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The Best Fictional Doomsday Devices
Ostracus writes to tell us that Wired has an interesting summary of some of the best fictional doomsday devices. These devices have featured heavily in movies, television, and fiction; their list includes favorites from Dr. Strangelove to Futurama. What devices have they missed? "By the time Futurama's sci-fi satire hit the scene, creator Matt Groening had the doomsday-device shtick down. Case in point: the Spheroboom. This highly explosive space/time-bending device isn't just the prized jewel of the show's mad scientist, Professor Farnsworth. It also destroys anyone/anything not wearing a 'Doom-proof Platinum Vest.'"
It's a Wired slideshow, on 8 separate pages. If you value your time, don't even bother to RTFA. If you don't value your time, please try to find an "all on one page" version for the rest of us.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
ice-9: Maybe not intended to be a doomsday device, but it sure turned out to be one!
it was a nice weapon!
mega maid/spaceball one has to be the single most potent weapon in the universe.
it is literally breathtaking.
liqbase
from Return of Maxwell Smart. we'd all die from laughter...
The History Eraser Button from Ren and Stimpy, Hands Down.
Don't Touch It!!
You Fool.
There should be a moderation category "Dumbest Comment EVER"
Bush could have done with this a few years back or what?
Or the original T-101, if you wanna get technical. Kind of a chicken and egg thing going on there though . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_(TOS_episode) Overview: The starship Enterprise plays a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with an alien planet-killing machine. Come on if you cannot list a Star Trek episode where is the geek cred?
ACK
the bush administration
oh, you said fictional
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Lexx, The most powerful spaceship in the two universes.
Simply known as 'Lexx's weapon' that is powerful enough to be a planet killer.
The Lexx is a bio-engineered, Manhattan-sized, planet-destroying, bioship in the shape of a giant wingless dragonfly, or to the remotely Freudian eye, a phallus. It was grown by ingesting organ collections from the protein bank on the Cluster, the seat of the Divine Order, for use by His Divine Shadow. The Lexx was originally intended as the ultimate deterrent: the threat of a weapon that could instantly obliterate any planet would keep the remaining "Heretic" worlds of the Light Universe in line, and those that refused to capitulate would be summarily destroyed to reinforce the point. This plan was foiled when the crew commandeered it to escape from the Cluster.
The most important function of the Lexx is its ability to destroy entire planets with a single, high-powered blast. Its primary â" and only â" weapon is initiated by command from the captain only, followed by a highly dramatic sequence when the Ocular Parabola found on the surface of its eye tissue flips from a smooth surfaced dome into a complex array of satellite dish-like structures. Huge amounts of yellowish-orange particles are released en masse from the array and focused by Lexx's nervous system to a point just above its mouth. Once focused, the particles burst into a massive, forward-moving, planar wave which expands ahead of the Lexx exponentially until colliding with an object of sufficient mass to disperse it, usually a planet. The wave instantly vaporizes smaller ships without losing momentum. Though the Lexx is designed to destroy entire planets, it can fire less intense blasts to hit smaller targets; however, the smallest area it seems capable of destroying is roughly the size of an entire city.
A special living energy being known as the "key" is required to control the Lexx, and it will usually only respond to the one who has it. A special holographic hand-scanner on the bridge confirms that the captain of the ship possesses the key, but after this point the captain can control the Lexx through voice commands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexx
/. had for long been one of the last holdouts against this type of "journalistic" garbage.
glad to see you lasted so long, guys. sad to see you give in and publicize this useless junk.
articles like this with absolutely no substance at all don't belong here. i may as well just go look at reddit or fark for this type of stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_devices_in_popular_culture
You missed the funniest joke in the world!!!!
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Surprised no one has mentioned the 'Ray Gun' from Atlas Shrugged?
Ashraya
Spaceballs Mega Maid! What could strike more fear in a population than a giant space-maid with a vacuum cleaner than could suck all the air out of a planet?!
Let the 'suck' jokes commence.....
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
P-36 Explosive Space Modulator.
The grande finale of Farscape http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Image:PKW2.jpg
3 Taco Bell burritos and a six-pack of Old Milwaukee. Devastation on a cosmological scale.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
... it has a countdown on an LCD, and a big red button.
