It could be argued that we already have biological EMPs in the form of solar flares.
But what I'm looking for is a sort of a half baked idea for a planet the had life forms that produce natural EMPs.
So for the context, barely matters but here it is, a space exploration ship gets marooned on a faraway planet of which they know little. The ship takes a lot of damage so their anti EMP technology is not working for the moment.
Now the surprise comes when they land, more like crash, and after a while most of their electronic are fried.
Now I did not set this to hard science because I'm not sure if it could be done but I'd really appreciate a detailed breakdwon of the proposed life form that produces EMPs.
That life form has to cover most of the planet so it can't be just one animal small or big.
However groups of animals, or birds for example, that naturally produce EMPs would be welcome.
Trees, fungus, special rocks or crystals...etc are all welcome suggestion.
However I just want that to make sense. So what I thought of is that life form on that planet "evolved" to produce EMPs to protect themselves from the original inhabitants. I think this starts to make sense as they can't just start spending energy for no gain. But this is merely and idea and not in any part a limit or a hard must.
Anyway I think some sort of incredibly large animal or life form, maybe a sort of huge sprawling trees that cover kilometers of land, can produce those EMP who need to be enough so that the humans stranded need to stop it before they can start fixing their stuff.
So all I want is periodic or constant EMPs enough to make electronics useless, whatever animal or life form that makes it is completely up to you. Solar flares are not welcome as I think it is too boring.
And as always an explained "No" is as valuable as ever.
So. Is there a solution?
so their anti EMP technology is not working for the moment
- Note that for the most part anti-emp is done with shielded lines and faraday cages, which are completely passive, and usually built as part of the casing of whatever it is - an all-metal PC case will act as at least a partial one. You might have better luck having small critters being attracted to tasty electronics/wire signals. $\endgroup$