Fantastic Nuke: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:sonic-
{{quote|''"That was the secret of secrets," said the Queen Jadis. "It had long been known to the great kings of our race that there was a word which, if spoken with the proper ceremonies, would destroy all living things except the one who spoke it."'' |''[[The Magician's Nephew]]''}}
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* The “Dragon Slave” from ''[[Slayers]]''.
** Also “Blast Bomb” (Fire element spell capable doing purely physical damage) and “Ra Tilt” (Spirit Shamanism doing damage only on the astral plane) are considered to be equivalent in power.
** Not to mention the “Giga Slave” (think localized ''black hole'', not nuke) backstory even mentioned that a prototype version of it permanently turned a lake and surrounding environs into a magically contaminated “[[Eldritch Location|Sea of Death]].” With the exception of that last one, all of these spells have acquired a bit of [[No Endor Holocaust]] due to use in [[Contractual Gag
* The "Vegatron bombs" from ''[[UFO Robo Grendizer]]'' (one of the ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' sequels). Each one of them could obliterate one whole city, and left the land polluted with radioactivity in the wake of the explosion.
* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has Nagi reference this concept during the war when he mentioned his own world (earth) developing 'a very powerful bomb' that would end all wars. He said there were spells that were even more powerful available to mages.
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* The war between wizards that was part of the ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' backstory ended when the combatants blew up their castles, in two huge craters now known as Lake Evendim and the Dhorisha Plains. I don't recall seeing a scale or any specification of distances, but based on how it compares on the map to the surrounding countries, I'd be astonished if the Dhorisha Plains is less than 200 kilometers across.
** The secondary effects were definitively global (some of the destruction was caused by waves of the effect ''coming back from the opposite cardinal direction'') and produced so many [[I Love Nuclear Power|dangerous mutants]] and [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|invisible, sickening or lethal emanations]] that some of the worst-hit areas are still uninhabitable the better part of a millenium later. The detonations also "shattered the crystal lattices of magic" according to a prologue in one of the earliest ''Valdemar'' books, apparently fundamentally changing how ''magic itself'' operated.
*** It also ''broke time'' and started to happen again, in reverse, in the modern
* Xhum Y'Zir's Seven Cacophonic Deaths, in ''Lamentation'' by [[Ken Scholes]].
* The Andadt from ''[[The Long Price Quartet]]'' make nukes seem like pop-guns. The Andat "Sightless" {{spoiler|blinds the entire world, right down to the insects}}.
* In Lawrence Watt-Evans' ''[[Ethshar]]'' novels, there is a simple spell that can permanently negate magic within a huge volume. This is a bad thing in a world that heavily depends on magic and is one of the reasons that no one makes flying castles anymore. Naturally, the wizards of the world have gone to great lengths to expunge knowledge of it from the world.
* In ''the Silver Tide'' By Michael Tod the real reason given for why Grey Squirrels so rapidly displaced Reds in Britain in the 1960s is that as they can ''count in binary''
* [[David Weber]]'s ''Wind Rider'' series had a group of spells used to "strafe" the continent of [[Throwaway Country|Kontovar]], killing everything not under the most powerful black wizards' shields.
* Possibly the "Doom of Valyria" in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' which wiped out the series' [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|Rome analogue]] and left a "demon-haunted" wasteland. As a result of the cataclysm, a lot of Valyrian inventions were lost or exist in the present as [[Lost Technology]].
* Inverted in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', where involving vanilla mortals into a supernatural conflict is likened to using nukes; in part because humans have regular old nukes, in fact. (The other reasons are, in order, that the sheer force of numbers means that whoever gets the humans on their side basically wins, and pretty much the entirety of human folklore consists of a long how-to guide on dealing
** The closest thing ''TDF'' has to a straight example is the Darkhallow ritual, the most potent necromantic spell to date, which sucks the area dry of all living and undead energy for many miles around the caster.
* ''[[Inheritance Cycle|Eragon]]'' {{spoiler|Literally. Any sufficiently skilled magic-user can create a nuclear blast by uttering "Be Not" in the ancient language, converting their mass to energy. This is how the Rider Glaeron killed several Forsworn and turned Vroengard into [[Mordor]] so Galbatorix wouldn't find the hidden cache of Eldunari and dragon eggs.}} It's also how {{spoiler|Galbatorix tries to pull a [[Taking You with Me]] after Eragon and the Varden have beaten him in the climax.}} Angela can seemingly also do it, but vows not to unless there is absolutely no other option to win a battle.
