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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|'''Shepard:''' I'm surprised you'd mention [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|vandalism in that bunch]].
'''Jack:''' That's what the hanar call it when you drop that space station I mentioned onto one of their moons. Heh. They ''really'' liked that moon.
|''[[Mass Effect 2]]''}}
The Space Age equivalent of [[The Wizard of Oz|dropping a house on a witch]].
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Note that in real life, the colony and moon version of this is very, very difficult. It's nearly as hard to take something out of orbit as it is to put it in in the first place, as all the momentum must be shed. The energy necessary to do this is actually more than will be released in the collision.
An example of [[Death From Above]].
Not to be confused with a "Galaxy Drop" from ''[[PlanetSide]]'', where the dangerous payload is merely a platoon of armed troopers and vehicles dropped from a fleet of [[Drop Ship|Galaxy transports]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Space Colony, Space Station, various assorted artificial Space Stuff ==
=== [[Anime]]
* The [[Trope Namer]] is ''[[Gundam]]'': dropping large objects ranging from space colonies to asteroids to battlestations is a favorite tactic of the series, though usually unsuccessful. The only way they avoid an [[Inferred Holocaust]] is by making it ''explicit'', though rarely past class 0 on [[Apocalypse How|the scale]].
** In the original series, Zeon dropped one of Earth's space colonies during the [[Backstory]] in an attempt to destroy the [[The Federation|Earth Federation]]'s [[Elaborate Underground Base|nuke-proof headquarters]]. The colony breaks up before impact and misses its intended target, instead completely annihilating Sydney[["London, England" Syndrome|, Australia]] ([[You Fail Geography Forever|which in the picture looks suspiciously like New York]]) and generally making a mess of things. ''Gundam0083'' actually shows the crater left by the drop, making clear that the explosion was equal to about 60,000 MT, and the [[Sega Dreamcast]] game ''Rise from the Ashes'' drives the point home by featuring the continent of Australia (where the game takes place) on the title screen with what looks like a ''bite'' taken out of it where Sydney (as well as Canberra and a quarter of New South Wales) used to be.
** ''[[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam|Zeta Gundam]]'' had a bit of a variation, in that the villains tried to
** Other series in the UC timeline continue the tradition; there are colony drops in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory]]'', ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ|Gundam ZZ]]'', and ''[[Chars Counterattack]]''. Effects differ from the destruction of a city to making the entire planet
*** 0083's entire story revolves around the heroes trying to prevent a colony from being dropped on North America. {{spoiler|They fail.}}
** ''[[After War Gundam X|Gundam X]]'' is an [[Alternate Universe]], set on a [[After the End|near-Class 3a ruined Earth]] that's been the victim of a ''whole bunch'' of colony drops.
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* In [[Planetes]], terrorists plot to sabotage the interplanetary spaceship in lunar orbit and crash it into Luna City. {{spoiler|They call it off after the government gives concessions, but just barely.}}
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
* In the ''[[Star Wars]]: Infinities'' series [[What If]] version of ''A New Hope'' where Luke failed to destroy the Death Star, Yoda ends up taking control of it and sets it to crash into Palpatine's palace on Coruscant, putting an end to the Empire.
* In one of the earliest [[Alien vs. Predator]] crossover comics (later adapted into a novel), a small backwater colony gets completely infested with aliens. After the few surviving colonists evacuate to a safe distance, administrator [[Badass|Machiko Noguchi]] heads into the heart of the alien hive with a Predator ally and programs the orbiting cargo ship to crash into the colony.
=== [[Literature]] ===
* In the ''[[Chung Kuo]]'' series by David Wingrove, Earth has seven continent spanning cities and a combined population of 38 billion people. This necessitates large orbiting stations to grow food. One of these falls from orbit and impacts North America causing a hole in the city the size of the Great Lakes, the death of the Emperor of North America as he tries to flee a rioting populace, and a civil war for the next 20 years. It's possible 2 billion people died.
** The ''Chung Kuo'' series has this a lot. A storm killed 250,000 people and the governement managed to keep it quiet. A fire in part of the city killed 500,000, and half the Earth's population is killed at one point. The European 'Civil War' killed hundreds of millions, and it can only be imagined how many died in Africa and Asia when the Warlords took over.
* After Duke Paolo Ortega {{spoiler|cheated}} in the fight against Harry in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' and then runs his cowardly ass away, Harry's old mentor {{spoiler|and grandfather}} Ebenezar McCoy makes sure the vampire gets what's coming to him. {{spoiler|'''By dropping an old Soviet satellite out of orbit straight onto Ortega's hometown, right where he was healing'''. Needless to say, there were no survivors.}}
** It's not the first time, either. {{spoiler|[[The Tunguska Event]]? Yeah, that was him.}}
* The ''[[Star Trek: The
* [[Peter F. Hamilton]]'s mighty ''[[Nights Dawn Trilogy]]'' also features this, when villain Quinn Dexter forces the orbiting dozen or so asteroid habitats circling the planet Nyvan to crash into the planet, wiping out the half-billion or so inhabitants. He later plans to do this to Earth with its much bigger orbital network of asteroid settlements and its population of 39 billion, but is distracted by another plan and pursues that instead.
* [[Isaac Asimov]] may have originated a cheap way to terraform nearly waterless Mars; adjust cometary trajectories slightly and bombard the planet with big balls of dirty ice. In Kim Stanley Robinson's Red/Blue/Green Mars series, Mars is being colonized and populated even BEFORE the cometary bombardment ceases, requiring some very important Travel Advisories.
** Also in Robinson's trilogy, when the {{spoiler|Space Elevator is destroyed, it falls and [[Crazy Awesome|wraps around the planet several times]].}}
* In the ''[[Warhammer
* The ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'' inverted this spectacularly in the [[X Wing Series]], in which a Super Star Destroyer {{spoiler|buried under the surface of Coruscant blasts its way out from under the city, causing '''massive''' destruction.}}
** It's then played straight during {{spoiler|the fall of Coruscant}} in ''[[New Jedi Order|Star by Star]]'', when the Yuuzhan Vong bombard {{spoiler|Coruscant}} with its own orbital defense stations.
* Used as a tactic by [[Brain In a Jar|Titan]] Agamemnon in ''[[Dune|Legends of Dune]]'' during the invasion of Geidi Prime. He sends a cruiser on a collision course for a [[Deflector Shield|scrambler field]] emitter that is keeping the [[Robot War|Thinking Machines]] from invading. The sheet kinetic force of the fall destroys a large part of the capital city.
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* In ''[[Footfall]]'' by [[Jerry Pournelle]] and [[Larry Niven]], the alien species the Fithp drop an asteroid the size of a Dino Killer in the Indian Ocean, wiping out India and causing global rain showers.
* ''[[Alex Rider]]'': The villain of "Ark Angel" plans to set off a bomb on the titular space station, which has gone massively over-budget while still in construction. Not content with space-age insurance fraud, he wants to time the explosion so the station will land in Washington, destroying all the government's evidence of his ''other'' criminal activities.
* In the ''[[Chanur Saga]]'' a ship coming into a system out of [[Hyperspace]] is travelling at a very high fraction of the speed of light. In theory, it's possible for a ship to hop out of hyperspace, drop off an asteroid so that it's on a collision course for an inhabited world, and the hop back into hyperspace. Since the asteroid will itself being travelling at a very high fraction of light-speed, not only is it impossible to stop, it doesn't even need to be very big to cause massive amounts of destruction.
=== [[Live
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story ''Revenge of the Cybermen'', the Cybermen [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|(obviously)]] make a second attempt to destroy Voga by crashing the Nerva beacon, laden with Cyberbombs, into the planet. The Doctor and Sarah, who they've left on board, prevent this from happening.
** The Cybermen did the same thing again in ''Earthshock'' when they tried to crash a massive transport ship into future Earth to stop an anti-Cybermen conference. They succeeded. Sort of. Adric inadvertently saves the planet by fiddling with the controls so the thing goes back in time to the time of dinosaurs.
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** In the third season, there's an incoming ship that's unidentified until it lands. They don't know what it is, so they start to try and deconstruct the towers that'll let it land safely instead of turning the town into a crater.
