Apocalypse How/Class X-4: Difference between revisions

* Although ''[[Countdown to Final Crisis]]'' is largely [[Canon Dis Continuity]] now, Universe-51 of the current 52 universes of DC was destroyed. Twice. The first time was a battle between Superman-Prime and Monarch (aka [[Captain Atom]] being evil again). Prime ripped open Monarch's suit which released all of the energy Monarch had collected (similar to the movie ''The One'' Monarch had killed and absorbed all of his multiversal duplicates), which destroyed '''the entire universe''', save for its Monitor and one single plant. The second time was much more low key, a highly mutative virus affected everyone on Earth and was spread throughout the universe by Hal Jordan, initially a Class 3b or a 4. But at the beginning of ''[[Final Crisis]]'' the Monitors wipe all life from it, making it devoid of life.

* Hal Jordan as Parallax was responsible for this in ''Zero Hour: Crisis In Time'' when he erased all of existence save for a few individuals that he spared just so he could remake the universe as he wanted it.

* The supervillain Annihilus from [[Marvel]] is a good example; he's so obsessed with living forever he plans to exterminate all other life in the universe, just so there's nothing that can threaten him.

* During the original US Marvel ''[[The Transformers (Comic Book)|The Transformers]]'' comics, Primus related the story that Unicron predated the current universe, and had actually ''eaten'' the previous one. After the Big Bang, he woke up and started over.

 

== Films -- Live-Action ==

** [[Mad Scientist|Doc]] surmises that it may actually be limited to an X-3, only destroying their own galaxy. Marty is not comforted by the thought.

*** Which makes it a good thing that counterparts usually faint.

* [[Ghostbusters|Don't cross the streams.]] Just don't.

 

 

== Literature ==

{{quote| Narrator: There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.}}

* [[Greg Egan]], ''Schild's Ladder'': A science experiment gone wrong creates a sphere of complete annihilation expanding at half the speed of light. The sphere actually {{spoiler|contains an entirely new universe filled with far richer and more vibrant life than ours}}, but that's small comfort to those in the universe being destroyed. {{spoiler|Except for the sufficiently advanced posthuman.}}

* In [[Frederik Pohl]]'s ''[[Gateway]]'' series, the Foe are energy beings who are {{spoiler|reversing the expansion of the universe with the intention of surviving through the Big Crunch so they can reshape the subsequent rebounding universe into one with more suitable physics for pure energy beings.}} They'll inflict Class 3s along the way, to make sure no one can interfere with the process.

* In the two prequel novels to the [[Liaden Universe]] series the enemies are so powerful they {{spoiler|Destroy the entire universe the main characters are from. The only way they escape is fleeing to a different universe}}.

* Iar Elterrus features this with the Executioners in ''Belief of the Outcasts''. Said Executioners wander from universe to universe looking for certain symptoms or events. While some universes are healthy and some require intervention, an Executioner might encounter an universe damaged and corrupted beyond salvaging. The Executioner's duty in this case is called Judgement: wipe out all life, all afterlife and any spiritual residue of the universe and maybe some neighboring corrupted ones as well, placing their job between X-4 and X-5. While not a happy job by any means, the Executioners would better not slack off - any universe left for itself in spite of fulfilling the criteria for Judgement will spread the corruption and slowly destroy other universes, leading to a potential merging of class X-4 and class X-5 events into a single class Z event.

* Justified in [[Shel Silverstein]]'s poem "Hungry Mungry", when Mungry starts out by eating his parents, and then proceeds to go all the way up to Class X-4 by eating up the United States, the world, and finally the universe!

** While Khumgat, the Corridor Between Worlds, is likely a fixture, worlds themselves are not. They may be born or created and may as well die with the creator.

** Part of the [[Just Before the End]] setting in the Kingdom of Echo where [[Author Avatar]] Max travels to. The world is in danger of being destroyed by magic overuse. While an [[Ancient Tradition]] organization is working to prevent it, most of the members are capable to move to [[Another Dimension]] should they fail.

