Doomsday Device: Difference between revisions
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* Johan Schmidt's Valkyrie Amerikabomber from ''[[Captain America: The First Avenger]]'' also counts. It carried a large arsenal of city-busting WMD's and had the ability to traverse the Pacific in a few hours, at speeds and altitudes that would make it dificult to intercept. It was also powered by the [[MacGuffin|Cosmic Cube]]. Its intended use was to destroy most of the world's major cities, starting with [[Big Applesauce|New York]].
* The Genesis Device in ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan]]''. This device is designed to "terraform" an uninhabitable planet, breaking down its terrain into subatomic particles and restructuring it into a planet with water, an atmosphere, and plant life, making it capable of supporting human life. But as Spock figures out in about a minute - something Starfleet designers clearly missed - is that this device could be a genocidal weapon if used on a planet that was already inhabited, the very purpose [[Big Bad|Khan]] intends to use it for.
* Whether he counts as a "weapon" or a "character" is hard to say, but the robot Gort from ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film)|The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'' might qualify. Never mind the fact that he defeated a whole unit of the U.S. Army by himself; according to Klatu, he could have destroyed the Earth if he had to.
== Literature ==
* [[Frank Herbert]] used such plots now and then, both in the form of superweapons and plots to send a [[Terminally Dependent Society]] crashing; he also paid attention to why it's supposed to be a serious threat at all:▼
** ''[[Con Sentiency|Whipping Star]]'' had it done by a lunatic who hoped to survive the mayhem (but turned out to be even more terminally dependent in the end).▼
** ''[[Dune]]'' has Paul's hold on spice work not just as a plain threat, but because the key targets among those he intimidated were precognitives, who he knew kept seeing only a wall of discontinuity and as such already were quite terrified.▼
** ''Hellstrom's Hive'' had those issuing the ultimatum specifically note (in the inner circle) that an absolute threat, due to its [[Taking You with Me|suicidal]] nature, ''at best'' only creates a stalemate allowing to win time for some better leverage.▼
* A short story by Edmund Cooper has teams of American, Russian and British scientists all building incredibly elaborate Doomsday Devices that will destroy the world completely if anyone tries to use nuclear weapons or invade their countries at all. This ends up causing world peace; in a subversion {{spoiler|the scientists reveal to each other at the end that none of the machines actually work, but are just impressive collections of cables, strange chrome things and flashing lights, with the exception of the Russian doomsday device, which will blow up anyone who tries to use it.}}.
* Doctor Impossible's current scheme in ''[[Soon I Will Be Invincible]]''—most of his part of the story covers the "[[Gotta Catch Them All|Collect The]] [[Plot Coupon]]" quest.
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* In Gary Gygax's [[Greyhawk|Gord the Rogue]] novels, the villains are on a quest to find three parts to a doomsday device that will free [[Cosmic Horror|Tharizdun]], a universe-destroying insane god who was [[Sealed Evil in a Can|imprisoned by the rest of the gods for eons]]. However, the villains do not want to USE the device -- [[Even Evil Has Standards|instead they want to make sure the three parts are kept as far away from each other as possible]]. [[Apocalypse How|That doesn't work out too well...]]
* The antimatter canister in ''[[Angels & Demons]]''.
▲* [[Frank Herbert]] used such plots now and then, both in the form of superweapons and plots to send a [[Terminally Dependent Society]] crashing; he also paid attention to why it's supposed to be a serious threat at all:
▲** ''[[Con Sentiency|Whipping Star]]'' had it done by a lunatic who hoped to survive the mayhem (but turned out to be even more terminally dependent in the end).
▲** ''[[Dune]]'' has Paul's hold on spice work not just as a plain threat, but because the key targets among those he intimidated were precognitives, who he knew kept seeing only a wall of discontinuity and as such already were quite terrified.
▲** ''Hellstrom's Hive'' had those issuing the ultimatum specifically note (in the inner circle) that an absolute threat, due to its [[Taking You with Me|suicidal]] nature, ''at best'' only creates a stalemate allowing to win time for some better leverage.
== Live-Action TV ==
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{{quote|'''Professor Farnsworth:''' I suppose I could part with ''one'' and still be feared...}}
* This is occasionally a problem on ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius|Jimmy Neutron]];'' fortunately, [[Absent-Minded Professor|Professor Calamitous]] is unable to finish anything he starts, leaving Jimmy a way to somehow save the day.
* Nimnul from ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' loved to make these, and every time they were powered by something more and more bizarre. His first one was powered by petting kittens. In one episode, he tells his nephew that the reason he builds them is because "They don't take a mad scientist seriously until he blows up a city or two."
* Busting Doomsday Devices is pretty much ''[[Kim Possible]]'''s hobby, with Dr. Drakken the major builder of them.
** The best is the machine that sucks the entire planet dry of breathable oxygen. It's activated once, it quickly destroyed, never referenced ever again and didn't make any sense in the original episode at all.
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* The plot of most of the ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' mini-series involved Cobra attempting to make a doomsday device out of parts scattered all over the world. The Joe team then tries to keep Cobra from obtaining the parts. (''Arise, Serpentor, Arise'' also followed this plot, however Cobra was genetically engineering a human being.)
* In ''[[She-Ra|She-Ra and the Princesses of Power]]'', {{spoiler|the Heart of Etheria is initially believed to be a superweapon created by [[Abusive Precursors| the First Ones]], able to channel the life energy of Etheria itself into a power capable of destroying whole planets. However, this is only partially true. The Heart is actually an energy source, which focuses its power through the Princesses, and then into the true Doomsday Device, [[Living Weapon| She-Ra herself]]. Fortunately, She-Ra is determined to tell them that "[[I Am Not a Gun]]!".}}
* In ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 series)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', Professor Honeycut (aka the Fugitoid) never intended his teleportation device to be a weapon, but the tyrannical militia who ruled his homeworld ''and'' their enemies the Triceratons both figured out it could be used to teleport nuclear bombs, potentially destroying entire worlds by teleporting them into the cores. The entire "Turtles in Space" arc focused on the Turtles trying to keep both factions from getting ahold of him and the blueprints he had memorized.
== Real Life ==
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* Project Orion was meant to send a large spacecraft into space using a series of nuclear explosions, for peaceful exploration purposes. In order to help with military funding the scientists working on the project had to come up with military applications. One of the ideas was that since it could carry really heavy loads into orbit, they could give it a massive hydrogen bomb payload without the weight constraints of other delivery systems. It could then [[Kill Sat|hover over the Soviet Union and be dropped if needed]], wiping out the USSR and probably destroying the climate of the northern hemisphere in the process.
* [https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/sun-gun-nazis-worked-on-a-weapon-to-destroy-their-enemies-with-the-power-of-the-sun.html The Nazi Sun Gun.] Seriously, they thought they could actually build this thing, which would be capable of incinerating whole cities or boiling part of the ocean. (To give a comparison to show how farfetched this was, it wouldn't be until 1957 that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1 Sputnik] was launched.) This was far from the ''only'' absurd idea they had, but it may be one of the most ludicrous.
* Some people are afraid that the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider Large Hadron Collider] or LDH could potentially become one. In [https://www.cracked.com/article_16583_the-5-scientific-experiments-most-likely-to-end-world.html this article] on [[Cracked.com]] that lists five possible doomsday scenarios, the LHC is a key component in three of them. Of course, the article was written in 2009, and [[Science Marches On|since then they've done]] [[Technology Marches On|a lot more research on it]].
{{reflist}}
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