* Ending of ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy]]''. The [[Big Bad]] has wrecked the colony, so what will she do now? Drop the dome on the survivors. Oddly, the impact was considered not that dangerous if it didn't hit directly the camp, so having the Megazord redirecting it was enough to avoid carnage (the Megazord is tiny when compared to the colony, but hey, they already did it in ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'' with an asteroid).
* In ''[[Babylon 5]]'', this was done with the original ''White Star'', which was summoned into a kamikaze dive into the Shadow homeworld, Z'ha'dum, with armed nuclear weapons aboard.
* In ''[[Northern Exposure]]'', Maggie's Season One squeeze, Rick, was killed by being hit by a deorbiting satellite.
=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===
* The Azrael from ''[[GURPS]]: Spaceships'' uses a ramscoop to reach half the speed of light on its trip to the target. On impact it has the effect of 40 million megatons of TNT.
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* In the arcade game Cybattler, what appears to be the remains of some of the Moon have been used to create a Orbital Ring System of connecting chunks. At the end of the first level, one of the largest chuncks seems to make planetfall.
* Played with like Gundam in the rare (but very fun) [[
* ''[[Xenogears]]'' gives us the fall of Solaris. People, when the counterweight/city on the other end of an orbital elevator snaps like a twig, don't be under it when it hits, tends to leave holes in continents.
* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic Adventure 2]]'': In the final act of the game, {{Spoiler| had the Space Colony ARK dropped. Dr. Eggman's grandfather, professor Gerald Robotnik, locked away and shunned by the public for his frightening expiriments, exacts revenge in spirit by programming the colony to crash into Earth. The presence of the gargantuan [[Eldritch Abomination|Biolizard]] makes matter ''far'' worse, as it tries to fuse with the colony and forcibly drag it down into the planet. After both Sonic and Shadow power up to their super forms, the duo ultimately slays Biolizard, but with the colony swiftly entering Earth's atmosphere, they have only seconds to stop an imminent doomsday. Sonic's solution to stopping this is to use [[Mass Teleportation|Chaos Control]] to send it back into orbit. {{spoiler|[[Heroic Sacrifice|Shadow, on the other hand... does the unthinkable.]]}}}}
* ''[[Xenosaga]]'': Albedo attempts to drop the Proto Merkabah on Second Miltia, apparently primarily [[For the Evulz|for his own entertainment]]. Not even a hint of an [[Inferred Holocaust]] here.
* In ''[[Command
** An ability also allows the same Soviet satellite to magnetically pick up vehicles and add them to the satellite barrage the next time one chooses to use it. Hilariously fun if you picked up aircraft carriers and battleships beforehand and chucked them at something.
** Even more hilarious once you find out the magnetic beam works on ''Tesla Troopers''. Supplementing the space station with [[Cherry Tapping|powered armored soldiers]] is [[Crowning Moment of Funny]].
** Early in [[Command
* ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'': {{spoiler|Stern Regusseur was the colony (Merged with Neviim)}} and Judgment {{spoiler|Gu-Landon was to use the Moon which was a spaceship covered in debris.}}
* ''[[Mega Man X]] 5'' has Space Station Eurasia hurtling towards Earth. Note that it crashing doesn't end the game. Even though the Hunter canonically destroyed it, the leftover debris still has an adverse effect on the planet.
** ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 4'' historically referenced the above disaster, while also featuring its own orbital space station, Ragnarok, which also predictably was sent on a collision course with Earth. {{spoiler|Failure to detonate the station's core, taking out the station, the [[Big Bad]], and ''yourself'' in the process does yield a game over however}}.
* The finale of ''[[Zone of the Enders|Zone of the Enders: Dolores i]]'' had the [[Big Bad]] of the series, {{spoiler|a bitter and psychotic Radam Lavans}}, try to topple the Earth's orbital elevator, which would cause it to smack the earth like a gigantic slap bracelet. It takes a herculean effort to stop it, {{spoiler|requiring the near-sacrifice of Dolores and the actual sacrifice of Radam, his Orbital Frame, [[Evil Counterpart|Hathor]], and several mass-produced Orbital Frames}}, but things turn out alright.
* At the end of ''[[Metroid]] Fusion'', {{spoiler|The entire BSL research station crashes into the planet
* This is a major plot point of ''[[Phantasy Star II]]'', where the impact of the Gaira prison satellite results in the total disintegration of Palm (a.k.a. Palma or Parma, [[Inconsistent Dub|depending on who you ask]]), one of the solar system's three planets. This event is [[Alternate Universe|retold]] in ''Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus'', when at the end of Episode 2, the Guardians Colony is knocked from its orbit and crashes into the planet Parum below, causing quite a bit of local devastation but certainly nowhere near PSII's level.
* The relatively unheard of [[Assault Suits Valken]], (Released as ''Cybernator'' outside Japan) for the SNES had a colony being thrust into earth as scorched earth policy. You are left to destroy the thrusters before the colony enters the atmosphere while dodging the powerful and invulnerable boss mech.
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** In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', Jack recounts her [[Backstory]], including a time where she crashed a space station upon the Hanar's favorite moon. The Hanar, having niceness as their [[Planet of Hats|racial hat]], refer to this as "Vandalism".
** In The Arrival DLC, Shepard is {{spoiler|[[Outrun the Fireball|forced to invoke this trope]] by crashing an asteroid research facility to slow down the Reaper invasion, not into a planet, but a ''mass relay'' which [[Sphere of Destruction|goes supernova]], destroying an entire solar system and killing over 300,000 batarians. S/he's [[What the Hell, Hero?|told]] afterwards that s/he will have to face trial and a war with the batarians is almost certainly guaranteed.}}
* In the first ''[[System Shock]]'', SHODAN tries to do this with Citadel Station after the Hacker stopped all of her plans (and backup plans).
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' did this in the first [[Expansion Pack]], with a [[Magitek]] dimensional fortress screwing up a small archipelago.
* Underrated Sega Saturn game ''[[Burning Rangers]]'' had this plan as their final chapter, in an [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|accidental example.]] Basically, some scientist's daughter had an initially incurable disease, and was placed in a special cryogenic stasis aboard a custom-built space station, with scientist scanning his brain in as the station's AI, complete with orders to send her home when a cure is found. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, a combination of years of neglect, [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|the scientist's overprotective tendencies]], and [[
* In ''[[Armored Core]]'' for Answer a group of Mooks attempt this near game start. Later on the [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]] (and the not so well intentioned) try again. {{spoiler|You have the option of doing this to follow the ''[[Kill'Em All]]'' story}}
* [[Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness|Cyberbots]]: In Jin Saotome's story, {{spoiler|the final battle takes place on a satellite weapon as it is sent falling into Earth's atmosphere. Jin's mentor sacrifices himself to keep the satellite from hitting the planet.}}
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* DLC for ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'' shows {{spoiler|The Karma Fortress falling to earth at some point.}}
=== [[Web Comics]] ===
* Part of ''[[The Cyantian Chronicles]]'' back story is a war that was started with cargo shuttles being dropped on a city as a shock tactic. Specifically, Centralis, which happens to be the biggest city and home to the heroes. Note, I said the plural "shuttles".
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* This is how Sonic's world was destroyed in ''[[Super Mario Bros Z]]'': Mecha Sonic's escape sent Eggman's [[That's No Moon|Death Egg]] crashing into the planet.
* The Angry Marines, a 4chan chapter of Warhammer40000 marines, not only will do this, their battle barges (with colorful names such as ''Litany of Litany's Litany'' and ''Maximum Fuck'') will ''hit each other'' in their mad scramble to strike the earth.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* [[They Killed Kenny|Of course]], Kenny from ''[[South Park]]'' got squashed by a crashing satellite in the first-season Halloween special.
* In the ''[[Kids Next Door]]'' movie, it looked like Numbuh 1 was going to do a heroic version of this with the moon on the captured-by-evil Earth, but it instead just fired the sizable treehouse-ish moonbase, the KND's headquarters. {{spoiler|The villain shrugs it off too, but the [[Gambit Roulette|real plan]] was to bring the KND's [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]] device down to Earth to use on him}}.
* The fate of Star City in the ''[[Superfriends|Galactic Guardians]]'' episode "Escape From Space City", after Darkseid's failed attempt to turn it into a [[Kill Sat]].