** In the episode ''Utopia'', the Doctor travels 100 trillion years into the future to the end of the ''universe'', though it's natural entropy.

** In the Eleventh Doctor's first season, he spends the whole series figuring out why Time-itself is cracked and leaking- well...time- until he figures out that the universe blames him for destroying it. In the end, {{spoiler|he's fallen into a parallel, broken universe designed to delay him and distract him from the eventual apocalypse, with the intention of preventing it}}. {{spoiler|The result: The Doctor is imprisoned at the exact moment that the universe dies, unable to save it}}. {{spoiler|He warps around time until he realizes that the device, himself imprisoned in it, and his exploding TARDIS are the only way to restore the actual timeline. So he kills himself, but leaves enough clues to his companions to remember his existence in the real timeline, somehow (Magic) bringing him back to life}}.

* ''[[Lexx]]'' had the [[From Nobody to Nightmare]] [[Big Bad Evil Guy]] Mantrid destroy the Light Universe by converting it all into self-replicating drones, then sent every drone into a very confined area, accidentally causing the Big Crunch.

* The Magog of ''[[Andromeda]] '''eat galaxies'''''.

* In ''[[Charlie Jade]]'', a side-effect of [[Mega Corp|Vexcor]]'s plan to [[Planet Looters|steal water from a parallel Earth]] would have been the destruction of a third universe (ours, incidentally).

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** In the fourth doomsday scenario for Mage, the Nephandi actually win. However, they don't destroy universe, but merely make it a real crapsack.

* In ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'':

 

== Videogames ==

** Diminished in the third installment because {{spoiler|it turns out the whole universe is nothing but a simulation and large scale MMORPG for people in another dimension. Reducing the threat from universal omnicide to some idiot threatening to destroy the ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' servers. Sure, millions of nerds would be devastated but that's rather less of an impact than the destruction of an actual universe.}}

* In ''[[Meteos]]'', the planet Meteo is hellbent on destroying every celestial body in the universe with signs of intelligence by pummeling them with phantasmagoric meteors until they ''explode''. Stars, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, dimensional anomalies...nothing is spared, and it's your job to stop it from doing that.

** This also includes the realms of Heaven and Hell, or at least their cosmic equivalents.

* Near the end of ''[[System Shock]] 2'', the rogue AI SHODAN finds a way to alter reality using an experimental FTL engine. If she was not thwarted by the player, eventually the entire universe could be re-shaped to her liking.

* In the [[Interactive Fiction]] game ''Curses'', there is a control panel for the entire universe. Changing its settings is vital to proceeding in the game, but one of the controls is for modifying ''Planck's Constant'', and tampering with it has predictably universe-ending results.

* If you lose in ''[[Star Control]] 2: The Ur-Quan Masters'', the Kohr-Ah faction of the Ur-Quan will eventually prevail in their Doctrinal War with the Kzer-Za faction, and they will proceed to take the Sa-Matra on a Death March to wipe out all non-Ur-Quan sapient life in the galaxy, and, after that, the rest of the universe. It is implied that the Kohr-Ah had, by that point, already wiped out all sapient life in one half of the galaxy, constituting approximately fifty-thousand sapient species.

* [[Big Bad|Ultimecia]] from [[Final Fantasy VIII]]'s true goal is to compress time and space down to one singular point. It's not really [[Universal Destruction]] but just a stone's throw from it.

** One could argue that it almost came close to a Class Z, as well. It seemed like her original goal was to make the universe such that only she could exist in it and, thus, basically become God. Yet towards the end of the final battle with her, it becomes apparent that what is ''really'' happening is different -- a good example is when she declared that all existence be denied, and if a party member falls, you get a message saying that they've been absorbed into time (something she ''doesn't'' control anymore at this point because Time Compression was halted halfway through). Sounds like she was getting in over her head; who really knows what would have happened if Ellone hadn't of halted Time Compression halfway through or the [[Big Damn Heroes]] had failed? It's quite possible Ultimecia could have destroyed herself in the process and reality would have been irrecoverably destroyed.

