User blog:Saren the Dark Lynx/Fictions greatest ways to commit planet busting

Colony Drop

The answer of the Anime Gundam franchise to smashing things with a fucking moon. When it was first introduced, it involved the resident Space Nazis, the Principality of Zeon, getting around the various treaties limiting the use of WMDs by inventing a new one. They filled the atmosphere of an O'Neill Space Colony full of residents they didn't like with nerve gas, then sent it on a collision course for Earth. While the intended target was the the Federation capital in the Americas, it was diverted away and hit Australia, basically butt fucking the continent out of existence in the process and causing billions of deaths in one strike. Later "colony drops" occurred throughout the franchise. Notably, Gundam X is set on an almost uninhabitable shit-hole-of-an-Earth that's been the victim of an entire barrage of colony drops killing off 99% of the planet's human population. In terms of dedicated weapons capable wiping out a planet, those are less common. Gundam SEED had likely the most powerful with the GENESIS, a giant gun that fired beams of radiation (which could be seen even though radiation is invisible) large enough to wipe out entire fleets of ships, and a direct hit on Earth would kill all life on it.

Samus

Deployment of a single female space marine on a xenos or chaos infested world. Though surprisingly effective, the High Lords of Terra and even the Inquisition have yet to formally sanction Samus's use as a method of Exterminatus. Mainly as she steadfastly claims that while she does leave the enemies of man as smoldering corpses, the planets, star ships, and space hulks blowing up afterwards usually isn't intentional. In fact with the planet Zebes, the destruction occurred because the of a bomb the Mother Brain triggered that destroyed the planet. Why anybody would include a bomb in their own base that would destroy the whole planet... it's a game made by Nintendo, don't question it.

Halo's Reality Fuckery

"This is the prototype NOVA Bomb, nine fusion warheads encased in lithium triteride armor. When detonated, it compresses its fissionable material to neutron-star density, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold. I am Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, temporarily in command of the UNSC military base Reach. To the Covenant uglies that might be listening, you have a few seconds to pray to your damned heathen gods. You all have a nice day in hell..." --Admiral Danforth Whitcomb's recording telling the Covenant about the NOVA bomb and the things that it does, seconds before detonation.

Pretty much any faction in Halo is capable of buttfucking a planet or entire star-system from the inside out. The Forerunners for example, pretty much turn Exterminatus into art. Their list of fucking up a Galaxy includes the following...ripping apart entire planets on what counts as "Private Security Infantry", reducing entire planets into ash with one shot of their point-defence guns on their weakest ships, flinging entire planets into Slipspace (Which reduce it to proto-matter), blowing up entire stars and solar-systems like popping candy with a single frigate, destroying entire proto-universes (We are not fucking around here) just to power up their engines and of course, the Galaxy-Busting Halo's themselves. And these are just the Forerunners, god forbid if we go into 'Silentium' Flood and the Precursors which pretty much cause reality, time and alternate universes to bend over and make the likes of Tzeentch look like a four year old brat in comparison (The Precursors still managed to lose in a strait out war with the Forerunners though, although it has been stated that it was intentional in the first place and they wanted to know what 'extinction' feels like... only to use said 'feelings' to eternally torment the Forerunners...because they are Dicks like that).

So literally, when we meant that anyone in Halo could make mother nature cry, we really meant it. Yes even the UNSC have it which is coincidentally named as the "NOVA Bomb"; these are literally the Death Star in a can, no kidding. To put this in a nutshell, when the UNSC finally realized that all shit is lost and NUKE IT FROM ORBIT! is all but useless, the UNSC high command issue to drop the NOVA bomb that blows apart the planet or moon and all unfortunate bastards to kingdom-come. Made of literally nine-nukes strap together by duct-tape (Which made many in /tg/ to wonder whether the UNSC hired Macgyver to construct their "Fuck You" bomb), these bombs are the size of a child (Fuck logic!) and can have a Slipspace drive attached to it, meaning that it could hit anywhere and anyone without difficulty. The only recorded activation of a NOVA bomb happened over a Covenant-controlled planet called Joyous Exultation. It was detonated when some engineers on the Covenant supercarrier Sublime Trascendence found the weapon and, disregarding the advice the grunt Kwassass gave them because he understood the message played, fixed some malfunctioning circuits. The explosion wiped out the entire fleet stationed in orbit, the only surviving ships being the ones on the other side of the planet and those that jumped just in time to avoid it, devastated the surface and shattered the nearby moon.