* In the final episode of ''[[Justice League]]'', {{spoiler|Batman destroys the hypergate generator by ''piloting the Watchtower'' into it}}.
=== [[Real Life]] ===
* Some bits of Skylab actually made it through the atmosphere when the failed space station succumbed to Earth's gravitational pull, although none of the pieces was large enough to cause significant damage. Nowadays, most expiring satellites are given remote-control commands to come apart in small pieces that won't survive reentry, and/or to land in the oceans, so as to avert this trope.
** Even more hilarious: some of it fell on Australia, and NASA had to pay a $400 USD fine for littering.
== Asteroids ==
=== [[Anime]]
* [[Gall Force]]: Earth Chapter has the MARS civ using a device that hurls rocks on the baddies. Funny in that the baddies comment that the previous plan our heros wanted to use, nukes would not have hurt them as bad but now that they figured rocks from space can do almost more destruction w/o the danger of radiation.
* When ''[[Gundam]]'' isn't dropping space colonies on Earth, it's usually an asteroid of some sort, culminating in the attempted drop of the Asteroid fortress Axis in ''[[Chars Counterattack]]''.
** The Shadow-Mirror went with this plan in ''[[Super Robot Wars Advance]]''. In ''[[Super Robot Wars Compact]]'', [[Daitarn 3|Don Zauser and Koros]] plan on doing this so mankind is forced into outer space. In ''[[Super Robot Wars 64]]'', Neo Zeon do this after the group purges it from its Devil Gundam infection.
* At the end of the first ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' movie the Promise of the Rose, {{spoiler|after the evil Xenian Flower is destroyed Fiore makes an attempt to crash the asteroid he and the Senshi were fighting on into the Earth. The Senshi are able to stop it with the power of the Silver Crystal, though Sailor Moon dies and has to be brought back to life by the power of Mamoru's kiss combined with Fiore's life force.}}
* In ''[[GaoGaiGar]]'', the Brain Primeval tries to hit the Earth with a shower of asteroids. When Gai Gai Gar finally defeats it, it makes one last effort by launching an asteroid
* In ''[[Transformers Victory]]'', Deathsaurus uses his space fortress to fire a large number of 'meteorite bombs' at Earth.
* In ''[[Getter Robo|Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo]]'', the Dinosaur Empire uses a satellite that fires asteroids to attack America; Texas Mack saves the day by using its [[BFG]] to shoot the satellite out of orbit.
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* In the final arc of ''[[Samurai Pizza Cats]]'', The Big Cheese, after being threatened into banishment by Princess Vi, builds a tractor beam that attracts a nearby comet and pulls it towards Earth, threatening to drop it towards the planet if he is not made Emperor of Little Tokyo.
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
* In ''[[Green Lantern]] Corps'' v2 #13, the [[Genius Loci|living planet]] Mogo intentionally moves into the path of an asteroid to get rid of a [[Plant Aliens|sentient space-fungus]] that's infected its forests.
** Then, in the conclusion of the ''Sinestro Corps War'', {{spoiler|John Stewart and Guy Gardner get the idea to take the newly recreated Warworld and [[Crowning Moment of Awesome
* In ''The Rebels'' (of the [[Elf Quest]] universe), a rogue human military executes a very stealthy colony drop on the alien's home planet at the outer rim of the solar system. How stealthy? They've spent twenty years making slow course corrections on the asteroid, just to make sure it won't get detected by spaceship warning systems.
* In ''Sigil'' (of [[Cross Gen]]), there is a plot by the [[Big Bad]] (who by that time had been superceeded by a Bigger Bad, however) to ram an asteroid into the humans' capital planet, by equipping said asteroid with a gigantic [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|FTL]] drive. The hero manages to deflect the asteroid {{spoiler|(and save his love, who was on it)}} by sheer force, but the casualties are still great {{spoiler|and we learn that the planet is going to become uninhabitable anyway.}}
* In ''[[All Fall Down]]'', a giant asteroid, Penumbra, threatens to collide with Earth. {{spoiler|It turns out to be an elaborate hoax.}}
=== [[
* In a [[Flashback (trope)|flashback]] in chapter 16 of the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fanfic ''[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8823447/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Witch-Queen Harry Potter and the Witch-Queen]'', Harry is forced to watch helplessly as the empowered and dark Hermione calls down a storm of thirty-meter nickel-iron meteorites to destroy a pan-European network of "research' bases that were [[They Would Cut You Up|vivisecting magical children to understand magic]], centering on Brussels and Antwerp.
* The Japanese live-action movie ''Gorath'' involved a super-dense wandering planet with 4,000 times the mass of Earth; the only way to solve the problem, in the end, was to attach giant engines to Earth and move it out of the way.
** The threat of Gorath reappears in ''[[Godzilla]]: Final Wars'' ({{spoiler|faked by the alien invaders}}), as well as a smaller "weaponized" asteroid ({{spoiler|meant mostly as a means to transport Monster X/Ghidorah to Earth}}).
* Precisely-aimed meteors were the [[Weapon of Mass Destruction]] of the "bugs" in the movie version of ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]]''. Although it's ridiculously implausible that the bugs could hurl rocks over light years of distance on a sane timescale and with any sort of accuracy, an apparently disposable bit of background chatter suggests the rocks were coming from much closer to home. It may have been a natural disaster that the space Nazis used to justify a war against the bugs (or they could have been [[False-Flag Operation|dropping the rocks themselves]]).
* ''[[The Fifth Element]]'', in which a living ([[Ultimate Evil|and evil]]) asteroid threatens to impact Earth.
* In the [[So Bad It's Good|classic]] sci-fi movie ''[[
=== [[Literature]] ===
* In ''Titan'' by [[Stephen Baxter]], China ends up causing a minimum Class 3a [[Apocalypse How]] ''by accident'' when they try to capture an asteroid into Earth's orbit, but only succeed in crashing it into Earth and killing everybody...except the crew of the American craft heading to Titan.
* In Robert L.
* A rebel faction in the [[Red Mars Trilogy]] drops a space elevator on Mars which was long enough to circle the planet's equator. Twice. The impact only became more powerful because the higher parts of the elevator picked up speed thanks to gravity and the planet's spin. The rebels also destroyed the Martian moon Phobos to prevent it being used as a weapons platform by Earth's multinationals, which led to humongous fragments of the moon bombarding the planet's equatorial regions, just to add icing to the cake of the space elevator's fall. And they even strapped a bunch of rockets to an asteroid that they'd christened Nemesis and pointed it at Earth just to make a point (although it was easily intercepted and diverted). There's a reason they liked Paul Bunyan folklore on Mars: it's because they did everything ''big''.
** They do this a lot during the [[Red Mars Trilogy]], and not just for war. They drop several icy comets onto Mars in a controlled fashion throughout the books to help bring more of the volatiles necessary for terraforming.
* In the ''[[Dragonriders of Pern]]'' series the planet is subject to persistent attacks by quantities of a fungoid that comes from the Oort cloud at the edge of the Pernese system, dragged in by the Red Star, a (probably) cometary body. These threadfalls last for several hours at a time, and come in a pattern of 50 years of this bombardment, followed by 200 years of no attacks. There are two periods where the interval is longer, one of which sets up the original book
* The point of departure in [[S.
* [[Larry Niven]] and Jerry Pournelle wrote ''[[The Mote in God's Eye]]'' with this trope in mind. The newly-discovered planet has been bombarded by asteroids in an uncountable number of wars over the entire history of the aliens. The solar system has reached the point where all the remaining asteroids and comets have been moved to places where they're better used for other things.
** See also ''Footfall''.
* The moon-based rebels in the [[Robert A. Heinlein]] book ''[[The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]]'' blackmail Earth for independence with moon rocks catapulted from the moon to Earth. (Note that these are actually the ''good'' guys, waging war against an oppressive government). This sequence is referenced or repeated in many, many space operas.
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** Weber has [[Word of God|hinted]] that in the event the Solarian League comes unglued, someone else will have to step up to the plate to enforce the Edict, or something like it, since it's just too important for the survival of civilization. He very carefully (and gleefully) did not mention who this might be.
