[TheEzEzz]

Supernova are powerful enough that even a star in a different solar system going nova can kill you, if it's a "nearby" system. But I believe there aren't any stars close enough that would go supernova any time soon.

[jsbisviewtiful]

A good premise for a sci-fi series: In the distant future, a large fleet of earth's best and brightest travels the stars while desperately trying to invent Earth's last ditch-effort to save its 12 billion inhabitants from a soon-to-be cataclysmic, near-earth supernovae: FTL travel. After decades of progress finally nears fruition, the fleet permanently loses contact with earth; humanity's home Solar System's remnants lost to the beautiful, nightmare... The fleet of 80,000 now works to save itself, the last of humanity.

[shiroiuma]

Sounds like Battlestar Galactica without the Cylons.

Perhaps the story could have Cylons in it, but here they're allies with the humans, but after the supernova, some religious leader convinces most of them that their god wants them to destroy the humans.

[exebook]

Sounds like a cross over of The Age of Supernova and Tri-body Problem. In the former Supernova radiation kills all people on earth except kids under 13.

[tejtm]

Every star that is not our sun is in a different solar system. Could you have meant to say a star in a different galaxy could toast us?

I think, ball park, a SN 500 light years out is considered safe e.g. Betelgeuse. Our Milky Way galaxy is thought to be roughly 100,000 light years in diameter so we should be safe from all but those within about a hundredth of the radius of our galaxy from us.

space is big ...

[bmitc]

I don't think they were using the solar system, as in our solar system, as their frame of reference.

[rnk]

It's always the one you don't expect that gets you.