It's not about radiation at all. The more pressing concern is the death of every living creature on one side of the earth. That's a lot of ecology, but honestly not something you need to go to school for. Just figure out where the GRB hit, and figure out what living things aren't going to be there anymore. As a simple for instance if the burst hit China 90% of the world's rubber trees would be killed. Possibly more importantly around 2 billion people would die, along with around 50% of the earth's production capacity. There's really no foreseeable circumstance in which a falling meteor could cause a volcanic eruption.
A comet hits the moon. The resulting explosion is enough to knock the moon out of it's orbit. It begins a slow, steady, orbit around the earth that is incrementally going to result in a collision with the earth. The weather turns crazy. Tides are thrown off kilter. And I realize now from your starting point that you won't actually have any way to survive this. Unless you escape in the shuttle. But that would be selfish. Or another comet hits the moon and knocks it back into its original place? Ok, I'm reaching now, I know....
The melting of the polar ice caps would still leave a heck of a lot of land. This isn't Seaworld, or whatever that Kevin Cosner film was called.
Your idea of character gathered in a party to watch the meteor fall onto the Pacific only to fall inland is a good idea, however I feel like you should drown all the characters there and from the Chapter 2 introduce the protagonist at somewhere further away, as communications break down and thick sulfuric clouds cover the skies. It would make the apocalypses seem more lethal and tragic as we witness those party-goers die. How about the meteor trigger some kind of gigantic mega-volcanic eruption? We see the protagonist try to pierce together what has happened to the world as society collapses? Just my two-cents.
OK, more of my pennies. What are you trying to accomplish? In other words, what happens because people don't know about the hazard? And how disastrous do you need the outcome to be? And how scientifically realistic do you want your scenario to be?
I waited a few days to respond, to try to get my thoughts in order so I can answer you as detailed as I can. So far the first set of meteors are just the "warning." Only a city (far away) was badly damaged (that kind of happened in Russia in.. 2012 I think?). I made the initial hit in the city to be unknown as a "surprise" factor, because I like the shock of it happening when you don't really expect it to punches them in the gut. Now everyone knows that the Big Bad One is coming, and they're not hiding the hazard anymore (or rather, trying to). I'm still weighing the degree of the disastrous outcome... I think I want the world as we know it to be completely different, but have it still be recognizable. I guess I want it to be kind of 'rebirth" story? I don't know. That's where I'm leaning. I think it'd be good for me personally to write something like that. I want as realistic as feasible. I don't want to be so ridiculous I'm laughed at by anyone with common sense, and I want to be believed by 90% of people.
All bees die. Life cycle thrown into disarray as people scramble to make up for the loss in honey and pollination, but the slow decline of life as we know it is inevitable.
I have a question for you guysss. In the scenario that I'm running with, what would most people do? I know there'd be a lot of looting in the streets, and everything, but do you think there would be any shelters set up? Would going underground save them?
As common as 'the government is hiding it' theme is in fiction, for me it's not credible. Except under one scenario, the government plans to shelter a select group of people and doesn't want the shelter to be overrun. But when it comes to something coming from space, there's no way one country would be the only agency to see it. The only way to make that realistic is if the country (the US?) has a manned mission on the far side of the Moon and that is the only location one can see this asteroid that is coming from the direction of the Sun. I think that would be a refreshing story premise.
Looting would happen as the normal agents of control break down. Cops would stop being cops, soldiers might quit being soldiers. People would probably head for underground shelters if they could. Carlsbad Caverns would be a great location, there's food and water stored underground there.
The sky would be shrouded by dust and debris, blocking out most of the sunlight. At first the devastation from the impact would wipe out billions of lives. Pockets of survivors would huddle for warmth, salvaging what few supplies are left in the frozen ruins of supermarkets. Some groups with enough resources and equipment could start to dig underground to tap into a ready source of energy - geothermal power. Some underground bunkers may already exist with this facility. War could break out between those with access to geothermal power, and those on the surface, due to a lack of space underground. After a few decades, possibly centuries, the sky would gradually clear. The old infrastructure would be highly fragmented, and few would remember life before the disaster.
