Your favorite Sci-fi WMD?

[LapsedPacifist]

Well it might. Several stars were destroyed in the Idirian war, mechanism unknown. There's no obvious upper bound to how big gridfire weapons can be made, and the absolutely enormous gridfire-like effect produced by the Excession does suggest that it can be ridiculously destructive in principle. We just haven't seen it do anything more impressive than slice an orbital to tiny pieces in minutes (at most).

All true. I forgot about the Excession's use of gridfire. It's important to recognize how we've actually seen the Culture use it when we're in these discussions.

LP

[J]

The Mega Maid from Spaceballs.

[Paradox244]

I'm rather fond of the casuality violation weapon from Stross' Singularity Sky series. Tear out the core of a star, age it trillions of year in a pocket universe, then dump the resulting iron crystal back in place seconds after you took it out. Instant Supernova.

[NecronLord]

Wait a minute does gird-fire count?
The Uber-badass weapon of the Culture, which can destroy stars out of sheer firepower!!!

Y'know, we've never actually seen it do that.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It emits a wave of raw, unbridled technobabble, most of which is channeled into the local stargate and transmitted immediately to every other stargate in the galaxy, using the handy 'conference call' feature.

It probably uses the same kind of physics that ascended beings' powers are based on.

The universal version of a zombie PC running spam. Ah, how deliciously evil.

I was going to mention gridfire myself before, but we've seen little of it in actual action, since it seems to be a strategic rather than tactical weapon, it's most likely not all that useful for fleet battles and it's much easier to make nanobombs that blast planets apart (black hole? CAM?) than play around with gridfire hardware.

I did always imagine the Excession could have taken whole systems or even the galaxy out if prompted. It was so insanely superior to anything the Culture had it was like the 21st century versus 10,000 BC.

[NecronLord]

Well, the author said he'd not decided whether it was any good for hitting ships, so, it might be a tactical weapon, it might not be. He even suggested it might make an interesting 'technological development' story. If that's a sub-plot in Matter, you've me to thank!

In any case, almost every Culture weapon qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction by some standard.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Well, the author said he'd not decided whether it was any good for hitting ships, so, it might be a tactical weapon, it might not be. He even suggested it might make an interesting 'technological development' story. If that's a sub-plot in Matter, you've me to thank!

Don't make me come up there!

In any case, almost every Culture weapon qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction by some standard.

Memory-form guns folded up as fake teeth that blow torsos apart, munitions containing collapsed antimatter able to vape whole starships, the ability to create wormholes for teleporting chunks of ship or explosives within light-hour distances, EDust, knife missiles, CREWs able to clear kilometre sized icebergs. Yeah, they pretty much perfected badass, even if they are hippies.

[Starglider]

I did always imagine the Excession could have taken whole systems or even the galaxy out if prompted. It was so insanely superior to anything the Culture had it was like the 21st century versus 10,000 BC.

The metaphor used in the novel was a stone-age island culture, which was going along nicely raising stone idols and discovering fire and the wheel, seeing an impossibly large ship trailing smoke come into their bay, then disgorging men carrying thundersticks, who declare the people 'subjects of the king' and demand tributes they call 'taxes'...

[Enforcer Talen]

My choice is Simon R Green's the Terror.

We're going to enter your system. When we do, every sentient goes insane. We'll also eat your star and stripmine your world.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The metaphor used in the novel was a stone-age island culture, which was going along nicely raising stone idols and discovering fire and the wheel, seeing an impossibly large ship trailing smoke come into their bay, then disgorging men carrying thundersticks, who declare the people 'subjects of the king' and demand tributes they call 'taxes'...

I didn't want to steal that particular paragraph I love so much.

PS.

Check my user title.

[NeoGoomba]

Affronter Scum!

Anyhoo, for a nice mix of terror weapon and WMD, the Shadow Death Cloud always had that "evil aura" do it that I liked so much.

That is, of course, barring the cold, brutal Death Star, which to me epitomizes destruction on a massive scale.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I think a weapon that makes you crap yourself first is better on these scales. That's probably why I love the Inhibitor's Singer, because it took a year to make the thing then burrow into the sun's core, all the while the only thing you could do is look on in terror.

[Starglider]

That's probably why I love the Inhibitor's Singer, because it took a year to make the thing then burrow into the sun's core, all the while the only thing you could do is look on in terror.

Or if you have anything from Federation/BSG tech up, just evacuate the damned system.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Or if you have anything from Federation/BSG tech up, just evacuate the damned system.

When you have 200k people on a barely terraformed to liveable world and the last bunch of disgruntled colonists took your only interstellar craft decades ago, you're pretty fucked.

Not that it'd matter. You could run, but you'd just die tired and with more company.

[OmegaGuy]

The Shivan Sathanas fleet from Freespace 2 was pretty cool

[Starglider]

Not that it'd matter. You could run, but you'd just die tired and with more company.