In Babylon-5 Harlan Ellison came up with mass drivers as an immoral weapon of mass-destruction on a planet-wide scale. The idea is that you grab nearby asteroids and bombard a habitated planet with them at very high speed. Not only does it indiscriminately kill the population, but the dust kicked up prevents proper plant growth over the entire planet for years, perhaps decades.
Am I the only one to read that subject line as, The Best Functional Doomsday Devices?
The best doomsday device has to be the Shadow planet killer. Why? Because jms forecast cloud computing could destroy the world *years* before RMS came out with the idea. ;)
Global Warming was the greatest Doomsday threat. So, the ultimate Carbon Generator....Obama's Oratory!
...behind Dr Fred Edison's mansion.
"I feel like I could... like I could... 'Take on the world!'"
Controlled grid fire (the unimaginable energies of the interuniversal boundaries) from Iain M. Banks "Culture" novels. Okay, you have to buy into his admittedly totally made-up hyperspatial structure of the universe(s), but it's undeniably cool.
*sigh* you beat me to it. It's sad how pretty much all of them were "the big huge nuclear laser device". Why not just include Dr Evil's "Giant Laser"? Dark Reign had the desiccator - a catalyst that destroyed all water on the planet. The Reality Dysfuntion had so many doomsday devices (the amok humans, the device, swarms of nukes, Lanton's stunts) I lost count (and I've only read the first book in the series). The Neverending Story had the Blight - that was cool. Jurassic Park had raptors (not strictly a doomsday device, but I think there someone at the NO IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
If you're going to post these silly lists, at least point out the glaring omission of Skynet.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The Ultimate Weapon, designed by Hactar, the computer built by the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax.
How could you forget the Krikkit Wars?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Global Warming.
Oh, sorry, I thought this was a /. poll.
Didn't we have one just like this a couple of weeks ago? I'll just have to settle for Dupe! then.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Wasn't Vista engineered to be a doomsday device ?
Not fictional in and of itself, but as a doomsday device it is.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
If you ever watched Hellraiser, certainly the best doomsday device would be the puzzle box
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
The Amarr Titan unleashes JUDGEMENT
No Happy Fun Ball?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
why not just put a blank entry onto Slashdot? It would be better than reading all this drivel...
In his novel, Rainbow Six, eco-terrorists design a virus which will wipe out all of humanity and plan to release it by spreading it at the Olympics. The athletes will take it back home to the host country, where it will multiply and kill everyone (except for the ecoterrorists, of course, who will live in a biosphere).
It's a nasty concept, made all the worse because it's not unachievable.
I always thought the Anomaly from the series finale of Star Trek TNG All Good Things... was brilliant. Something caused in the future, growing larger backwards through time to eventually (??) cause humanity to never have existed in the first place. Awesome.
Has everyone forgottten the Dalek Reality Bomb which was designed to destroy the entire Universe?
Smivs on the intertubes!
Doomsday device. Hm... how about subprime collateralized debt obligations?
Oh, that's not really science fiction any more. Right.
AKA the Political Machine.
planting the seeds of world wide depression leading to a Mad Max like dystopian future.
Had to do it.
Intimidation does not make it true. Consensus does not make it true. Flaming every documented example that contradicts the view does not make it true.
was described as "the best Bang since the Big One" by Eccentrica Gallumbits. Does he count?
And what about the Daleks?
Mind you, voting Bush in for a second term was a pretty close call for Doomsday as well....
From the end of the fourth season of the revived Doctor Who . . . The Osterhagen keys, when enough are presented at disparate sites, unlock the detonator to a set of nuclear devices implanted in the Earth's crust. Its purpose is to terminate the entire planet if the suffering of humankind is a fate worse than death.
www.wavefront-av.com
The robot from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951).
Any device that failed to work.
Maybe the headline should have been "the worst"?
In any event, nature will take care of things sooner or later.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Don't forget the professor's Universe-in-a-box, which ended up containing our own universe at the conclusion of the episode. Imagine that - a simple cardboard box that could destroy reality as we know it, simply by being tossed into the recycling bin. Seems like the practice meant to save the environment is going to doom us all in the end!
As a geek in his late thirties, I can't hear the words "Doomsday Device" without thinking of "Doomsday is Tomorrow" and the ultimately fictional doomsday device created by Dr. Elijah Cooper, and managed by our favorite old supercomputer, ALEX 7000. And I know that I'm not alone.
