I like the postapocalyptic idea. But the hard sci-fi loving person inside me is whimpering at some of the terms that are being thrown around.<br/><br/>A nuclear storm... I dont think those have even been theorized about. If you want massive quantities or power, maybe an experiment with a nearby pulsar would be more probable. An array was built to reflect the radiation pulse or beam from its original path towards the space station where it could be collected. A calibration error, or anything could have caused the beam to miss and strike the station and after that the planet.<br/><br/>Or perhaps a large chunk of antimatter was scheduled to pass by and the whitecoats decided to harvest it. They saw the main chunk due to the radiation it emitted as it came in contact with regular matter. But the large cloud of free-floating anti-particles around it did not show up and plunged right into the space station, any ships in the area and the planet below.<br/><br/>But if we operate from the basis of Star Trek grade technology I doubt the reason for the experiment would be to find a new power supply. Since there is already ample power available through advanced fusion reactors and matter-antimatter power generators.<br/>With that tech level we wouldn't be looking at antimatter either. Unless it was threatening to hit the planet or pass too close by. Perhaps the efforts of the space station where insufficient to protect the planet.<br/>I can imagine a chunk of antimatter skimming through the atmosphere bathing half the planet in such amounts of UV radiation that every living thing would be dead and all the materials there would have succumbed to things like metal fatigue.<br/><br/>Personally I would like a lower tech level then Star Trek offers. Because it will be a bit easier to understand the things that can and cannot be done with technology.