Yes, well, that's when you page the Time Lords, the Culture and the Xeelee and ask for bids on a galactic-scale extermination contract (damn these pesky hegemonising swarms).

Though actually I think the Schlockverse would do pretty well against the Inhibitors. The GE almost certainly could too if it stayed around and had some time to prepare; given a century or two, the GE could make scores of death stars and hundreds of Eclipse class vessels, which could then sweep through the enemy galaxy burning away all the nasty von neuman machines.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yes, well, that's when you page the Time Lords, the Culture and the Xeelee and ask for bids on a galactic-scale extermination contract (damn these pesky hegemonising swarms).

Hey, you can't go about exterminating the ultimate end of your mechanistic fantasy.

Though actually I think the Schlockverse would do pretty well against the Inhibitors. The GE almost certainly could too if it stayed around and had some time to prepare; given a century or two, the GE could make scores of death stars and hundreds of Eclipse class vessels, which could then sweep through the enemy galaxy burning away all the nasty von neuman machines.

If the GE came into contact with the Inhibitors traditionally, they'd be fucked to be honest, though it's a fight I would dearly love to see on celluloid (well hey, the Inhibitors did accidentally throw a whole solar system out of the plane of the Milky Way when first testing the Higgs field modifier tech, that's gotta hurt). Even if they knew what they were dealing with, there's nothing they have that can do a lick of damage. But this ignores the fact that, in reality, the GE would never exist if the wolves were doing their job. Nor any major race, for that matter.

[Starglider]

Hey, you can't go about exterminating the ultimate end of your mechanistic fantasy.

The Inhibitors are what you get when you really, seriously, fuck up the design of your seed AI goal system. As such, sure I can. SHODAN alone would spank their tiny little asses anyway, at least if she'd been able to continue with her universe hacking plan at the end of SS2.

Even if they knew what they were dealing with, there's nothing they have that can do a lick of damage.

You are a bottomless pit of inhibitor wank. No, we do not know exactly what would happen when a superlaser beam hits an inhibitor swarm, but I'm betting it won't be good for the later.

But this ignores the fact that, in reality, the GE would never exist if the wolves were doing their job. Nor any major race, for that matter.

This is the most idiotic cop-out I've ever seen in versus. You're trying to handwave away the mere existence of your enemies, when they're defined as having existed for centuries, millenia etc. Versus comparisons always involve some kind of bridge or transport between alternate universes because a) the incompatible physics usually preclude the existence of at least one faction if they developed in the same galaxy and b) in many cases the physical proximity would preclude them. It particularly doesn't work against the GE as they are defined as being in a far away galaxy, not one that includes Earth.

[OmegaGuy]

Wait a minute, since when was this a versus?

[Starglider]

Wait a minute, since when was this a versus?

Ok sorry thread hijack. I have a bad reaction to Revelation Space wankage. I'm ok with Culture and even Xeelee smackdowns because they're properly detailed. The Inhibitors always get far too much from no limits wankage (and not even the vaguely tolerable kind of no limits, e.g. genuine reality hacking).

[Ford Prefect]

I think a weapon that makes you crap yourself first is better on these scales. That's probably why I love the Inhibitor's Singer, because it took a year to make the thing then burrow into the sun's core, all the while the only thing you could do is look on in terror.

I've always been more of a fan of the good old 'What was that?' followed by swift, merciless destruction. One minute you're a happy little stellar civillisation and the next second everything has been smashed into craters.

[OmegaGuy]

Does the end of Manifold: Time qualify for this thread?

Even though it wasn't used as a weapon, it easily could be.

And it would be nasty.

[Nyrath]

I always liked the Xeelee's main weapon. Not because of what it was, but because it had such a cool name.

It was a fairly ho-hum gravity laser beam.

But it was called a Starbreaker.

[kinnison]

Three more, all from Niven's Known Space:

One I can't remember the name of, but it's the telepathic amplifier the Slavers used to kill all intelligent life in the Galaxy; basically a hugely amplified command - "DIE!"

Second: the Soft Weapon, specifically the total-conversion beamer setting; in the story the beam barely touched the horizon and still caused a megaton-range explosion - imagine what it would do if actually pointed at a planet.

Third (rather smaller scale): the Wunderland Treatymaker - basically a large double-beam Slaver disintegrator; "created a solid bar of lightning twenty kilometres long". At any rate, it did enough damage to the topography of the planet to force a name change - to Canyon.

From the same series, I imagine that the fields of a ramscoop ship would make quite a mess of the sapient life on any given planet. This is not designed as a weapon, though.

Hey, anyone who thought up a system-defense weapon powered by a stellar flare can't be all bad!

[The Yosemite Bear]

I wonder do his angels of death (aka Imperial Space Marines) or Starwar's HK 47 count as weapons of mass destruction, just doing it on a more personal scale....