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.
It was even visible to citizens, as anywhere night fell, a gorgeous meteor shower lit up the night sky. And the day seemed dim as the sun’s rays were scattered by the mostly metallic shrapnel speeding unimpeded around the planet. The equatorial areas of Earth, in particular, seemed especially gloomy and dim, a comparison only made more obvious by the normally sunny days they enjoyed as a general rule.
And wherever it was dawn or dusk, a gorgeous aurora was visible, backlit by the brief flashes of light that looked like fireworks. Even in the worst destruction, there would always be beauty.
……
Every media network around the world was reporting on the situation, even those in Eden and Esparia. Around the world, public opinion had soured even further on the two developing nations, and even Panoptes was struggling to manage the situation on Pangea. Eden had truly become the world’s enemy, and there were very few that stepped forward to defend them from the flood of public opinion now.
Everyone believed that Eden was lashing out in a futile rage, attempting to wreak as much havoc as they could before their demise, as nobody but Edenians and Esparians were aware yet that the coalition fleets had been intimidated into silence and an entire American carrier strike group had been effectively destroyed. Nobody but Aron and his AIs would ever be bold enough to livestream entire battles and commentate them like they were a low-stakes sporting event instead of a life-or-death struggle between nations.
And now, thanks to the “terrorists” of Eden, every service that relied on a satellite connection was now simply gone. Even the internet was struggling to cope, with freezing and lag being more common than stable connections. After all, satellites were meant to function as one machine, not millions of pieces of what used to be a machine.
The Hubble telescope, military satellites, spy satellites, communication satellites, and navigation satellites, among others, were now nothing more than small pieces of space junk and a hazard to anything that attempted to enter orbit.
The internet was only the first to suffer from the destruction, but it was shortly followed by the artificial bubble created by capitalists in space-related industries. A few hours ago, investors still had hopes of hitting a jackpot if the companies they invested in created a revolutionary, and useful, new product. But now that news broke about the international space station and everything else in low earth orbit being turned into an unavoidable and deadly space hazard, rendering the space industry earthbound, well... those hopes came crashing down around investors’ shoulders. The stock market immediately crashed as the space bubble burst and trillions of dollars of investments from around the world simply vanished like smoke in a wind tunnel. Regulatory bodies were forced to step in and halt the rapidly falling markets, but the damage had already been done at that point.
Eden had struck, and the world was no longer the same as it was before.
......
“And there’s the justification we need,” President Trump growled after news of Eden destroying satellites reached him. Though it was an excellent casus belli for escalating the war between the coalition and Eden, he was still less than thrilled about the damage to the economy. Especially since his backers, the Morgans, would now be constantly howling for blood behind him, and that would definitely impact his quality of life.
Not to mention his approval numbers. Though they may have dramatically spiked when he declared war on Eden, they would definitely rebound and fall even further after news of how things were actually going for the allied nations inevitably leaked. After all, if you truly want to keep a secret, ensure that only one person knows it. And with 193 other “people” in the coalition, it would be impossible to keep the secret for much longer; the only hope he’d ever had was a rapid and overwhelming win at the outset.
September 11th and the war on terror had shown what happened to presidents who failed to deliver on the fast resolution to wars fared.
“Contact every nuclear power and invite them for a conference call in an hour. I want heads of state on the line, not just ambassadors and underlings. It’s time for us to reduce our nuclear stockpiles,” he ordered, surprising everyone in the situation room.
They had all thought that, with the overwhelming force they had at hand, trampling Eden would be as easy as falling out of bed. But they were wrong. Thus, while it was still early yet, the decision to escalate to nuclear weapons didn’t exactly strike them as unreasonable. Still, the procedures must be followed, for posterity’s sake if nothing else.
“Are you positive, sir?” General Mattis asked, his tone grave.
“What better time to act than now? They have yet to attack our forces at home, so none of our systems are out of commission yet. Plus, we don’t have enough stockpiled ourselves, so we need everyone to contribute. They’ve already shown us their missile defense capability, and that was just their fleet. Who knows what they have protecting their borders?” Trump explained, feeling slightly exasperated that anyone had the gall to question him at all.
“I meant, are you sure you want to escalate to nukes, sir?” General Mattis asked again.
Trump slammed the conference table he was sitting at. “Are you questioning me!? Just do what I fucking told you to do already! Who’s the president here, you or me? It’s me! I’M the president of the United States of Fucking America! I’M in charge! So go do your goddamn job or I’ll take it away from you and give it to someone who damn well knows how to fucking listen and follow direct orders!” he screamed, his face purpling in rage.
He panted for a while after his outburst, then clenched his fists and visibly calmed himself. He sat back down and, as if he hadn’t just exploded, said, “Also, prepare a speech for me to use after we nuke Eden. I’ll need to explain the situation and publicly feel sad bla bla bla. You know what to do.” A sinister smile crossed his face. He felt nothing at the thought of the losses the Edenians were about to suffer. After all, they were just peasants from a third-world shithole that was half a world away from him, and he was the leader of the free world. So why should he mourn peasants dying any more than he mourned the ants he stepped on or the flies he swatted?
