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{{trope}}
Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
* The end of ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy (Franchise)/Mostly Harmless|Mostly Harmless]]'' has {{spoiler|the entire planet Earth destroyed, in all parallel universes to boot, with all the main characters on it}} because [[Douglas Adams]] was sick of being asked for more sequels. The radio drama {{spoiler|has them escape, in the nick of time}}.▼
== ''[[Discworld]]'' ==
* The craziness of Jonathan Teatime in the ''[[
** It's a good thing he did the trick with the spoon where you hold it in front of a victim's mouth to check if he's still breathing. Can never be too sure. Hm hm.
== Other works ==
▲* The end of ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to
* To ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]'''s [[Psycho Lesbian|Mari Magot]], overkill is inherently meaningless.
** In ''The Traitor's Hand'', a Chaos [[Space Marine]] is noted as having been killed "with satisfying thoroughness" by two krak missiles and a lascannon, ''each'' of which is an anti-tank weapon on its own.
** It's hard to say if the refinery-cum-fuel-air bomb in ''Caves of Ice'' was "overkill" or "just enough kill", given that it was used on [[Made of Iron|Necrons]], but its blast wave ''was'' felt ''in orbit''.
* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] novel ''[[Death Star]]'' describes its use as "overkill in the most horrifyingly literal way possible". And indeed, blowing up a pacifistic planet just to [[Kick the Dog]] is clearly overdoing it.
** Another example of overkill in the Expanded Universe is Base Delta Zero, a naval protocol dedicated to eliminating all assets of production on a planet. This varies from rendering the planet uninhabitable and for all intents and purposes useless, to outright slagging the crust.
** For that matter, the Expanded Universe seems to have a good amount of overkill--the Sun Crusher fires a pulse torpedo into a star to cause it to go supernova, killing the star system at large; the Centerpoint Station does this by firing a pulse blast ''through hyperspace'' to hit its target! Emperor Palpatine seems to have been particularly fond of these.
*** Palpatine didn't create Centerpoint, that was [[The Precursors]]. Palpatine ''did'', however, create the [[Dark Empire|Galaxy Gun]] which does pretty much the same thing. And the Galaxy Gun was destroyed by being [[Ramming Always Works|rammed]] by a Star Destroyer, so it's a double example of this trope.
** On a more personal scale, the [[New Jedi Order]] novel ''Star By Star'' features both the New Republic and Yuuzhan Vong revealing their newly-developed infantry. The Republic fields YVH [[Exactly What It Says
* In the ''[[Halo]]'' expanded universe human ships ended up carrying salvos of "archer" anti-ship missiles that could decimate a human fleet (one archer could severely damage a destroyer) just to take down the shields of a covenant frigate. Justified that Covenant frigates can withstand tactical nuclear weapons.
** Nukes don't have quite the same bang in space as they do on a planet. With no medium for the shockwave, the destructive range is only limited to a few miles, provided the target has sufficient shielding against radiation and EMP. There's a reason [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better|MAC rounds]] work much better than nukes.
* Perhaps the ultimate example of this trope in any form of media is found in ''[[
** Actually, vaporizing a planet is easier than blowing it completely apart. If you achieve one but not the other, most of the vapour will stay in the planet-sized fireball, due to gravity. The Millennium Falcon should have encountered an uncharted emission nebula, not uncharted asteroids.
* Lampshaded in ''Homeland'' by R.A. Salvatore. While he and Alton are being swarmed by spiders, Masoj looks down at his crossbow in contemplation and remarks, "Overkill?"
** Alton then, of course, drops a fireball at his feet in an attempt to exterminate the spiders. Overkill ''and'' [[Kill It
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]] disapproves of this trope. As he has Sergeant Zim from ''[[Starship Troopers (
** That being said, since it is determined to be impossible to effectively remove Bugs from a planet once they entrench themselves, the humans build a weapon that completely destroys entire planets and are using it by the end of the book.
* In '[[Jack Ryan
* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] has numerous cases of insane death machines like the Death Star, the Sun Crusher, and the World Devastators. There are also cases of species doing this, such as the Yevetha and Yuunzhan Vong, who are so fanatical they see winning a war as exterminating the enemy race.
** The Bothans, with the death of Borsk Fey'la and the disintegration of the New Republic, declare Ak'Rai, a form of total war that they have only done twice in their history. It calls for every capable Bothan to lend their maximum effort towards defeating their opponent, killing every last male, female, and child of the species, slag their home planet to dust, and erase them from history.
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** The best example of this is when, after a Duke of the Red Court of Vampires cheated in a duel against Harry, Ebenezar McCoy {{spoiler|pulls an out of use Russian Satellite down out of space onto the villain's mansion. He's also implied to have caused Krakatoa, the Madrid Earthquake, and several other major disasters.}}
** What does Morgan do when confronted with an [[Eldritch Abomination]]? This happened to be back in [[The Fifties]], so he lured it to a nuclear weapon testing ground and leaves it there. [[Nuke'Em|On the day of a test]].