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* ''[[Exalted]]'' has the Soulbreaker Orb, a magical device that, when triggered, simply kills anything in a five-mile radius. No actual damage is done, there is no giant fireball, everything just falls down dead. Of course, this being Exalted, it probably means that your character will [[No One Could Survive That|survive with a minor scratch.]]
** Also, the Imperial Defense Grid and some of the Solar Circle spells, such as Rain Of Doom and [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Total Annihilation]].
** The Thousand-Forged Dragons also count, being weapons of mass destruction that can utterly destroy local geomancy. Since [[Ley Line
** Exalted has a LOT of Fantastic Nukes. Other canonical ones include the Gunzota Device, which turns every living thing in a several-mile radius into amethyst statues, and the Godspear, a [[Wave Motion Gun]] that does ''infinite damage'' to anything in its line of fire.
*** Then there's the Eye of Judgment, a larger, less resource-efficient Godspear that kills everything within five miles or so of the target ground, mounted on a flying castle.
** Some of the Malfeas Charms for the Infernals are obviously building up to this, at least in the hands of homebrew. The "Green Sun Nimbus Flare" charm tree allows you to turn opponents into mushroom clouds and inflict magical radiation sickness on hell steroids on your enemies. Who knows how this could end up by Essence 10? There's even a Malfeas shintai charm that basically turns a significant area around you into Ground Zero except to allies and people who grovel at your feet.
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has a fair number of mass-damage and mass-destruction cards, usually rare. World-killing spells are often much cheaper than one would expect. For example, [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=129808 calling down God to destroy the world] costs the same amount of mana as [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=29913 summoning an antelope]. The [http://magiccards.info/aq/en/16.html Golgothian Sylex] is probably the most famous example: Urza used it to destroy Argoth, which led to nuclear winter and an ice age. However, the card only destroys Antiquities cards, which makes it nearly useless. Other classic examples are [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=233 Armageddon] (destroys all lands), [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=37 Nevinyrral's Disk] (destroys everything ''except'' lands...okay, and nowadays planeswalkers), and [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=11581 Wrath of God] and its alternate-universe counterpart [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=122423 Damnation] (destroy all creatures, no regeneration to weasel out of it). [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=45396 Obliterate] destroys all artifacts, creatures and lands, which can't be
** There are also [http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=Pernicious%20Deed Soul Bombs], which are powered by a sentient being's ethereal spirit, which were used by Urza and his strike team to destroy most of Phyrexia.
** And Yawgmoth's own stone chargers, which turned the [[Meaningful Name|Meghiddon Defile]] from a narrow crevice into a massive bowl carved out of a rock...and unleashed a choking white-mana fog that destroyed the nearby city of Halcyon. ([[Spanner in the Works|Yawgy wasn't actually planning that part]].)
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* The tabletop RPG ''[[Hackmaster]]'' has a spell named "Fireball: Nuclear Winter".
** Its range is several hundred ''feet'', while its area is several ''miles''. Needless to say, casting it is a bad idea unless you're immune to fire.
* ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' had a set of items called selective mines. Each of them looked like a large landmine and when properly activated, would totally devastate everything in a large
** The [[Hermetic Magic|Order of Hermes]] [[Splat]] book included the rote "Ball of Abyssal Flame", basically a really powerful [[Fireballs|Fireball]] that also converts matter in the target area (essentially disintegrating it) into [[Mana|Quintessence]] to directly fuel the spell. Associated with the destructive House Tytalus mages.
** ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' also included "spirit nukes" in the metaplot, although exactly what they were was a little inconsistent. Their story use was apparently to imply hubris on the part of the Technocracy, despite the fact that they were used on a nearly unkillable vampire; different sourcebooks said different things about what would've happened had they not been used. In any case, they ripped people's souls apart in addition to the physical damage, and wrecked the spirit world globally.
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** ''Wizardry VI'' through ''8'' went one better with the Nuclear Blast spell. Description: "A miniature fusion bomb".
