Person of Mass Destruction: Difference between revisions

''I kill conversation as I walk into the room

''I'm a three line whip, I'm the sort of thing they ban

 

So you've got a force capable of destroying vast amounts of people, land, and possibly the universe, and essentially have the ability to commit a war crime with the wave of a hand. It's just what any super villain or [[Omnicidal Maniac]] could possibly want, and then some. There's just one catch...

 

{{examples}}

* Hotaru Tomoe from ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', a.k.a. Sailor Saturn the senshi of destruction and rebirth is a perfect example. Able to destroy a planet at will, and just about anything by sacrificing herself in the process.

* In ''[[Bleach]]'', all the Captains and Vice-Captains of the shinigami have 80% of their energy sealed away when in the real world without special permission to release all of it. Guess why.

** And Nanoha herself is not called [[Fan Nickname|White Devil]] without reason. In doujinshi, especially, she ([[Artifact of Doom|or her device]]) is very prone to unleashing destruction anywhere, anytime.

** There are also the kings of [[The Empire|Ancient Belka]], who sacrificed their bodies to become living weapons of mass destruction [[Warrior Prince|that could lead their people to war as symbols of power]]. Considering how the few still existing come in [[Mysterious Waif]] form, they're quite sought after by those planning acts of terrorism.

* In ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'', Madoka has so much magical talent that if she became a Puella Magi, she would be capable of destroying the most powerful witch in a single blast. And then she {{spoiler|becomes an ultimate witch who really ''can and does'' remove all life from the world. Part of the plot of the story is centered around when she would actually make her wish.}}

* ''[[The Record of a Fallen Vampire]]'' has Strauss, the vampire immune to the sun who also has an almost godly amount of magic, and Adelheid, the Moonlight of Corrosion.

* Ryoko from ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'' fits here, at least in her original OVA form, since she is listed as destroying several planets in her past. An honourable mention should also go out to {{spoiler|Tenchi himself, as when his godself manifested in OVA 3, he nearly destroyed ''all that exists''.}} Give him his due, he doesn't mess about.

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'', in absolute ''spades''. Consider that planet-destruction was a normal occurrence by the Saiyan Saga (Piccolo with the moon, Vegeta with Planet Arlia), and that every heroic character becomes infinitely stronger after that... Even [[The Woobie|Krillin]] could probably destroy a planet with a click of his fingers by the end of the Namek Saga, and by comparison to Frieza he's so weak as to not even be a consideration. Perfect Cell claimed to be able to destroy the entire solar system in a single blast with his energy, before Gohan stopped him.

* Almost any and all State Alchemists in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. [[Colonel Badass|Roy Mustang]] [[Playing with Fire|burns down whole city blocks by snapping his fingers]]. [[Sociopathic Soldier|Solf J. Kimblee]] [[Having a Blast|blows up neighborhoods by clapping his hands]]. [[Large Ham|Alex Louis Armstrong]] [[Dishing Out Dirt|rearranges the earth's crust by punching it]]. [[Badass Moustache|Basque Grand]] [[Walking Armoury|transmutes entire buildings into weapons]]. [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|Isaac McDougal]] [[An Ice Person|nearly buried Central City in a glacial layer of ice]]. It's worth noting that the Ishvalan civil war—which had been dragging on for seven years—ended within months of Order #3066 going out. What was the order? To weaponize and send in the State Alchemists.

** One of the victims of that order, [[Serial Killer|Scar]], later went on to become another Person of Mass Destruction, gaining the ability to deconstruct matter with a touch. One could argue that many of the [[Artificial Human|Homunculi]] count, due to their regeneration powers, and ability to take down almost anyone, including State Alchemists. [[One-Man Army]] Wrath and Pride definitely count, as does their creator, [[A God Am I|Father]] and his [[Good Counterpart]], [[Big Good|Van Hohenheim]].

* All of the major-level paopei in [[Houshin Engi]] are capable of some serious destruction, but none match this trope as well as Nataku, the Human Paopei (long story). And then there's ultimate [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Jyoka}}, who is so ridiculously powerful that it takes a [[Combined Energy Attack]] from the ''gods themselves'' to take down.

* ''[[Beyblade]]'' 's third season G-Rev arc involves [[Big Bad|Boris]] happily assuming his new Person of Mass Destruction Brooklyn is going to help him [[Take Over the World]]. Unfortunately for everyone, Brooklyn turns out to be [[Ax Crazy]] and far more interested in [[Earthshattering Kaboom|destroying everything]] than following the [[Evil Plan]].

