system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[avatar] if sozin had known that aang had fled before the attack?

 if when it was only a day (or a few hours) before the comet arrived, sozin learns through the Fire Sages that the avatar had fled, would he still have followed through with the plan? or what would he have done with the comet?
gpt
Does he know that the Avatar fled, or that the Avatar is functionally dead as far as the world is concerned? 

If it’s the former, Sozin would probably switch the order from “blow them all to hell” to “blow most of them to hell, but grab the elders to find out WTF is going on and take hostages to coerce them.” When nobody can tell him where Aang is, he kills them as well and things proceed as in canon. 

If it’s the latter, then Sozin would use the Comet to attack actual military targets such as Ba Sing Se or the NWT, but also hit on the Air Nomads with much less of a significant force. He’d claim that he killed the Avatar once again, and focus on completely annihilating all the opposition while everyone waits in vain for the next reincarnation. This would probably turn the tide of the war to an almost guaranteed victory by the time he’s on his deathbed, leading to Azulon most likely being crowned as the Fire Lord, ruler of the world.