Kyra dreams of a comet about to strike Earth. If she deflects it, then the necessary force will crack it apart and its fragments will be almost as destructive so she will have to atomize it with nuclear blasts that might also destroy her spaceship... Then a knock at her door wakes her up.
This is not science fiction. A comet might be en route now and we have no defense against it.
We here are about to go for a long walk by the River Lune. Meanwhile, I leave this thought for blog readers to contemplate.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And Kyra's nightmarish dream brings up more reasons for why we need to get off this rock in a meaningful way! Both for building the kind of infrastructure in space that would be needed for detecting and deflecting such asteroids and guarding against mankind losing everything should a big rock still hit Earth!
LUCIFER'S HAMMER and FOOTFALL by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven also came to mind. Asteroids hit Earth in those stories, one accidentally and one a deliberate attack by invading aliens.
Ad astra! Sean
Amen.
Kaor, Paul!
Amen, indeed! I think the closest we see Anderson writing an analogous story was AFTER DOOMSDAY, after Earth was destroyed by persons unknown. A science fictional murder mystery!
Well, there's also Demeter in the HARVEST books, but the colonists who settled there knew the planet would have to be evacuated in a thousand years or more before it was destroyed.
I should list ENSIGN FLANDRY as well. The planet Starkad would eventually be destroyed by its sun going nova. Fortunately, there was enough time to evacuate SOME of its residents.
"Day of Burning" shows us how Merseia might have been wrecked by a super nova a few light years away.
Ad astra! Sean
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