No Endor Holocaust: Difference between revisions

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Pell of ''[[One Piece]]'' saved Alubarna by flying the giant bomb (designed to annihilate the whole city and its inhabitants) straight up for a few seconds. {{spoiler|And he also survived the blast, even though clutching onto the bomb. Hey, [[Disney Death|unless it's a flashback, nobody dies]] in ''[[One Piece]]''.}}

* Played straight in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] A's'', which is a [[Magical Girl]] show with lots of [[Stuff Blowing Up]]. Each battle take place in a [[Phantom Zone]] that removes non-magicians, but static structures remain. At one point, the title character is sent crashing down into a building. At another point, a character forcefully enters the [[Phantom Zone]] and, upon landing, makes a crater on a building's rooftop. Some dialogue implies that the [[The Federation|The Bureau]] has to fix the damaged areas before they can drop the [[Phantom Zone]] effect.

** Somewhat related to the above. Probably due to some internal [[Lampshade Hanging]] within the production company, the majority of fights in the third season averts this by having the fights taking place in the abandoned part of a city the protagonists are stationed in. That way, they can blow up as much stuff as possible and nobody would care, since the infrastructure was abandoned anyway.

* In ''[[Saint Seiya]]'', when [[Filler|Princess Hilda of Asgard]] or [[A God Am I|Poseidon]] flood the Earth by melting the ice caps, the series goes out of its way to show the devastation from tidal waves and superstorms even in spite of [[Barrier Maiden|Athena]]'s attempts to hold the waters back. When the villain du jour is defeated, though, it's considered a victory for mankind, and no mention is made of the millions of lives lost while the Saints battled. Likewise, the Gold Cloth Saga actually showed a very violent war breaking out, but it never reached the heroes and was never brought up before or after the [[Big Bad]]'s defeat.

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'': Piccolo ''[[Detonation Moon|blew up the moon]]'' to stop a monkey from rampaging in a forest.

** The Abridged Parody had [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys7pLfOVZDE#t=7m42s something to say about this].

** In addition, the opening sequence to ''DBZ Budokai 2'' has Goku slice the moon in half with a Kamehamaha. ''Dragon Ball'' just seems to have it in for the moon.

** The series also generally falls under this when it comes to [[Earthshattering Kaboom|especially destructive]] [[Ki Attacks]]. Apparently something that is strong enough to blow a planet apart is no danger as long as it's not pointing down, even though that kind of thing should have sucked the atmosphere right off of Earth. An especially bad case was Vegeta's "Final Flash" attack against Perfect Cell, which made it into space despite being fired ''horizontally'' and apparently taking a ''continent's'' worth of land with it.

* ''[[Slayers]]'' usually avoids it - the very first episode ended with Lina nuking a dragon, which ruined most of the village she "protected", was commented by the happy employer with "Like hell it's 'all right'!" and got her chased out with [[Torches and Pitchforks]]. But it's played straight when Lina {{spoiler|uses a Dragon Slave to blow up an enormous rock that threatened to fall on Seyruun. The spell accidentally destroyed a sizable chunk of the city, and presumably killed hundreds of people.}}

** Mostly, by the time someone decides to ''invite'' a master of Black Magic infamous for leaving craters anywhere she goes and fireballing people who address her with one of nicknames she disapprove, things already are bad enough to grab what you can and run to the hills. That world doesn't have [[Godzilla Threshold]], it have Lina Inverse threshold.

** {{spoiler|[[Hand Wave|Hand Waved]] when the [[Gainax Ending]] reveals that the entire two seasons were some sort of simulation or theatrical piece on a massive sound stage. There are lots of such headscratchers in real fiction too.}}

* In ''[[Code Geass]] Nightmare of Nunnally'', unlike in the main series, the consequences of triggering an avalanche on Narita are largely unexplored, given that the plot quickly moves on.

** The [[Code Geass|main series]] also plays this straight {{spoiler|when Lelouch sets off Mount Fuji. No mention of an evacuation of all the towns surrounding the mountain for about 100 miles ([[Fridge Logic|which should include much of the Tokyo metropolitan area]]) is ever made}}.

*** Lelouch is going for a [[Zero-Approval Gambit]] (haha) at this point, so several hundred thousand casualties do more to advance his plans than anything else.

