Folks,

I'm trying to develop some backstory for a world that has had a societal
collapse from several different threat vectors.  The world is very much
Earthlike; consider it being similar size, hydro, etc. when the event
happens.  It's just on the cusp of developing the J-Drive, Fusion, and
M-Drive, so some of these things are already operating in some form of
testbed.

A comet or meteor is discovered that will hit the planet and naturally
after initial panic is over, they decide to try and destroy it with
nuclear weapons.  The plan works...to a point.  The single object is
destroyed, but now it's created a swam of smaller objects that will pass
by/impact the planet over a two day period.

I recall reading a discussion on this list many years ago (pre 9/11/01?)
about something similar and the effects that all the smaller objects
would have.  IIRC, even if they didn't impact and cause significant
damage, they would burn up in the atmosphere and raise the average
temperature, the debris would linger in the atmosphere and potentially
help cause a greenhouse effect, and I'm not sure what all else.

What would happen if only a few city killer sized objects made it
through, but the majority of a large "planet killer" sized object burned
up in the atmosphere over a couple days?

--
Kurt Feltenberger
xxxxxx@thepaw.org/xxxxxx@yahoo.com
“Before today, I was scared to live, after today, I'm scared I'm not living enough." - Me