> spread out into millions of floating pieces that speed around faster than a bullet, ripping random ships on the other side of the world to shreds
This isn't how debris clouds work. The most-complex ones occur when entirely separate orbits collide were you get an X-shaped (versus cylndricla or conic) debris cloud. But the energies of the collision inputs sharply curtail the orbits and places in said orbits the debris fragments can generally reach.
Idk, Iridium-Cosmos debris are still absolutely everywhere [0] after almost 20 years. The only place a ship collision's gonna leave debris is directly under it.
This isn't how debris clouds work. The most-complex ones occur when entirely separate orbits collide were you get an X-shaped (versus cylndricla or conic) debris cloud. But the energies of the collision inputs sharply curtail the orbits and places in said orbits the debris fragments can generally reach.