** Several characters in later novels who won the [[Superpower Lottery]] ''big time'' certainly fit this trope. Includes but is not limited to: Kanzaki Kaori, [[Archangel Gabriel]], Acqua of the Back, Fiamma of the Right.

** Also every Level 5 Esper.

* Chise from ''[[Saikano]]'' is often treated as (and almost certainly was written, in a sense, to represent) a human nuke. {{spoiler|By the end of the story, there's only one human left alive ( possibly two, but that depends upon whether you agree to classify her as a human by this point). Not directly by her fault, but she's very well aware that ultimately, she did it.}}

 

* The [[Incredible Hulk]] is one of the earliest examples. Like Godzilla, he was created by a bomb, and some adaptations literally compare him to the atomic weapon that spawned him; for example, the shockwaves he creates from smashing things are compared to the blast wave of a nuke.

* As is his [[Alternate Company Equivalent|DC Comics pastiche]] Goraiko, who is of Japanese origin and even has an attack shaped like a mushroom cloud.

* [[Superman|Doomsday]]. All there in the name really. Is basically on a mission to wipe out literally every other living thing in universe with his bare hands and just about capable of pulling it off.

 

* The ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3354083/1/Unexpected_Results_I_A_Slight_Glitch Unexpected] [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3563720/1/Unexpected_Results_II_In_All_the_Empty_Places Results]'' series (a ''[[Trinity Blood]]'' fan fic) has Johanna Sinclair, a character with time manipulation abilities that can trigger what is referred to as 'temporal whiplash', with the effect varying according to the age of the victim. In the case of a human it'll have a similar effect to an electric shock and usually knocks them out. When used on a vampire the result is akin to a bomb going off and it is theorized that using it against anything older than a vampire (i.e. a Crusnik) would be like setting off a nuke. This puts her in the rather difficult position of being theoretically capable of taking out the [[Big Bad]] but not without a hell of a lot of collateral damage.

* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5165327/1/Deep_Sleep Deep Sleep]'', a ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' [[Dark Fic|fanfic]], has Peter and Sylar battle ([[Coconut Superpowers|fully utilizing their powers]]) and inadvertently [[Story-Breaker Power|shattering continents,]] leaving the west half of the Americas a smoking wasteland, [[A Million Is a Statistic|killing millions]], and bringing about a very [[Bad Future]].

* [[Heroic Sociopath|Mark Westion]] in ''[[Yukari Is Free]] [http://www.shimauu.net/azu/board.html\]'' (an ''[[Azumanga Daioh]]'' [[Mega Crossover]]) possesses the power to fire giant lasers. At one point in the story, he fires one so big it accidentally destroys a planet. His girlfriend then hits him in the face with a baseball bat.

* Paul in ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', who could (if he wanted to, which he doesn't) either systematically and tirelessly dismantle everything in his path, or periodically reduce circular chunks of it to molten glass.

** Probably the others as well. John rejected many of the things the Kansael told him he can do and implied that he's unbeatable in the ocean; George at the very least could wreak havoc as a dragon; and Ringo apparently has a huge amount of power behind him that he's never tapped into. Luckily, they're [[Actual Pacifist]]s, and besides, their experiences on Earth taught them what the ''really'' important things in life are, so it's easy for them to reject the seductive call of power. Which really isn't that seductive, given how much [[Blessed with Suck|Suck]] it came with.

 

* The villain Nuclear Man from ''[[Superman IV]]: The Quest for Peace'' was supposed to be an [[Anvilicious]] statement about nukes... until it was shown that he was actually ''solar'' powered, making him possibly the greenest supervillain in existence. [[Broken Aesop|Ouch.]]

** Well, what is the Sun but a giant hydrogen bomb ''that's too big to stop exploding''?

* Aurora/Marie Zorn in ''[[Babylon A.D.]]'' is believed to be a viral weapon at first. In the book "[[Babylon Babies]]" another woman is used in this fashion—when she comes into proximity with the pheromones of her target, her body rapidly creates a virus that kills several hundred people in minutes, wiping out the upper echelons of the Neolite sect.

* Neo in ''[[The Matrix]]''. I assume that's not a spoiler.

** Even more so, {{spoiler|Paul's son Leto II and his distant descendant Miles Teg. Either of those is more than a match for a small army of opponents.}}

 

* Kaylin Nera in Michelle Sagara's [[Chronicles of Elantra]] is one. This isn't even a spoiler.

