The sheer technological gap between humanity and a space-faring alien civilization was a terrifying concept.
It was undoubtedly massive!
In fact, the gap would likely be far wider than the one between modern humans and cavemen.
Just thinking about it made Tony Stark's anxiety, which had only just begun to subside, flare up with a vengeance. His paranoia skyrocketed.
How could anyone not be anxious?
It was impossible to stay calm.
Lucas's diary explicitly mentioned the "Battle of New York." While it didn't provide an exact date, the timeline could be incredibly short. It might happen in a few years, or at most, ten to twenty years.
To a human lifespan, twenty years sounded like a long time. But on a cosmic scale, it was less than the blink of an eye.
Even in an era of explosive technological growth, twenty years was fundamentally useless for elevating an entire civilization.
Take the United States Navy, for example. The most advanced warship on the planet, the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, was commissioned in 2017 and was only fully combat-ready by 2021. But when did the initial design phase begin? 1996.
It took roughly twenty-five years for a single class of naval warship to go from the drawing board to genuine combat readiness.
While part of that delay could be attributed to bureaucratic inefficiency and industrial decline, it still proved a universal truth: monumental technological progress required immense amounts of time.
Tony Stark cramming centuries of theoretical physics into a handful of years to build the Iron Man suit was purely anomalous "black tech."
But black tech like his armor could only decide the outcome of a single skirmish or a localized battle. In a full-scale war between two entire planetary civilizations, a single super-weapon was practically useless.
Only a deeply foolish nation would bet its entire survival on a single "decisive weapon" while ignoring overarching logistics and mass production.
"What do we do? What do we do?" Tony paced frantically, his mind racing through catastrophic scenarios.
If a hostile human nation wanted to attack New York, they would first have to break through the impenetrable net of the US Navy and survive an apocalyptic hail of defensive missiles. But an alien armada wouldn't play by those rules. They could simply drop out of orbit and deploy directly into the atmosphere.
Worse yet, what if they resorted to orbital bombardment?
How do you even defend against that? Humanity had absolutely zero defensive capabilities against a fleet parked in high Earth orbit. The aliens would have the ultimate high ground. They could rain fire down wherever and however they pleased.
The entire situation was an unmitigated disaster.
"And the nuke. How could a nuke go off in New York?" Tony muttered, rubbing his temples.
To put it bluntly, a single nuclear detonation in the heart of the city would result in casualties numbering in the tens of millions. Ten thousand people standing together was already a vast, unending sea of humanity. Ten million was a number too horrific to visualize.
It would be a literal mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
Actually, there wouldn't even be corpses. The millions of ordinary citizens caught in the blast radius would be instantly vaporized into shadows on the pavement.
"No wonder Lucas always complained in his diary about wanting to move out of New York. He knew it was ground zero," Tony realized.
Back then, Tony had just thought Lucas was being dramatic and unappreciative. What was wrong with New York?
It was the capital of the world! Millions dreamed of moving there, and every global megacorporation wore their Manhattan headquarters like a badge of honor. Despite its flaws, it was the ultimate city.
Now, Tony understood. New York was a massive target. In the future, the city was destined to be swallowed by atomic fire.
But what kind of desperate battle would necessitate the use of a nuclear weapon in an American city?
If the nuke was dropped by the alien invaders, it proved they were ruthless, overwhelming, and entirely indifferent to turning Earth into a radioactive wasteland. Or, perhaps they possessed advanced terraforming technology and simply didn't care about the catastrophic pollution a nuclear winter would cause.
Conversely, if the nuke was fired by Earth's own military, the implication was even more horrifying. It meant the situation on the ground had deteriorated to such an absolute, irredeemable point that the government chose to completely annihilate their own crown jewel rather than let it fall.
Either scenario was apocalyptic.
Meanwhile, at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters.
"If this truly is an extraterrestrial invasion, we have a catastrophic problem on our hands," Nick Fury said, his voice grim as a splitting headache took hold.
He hadn't even figured out what the "universe-level crisis" was that Tony Stark was supposedly destined to solve. But now, a much more immediate threat was staring them in the face—an invasion that would inevitably result in the nuclear destruction of New York.
What were they supposed to do?
Nick Fury was deeply anxious, and the sentiment was shared by every agent currently standing in his office. Their collective stress was reaching critical mass.
In a war between entire civilizations, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s vaunted combat capabilities were entirely useless. They were spies and assassins. They thrived in the shadows, executing surgical strikes. If they gathered every single armed S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical team on the planet and forced them into a pitched, frontal battle, they likely wouldn't even be able to hold out against a single conventional army division.
In other words, if an alien armada dropped out of the sky tomorrow, S.H.I.E.L.D. was completely powerless to stop it.
"So, the question is, does the nuke actually detonate or not?" Clint Barton asked quietly, breaking the heavy silence. "If it drops, New York is wiped off the map. And us along with it."
Every S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stationed in the city was ultimately just human. They were highly trained, sure, but a wave of atomic radiation didn't care about training. If they weren't incinerated by the blast, they would die agonizing deaths from radiation poisoning shortly after.
"The diary says Tony 'carried the nuke into the sky,'" Natasha Romanoff analyzed, crossing her arms. "This could mean he intercepted the missile before it detonated. Or, it could mean he flew through the explosive shockwave. We know an ordinary person couldn't survive that. Even if the blast didn't kill them, the lethal radiation would. But Stark has his armor."
"Theoretically," Natasha continued, "as long as he isn't caught directly at ground zero, his suit's life support systems could allow him to survive and fight within a highly radioactive combat zone."
Fury nodded slowly. That logic was sound. Ordinary soldiers required bulky hazmat suits to enter an irradiated zone, but Tony's Iron Man armor was completely sealed and self-sustaining.
"Damn it all. We don't have enough intel. We can't form a proper tactical assessment," Fury cursed under his breath.
Nuclear weapons were likely standard-issue for any space-faring civilization. After all, if a species hadn't unlocked the secrets of nuclear physics, they theoretically couldn't generate the thrust required to leave their home planet.
Of course, magical civilizations like Asgard operated on entirely different rules.
But because nuclear tech was so fundamental to space travel, the presence of a nuke in the vision provided absolutely zero clues as to who was attacking them.
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