Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Difference between revisions

* The [[John Carpenter]]'s ultra low budget film ''[[Dark Star]]'' featured a starship crew whose job was to traverse the Galaxy, using "Exponential Thermostellar Bombs" to destroy planets that might someday threaten human colonies. For twenty years. On the ragged edge of terminal boredom.

* In ''[[Godzilla vs. Destoroyah]]'', it's revealed that Godzilla's heart is basically a nuclear reactor. When Birth Island erupts and exposes Godzilla to a bed of radioactive materials, he absorbs too much and begins to undergo meltdown. Unfortunately, his self-destruction will also take most of the planet with him, sending scientists and the military scrambling for a way to prevent it. Things get more complicated when Destoroyah arrives on the scene, making Godzilla's meltdown occur faster and become more powerful due to his rage at Destoroyah's actions.

* The beginning of ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]] II'' shows Sarleena destroying planets she passed by.

* In the end of ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon]]'', {{spoiler|Cybertron collapses in on itself when the Autobots destroy Sentinel's Space Bridge.}}

* The oldest and still canonical example of this in the ''[[Perry Rhodan]]'' universe is the Arkon bomb, a reasonably portable device capable of causing a runaway nuclear chain reaction that will destroy the planet it is planted on over the course of only a few days. The arguably most destructive weapon ever built by Terrans, the Hyperinmestron, was used only three times in the series and only once for actual military purposes—it's capable of blowing up a star, and that first use resulted in side effects that caused supernovae and other general chaos and devastation throughout the center of the Andromeda galaxy.

* ''Creatures of Light and Darkness'' by [[Roger Zelazny]] includes shattering "worlds", supposed to contain multiple planets, in the course of the battles of the gods.

** And in the [[Ciaphas Cain]] novel ''Caves of Ice'', a bomb that was placed in a mine that was flooded with millions of gallons of highly volatile promethium resulted in a gigaton range explosion that obliterated a mountain range and caused a shockwave that could be felt from ''orbit''. Despite that, they're still not certain whether or not the explosion destroyed the Necron tomb hidden below the mine.

* In the ''[[Nights Dawn Trilogy]]'', the scientists studying the ruins near the habitat Serenity crap themselves when they realize that the planet of this ancient alien civilization was ''actually destroyed'', as in reduced to large chunks of rock floating around space. This reaction is largely provoked by the fact that the ''best'' that their technological advances so far, which include light-speed warping, anti-matter bombs, living thinking Bitek space vessels and habitats (Serenity is actually one of these), and techno-telepathy, have only made it as far as being able to [[Depopulation Bomb|completely screw with the surface of a planet and destroy its climate and ecology]]. It gets worse, because for reasons unknown, this ancient alien race apparently ''[[Cyanide Pill|did it]] [[Starts with a Suicide|to themselves.]]''

* In ''[[Star Trek]]'', The USS Enterprise can be assumed to have planet-killing abilities (of the lesser kind), unless Captain Kirk was bluffing when he mentioned General Order 24...

** The ISS Enterprise in the Mirror Universe clearly does have the capacity to destroy a planet or at least sterilize its surface.

** In "A Piece of The Action", the Enterprise is able to knock out the entire population of Sigma Iotia with the main phasers on "stun", the lowest setting.

*** Not the entire population, just everyone "in a one-block radius of [Kirk's] coordinates." And only the ones who were outdoors.

** And of course the planet killer from the episode "The Doomsday Machine".

** In "The Die Is Cast", it is stated that a fleet of 20 Romulan and Cardassian ships can destroy a planet down to its core within 6 hours (1+5). The opening volley alone destroyed 30% of surface, {{spoiler|after which the fleet was interrupted by 150 Dominion ships and destroyed.}}

** The Defiant could supposedly reduce the surface of the new Founder Homeworld to a smoking cinder in short order (While it was Garak who said this, he said it to Worf, who would be the most familiar with the Defiant's systems).

== Tabletop RPG ==

 

** Most of these methods usually leave a dead ball of rock, however. Except the Planet Killer; that really ''does'' blow up planets. And then we get to the Blackstone Fortresses...

*** There are many methods of Exterminatus, and while it is true that most of them just leave a dead rock, Two-Stage Cyclonic torpedoes indeed cause a Planet-Shattering Kaboom

* ''[[Defender]]''.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' deals with the destruction of several worlds by [[The Heartless]], {{spoiler|which are reformed, just as they were before they were destroyed, at the end of the game.}}

* The Covenant in ''[[Halo]]'' "glass" planets - they blast them from orbit until the surface has melted into a glasslike substance.

** The UNSC NOVA bomb. To elaborate, it is a cluster of nine nukes, each surrounded by a shell that, when the bomb goes off, [[Techno Babble|briefly compresses each of the nine explosions to neutron-star density]], giving each blast a 100x boost. One is {{spoiler|accidentally set off on an Elite loyalist vessel in orbit around a loyalist world: the planet is wiped clean of life, its moon ''is shattered'', and nearly the entire fleet massed nearby is annihilated.}}

''Fry presses a button - a planet explodes''

Leela: "Wow! The most mundane events look almost exciting through your eyes." }}

* ''Once Upon a Time, Man'' ("Il était une fois l'homme") was a multiple nationality and educational cartoon,from 80's and about History (as a serious ''[[Histeria!]]!''). The credits were Abridged History, and future of humanity was already told [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNURUGCOQ5I at the end:] mens running away with rockets and then, Ka-boom.

* An episode of ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' had the destruction of the Earth at the end of the episode, but it's all right...everyone had already moved to Brain's papier-mache replica.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Pages needing more categories]]

[[Category:Apocalyptic Index]]