Other SF planet killers!

Sothis · Post by **Sothis** » 2002-07-05 03:06pm

A thought... would weapons such as the Suncrusher's missiles and Dr Soran's torpedoes (IE- nova-causing weapons) be considered planet-killing weapons, in that deliberately triggering a star to go nova will inevitably destroy the planet? Or is that just grasping at straws?

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2002-07-05 04:09pm

Don't forget that Judge Dredd also ordered the deaths of over 2 billion people when he sanctioned the use of nuclear wepaons to wipe out 4 (or 5) Mega Cities during the Judgement Day crisis. This also leads to Sabbat the Necromagus maybe being classed as a planet killer as he wiped out the entire population of one planet, Besheeba, with his magic and then moved on to Earth. Also mentioned in Judgemanet Day were the core nukes from Johnny Alpha's time period. Since we only have a name, core nukes, and an outcome, planet destroyed, to go on details are sketchy, but my guess is that these are nuclear weapons that go towards the core of the planet and then explode destroying the planet from the inside.

And since someonentioned me being a pratchett fan:

The Fifth Elephant:
One of the elephants that bears the Discworld on it's back that lost it's footing and impacted on the Disc. This had simular effects to an asteroid strike and caused mass extinctions as well as giving the Disc a large quantity of gold and other elements. However there is some doubt on the truth of this theory.

The Glass Clock:
Not too sure on this one as it only stopped time and didn't destroy the world as such. Built by a partially mad clockmaker the clock was designed to be accurate down to the smallest fraction of time. As a result it caused time to stop. The maker was only partially mad because his servant, an Igor naturally, didn't once here him laugh manicaly or say something like "And the fools called me MAD! BWAHAHAHA!!!"

Jetfire · Post by **Jetfire** » 2002-07-05 05:26pm

Planet destroyers....

*quiet voice* Well touching briefly, extremely briefly on ST, there's Species 8472.... */quiet voice*

Now on to the main reason for this post.

As someone mentionned before, there's the Mantrid drones from Lexx which in large enough numbers were capable of converting a planet into more drones within hours, if not minutes. Note that "Large enough numbers" meant a cloud of drones smaller than the planet to begin with; probably a few million at most. Also note that given enough time even one drone would have been enoguh to destroy a planet.

There's also the Lexx itself which was more than capable of giving a planet the big Ka-Boom.

His Divine Shadow's ship (grrr can't recall the name) was able to destroy the surface of a planet within hours as well, firing its weapon at a rate of once every few minutes. (As seen when it destroyed Brunun'G (sp.) at the start of the first movie.)

And switching to a different series, there is also the Beast Planet from "Shadow Raiders/ War Planets". The Beast Planet itself is Unicron but even MORE durable. (and no Robot form). It chows down on planets without even noticing anything attacking it. (Other than to toy with the inhabitants like a cat playing with a mouse).

The things it has done/endured:
1. Took a blast from a weapon created by a world that pulled ALL of its resources into the construction of that weapon without even flinching.
2. Withstood a planet ramming it's openned mouth at fairly significant speeds. All that happened was Planet Fire knocked its World Claw off center a bit. When the dust settled, Planet Fire and the claw were inside the Beast Planet with no apparant damage.
3. Withstood having another planet (Planet Jungle) blow up completely in its mouth with no damage at all.

Oh yeah and on top of that, it can regenerate shells of planets it has devoured, making short lived planet shells that look like what it ate down to some of the people who were on the planet's surface when the planet was destroyed.

The series was cancelled before the true finale, but the second season finale ended with the Beast Planet being unexpectedly (to the Beast Planet at least) transported to another area of the Galaxy. It was only a temporary solution, which the shows heroes knew. The last scene of the series was the Beast Planet about to chow down on Planet Reptile.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2002-07-05 05:35pm

Jetfire wrote:His Divine Shadow's ship (grrr can't recall the name) was able to destroy the surface of a planet within hours as well, firing its weapon at a rate of once every few minutes. (As seen when it destroyed Brunun'G (sp.) at the start of the first movie.)