** As mentioned a few examples above, indescriminate planetary bombardment with asteroids or WMDs is called "The Heinlen Maneuver" in-universe. It is also worth mentioning that while it may specify ''orbital'' bombardment, many characters on both sides are shown as being understandably antsy about even ''accidentally'' hitting an inhabited planet with an unlucky shot during a space battle (the same concern, in inverse, has at times forced defensive forces to fight at a disadvantage, unwilling to use defensive platforms in orbit over their own planets first lest they force the enemy to return fire). A sizable part of this is of course due to the Eridani Edict, in addition to many of the officers on both sides of the conflict being good.
* Weber's latest novel, ''[[Out of the Dark]]'', has the Shongairi launching several kinetic strikes before, during, and after their invasion of earth. In fact it seems to be their sole advantage over the [[Humans Are Warriors|human]] [[Mary Sue|race]].
* This trope is best summed up with Jack McDevitt's book ''Moonfall''. The dust jacket explains thusly: "A comet is coming. It is going to hit the Moon. And the Moon is going to fall. ON US."
** [[Troll 2|OHH MYYY GAAAAAAWWWWWDDDD]]
* The eponymous ''Newton's Cannon'' in the first book of J. Gregory Keyes' ''Age of Unreason'' series {{spoiler|is actually a comet King Louis XIV's royal alchemists have drawn down from the heavens, without quite realizing the holocaust they are about to unleash}}.
* The ''[[Warhammer
* Part of the Horvath's initial appearance was dropping kinetic warheads on several major Earth cities, in [[John Ringo]]'s ''[[Troy Rising|Live Free or Die]]''.
* A favorite human tactic in ''[[The Ghost Brigades]]'' by [[John Scalzi]].
* In ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy]]'' of [[Star Wars]], one of Thrawn's most brilliant plans involves launching lots of ''invisible asteroids'' at the capital world of the Republic. To protect the public and vital installations, the planetary shields were raised, which effectively kept the entire planet under siege long after Thrawn's fleet had left the system. Also Thrawn didn't actually have that many cloaking devices, so he just had the star destroyers fire their gravity catapults without any invisible asteroids loaded, so the Republic had no idea how many asteroids were really out there. So even after the last asteroid had smashed into the shields or detected and destroyed, they would have no way of telling when it would be safe to lower the shields.
=== [[Live
* A ''[[Star Trek:
** There was a ''Star Trek: TNG'' novel that included a planet BUILT to be used as such a weapon, and inhabited by people largely ignorant of this. Once it was set off {{spoiler|Worf shut it down by [[Explosive Instrumentation|violently destroying the machinery]] that created the wormhole used to deliver it, after complaining about not being allowed to shoot things when he wanted to for the whole book.}}
** There was also a ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|TOS]]'' episode with what sounds like essentially the same plot.
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* Heroic reversal in ''[[Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future]]'': one half of Lord Dread's Project New Order involved capturing the human population with an orbital Digitizer, the space station ''[[Prophetic Name|Icarus]]''. Power and his team infiltrate the [[Big Bad]]'s base and hack into ''Icarus''' ground control, forcing it down from orbit and on a collision course with Dread's capital city, Volcania.
=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===
* Like any other method of causing massive destruction, the Colony Drop is gleefully utilized in ''[[Warhammer
** An issue of the Games Workshop magazine ''White Dwarf'' contains a very funny debunking of the idea that doing this to a planet would be cheaper and easier than the usual ''[[Earthshattering Kaboom|Exterminatus]]'' methods. It was originally found online and can be found quoted [http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?p=2392357#p2392357 here].
** Roks were fitted with teleporters in the Third War of Armageddon. So, not only was there a Colony Drop, but there was then an asteroid sitting in an impact crater, spewing out wave after wave of reinforcements, without needing vulnerable dropships.
* The apocalypse in the [[Backstory]] of ''[[Traveller]]: The New Era'' is implied to have included (among just about every other way a [[
* The backstory for ''Cyberpunk 2020'' includes a short orbital war between the US and the EU, ending when the EU-controlled lunar massdriver was used to lob a substantial lump of rock at Washington DC. The rock was deflected by orbital defences, and instead hit Colorado Springs (or, as it became known afterwards, "Colorado ''Sprung''")
* The spell "Cometfall" in ''[[Dungeons
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has the spells Meteor Shower, Meteor Storm, Shivan Meteor, and Comet Storm. All of these are very effective at killing stuff.
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* ''[[Sins of a Solar Empire]]'' has the Advent starbase meteoroid control signature ability, which allows it to use the crew's [[Psychic Powers]] to rams asteroids onto hostile planets being orbited or dropping entire swarms of small asteroids onto enemy fleets.
* RyuKoOh's second attack in ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]]'' and ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation|OriginalGeneration 2]]'' is the simple but brutal method of dropping a small mountain on the enemy. In ''Alpha 3'', it's [[Mid-Season Upgrade]] drops even bigger ones.
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* Siege Drivers, the ultimate mass driver weapon, from ''[[Sword of the Stars]]''. They're so huge only specially designed dreadnoughts can carry them, have infinite range on the tactical map, and cause 150 million casualties ''per shot''. [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]], ''indeed''.
* In ''[[Disgaea]]'', Laharl's ultimate attack combines this with [[Riding the Bomb]] (and his [[Evil Laugh]]). It is aptly named Meteor Impact.
** There's also the Meteor Lancer spear skill in ''[[Disgaea 4:
* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' featured Meteor.
* ''[[Command
* The bad guys in ''[[Heavy Gear]] II'' try to do this, after simply dropping big bombs alone stopped working.
* ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' had the "Rains of Destruction", a deadly shower of [[Green Rocks]] from the Moons orbiting the world that wiped out almost all of civilisation and set humanity back from space-faring to just getting the hang of electricity again when the story begins.
** There's also the "Prophecy" special attack, [[Slap-On-The-Wrist Nuke|which has slightly less impressive aftereffects for consisting of dropping a whole friggin' moon]].
* In ''[[Metroid]] Prime 3'', the Pirates and Dark Samus drop
** The one on Elysia is particularly bad, as there is no way to get down into the planet's atmosphere to disarm the shield. {{spoiler|1=The solution? Spend a few hours converting sections of SkyTown into a gargantuan nuclear weapon and countering Dark Samus'
* In ''[[Advent Rising]]'', the Seekers (bad guys) destroy the hero's home world by dropping asteroids on it.
{{quote|
"What? How?"
"They throw rocks."
"''Rocks?'' They throw ''rocks?''"
"Asteroids." }}
* In the the downloadable ''[[Mass Effect 1]]'' mission "Bring Down the Sky", [[Player Character|Commander Shepard]] has to prevent a group of alien terrorists from dropping an asteroid on an Eden-like colony world. In this case it's also a literal colony drop, as the asteroid itself has a scientific research colony on it.
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* The ''[[Might and Magic]]'' series {{spoiler|frequently}} does this.
* [[Nintendo Wars|Advance Wars]] has Sturm's CO/Super Power, Meteor Strike, which drops a 3x3 meteor on the most expensive cluster of enemy units for 8 damage. In the comedy sketches on Youtube, it gets changed to dropping a Sturm clone on someone.
* ''[[Golden Sun]]'' has the Meteor summon, which drops a meteor on the opponent. Megiddo, the special ability of the Sol Blade, does the same thing with ''the sun''
* ''[[Ace Combat]]'' plays this straight with the Ulysses asteroid, then plays with it in that all of the technology created to stop the impact sparks off wars and causes ''more'' damage than the chunks of the asteroid that made it through. Also played straight when the Belkans try to drop the [[Kill Sat|SOLG]] on the capital of Osea in ''Ace Combat 5.''
* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]] II'', when the player is escaping the Peragus mining facility, the whole thing blows up when either the Sith or the player fires on the asteroids. This was the only source of fuel for a station hovering over another planet, Telos. Later on, you can get a Hutt on Nar Shaddaa to send fuel to the station.
* In ''[[Jet Force Gemini]]'', there is an asteroid directed by Mizar to crash into the Earth.
* ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 4'' has a giant asteroid that turns out to be computer-controlled. The Navi operating it, Duo, wants to destroy Earth because it is a wicked planet. Mega Man stops the asteroid and convinces Duo to leave Earth alone for a while.