* The most powerful Channelers in Robert Jordan's ''[[Wheel of Time]]''. Three thousand years before the books start the male channelers going insane resulted in continents being reshaped and set humanity back thousand of years. Lews Therin's suicide alone reared up a large ''volcano''. The less powerful ''damane'' and Aes Sedai of the current age can be compared to bringing tanks into a medieval conflict when on the battlefield. The Asha'man are worse. And then there's the pair of devices that are powerful enough to let a single man and woman working together break the world all on their own, or challenge God.

* Jesus Himself in the ''[[Left Behind]]'' book series, as [[The Bible|His Word alone]] can kill many people ''en masse''.

 

* Ted's power on ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' was nuclear based. Despite the fears that he'd use those powers to detonate New York, turns out it wasn't Ted they had to worry about...

* ''[[The 4400]]'' has a returnee who was a non-nuclear example.

{{quote|''The Doctor:'' No one’s ever meant to have that power. If a Time Lord did that, he’d become a god, a vengeful god.}}

 

** The most powerful psykers (class Alpha Plus) can (depending on the type of power they have), mind-control entire cities, incinerate armies or snap a battle titan (the series' [[Humongous Mecha]]) in half with a mere thought. To make matters worse, the minds of current humans aren't built to handle Beta-and-above levels of psionic power, causing most psykers of such power levels to usually be batshit insane, not to mention very short-lived, as their presence attracts daemons like flies to honey, usually resulting in them exploding apart in a gory fashion while [[Legions of Hell|reality tears asunder and daemonic legions march forth to slaughter all life on the world]]. One of the very few and most notable exceptions is the [[God-Emperor]] of Mankind, who is beyond superhuman in both body and mind.

** Ork Weirdboyz use a form of magic tied to "Orkiness", that [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|latent gestalt energy]] generated by every Ork, and used by them every day on an instinctual basis to tell the laws of physics to sit down and shut up. Weirdboyz tap into it more directly than other Orks though, channeling it into power blasts or giant feet falling from the sky. The more Orks around the psyker, the more powerful his magic is. There is a catch, however: if there are too many boyz around, or they get too excited, the poor Weirdboy can't handle the sheer amount of power, which can cause his magic to fizzle... or himself to go nuclear. [[Hilarity Ensues|Yuks ensue]].

* While not as extreme as some of the others on this page, the mages in ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'' essentially become one of these when they reach mastery of virtually any Arcanum. The archmasters are more direct examples, to the point where they essentially have a non-aggression pact to prevent themselves from destroying the world, and instead conduct their affairs through a series of proxies, a la the Cold War.

* ''In Dark Ages: Mage'' (a historical setting for ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'')... to be honest, the time needed for this is exactly the amount of time one needs for standard character creation, if we count being able to be an orbital bomber enough for this.<ref>An Order of Hermes character investing in the elemental manipulation(/creation/anything) path of their magic can easily achieve the ability to 1) fly 2) manipulate air (meaning a personal pressurised air pocket around the mage) 3) manipulate forces like gravity (potentially meaning no g-forces) 4) ''burn'' (village/town wide if necessary), from great distances if necessary... and that's just level 3 of a very parabolic 1-5 scale. And by the default character creation rules level 3 is something you can just simply just pick for your character without gimping them in other aspects, or taking any flaws.</ref> So you can destroy towns with fire from the air needing only some simple item like a coin as a focus object (so not even clothes necessary) with a character out of creation. Oh, and the best part of this... that's all in medieval times. (Yes, orbital bombardment in a medieval setting.)

* The whole point of ''[[Exalted]]'' is that you ''play as'' one of these. Exalted are very, ''very'' powerful—but no more mentally stable than the average person. In fact, due to the Great Curse, they're quite prone to become unhinged and abuse their power. It's a game mechanic. When an experienced Exalt starts to look even a little bit angry, ''run''.

** Don't. You'll only die tired.

* In the game ''[[Scion]]'' you play as the mortal offspring of a god. You start out essentially as a minor superhero, but given enough time you can build yourself up to full god status and can do essentially anything within your purview (for instance, if you're a god of death you can kill essentially anyone up to and including the population of whole nations at will; or if you're a god of strength you can pick up the Willis Tower...and the Empire State building...at the same time...in either hand...and use them as battle clubs...)