The ForeShadow

Singular Quartet · Post by **Singular Quartet** » 2002-07-05 05:46pm

Bah, all of these are notable, but none compare to Dark Star

This ship carries atleast 20 talking bombs, each of which has the ability to destroy, possibly vaporize, a planet. Each bomb

Beat, that mothafucka

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2002-07-05 06:03pm

Maybe I can't top that in terms of power, but when Shin Dragon (which can blow up moons by itself a la DS) pumps power into Shin Getta One, it can create a MASSIVE engergy axe that can cut up moons! I you gotta blow some shit up, do it in style!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 2002-07-06 12:34am

Here are a couple:

WorldShips (Neverness by David Zindell)
These ships send hordes of nano bots into planets that produce huge pockets of explosive gas, then laser nano-bot inginte the pockets, ripping the planet apart.

Convenant Ships from the Halo novel are capable of glassifing a planets surface. though it takes awhile.

World/System Destroyers (Gallforce) Ships that are basicly large plasma cannons. There fire blasts that can cause suns to go nova.

And now gentlebeings. May I present the Queen-Bitch of all sci-fi.

Known as The Artifact or The Satan Sword, She is an Ai controlled ship that has galaxy destroying capabilities. Her main weapon simply makes thing dispear. And her scanners have apperently unlimted range. She can see the insides of atoms or a black hole a galaxy away. Her scanners can also affect computers/human minds.
Her only weakness is that all of her powers are slaved to a switch, only another person can use.

JJP · Post by **JJP** » 2002-07-06 05:42am

From 2000AD I can think of the Dark Star (is that the right name?) from the strip Nikolai Dante, which was some kind of funky-black hole thing that made very little sense.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-07-06 05:22pm

Bah, all of these are notable, but none compare to Dark Star
This ship carries atleast 20 talking bombs, each of which has the ability to destroy, possibly vaporize, a planet. Each bomb
Beat, that mothafucka

The Sun Crusher carries 12 resonance torpedoes, each capable of halting all stellar fusion processes in a star. It has the power to take out 12 of our solar systems, thus giving it the power to destroy 108 planets.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-07-06 05:31pm

WorldShips (Neverness by David Zindell)
These ships send hordes of nano bots into planets that produce huge pockets of explosive gas, then laser nano-bot inginte the pockets, ripping the planet apart.

And, somehow, the nanobots don't completely burn up in atmosphere. This is uncreative and simply implausible.

Convenant Ships from the Halo novel are capable of glassifing a planets surface. though it takes awhile.

The Covenant was sweet. :)

World/System Destroyers (Gallforce) Ships that are basicly large plasma cannons. There fire blasts that can cause suns to go nova.

Why a sudden, large influx of plasma would cause a star to go nova, I don't know.

And now gentlebeings. May I present the Queen-Bitch of all sci-fi.
Known as The Artifact or The Satan Sword, She is an Ai controlled ship that has galaxy destroying capabilities. Her main weapon simply makes thing dispear. And her scanners have apperently unlimted range. She can see the insides of atoms or a black hole a galaxy away. Her scanners can also affect computers/human minds.
Her only weakness is that all of her powers are slaved to a switch, only another person can use.

You can't visibly observe an atom. Subatomic particles exist more or less as wave functions, not little balls orbiting a nucleus, like the Bohr model leads many a Chemistry student to believe. Also, even if it was possible to "see" an atom, the mere act of sending in sensory particles would alter the atom's individual particles' energy states, so it wouldn't be observing the atom. It'd be observing an altered form of the atom. This is known as Heisenberg Uncertainty.

As for seeing inside a black hole, that's just ridiculous. There is no "inside" to a black hole. It is a temporal singularity which exists in zero space. As you get closer and closer, the spatial dimension inward (or depth, from your perspective) becomes the temporal dimension forward. So, it is a singularity which exists in all time and no space. No space. How can there be an inside to something with no space? Whoever wrote that is just a complete moron.

Carcharodon · Post by **Carcharodon** » 2002-07-06 06:56pm

How often do you guys think it has to be reloaded? I mean, it's a spiderweb with missles. And how long would that take to complete?

Also, I've had people tell me that these contraptions can be built in "seven minutes." This is patently ridiculous given the events of the series, but I'm a little curious as to where the idea came from. Supposedly they base their claims on something in the Technomage Trilogy, but I'm not yet willing to read three books that don't particularly interest me just to find what might amount to a one-line quote, for all I know. They won't fess up. Anybody got a clue?

