Scenario: Tunguska in Central Europe

DGNT

For those who dont know what the Tunguska Event was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_Event

Lets say that, instead of striking pretty much uninhabited forest, Paris, Berlin, London, or some other major European city gets a taste of 20 megatons of TNT. Or that it lands in the North Sea or Atlantic off of France or Spain, or even in the Med.
In 1908, what do you think the effects of such a catastrophic event would be? Mass panic? War? The nations of Earth uniting to defend against the evil rock-chucking aliens from space?
POD is about 12,000,000,000 BC, when a dust particle stuck a chunk of rock spinning through space and changed its course ever so slightly :p
 

Tocomocho

DGNT said:
For those who dont know what the Tunguska Event was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_Event

Lets say that, instead of striking pretty much uninhabited forest, Paris, Berlin, London, or some other major European city gets a taste of 20 megatons of TNT. Or that it lands in the North Sea or Atlantic off of France or Spain, or even in the Med.
In 1908, what do you think the effects of such a catastrophic event would be? Mass panic? War? The nations of Earth uniting to defend against the evil rock-chucking aliens from space?
POD is about 12,000,000,000 BC, when a dust particle stuck a chunk of rock spinning through space and changed its course ever so slightly :p
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Obviously, the most interesting scenario would be the asteroid hitting Kaiser Bill in the head.
 
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DGNT

Can an object fifty feet wide really be said to hit somebody just 'in the head'? :p
I would think it would be difficult to tell which part of him got hit, since he would be a floating cloud of radioactive dust after the impact :p
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
I daresay ol' Willy's moustache would absorb the force of the impact, saving Europe :D

We did a scenario a while back about the Tunguska asteroid hitting London, and I believe someone did one where it hit St Petersburg, as well.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Probably WWI is put off as most of the Earth's nations unite to find out just what happened and how to prevent it. A galvanizing shot in the arm for aviation, with astronomical research and the early rocketry experiments becoming a real and international space program. Goddard and vonBraun working together to make Tsiolkovsky's dreams of a moon flight real by the early 1930's.

Something of a revival for religion also, with Messianic movements and much talk of god's punishment. Most people, however, will want to be able to do more about it than pray, so I see the scientific movement as much stronger.
 

DGNT

NapoleonXIV said:
Probably WWI is put off as most of the Earth's nations unite to find out just what happened and how to prevent it. A galvanizing shot in the arm for aviation, with astronomical research and the early rocketry experiments becoming a real and international space program. Goddard and vonBraun working together to make Tsiolkovsky's dreams of a moon flight real by the early 1930's.

Something of a revival for religion also, with Messianic movements and much talk of god's punishment. Most people, however, will want to be able to do more about it than pray, so I see the scientific movement as much stronger.
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That could be interesting. WWI might end up developing around a science/religion war.
 

Darkest

Banned
If a city was hit by the Tunguska asteroid, there would be a huge amount of religious action. What are the chances that an asteroid would hit a city? There would have to be a divine reason. I see much more religious fervor than that of science.
 

Fabilius

Darkest said:
If a city was hit by the Tunguska asteroid, there would be a huge amount of religious action. What are the chances that an asteroid would hit a city? There would have to be a divine reason. I see much more religious fervor than that of science.
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Can´t both happen. I mean a lot more budget for space research projects and a lot more fanatical religious movements?
 
Electric Monk

Electric Monk

Even better, combine the two. A fanatical Europe wide religious movement to get into space in a permanent way and stop this from happening again.
 

Darkest

Banned
Can´t both happen. I mean a lot more budget for space research projects and a lot more fanatical religious movements?
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Why not? It'd be a polarizing affect. The more practical, rationalist types become scientifical strongmen pushing for space research; the more spiritual types would become fanatically religious, interpreting the event as a sign from above. No more middle ground. And, some might be religious fanatics pushing for space research. You can't believe in religion and science at the same time? That's a ridiculous, out-dated theory.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
However, it could happen that in some places the religious types become stronger (probably those places closer to the impact), and in other places the scientists.

I have to admit, though, that the science of ~1900 is too backwards to even think about ways to stop an asteroid. That's why the religious types might win.
 

Tyr

Max Sinister said:
However, it could happen that in some places the religious types become stronger (probably those places closer to the impact), and in other places the scientists.

I have to admit, though, that the science of ~1900 is too backwards to even think about ways to stop an asteroid. That's why the religious types might win.
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Not really.
Even in 1800 in western Europe at least (or Britain and France at least^2) rationality would probally win out.

Where is it hitting?
This has been done several times before (generally in the ASB forum...) covering all sorts of places.
 
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