Variation on "The Night That Never Ends" plot

I've been contemplating a variant take on the "ambitious vampire(s) seek(s) to bring about The Night That Never Ends for permanent Lunacy powerup" plot by having the vampires seek to induce a permanent solar eclipse on the day-side of the Earth, which should more or less give the same effect. This immediately had me consider a very important question: What are the possible effects of such a phenomenon on Earth's ecosphere? Will it actually do more harm than good to the vampires' Evil Plan to Take Over the World?

edited 6th Nov '12 4:18:38 PM by MarqFJA

Is this the kind of eclipse caused by the moon passing in front of the sun? If so there's kind of the whole 'moon falling out of the sky because it's unable to maintain its orbit' problem. Disregarding that though, the eclipse will only be total in a small area, so most of the globe will still be getting full or partial sunlight, and the eclipse would only appear to come into effect towards the middle of the day as the world turns beneath the shadow. Like ordinary eclipses, the totality would last about 7 minutes.

Initially equatorial regions might be quite glad of the relief from the midday sun, but since the moon would be absorbing a significant proportion of the energy that normally falls on Earth, I'd expect severe global cooling, possibly triggering an ice age or worse. There would also probably be significant additional weather disruptions in the short-term due to the altered convection patterns.

Also, obviously, the vampires would have only gained 7 minutes of not-burning-alive time unless they run at 1,600 km/h counter to Earth's rotation to stay under the shadow.

If it's a magic eclipse of course, probably none of that applies.

edited 6th Nov '12 5:26:21 PM by Kesteven

Yeah, probably gonna need a supernatural counter-moon that has the right size and is set at the right distance from Earth to create a worldwide full eclipse, block whatever mystical element is in sunlight that harms and/or diminishes the power of vampires, and still allow enough thermal energy (in the form of infrared rays) to pass through and warm up the planet sufficiently that it would avoid otherwise-inevitable ecological cataclysms as a new ice age. And it does open possibilities for an Alien Sky during "daytime" that breaks up the monotony of a traditional Always Night situation, too.

... Say, would a counter-moon be able to keep the original moon's orbit stable while it's "trapped" in a permanent full-lunar-eclipse position year-round?

edited 6th Nov '12 6:10:58 PM by MarqFJA

I think you should avoid involving the moon altogether - it creates too many odd questions and magic (which I assume is present because vampires) presents numerous options that can streamline the story

There was an episode of Static Shock where the antagonists of the week (bang babies who got powers but also got light-sensitive eyes) built a machine that created a sort of a smog-like technobabble substance that blocked sunlight but still let all the ecosystem things work properly.

So assuming there's a magical anti-sunlight that creates darkness but doesn't impede ecology, you could do all sorts of things; create a factory that spews it out 24/7, create a disk of it that you then put into space/anchor to the earth (ala that one simpsons episode, would also be visually similar to an eclipse), or any number of other things.

This also provides a more concrete target for those looking to undo the eternal night- factories/space-disk anchors are a much more tangible impediment than whatever forces would be required to hold the moon in place.

Just some thoughts of course. If you're set on using a super-eclipse don't let me slow you down.

The vampires could be sensitive to UV light like in Blade or some other wavelenghts that plants doesn't really use. The smoke(particles or whatever) could block this light without any major ecological problems. The climate might cool down by an miniscule amount and some insects migt have a problem finding some flowers, but thats it.

You wouldn't need to Techno Babble this that way. They could just use magic(Alchemy?) to turn the sky less blue.

edited 7th Nov '12 2:21:19 AM by m8e

Even if things get a bit cold, I don't think Vampires would mind much.

Unholy Resilience Of The Damned and whatnot.

I suspect the climate change would actually be fairly significant. Not the freeze-the-oceans oxygen-falls-as-snow in a month significant of simple eternal night, but it'd still noticeably cool the planet, maybe get an ice age.

It depends what kind of light the vampires are sensitive to, how much they remove, if the light is reflected back into space or if it just converted to infrared or some other wavelength, if the entire world is affected or if it's localised around the source...

edited 7th Nov '12 1:34:32 PM by m8e

Until they have to deal with their food supply dying out due to excessive drops in global temperature.

That's what the mole people are for.

Yeah, depending on how much food they actually need, a few post-apocalyptic subterranean complexes of domestic humans might be easier to manage than an entire planet of self-governing ones, so that might work out in their favour.