Darth_Shinji · Post by **Darth_Shinji** » 2002-07-06 07:21pm

And, somehow, the nanobots don't completely burn up in atmosphere. This is uncreative and simply implausible.

I don't see the problem here. This book series has an entire nebula filled with a the component parts of a single computer AI system, the largest parts being as big as planets. This series is as far from uncreative as you can get. Nano-bots that can survive entry into a atmosphere is prehaps the least thing these people are capable of doing.

The Covenant was sweet.

Agreed.

Why a sudden, large influx of plasma would cause a star to go nova, I don't know.

*shrugs* I don't know. Though that is actually based on a discription of a less advanced weapon, which I belive is based on the same principles. But I could be wrong.

You can't visibly observe an atom. Subatomic particles exist more or less as wave functions, not little balls orbiting a nucleus, like the Bohr model leads many a Chemistry student to believe. Also, even if it was possible to "see" an atom, the mere act of sending in sensory particles would alter the atom's individual particles' energy states, so it wouldn't be observing the atom. It'd be observing an altered form of the atom. This is known as Heisenberg Uncertainty.

When you are talking about a ship that is powered by the fabric of reality and can destoy galaxies...... I disagree. Her sensors where called N-space sensors I have no idea how they work. It does mention that observation does affect the observed though.

As for seeing inside a black hole, that's just ridiculous. There is no "inside" to a black hole. It is a temporal singularity which exists in zero space. As you get closer and closer, the spatial dimension inward (or depth, from your perspective) becomes the temporal dimension forward. So, it is a singularity which exists in all time and no space. No space. How can there be an inside to something with no space? Whoever wrote that is just a complete moron.

You misread me. I meant could see a black hole a galaxy away. See also destroyed one by the way. Don't dis the authuor his novels are great.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2002-07-07 03:18pm

Does anyone else remember the weapons from david weber's Mutineer's Moon and Path of the Fury series. I am specifically referring to the "gravitonic warheads" of Mutineer's Moon and its sequels, which generated a massive gravity well to tear apart their target, and were capable of mulching a planet. I am also referring to the "SLAM" missiles from Path of the Fury, which were essentially a targetted black hole.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2002-07-07 03:42pm

The Nova Bombs from the novel Starship Troopers. Rico describes them in passing as able to "crack open a planet" and in other passages "destroy a planet". Unknown how it achieves this.

There is the Little Doctor, the good old Molecular Disruption Device, from Ender's Game. Superbadass. The bigger the object, the bigger the boom. Small enough to fit on fighters. Said to go straight through shields. It works by having these two beams at the focal point of which it creates a field where matter just breaks apart (I guess it fries electromagnetism or something). This creates a tiny field of this MD field, that when it hits more matter, it starts anew. This is great for clearing dense fleet formations and works on planets. Presumably, it works on stars too.

Umm... *tries to think of more that haven't been said*

Well, there are the missiles in the They Might Be Giants song "For Science" which were stated of being capable of destroying the universe.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2002-07-07 11:20pm

Singuler Quartet wrote:Bah, all of these are notable, but none compare to Dark Star

This ship carries atleast 20 talking bombs, each of which has the ability to destroy, possibly vaporize, a planet. Each bomb

Beat, that mothafucka

VF5SS wrote:Maybe I can't top that in terms of power, but when Shin Dragon (which can blow up moons by itself a la DS) pumps power into Shin Getta One, it can create a MASSIVE engergy axe that can cut up moons! I you gotta blow some shit up, do it in style!

But can they beat the super-cuteness of these two?

(Don't mind me, I'm just being silly right now

)

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2002-07-07 11:45pm

Err...

Darth_Shinji · Post by **Darth_Shinji** » 2002-07-08 12:13am

Singuler Quartet wrote:Bah, all of these are notable, but none compare to Dark Star

This ship carries atleast 20 talking bombs, each of which has the ability to destroy, possibly vaporize, a planet. Each bomb

Beat, that mothafucka

Gunbuster.

We got Black Hole Bomb!
We got Black Hole Bomb!
We got Black Hole Bomb!
We got Black Hole Bomb!

Damn thing swallowed the center of the galaxy.

