Fireworks and Blankets

One by one, satellites were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of sharp shrapnel bits flew chaotically through the space in orbit, furthering the mess with each satellite destroyed. The satellites broke apart into large chunks, and those chunks impacted each other, knocking off smaller and smaller fragments until they homogenized into a single swarm of tiny shrapnel moving around the planet at orbital velocity, completely uncontrolled.

The destruction in orbit continued apace, finally creating a deadly blanket that covered the entire planet. The promise of space had, at least temporarily, been denied to the citizens on Earth’s surface.