Ulysses was an asteroid that fell from space. The world's powers knew it was to come for several years, and built many countermeasures to try to destroy it. Ulysses itself was big enough that if struck our world, the world as we knew it would end, engulfed into a never-ending nuclear winter.
[A pause, and a deep, but almost relieved sigh.]
That's not what happened. My home country Erusea helped construct a railgun battery known as Stonehenge meant to shoot the asteroid down as it entered the atmosphere. Six years ago, on third of July, 1999, Ulysses made planetfall, but before Stonehenge could engage it, the asteroid shattered into thousands of fragments. Stonehenge still destroyed many of the larger fragments, but... hundreds of smaller pieces broke through.
The world goes on, but 500,000 people died that day on the Usean Continent alone. Hundreds of thousands more were injured. Farbanti, the Erusian capital, was struck directly with a fragment, sinking a whole district into the sea. Millions worldwide were displaced. ...It was the greatest natural disaster in the history of our world.
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[A pause, and a deep, but almost relieved sigh.]
That's not what happened. My home country Erusea helped construct a railgun battery known as Stonehenge meant to shoot the asteroid down as it entered the atmosphere. Six years ago, on third of July, 1999, Ulysses made planetfall, but before Stonehenge could engage it, the asteroid shattered into thousands of fragments. Stonehenge still destroyed many of the larger fragments, but... hundreds of smaller pieces broke through.
The world goes on, but 500,000 people died that day on the Usean Continent alone. Hundreds of thousands more were injured. Farbanti, the Erusian capital, was struck directly with a fragment, sinking a whole district into the sea. Millions worldwide were displaced. ...It was the greatest natural disaster in the history of our world.