and grief would be there, likely driving them to connect with family, share stories, and find comfort in familiar people and perhaps spiritual faith. If only we could know that the stories will exist for some other species to discover in some other timeline.

And what about practical things? Financial markets would cease to exist almost instantaneously. Stocks, bonds, money itself – their value is entirely based on a future that’s just been cancelled. Global markets would halt; the entire economic structure would simply become meaningless overnight. Maybe things with immediate use – food, water, fuel – could be bartered for a short time, but even that relies on a level of social function that would likely break down. Looting? Yeah, why not? Go out dressed like a king or queen. It’s not like anyone is losing anything in the process.

This brings us to law enforcement. Could they maintain authority? It seems highly unlikely. Like everyone else, police officers and soldiers would be facing the end. Their primary motivation would shift to their own families, their own final days. Why risk your life enforcing laws when there’s no tomorrow, no paycheck, no pension, no society to protect? You’d expect widespread abandonment of posts. Any remaining authority would likely be extremely localized and temporary, perhaps based on personal charisma or immediate need rather than the formal structures we rely on now. Society, as we know it, would effectively dissolve long before the actual final day, replaced by individual and small-group efforts to find meaning, comfort, or connection in the face of the inevitable.

We’ve wondered about animals. Especially some of those with markedly higher levels of brain activity than we understand, like killer whales, dolphins, elephant, lions, and horses. They have a connection with the planet that we don’t have. They feel shifts in the earth’s magnetic field differently, and a lot faster, than even the most in-tune humans. Would they bolt and run in some direction, or would they turn on us after millennia of mistreating them and extract some form of justice?

Sit here and think on that for a minute. Is it worse than the chaos we’re enduring now? Are we still willing to bet on a return to some form of normalcy within our lifetime?

Perhaps there is a planet out there with our name on it, about to be bounced from its set orbit and placed on an irrevocable collision course with us.

Or not.