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User:Wl219/List of fictional weapons of mass destruction

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NB: This is my attempt to rewrite Planet killer in light of the AfD discussion.

In science fiction, weapons of mass destruction or superweapons capable of destroying a planet or star system are a common plot element.

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[[:Image:TheLexx.jpg|thumb|The Lexx, from the series Lexx]]

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Various novels and written sources

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  • The Inhibitor machines from Alastair Reynolds' Inhibitor series of novels, were capable of consuming worlds over time to convert to copies of themselves, or to create weapons capable of utilising stars to destroy planets e.g. venting stellar core material in a collimated beam to burn away planetary crusts. In the same series, the "Greenfly" machines, developed by humans as terraformers, instead go rogue and start eating planets by reducing them to their atoms and rebuilding them into more such machines, as well as numerous domes filled with vegetation.
  • The Dahak-class battle station (David Weber's Heirs of Empire trilogy)
  • The Electron Pump (Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves)
  • Galactus (Marvel Universe)
  • Spacer nuclear reaction intensifier (Robots and Empire)
  • The Warworld (DC Comics)
  • Erdammeru the Void-Hound (DC Comics)
  • The Neutronium Alchemist (Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy)
  • Nova Bombs (Starship Troopers)
  • The Supernova (Matthew Reilly's Temple)
  • Stephen Baxter's Moonseed: a virus-like microscopic object (or substance made from it) that transforms substances into more copies of itself - and thus consumes Venus and then the Earth by doing so. (Baxter has also employed geomagnetic storms (see Sunstorm) and larger universal constructors (see Evolution) as planet killers.)
  • Device Ultimate in The Xenocide Mission
  • At least five methods in E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman saga: "super-atomic bombs"; a "nutcracker", consisting of crushing a planet between two others; a "negasphere," an antimatter planet; "Nth space planets" from other dimensions can be used to ram planets or even create supernovas - there was even the worrying possibility that these could cause the Big Crunch in zero time; and a "sunbeam", a way of concentrating most of a sun's energy output into a narrow beam -- this one a defensive-only weapon against nutcrackers and negaspheres.
  • In E. E. Smith's Skylark of Space series various planet-killers are used or discussed. Throwing planets and moons out of orbit, incredibly high-yield atomic or copper bombs, near-instantaneous dematerialisation of physical objects and the teleporting of close to fifty billion stars in order to wipe out a Galaxy-wide alien civilisation are all used.
  • In L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth a device is created which, when activated, causes all matter it touches to break down into its constituent molecules. This device was used on a moon, which was consumed faster than ships based on that moon could launch.
  • a bomb made of 9th-dimensional matter in Supernova
  • Mechanoid motherships (Rifts)
  • Relativistic projectiles (Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski's The Killing Star)
  • In Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, the MD (Molecular Disruption) Device, or "Doctor Device", generates a field inside which it is impossible for atoms to coexist in a molecule. The field propagates in a chain reaction, so it basically destroys all matter until it reaches pure space. This was intended for ship to ship combat, but was eventually used to destroy an entire planet.
  • In HALO: First Strike, a human weapon known as the NOVA bomb is mentioned. It is described as being made up of multiple thermal nuclear warheads with a central core of material that boosts its yield to a sufficient amount to destroy a planet and anything in the vicinity of that planet. In HALO: Ghosts of Onyx, the weapon is detonated on board a covenant ship orbiting a covenant world. The planet suffered damage sufficient to render it uninhabitable and the explosion also destroyed a covenant fleet.


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