* ''[[Might and Magic]]'' has the Armageddon spell (whose icon is a mushroom cloud...). It doesn't do that much damage, but it deals damage to ''everything living on the map''; since most NPCs have very few HP it is known as the "Town killer" spell.
** Similarly, ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]]'' features a spell called Armageddon. It actually can do severe amounts of damage, though not as much as a single-target
** The intro to ''Heroes of Might and Magic IV'' shows the result of two extremely-powerful swords (Armageddon's Blade and Sword of Frost) coming into contact with one another. The result is a gigantic explosion with the mushroom cloud seen from space. The world of Enroth is destroyed, forcing the survivors to flee to another world called Axeoth.
*** Given the two facts that the narrator turns out to be an in-universe character, and that basic facts about several of the campaigns ''directly contradicts'' the explosion being ''that'' large (we see it immediately cover areas we know had many survivors that weren't immortal), it is probable that the actual explosion wasn't quite so large, even if the clash of the swords caused the end of the world.
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** The animation for the Ultima spell in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' is a (green) fireball burning the center out of a pure white cloud.
* ''[[Quest for Glory]] 5'' had the aptly named "Thermonuclear Blast", which does [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]. Usually, it's just a [[Nonstandard Game Over]], but supposedly, casting it while fighting the final boss results in a Nonstandard victory, where the game mentions that you saved the rest of the world at the expense of Crete. However, the last boss fight can be very glitchy, so using the spell usually just crashes the game.
* In ''[[Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete|Lunar 2: Eternal Blue]]'', [[Physical God
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has the mana-bombs developped by Kael'Thas, which he used to nuke a town and planned to use on another. The Forsaken Blight is an even better example, a biological weapon first deployed in a [[Cavalry Betrayal]] that wiped out a combined force of Alliance and Horde (and even managed to give [[Big Bad|The Lich King]] a nasty cough). Since then, the Horde have banned using it...a ban the Forsaken don't seem to take that seriously at all, since in the latest expansion you can visit an Alliance town the Blight has reduced to a ruin full of angry, semi-sentient goo.
* '' [[Tales of Symphonia]]'' and '' [[Tales of Phantasia]]'' feature the Mana Cannon. It causes mass destruction (its destroyed all civilization twice, and came damn close to doing so two more times), and leaves vast swaths of areas barren after use, although for different reasons than actual atomic weaponry.
** The Heracles' unnamed main gun in ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' is one as well, looking at the cutscene where it's fired and the [[Pillar of Light]] that dwarfs the [[Capital City]].
* The Carronade or Hex Cannon from ''[[Breath of Fire]] IV'' is one of the more blatant examples seen of the trope. It is powered from the pain and sorrow and despair of human sacrifices who are ''tortured to the point of '''insanity''' first'' and are explicitly selected based on their connection to the target (yes, you're reading this right; it's a
** One town depicted as being "Hex Cannoned" requires people to go in with decontamination suits for years after its Fantastic Nuking, (although the harmful to all living things magic that fills the town isn't the only problem, as the town is haunted by ghosts created when the Hex Cannon blast kills people and filled with twisted monsters changed by the hex as well) and is depicted ''explicitly'' as being uninhabitable for at least a year past that point.
** And unsurprisingly, the very thing that causes the [[God-Emperor]] of the game to decide that [[Humans Are Bastards]] is {{spoiler|when ''the very empire he founded uses it on him''...'''WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND AS THE FANTASTIC WARHEAD'''.}} He goes [[Laughing Mad]] and proceeds to go on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] against humanity as a result.
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* ''[[8-Bit Theater]]'' has black Mage's [[Kamehame Hadoken|HADOKEN!]] Which actually managed to take out ''an entire world'' {{spoiler|[[Throwaway Country|of lizard men]].}}
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' has the Hive Engines, some unknown combination of [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke|bioengineering]], [[Steampunk|pneumatics]], and [[Clockwork Creature|clockworks]], each of which hatches into a hive queen and begins generating prodigious numbers of soldier bugs and [[Not Using the Z Word|revenant]]-[[Zombie Apocalypse|producing slaver wasps]].
** The Lion, a machine specially built to hard-shutdown Europa's most powerful ([[AI Is a Crapshoot|and craziest]]) artificially intelligent fortress, has been given something of this treatment as
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