** ''[[Mega Man Star Force]] 3'' uses the same plot with Meteor G, a giant meteor made of crystallized "[[The Corruption|noise]]." Not only is it headed for Earth, but it's interfering with wireless devices and corrupting wave beings. Geo and Omega-Xis later learn that {{spoiler|Geo's father Kelvin, in wave form, has been holding the meteor back since the day the space station Peace was destroyed.}}
* ''[[The Dig]]'' uses the threat of this as the [[Call to Adventure]], when a large asteroid shows up out of nowhere in Earth orbit and threatens to crash into the planet. It's actually a disguised spaceship sent by [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] to see if we've developed sufficient spacefaring capabilities to go up there and stop it; having done so, the astronauts in question are subsequently whisked away to the aliens' [[Late to the Party|long-deserted]] planet.
* ''[[The Babylon Project]]'': In one level of The Earth-Brakiri War, just after getting to an abandoned
* One of the ways to invade a planet in ''[[Galactic Civilizations]]'' is to attach engines to asteroids and slam them into the world before landing troops. This seriously weakens the defenders but also permanently lowers the planetary quality.
* ''[[Earth 2150]]'' has the Lunar Corporation's [[Weather Control Machine]] being outfitted with an asteroid targeting system as the planet's decaying orbit evaporates surface water to the point the machine can no longer influence weather. In gameplay terms, that means the LC can call in meteor showers instead of lightning storms in volcanic and lunar tilesets. And unlike lightning, meteors can '''NOT''' be stopped by [[Deflector Shields]] and no longer ignore buildings in favor of high hills. Each meteor does a fuckton of damage (enough to insta-kill most units and severely damage buildings) but scatter randomly over a very large area. Still, a minute-long carpet-bombing of asteroids is much more [[Rule of Cool|awesome to watch]] than a nuke. Even better: the WCM is the cheapest superweapon in the game and only needs base power to operate so given enough money, you can build dozens of the sucker [[More Dakka|fire them all simultaneously]].
** It gets even better in ''The Moon Project'' where [[Video Game/Levels/Awesome|one mission]] has the Fang being outfitted with the targeting system's prototype. Every two minutes or so, the game calls in a '''triple''' barrage of asteroids on the Fang's location. You have one objective: [[When All You Have Is a Hammer|complete destruction of all four UCS bases on the map]] and since the whole LC campaign plays out on the Moon, collateral damage is not an issue. Apocalypse [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|does not even BEGIN to describe it]].
* ''[[Angry Birds|Angry Birds Space]]'' is largely made of this. It is rather satisfying to drop a massive asteroid onto those bloody pigs.
* Astro Man in ''[[Mega Man 8]]'' specializes in dropping energy meteors on his foes. If you beat him, Mega Man gets the Astro Crush ability, which is a great screen-clearing attack.
* During his first phase in ''[[Rockman 6: Unique Harassment]]'', Galaxy Man summons a herd of meteors as a desperation attack.
=== [[Web Comics]] ===
* Played with in ''[[Freefall]]'', where [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff100/fv00044.htm ice asteroids] are ''routinely'' dropped on the colonized planet as part of the [[
{{quote|
'''Sawtooth:''' It's not often you get to play an entire planet as a percussion instrument. }}
* In ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', [[The Battlestar|Battleplates]] were originally developed by the [[One World Order|UNS]] to prevent the natural impact of meteorites on human worlds. Of course, once the UNS realized that the Battleplate was also excellently able to deflect some other things that might threaten Earth, like the ''intentional'' impact of meteorites and other celestial bodies of a similar size and higher acceleration, and decided they'd better build a few dozens of them. You know, just in case. And as long as there's no pesky rocks that need to be swatted, well, there are many other uses you can put a several-kilometre long warship with grotesquely overpowered gravitics control to...
* In ''[[Bob and George]]'' this is how {{spoiler|Future Bass and Future Mega Man}} try to defeat {{spoiler|Bob}} when he {{spoiler|becomes the villain in the fifth Mega Man game}}. It doesn't work though, because he just {{spoiler|blows the whole thing up}}.
* ''[[Homestuck]]'': If the [[Chess Motifs|White King loses on the Battlefield]] ([[You Can't Fight Fate|which he is always destined to]]), the Black King (or [[Big Bad|Jack Noir]] in this case) initiates the Reckoning, which takes the asteroids which comprise the Veil and sends them flying toward Skaia and the Battlefield with the intent of destroying it. Skaia's defence mechanism opens portals to Earth (or whatever planet the players in question come from) at various points in its history, in the process [[Stable Time Loop|setting up some of the parameters of the game, including]] [[My Own Grandpa|the players]]
:The majority of the asteroids sent to the players' planet arrive around the time the game starts being played, or April 13, 2009 in the case of Earth, which amounts more or less to [[Apocalypse How|the end of the world]]; the entire point is to end mankind as Earth has served its purpose. All of the player's homes in particular are menaced by an incoming meteorite, requiring them to enter the game and start the adventure before it strikes; the largest one menaced Jade's home somewhere in the Pacific Ocean shortly before she entered, and [[Physical God|Becquerel]]'s blast to destroy it had to be so powerful that its nuclear shockwaves were more or less the last nail in the coffin for Earth.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* Parodied in
* ''[[Justice League]]'' - Vandal Savage holds the world hostage with an asteroid-firing railgun.
* Inverted in the second ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' series, where time-travelling demon Savanti Romero threathens the future by trying to make the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs miss Earth. The turtles' mission, thus, is to assure that the colony drop happens.
* In ''[[The Magic School Bus]]'' episode "Out of this World", the class stops an asteroid from hitting their school. Ultimately, they make the bus planet-sized, draw the asteroid into an orbit, and then return to normal size at just the right moment to send the asteroid [[Hurl It Into the Sun|on a collision course with the sun]].
* In ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', time-travelling villain Chronos punishes Chucko for his betrayal by sending him back to the moment where the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid. Chucko's last words are "Oh, phooey."
{{quote|
'''Ghoul:''' No...sir.
'''Chronos:''' Well ''Chucko'' does
=== [[Real Life]] ===
* Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid struck the Earth in the Yucatan Peninsula. Not only did this asteroid wipe out all of the non-avian dinosaurs on Earth at this time, but it killed a good portion of life on Earth, including the pterosaurs, the sea reptiles (mosasaurs and plesiosaurs), the main reef builders, some of the crocodilians, a lot of the plants, etc. Mammals are thought to have barely gotten through the extinction with the skin of their teeth.
** Or the [[wikipedia:Permian-Triassic extinction event|Permian-Triassic extinction event]] 250 million years ago, it [[The End of the World as We Know It|definitely]] dwarfs the above one. One of the probable causes? Whatever created [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Antarctica_Map_Wilkes_L_Crater.png this] crater, speculated to be an asteroid '''''over 55 kilometres across''''' (by comparison, the asteroid that landed in Yucatan was "merely" 10 kilometres across). This is truly a
** Now that the Yucatan evidence has largely substantiated the K-T collision for dinosaurs' extinction, the notion that other extinction events or disruptions of climate could be a result of other, smaller-scale impacts has become somewhat more acceptable.
== Moons ==
=== [[Literature]] ===
* The Achuultani in ''[[Empire From the Ashes]]'' are big fans of this. [[Cool Starship|Dahak]] speculates that they were responsible for the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. In the second book, Achuultani scouts steal [[wikipedia:Iapetus
* Pug uses a moon to attack a ''single creature'' in ''[[The Riftwar Cycle]]'', by opening a wormhole-like rift connecting a point just in front of the moon's path to a point just above the creature in question. [[Hilarity Ensues]]. To be fair, the creature {{spoiler|had already destroyed two '''dimensions''', and Kelewan was doomed even before the [[Earthshattering Kaboom]]}}.
* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'s ''[[New Jedi Order]]'' series, the new enemy, an extremely xenophobic machine-hating race called the Yuuzhan Vong, are introduced by using their ships' gravity controlling features to smash a planet apart with its own moon. Among those killed is
=== [[Toys]] ===
* Non-Earth example: In ''[[Bionicle]]'', {{spoiler|Makuta Teridax is killed when the planet-sized robot he's inhabiting has one of the moons of Bara Magna smash into his head. He was trying to invoke this trope by slamming it into the planet in a destructive manner, whereas Mata Nui was trying to gently merge the planet and moons together.}}
===
* In ''[[Homestuck]]'', the [[Big Bad]] cuts the moon loose from Prospit, sending it crashing to Skaia below {{spoiler|and [[Tear Jerker|killing Dream Jade]].}}
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* A rogue moon in ''[[The Gungan Council]]'' crashed into Taris {{spoiler|on Xyra's command}}, wiping out everything on the planet's surface.
== '''[[Insistent Terminology|The]]''' Moon ==
===
* ''[[Tsukihime]]'' has this in the nebulous [[Backstory]], where the Crimson Moon (the guy) tried to drop the Moon onto the Earth only to be stopped by the then-young Zelretch. Zelretch pulled him to an alternate reality and [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|dropped the moon on him instead.]]
** In [[Battle Moon Wars]], one of the attack Warcueid uses is also a moondrop. And yes, Arcueid can really do that in canon; she did something similar in ''[[Melty Blood]]''.
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* In episode 2 of the ''[[Pretty Sammy]]'', Bif Standard attempts to drop the Moon on Earth, so that he can build his own "standardized" world.
=== [[
* What's this? ''[[wikipedia:Risk 2210 AD|Risk 2210 AD]]'' has the moon as a playable map '''and''' gives you several blank cards for [[House Rules]]? Sounds fun. Who wants to play a game?▼
** [[War Games|How about a nice game of chess?]]▼
* In ''[[Net Runner]]'', normally the corporation can target the hackers with goons and hit squads, which deal two or three damage out of the hacker's five live points. A corp willing to [[Up to Eleven|go that extra mile]] can use the card "I Got A Rock", which drops an ''asteroid'' on the hacker for [[No Kill Like Overkill|a total of fifteen damage]].▼
== [[Comic Books]] ==▼
* In ''[[Chroniques De La Lune Noire|Chronicles of the Black Moon]]'', when the [[Big Bad|leader of the Black Moon]] is defeated, his vengeance consists of dropping the moon onto the planet over about a week.
* In the ''Justice League'' story "Terror Incognita" the Martian Manhunter is confronting dozens of powerful White Martians on the Moon after those same White Martians have all but conquered Earth. While The Manhunter has them distracted the rest of the Justice League pulls the moon toward Earth so that the entry into the atmosphere will burn the Martians to nothingness if they do not surrender and enter the Phantom Zone. Spell Casters cast a massive spell to keep the gravity of the Moon from destroying Earth, and the Justice League (after imprisoning the surrendering White Martians) pulls the moon away from Earth before it can impact and destroy the planet.
* In the final arc of ''[[Bionicle]]'', {{spoiler|this is how they finally get rid of [[Big Bad|Makuta]] [[Magnificent Bastard|Teridax]].}}
=== [[Fan Works]] ===
* A
=== [[Film]] ===
* In the recent{{when}} film incarnation of Wells' ''[[The Time Machine]]'', the extinction of most of humanity, leading to the Eloi and Morlocks evolving, is caused by lunar colony construction causing the moon to break apart.
* In the '80s remake of ''[[Flash Gordon (film)|Flash Gordon]]'', Ming the Merciless is sending the moon spiraling down into the Earth. It doesn't get there, but it gets close enough that things must have been pretty messed up.
{{quote|
=== [[Literature]] ===
* [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[The Matrix]]'' short story,
▲* [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[The Matrix]]'' short story, ''Goliath'', had {{spoiler|inexplicably pissy aliens follow one of the Machines' "seed-probes" back to Earth. The aliens begin dropping rocks and warn that if the Machines do not surrender immediately, they'll drop the moon on them.}}
* One of [[Larry Niven]]'s prehistoric ''[[The Magic Goes Away (novel)|The Magic Goes Away]]'' stories featured a group of magi seeking out a comatose god on a "mana"-starved Earth in the hope that he will be able to help them land the Moon on Earth. How big can it be, after all? The magi think this is a great idea and awaken the god using the mana left in the comatose worldwyrm of [[Norse Mythology]]. The awakened god shows the relative sizes involved to the magi, who now realize that smashing the Moon into the Earth would be a bad thing, even though the god promises to remake them after. As the god awakens, he stretches up to grab the Moon with his hands and push against it, presumably to stop it from orbiting the Earth.
* In the ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' storyline, Yawgm- er, The Lord of the Wastes is attempted to be killed by {{spoiler|Urza and Gerrard dropping the Null Moon, a storage facility for pure white mana, on him.}}
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* The Last Survivors Series features a variation on this theme.
=== [[Live
* In the [[Too Good to Last|unfortunately shortlived]] ''Three Moons Over Milford'' an asteroid has broken the Moon into three huge (and a number of much smaller) pieces and it is unknown when or if any of them will fall to Earth.
* The first series finale of ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'', where {{spoiler|Mr Smith, Sarah's [[Magical Computer]], is revealed to be from a race of}} alien sentient rocks attempts to smash the Moon into the Earth to free members of their species who are stuck in Earth's crust. The episode before also had The Trickster, the living
=== [[
▲* What's this? ''[[wikipedia:Risk 2210 AD|Risk 2210 AD]]'' has the moon as a playable map '''and''' gives you several blank cards for [[House Rules]]? Sounds fun. Who wants to play a game?
* The whole point of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask]]'' is to prevent what may be the [[Weird Moon|creepiest]] [[Bad Moon Rising|moon]] known to man from plowing into Clocktown and killing everybody in Termina. You get three days. Fortunately, you have the [[Groundhog Day Loop|Ocarina of Time]] to help.▼
▲* In ''[[Net Runner]]'', normally the corporation can target the hackers with goons and hit squads, which deal two or three damage out of the hacker's five live points. A corp willing to [[Up to Eleven|go that extra mile]] can use the card "I Got A Rock", which drops an ''asteroid'' on the hacker for [[No Kill Like Overkill|a total of fifteen damage]].
▲* The whole point of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's
* In the DS game ''[[The World Ends With You]]'', {{spoiler|the second week's game master Sho Minamimoto}} leaves a note saying "Any tree can drop an apple, I'll drop the freakin' moon!". He doesn't actually do it, it's just a note proving his insanity.
** Joshua can actually drop the moon or some sort of astral body ([[Fan Nickname|a.k.a. the Jesus Meteor]]) on your enemies with the right upgrades.
* In ''[[Dark Cloud]] 2'', the [[Precursors]] that created the three [[MacGuffin|Atlamillia stones]] realized that bringing them all together would invariably [[A God Am I|corrupt their wielder with limitless power]]. Therefore, they rigged the stones to summon the Star of Destruction upon said
** Also, when [[Big Bad|Griffon]] can no longer keep the [[Ominous Floating Castle|Moon Flower Palace]] aloft, he sets it on a collision course with [[Doomed Hometown|Palm Brinks]]. It takes a [[Humongous Mecha]] the size of a mountain to stop the impact.
* The [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Disgaea 4:
* ''[[Little Big Adventure]] II''.
* In ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'', one of the special party skills is called Prophecy, where the party ''throws the Silver Moon at the enemy''.
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* In ''[[Donkey Kong Country Returns]]'' {{spoiler|Donkey Kong [[Beyond the Impossible|punches the moon]] into Tiki Tong's tower. DK isn't trying to destroy the world, only the tower, and the resulting explosion pops the moon back into place}}.
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* In [[How to Kill a Mockingbird
* A [[Running Gag]] in ''[[The Demented Cartoon Movie]]'' is that when an object of any size crashes into the Moon, the Moon will fall and crash into the Earth, which then falls into the Sun if it doesn't just [[Earthshattering Kaboom|explode]].
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* In ''[[Despicable Me]]'', the villain tries to steal the Moon by using a prototype shrink ray to make it pocket sized. It turns out that the shrinking is not permanent and the shrunken Moon is now on Earth...
* ''[[The Moomins]]''.
* Inverted in ''[[Titan A.E.]]'': When the Drej blow up Earth, a piece of it shatters the Moon.
