Questions tagged [weapon-mass-destruction]
For questions that deal with weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
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How to "burn" Oxygen (Exterminatus) [duplicate]
A year ago, I asked on the possibility of Teller Nuclear Bombs, where the bomb is hot enough to fuse oxygen and cause a runway reaction that destroys Earth by using the air as "fusion material". This ...
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What could be used for orbital bombardment?
In my world Mars is fighting Earth. the problem is what would they (Mars and Earth) use for orbital bombardment. Things to know:
set in the early 2100s
both worlds are inhabited by humans
both have ...
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Why might a Death Star laser be red? [closed]
In the distant future, the Earth Federation decided to turn our Moon into a Death Star which has a powerful laser cannon which produces a high energy laser beam capable of obliterating a terrestrial ...
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How does Wildfire work?
Don't you just hate when Euron injures your pet dragons and perforates your fleet with a ballista?
Don't worry, all you need is a shipful of Wildfire and a very long fuse (or Mehdi Sadaghdar with ...
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Can Florida become an island?
I've been building a world set in the near future (decades/centuries) that includes Florida as an island. My intent was for a manmade or natural event to occur at or near the South Georgia Rift, but I ...
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How could hackers cause mass destruction to major cities using existing satellites?
Set in the modern day, I was wondering about a possible scenario in which some hackers gain control of many satellites, probably including those specifically for defense purposes, in order to wreak ...
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How could the most destructive spell work in my Barrier Magic?
The core concept is a bastardized fusion of utility fogs, and the magical barriers of witches from the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
Utility fogs are swarms of 100 micrometer robots, foglets, that ...
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What is a possible future weapon of mass destruction? [closed]
Instead of using nuclear weapons as a cause of an early civilization collapse (I feel like that's too generic), what are some alternative weapons that could trigger the start of a new era?
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Creating a Hard and Feasible Molecular Disrupting Beam
A common weapon in science fiction is the Molecular Disrupting Beam, which disintegrates anything caught by the beam into basic atoms and molecules with no wound or gash, more as if a portion of the ...
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Feasibility of Relativistic Artillery / Kill Vehicles
As far as it is known, Relativistic Kill Vehicles are a common weapon in science fiction and are rendered as powerful as nukes just due to their kinetic energy alone, a finite mass being propelled at ...
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Feasibility of Ordinatus' Hellfire Missiles
I was looking for special missiles that do more than just explode or release radiation, thus I looked at some of the harder Warhammer 40k weapons, until I came across the Hellfire Missile.
To ...
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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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The perfect weapon against humanity? [closed]
So, there are these fantastic creatures (dragons, unicorns and whatnot) they have the advantage in individual strength, but they're massively outclassed in terms of numbers, plus humans can achieve ...
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Feasibility of Neil’s Zero-Point Energy / False Vacuum Weapon [closed]
So, I have made two threads, one about the applications of Zero-Point Energy (which I had no results).
The second, about how to reduce the effects of Strangelets, or a better alternative to ...
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Nanomachines and deception are the essence of magic, how can I explain meteor showers and similar large-scale weather spells?
So, dragons have access to this thing, called word magic. Word-magic spells are typically need way more energy and processing power than regular magic, they also have nasty cool-down times. A dragon ...
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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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Feasibility of Warhammer 40k Weapons Part 2: Exterminatus
So the Plasma Cannon proved to be a bust, now to the next weapon, what which is commonly associated with 'Exterminatus', the Atmospheric Incineration Torpedo.
This bomb is far more powerful than a ...
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Feasibility of a Hydrogen Ion Weapon
I was searching on reddit for powerful theoretical weapons, until I came across an interesting response:
"Confine a bunch of hydrogen ions in a very small space. Then release them. The force they ...
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Feasibility of Larry Niven's Wunderland Treatymaker
So it seems that the Nuclear Handgun, Powergun and Absorbic Bomb have all been busted, but this one might be more interesting, Larry Niven's Wunderland Treatymaker.
Description of how the weapon (...
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Feasibility of The Absorbic Bomb from The Killing Star
I have come across a weapon by The Killing Star, which is called the Absorbic Bomb.
Apparently, it reverses the formula E = mc^2, of how matter is converted to energy during standard nuclear blasts, ...
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How could a Kraken create a realistic superweapon? [closed]
Context:
I'm currently writing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign in which the adventurers will have to defeat a Kraken that is bent on destroying civilization as we know it. However, simply destroying ...
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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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Biggest LEGO weapon [closed]
What would be the most powerful real weapon if we could have an infinite quantity of LEGO pieces.
Assume current types/models/etc version of LEGO's.
I was thinking about some as simple as a ...
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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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Is there a way the earth could be permanently without electronics? [duplicate]
I want a post apocalyptic earth setting, many thousands of years in the future where civilization has no ability to create electronics. I looked into emps, gamma rays, and solar bursts but nothing ...