*** The series ending is ''really'' upbeat, considering that {{spoiler|Lelouch}} is hated by ''everyone''. How does he exceed the {{spoiler|nuking}} of Tokyo and Pendragon? How does he exceed Charles' rampant warmongering on the entire planet? He'd have to either kill an enormous number of people to do it, or otherwise enact some sort of extreme tyranny that somehow ruins fun for everybody. But it's never mentioned, and no one who knows about {{spoiler|Lelouch}} seems to care. And for the record, between the epilogue and a post-series DVD bonus feature, that's the entire (surviving) main cast.

* The first ''[[El Hazard]]'' OVA features this. When an [[Attack Animal]] is awakened, one of the villains ''immediately'' orders her to destroy an ''entire city'', which she goes about efficiently and brutally. Fortunately this is an unimportant city, and throughout the continuity said villain never faces any consequences for ordering this destruction. The main cast even confronts him in the sequel OVA and nobody even brings up the subject. This also holds true for the living weapon herself, although she technically had no choice in the matter.

* The series finale of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' has the entire cast fighting for the universe... in a robot large enough to use galaxies as weapons, which they do quite often. It's implied that the universe they fought in may have been created by their own warping power, and so nobody was actually in trouble.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* Parodied in ''[[The Far Side]]'' where one panel depicts the aftermath of King Kong with a [[Chalk Outline]] of King Kong on the street. Inside the outline of Kong are lots of outlines of people apparently flattened when he fell off the Empire State Building.

** Two others have the end of a dog leash coming out from under him, implying he crushed a dog, and a squashed shopping bag with a woman lamenting, "Well, there go my tomatoes."

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

** There's also ''X2: X-Men United'', as pointed out in this [http://www.the-editing-room.com/x2.html abridged script], when Stryker first makes Xavier use the other Cerebro to try to kill all mutants in the world (of which there are hundreds of millions). We are shown the X-Men writhing in pain. Then Magneto comes and rewires Cerebro to kill humans instead. All 6 billion of them. While Xavier is stopped a few minutes later, this means that for several minutes, every human in the world (including pilots, surgeons, high-rise construction workers, etc.) were immobilized with pain. Guess what, no collateral damage is mentioned. However, given that the president seems about to do something drastic with regards to mutants before Xavier stops him, there may, in fact, have been tremendous damage.

* ''[[Independence Day]]'' initially looks like it's going to [[Averted Trope|avert]] the trope with the considerable concern about the collateral damage which would be caused by staging a nuclear attack on one of the alien ships, but then plays it straight anyway in the climax:

** The book, on the other hand, had only one building, which would topple and crush the national history museum. However, Tyler, being a considerate and self-sustaining individual, made the bombs out of a mixture that he knew only occasionally worked, that he had never quite managed to get working properly. {{spoiler|It failed.}}

* ''[[The Incredibles]]'':the whole reason that the various Supers were forced out of the heroing business is because society is tired of all the collateral damage and interference. (And because people figured out that lawsuits can be used on Supers.) However, at the very end, Violet is shown putting up a force-field when some wreckage from the explosion comes by, but no one seems concerned about anyone else being injured and you even see the neighbor kid from before standing just a couple dozen feet away a minute later completely unharmed. Never mind the climactic fight itself or the Underminer's appearance.

** [[Lampshaded]] on the [[DVD Commentary]], as one of the special effects guys asks if we'll ever learn what part of the planet was sacrificed -- as if in response the Special Edition edit of the film ends with Call and Ripley on Earth, overlooking a demolished Paris.

*** Although in this case it is implied that Earth was already a devastated wasteland ("Earth. What a shithole."), not that the ship impacted Paris. Indeed, all of the buildings are still standing, just very decrepit and dirty.

* [[Batman]] may have [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|"one rule"]] in ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'' but he was [[Could Have Been Messy|tremendously lucky]] that there was no one ''in'' any of those cars he blew up (we even see two kids playing in a car ''one row over''), or that no shrapnel from the Batmobile's "intimidate" setting hit those vagrants, and that when he went barreling on a very large, fast, heavy motorbike-thing through a shopping centre all the people in his way were agile enough to leap out of it. What if they'd chanced to be disabled, or obese, or if they'd simply frozen in shock?