Glassing

Another planet killer from Halo (probably the most well known besides the Halos themselves), the Covenant are known to "Glass" an entire planet when they are feeling bored or being dicks about it. Similar to "Just Shoot the Shit Out of It", Glassing takes longer then the other Exterminatus weapons but the results are still roughly the same. Glassing is when Covenant ships uses their Energy Projector to literally burn the planets surface until it is but molten rock and ignite the atmosphere Cyclonic Torpedo style. But due to the amount of contradictions prominent in Halo, Glassing can go from being barely lighting a birthday candle to turning an entire planet into a giant crystal ball. This is really more due to the one leading the covenant fleet and how long they fired on the planet.

Star Wars Shenanigans

It is of no surprise that WH40K's fellow fantasy-sci-fi mashup Star Wars has its own methods of Exterminatus; then again Star Wars does predate Warhammer 40K and Rogue Trader. However, while 40k tends to depict a small number of "tried and true" tactics, the various cultures of the Star Wars universe, not limited by technical stagnation and general awfulness, invent new methods of devastating worlds all the time. (One is actually called the World Devastator.) Easily the most iconic one is the Death Star introduced in the very first film, which is a massive battle-station the size of a moon that can blow a planet apart in a single shot. Some of the weirder/cooler ones in the Expanded Universe include the World Devastators, which essentially land on planets and consume all matter before reproducing and moving on to other planets, the hilariously-phallic Galaxy Gun, which is essentially a planet-sized railgun, the Centerpoint Station, a giant tractor beam that can move entire planets, fire beams of energy to destroy fleets of starships, and supernova stars, and the Sun Crusher, the lovechild of an Old One's Blackstone Fortress and a UNSC NOVA bomb that, as its name implies, literally destroys suns from the other end of the galaxy. One other idea writers came up with is noticing the superlaser on the Death Star and deciding to make smaller scale versions of it, probably the most famous case being the Eclipse Super Star Destroyer which could crack a planet's crust open with it. Even a single Star Destroyer can turn the surface of an unshielded planet to molten slag, in a matter of mere hours.

In the original trilogy's timeline, the strategic use of these doomsday weapons to inspire fear and loyalty was referred to as the "Tarkin Doctrine," after Peter Cushing's character from the first film who funds the Death Star before being blown up on it in his moment of triumph. Abbadon, take note, for there but for the grace of your-various-dark-gods go you...

General Order 24

Despite being a bunch of NobleBright space hippies The United Federation of Planets do have their own Exterminatus and call it something really boring because they don't like to think about the "kill everything on a planet" part. It's in the "sterilize its surface" type and each Galaxy-class ship (including the iconic USS Enterprise) can solo the job. And since all of their starships are basically just cruise liners where colorful crewmen go to have wacky noblebright adventures with their families, it really speaks volumes about Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly and carry a big stick" proverb, and just how far the Feds out-tech their neighbors. Or they would if the writers didn't fuck with the firepower with the setting constantly, so the theory is that their guns for whatever reason loses a lot of punch when not used on planets and not at specific settings.

For specific weapons capable of wiping out a planet, the most famous is the Genesis Device, a torpedo like machine designed to terraform dead planets into inhabited ones. While not designed as a weapon, it's still had lots of potential as one since it completely transforms the planet's surface, meaning any lifeforms caught in it will be wiped out. That, and in Deep Space 9 Captain Sisko used chemical weapons to wipe out a human colony, and promised to keep doing so until the head of a terrorist organisation surrendered to him.

Trih Xeem

One of the things that the Pfhor found in the Jjaro tech cache is a weapon that roughly translates as "Early Nova". As the name suggests, it makes suns go supernova, consuming the nearest planets and burning those just outside of its reach. The Pfhor usually only use it on very serious slave revolts, and don't use often on pure military matters.

Protoss "Glassing"

Think of them as the more powerful version of the Covenant's glassing, while the Covenant only glass the crust of the planet, the Protoss glass right down to the mantle, although this is usually reserved for when complete Zerg infestation has enveloped the planet. This is usually the case because their voracious cousins have this annoying ability to burrow beneath the planet's surface, so if they just glassed the surface, any drones or larvae that survive by burrowing will be able to reinfest the planet again in short order. Very overpowered in their universe, but not something they like doing, since burning up valuable real-estate and cheesing off the redneck Terran neighbors isn't really their style.

