FORCES OF NATURE

Forces of Nature

What-ifs of nature unleashed or withheld: the asteroid that misses, the eruption evacuated, the superstorm that hits. The planet bends, and history bends with it.

8 charted timelines in this galaxy

Forces of Nature

Nature bends: the mountain, the storm, the stone from space.

A woman at a high window at dusk, a faint red aurora spreading over a lit city, July 2012

FORCES OF NATURE · 23 JUL 2012 · EARTH

Nine days early

In July 2012 the Sun threw off the most violent storm of the space age, a Carrington-class cloud that crossed Earth's orbit and found the planet nine days gone from the spot. This is the timeline where it came nine days early, and a wired civilization was standing in its path.

A snowy Chelyabinsk boulevard of frost-covered cars at dawn, a thin white seam brightening in the eastern sky

FORCES OF NATURE · 15 FEB 2013 · CHELYABINSK

The stone the sun hid

15 February 2013, a Friday morning over the southern Urals. In our timeline a twenty-meter stone burst twenty-three kilometers above Chelyabinsk, and its worst wound was broken glass, filmed on a thousand dashboards. This is the timeline where the stone was three times as wide, and came in low over the city.

Twelve medieval galleys laboring toward a stone harbor mole through a black autumn storm at dusk

FORCES OF NATURE · 1347 · MESSINA

The galleys never dock

In October 1347, twelve Genoese galleys carry the Black Death west toward the harbor of Messina, the first door by which the plague enters Europe. This is the timeline where an autumn storm takes the ships before they can dock.

A vast fleet of Spanish galleons becalmed on a mirror-flat sea at dawn, sails hanging dead under a bruised sky

FORCES OF NATURE · 1588 · THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

The Protestant wind never blows

August 1588. The Spanish Armada, mauled off Gravelines and saved from the Flemish shoals, is about to be driven north into the storms England will thank God for and name the Protestant wind. This is the timeline where the wind lies down instead, and a flat calm settles over the barges of Parma's waiting army.

An immense medieval fleet at anchor in a bay under a clear evening sky, a long stone wall on the shore

FORCES OF NATURE · AUG 1281 · HAKATA BAY, KYUSHU

The kamikaze never blows

In August 1281 the largest invasion fleet the world had yet built lay off the Japanese coast, held at the beach by a stone wall, until a typhoon destroyed it and was named the divine wind. This is the timeline where the storm passes north.

Campfires and stars over a dry Belgian ridge at night, gun teams moving on firm ground

FORCES OF NATURE · 18 JUN 1815 · WATERLOO, BELGIUM

The dry morning at Waterloo

On the night of 17 June 1815 a thunderstorm drowned the fields of Belgium, and Napoleon spent the next morning waiting for the ground to dry while his last battle shrank from a day to an afternoon. In our timeline the Prussians arrived before he was finished. This is the timeline where the storm slides east and the guns open at first light.

A Cretaceous coast at dusk, tyrannosaurs at the river mouth, a new star low on the horizon

FORCES OF NATURE · 66,000,000 YEARS AGO · THE PROTO-GULF OF MEXICO

The asteroid misses by an hour

Sixty-six million years ago, a rock ten kilometres wide crossed Earth’s orbit at the exact wrong moment, and the age of giants ended in an afternoon. This is the timeline where it crossed one hour early — and the age of giants never ended at all.

The forum of Pompeii shaking, birds bursting from the temple roofs, Vesuvius smoking beyond

FORCES OF NATURE · AD 79 · THE BAY OF NAPLES

Pompeii is evacuated before Vesuvius

AD 79. For days the wells have been failing and the ground has been shivering, and Pompeii has learned to ignore both. In our timeline the town was still full when the sky came down. This is the timeline where somebody read the warnings out loud.