* In ''[[Megas XLR]]'' Gorrath tried to ram the Moon into Earth by strapping a giant engine to it. Coop instead flip the engine so its tail end pointed down, blasting a huge crater into it. It permanently altered weather patterns on Earth.
* In a ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'' episode, Dexter launched a tractor rocket that moves the moon so he will gain strength from the rays of Saturn. But suddenly, the rocket gets broken so the moon will come crashing down into Earth, wreaking havoc by rolling across the city and then his laboratory.
== Planets ==
=== [[Anime]]
* ''[[Avenger]]'' deals with a dying colony on Mars that's about to be crashed into by one of the moons.
* ''[[Diebuster]]'' inverts this: the human race plans to deal with an extremely powerful (and extremely large) Space Monster by dropping '''Earth''' onto it. Fortunately Nono shows up and stop this plan before dealing with the Space Monster herself.
=== [[
* The [[Marvel Universe]] massive crossover ''Infinity Gauntlet'' takes this one step further: The Celestials throw '''planets''' at Thanos.
** Thanos himself later defeats an enemy by smashing two planets together in his face, along with a huge arsenal of nuclear bombs.
* "Spaceman Spiff"<ref>Read as "Calvin daydreaming"</ref> did it to solve a math problem for Calvin in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]''. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].
=== [[Film]] ===
* In ''[[Green Lantern: First Flight|Green Lantern First Flight]]'', Hal takes a page from Lensman below, crushing the Yellow Lantern Battery between two planets.
* The follow-up movie, ''[[Green Lantern: Emerald Knights|Green Lantern Emerald Knights]]'', has the Lanterns defeat their planet-sized antimatter enemy by hitting him with a planet, both of which are then crashed into the nearby star.
* Lars Von Trier's ''[[Melancholia]]'' revolves around the planet of the title crashing into Earth, obliterating all life in the universe.
=== [[
* This is done in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' special ''The End of Time'' when the {{spoiler|Master}} opens a link to {{spoiler|Gallifrey}}, causing it to {{spoiler|materialise directly beside Earth.}} The two planets' gravity starts pulling them together.▼
* Used rather unexpectedly in the series finale of ''[[Smallville]]'', with {{spoiler|Apokolips}} being summoned next to Earth, nearly colliding with it. {{spoiler|It is stopped by Clark/Superman pushing it away with his bare hands.}}▼
* ''[[Lensman]]'' probably takes this to its most ridiculous extremes when they variously squash a planet between two planets (the "Nutcracker"), squash a planet between two planets moving ''faster than the speed of light'', and drop a planet sized load of ''antimatter'' on a planet. Oh, and "negaspheres", called that because in the 1940s the term "black hole" hadn't been coined yet. There's a ''reason'' we call it the [[Lensman Arms Race]].
** Even this is upstaged in the final "Skylark" novel, ''Skylark DuQuesne'', where former [[Big Bad]] Blackie DuQuesne does a [[Heel Face Turn]] and supervises an attack on the galaxy of the enemy aliens after the series heroes are knocked out. This attack involves psionically teleporting stars from an uninhabited galaxy to the home galaxy of the aliens, and smashing said stars into the home stars of said aliens, which then go nova.
* In Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's "Sunstorm," it's discovered that the reason the Sun is going berzerk (soon to send out a 24-hour pulse of energy that will destroy life on Earth) is that thousands of years ago vastly powerful and paranoid aliens saw sentient life had developed on Earth, figured we'd eventually be a threat, and flung a Jupiter-sized planet into the Sun. The idea was that this caused instability in the Sun that would (thousands of years later) cause it to lash out and cook us. However, one does wonder why they didn't simply fling the gas giant at the Earth, thus saving time and solving the problem directly (and, of course, preventing the primitive humans from doing anything about it, unlike how things turned out).
* Unique variant: In ''The Shattered World'', a fragment of a planet collides with a bigger, inhabited chunk of the '''same''' planet, causing massive death and destruction. This is possible because [[A Wizard Did It|magicians intervened]] when their world was broken to bits a thousand years ago, and equipped the pieces of world with [[Artificial Gravity]] and a shared atmosphere. Unfortunately, the spells that keep the fragments safely confined in their orbits are wearing out, so this isn't the last
* The Dwellers, from the [[Iain M Banks]] novel ''The Algebraist'', crank this [[Up to Eleven]]: fuck with them and one day, though it may come far, far, '''far''' in the future, and they will throw a planet at your homeworld. Surrounded by moons, which are in turn surrounded by thousands of asteroids, which are ''in turn'' surrounded by millions of smaller chunks of rock. And the whole horrific mess is traveling at a sizable fraction of light-speed...
=== [[Toys]] ===
* ''[[Bionicle]]'': {{spoiler|Makuta finds himself, while controlling Mata Nui's original body, on the receiving end when [[Karmic Death|Aqua Magna returns the favor]].}}
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* The point of ''[[The Guardian Legend]]'' is to prevent this from happening to Earth. However, the planet that's zooming toward it is alive and filled with hostile life forms. Should the planets collide and somehow ''not'' destroy all life on Earth, the survivors would have to deal with all kinds of freaky [[Mechanical Lifeforms]] and [[Organic Technology|organic multi-legged things]] [[After the End]]. Not fun at all.
* ''[[Star Ocean the Second Story]]'' pulls this one, as the planet of Expel is destroyed by crashing into Energy Nede, a planet made out of [[Pure Energy]] and populated by one of the most ancient and knowledgeable races in the series' existence. Makes sense that their artificial planet would be powerful enough to vaporize anything else it hit. Of course, they never intended to hit anything anyway, but that's what bad guys are for...
* The Tera Star spell in ''[[Disgaea 4:
* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' does this in the game's ending cinematic, wherein {{spoiler|the [[Floating Continent|floating planetoid]] of Cocoon is sent crashing down towards the lowerworld of Pulse after the game's [[Deus Est Machina|god-like machines]]: the fal'Cie [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|are defeated]] with the death of their [[The Chessmaster|leader]], Orphan.}}
** Inevitably, [[Story-Boarding the Apocalypse|this becomes part of the main plot]] for ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]-2''. Three quarters through the game, we learn that {{spoiler|Caius Ballad is responsible for causing the potential [[Apocalypse How|world-ending paradoxes]] that ultimately end in Cocoon's collision with Gran Pulse. He doesn't seem to mind living in a [[Bad Future|cold, lifeless, crapsack of a future]], [[Why You Should Destroy the Planet Earth|so long as he saves]] [[Apocalypse Maiden|Yeul]] from falling victim to her own visions. Meanwhile, Noel, living in the same dull, lifeless future, travels back in time and works with Serah to resolve these paradoxes. [[You Can't Fight Fate|Although the fall of Cocoon still manages to happen anyway]], they are able to give Hope enough time to construct a new Cocoon. And even then, Caius STILL tries to turn the launch into a disaster.}}
* This was the Great Fall disaster that the heroes of ''[[Tales of Eternia]]'' are trying to avert.
* In ''[[Makai Kingdom]]'', mere moments after Zetta finishes restoring his netherworld after accidentally incinerating it, Salome immediately crashes her own world into his.
=== [[Web Comics]] ===
* [[Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds|Done unintentionally]] in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20030803.html here].
{{quote|
'''Tagon:''' You mean they crashed ''into'' a gas giant?
'''Ennesby:''' They did that, too. They crashed one gas giant into another. }}
** So not only did they destroy their gas giant colony planet and the planet it crashed into, they destroyed at least one other planet that got caught in the ensuing catastrophe and totally screwed up the ecosystem of the one planet in the system that actually had one.
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* [http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12730648/images/1289268890462.png "Humanity, united, thinks this should be a big enough rock."]
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* [[Invader Zim]] discovers the planet Mars "looks unnatural, as if nature was not involved in its formation" and discovers it's a giant spaceship. He plans to roll it around on the surface of the Earth to squish the filthy Earthicans.
{{quote|
* A close call with a "runaway planet hurtling between the Earth and the Moon" kicked off the collapse of civilization in the backstory to ''[[Thundarr the Barbarian]]''. Neither Earth nor the Moon was struck, but the Moon cracked in half, while Earth suffered massive tsunami, quakes, etc.
