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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Then they went out and played Charles Fort and the Atlanteans versus the Ancient Masters of Tibet, but the Tibetters claimed that using mystic ancient lasers was cheating."''
|''[[Good Omens]]'' }}
Almost no matter what your level of military tech- javelin, arquebus, [[The Terminator|phased plasma rifle in the 40 Watt range]], quantum black hole, whatever - it's nowhere near as good as it was in your [[They Don't Make Them Like They Used To|great-great-granddad's day]]. In those days, men were real men, women were real women, and hideously powerful destructive forces were... better than this modern muck, with [[Power Glows|glowing]] [[Instant Runes|runes]] and everything. This could be despite the [[Superweapon Surprise|apparent primitive nature]] of the society at the time. More rationally, it could also be [[And Man Grew Proud|the cause]] of the primitive nature of the society immediately following...
In any event, unlike its cousins the [[Ancestral Weapon]] and [[Forgotten Superweapon]], the
Should someone (especially a villain) be trying to find a Lost Superweapon, one variable they ''never'' take into consideration is, "Why is the ancient civilization who built it not ruling the world?" The answer usually is - as is often found out too late - that they could not control it and killed them the instant they plugged it in, or that a single use of its power proved so terrifying that they decided [[No Man Should Have This Power]] and sealed it away. This Trope can easily overlaps with [[Cosmic Horror Story]], as such a genre tends to have destructive evil things that are also ancient.
Lost Superweapons are generally a type of [[Plot Coupon]] and found in fantasy novels and video games. If the Lost Superweapon has become a notable part of the landscape, then it is a [[Weaponized Landmark]].
See also: [[MacGuffin]], [[Artifact of Doom]], [[Older Is Better]] and [[Lost Technology]]. Compare [[Fling a Light Into the Future]].
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Mazinger Z]]'': Mykene Mechanical Beast. Old myths assured an ancient, {{spoiler|allegedly}} lost Greek civilization called Mykene lived on the island of Bardos used [[Humongous Mecha|metallic giants]] [[Chest Blaster|shot flames from their chests]] to defend their land. [[Big Bad]] and [[Mad Scientist]] Dr. Hell pondered maybe the myths might be true. [[Understatement|Unfortunately for everybody]], the old legends were indeed right, and he found an army of ancient, forgotten [[Humongous Mecha]] under the ruins of the island. However it is a subversion, since {{spoiler|like it was seen in ''[[Great Mazinger]]'', the Mykene civilization still existed, and throughout millennia had dramatically improved their technology, and compared with their newest mechas, the giant robots Dr. Hell found were ancient, outdated, mountain sized piles of scrap.}}
* ''[[One Piece]]'' has, as part of its [[Myth Arc]], the existence of three super weapons, Pluton, Uranus, and Poseidon. They are so rare, powerful, and difficult to obtain that one villain tries to conquer an entire country ''just to facilitate finding one.'' One is apparently a battleship of some kind, and another is {{spoiler|the Mermaid Princess' ability to command the Sea Kings}}.
* The God Warriors of ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]''.
* The [[Cool Starship|Saint's Cradle]] of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS]]''.
== [[Film]] ==▼
* The Ark of the Covenant in ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'' is a Grade A Lost Superweapon, and the Nazis pay ''dearly'' for trying to use it.▼
▲== Film ==
▲* The Ark of the Covenant in ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'' is a Grade A Lost Superweapon.
* In ''[[Mad Max]]: Beyond Thunderdome'', Max wants to intimidate one of the tribal teenagers into staying in the camp. He snatches a decorated ceremonial spear from another tribe member, strips off its decorations, extracts the rifle that the [[Scavenger World]] kids had unwittingly used as a spear-shaft, and fires a warning shot. Not as ancient or as "super" as most examples of this trope, but it's a lot deadlier than their javelins, so it fits.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* ''Star Wars'' expanded universe novels have {{spoiler|the entire solar system of Corellia is made of giant spaceships disguised as planets with the tiny station of Centerpoint being the control center. The said spaceships can attack with their giant repulsors/engines, and Centerpoint is able to warp gravity across the galaxy to decimate an entire alien fleet.}}
** Other ''[[Star Wars]]'' examples include the Sun Crusher (which was forgotten because it was built in a remote Imperial wormhole facility that no one really knew about), the Katana Fleet (which was lost to hyperspace troubles) and the ''Lusankya'' {{spoiler|(an entire Super Star Destroyer buried beneath Coruscant to use as a prison)}}.
