First, the Europeans weren't panicking. Second, they had company in reacting. Countries around the globe had severed surface and undersea links to the United States and disabled satellite ground stations. They insisted that the crew aboard the International Space Station power down its transmitter. The EU, Russia, China, and Japan could do more—and now they did. They were jamming or laser-blinding satellites with line of sight to North America. Every satellite, from communications, to environmental observation, to space telescope, had comm capability. So the space-capable powers were now targeting every satellite that the monstrosity loose on the Internet might seize— And that included spy, missile early warning, military comm, and global positioning satellites. All that made those different was the robustness of their security algorithms. Who was to say the creature wouldn't break those encryption algorithms and seize a military satellite? No country relied as much on space systems for its defense as did the United States.
