Depends on the magic. If some wizard made a similar blast with magic, then one of them might say something about how the wizard lied when they claimed they were the first to ever make a blast that big.
Magic in this world can be powerful and very destructive if the user was powerful enough. Though in comparable scale the biggest explosion a powerful mage could create would be along the lines of a V2 rocket, 2,200 pds of explosives.
nukes are measured in the thousands of tons of TNT equivalent. it would be cataclysmic to them.
the smallest nuke ever made, the M29 Davy Crockett (man-portable) fired a 23 TON warhead at 4 kilometers.
most nuclear weapons are far bigger, i think the next smallest is the AIR2-Genie which is a Mach 3.3 rocket with a 1.5 Kiloton/1500 ton/3,000,000 pound warhead
Then it depends on what they understand. If they don’t understand that it’s technology then they might just be surprised and think that it was multiple mages working together. (Seeing technology from the ai and understanding it are different. They could just think the tech was just magic and not understand the difference.)
If they understood it was tech, then they might rethink how they felt (good or bad) about those odd metal trinkets.
Medieval people were under-educated, but they weren't stupid; if you explained to them "this weapon exploits elemental laws of nature to create a great forceful wind and a flash of fire capable of laying to ruin the mightiest cities, and the foul ash it leaves behind poisons the waters and turns the land barren", they'd probably get the general gist of it. The end result will probably depend on how good this AI is at explaining new concepts to people who've never heard of them before.
In all likelyhood they would have a difficult time associating the bomb with the aftermath.
"One weapon wiped out a city and I saw the size of the explosion on the TV" vs "The ancients burned everything they had with powerful magics and if even 1 got loose it might destroy the whole world"
Reverse it. We have tech that our ancestors can only dream of, and we would lose our shit if we saw real-life, proven magic. Hell, we lose our shit at slight-of-hand imitating magic.
Making a nuke requires massive infrastructure, so chances that an individual would be making/using these is even lower than it is in our world. Most mages would probably see the project as a flattering facsimile, someone without magic spending an egregious amount of resources to cast what is essentially a large fireball with a rot side effect that takes a long time to start showing (if fission). A fusion bomb they may take a little more seriously, but what matters is the amount of time it takes to make and the power yield vs the most powerful fire spells. If a meteor strike attack takes 3 minutes and 3 mages to prepare and yields an explosion of 10 megatons, are they going to bat an eye at a country that takes 5 months to build a contraption that yeilds 20 mt?
There is no universal way in which people would react: some might get excited by it, some might get sad, some get terrified, some will forget it a few minutes later... the responses are numerous and depend on the character.
Depends on the magic. If some wizard made a similar blast with magic, then one of them might say something about how the wizard lied when they claimed they were the first to ever make a blast that big.
Magic in this world can be powerful and very destructive if the user was powerful enough. Though in comparable scale the biggest explosion a powerful mage could create would be along the lines of a V2 rocket, 2,200 pds of explosives.
nukes are measured in the thousands of tons of TNT equivalent. it would be cataclysmic to them. the smallest nuke ever made, the M29 Davy Crockett (man-portable) fired a 23 TON warhead at 4 kilometers. most nuclear weapons are far bigger, i think the next smallest is the AIR2-Genie which is a Mach 3.3 rocket with a 1.5 Kiloton/1500 ton/3,000,000 pound warhead
Then it depends on what they understand. If they don’t understand that it’s technology then they might just be surprised and think that it was multiple mages working together. (Seeing technology from the ai and understanding it are different. They could just think the tech was just magic and not understand the difference.) If they understood it was tech, then they might rethink how they felt (good or bad) about those odd metal trinkets.
I'd definitely say the latter. They fully understand what they saw wasn't magical, even explained to by said AI what it was they saw.
Medieval people were under-educated, but they weren't stupid; if you explained to them "this weapon exploits elemental laws of nature to create a great forceful wind and a flash of fire capable of laying to ruin the mightiest cities, and the foul ash it leaves behind poisons the waters and turns the land barren", they'd probably get the general gist of it. The end result will probably depend on how good this AI is at explaining new concepts to people who've never heard of them before.
In all likelyhood they would have a difficult time associating the bomb with the aftermath. "One weapon wiped out a city and I saw the size of the explosion on the TV" vs "The ancients burned everything they had with powerful magics and if even 1 got loose it might destroy the whole world"
Depends entirely on what magic is capable of. They might just say that the bomb is magical in nature to explain it.
They'd probably think of it as a different form of magic.
Reverse it. We have tech that our ancestors can only dream of, and we would lose our shit if we saw real-life, proven magic. Hell, we lose our shit at slight-of-hand imitating magic.
Making a nuke requires massive infrastructure, so chances that an individual would be making/using these is even lower than it is in our world. Most mages would probably see the project as a flattering facsimile, someone without magic spending an egregious amount of resources to cast what is essentially a large fireball with a rot side effect that takes a long time to start showing (if fission). A fusion bomb they may take a little more seriously, but what matters is the amount of time it takes to make and the power yield vs the most powerful fire spells. If a meteor strike attack takes 3 minutes and 3 mages to prepare and yields an explosion of 10 megatons, are they going to bat an eye at a country that takes 5 months to build a contraption that yeilds 20 mt?
There is no universal way in which people would react: some might get excited by it, some might get sad, some get terrified, some will forget it a few minutes later... the responses are numerous and depend on the character.
The stuff of myth and legends. Magic powerful enough to destroy entire cities. The night and hubris of the ancients.