It was the Gremlins
Today is the centenary of the Tunguska event, when something mysterious happened in remotest Siberia, leveling trees over hundreds of square miles, and leaving assorted caribou and bears and such dazed and befuddled. People were slow to pay attention to this marvelous occurrence. Perhaps we can forgive them, seeing as it happened so very far from fashionable and comfortable places, and anyway, just as we were getting ready to go, the whole damn World War thing started. And after that was over, half the world turned commie, and screw that for breakfast, anyway.
So, the Tunguska event. Something had a hate on for trees. Comet, asteroid, methane gas, UFOs, or the mother of all lightning strikes. (See some explanations here, at the fantastically thorough and accurate, all-encompassing and never to be sufficiently praised wikipedia.)
The impact (if it was indeed an impact) was on essentially the same latitude as St. Petersburg. And several articles have pointed out that back in the sixties, the crack young staff of the Guiness World Records figured out that if the space thingy had been stick in traffic for four hours and forty seven minutes, then it would have been the capital of Imperial Russia and seat of the Tsars that would have been tatered, rather than some bog-soaked, mosquito infested corner of Siberian hell.
Think of the implications of that one.
Three years after the Russo-Japanese War, and the abortive 1905 uprisings. But, before the rise of the Bolsheviks. Losing St. Petersburg would have really gutted the centralized Russian Empire. What effect would that have had on a) WWI, b) world Communism and c) the Moon Race?
Discuss.
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§ 7 Comments
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Have we discounted the possibility that it was a weapon sent down the timestream in an attempt to influence the events you mention?
Maybe their guidance was off a bit...maybe the Earth rotates a tiny fraction slower in their era than in ours and they didn't account for it.
Doesn't really bring anything to your question, but I thought by asking another question it would mask my not having an answer.
It occurs to me that if the…
It occurs to me that if the meteor/asteroid/comet/antimatter lump/out of control UFO/whatever was just 4:47 late, it still wouldn't hit. Because the Earth would also have moved along in its orbit around the sun. To hit St. Petersburg, it would have also had to be on a (slightly) different orbit.
The only other major cities at that latitude are the Scandinavian capitals - Helsinki, Stockholm, and Oslo.
S. M. Stirling actually wrote an alternate history novel where the world was hit by a large comet in 1870 or so. It fragmented, and pieces of it hit in an arc from central Russia to the Atlantic. Most everyone in the Northern Hemisphere died from the strikes, from tsunamis, or famine from the nuclear winter type aftermath.
The British managed to survive, sort of, by evacuating three million people from England to India, South Africa and Australia.
Called Peshawar Lancers, and really quite good swahsbuckling fun. This scenario would be a little less stark, though.
Stirling- did you read his "Dies the Fire"? I thought it sounded interesting but the reviews I read were only so-so. "Lucifer's Hammer" of course had great comet action, but feels kinda dated. I thought "Warday" was really good coping-with-the-aftermath stuff, and cleverly told. Also dated though.
As to your specific question though about the Russian royal family and the obliteration of St Petersburg, I just don't have the knowledge to contribute much.
If I were running the switchboard when your call came in, you might hear "Dr Harry Turtledove, please pick up the white courtesy telephone."
I've read all of those books…
I've read all of those books. They're kind of a follow on to the Island in the Sea of Time series. They're interesting, well written, and yet somehow not compelling. Stirling has a problem, I think, with making his bad guys a little too blatantly evil.
Worth a read, though, especially if you gets 'em through the li-bary.
Peshawar Lancers, the one I mentioned above, is a stand-alone, and one of Stirling's best.
Never read War Day. Is that by the alien abduction guy? Streiber?
Yes, I believe also with his frequent partner Jim Kunetka.
The clever bit I alluded to is that the story is told by Streiber and Kunetka as older men who are now travelling the country learning how others are dealing with the ramifications of Warday, 20-odd years on. I dunno, I thought it worked.
But yeah, same thing- don't bother buying it if lieberry has it.
Well, maybe it wouldn'a been so bad. I mean, Moscow had burned more than once, whether by accident (hey it happens when everything's made of the same stuff you cook and heat with!) or by the design of various Asians.
Nothing so thoroughly destructive as this though. Hmmm.
Maybe it would be helpful to look for similar catstrophes in other places? Portugal, Spain, imperial Rome...what were ramifications of earthquake and whatnot on those societies?
The Lisbon earthquake in…
The Lisbon earthquake in 1755 (I think) shook up the European world rather thoroughly. People thought it was a sign from God.
Having a major imperial city nuked like this would have a lot of people thinking.
Also, in all likelihood, the bulk of the Imperial family would have been in St. Petersburg, and with a blast like that, it is unlikely that they would have survived. That would send Russia into chaos - and who knows what would have happened after.
Russia's mobilization in support of the Serbs in 1914 was one of the biggest proximate causes of the start of WWII. Would Russia have been in a position to be sword rattling six years after its capitol had been nuked from orbit?