** Invoked by an exasperated Alfred after the Tumbler chase in ''Batman Begins'', in which Bruce causes a lot of structural damage across the city and smashing into police cars. Alfred calls him out on his recklessness and emphasizes that it was [[Hand Wave|a miracle that no one was killed.]]

* Near the end of ''[[Deep Impact]]'', the crew of the spaceship sent to knock the comet off of its collision course with the Earth (they failed to do this) essentially turns their ship into a missile and flies straight at the comet ''as its entering Earth's atmosphere''. We are treated to a nice light show. In reality, this would be the equivalent of detonation a massive bomb in Earth's upper atmosphere.

* Amazingly, despite making liberal use of [[Hollywood Science]], [[Dueling Movies|rival movie]] ''[[Armageddon]]'' averts this trope as it's used to explain why they can't just Nuke the Killer Asteroid. {{spoiler|played straight at the end however.}}

* At the climax of the ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', {{spoiler|the Houses of Parliament are destroyed by a massive bomb on a tube train beneath them. An explosion of such size would devastate a wide area around it, but miraculously the thousands of be-masked V supporters watching the show from only a few metres away are completely unharmed, rather than being shredded by flying debris.}}

** Given that {{spoiler|most of these turn out to be people who are known to be dead}}, it's possible that there really wasn't anyone near the building.

* In the ''~Ocean's Eleven~'' remake, Danny's crew uses an electromagnetic device to shut off all electricity in Las Vegas for 30 seconds. Realistically, we should be looking at pacemakers going haywire, car crashes in the thousands, hospital equipment failing, and god help them if any planes were flying low over the city when it happened. Yet the sequels still only refer to them as thieves, not as the most successful and high-tech terrorists of all time.

* Turned [[Up to Eleven]] in the ''[[Cutie Honey]]'' movie: Panther Claw have this giant drill-like tower underneath ''Tokyo Tower''. Meaning: If you work in the area, don't bother coming in. Then, Scarlet Claw blows up three buildings. They all remain largely intact, save for a giant hole in the middle. One of them, hilariously, is Cutie Honey's former office, and the only reaction this gets is a dazed "what the...?" from the boss. And finally, the tower ''explodes''. If you're in Tokyo when this kind of thing is happening, ''get out of the city''. The only things we see? A traffic jam and other people not caring.

** The first movie. Very strange logic on the part of the army to take the Allspark into the middle of downtown Los Angeles when a horde or psychotic giant alien robots plus the good guys' jet fighter air support, was destined to converge on its location. The ensuing battle destroys a huge number of buildings and who knows how many innocent bystanders. But the situation was so desperate that it [[Godzilla Threshold|was the only option.]]

** The 3rd film has {{spoiler|Cybertron itself in the process of being teleported to Earth's orbit. Cybertron is a massive, metallic world much larger than Earth, yet no effects on the tides and earthquakes are mentioned}}. Especially considering that one of Megatron's plots in the Generation One cartoon was to bring Cybertron close to Earth specifically to ''cause'' said tidal waves and earthquakes, and then harvest the energy from them. The movie's novelization ''does'' in fact mention this as a concern. Gen 1 ended with Cybertron either in Earth's orbit or between Earth and Mars with no problems

* ...and [[King Kong]] didn't land on anyone when he fell off that skyscraper. In fairness, surely the first thing any sane person would do if they say a giant ape climbing the Empire State Building being attacked by fighters would be to get out of Dodge.

* The 2008 remake of ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'' ends with Klaatu causing his ship to emit a massive EMP wave that shuts down all the GORT [[Grey Goo|nanites]]. It also shuts down every piece of technology on the planet, even things that should not be affected by EMP, such as analog watches. This means millions dead in hospitals, planes falling out of the sky, no way to get food or water to starving masses, etc. And billions of dead silicon-based nanites covering the landscape. Good luck making use of that land. Yes, Klaatu mentions our way of life will have to change. He just didn't mention most of us would die, while he happily flies off home, mission complete.

