What Comes Next

What if the sun went dark for one day and then rose again? A whole hemisphere's spring crop freezes at once, every country that sells grain keeps its harvest at home, and the hungry years begin over a harbor full of grain ships that nobody will let leave. Earth at night and eclipse footage is courtesy of NASA. The full story is in Episode 8 of What Comes Next, What If the Sun Disappeared for 24 Ho...

This part is imagined. The paid warning goes out at 9:40, the free one arrives at 10:15, and by then the storm has crossed the trailer park. Would you pay for the faster warning, or keep the free one? Every scene in this Short is AI-generated, and full credits are in the episode description. The full story is Series 01 Episode 3 of What Comes Next, and the video is on the What Comes Next YouTube c...

What if the sun's light and heat switched off at noon for exactly 24 hours? Stars come out over office towers at lunchtime, every solar farm on Earth stops at once, and by midnight the young wheat is white with frost. Eclipse and Earth at night footage is courtesy of NASA. The full story is in Episode 8 of What Comes Next, What If the Sun Disappeared for 24 Hours?

Project 2025 asks to shift most disaster costs to the states, and on June 10, 2025 the president said FEMA should go to the state level. A judge later ruled the FEMA staffing cut unlawful. Who should pay to rebuild, Washington or your state? The real footage is from NASA and the Library of Congress, and full credits are in the episode description. The full story is Series 01 Episode 3 of What Come...

Mount Tambora erupted in April 1815, and NOAA says Northern Hemisphere temperatures fell about 1 degree Fahrenheit. A May frost in 1816 killed most crops across four northeastern states, and NOAA counts more than 100,000 deaths from the food shortages that followed. Harvests are still that fragile, and Russia's 2010 wheat export ban proved it again. Photographs are courtesy of NASA and the Library...

In July 2026, 34 members of Congress wrote that no balloons went up ahead of an April storm in eastern Kansas, and the tornado watch came 30 minutes before touchdown. Is 30 minutes enough warning, or far too little? The real footage is from NASA and the Library of Congress, and full credits are in the episode description. The full story is Series 01 Episode 3 of What Comes Next, and the video is o...

The light on your face left the sun about 8 minutes and 20 seconds ago. In 2024 an eclipse took 9 gigawatts off the Texas grid in 45 minutes, bees went silent the moment totality hit in 2017, and one Alaska town went from November 2025 to January 2026 without a sunrise. Eclipse and Arctic footage is courtesy of NASA. The power towers photograph by Carol M. Highsmith and the two apiary pictures com...

Every morning and evening, at 92 places across America, someone lets go of a weather balloon. In March 2025, Omaha stopped. Should the forecast stay free or be something you buy? The real footage is from NASA and the Library of Congress, and full credits are in the episode description. The full story is Series 01 Episode 3 of What Comes Next, and the video is on the What Comes Next YouTube channel...

In March 2025, the weather office in Omaha, Nebraska stopped launching its weather balloons. Chapter 21 of Project 2025 says NOAA "should be broken up and downsized" and that the National Weather Service "should fully commercialize its forecasting operations." Chapter 5 asks to shift most disaster costs from Washington to the states. This episode follows one storm from the warning before it to the...

What if the sun disappeared for 24 hours? The light on your face left the sun about eight minutes and twenty seconds ago, so you would not know right away. This episode starts with what really happened when daylight switched off: the 2024 eclipse that took nine gigawatts off the Texas grid, the 2017 study that heard bees go silent at totality, an Alaska town that went from November to January with...

Give it five hundred years and the ordinary house is gone, but bronze statues stand green under the leaves and plastic waits in the soil. The longest lasting thing we made should survive a billion years, and it is not on Earth. The full story is in Episode 7 of What Comes Next, What If Every Human Vanished Tomorrow?

What if every person on Earth vanished tomorrow morning? Within hours the grid fails, within two days water rises in the subway, and by the end of the week the last diesel at an unattended nuclear plant runs dry. The full story is in Episode 7 of What Comes Next, What If Every Human Vanished Tomorrow?

