DBWI: The St. Petersburg Meteor hits Tunguska Instead

[The Sandman]

As we all know, the capital of the Russian Empire was obliterated early in the morning on June 30, 1908 by what we now believe to have been an airburst of a particularly large meteor. Had the meteor arrived just a few hours earlier, however, it would have destroyed a region of sparsely populated and altogether unimportant taiga instead. What would the effects of St. Petersburg's survival have been?

 

[Agentdark]

Russia probably would not have fragmented.

 

[Fabilius]

Russia probably would not have fragmented.

That and no world war I. I mean with Russia still in the game, the power balance would´ve lasted as a deterrent.

 

[Agentdark]

That is true, and WW1 was fought becouse of the Communist Government in European Russia trying to grab the Crimea...

 

[Fabilius]

That is true, and WW1 was fought becouse of the Communist Government in European Russia trying to grab the Crimea...

Well actually the Crimea historically belongs to Russia and the fact that the Franco/English alliance grabbed it during the civil war and installed a puppet regime doesn´t really help the case of the allies.

 

[Glen]

I doubt we'd see the burst of interest in space exploration without the threat of destruction that the St. Petersburg Fireball brought home to all the nations of the Earth.

Heck, we might not have even gone to Mars yet, not to mention all the asteroid mining that came about as a side benefit of the large threat diversion project by the International Consortium for Earth Defense.

And of course the economy might be a bit better off without the diversion of all that tax money to ICED operations.