(For you rugrats out there, read what I'm talking about here on imdb and then check out this amazing fan trailer created years later.)
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
The Lazy guns from 'Against a Dark Backgound' are pretty amusing superweapons, far from his best book though. From the link:'The Lazy Gun is the only weapon known to display a sense of humour.'
Why has no one mentioned the various Exterminatus methods from Warhammer 40k? Virus bombs that wipe out populations and burn atmospheres, orbital bombardments from ships the size of planets, etc. Oh, and any weapon from Paranoia has the potential to be a doomsday weapon. Plasma Generators, Probability Grenades, Soda cans (Bouncy Bubble Beverage, or as it's known in-game, B3), etc.
Power corrrupts..
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely..
But it rocks absolutely too.
http://despair.com/power.html
From the mouse that roared.
Vogon Constructor Fleet?
Created by earth scientist Durand Durand in Barbarella. I, for one, don't want to be deminimalized into the fourth dimension, or whatever it was that it was supposed to do.
This is the best restaurant I ever eat in
Anyone actually watch the Extended Director's Cut (DVD) of James Cameron's "The Abyss"?
(Mental Note: Do not piss off the deep sea dwelling aliens... Check!)
The best doomsday device, is not necessarily the one you have, but the one your enemy THINKS you have.
http://home.jps.net/~lsnyder/12_tick.html
Infinity Ball, The: The Infinity Ball is a fearsome device used by the Hey Empire. It resembles a sideways 8 ball and doesn't look menacing at all. It is powerful though. The ball has telekinetic powers, is extremely fast, and squeaks when it moves. It even has hyperspace technology built in. The Whats are extremely afraid of the Infinity Ball. They were chased across the universe by the little engine of destruction. When The Tick destroyed the Hey's attempts of bringing forth a universe ending cataclysm, he was attacked by the Infinity Ball. The ball crashed into the heroes chest, falling to the ground after impact. The most devastating weapon in the Hey's arsenal proved to be less devastating then it was once believed to be. In fact, it was pretty lame.
Now, now. Slashdot's had plenty of "top ten" lists. All of them's been meant to be light entertainment. The "substance" to them is that they promote discussion. Usually by someone complaining their favorite isn't included.
My favorite SF comic writer tells the story of a several billion year old computer that designed and created a small device that looks exactly like a cricket ball, activated on impact with a cricket bat, that will in fact connect the centers of all major stars through hyperspace, turning the whole universe into one big massive black hole. It is about to be flung from the hand of unsuspecting anti-hero Arthur Dent, when....
I'm not sure what the device was called. It is possible that it doesn't even have a name.
The computer designed it in first place because its owners asked it too, then they decided they didn't want to destroy the universe after all, and instead pulverized the computer. But that didn't completely disable it, and it felt a bit cross because of it, so it decided to destroy the universe anyway, by starting the Cricket War.
assignment != equality != identity
in the book Deep Storm. the weapon is not named per-say, but the idea is, you have two black holes. one composed entirely of anti mater, and the other, of its opposite normal mater. these two black holes. through means not understood by humans in the book, are locked in orbit around one another. it is learned by the end of the book, that these black holes are weapons, and whatever it is that keeps them orbiting each other can be turned off, allowing them to merge. the results of this of course, are on the order of the destruction of solar systems at minimum. this is the best one i've ever heard of.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Saberhagen - Berserkers!
Period. Best doomsday device ... if you're a webmaster who's website contains a page that's featured on /.
.... what was that?
AAAARRRRRGGGH!!!!! Zerg!
KABOOM!!!!!
Damn it, always lose my Science vessel when I need it the most.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lensman
From Brain Candy
A much better list, if only because it is presented on one page!
Though, I can't say I agree with the amount of Zoids or Transformers stuff on there. At least it has the Doomsday Machine from Start Trek.
Slashdot is a pretty cool guy eh posts dupes and doesn't afraid of anything.
This is the War-Room!"
"I drank what?" -Socrates
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -Mark Twain
The Reality Dysfuntion had so many doomsday devices (the amok humans, the device, swarms of nukes, Lanton's stunts) I lost count (and I've only read the first book in the series).
Not to spoil anything, but there's one hell of a doomsday device at the end. Plus a couple more along the way... and why the heck haven't you read the last two yet?
