Slashdot Mirror
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!
mega maid/spaceball one has to be the single most potent weapon in the universe.
it is literally breathtaking.
liqbase
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"
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
/. 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.
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.
P-36 Explosive Space Modulator.
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
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.
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......
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.
Has everyone forgottten the Dalek Reality Bomb which was designed to destroy the entire Universe?
Smivs on the intertubes!
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!
"We have solid everdense that Eye-rack, heh heh heh, uh, 'scuse me, Eye-rack possesses a, er, Helo, er, Halo, Hello, er, sumthinerother. Halo my baby, Halo my darling, halo my, er, gonna bomb their asses. Gonna bomb their asses back to the, um, bombed age. Cuz' that's what happens when you threaten 'muricans with Hellos of Mass Destruction."
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.
Period. Best doomsday device ... if you're a webmaster who's website contains a page that's featured on /.
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.
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