The Extra-Solar Union of Systems Archive

Alright, the GFFA is currently discussing glassing worlds wholesale. Assuming cooler heads don't prevail (and it looks like they won't), we will most certainly have to retaliate in kind. So, I want to know what planet-killing capacities we have on hand so that we can coordinate strikes. Of course, some of yours are more obvious than others (everything on CF's capships come to mind).

Otagian Planet-Killers- The Malkavian Doctor: Essentially Doctor Device from Ender's Game. Converts planets and/or fleets to energy, uses energy to expand the area of effect of the weapon.

Mindsetti Planet-Killers- Kinetic Harpoons: Pea sized mega dense neutronium kinetic slugs dropped from orbit. Imagine the dinosaur-killing asteroid. Then magnify the destruction by a thousand, since the pellets are so small they pass straight through the crust and out the other side, then gravity pulls it back, so it continually pummels the planet until finally settling in equilibrium at the core. Also possessed by the Metallinautsi military.

Facehuggerian Planet killers:
Assorted nerve gasses -Not really PKing except when used in mass quantities, but they are here for completeness.
1 Broadside volley from a Facehuggerian destroyer. -Self obvious.
A flight of flying crowbars -Imagine a radiation-spewing nuclear cruise missile. Which drops dirty nuclear bombs everywhere it goes. A flight is several thousand of these suckers, and is used to wreak immense ecological damage.
Core detonators -As the name implies, these are set up on the ground and basically involve firing a deegun to the planet's core and dropping a sufficiently powerful bomb down it. Molten hot magma for the entire family!
Big asteroids -An instant classic.
Ramming speed! -As above, but more amusing.
Pathogen bombing -Not technically a planetkiller in of itself, pathogen bombing mutates organic life it comes into contact with, ala all those fifties movies you saw with the giant killer cockroaches. The idea being to make the environment more hostile. Typically used in sieges.
'Genebuster' Virus bombing -Attacks the chemicals which make up DNA and RNA.
Carpet nuking -Ahh, the old standby.

Facehuggerian planet destroyers: (IE turn it into a free-floating asteroid field, or simply erase it)
The main gun on any Facehuggerian capital ship. -Self obvious.
Deeburst torpedoes -A new weapon which basically generates an enormous deegun pulse in its area of effect, destroying unshielded ships, facilities... even planets if the warhead is large enough.
Fuel harvesting operations -Self obvious.

Facehuggerian system destroyers:
Nova bombs -Carried by 'Terminator' strike fighters, Nova bombs allow a Facehuggerian force to erase target systems cleanly and efficiently. Considered strategic weapons, and require authorization by a Star-General to use.

Godulan Planet Killer
Guiding Light- This weapon generates a White Hole, which immediately explodes under the strain of its own anti-gravitational pull. This creates a tremendous shockwave of gravitonic concussion which, if generated in close proximity to a planet or other celestial body, performs the equivalent of sandblasting it clean and might also send the world out of orbit like a billiard ball struck by the Cue.

Key consideration: The Godulans hate Genocide, and so this weapon sees more use as an area-effect weapon in fleet engagements.

Metallinauts has Mindsetti kinetic harpoons at his disposal. They're basically pea sized mega dense neutronium kinetic slugs dropped from orbit. Imagine the dinosaur-killing asteroid. Then magnify the destruction by a thousand, since the pellets are so small they pass straight through the crust and out the other side, then gravity pulls it back, so it continually pummels the planet until finally settling in equilibrium at the core.

They'll turn a planet into molten slag without actually destroying its resources or irradiating its surface.

blaesa wrote:Alright, the GFFA is currently discussing glassing worlds wholesale.

By 'the GFFA', do you mean 'me telling them to start a'killin' stuff'?

Glassing worlds wholesale? That would be a very bad idea for them.

Facehuggerian Planet killers:
Assorted nerve gasses -Not really PKing except when used in mass quantities, but they are here for completeness.
1 Broadside volley from a Facehuggerian destroyer. -Self obvious.
A flight of flying crowbars -Imagine a radiation-spewing nuclear cruise missile. Which drops dirty nuclear bombs everywhere it goes. A flight is several thousand of these suckers, and is used to wreak immense ecological damage.
Core detonators -As the name implies, these are set up on the ground and basically involve firing a deegun to the planet's core and dropping a sufficiently powerful bomb down it. Molten hot magma for the entire family!
Big asteroids -An instant classic.
Ramming speed! -As above, but more amusing.
Pathogen bombing -Not technically a planetkiller in of itself, pathogen bombing mutates organic life it comes into contact with, ala all those fifties movies you saw with the giant killer cockroaches. The idea being to make the environment more hostile. Typically used in sieges.
'Genebuster' Virus bombing -Attacks the chemicals which make up DNA and RNA.
Carpet nuking -Ahh, the old standby.

Facehuggerian planet destroyers: (IE turn it into a free-floating asteroid field, or simply erase it)
The main gun on any Facehuggerian capital ship. -Self obvious.
Deeburst torpedoes -A new weapon which basically generates an enormous deegun pulse in its area of effect, destroying unshielded ships, facilities... even planets if the warhead is large enough.
Fuel harvesting operations -Self obvious.