"If you unscrew Bill Gates' navel will the bottom fall out of the software market?"
Anyone remember the godawful movie "Star Crash"? The doomsday device was called "The DOOM Machine". No, really, I'm serious. The bad guy pronounced it with caps and all.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
What about Unicron? He would eat the death star for breakfast. And shit it out by lunch.
I like planet eaters!
In the novel Manifold, Time it's discovered that Venus once supported life, but the planet was encircled in superconducting electromagnets and its molten core "spun down", causing the loss of its magnetic field and hence its oxygen atmosphere.
Not really a device, but the photino birds weren't very good for the universe either.
Hang on a minute?
Peak Oil, Global Warming, New World Order, 9/11 Conspiracy Theories. :)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Maybe this is the wrong crowd for this, but in the Marvel Comics universe there is a character who is an elemental force of death who calmly goes through the universe devouring planets. His name is Galactus, and the Silver Surfer is one of his "heralds". Both characters of epic amounts of cool. Osh
None of those movie things ever started a real war and collapsed an economy. Bush's fiction wins.
The last book ends with a Deus ex machina. That went out of fashion in ancient Greece, because even back then, it was massively lame.
Although it is unlikely to destroy the universe, it might come close to destroying the world. Children raised on process food so they have an allergic real any real foods(I am amazed to see mac and fake cheese replace peanut butter). Children so used to conditioned air and antiseptic living that any hint of the outside causing immediate near fatal conditions. We are mere years away from becoming unable to survive in our own world.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
what about the descolada from Enders Saga?
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
Ice Nine always struck me as the ultimate doomsday device ...
It is a thinly veiled Quantum of Solace promo. Because, there are not enough of those already.
From TFA:
Love affair-turbulent-popular-James Bond-love-feel safe-exhilarating.
PAUSE
The opening of Quantum of Solace on Friday-nostalgic-fun.
Subliminal much?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
or Molecular Distruption Device from Orson Scott Card's books about Ender is pretty scary too...
Corbomite is the best fictional doomsday device EVER!
It was a fictional device x 2. It was even fictional in the fictional story.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The ever more potent weapons of Doc Smith's Lensmen. First the Sunbeam, where the entire solar system is turned into a vacuum tube and the suns output is focused into a single beam. Then we have the Negasphere, a planetary sized chunk of anti-matter you toss at an enemy planet (with a tractor beam, because it's antimatter, see). The Nutcracker, two planets from another dimension, travelling in opposite directions, both exceeding the speed of light and then collided with the enemy planet in between. His ultimate weapon is so cool, I won't give it away, just in case you haven't read the books. You should read the books, if only to see who was playing with these ideas about 50 years before Lucas did Star Wars.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Toss one planet into another. Or, if you *really* need Force, grab a planet from a parallel universe where the *slowest* you can go is the speed of light, and toss it back into our universe at the planet of the Evil Ploor and its sun.
It go boom....
mark
"My name is Kimball Kinnison
I lead the Lensman band
Although we're few in numbers,
Our abilities are grand.
We play with stars and comets,
Catch planets in a net
And use a supernova
To light our cigarette"
- Poul Anderson
Oh, wait. Did you say fictional? Dang!
The Annihilatrix, oh wait, you wanted the best, not completely rock bottom worst.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisky_Dingo
"No force on earth is a match for...NATURE...GONE...MAD! Mwahahahahahahahaaaa!"
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The Anhiliatrix. End of Discussion.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
How is Killface's "Welcome to You're Doom!!!" machine not on the list?
Every single one of his inventions were genuinely evil and unique, but the one that comes to mind is the water-sucker machine. A machine that if turned on would suck up all the water in the world.
I put my vote on the neutronium and antineutronium pieces from The Forge of God.
Quitters never win, Winners never quit, But those who never win and never quit are idiots.
Doomsday? Howzabout eternal, slow, remorseless decay without regard to good or evil.
Klaatu barada nikto !
This is a pretty light-weight list. It concentrates on movies and T.V -- apparently the current generation is assumed not to read fiction. I recommend to those who actually do read, _The Forge of God_ by Greg Bear -- where the Earth is destroyed using some rather exotic physics.
... The Infinity Ball!
Although...we've got those on Earth! We hit them into little pockets with sticks! And we got higher numbers, too.
