Here I confront the extent of the Kesseler Syndrome. I anticipated and even incorporated it somewhat but not realized its extent. I will only deal with it in a passing manner in the narrative so I ought not worry.
The spaceward community fears as the Silent Spring type environmentalists fear: one day Man will realize he has irreparably polluted his environment and all will descent into a sterile wasteland. In space, astronauts guard against creating space junk. Should a fleck collide with any of our delicate satellites, it could induce a fragmentation cascade that imitates a critical mass of fissile material. The resulting cloud acts as a minefield against orbital infrastructure and transitioning spacecraft. In a word, NASA fears the Kessler Syndrome.

I must have my fictional Earth suffer this harrowing fate. The game Freedom Force avoids this by releasing “chemical X” on a single city from relatively close to the ground. I want to throw the needle in with the haystack. That way, people begin with damage control and find the silver lining altering people’s lives.

I knew and anticipated the cloud of debris blocking access for a time. This way, the governments do not leap into the biggest piece right away and loot ahead of everyone else. I ignored two factors. The Kessler Syndrome lasts decades unless mitigated. (I abstractly thought of our dynamic environment rather than space rules.) The telecommunications network dies beyond land radio range (thirty miles). Whilst I entertained the apocalyptic symbol of weeklong meteor ashes, I do not want actual Mad Max regression. As I read about the cascade, I understood I must occlude this aspect. I tried a rationalization. Maybe it should not matter, the geostationary satellites are mostly out of the way. No, the collision material moves from beyond into the low earth orbit through the geostationary zone. The dilemma is valid. Either I recognize the civilization damaging consequence or I … stop whining.

As I wrote the last sentence I recalled, I need not hold myself to the “normal” standard. I am not performing an exercise in realism. Is Superman a realistic account? How can I expect my “mutagenically powered” heroes to be aesthetically more real? I cannot, do not.

The cloud does not activate the chain reaction. The smallest fragments fly out of the system. The larger pieces interact more with the gravity well and capture in either direction. The ash always represented large pieces. Paint flecks disintegrate without burning up. Some relays sustain damage, a few even fail outright. But, on the whole, our livelihoods are not in mortal danger. The GPS network (the only way to navigate the Panama Canal nowadays) will not falter. I will not tell the post-apocalyptic tale.

The only reason I invoke its inceptive technique is to initiate the outbreak of superhuman ability. As yet, I have no audience to disappoint. This is all inferred anyway. These expositions serve to daily focus and refuel my interest for this project. The actual story remains out of your grasp until I finish the script at the very least.

To flaunt my mediocre poetry cred, I can tell you the title quote came from T S Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” an equally mediocre poem.

The Cambria struck between the Earth and the Moon, I have no idea why I did not want that before. If I did not change it, any gravitational capture at all is terribly improbable. Further, I have to rely on a probe headed out of our backyard which means the United States. I will not bear that. Not out of patriotism, but its reverse. America and Russia have been the primary foci for the past forty years. Fiction and games do the same for the Nazis of world war two. The Japanese (to my knowledge) are always treated as a normal foe; where is their version of Castle Wolfenstein? Within the context of my story, there are more than two space programs. Europe has one, China currently works its way through seventies’ era technology (Oct 2003: first manned mission). The Ansari X Prize seems a shade late for the time frame I currently espouse, Virgin won it one year later. I ignore it though because a private player will operate here. Anyway, saying “the US/Russia ensured doomsday (by breaking the Andromeda plane)” grates on my ears. EU has to eat crow this time.

I keep calling it the Cambria. I do this on the assumption that it has the best memetic staying power. The appellation refers to the (evolutionary) Cambrian explosion (of fossils). This means it will have a double reference: the destruction of the alien vessel and the outbreak of mutagenic powers. Even if no one remembers the original meaning, it has enough of a mental toehold to latch onto both extensions subconsciously. But, why would anyone suggest it in the first place?

The craft poses a heady problem to the news community. For a few hours it was a nameless Fist of God that missed at the last second and blew into a million pieces. Then it clogs our orbits and rains on us for a while. These do not suggest any helpful names beyond appellations from annoyance: ET car wreck. It’s probable place of origin holds sway initially. At least, until they find out it was not a named system. Calling it the “SDSSp J153259.96-003944.1 craft” becomes a burden. The discoverers are the last, immediate inspiration. Amateur astronomers tracked it for the first few instances, so major observatories that came second daren’t ruffle the community by staking a claim. The question is which group deserves (or sounds best) as the name. It turned out the second group to photograph the starship (but first to recognize its motion) called itself the Cambri Clan. The mind virus spread from that nub.

The alien craft is first detected by amateur astronomers. This will always be the case until Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is ready in late 2015. As with all scarce goods, observatory telescope times are heavily contested and arranged months in advance. Astronomers with grants geared toward solving some cosmological mystery dominate the ledger, so the telescopes do not have time to archive the sky. (The LSST will instead exclusively survey the heavens so astronomers can search for changes in the memory.) Amateurs perform this role for the time being and are solely responsible for most of the recent asteroid identifications.

People will not have much time to understand what is happening before the Cambria before it collides. From first smudge to last breath lasts forty hours. I settled on this compromise after fiddling with spotting time against speed. In rough conception, the Cambria travels one third the speed of light and hits a satellite twice the distance of the moon. Any interstellar vessel will need to clear dust from its path but shields or lasers for that task ought not to be ready to burn through a refrigerator sized hunk of metal. The excessive speed confirms the artificial nature of the craft and allows a mere satellite to rupture it in twain.