* There is a collection of short stories set in the ''[[Warhammer
* In ''[[The
** Granted, as described, the sister had overcome Jadis' armies and captured her (as a prelude to execution) when she used it.
* ''[[Perry Rhodan]]'': has Arkon Bombs. Thrown on a planet the planet itself transforms into a nuclear weapon.
** They have a device called Transform Cannon [
* In the [[Dale Brown]] novel ''Act of War'', Zakharov sends several squads of men with anti-tank weapons and a helicopter gunship to kill one man. Naturally, when he goes after bigger targets he scales up accordingly. In ''Executive Intent'' a Mjolnir/Thor's Hammer [[Kill Sat|orbit-launched kinetic kill vehicle]], capable of causing massive casualties on impact with the ground, is fired at a Russian fighter jet, destroying it so thoroughly that it is reduced to so much dust. The Chinese assault on Mogadishu is also brutally thorough: If even a shot of enemy fire is detected from a building, the Chinese do not try to storm the building - they just level the bloody thing. Any gathering of people that might be construed as regrouping enemy units is cut down to the last man even if it is ostensibly civilians trying to recover their dead.
* In ''[[Ender's Game]]'', the M.D. Device, known as the Little Doctor, causes one atom to explode, then spreads to every other atom around it, causing it to explode. Ender uses this to destroy a planet and two entire fleets.
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** The Congress's reaction to finding out about {{spoiler|the Descolada virus}} is to {{spoiler|send an entire fleet on a 30-year journey to blow up the entire planet}}, especially since {{spoiler|the target is a planet with minimal industry and a population of farmers in the hundreds and the fact that a single ship with the Little Doctor is enough}}.
* Kelsier of the ''[[Mistborn]]'' series certainly has his moments. If you ask him, any member of the nobility, or any one ''working for'' a member of the nobility is little better than cannon fodder.
* One of the first times the [[Honor Harrington
* Rand Al'Thor in ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' series has used this more than once. A scene in ''The Gathering Storm'' is particularly noteworthy: He has finally tracked down Graendal to her castle. She is a noted [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]], and Rand doubts that he can outwit her. So instead, he sends in a pawn, a minor nobleman who's stupid, power-hungry and easily manipulated, as a messenger. She uses [[Mind Control]] on the nobleman and sends him back to Rand, treating it as the start of an intricate game of backup plans and countermoves. It turns out that Rand [[I Know You Know I Know|was prepared for that]]; he detects signs of the [[Mind Control]], takes that as solid confirmation of Graendal's presence, pulls out his biggest [[Amplifier Artifact]], and ''drops a [[Fantastic Nuke|Magical Nuke]] on her'', erasing the entire castle and everyone in it from existence. {{spoiler|It didn't work as well as he hoped, but he still managed to get one Forsaken, albeit not the one he wanted, and at least one Black Ajah}}, so it fits this trope.
* In ''[[The Merchant Princes Series]]'', a [[Cycle of Revenge]] quickly becomes this. When knowledge of the Clan, a dimension-traveling group of smugglers, comes to the attention of the government, [[President Evil]] tries to ''[[Nuke'Em]]'' because of the potential security risk they represent. {{spoiler|Well, that's the pretext, at least. And his bomb succeeds only in hitting one castle, occupied mostly by an enemy of theirs at the time. However, a conservative faction of the Clan decides to retaliate by setting off ''three'' nuclear weapons in Washington, DC. They succeed. In retaliation, [[President Evil]]'s successor sends dimension-traveling ships to the Clan's home country, an area roughly the size of Massachusetts, and carpet-bombs them with nuclear weapons. It's called, appropriately, CARTHAGE, and probably would have caused nuclear winter on that world}}.
* In the ''[[Bolo]]'' novels, the 'Final War' against the Melconian Empire ended like this. The Terran Concordiat declared that every single planet in the Empire be completely cleansed of life. The Melconians made a similar declaration against the Concordiat at about the same time. Both succeeded. The war ended with both nations reduced to a few scattered remnants desperately searching for a planet that could still support life. Since the fragments of the Concordiat were slightly larger, they can arguably claim victory.
* ''[[
** Pretty much the basis for armament design of the Troy and it's sister Battle Globes, as well as the SAPL network and it's Ung lasers.
** The trope title is nearly quoted word for word in ''The Hot Gate'', in regards to 20,000 human missiles sent at a Rangoran AV that had its point defense systems almost completely destroyed.
* {{spoiler|Tigerstar's}} death in ''[[
* One of the [[Known Space|Man-Kzin Wars]] collections contains the story of a ship called Catskinner, which is a crewed ramscoop ship that has a largish number of 500-pound chunks of iron that it drops shortly before reaching its target system. It slows down by hitting the ''star''. For those lacking a grasp of the scale, the effect is like a relativistic shotgun blast the size of an entire star system. This was the ''diversion'' for the real mission, which was to insert (two teams of) assassins to kill the recently arrived representative of the Kzinti central government before he could mount a successful invasion of Earth. This manages to be both overkill (for a diversion) and under-kill given what they ''could'' have done to the system...
{{tropesubpagefooter}}
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