Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Difference between revisions
Content deleted Content added
No edit summary |
|||
| (One intermediate revision by the same user not shown) | |||
Line 115:
*** [[Fridge Logic|Then why are we still here?]]
*** [[Fridge Horror|They're not finished yet.]]
* In the ''Gray Lensman'' book of [[E. E. "Doc" Smith]]'s ''[[Lensmen]]'' series, two planets have their inertia dampened (i.e. forward momentum placed in stasis),{{verify|reason=That definition sounds like the exact opposite of inertia dampening.}} after which they are moved into place on opposite sides of a planet of villains. When their inertia or forward momentum is returned, they rush together to crush the planet between them. This is merely a coda to the use of an antimatter bomb of planetary size. Later in the series, this is deemed insufficient and even more powerful weapons are used, including planets from other universes with intrinsic velocities significantly above lightspeed.
* The [[Revelation Space]] universe features many Earthshattering Kabooms: First, the main antagonists destroy at least three planets during the main trilogy and an unknown but very large number more during the previous one billion years; second, defeating those antagonists releases a rogue terraforming agent, which, it is implied, destroys the whole ''universe'' in several billion years. From the very first novel a group of humans have a cache of 40 weapons, each capable of destroying a planet. And then finally, there are the Nestbuilder Weapons, of which little is seen but [[Take Our Word for It|much is said]].
** The eponymous device of Alastair Reynolds' short story, ''[[Merlin's Gun]]''.
Line 131:
* In Greg Bear's ''The Forge of God'', {{spoiler|Earth was blown up after (a) being shot with one giant neutronium bullet and one giant anti-neutronium bullet that met and exploded '''and''' (b) having vast quantities of hydrogen extracted from the oceans and turned into hydrogen bombs. Talk about overkill!}}
** {{spoiler|Actually, not really overkill at all. Unlike many other examples here, this one involved just a little more boom than the gravitational binding energy of the Earth. The explosion took a realistic several minutes. To make something explode as fast as, say, [[Star Wars|Alderaan]] takes several orders of magnitude more energy.}}
* Possibly {{spoiler|1=Charlie McGee}} from [[Stephen King]]'s novel ''[[Firestarter]]''. {{spoiler|''"Suppose there is a [[Person of Mass Destruction|little girl]] out there someplace this morning, who has within her... the power to crack the very planet in two like a china plate in a shooting gallery?"''}}
* ''[[Battlefield Earth|Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000]]'', in both the book and movie, Johnny "Goodboy" Tyler detonates {{spoiler|the Psychlo homeworld by teleporting a nuclear device to the planet}}.
** It should be noted that {{spoiler|the nuke}} is a plain old one (very old, actually). It's the way {{spoiler|nuclear radiation}} interacts with the {{spoiler|Psychlos' breath-gas}} that causes the big boom.
| |||