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Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Difference between revisions
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If there is a weapon treated in a similar manner to nuclear ones but isn't referred to as such not because of censorship, but because it doesn't make sense in that setting, it's a [[Fantastic Nuke]]. Almost any series involving a [[Wave Motion Gun]] involves this. Compare [[Never Say "Die"]].
{{examples}}
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* ''[[Zettai Karen Children]]'' appears to have a nuclear ''everything'' taboo, instead having "Neo-Clear" power plants. Which the [[Big Bad]] promptly steals <s>nuclear</s> Neo-Clear fuel from and sells it to the "Al Lugia Liberation Front" to make bombs. I wish I was making this up.
** Despite all this it appears that lazy naming aside, Neo-Clear is actually something different as no fallout or even much damage results from one of the bombs. Though that may be to do with the Major containing the blast as he saw a local girl who bore a striking resemblance to Kaoru about to be caught in it. Needless to say, this annoyed him, resulting in the ''[[Your Head Asplode|messy]]'' deaths of the terrorists.
* In Fate's [[As You Know]] speech in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
** Incidentally, based on the timeline, the start of the Time-Space Administration era, marked by the banning of mass-based physical weapons in favor of [[Magitek]], takes place at around 1941, the year when Japan provoked America into joining World War 2. Coincidence?
* Averted by the Japanese-produced ''[[Super Milk-chan]]'' where one episode is about the President of Everything launching a nuke in a fit of rage. He calls Milk-chan and tries to tell her to stop it but ends up forgetting to tell her about it. No target was specified, so the nuke chose one at random.
* Averted in ''[[Ghost in the Shell]]:[[Stand Alone Complex]]''. In the second season, the threat of nuclear bombs inside a Japanese metropolis becomes a major plot point in the later episode.
* The violence showing the aftermath of nuclear war and message that [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|nuclear weapons are bad]] is one of the reasons why ''[[Future War 198X]]'' is [[Keep Circulating the Tapes|extremely hard to find.]]
* In ''[[Heat Guy J]]'' most of the world's population has been destroyed after they appropriated the technology of the resident [[Superior Species]]. Originally, it was used for peaceful purposes (e.g. energy production), but [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|people started wars]] using this [[Applied Phlebotinum]]. The survivors stopped trusting each other and closed themselves into seven city states, and the [[Superior Species|Celestials]] closely monitor any peaceful use of their technology. It's never stated what it is exactly, but it does sound an awful lot like nuclear power.
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* Warships in ''[[Legend of Galactic Heroes]]'' carry nuclear weapons, which makes it appear to avert this trope. However, the usage of nuclear weapons are limited to specific conditions in space,<ref>Beam weaponry are the mainstay in the series</ref> and there is a taboo placed on using them on inhabited planets after a nuclear apocalypse in the backstory almost wiped out the human race.
== Film - Live Action ==▼
* The first ''[[Godzilla]]'' movie is a parable about nuclear weapons, with Godzilla having been created by US nuclear tests (a fact left out of the version of the film that was re-edited for U.S. release). (Said parable is entirely lost in the sequels.)▼
* The Soviet director Leonid Gaidai exploited this trope to save his comedy ''[[The Diamond Arm]]'' from censorship. The film included controversial (by Soviet standards) scenes, such as a striptease, the protagonist's drunken
== Literature ==
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* Averted in the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' series. Nuclear weapons have fallen out of use not because they're inherently illegal, but because they're ineffective compared to bomb-pumped X-ray lasers. One book also has a [[Space Pirate]] nuke a city.
▲== Film- Live Action ==
▲* The first ''[[Godzilla]]'' movie is a parable about nuclear weapons, with Godzilla having been created by US nuclear tests (a fact left out of the version of the film that was re-edited for U.S. release). (Said parable is entirely lost in the sequels.)
▲* The Soviet director Leonid Gaidai exploited this trope to save his comedy ''The Diamond Arm'' from censorship. The film included controversial (by Soviet standards) scenes, such as a striptease, the protagonist's drunken debauche and an anti-Semitic remark by a rather unpleasant Soviet bureaucrat. Before showing the film to the censors Gaidai inserted the footage of a nuclear explosion into the epilogue. The censors, in a state of shock, allowed Gaidai to leave most of the film intact, on the condition that he cuts out the nuke and the anti-Semitic remark. ''The Diamond Arm'' is still a cult film in Russia.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* There's a very odd [[Retcon]] example in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story "Genesis of the Daleks". In the previous Dalek stories, it had been repeatedly stated that the mutations that led to the Daleks were the result of a nuclear war on the planet Skaro. In the definitive origin story "Genesis", however, the word "nuclear" was never used and all the usual effects depicted in the story that one would associate with nuclear weapons (mutation, explosives that kill the slaves forced to handle them within a few days, massive destruction) were ascribed to mysterious "chemicals". It almost looks as if there was censorious [[Executive Meddling]]. The vast majority of fans, and subsequent canon writers, keep "Genesis" as the definitive origin but tacitly replace all references to "chemicals" with "nuclear" or "radioactivity" again.
* It's never stated outright, but it's pretty damn obvious that the [[Killer Robot]]s used nukes to [[Everybody's Dead, Dave|wipe out most of humanity]] before ''[[Power Rangers RPM]]'' started proper.
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* Justified averted in the [[Stargate Verse]]. Nuclear weapons, particularly [[Depleted Phlebotinum Shells|naquadah-enhanced nukes]], are one of the SGC's main weapons (the justification being that despite all the [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]], it's still early 21st century Earth, and nukes are perfectly effective weapons).
== Video Games ==
* In the ''[[Metal Gear]]'' and ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' franchise, the ability of the Metal Gear machines to launch nuclear weapons is basically the reason they are "bad." In addition, this angle is somewhat overplayed; a Metal Gear wouldn't actually have much more strategic impact than a ballistic missile submarine.
** Though this is justified in the case of Metal Gear REX or its derivatives, as it used a large [[Railgun]] to fire warheads as sub-orbital artillery. Because these warheads were not technically part of missile systems, they did not violate several otherwise applicable treaties. "Loophole nukes" of a sort. Also, these weapons can't be detected the way normal nukes are (Which would only be possible if the railgun has unheard of efficiency to avoid detectable waste heat), which completely destroys the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction; any country with a REX derivative can launch a nuke at another country and be guaranteed that there will be no retaliatory strike, because there's no way to determine where it came from or that it's even happening until the nuke hits.
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[[Category:Politics Tropes]]
[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]
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