* In ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'', evil boy-genius Charles randomly gets the idea to smash the Moon into the Earth using a tractor beam, simply to demonstrate how smart and/or evil he is. It either doesn't occur to him that he will ''still be on the Earth'' when the Moon smashes it, or he simply doesn't care, because it the most evil thing he can think of.
=== [[
▲* This is done in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' special ''The End of Time'' when the {{spoiler|Master}} opens a link to {{spoiler|Gallifrey}}, causing it to {{spoiler|materialise directly beside Earth.}} The two planets' gravity starts pulling them together.
▲* Used rather unexpectedly in the series finale of ''[[Smallville]]'', with {{spoiler|Apokolips}} being summoned next to Earth, nearly colliding with it. {{spoiler|It is stopped by Clark/Superman pushing it away with his bare hands.}}
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
* One hypothesis about the Moon's formation is that it was produced by the ejecta thrown out from Earth as the result of a collision with a roughly Mars-sized body.
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== Stars ==
=== [[Anime]]
* In the final arc of ''[[Pretty Sammy|Magical Project S]]'', Romio attempts to send the Earth on a collision course with the sun.
=== [[Film]] ===
* The sci-fi classic film ''When Worlds Collide'' had a passing star smack into the
=== [[Literature]] ===
* The ''[[Xeelee Sequence]]'' features the extreme colony drop option where a Neutron Star is accelerated to high fractional C and smashed into a Cosmic String.
** I'm pretty sure entire galaxies are used as projectiles in that war.
* In [[Larry Niven]]'s ''A World Out of Time'', earth develops extrasolar colonies, and they eventually go to war. ''By throwing stars at each other.'' The one headed for earth misses, but makes the sun go red giant.
=== [[
* Inverted in an episode of ''[[Transformers Generation 1|Transformers G1]]'' when the bad guys try to fling the Earth into the Sun. Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?▼
▲== [[Video Games]] ==
* In [[SaGa|Frontier 2]], The Egg's final form has a skill called Xenocide, where he'll throw ''the fucking sun'' at you! He'll use this skill every other round.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
▲* Inverted in an episode of ''[[Transformers Generation 1|Transformers G1]]'' when the bad guys try to fling the Earth into the Sun. Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?
== Terrestrial objects ==
=== [[Anime]]
* [[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]: {{spoiler|Yliaster's plan to destroy Neo Domino City and erase Momentum from history appears to involve dropping the [[Ominous Floating Castle|Ark Cradle, a floating fortress]] [[Temporal Paradox|made from the ruins of the future Neo Domino City]], on it.}}
* In ''[[One Piece]]'' {{spoiler|Vander Decken, the infamous pirate captain with the powers of the Mato Mato (target target) fruit decides to kill the Mermaid Princess (who rejected him) by throwing a giant Ark at her.}}
* ''[[A Certain Magical Index]]'':
*
** And Touma crashed the Star of Bethlehem into the [[Archangel Gabriel]].
===
* In a little known comic series called ''[[Meridian]]'', a large number of the population lives on floating islands while the ground (At least most of it) is too heavily polluted. Naturally, the threat of a city-state falling down onto the ground is present.
* In recent years, the [[Marvel]] version of Asgard, a mystical city-state, has hovered over the American Midwest. Recently, during the Seige storyarc, Asgard fell to the ground.
* In an issue of [[Spider-Man|The Spectacular Spider-Man]] in the 90's, Spidey and the original [[X-Men]] teamed-up against Professor Power who was in control of a [[Ominous Floating Castle|floating castle]]. They defeat him and his [[Mooks]] but the castle is sent plummeting toward New York. Obviously, they stop it just in time.
=== [[Film]] ===
* In the 2009 movie adaptation of ''[[Astro Boy (film)|Astro Boy]]'', the power goes out in the floating city during the climactic fight, which causes it to start falling. Astro slows down the fall enough to avoid a catastrophe.
* The school in ''[[Sky High]]'' has its floatation device disabled by Royal Pain. Will just barely manages to slow down the school long enough for his friends to fix the device and stop it from crushing a neighborhood.
=== [[Literature]] ===
* In ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', the Laputan emperor's ultimate punishment against wayward earthbound cities was to drop his floating island on them.
=== [[Live
* In ''[[My Hero (TV)]]'' 6x08, "Believe", Thermoman accidently drops a village in Bavaria on another village, causing them to both catch fire and set alight to a third one. However, no-one actually gets hurt as Thermoman manages to rescue them all from his blunder, though they weren't overly grateful about it.
=== [[Music Video]] ===
* The [[Gorillaz]]' floating windmill ends up being shot down by pirates in the video for "El Manana".
=== [[Toys]] ===
* ''[[Bionicle]]'': when {{spoiler|Mata Nui crashes onto Aqua Magna thanks to Makuta.}}
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* The destruction of Zeal in ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' results in the [[Floating Continent|floating kingdom]] falling from the sky. Between Lavos generally causing havoc and chunks of islands falling from near-orbit, the world is just about destroyed and flooded. [[Unexplained Recovery|It gets better, though]]. In fact, it's implied that the disaster is what ends the Ice Age, in the same way that Lavos's arrival started it... which qualifies for this trope as well.
* In ''[[Lufia II]]'' {{spoiler|Doom Fortress was used to attempt to destroy Parcelyte as a last ditch effort by Daos.}}
* In the [[Multiple Endings|standard ending]] of ''[[Cave Story]]'', the entire [[Floating Continent|floating island]] crashes to the ground [[Load-Bearing Boss|after defeating the final boss]]. In the Good Ending, defeating the [[Perfect Run Final Boss]] will save the island from falling.
* [[Final Fantasy VII]]: In the double-decker city Midgar, one of the villains manages to drop a large section of the affluent layer of the city above onto the slums below, killing hundreds of people.
* The nation of Ankara uses this method to destroy its Shell 5 rival Janam in ''[[Septerra Core]]'', slamming the continent into the base of Shell 3.
* The Solarian tethered sky colony Etrenank in ''Xenogears'' {{spoiler|smashes into the surface and erupts into a nuclear fireball after Id shoots it down [[For the Evil]]}}
** It's counterpart and rival Shevat {{spoiler|suffers a similar fate off-screen, but remains somewhat intact on the surface}}
* In the ''[[Arc the Lad]]'' series, the Sky Castle rises and drops no less than 3 times. The first time causing [[The End of the World as We Know It]], subsequent falls are nowhere near as destructive because the plot says so.
* RyuKohOh and it's derivatives in the ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]]'' games typically have an attack that warps a small mountain directly above the enemy's head.
* In [[Donkey Kong Country Returns]], {{spoiler|Donkey Kong ''punches'' the moon on to [[Big Bad|Tiki Tong]] in the cutscene after the fight.}}
* In the grand finale of ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'', {{spoiler|Sky Fortress ''Bahamut'' is fatally damaged by the Undying's unrelenting assaults on it during the [[Final Battle]]. The miles-and-miles-tall [[Ominous Floating Castle|Floating]] [[Evil Tower of Ominousness|Tower]] falls from the sky in a collision course with Rabanastre, to everyone's horror. Although the lowest bits crash into the city's [[Deflector Shields|Paling]], it's obvious that this shield won't hold, and last-ditch, desperate actions are taken to ensure the city's survival, from [[Heroic Sacrifice|suicidally]] [[Ramming Always Works|ramming it away with a capital ship]], to staying behind to rig emergency power to its engines}}.
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword]]'', {{spoiler|Link invokes this trope as a last resort to stopping The Imprisoned for good by wishing to the Triforce to destroy The Imprisoned for good. It grants the wish by causing part of Skyloft to break off and fall from the heavens, landing directly on the sealing pit just as The Imprisoned is breaking out of its seal, squishing it}}.
=== [[Web Comics]] ===
* In ''[[8-
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* The [[Neopets]] story arc 'The Faeries' Ruin' had an ''epic'' [[Wham! Episode]] which revealed that not only was {{spoiler|Xandra}} the villain, she just crashed Faerieland- that is, a giant floating city-state- into Neopia.
* In Volume 8 Episode 14 of ''[[RWBY]]'', the [[Floating Continent|Floating City]] of Atlas loses its support and crashes down into the city of Mantle beneath it.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Tropes in Space]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Falling, Dropping, and Plummeting]]
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