Questions tagged [weapon-mass-destruction]
For questions that deal with weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
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The opposite to Worldbuilding: World Destruction
I am looking at different ways to destroy a planet - because a society within my setting wants to destroy a planet. I am assuming the planet is of a similar size and composition to the Earth just to ...
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Is it possible to kill all life on Earth?
Edit: It has been suggested that my question is a duplicate of What could humans do to render the earth uninhabitable?. That question only asks what would be necessary to make human life impossible. ...
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How to ignite the atmosphere?
Before the first nuclear weapon was dropped, a scientist (whose name has escaped me) had a thought: could it ignite the atmosphere? But this was during World War II, when they didn't have the maths it ...
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Anti Personel Radiation Incendary Long Fallout Orbital Onset Laser Sattelite
For a story I'm working on I'm designing a sattelite to take down infantry from orbit, but without the power to take down tanks or infrastructure. The goal would be to kill off a military base, or ...
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How would the inhabitants of one planet kill the inhabitants of the other?
Two planets rotate each other and are tidally locked. They are where earth is around a star nearly identical to the sun. One planet is much wetter, featuring oceans, swamps, jungles, and forests. The ...
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Building the Death Star with today's tech
I found an interesting Wikipedia article, quoted in an answer here.
I'm looking into writing a story where someone has built a Death Star. The purpose of this craft is important to the story (and the ...
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Klemperer rosette vs Relativistic Kill Vehicles
In the book The Killing Star, Relativistic Kill Vehicles (RKV) are described as the ultimate weapon.
They are described as impossible to stop, so that any civilization that develops them better ...
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How can I make an anti-matter "rod" warhead for interplanetary delivery?
In the story I'm writing, a civil war is fought between Earth and Mars. Although there is a huge orbital and ground war campaign, conditions deteriorate to the point where Earth decides to unleash the ...
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How much energy to destroy the crust of a planet?
In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode The Die is Cast. A planetary bombardment scene occured where 17 shots was stated to have destroyed 30% of a planet's crust. Now obviously that's a HUGE amount ...
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By what mechanism can lasers destroy an entire planet?
What circumstances must be met in order to destroy a planet with just a single laser beam hit?
If this is possible at all then, please, try to provide some possible details:
an approximate energy of ...
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How to be hidden from world for a year
Question inspired by a book I just finished: Dan Brown's Inferno
Suppose I am a wealthy billionaire who wants to hide from the outside world for a year.
Plot twist is, that the world's anti-...
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How far would I have to be from a nuclear detonation in space in order to survive it?
Assume someone detonates a Hiroshima-sized nuclear bomb in space. Since in space there's no air, the bomb will behave differently than on Earth. In particular, there will not be an air pressure wave, ...
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Restricting antimatter - practical rather than legal measures
Antimatter is relatively easy, but heinously expensive, to make using modern technology. I have two universes with the same problem; energy is free and for all practical purposes infinite, this should ...
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Deep Space bomber - Best bomb against Interstellar warship that is kilometers long in size
We have two opposing forces: the Democrats and the Imperialists.
Each one can field an armada of ships numbering millions in their fleets, supported by trillions- to a quadrillion person strong super ...
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With current technology, genetically modified virus able to end mankind
Description :
Even in the ⅩⅩth century, biological warfare was studying only existing diseases.
But recently we're able to modify viruses in order to cure genetic impairments. Would it be possible to ...
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How to make nukes useless?
I am currently trying to write a story about a World War 3, but the major issue I am having is the presence of nuclear weapons. I want the war to constantly escalate to a point where it becomes a ...
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What happens if I shot a blackhole pellet point blank at someone?
Imagine I had a sophisticated gun that is capable of producing a micro blackhole on contact with a target, that blackhole is designed to be completely evaporated as hawking radiation in exactly 1 ...
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Could we build and deploy a multi-gigaton nuclear bomb with today's technology?
Imagine you've somehow tranquilized or tied up Superman with a kryptonite rope or something, and the military wants to do a stress test so they can start building a series of anti-Superman bombs. So ...
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A weapon to attack the Solar System
Basis
We are in the universe we call our own, on the planet we call Earth, in the physics-set and known reality we assume. There is no flat-out "magic" or other things along those lines, so ...
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What will be the roles and strategies of big countries in the conflict between India and Pakistan? [closed]
Since the partition of British India in 1947 and creation of the modern republics of India and Pakistan, the two South Asian countries have been involved in four wars.
Relations between India and ...
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Planet loses its Core
What would happen to a planet if its core suddenly disappeared?
I'm talking instantly and without warning, gone. I'm not concerned with how scientifically accurate this would be, because I'm ...
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How would a nuclear blast on the moon affect its orbit? [duplicate]
Something I'm contemplating: If one faction destroys a large structure of an enemy faction with a nuclear device equivalent to a WWII atomic bomb on the moon. Would the force of the explosion be ...
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Azidoazide Azide Storage and Weaponization
AA (azidoazide azide) is a hyper-explosive 14 nitrogen molecule. My questions are: what are some theoretical ways to store it so it doesn't explode on you but on the enemy you throw it at, and what ...
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How to prevent superluminal traveling idiots from wrecking half of the universe?
Linked but not a duplicate of this question.
An example of the problem
During the last Star-Wars movie, I was dumbfounded by the sheer stupidity of admiral Holdo's move, during this particularly ...
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What weapon of mass destruction could theoretically vaporize a whole solar system?
I'm trying to engineer a scenario where a nation wipes out another's home solar system by vaporizing it into a cloud of gas nearly instantly and it engineers a huge controversy over how it happened ...
