re: #148 Dianna

Well…I didn’t say it!

Massacre of the Comet Wardens (I wrote this a few years ago. It is online but thoroughly buried)

One of my favorite scenes in all of science fiction is “the massacre of the Comet Wardens” in Niven and Pournelle’s Lucifer’s Hammer.

Lucifer’s Hammer, 1977
time: late 70s
place: mostly Southern California

An amateur astronomer named Tim Hamner discovers a new comet on a course that will take it very close to the Earth. The comet nucleus will rain mountain size chunks all over the Earth if it happens to hit, causing tsunamis, drastic weather change, and effects akin go nuclear winter.
In the weeks and months after Hamner’s discovery, the chances of a collision grow from one in a million to one in a hundred to one in ten. A new religious cult, the Comet Wardens, forms in Southern California. Playing on the discoverer’s name, their leader declares that the comet is the “hammer of God” sent to punish humanity for its wickedness. The Wardens dress in white robes and oppose all efforts to prepare for a possible collision, insisting that only prayer and repentance will save humanity.
By the morning the comet is due, millions have already fled the LA basin for the hills and deserts. With a collision deemed ever more likely, the last hold-outs run for the hills, jamming the freeways.

In a final spectacular demonstration, the white robed Comet Wardens chain themselves across a major traffic artery, snarling traffic for miles and trapping the panic stricken hordes in the city.
The comet actually hits, dropping a huge asteroid into the ocean just off LA. It is clearly visible from the city, God’s own tsunami is headed their way and thousands cannot escape.
The Comet Wardens have thrown away the keys to their chains, there is no time or equipment to cut the chains and open the highway, and the police have fled.
Thousands of would-be refugees realize that they are doomed and that they could have gotten away if not for the Comet Wardens, now helpless in their long chains as the vengeful mob pounces. They have about half an hour before the tsunami hits.

Read it, it’s good.