* The ''[[Wild Talents]]'' game system actually details in its power generation tutorial how to build a power with unlimited range that halts nuclear fusion. Not terribly useful on its own, unless you spend the extra points to change the duration to permanent. For someone of a heroic bent, a power like this could be useful against a crazed dictator who has just launched his entire nuclear arsenal against the world. For someone a little more unhinged? ''Turn off the sun.'' '''FOREVER'''. Or, until the Game Master reveals your opposite number exists who has the power to restart nuclear fusion.

 

* In ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'', it's stated that anyone who can use hyperresonance would be able to use the ability to destroy everything, right down to the atmosphere itself. It's because of this reason that {{spoiler|Asch}}, the only character who can actually control it, never uses it: it's just too powerful.

* ''[[Splosion Man]]'' is practically a [[Trope Namer]].

* Utsuho Reiuji of ''[[Touhou]]'' gained the power to manipulate nuclear fusion, making her a living, breathing <s>atomic bomb</s> ''star'' and, if she were to ever fully harness her power, she would be almost completely unstoppable. Initially she [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|somehow]] got the idea to [[Take Over the World|take over Gensoukyou]]/[[Kill It with Fire|burn it to the ground]], but now she [[Mundane Utility|brings free electricity]] to its denizens.

* Jack in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' is basically the setting's equivalent of Starkiller as the product of Biotics [[Playing with Syringes|experimentation]] from [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Cerberus]]. In her recruitment mission, after releasing her from her cryo-chamber she proceeds to rampage unarmed through the prison station that held her.

* Positron in ''[[City of Heroes]]'' used to be this way for much of the game's history. He suffered an accident during the Rikti Wars that left his massive radioactive powers unstable and forced him to live inside his sealed suit - because not doing so could level an entire city. During the first plot arc of the Top Cow run of the ''City of Heroes'' comic, Lord Recluse drained the powers of all the superheroes and Positron was forced to seal himself within the Phalanx's base because he'd already begun to leak anti-matter. A makeshift attempt to repair his suit in this arc let him function somewhat normally, but he was still a danger to his team until the heroes powers were restored at the end of the arc. He still remained stuck in the suit until the comic's final arc, when an attack by a mutated Hero 1 ruptured his suit and killed him and several of his team mates. The Dark Watcher was able to restore him to life, and resurrection ''finally'' cured him of his instability. This was reflected in the game as well, where Positron now appears without his helmet. Of course, if he were ever to get injured like that again...

** In the third game, her ''birth pains'' are enough to knock over ''skyscrapers''.

* The player character in ''[[Escape Velocity]]: Nova'' by the end of {{spoiler|The Polaris storyline}}. Universe-bending psychic powers sufficient to destroy planets... many of the NPCs are probably relieved when you {{spoiler|transcend and merge with the universe at the end}}.

** Which is peanuts compared to the {{spoiler|Vellos storyline}}, where you are a walking demigod for most of the end. {{spoiler|And then you wake up some ''real'' gods.}}

* High level mages in ''[[Dominions]]'' can, with the research to go with their skill, annihilate or simply dominate the minds of armies consisting of hundreds of soldiers. With some preparation time (one turn/month) and the majority of magical gems in your nations treasury, make a second sun to screw up the races who aren't used to heat, plunge the world into eternal night, accelerate time to kill all living beings in a few years and call on armageddon.

** Then there's Nova from the cancelled ''Starcraft: Nova'', whose telepathic and telekinetic powers, as revealed in the prequel book, are of the [[Up to Eleven]] variety. When she witnesses the deaths of her parents, she unintentionally emits a telekinetic wave that kill everyone around her and shatters the transparent dome atop their house, which is said to have been designed to stop nukes. She can also [[Mind Control]] anyone to do her bidding and even capable of limited levitation (by telekinetically lifting herself).

** Tassadar becomes one for a short while when he combines the powers of the High Templar with those of the Dark Templar to destroy the Overmind, although it costs him his life. This was previously done by Adun, although he used the power as a distraction.

* Omega in ''[[Mega Man Zero]] 3'', used by [[Big Bad|Dr. Weil]] as the instrument for enacting [[The End of the World as We Know It|Elf Wars]]. [[Meaningful Name]] indeed...

