Tunguska Variations
Early on the morning of 30 June 1908, a giant fireball crossed the skies of central Siberia, culminating in a massive explosion that leveled two thousand square kilometers of forest, burning thousands of trees to cinders in a literal flash. The shock wave rippled through the atmosphere, circling the entire world twice over. Fine dust remained suspended in the air for two days, reflecting so much light that even in the dead of a London night, ten thousand kilometers away, one could read a newspaper.
A number of explanations for the Tunguska Event have been advanced in the decades since. The most plausible is that a cometary fragment melted as it plunged into Earth’s atmosphere, exploding high above the forest and leaving tremendous destruction, but no impact crater. Others include the impact of a quantum black hole and, perhaps inevitably, some sort of catastrophic failure aboard a visiting spacecraft. A major objection to the last theory is a complete lack of wreckage in the area.
If one were of a mind, though, counter-explanations could be offered. The remoteness of the site prevented scientific investigation for more than twenty years; by then there was little to document other than the gross physical effects on the woodland. Given the amount of raw energy released by the explosion, the vehicle easily could have been so utterly destroyed as to leave little if any debrís large enough to find, let alone recognize. The technology used in the vehicle could have been so alien to Earthly eyes and technical knowledge as to make its remnants unrecognizable. Or perhaps the nature of the failure left behind nothing to find. Pick one or more, or invent others, but imagine that indeed an alien vessel was the cause of the enormous explosion.
What could have caused such a strange and horrific failure? Maybe it was an exotic technology as yet unknown to Earth, one that would permit the crossing of interstellar distances in reasonably short periods of time: a Fold drive. Along with the atmospheric shock wave, then, a pulse of Fold energy—subtler and more difficult to detect with turn-of-the-century technology—swept around the world, altering it in unusual and unpredictable ways.
Where can we go from here?
The Rise of the Costumed Adventurer
The most appropriate use for such a flamboyant proposition may well be to explain the comparatively sudden appearance of modern costumed heroes and villains. Twenty years after the Tunguska Event would be 1928—in the era when pulp fiction popularized “costumed adventurers” dealing vengeance and justice to their shadowy, monstrously evil adversaries hatching grandiose plots of conquest or avarice. Forty years after the Event would be 1948—when stories of individuals with powers far beyond those of mortal men had become a mainstay of the comic-book industry.
In this scenario, the Fold effect that covered the four corners of the globe affected all higher life forms on a genetic and psychic level. Bell curves of intellectual capacity, physical potential, psychic ability, and whatever other attributes one cares to name did not deepen, but they did widen, especially at the extreme ends. On a chart, the differences would be hardly noticeable. But the world would never be the same again.
The first generation gestating or conceived around the time of the Tunguska Event saw, in the years between the World Wars, the rise of a small minority that seemingly effortlessly flowered at the tops of their chosen fields of endeavor. Inventors, scientists, athletes, investigators, tyrants, criminals, and other colorful, literally larger than life, figures captured headlines and imaginations with their incredible exploits and titanic struggles. Many donned masks or costumes to conceal their identities for various reasons.
The Second World War, taking place roughly thirty to thirty-five years after the Event, was the cauldron that produced a new, even more powerful generation of truly superhuman individuals, affecting the world beyond all proportion to their small numbers. Even the occasional animal of heightened intelligence appeared, and a few aliens, attracted by the unusual goings-on, covertly infiltrated this odd planet’s civilizations for many different purposes.
The decades that followed approximated history in the real world, and taught both superhuman and ordinary man the necessity of preserving the checks and balances that would prevent the world becoming a patchwork of fiefs ruled by supermen or the systematic extermination of those same mighty, but still mortal, individuals.
The End of the World as We Know It
There are countless depictions in many media of the sudden destruction of most of humanity, often accompanied by devastation of the planet. Most tend to be contemporary to the period in which they were created . . . but it might be interesting to explore, with some hindsight, what the world might look like if this occurred early in the century.
In this scenario, instead of merely nudging psychic potentials, the Fold effect so boosted them that the overwhelming majority of humans simply spontaneously combusted, quickly reduced to small piles of greasy ash spilling out of the collars, sleeves, and hems of clothing strewn on the ground. (Thus a major inconvenience is neatly prevented: plague among the few survivors due to the massive piles of unburied decaying bodies.)
For most higher animals, the effect was similar to a high-watt bulb going off in their minds, shocking but probably soon forgotten. For a small number, though, the effect might be permanent, and those would find themselve unable to continue as what they were, yet very likely unwelcome in most human communities.
Weirdworld
In severity this is somewhere between the other two. The Fold Effect was broader and more pronounced than necessary to produce a small crop of super-humans, but not so lethal as to sweep most of humanity away. Instead, a fracturing of normal physical laws took place, with bizarre and unpredictable results. Dinosaurs. Aliens. Psychic powers. Rifts in time and space. The imagination can run riot. Or go the other direction: the Fold Effect lingers, making it difficult to create and sustain electrical or electronic technologies, limiting engineering mostly to mechanical solutions.
What a Difference a Century Makes . . .
If toasting civilization at the beginning of the twentieth century doesn’t appeal, kick the event forward in time ninety or a hundred years. A spacecraft, especially one of any significant size (as something making that big a bang would almost have to be), would find it much more difficult to approach Earth unobserved. Perhaps it was designed for low observability, like “stealth” aircraft—the reason why could be an interesting question in itself. Maybe it was detected farther out, and Earth goes through a period of controlled pandemonium in the weeks or months leading to closest approach or rendevous. And what if there are survivors, especially a large number of survivors?
Editor’s Notes
Obviously, this one can range all over the map, and certainly is not limited to the variations suggested above. New scenarios, whether sketched or detailed, are as welcome as stories, and can be grim, funny, adventurous, psychological, or whatever seems to fit. They can be set during or immediately after the Event, or well afterward, when things have settled into the new status quo. Of all the milieux described here, this one is certainly the most flexible. Ω
Description of the Tunguska Event adapted from Cosmos by Dr. Carl Sagan, published in 1983 by Random House, Inc.
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