*
** Given the Technological decline, the propeller will prolly break on you and you'd end up running over a cliff.
* Subverted in [[Alastair Reynolds]]' ''Revelation Space'' universe: In one book, several of the heroes spend most of the story on a race to track down and wield Lost Superweapons to turn on the remorseless alien foe. They probably hoped for better results than {{spoiler|"none at all. But she went out with a bang"}}.
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** Not satisfied with one Krang, the Tar-Aiym also built a weapons platform the size of an entire planet that contains hundreds of Krangs. Flinx discovers it in ''Reunion'' and spends the rest of the series searching for it. {{spoiler|His attempt to use it against the [[Ultimate Evil]] ends up being a [[The Worf Barrage|Worf Barrage]]}}.
** And last but certainly not least, the Xunca. Not satisfied with destruction on a mere planetary or solar system scale, they constructed a weapon concentrating the energy of several million galaxies across multiple dimensions. ''It gets used.''
* The title device in Larry Niven's ''The Soft Weapon''.
* A large number of these in ''[[Mortal Engines]]'', such as MEDUSA the {{spoiler|city destroying laser}} and {{spoiler|ODIN the [[Kill Sat]]}}.
* Only a 30-year backlog on this one, but Peter F. Hamilton's ''Night's Dawn'' trilogy has the ''incredibly awesome'' Alchemist, which disappeared when the strike force heading off to deploy it was destroyed shortly before the genocide of their home planet's population. {{spoiler|It's recovered towards the end of the second book, ''The Neutronium Alchemist'', and the (fairly accurate) physics is explained- and we discover that it can turn a sun into a black hole. That's the ''more humane setting.''}}
* The Ma Wi Jung in ''Crystal Rain,'' though {{spoiler|it's not exactly a super''weapon'', per se.}}
* In ''[[
* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' has a couple of these lying around. Most notably, there's the Choedan Kal, two artifacts so powerful that each of them is capable of not only destroying the world, but also causing serious damage to the fabric of reality itself.
* In Christopher Rowley's ''Starhammer'', The title weapon is a huge skyscraper-sized tank carrying a weapon that blows up stars, instantaneously over unlimited ranges.
* Iain M. Banks's ''Against A Dark Background'' features a Lazy Gun as a [[MacGuffin]].
* In one ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'' mission, the PCs discover a long-forgotten antimatter bomb capable of destroying the entire Complex, and have to keep it away from fanatics who would actually detonate it.▼
* This trope practically litters ''[[Exalted]]'', with two major examples being the Five-Metal Shrike (a sentient warship from the First Age that is hinted to still soar the skies of Creation) and the Realm Defense Grid (an old superweapon which only one person has ever been able to master since the days the Solars ruled... and they ended up making that person Empress of the most powerful nation in the world once she was done with it).
** FMS might be nice, shiny and theoretically operational by just a playgroup, but there are also some surviving Directional Titans it was designed to kinda "replace". One is currently an [[
* This was the original defining feature of ''[[BattleTech]]''. The golden age of technology was some 300 years ago and everything now is patched-up, dumbed-down versions of the stuff the Star League had but the Successor States have largely forgotten how to make.▼
* The Imperium in ''[[Warhammer
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'':
** The two dreaded [[Artifacts of Doom]] the ''Machine of Lum the Mad'' and ''Mighty Servant of Leuk-O'' are probably this. Neither Lum nor Leuk-O built them, rather it is believed they were both built by a mysterious forerunner race of artificers.
** ''Heward's Mystical Organ'' is the type that can be this "only in the wrong hands". Theoretically, it can do ''anything'' depending on which song is played on it and how well it is played. (Legend states that ''only'' [[The Paragon| Heward]] himself could play it without fail.) While a noble hero could use it to create a [[World-Healing Wave]] or strike down a rampaging [[Eldritch Abomination| Tarrasque]], a dark villain could also use it as a magical weapon of mass destruction.
==
* {{spoiler|Vegnagun}}, the semi-sentient, [[Earthshattering Kaboom|Earth
▲* In one ''[[Paranoia]]'' mission, the PCs discover a long-forgotten antimatter bomb capable of destroying the entire Complex, and have to keep it away from fanatics who would actually detonate it.