Relay Destruction

Though the Mass Effect universe isn't known for flinging about weapons of mass destruction like certain other sci-fi universes, it does have a one or two share of destructive events and weapons. Most notably is the Mass Relay Network - This galaxy-wide system makes travel through the galaxy as easy as flying from New York to London, and is provided by the Relays themselves, who are basically unmanned space stations orbiting certain stars, who allow above light speed travel for vessels with Element Zero cores. This is not all there is to them, though - Most believe that the Relays are indestructible, but when Commander Shepard ends up having to destroy one with an asteroid to halt the Reaper's advance, the galaxy finally sees what the contained energy of these things can actually do. Long story short - The Relay explodes, destroying the entire system, including 300,000 batarian citizens. Although it does sound very impressive for a Colonial Marines-level universe, when you kind of take in the consideration that pretty much every single race in ME utterly depends on the Mass Relays (As well as being very limited in numbers) for long-distance transportation and what-not, and the fact that they're supposed to be nigh indestructable, it kind of ends up as a "Lesser of two evils" then the typical "I am taking you down with me!" scenario.

On the other hand we have the Krogan Genophage during the Krogan Rebellion, which was a genetic weapon of Salarian designed. During the Rebellion, the Turians deployed the genetic disease that makes only one out of a thousand Krogan live after birth. This could technically be considered a kind of 'Safe-Level exterminatus', but due to the Krogan breeding like rabbits and being both hard to kill and very long-lived (at least 1,000 years) and how easily they can hold a grudge, it ends up more Skubtastic then usual.

Fatal

No seriously. That's the name of the spell that destroys everything on whatever horrid planet the FATAL game takes place on. This being the FATAL world, it is a mercy to every inhabitant. It's even possible to cast this spell by accident which everyone hopes would happen.

Strike Legion

Um, it's easier to list what isn't an Exerminatus worthy implement in this setting. Not only do engagements with warships often lead to planets getting blown up, it's entirely possible to build something a human can carry to do the job, most notably the singularity grenades (tied with a the Strike Legion's missile launcher for strongest human portable weapon), which create a small black hole capable of destroying a small planet, and any warship in the game worth its salt (read, almost all of them) can survive this without taking any damage and do at least much without even using any big guns, and many of the giant robots (called Frames) carry weapons at least capable of wiping out planets, while the better armed ones can outright destroy them. The Strike Legionaries also a last resort weapon called the Ultimate Solution, a nanotech weapon stored in a ring, that's an obvious Genesis device, but like everything else in Strike Legion, it's taken up to insane degrees. Rather than just terraforming an area up to the size of a planet, this thing can affect areas up to a small star, and like Genesis, also wipes out anything caught its path, Legionaries included, after which the nanotech machines self-destruct. An example the use mentions a Strike Team using it turn an Imperial constructed Dyson Sphere into a black hole that wiped it, them, and the surrounding Imperial fleet. The weapon is so dangerous that only one Legionnaire per team carries one.

Doctor Who

Doctor Who's long history of the Earth being in danger of total destruction means it has a ton of these. The Dalek's are especially famous for them, building warships that can blow up planets, and even if they want to take a planet without blowing it up, in the revived show they still display weapons that physically deform entire continents. The most powerful is the Reality Bomb, which doesn't seem much like a bomb since it doesn't explode, instead is sends a wave that disable the fields that hold together the subatomic particles that form atoms. Using a number planets arranged a proper order in pocket universe, the Daleks intended to use this send out a wave that would destroy everything outside the pocket universe. This included everything in our universe, every alternate universe, and even the void between universes.

The Time Lords also display a number of this, including a brief mention of bombs that create black holes.

Gurren Lagann

Exterminatus level firepower is introduced in Gurren Lagann's every increasing level of combat mid way through the series, where it turns out the Anti-Spiral, after winning its war against the Spiral races, left a system on every planet in the universe to annihilate its inhabitants in the event its populace got to a certain number, and because it wanted to drive them to the point of absolute despair, it made sure that it was a cruel as possible in doing so. In humanity's case, it consisted of slamming the moon (which turned out actually be a planet size battleship in disguise while the real moon was hidden in a pocket dimension) into the Earth after a set period of time, but to be a dick it also sent hordes of killing machines to attack the Earth and pick off any survivors if they escaped. The battle sized ship in question was also capable, along with pretty much every weapon the Anti-Spiral had ready in its pocket universe, most of which included masses of planet sized machines that throw planets, and in when confronted by a galaxy sized mecha made of Spiral Energy, created one of its own to counter it.

Armageddon spell ( Ultima series )

Simple. It is a spell that destroy the world. It serves no practical purpose other than baiting player to use it. Unless you are a dick or just stupid, do not cast it.

DC and Marvel comics

those Everyone's favorite Superpowered Fictional Universes has xenos that can hits like Exterminatus, the most famous of these are Kryptonians