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Feasibility of H.G. Wells' Continuously-Exploding Atomic Bombs
I came across this interesting weapon by H.G. Wells, from his novel, The World Set Free, about a special type of atomic bomb that will explode indefinitely.
Here is a description on Wikipedia:
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Killing the majority of humanity for ecological reasons
There are a number of movies, books and TV shows where the villain wants to kill nearly everyone on the planet because of ecological concerns: there are too many humans, we're using the global ...
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Shooting an energy beam into the Sun (from the Earth) in order to destroy it
This question is about a fictional scenario where an evil suicidal scientist has built a high-energy weapon somewhere on earth. His intention is to shoot a beam of some form of energy (or high-energy ...
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How would we fare against an interstellar RKKV Attack? [closed]
In this hypothetical scenario, in the present day, astronomers detect an object entering the heliosphere, at a distance of roughly 90AU, from the direction of the Proxima Centauri system. Observations ...
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What sorts of powers would a superhero and supervillain need to (inadvertently) be knocking down skyscrapers?
A seminal event in a story I'm working on requires a tragedy that will kill hundreds (or maybe even low thousands) of innocent bystanders. This occurs in a large American city (I haven't chosen one ...
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Speculative weapon of mass destruction
In near future a global war wipes out most of humanity, leaving only a handful of survivors. Thousands of years later these survivors have adapted to lives in small pockets of the world still left ...
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What would be the outcome of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan?
As I asked in Previous Question about the role of countries in the conflict between India and Pakistan and most of the answers suggest that there is less chance of involvement of other countries, I ...
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How much energy does it take to fuse 1m$^3$ of seawater, and how much energy is released by that fusion?
So, assume that you have 1m$^3$ of normal Terran seawater you can adiabatically raise to an arbitrarily high pressure/temperature in situ (say, by compressing it with nuclear shockwaves from all ...
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Killing all adult people [closed]
My original idea is:
A group of scientists decides to kill all adult people (say people
over 18 years, include themselves) and leave the world for
children/youth, because the children are not ...
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Is it possible to build a black hole (kugelblitz) gun?
Assume that space warfare is dominated by gamma and x-ray lasers (Wakefield-Plasma and Free Electron Lasers) capable of killing targets several light-seconds away. Stealth in space is possible due to ...
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Why does a hypersonic missile need to cruise Earth at low altitude before hitting its mark?
Imagine a certain nation tested a hypersonic nuclear-capable missile and it was designed to make a few trips around the Earth at low altitude before striking the surface. Don't they need to worry ...
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Cons of Antimatter Weaponry
In the story I'm creating, a major weapon type of humanity will be Antimatter based weaponry. This is a fairly new technology, as antimatter production facilities have just reached the size and ...
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Why would non-kinetic weapons be used for orbital bombardment?
The space borne planetary invasion force is a staple of many Sci-fi genres and most space invasions face the need to destroy some, or all, ground based infrastructure from orbit in order to take over ...
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How to reduce the lethality of Strangelets?
So, as far as science fiction is concerned, Strangelets are very potent.
They are so stable that they convert normal matter into strangelets as well, 100% conversion, emitting gamma radiation in the ...
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How could a civilization with approx. 18th-century technology weaponise mined nuclear materials?
In a nutshell, what are the pre-requisites for having sailing ships fire nuclear cannonballs? The setting is entirely alternate-universe, so the available material can be a lot more naturally "primed" ...
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Effects of being hit by an object going at FTL speeds
This will be a question that I am fine with having less realism in. I was thinking of a weapon, like a spear, that can go at FTL (faster than light) speeds. To be clear, the spear is FTL due to ...
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Plausible way to send a moon crashing into the planet it's orbiting?
Obviously future tech is allowed, but I'm looking for a solution using technology as near as possible.
I would like to send a moon the size of Earth's moon crashing into a planet Earth's size. I ...
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How many people would survive the nuclear winter after a full-scale nuclear war, and where?
Could anyone could survive a nuclear war and all that follows?
I have read many things saying they would, and read other science-based answers, but they all talked about a nuclear war that was ...
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How to destroy a star system?
The admiral of a space fleet that belongs to a Type 3 civilization has been given orders to obliterate all planets within the habitable zone of a Sun like star.
Some of the planets have been ...
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Effects of a Moon-sized Sun-Cannon on Earth
Inspired by this answer, If that Lunar-plant is used as a weapon (pointed toward specific cities/forest/seas/lakes), how much damage it could really do? Is that able to burn cities, or anything?
I ...
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How fast is the shockwave of a nuclear bomb from 2-5m away?
Namely, would my superhero who can fly to the moon in minutes like Superman be able to outspeed the point-blank detonation of a nuclear bomb, thus defusing nearly all tension from any conflict not ...
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Antimatter Explosion Signature
The DoomFleet returns!
And this time, it's with a more "Conventional" weapon - That is, projectiles with an antimatter core. Ultra-simple explanation is they have a "small" amount of antimatter in ...
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How large must a solar furnace be in order to sweep a planets surface melting everything in its path?
To melt a planets surface erasing all traces of civilisation, I figured a solar furnace would do the trick. It is more elegant than nuking a planet, not to mention leaves no nuclear fallout. Perfect ...
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Is it possible to create a bomb powerful enough to wipe out all life on the planet?
Would it be possible to create a bomb powerful enough to turn the entire planet into an inhospitable wasteland devoid of life, with technology available to us right now?
Would this bomb be able to ...
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How much antimatter would we need in order to wipe out all humans, eradicate all animals and blow up the Earth?
Supposing we had many thousands of antimatter bombs (they can be detonated in many different locations), how much total antimatter would we need in order to wipe out all humans on Earth?
Supposing we ...
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