When sungrazer comet X2017-Y2 appears in the night sky it is widely celebrated. Little do the residents of America's Empty Quarter know they are reveling in their own doom. When the comet triggers a massive solar storm, all exposed electronics and power grids on earth are wiped out as the sky turns a sickly green. Plunged into a world without power communities across the West struggle with isolation from the outside world, threats of bandits and raiders, and hunger on a scale which hasn't been seen in over a hundred years.