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We need help with our xenoforming weapon of mass destruction
Our empire has been at the mercy of violent marauders who are not working with the Will of Dozin and instead trying to break away from our cosmic union. In our archives, we have found a xenoforming ...
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Kinetic weapons - establishing an upper limit when dealing with grey goo
This answer to my last question suggested, rightly, that there are targets dangerous, and large scale, enough that there is neither overkill nor spillover damage when it comes to attacking a planetary ...
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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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Could a Weapon of Mass Destruction, targeting only humans, be developed?
Specifically, if deployed on a town. The buildings, animals (flora and fauna) would be completely untouched, but not a single human would survive the blow.
Secondly, if this is possible, what gene, ...
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A weapon to rapidly change the Earth's atmosphere
I am seeking information and ideas from all you clever people.
What I am trying to imagine is a chemical reaction that would change Earths atmosphere rapidly into something else which would be more ...
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How to shrink the human population? [closed]
So I'm writing a post apocalyptic story. Basically, a war happens and after a solar storm there's very few human survivors on Earth. This world has "magic" crystals, rocks that emanate energy.
The ...
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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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A WMD whose destructive potential stops at the border of a country
In the Belgian comic book "De laatste Hollander" (en.: "The last of the Dutchmen"), an alien accidentally uses a WMD (a beam that lights up the entire country) to completely engulf the entire country ...
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A fast apocalypse with survivors, but very low chance of rebuilding [closed]
I need an event which could make the world go from "similar to today" to post-apocalyptic in one lifetime, preferably in 20-40 years.
It needs to happen fast, because I want to focus the story on ...
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What would happen to a modern skyscraper if it rains micro blackholes?
Set in present day New York City, an unknown spacecraft of alien origin expelled millions of micro blackholes each with the mass of a grape in the earth atmosphere. I like to know what happens if ...
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Tsar Bomba Red Forest [closed]
Since 1986, a thousand square miles of eastern Europe is off-limits to average people. That is because of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. Ironically, the fact that people aren't allowed in the ...
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Can a missile be disarmed mid-flight?
I have a humanoid creature in my world that can emit and sense waves similar to radar (sort of like a bat with echolocation) and it can also fly at supersonic speeds due to jet propulsion. Does ...
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Wormholes as Weapons of Mass Destruction
A wormhole (or Einstein–Rosen bridge) is a speculative structure
linking disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special
solution of the Einstein field equations solved using a Jacobian
...
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Destroying earth from light years(?) away [closed]
Consider a highly advanced civilization that is almost ON THE VERGE of developing futuristic (for us) technology like FTL travel. (I insist on the "on the verge" aspect, because I envision this ...
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Fortifications capable of withstanding atmosphere-clearing blast
On the Atomic Rockets site, there is a series of handy tables, the first of which is aptly named "The Boom Table", providing examples for a wide range of energy releases (in both Joules and TNT ...
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The Worldkillers - Method I: Oceans
This series will focus on a Worldkillers: a group of interstellar outlaws who specialize in destroying worlds.
Each question has the objective to explore a different way to kill a planet - a word ...
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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 would annihilate life on a planet but allow it to be habitable 1-10 years later? [duplicate]
I'm writing a fantasy/sci-fi story. Imagine an alien race, about as advanced as any sci-fi alien race has ever been depicted in any REALISTIC medium. They're gonna target an earth-like planet. I need ...
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Weaponising the Tesla earthquake machine or modern equivalent
In 1935 at his annual birthday party/press meeting a 79-year-old Tesla
related a story where he claimed a version of his mechanical
oscillator caused extreme vibrations in structures and even an
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Human caused disasters creating a whole new continent
So my world needs to be destroyed because of a variety of things.
New land masses would be created and destroyed and joined till we had a single continent.
In the future, people saw the possibility ...
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Apocalypse by Atomic Catalyst
This question is a continuation of Unprepared and Without a Homeworld.
The premise of this idea is that a substance called an Atomic Catalyst exists that can lower the temperature at which particles ...
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Suppose I have an Earth sized planet whose oceans are made of pure glass - what would be the effect of striking said oceans with nuclear bombs? [closed]
This question was prompted to me by my answer I gave to this question. In it I stated that an Earth sized planet would satisfy the criteria if it's oceans were made of glass or at least regions of ...
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How would a nuclear blast affect me? [closed]
We all know what's a nuclear bomb, but how would a nuclear bomb affect the human body, for example, let's say a nuclear bomb as powerful as The Fatman 1000m away from me, would I survive the blast? ...
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How to eliminate mankind: concentrated nukes or scattered ones?
Assume the entire governments of US and Russia are possessed by aliens from beyond to use nuclear weapons to exterminate the human race.
For now ignore the fact that there are may be more effective ...
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What is the Maximum Possible Destruction from One Keystroke? [closed]
You have unlimited access to all of the world's information. Source code, books, electronic information, monuments with text on them, tattoos with text, you name it. If it has information encoded has ...
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