A third light speed observation lasts thirteen hours, if they first note or photograph it at the distance of Pluto. Light takes five hours for the trip, ignoring relativistic effects. I dialed it down to one-eighth the speed of light. In that case, only twelve percent is wasted as opposed to thirty eight percent of the reaction time. All is moot anyway. The satellite hasn’t reaction mass to move with. I like the idea of an exponentially improving image. The other benefit is the ejecta is not moving at one third the speed of light. This aspect of the story is never directly treated, but if it were, it is a plot hole to drive a semi through.

The story becomes much like those where an asteroid now orbits on a collision course with the Earth. The first photo goes in the file, same as the others. Pluto mostly escapes notice, so a blue shifted and aerodynamic target one fourth its profile (or less) is very hard to spot. Further, no one treats celestial north as a place of great change. They look at the stars and rarely try to confirm the Oort Cloud exists. Still, when it is 10 AU apart (the distance of Saturn from the sun), the light is eighty minutes delayed and five hours of reaction time remain. The astronomers begin to pour over the previous notes to confirm a rapidly approaching object is not an apparatus artifact. A few mention it to their news buddies in Kansas type towns. Berkley connected amateurs begin notifying observatories and pressing for time based on extreme need. At this point, the approaching object looks directly headed toward us.

4 AU from us, same as Jupiter during this time of year, reflected light travels 32 minutes and quickly diminishes. The entire nocturnal community now sends a dire scream to global bureaucrats: 2 hours left. We continually monitor the bullet now. Small relief accompanies the announcement it will strike the Pacific Ocean in Honolulu. Others contest that it will impact the moon instead. Mass is hard to estimate since the blue shift obscures the edges and telescopes see it head on. The few satellites orbiting other bodies haven’t the fuel or recoding time to give us a profile shot.

Half an hour left, the scientists confirm the craft will strike neither the earth nor the moon. The Hubble can not track the movement quickly enough to watch it for more than five minute segments, but identifies its shape. The astronomers now seriously speak of an intelligent alien source. Though cameras are scarce, the Cambria becomes the focus of terabytes of radio requests for communication. Others try the rest of the spectrum. Wonder of wonders, some signal comes back as laser pulses not aimed anywhere in particular (since so many hailed it).

The news outlets have tentative reports on their websites, but mostly couched and about the discovery. All agreed that announcing the possible doomsday would be moot. By the time the papers printed the next day, only half the global population would be alive and none would need to watch CNN to know an asteroid vaporized the Pacific.

Attentions turn toward the few satellites in the area it would pass through, especially a US mars probe. (I want it to be EU but why would they put any beyond the moon?) Good news, NASA can rotate for a million dollar shot. Bad news, the first contact with extraterrestrials involves scuffing their Harley.

Outrageous misfortune, the moon will eclipse the collision. Panicked world leaders beg the US to move the probe. [That feels too obvious; I really, really ought to make it the EU.] It shrugs, no missile could be prepared in time, much less make the journey.

The southern coasts bask in the corona backlighting the waxing moon as momentum vaporizes our accidental handshake with an oncoming armored car.

Opinions people of any disposition regarding the positive effects of mutagen exposure are inextricable from the opinions they formed about the destruction of the Cambria and the subsequent meteor shower. The real problem in creating a distinct opinion lies in the organic process in progressively learning about the entire escapade. I sense fear within myself. Do I keep these wordamentaries general or do I try for an accountant’s description of everything that goes on ever during the entire twenty year period. I look at previous behavior and know that this sort of standard throws me into the center of the Pacific. I can certainly generalize in the beginning and focus into details later. Also if I generate twelve paths to learning about the situation then adopt eight different personas to create a representative sample of opinion, I will have a hyperrealistic basis for all subsequent extrapolations. At that rate, I will start thinking about events five years hence during my birthday.

I listed some types of people that characterize ways of learning: hermits, subsistence farmer, sailor, low to high class rural, low to high class urbanite of developed country, low to high class urbanite of developing country, governmental staff, university citizen, and astronomer. Each represents level of epistemic access rather than only sailors and so on. Obviously, people will straddle several over the period (an urbanite who goes camping for a week becomes a hermit).

The hermit only knows the situation indirectly, when the ash blows through. The vessel’s collision may release light, but not much. The phenomenon obviously indicates a great wrong occurred. The subsequent conclusion depends upon the culture the hermit emigrated from. A bushman (as though they still exist in wildlife preserves) may posit an industrial nation has poisoned the atmosphere or a Krakatoan level eruption. Come to think of it, that can typify no matter the descent. The likely reaction is withdrawal or immigration under an apocalyptic mindset. The expected gravity may vary.

Sailors maintain some connection to the outside world. Here I imagine navy staff, crab fishermen, and some merchant mariners. They reserve the connection for important business or dire notices (approaching storm). Luxury liners, in contrast resemble a developing urban level because passengers demand internet access and thence learn of the facts. I limit the class to developing because the limited number of ports. Passengers may have to fight for access or rely on verbal reports of lucky passengers or the crew. This information thermocline also happens on military vessels between the crew and the officers.

While I initially likened the subsistence farmer to a hermit, the comparison fails when the group sells their small excess or buys supplies from the adjoining town. The quality of the anecdotal or filtered news depends upon the connection of the urban area itself. Likely, the report will be mostly judgments rather than fact (the US battled a UFO and crashed it).

I see this is the wrong order. While I can talk about the level of connection each category has, to talk about the quality of information passed through the network, I must render the message. I generate less stress by producing the likely best assessment first and degrade it from there rather than garble each based on my god perspective of what happened.