The Year When Stardust Fell

A stream of extraterrestrial dust disables engines and electrical systems across a community, forcing residents into emergency improvisation as contamination spreads. Scientists and citizens work to identify the hazard, rig alternative power and filtration, and protect people and animals while fear, rumor, and opportunism strain social order. Organized attempts at decontamination, mobilization, and defense confront the environmental and logistical challenges posed by the dust, and the narrative follows the investigation, the clashes between ignorance and reason, and the gradual efforts to restore infrastructure and reestablish a fragile balance between society and the altered natural world.