Flares aren’t line-of-sight nor instantaneous. The whole earth would be affected.

Not true.

The flare itself is fairly fast. But the issue is charged particles that take longer to get us. And they are spread out in time.

As https://www.livescience.com/carrington-event describes, the Carrington Event was a solar flare lasting only 5 minutes. But the magnetic disturbances kept arriving over a week.

Reminds me of an episode of an old TV show (I think it was [0]), where one night, the Moon was shining unusually bright. While everyone else marveled at the beauty of the phenomenon, the protagonist is one of the few who understood that if the Moon is this bright, it means the other side of the Earth is currently on fire, and they all have but a few hours left to live.

--

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Outer_Limits_(1995...

based on Larry Niven story Inconstant Moon which won the 1972 Hugo Award for best short story.

Oh. I'm adding it to my to-read queue then, and bumping Larry Niven up in the queue in general too. I've been meaning to read his works ever since I learned about Known Space / Star Trek connection.

I liked his stuff a lot, a soft spot especially for protector.

I liked the Niven/Pournell books and I still think back to them often enough. The Mote in God's Eye and Lucifer's Hammer I think I read back to back. It's been a long time but I really enjoyed them when I was younger.

The misogyny in Lucifer's Hammer did not age well at all. Mote is not as in-your-face with it. I do like all the different kinds of moties.

Interesting and not surprised. I don't actually remember any but it's half my life ago at this point

And the safe half will be brimming with plentiful retro 8-bit CPU's, all the necessary support chips, and input/output devices? I can see this being a fun "what-if" project that provides a hobby but not as a serious solution.