Facehuggerian system destroyers:
Nova bombs -Carried by 'Terminator' strike fighters, Nova bombs allow a Facehuggerian force to erase target systems cleanly and efficiently. Considered strategic weapons, and require authorization by a Star-General to use.

Edit: There is more, but they're almost never used because they're so inefficient. An example of one of these esoteric methods would be launching a planet into a black hole, hijacking a neutron star and ramming it into the planet... you get the picture. Wasteful and slow.

Very amusing, though.

Hyperspatial Travel wrote:

blaesa wrote:Alright, the GFFA is currently discussing glassing worlds wholesale.

By 'the GFFA', do you mean 'me telling them to start a'killin' stuff'?

Mostly, yes. But I'm rather worried by the fact that they're seeming to agree with you...

Godulan Planet Killer (Not Yet Used In Combat Conditions)

Guiding Light

This weapon generates a White Hole, which immediately explodes under the strain of its own anti-gravitational pull. This creates a tremendous shockwave of gravitonic concussion which, if generated in close proximity to a planet or other celestial body, performs the equivalent of sandblasting it clean and might also send the world out of orbit like a billiard ball struck by the Cue.

Key consideration: The Godulans hate Genocide, and so this weapon sees more use as an area-effect weapon in fleet engagements.

There are so many ways to make worlds uninhabitable they are almost too numerous to mention. Here are some classics:

Establish a wormhole between the target world and a gas giant allowing the hydrogen gas to flood the target. Any spark will ingite the atmosphere resulting in a majority of the oxygen to combine with the hydrogen in a big boom.

Establish a wormhole between the target and it's star. Syphoning some of the chronosphere into the planetary envelope will cause slight problems.

Do the same with the core of the planet and roast it from within. The radiation would also make things a bit nasty.

Another way to irradiate a world would be to cause a super flare with a large bomb in the cronosphere of its star. That would provide quite a spectacular propaganda video.

The use of a singularity to remove the atmosphere. Flaming Souls contracted me to do such a thing to one of his gas giants so he could mine the core a while back so it has already been done ICly, as well as a test on one of the dead worlds of Seph even longer ago.

Singularity attack upon core of planet. Another test done in Seph's Titan System provides the proof it can be done.

Multiple singularities used to pull a planet from orbit. The new missile (planet) could be directed at another planet or just flung out of the system. Slow but effective because it ties the forces of the victim trying to save their citizens.

Landfall of Kythons in Battlemode allowing infectious contamination of the planet itself. It would be slow at first but as the converted matter creates more Kythons, sources of Infection will spread out destroying everything leaving black patches of Infection behind spawning more Kythons which would create more infection which would spawn more Kythons ad infinum... (This is the reason I requested to be kept off the planets in the war.)

Deplete the sun of nuclear fuel using a singularity. The result (if the right amount is taken) is the gravity of the star overcoming the outward push of the nuclear reaction. The star will collapse and then go nova. Our star will eventually burn it's fuel and then expand into a red giant before eventually collapsing into a white dwarf.


There are more ways if you wish to use them that I can come up with using Dimensional Tech but I have tried to not abuse D Tech like that. If the GFFA wishes to raise the stakes, then we should too.

Planet Killers:

-Orbital bombardment, nuke spam, big rocks, etc.

-Bioweapons; primarily Necrotizing Cascade, which turns organic matter into prion soup.



Planet Destroyers:

-The Heavy batteries on a Superfortress can blast off a significant chunk of a planet's mass. Continued bombardment results in lack of planet.

-Superheavy batteries on a Battleplate can do likewise, just alot quicker.

-The injection of a sufficiently long-lived singularity. Requires a good bit of specialised equipment, but it destroys a planet slowly enough to allow for large-scale evacuations.

-Strange Matter Bomb. Like the singularity, but smaller and cheaper.

-High-Order CTE nodes, of the kind used for high-energy transfer. Spread some around your target planet, then throw their opposites into a star. Bad Things happen(this is also why ownership of High Order CTE nodes is heavily restricted)

-A Superfortress or Battleplate, sitting behind it's inversion field, could conduct a relativistic ramming action. This is really, really not recommended, however - the ship would probably survive, but it would be in the yards for years, probably decades.


System Destroyers:

-The Dominion has a handful of absurdly powerful zero-point energy bombs, known as 'Strategics', that are capable of destroying star systems and endangering worlds for more than a dozen lightyears in every direction when dialed all the way up. They are, however, incredibly old by now, and in generally poor condition - they probably wouldn't work if used, atleast not without a total rebuild, which is something the government simply can't afford to do.




It should be noted, however, that the Dominion despises genocide, and would only resort to slaughtering civilians if forced to.

Kanuckistan wrote:that are capable of destroying star systems and endangering worlds for more than a dozen lightyears in every direction when dialed all the way up.

What's the use of an AOE so large? Unless the bomb generates some funky FTL shockwave, the enemy has twelve years to get away.

Rhunates dislike destroying worlds, as it leaves nothing to eat. Instead, they generally use (relatively) nonlethal methods of subjugation, such as gassing a target, using sonics, or just a general psychic mindrape bomb. Or just invading. In a pinch, most Rhun ships can pump out enough antimatter or high c-frac shells to reduce most planets to rubble, and a tradeworld could annihilate a planet pathetically easily, but it's really not a common occurrence.