Brainstorm: The Stele of Coba A man wakes up from a coma in an abandoned hospital. He sees he looks a bit older when he looks in the mirror. He ventures out into the world, which is equally as deserted. Nature appears to have taken over. He begins his search to figure out where everyone is and what happened. He finds a recent newspaper telling of citizens having stormed the president’s barricaded hideout. The article mentions visitors. He goes from car to car, state to state, traveling from Chicago to Washington, DC. He notes that there are also no animals. He arrives at the White House to search through confidential records to see what he can find out. After a few days of searching, he finds recordings and files detailing 50 years’ worth of communication because government entities and the extraterrestrials. He finds fiery debates between delegates from every country arguing over how to react to a proposition from the extraterrestrial life. The proposition, he finds, is to take the entire human population and animals to their planet because these aliens feel we are destroying our planet. They are quite insistent that we leave with them, as they feel we’ve made our planet toxic. Humans spends the next five decades fighting over how to respond, whether or not it’s a good idea, whether they should fight or go quietly. As December 2012 approaches, the world’s population is informed that they will be leaving with these visitors when they arrive. The Earth will be allowed to heal and will be checked on every two decades. There is mass chaos at first. Whole nations rebel against their governments for months; however, once they come to the realization that this is inevitable and the government can do nothing to stop it, people simply try to go about their lives normally, counting down the days. In the final days, the people demand the president join them as equals rather than hiding in his bunker. This is the last piece of information the protagonist can find. He must now wait on Earth for two decades and try to survive until the visitors come back to check on Earth’s progress. [a] [a]Allie Jaarsma: This should be more of a brainstorm about "your" novel. Pick a conflict, decide on setting/time period/characters, etc.