* Halfway through ''[[Kung Fu Panda 2]]'', [[Big Bad|Lord Shen]] fires cannons at his ancestral palace in order to kill Po and the Furious Five. The tall palace collapses on the side, while Po and the others manage to run up its side and survive. Thing is, Gongmen City is a bustling metropolis (for fictional Ancient China). How many cute rabbits were crushed by the falling building?

 

 

*** The Jade Falcons repeat the orbital bombardment in the animated series, but it's explicitly stated that the city's population was evacuated prior to the bombardment. A sourcebook for the series goes into further detail, comparing the two incidents, and bringing up the question of what the Falcons did with the people afterwards.

** In Battletech, it's considered a fact that if you fight in a city, there ''will'' be civilian casualties. However, this trope is played straight in that the fusion reactors that power Battlemechs, if ruptured, would spread radioactive products<ref>most notably tritiated water</ref> over a decent radius, but cities are never rendered even temporarily irradiated from this happening despite centuries of warfare.

* Averted in [[Mikhail Akhmanov]]'s novel ''[[Arrivals From the Dark|Invasion]]'', where the destruction of the alien mothership's computer causes its autonomous modules to crash and explode, while they were suspended above Earth's major cities, destroying countless historical artifacts and killing millions of people. However, this is still viewed as a victory, as the aliens were planning on enslaving humanity. This also serves to drive humanity to the stars in the later novels of the series. In all fairness, though, 40 million people is still a little low, given that these modules were filled with [[Antimatter]].

* Mostly played straight in ''The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress''. The rocks are carefully guided to cause minimum casualties (in the hundreds or maybe thousands at most), and in fact many were aimed at completely unpopulated areas as a show of force. However, some were aimed near heavily populated areas and if they were intercepted they were knocked off their intended course and caused a lot more damage. In addition, the ones aimed at unpopulated areas? Some people decided to mock the aim of the Lunar residents and ''picnic'' in some of those places. A textbook example of [[Too Dumb to Live]].

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* In ''[[Power Rangers]]'', the [[Monster of the Week]]'s energy blasts regularly hit the Zords and they fall back and ''through'' a building. Nobody ever talks about the implications of that... The later [[Hand Wave|dodge]] of many fights happening in an abandoned warehouse district is an [[Voodoo Shark|inelegant solution]] to say the least.

** In the first season, a news reporter almost always assured us that amazingly, no one was seriously hurt in the day's monster rampage.

** This was lampshaded in an episode of [[Power Rangers SPD]] (though not intentionally) with the line "Thank goodness no one was in that building!" The Ranger saying it ''really'' had no way of checking, too. In another episode, a [[Monster of the Week]] says "I hate empty buildings!" before smashing one (''not,'' by the way, the more menacing line used in the trailer.)

** When you take into account that the majority of the Big Bads actually do want to kill everyone, their focus on empty buildings becomes even sillier.

* ''Leverage'': In the season finale, Nate rigs a component of a nuclear {{spoiler|to explode when terrorists try to use it. In a show that meticulously avoids killing people off indiscriminately it's a bit jarring [[Values Dissonance|to see the smoking wreckage of the plant that went boom.]] But . . . it's okay since it's terrorists? Sheesh.}}

* An EMP problem ensued in an episode of the short-lived alien invasion drama ''[[Threshold]]'', where an EMP is unleashed in Miami to keep an alien signal from spreading. The team leader is told no one was killed. You're telling me not one pacemaker shorted out in a city located in the Retiree Capital of Earth? Riiiiight.

** Defied in ''[[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/S4 E14 The Next Doctor|The Next Doctor]]'', where after defeating the local [[Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever|50 Foot Whatever]], the Doctor makes sure to teleport it away before it falls over and crushes London. [[Double Subverted|Its initial rampage probably still did some damage, though]].

* ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' is subject to this, notably when the Moon had a closer orbit to Earth, an asteroid was within probably a few hundred kilometres of the surface, and all power everywhere was removed for a few minutes. No widespread damage or visible deaths. In series 4, after almost all humans were briefly taken away, Clyde and Rani noticed that the streets were surprisingly clean and un-wrecked.

** Highly debatable. People are extremely resilient overall, even in the face of unimaginable tragedies. It's not like everyone sucked their thumbs and rocked in a corner for a few years after World War Two.

* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', huge sections of Atlantis are regularly demolished by alien invaders, natural disasters and our heroes - yet this seems to have very little overall impact on the city as a whole and the population, which appears to stay remarkably steady in numbers. Although the latter could be explained after contact is re-established with Earth as new personnel arriving to fill the gaps. Still, all in all, Atlantis must be one of those alien cities which is capable of almost instantly rebuilding itself when damaged.

** Although... Termina doesn't have lunar tides in the first place. You can wait at the ocean all three days and the level never changes. And the moon disintegrated? Maybe it was being teleported back up.

** Termina's moon is actually fairly small, only about the size of Clock Town (as you can see in the ending scenes, or by using cheats to fly up to it earlier on). It is also a lot closer than you think, and is "falling" very slowly. Probably not big enough to make much of a difference as far as tides are concerned, although at the speed that it's falling it shouldn't be catching on fire in the atmosphere or making much of an impact on collision (aside from crushing Clock Town). Let's just say [[A Wizard Did It|Majora did it]].

* Notably [[Not a Subversion|Averted]] in ''[[City of Heroes]]''. The Rikti invasion included an enormous mother ship that hovered over Paragon City. When it was eventually defeated by a huge gathering of heroes (many of which died in the battle), the ship crashed into a section of the city now known as the "Rikti Crash Site," which is walled off from the rest of the town and considered extremely dangerous for all but the most powerful and experienced heroes. It's also a quite sizable game map of what one would expect a cityscape to look like after a gigantic alien battleship fell on it.

** The back-story indicates that the heroes saw the damage they were doing when they took down the ships, so they then started tossing them into the ocean instead, which is why there's even a city left standing at all.

* Explicitly lampshade-hung in ''[[Ace Combat]] X: Skies of Deception'', where it's noted that the raining debris from the Gleipnir somehow never caused any casualties. As if in acknowledgement of this trope, however, earlier on we had Crux pleading for the Gleipnir Captain not to crash the airborne fortress into Santa Elva.

** The last mission of ''[[Ace Combat]] 5'' involves shooting down a satellite aimed to [[Colony Drop|fall on the Osean capital city]], and explicitly carrying a nuclear bomb. It explodes less than twenty miles off the coast, and rains debris over the city. No indication of any damage is given.

* Averted in ''[[Eve Online]]: The Empyrean Age''. The falling wreckage from the Minmatar and Amarr fleets fighting over Mekhios were more destructive than any orbital bombardment could have been.

* Averted in ''[[Call of Duty]]: [[Modern Warfare]] 2''. {{spoiler|When the second nuke goes off, Starfish Prime style, the ensuing EMP blast over D.C. knocks out aerial vehicles (despite their military grade electronics shielding), sending them crashing to the ground and killing fellow soldiers}}.

*** {{spoiler|Due to the game's [[Gainax Ending]], it's difficult to say whether the relays were actually exploding or just transmitting the "space magic" energy before harmlessly (relative to the Alpha Relay at least) breaking apart.}}

** {{spoiler|Millions of aliens are stranded in the solar system with nowhere to go. Without the mass relays, the turian and, if they're with you, quarian fleets are bound to starve to death, though if the two Liveships are still alive and well by the end of the battle ([[Glass Cannon|which is a big if]]), the Dextro-species at Earth may very well be the best off (which isn't saying much). The millions of stranded aliens on Earth and Mars are trapped on planets that aren't theirs with very limited resources and a destroyed economy and infrastructure. This kind of situation is bound to lead to outbreaks of famine and likely rioting. Without the mass relays, no planet is able to get supplies from other systems, and planets such as Thessia and Palaven will be missing huge segments of their population thanks to the fleet, hampering their own reconstruction efforts. Even if efforts are made to rebuild the relays, many small colonies are out of communication with the rest of the galaxy and lack the technology to rebuild the relays. They are almost certain to never come in contact with the rest of the galaxy again. In short, even if the mass relays didn't destroy the systems, people are ''still'' going to be dying in huge numbers after the end of the game. The universe is in a terrible state and, as the aftermath of Sovereign shows, it will ''not'' be easily rebuilt.}}

** ''Sonic Unleashed'' is horrible about this, considering in the opening cutscene Eggman kind of, you know, ''cracks open the planet'' and no-one even considers the extremely high probability that he just slaughtered billions of people.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', when you first fight [[Eldritch Abomination|Sin]], you're treated to a couple cutscenes showing you ''exactly'' what you're about to fight. The attack shown is strong enough to pull the moon, and absolutely tear up the geography, leaving behind a series of tunnels and canyons filled with fire and rubble. After you beat Sin, you can go and visit the rest of Spira, and at no point did you see any collateral damage. Considering what happened at [[Curb Stomp Battle|Djose]], you'd think that thousands of people had died in those blasts. Nope. All the places are intact, and no one mentions dying in the attacks.