And because I destroyed their most devastating weapon, which turned out to be pretty lame, the entire population began to worship me, like unto a god!
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
How about the Andromeda Ascendant's nova bombs? That ship could wipe out an entire system in one fell swoop!
Anyone knows the only doomsday device worth talking about is Cobalt Thorium G.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
In Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross a group iron bombs a sun. Quite a cool concept ;)
. . .Jurassic Park had raptors (not strictly a doomsday device, but I think there someone at the NO IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
"Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to type 'NO IT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'. He'd just say it!"
"Perhaps he was dictating."
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Madagascar would be safe as a result of closing their borders.
[Google 'Pandemic 2' for reference].
For the best doomsday devices take a look at E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series. Pure energy power beams, blasters, Inertialess planets sent smashing into other planets. Nega-spheres, sun-beams, planets from alternative universes that allow faster than light speeds sent through hyper-spatial tubes to ignite supernovae. The accumulated power of billions of entities' thoughts focused by the Arisians on the home planet of the evil Eddorians! Now those are doomsday devices!!
Anyone remember C.S. Lewis's hammer and bell from the Magician's Nephew? Of course a little magic goes a long way but this is a fictional list right?
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/DigorysBell.html
"Just tell em Large Marge sent ya." -Large Marge, (the Ghost)
Of course I didn't RTFM either so I came up with my own list:
Mass Drivers -- Babylon 5
Vorlon Planet killer -- Babylon 5
Shadow Planet killer -- Babylon 5
Wormhole weapon -- Farscape
Doomsday machine -- Star Trek TOS
Borg -- Star Trek (all except TOS)
Doomsday device -- Dr. Strangelove
Sarah Palin -- Governor Alaska.
How about the Guide v2, the one at the end of the series that makes reality collapse in on itself in the end and can manipulate time at any point :) Better than the silly Krikkit weapon :)
cb_is_cool knows where his towel is.
Funny, I read it as:
doomsday turbulent danger cynicism world-ending disasters apocalyptic
opening of Quantum of Solace on Friday catastrophic fear doomsday extinction-bringing
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The Altair IV Krell supercomputer. The entire race was wiped out overnight when the machine was activated.
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
They forgot the supernove bomb form HHGTG...
The only doomsday device that was able to destoy the universe...
Maybe they can't read.
Any list of bests that includes any mention of The Core automatically loses all credibility.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
You just don't get it here. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_(TOS_episode)
Galen's Single-term equation.
From the Babylon 5 books: The Passing of the Techno-mages.
Knowledge is power. If there's enough knowledge it could be used to destroy the world. So encourage ignorance at every opportunity!
Bow-ties are cool.
The Large Hadron Collider, but no one believes me!
What about Halo? A device intended to sterilize the galaxy counts in my books.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
A republican vote.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Synthetic Collateralized Debt Obligations. They track real debt, but are completely made up. Look what they've done to us already.
The MD Device, also known as the Little Doctor
I wouldn't mind you in my head, if you weren't so clearly mad -Lews Therin Telamon
Nothing beat a huge laser poiting to the planet core.
-Woof woof woof!
Welcome to my new Empire
Stand witness Timelord, stand witness humans.
Your strategies have failed, your weapons are useless, and oh ... the end of the universe has come.
Now, detonate the reality bomb !!!
Wasn't that just in the movie version?
No, after all, Earth had to be attacked to cause Johnny to go to war. And his hometown still had to be annihilated for the plot device at the end
No, I know Buenos Aires was destroyed and Johnny's mom died - I just thought the idea of it being specifically by mass-driver bombardment was something that was from the movie and not the book.
In the anime, I remember the bugs came down to Buenos Aires personally - but I can't remember how it went down in the book.
Bow-ties are cool.
wtg another rtfa winner!
From the Fantastic Four comics in the 60s, and what should have been in the movie sequel. Someone threatening to eat your planet? Confront them with the Ultimate Nullifier!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Nullifier
What about the Genesis Device?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/13/darpa_aware_ware_srs_go/
Of course, nobody would be stupid enough to build these even if offered a lucrative government contract. Oh, wait ...
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
> This highly explosive space/time-bending device
> isn't just the prized jewel of the show's mad
> scientist, professor Farnsworth. It also
> destroys anyone/anything not wearing a
> 'Doom-proof Platinum Vest.'"
