Habitability of our solar system when Sun becomes red giant

I'm working at a story about the future of life in our Solar System.

Humans have gone millions of years ago, but they left behind them a group of highly intelligent but not superhuman AIs with the task of caring of natural life on Earth. These AIs are (sort of) sentient, but they are designed that they can't evolve and become superhuman.

The AIs have taken care of life for a billion years, or more. They have allowed species evolve and disappear, but they have not allowed mass extinctions nor cathastrophes. In these millions of years, these AIs, known as The Caretakers, have helped life in a lot of crises like cometary impacts, avoiding colissions.

They have also avoided these "great" crises (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future#Future_of_the_Earth.2C_the_Solar_System_and_the_Universe) :

• 200 million years in our future a massive gamma ray burst from a close star could have destroyed Earth's ozone layer, but Caretakers are intelligent enough to study the sky and foresee this burst, so they could build a orbital screen that covered Earth from the gamma rays.

• 600 million years in our future the carbonate-silicate cycle begins to be disrupted by the increased power of the Sun. This could kill plants because of the lower levels of CO2 don't allow photosynthesis. The Caretakers have been burning fossil fuels for millions of years to avoid this. They also build space screens when global warming becomes an issue.

But now, a billion years into the future, Caretakers can't avoid death of life on Earth. Sun is becoming too powerful. AIs are sentient, and individual, not a hive mind. And they have diferent opinions.

-The most conservative faction, called "The nihilists" think that their duty is over and want to commit suicide.

-A faction, called the Telurians, want to stay on Earth, wrapping the planet in a coccoon that protects life and "air conditioning" all the excess heat to the space.

-Other faction, the Selenians, want to do the same, but into big domes in the Moon.

-The Caretaker faction called "The martians" want to terraform Mars thinking it will be more easy and stable than a warming Earth. They think that growing power of the Sun will help them to do this.

-The last faction, "The jovians", want to terraform some moons of Jupiter of Saturn, also with the growing power of the sun.

A very important issue: the Caretakers want to preserve life of Earth "as it is". They will allow some degree of natural evolution, but they will not use genetic engineering to change life for it can adapt to Mars or Europa.

Also, they are not much more clever than humans and they are not much more advanced than our current technology. No FTL, no hyperdrives, no supermaterials, no unobtanium. But they have thousands of years to work and they have all the resources on Earth and the solar system.

Mi questions are:

1.- Are there any other potential catastrophes in the future of Earth that Caretakers have to care about?

2.- Which faction have more chance to survive? Do you have any advice to give them?

3.- Can you suggest another new faction with a different plan?

posted about 8 years ago

Ginasius‭

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