▲* This trope practically litters ''[[Exalted]]'', with two major examples being the Five-Metal Shrike (a sentient warship from the First Age that is hinted to still soar the skies of Creation) and the Realm Defense Grid (an old superweapon which only one person has ever been able to master since the days the Solars ruled... and they ended up making that person Empress of the most powerful nation in the world once she was done with it).
▲** FMS might be nice, shiny and theoretically operational by just a playgroup, but there are also some surviving Directional Titans it was designed to kinda "replace". One is currently an [[Bioshock|underwater city]] and another a giant freaking flying mountain. Estimated matter survival time around each of those deployed in combat: 1 tick. And it does take a city of operators to man.
▲* This was the original defining feature of [[BattleTech]]. The golden age of technology was some 300 years ago and everything now is patched-up, dumbed-down versions of the stuff the Star League had but the Successor States have largely forgotten how to make.
▲* The Imperium in [[Warhammer 40000]] appears to have lost the ability to innovate. Apart from reuniting humanity the Great Crusade is also about finding STCs on lost colony worlds that describe how to build things the Empire lost the plans of in the Age of Strife. There are also superweapons knocking about that were built by mysterious ancients who tend to manufacture these awesome devices and then wander off with the instruction manual in their pockets never to be seen again.
▲== Video Games ==
▲* {{spoiler|Vegnagun}}, the semi-sentient, [[Earthshattering Kaboom|Earth Shattering]] [[Doomsday Device|Doomsday]] [[Wave Motion Gun|Gun]] from the final days of ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'''s Machina War, was sealed deep below Bevelle one thousand years ago. [[Final Fantasy X 2|Then it goes missing]].
* Orichalcum is an ancient Atlantean superfuel/explosive in Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis.
* The titular [[Halo
* Remember the Gaia Temples in ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]''? The ones built centuries ago to house (and if needed restore) the power of the Chaos Emeralds? Well, apparently, {{spoiler|Light Gaia/Chip can summon them to form the Gaia Colossus, the one integral component (aside from the power of the emeralds) needed to tame [[Eldritch Abomination|Dark Gaia]] and prevent [[The End of the World as We Know It]].}}
** In fact, this was [[Insistent Terminology|Dr. Egg...er, Robotnik's]] shtick from about [[Sonic Adventure]] to Sonic Unleashed (chronologically, about 1998-2008). Virtually every storyline had him digging up one deranged [[Eldritch Abomination]]
* In ''[[
* The contents of D-6 in ''[[Metro 2033]]'', especially the {{spoiler|1=MRLs used to destroy the Dark Ones' hive.}}
* {{spoiler|Guillo}} in ''[[Baten Kaitos]] Origins''. It was abandoned by the Children of the Earth after the war of the gods, since they felt that a weapon that could kill a god wasn't a good thing to keep around.
* The B-plot of ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' involves the Alliance trying to recover a Prothean superweapon, the Crucible, to use against the Reaper invasion. There are only two wrinkles: one, it's some-assembly-required, given that they have only the blueprints; two, it is missing a crucial component, the Catalyst (which is why it didn't work for the Protheans) -- {{spoiler|which turns out to be the Citadel}}.
** ''Mass Effect 3'' deconstructs this trope, {{spoiler|as the designs for the superweapon are revealed to predate the Protheans - and even ''their'' predecessors - with every cycle adding and improving to its design.}}
== [[Web Original]] ==▼
* The [[Precursors|Iormunean]] [[Praetorian Guard|Imperial Templar]]'s blessed weapons from ''[[Open Blue]]'' are [[Smite Evil|divine armaments]] enchanted with various elements and powers. Compared to the weapons of the present timeline, they're definitely superweapons.▼
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Surprisingly (
{{quote|'''Max''': (Laughs after the sword turns to dust) Guess that's what happens when the world's most powerful sword is over 5,000 years old.}}
▲** The Sword of Ascanlon in [[Ben 10: Ultimate Alien]] fares better {{spoiler|probably because it was made by alien technology}} and was used to cut out and contain the heart of an [[Eldritch Abomination]] a thousand years before the series. Unfortunately, it (and the heart of said abomination) didn't stay lost.
▲== Web Original ==
▲* The [[Precursors|Iormunean]] [[Praetorian Guard|Imperial Templar]]'s blessed weapons from ''[[Open Blue]]'' are [[Smite Evil|divine armaments]] enchanted with various elements and powers. Compared to the weapons of the present timeline, they're definitely superweapons.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Older Is Better]]
[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]
[[Category:
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