The Episiarch · Post by **The Episiarch** » 2002-07-08 03:27am

Has anyone mentioned 'Anvil of Stars' by Greg Bear?

Apart from the Killers (Beserker-like planet-destroyers), there's also the weapons wielded by the Ship of the Law.

<Spoiler warning!!> <Proceed no further if don't want to see spolier!!>

Towards the end, the Children (human crew of the Ship of the Law) were given powerful 'Noach' weapons that enable them to remotely convert matter into anti-M and through that destroyed many planets.
Not to mention their encounter with the neutronium bombs at Wormwood (is that the right system? maybe my memory is muddled) that was used to detonate a star.

<End of spoliers>

Many planet-destroying weapons in that book.

MagicHateBall · Post by **MagicHateBall** » 2002-07-08 03:48am

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Halo System from Halo, but has mentioned the Covenant from the same game.

<Halo Spoilers! Read no further unless you want to learn half of the plot of the game right here!>

The Halos are a series of ring-shaped space stations that, when triggered, destroys all life large enough to support the Flood (a race that is a mix of the headcrabs from Half-Life, the Zerg from Starcraft, and the infamous Borg). The process through which it destroys life is unknown, and while the specific range of life forms affected is unknown, it can be safely assumed that all humanoid life in the galaxy would be yesterday's news.

Speaking of Starcraft, the Protoss had a ship capable of burning all life off of a world. While this ship was never seen in the game, I suspect that it was the craft seen in the intro. If so, the method through which it decimated a planet's surface would probably be the large beam weapon on it's ventral surface.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-07-08 04:29am

Durandal wrote:
And now gentlebeings. May I present the Queen-Bitch of all sci-fi.
Known as The Artifact or The Satan Sword, She is an Ai controlled ship that has galaxy destroying capabilities.
You can't visibly observe an atom.

My understanding is that the Satan Sword technology is basically a fully realized version of Greg Bear's noach concept (see: Anvil of Stars, Eon, Moving Mars). Both of these things 'work' not by throwing particles around to look at things but rather by hacking into the universe and directly reading/writing particle state data in the strings/quantum foam/etc/etc. One version of noach can globally change the mass of particles throughout the entire universe: this is very much a god tool, not an oversized microscope. The whole idea is obviously pure fantasy but its not as completely braindead as it appears in summary.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2002-07-08 05:06pm

VF5SS wrote:Err...

They can blow up planets, pocket realities...

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-07-08 07:02pm

When you are talking about a ship that is powered by the fabric of reality and can destoy galaxies...... I disagree. Her sensors where called N-space sensors I have no idea how they work. It does mention that observation does affect the observed though.

Fancy technobabble won't get around the fact that subatomic particles don't exist as observable entities. They are wave functions.

You misread me. I meant could see a black hole a galaxy away. See also destroyed one by the way. Don't dis the authuor his novels are great.

You can't see a black hole. It is a singularity that doesn't exist in space. It can only be observed through its secondary effects. When the same star appears to be in 2 places at once from different vantage points, a black hole in the vicinity is bending the light along one vector to make it appear as if it's somewhere else.

Darth_Shinji · Post by **Darth_Shinji** » 2002-07-08 09:51pm

Durandal wrote:
When you are talking about a ship that is powered by the fabric of reality and can destoy galaxies...... I disagree. Her sensors where called N-space sensors I have no idea how they work. It does mention that observation does affect the observed though.
Fancy technobabble won't get around the fact that subatomic particles don't exist as observable entities. They are wave functions.

some one already posted a good explanation on how it might work. This book was made before technobabble, and if a ship exists that can see atoms, or at least provide projections of one, then it can. Deal with it. science law is only law untill something disproves it.

You misread me. I meant could see a black hole a galaxy away. See also destroyed one by the way. Don't dis the authuor his novels are great.

You can't see a black hole. It is a singularity that doesn't exist in space. It can only be observed through its secondary effects. When the same star appears to be in 2 places at once from different vantage points, a black hole in the vicinity is bending the light along one vector to make it appear as if it's somewhere else.[/quote]

read above. why bother to post on this? It can. end of discussion. Now if you want to talk how it might actaully be possible. feel free to discuss.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Other SF planet killers!

Other Planet Busters

Re: Other Planet Busters

Planet Killers

Shadow Planet Killer

Anvil of Stars