Damn! I heard that in Professor Farnsworth's
own voice. On the first read-through!
From the Star Trek episode of the same name!
OK, OK, so it looked like a giant space-turd ice cream cone with cheesy laser effects. And maybe it was only so great because it got both William Shatner and William Windom chewing the scenery at the same time. But anything that can bring out that much overacting must be a formidable weapon. Plus the story idea came from a real Sci-Fi writer - Fred Saberhagen.
That is all.
I can't believe that everyone is forgetting their Dune.
If you put a water bomb on top of a pre-spice mass, it starts a chain reaction which kills all the worms and destroys all the spice forever. Without the Spice there is no space travel. And everyone dies from withdrawal.
The Dimensional Cannon from Tenchi in Love destroys galaxies and has the coolest setup for a weapon I've seen yet.
How come all forgot about LHC?
They hang in the air much in the same way that bricks don't.
Why stop at just destroying a planet, or even a star system - why not destroy the structure of space itself.
In both Greg Egan's "Schild's Ladder" and Joe Haldeman's "Forever Peace" by technobabble means we managed (or were about to manage) to create a false vacuum state that was actually more stable than the real vacuum state in our universe. Once created, this false vacuum began (or would begin) cannibalizing our own space, turning it into its own. Kind of like what the Genesis Device wanted to do in ST2-WoK, but much more thoroughly.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Because what good is a doomsday device unless it can transform into a giant robot that shoots lasers?
How about the Continuum Transfunctioner? After all, it's a mysterious and powerful device whose mystery is only exceeded by its power. And it makes hot chicks with really big hoo-hoos very angry.
does not read.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concepts_in_the_Ender%27s_Game_series#Molecular_Disruption_Device
enderandrew? lordender? Back me up on this one.
Replicators! Tiny machines that replicate themselves and devour technology and assimilate it!
Geeky AND dangerous!
in b4 Wall Street / CDOs.
If you're going with bioweapons, I always rather liked the idea of Rat War, as used in "The Ballad of Halo Jones". Banned by interstellar peace conventions, the Rat War technique used a hive mind "Rat King" to control the rat population of a whole planet. The rats were used both to carry lethal diseases, and to attack in groups and eat any remaining population.
Comment title refers to a 1965 movie of that name. Several flasks are stolen from a bioweapons lab, most of them contain a virus tailored to last only about 24 hours, the named bug wipes out everyone.
-- Alastair
Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.
You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.
Fools.
The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.
Now that you say that, I remember it. My apologies to Harlan Ellison. (The joke may even work better with you!)
The molecular detachment device - which essentially disrupts the molecule's bonds until it dissolves into it's component atoms. Each dissolution propagates the wave onto adjacent matter, causing more bonds to be disrupted until nothing larger than an atom is left.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
CDS's & CDO's (Credit Default Swaps & Collateralized Debt Obligations)...
Sweeping through the galaxy at 8,000 year intervals, programed to destroy the surface of any planet or moon with straight lines and angles. The unknown purpose of these mysterious clouds seems to be either to destroy any technological civilizations, or possibly create novas as an artwork. Excellent stories. Would make good movies. Real craft with mystery and suspense - not common. Since someone already beat me with the Higgs.
Wot, no Douglas Adams? Life, the Universe and Everything.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Definitly the coolest doomsday-machine is a time-stopping device. There is no way to make time running again.
We used a handy remote with a big red button marked "stop time" as a plot-device in a LARP; and of course someone pushed it...
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
A telepathy ray that would let all the women in the world know what all the men in the world are actually thinking about. The whole species would go extinct in a single generation.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Doomsday devices? Marvel has hundreds of them. Popular examples are the Infinity Gauntlet, the Cosmic Cube, M'Kraan Crystal, or the Ultimate Nullifier, the legacy virus, ; but some people there (A.I.M. anyone?) are allways building them. There are beings entirely designed as living doomsday devices, for example, Terminus and the Overmind.
A lot of devices became Doomsday Machines: the Sentinels, the Starbrand...
And you can't forget beings as Galactus, planet destroyer for a living, or the Living Tribunal, who erases entire universes from existence.
And there are lots of magic ones (Casket of Ancient Winters?), if you count them.