** Actually, {{spoiler|Zero himself was designed to be one, by [[Mega Man (video game)|Dr. Wily]], who started all of those [[Robot War]] in the series, to eradicate civilization. Fortunately, there's [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|Sigma]]. But come to think of it, as [[One-Man Army|he chopped all the opposition along the way]], what he does now isn't much different...}}

** Darth Nihilus is a frighteningly literal example. He's more like an [[Eldritch Abomination]] than a man at this point and when he sees the Force, he goes and devours the entire planet to sate his hunger. An entire planet, Katarr, had all life on it wiped out, except for one person who became his apprentice.

 

* Quite a lot of people in the [[Nasuverse]] are like this.

** For ''[[Tsukihime]]'' you have Arcueid, who has to use 70% of her power to stop herself from going into an [[Unstoppable Rage]] and even with the remaining 30% can apparently use her Marble Phantasm to pull the moon from 1000 years into the future into the sky for one night. See also: Zelretch, Aozaki Aoko, some of the Dead Apostles and even Shiki if he had the time to actually prep himself before his brain burned out. Example, killing the ''world'' around the entire school area in order to partially depower Arcueid and make her somewhat more vulnerable in Ciel's True End. Imagine if the 'point of death' of the entire world happened to be nearby him.

*** Any Servant with an anti-fortress/city phantasm counts, as their phantasm is specifically designed to annihilate a fully-defended castle in one shot. Heck, even an anti-army phantasm probably would count (though on the low end of the scale, being designed to kill hundreds of [[Muggles]] rather than wiping castles and [[Eldritch Abomination|supernatural]] [[Fate/Zero|horrors]] completely off the face of the earth.) Also, Gilgamesh can canonically [[Earthshattering Kaboom|blow up the planet]] if he a) [[Pride|ever took anyone seriously]] b) took the time to fully [[Everything's Better with Spinning|spin]]-[[Charged Attack|charge]] [[Infinity+1 Sword|Ea]].

 

* Noor and all the outsiders really in ''[[Project 0]]''. Probably the reason for the [[Fantastic Racism]].

* Black Mage in ''[[8-Bit Theater]]''. The [[Kamehame Hadoken|Hadoken's]] effects were explicitly referred to as similar to a nuclear explosion when it was first used.

* Radd, in ''[[Kid Radd]]'', can charge his attack to whatever is the maximum value on the system he's in. In the 8-bit game he's from it's 255. In 12-bit games he becomes a [[Game Breaker]]. {{spoiler|On modern 32-bit systems, his attack could potentially crash the whole Internet.}}

 

* From the ''Union'' series, Tank born Shadow Agents, depending on the Country/Colony of origin, have a kill switch installed, resulting in [[The Berserker]]. To quote a passage from the story:

{{quote|We popped the Kill Switch on a Schatten once, just to see what it could do. It tore through nearly half the Londinium ground forces before it died of blood loss. [[Oh Crap|It took three days.]] We never made that mistake again.}}

* In the finale of ''[[Kim Possible]]'', the sidekick Ron Stoppable became one of these when he finally got control of his Mystical Monkey Powers. {{spoiler|He managed to defeat two powerful giant aliens and hurl them effortlessly into the sky and caused them to crash head on into their crashing spaceship. Needless to say, enemy and ally alike were impressed, shocked, and a little nervous}}.

** On a technicality, he was already one due to his [[Spanner in the Works|destructive]] [[The Klutz|clumsiness]]. The only difference now is he can voluntarily control the chaos he causes.

** And anyone in the Avatar State in general, in fact. Subverted, however, in that there is one critical weakness to this state, as Roku points out:

{{quote|'''Roku:''' In the Avatar State, you are at your most powerful, but you are also at your most vulnerable.

'''Roku:''' If you are killed in the Avatar State, the reincarnation cycle will be broken, [[Killed Off for Real|and the Avatar will cease to exist.]] }}

 

* [[Typhoid Mary]] was a Person of Mass Destruction. She was told, but she never believed she was responsible for those typhoid outbreaks, since she'd never shown symptoms of typhoid herself. After the wave of typhoid fever was traced back to her, she was specifically forbidden from having anything to do with food preparation. So she escaped, changed identity, and went back to making food... and triggered another wave of typhoid.

* Likewise, the spread of HIV in the first decade or so of the AIDS epidemic has been traced back to a specific handful of infectees. Many of the first wave of North American AIDS cases originated with an individual male flight attendant who'd contracted HIV overseas, then scored in dozens of U.S. and Canadian cities where his flights had stopped overnight.

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Badass]]