* In [[Skyrim]], the main idea is that [[Big Bad|Alduin]] does this so a new universe can be created in cycles of time called "kalpas."

** The Thalmor's ultimate goal is too attain divinity, believing that they were once divine souls who were trapped on Nirn when Lorkhan created the planet. Their current plan is {{spoiler|to completely stamp out worship of Talos, who is holding the physical world together with his presence. This will help unmake the world, which will allow the mer people to return to their once-divine status.}}

* In [[Xenoblade Chronicles]], it is revealed at the end of the game that {{spoiler|[[Big Bad|Zanza]] accomplished this in order to become a giant [[Physical God]]. Afterwards, he kept causing Class 4 whenever his civilization became advanced enough to leave his body.}}

* ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'' reveals that {{spoiler|Chakravartin has been doing this to the universe since the beginning of existence itself. While he says world, the fact that he can become bigger than entire clusters of galaxies not unlike ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'': ''Lagann-Hen'', it implys this.}}

 

* Due to a not-quite [[Stable Time Loop]], the universe of Tryslmaistan in ''[[Unicorn Jelly]]'' has a storm that gradually grinds down everything in the universe into dust.

* In the ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' story arc "GOFOTRON: Champion of the Universe," the main characters wind up in another world called the Punyverse, based off of sci-fi and anime parodies. A series of complicated events results in every piece of matter in the alternate universe being converted into energy. Only the main characters and a small spaceship manage to escape back the main universe. Later on, it's implied that the Tangle in the Web of Fate threatens to destroy, at the bare minimum, the entire main ''Sluggy'' universe, and possibly take down all the parallel ones along with it.

* ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'', New Year's Eve, 2008. May have been a Class X-5, depending on one's definition of "universe".

* In ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'', Black Mage, as a manifest Nexus, has the ''potential'' to destroy the universe. The only thing that stops him doing so is that A) the assorted forces of the universe are smart enough to ''not'' let him die (as his physical being acts as a [[Restraining Bolt]] and it's only when he dies that he gains full access to his power), and B) {{spoiler|Chaos knocks him and the other Light Warriors back to their starting levels, which means he has to start all over again the whole process of getting access to enough of his power to destroy the universe}}. As long as he's still the Universe's [[Cosmic Plaything]], and it doesn't let him get access to enough of his power, he'll probably left at just ''attempting'' to act out his [[Omnicidal Maniac|Omnicidal Tendencies]]

** {{spoiler|Jack Noir and Spades Slick have both destroyed universes as well. Both were essentially pawns of English}}

* In [[Narbonic]], Mell and Artie find a videotape sent from the future. The world is a ruin, and Mell has taken over as President of the United States to keep the world from ending up like it is: the time machine needs all the energy in the universe to work, so she is destroying her entire universe to try to save Artie in a different timeline.

 

== Web Originals ==

 

 

* Stimpson J. Cat, in the ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' episode "Space Madness", cannot resist pushing the "jolly, candy-like" [[Big Red Button|History Eraser Button]].

* In the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "Anthology of Interest I", the What-If Machine predicts the entire universe being destroyed as a consequence of Fry not being frozen. Given that his removal would create at least one paradox and without him, the Brainspawn would have destroyed the universe, it's amazingly accurate.

** Fry, Bender, and Farnsworth watch this happen in "The Late Philip J. Fry" as they warp forward in time to the end, watching the universe explode, only to watch a new one exactly identical to it emerge immediately afterward in a new Big Bang.

* Played for laughs in [[The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]] when Mandy smiles, causing the the destruction of reality in a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] that ends with them having replaced the [[Powerpuff Girls]].