A census published in Current Biology in 2015 found wolves more than seven times as common inside the Chernobyl zone as in nearby reserves. Along the Korean border, a strip closed since 1953 now holds 5,929 wildlife species. The views from orbit are NASA astronaut photographs. The full story is in Episode 7 of What Comes Next, What If Every Human Vanished Tomorrow?

New York's subway pumps about 13 million gallons of water a day, and Hurricane Sandy showed what happens when they stop. In 2003 a blackout crossed the grid in minutes, and every nuclear plant in its path shut down safely. The archival films are from the Library of Congress. The full story is in Episode 7 of What Comes Next, What If Every Human Vanished Tomorrow?

What if every human vanished tomorrow? Under New York, pumps push about 13 million gallons of water out of the subway on a dry day. This episode follows the real nights when that protection failed, from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 to the 2003 blackout, and the two places where land already shows what happens when people leave, the Chernobyl zone and the Korean border strip. The second half imagines th...

This one is our own imagining, and the Short says so out loud before it starts. Schools are built with windows that open wide, handshakes turn into nods, and clinics post the local infection count the way we post pollen. Then it returns to the real world, where drug resistant infections caused about 1.27 million deaths in 2019. Photographs of today's labs and medical campuses are by Carol M. Highs...

This one is our own imagining, and the Short says so out loud before it starts. The war is fought without the wonder drug, surgery shrinks to what cannot be avoided, sanatoriums never close, and the money pours into vaccines and phage therapy instead. The full story is in Episode 6 of What Comes Next, What If Penicillin Was Never Discovered?

The first Oxford patient began to improve within a day in 1941, but the supply ran out and he died. In 1942 a dying patient named Anne Miller got half of all the penicillin in America, her fever broke by morning, and she lived to ninety. By D-Day, factories had about 2.3 million doses ready. Photographs are from the Library of Congress, including New Haven Hospital, where Anne Miller was treated....

In 1924 sixteen year old Calvin Coolidge Junior got a blister playing tennis at the White House, and he was dead within a week. The Coolidge Foundation writes that antibiotics could have easily treated it. Four years later, Alexander Fleming found a mold on an unwashed dish. Photographs of Calvin Coolidge Junior and his family are from the Library of Congress. The full story is in Episode 6 of Wha...

What if penicillin was never discovered? In 1924 the president's sixteen year old son got a blister playing tennis at the White House and was dead within a week. This episode follows Alexander Fleming's unwashed dish, the first Oxford patient in 1941, the woman in New Haven who received half of all the penicillin in America in 1942, and the factories that made millions of doses before D-Day. The s...

This one is our speculation, and the Short says so out loud before it starts. It pictures the version of Project 2025's chapter three that critics fear, where jobs follow elections the way they did before 1883. It ends on what critics and supporters would each call that government. The archival images are from the Library of Congress, and full credits are in the main episode's description. The ful...

In May 2025 most federal job applications gained an essay question asking how the applicant would advance the President's policies. On September 11, 2026, a federal judge in Massachusetts halted it, finding it likely violated job seekers' First Amendment rights. That question is not in chapter three of Project 2025, but it sits on the same old line between skill and loyalty. The cover photograph s...

England kept its royal accounts on wooden tally sticks until 1826, with each stick split so both sides held a matching half of the debt. On October 16, 1834, workmen fed two cartloads of the retired sticks into a furnace under Parliament, and the fire spread through the Palace of Westminster. The cover photograph shows Tom Vaughan with his family's old store ledger in Texas, by Carol M. Highsmith,...

Schedule F was created in October 2020 and canceled in January 2021. Page 80 of Project 2025 says it should be reinstated. A rule built on that took effect on March 9, 2026, and on June 3 about 8,000 jobs moved into it. The personnel office says the roles remain career positions filled on merit. The cover photograph shows Veterans Bureau staff in 1923, from the Library of Congress. The full story...

A man who wanted a government job shot President Garfield in 1881. Two years later Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which made people pass exams for covered jobs and made firing them for political reasons unlawful. Chapter three of Project 2025 now asks for more presidential power over who keeps those jobs. Every image is from the Library of Congress, and full credits are in the main episode's d...