** Invoked in the Calm Lands, where battles are staged specifically to avoid collateral damage.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** That's nothing. In an episode where the ''[[Justice League]]'''s space gun was taken over, it destroyed half the city of Covenant, New Mexico, "sending shockwaves detectable as far away as Japan". Yet, no one was killed, despite almost EVERY SINGLE BUILDING in the city getting knocked over or having its windows blown out and every road getting torn up by the blast and resulting shockwaves.

* ''[[Megas XLR]]'': New Jersey is utterly destroyed by the end of several episodes, but is always [[Snap Back|fixed by the next one]]. Subverted in the episode where [[Detonation Moon|Coop accidentally blew up part of the moon]]: Earth was hit with severe and deadly climate change, at least until Coop flew back up and put the moon pieces back.

* [[Parody|Spoofed]] in a [[What If]] episode of ''[[Futurama]]'': When the characters see what it would be like if Bender was a giant, he goes around destroying New New York. A newspaper headline reads "Giant Robot on the Rampage. Thousands Dead. None Injured."

* One episode of ''[[Kim Possible]]'' had [[All Up to You|Ron]] stopping a balloon filled with extremely smelly gas that would cause the victim to stink for years exploding in the conference hall by pushing the balloon out of the building. Later it did some [[Karmic Damage]] to some bad executives. [[All Is Good In The End]], until you think about a balloon with extremely stinky gas infected the entire town with bad smell.

** With so much open air, it probably dissipated a lot easier than it would have in a crowded auditorium.

* In ''[[Gargoyles]]'''s "City of Stone" arc, Demona casts a spell that turns the large majority of Manhattan's population into stone during the night hours. Leaving aside all the physical damage that is likely to have occurred, the fact that Manhattan in effect stops working from dusk to dawn (which, given the fact that the story takes place in early November, would be from roughly 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.) for two consecutive days should have caused a nationwide panic, and had notable economic impact. However, once the spell is reversed, there seem to be no long-term consequences.

** One of the episode cliffhangers is David Xanatos stuck in a helicopter with a [[Taken for Granite]] pilot. He doesn't watch TV either, as [[Trope Namer|he's busy planning stuff.]]

* In an episode of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'', Lucius casually blows up one of Miseryville's [[Alien Sky|three suns]]. Something like that is bound to have consequences, but none occur. Probably [[Rule of Funny]].

* Both ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' and ''[[Sym-Bionic Titan]]'' have enormous sections of the city annihilated, which one may realize by [[Fridge Logic]] that THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE DEAD, but the few times that the actual damage is addressed, only the damage to property is mentioned, often by an official.

** The last time Megatron tried to wipe out the prothuman tribe and failed, it was specifically stated that after his attack the protohumans had scattered to many separate areas instead of all staying in the same valley.

* In ''[[The Spectacular Spider-Man]]'', Sandman tries to help the mob jack crude from a tanker. Spidey shows up, and they do what superheroes and villains have done for ages...only now they do it on an oil tanker. In New York harbor. At least the ''Valdez'' wasn't anywhere near a human port of millions of people, though I'm sure that was cold comfort to the wildlife.

** To be fair, historically, spreading across the globe has brought both problems but notably failed to exterminate entire populations.

*** Not so in the case of invasive species, which are notorious for causing the extinction of native species.

* Inverted by neutron bombs which kill people but leave buildings intact.

** For instance, it was hypothesized that travelling at over forty mph (this was back when trains were just being introduced) would cause fatal brain haemorrhages. Another gem was the belief that the A-bomb would cause all the oxygen in the atmosphere to ignite, killing everyone and everything on earth.