# Why don't the attackers just crack the planet?



## Scifi fan (Dec 7, 2008)

I have never read a satisfactory reason for this. In many stories, the invaders or intruders or whatever come and have to land forces to take out the defenders. The defenders can be good guys or bad guys, but they're always well entrenched, and a fight ensures, with lots of action. 

The question that I've always asked is, why not just blow the planet up? If the planet has something of value, like prisoners who have to be rescued or valuable plantlife, then that is a good reason, but, often, there isn't a good reason. I guess having a planetary force field is a good explanation, but, if there is a force field, then the invaders can't land troops. 

What's a good reason for not cracking the enemy's home world?


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## chrispenycate (Dec 7, 2008)

Energy considerations. It's easy enough to render the surface of a planet uninhabitable, but actually cracking the core and making the bits fly off requires literally astronomical amounts of energy, more than you can conveniently transport.

Furthermore, even if you can destroy the planet, you're losing a lot of potentially valuable real estate (and possibly even some biologicals you could use). There can't be that many habitable planets around, and if you've taken the time to go out and destroy them, you might as well get something for your investment.

But admittedly, standing off and dropping a couple of dinosaur-killer sized asteroids on it would seem a wise first move, unless you wanted a few of the inhabitants for something.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 7, 2008)

I think we agree - IF there is something important, like valuable real estate of biological material, then they wouldn't want to destroy the planet. We don't lob nukes against each other partly for that reason.

As for energy considerations, that is one explanation, but not used very often. In Starship Troopers, the protagonist said that they didn't have nova bombs initially and so couldn't crack Klendathu, the homeworld of the enemies; but, later, when they did have it, they couldn't use it because of the human POW's interred there.

I think that it would be very possible for a star faring civilization to crack a planet or get the sun to go nova, so power (or lack thereof) wouldn't be a good enough reason. There has to be something else, namely something the invaders want.


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## chrispenycate (Dec 7, 2008)

When you actually do the figures, persuading a star to go nova, or a planet to crack open requires quite spectacularly large quantities of energy. Accellerating a multi-megaton spaceship up to near lightspeed requires more energy than has fallen on Earth since mankind came down from the trees; plunge it into the sun and you might get a solar flare. Crash Earth into the sun, you wouldn't get a nova; I'm not sure you could manage one with jupiter, even if there were enough energy to accelerate it anywhere. 

But a chain fusion reaction in a planet's oceans or something like that could render the place uninhabitable for a thousand years or so, and surely that would be enough for any half-way reasonble war? So would a worthwhile solar flare; it's one thing to go down into deep shelters for protection, a completely different one to live down there fifty generations.

And there might even be an interstellar Geneva convention; any species contrvening it would be annihilated by all other sapient life-forms in the galaxy...


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 7, 2008)

Well it could be they have a civilised approach to taking over planets. Maybe there's a 'Gemini convention' on interstellar warfare that prevents the use of nasty weapons.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 7, 2008)

An interstellar convention would work. David Brin's Startide Universe does seem to imply something like that, though such an idea is not often mentioned in other works. 

Jack Chalker, in his Diamond quadrology, does have the human destroy one planet, and they imply they also have the ability to force the sun to go nova. And, of course, Arthur C. Clarke's 2010 did have the aliens turn Jupiter into a sun.

So the idea of destroying a planet is quite often used, but, in military science fiction, that is one issue to be addressed, and it often is not. What I would like to see, in the prologue or something, is an explanation why they don't do it - and the explanation must be credible. For example, I can see, in the Star Wars saga, why the Rebels wouldn't destroy the Ewoks' planet in Episode VI, Return of the Jedi; but I don't see why the Empire didn't do it to the ice planet Hoth in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. You don't surely think that the Empire, after having destroyed Leia's homeworld, would be deterred by some convention, do you? The Rebels, yes, not the Empire. 

And, in Ender's Game, there was no such compunction towards exterminating the entire species of Buggers. 

By the same token, I've read many lower end stories which parrallel the campaigns in WWII, but the writers follow history too closely, and they don't deal with the idea that the Second World War is different from the Fifteenth Interstellar War.


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## dekket (Dec 7, 2008)

> For example, I can see, in the Star Wars saga, why the Rebels wouldn't destroy the Ewoks' planet in Episode VI, Return of the Jedi; but I don't see why the Empire didn't do it to the ice planet Hoth in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.


 
Considering that there wasn't an operational Death Star at the time might have had something to do with it.  

A planet destroying weapon requires a lot of resources, and requires time to build.


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## Pyan (Dec 7, 2008)

Quite apart from the practical and moral side of the idea, it would bring the story to an abrupt and premature end...



> *The Invaders!*
> 
> Chapter One
> 
> ...




I wouldn't buy it....


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## Scifi fan (Dec 7, 2008)

LOL! Good ones, Pyan and dekket, good ones. 

But Pyan, there should still be an element of credibility. But the issue would still come up in the readers' minds, and should be dealt with. As in, the enemy is entrenched on that planet, and we want to destroy them. Why not just slag the planet instead of going down and slugging it out?

By the way, this happened in the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942 - the Japanese holed themselves in caves, and the Americans sealed the caves. End of story.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 7, 2008)

> Pyan:


It's got potential and it's a good first effort. 

Though I think you should try and develop the characters more.

Whats Tom's motivation in the scene. If it's just to be disturbed so his wife can draw our attention to something in the sky then it would seem a little pointless since he apparently plays no further part in the plot. 

It would be just as effective if the woman just observed the saucer and wondered what it was. There's also the problem that since the wife plays the vital role in the work I think it would be fair to at least give her a name or else you might be accused of sexism.


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## Pyan (Dec 7, 2008)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> it would seem a little pointless since he apparently plays no further part in the plot.



Actually, if you read on, you'll find that _no-one_ plays any further role in the plot....

If there's anything I hate, it's people that don't read to the end.


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## Dozmonic (Dec 7, 2008)

Scifi fan said:


> But Pyan, there should still be an element of credibility. But the issue would still come up in the readers' minds, and should be dealt with. As in, the enemy is entrenched on that planet, and we want to destroy them.


 
It wouldn't cross my mind, as a reader. A planet is a valuable resource and the chances that someone would put that much effort in to destroying one just for the single and sole reason of destroying the people on it is pretty much unthinkable.

There will always be an ulterior motive, and whatever they want from the planet, it is going to be easier to get when the planet is whole, rather than blasting it across the solar system in little chunks.

For them to want to destroy the whole planet they would need a bloody good and justifiable reason for me to believe that.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 7, 2008)

> Pyan


 
LOL

That doesn't mean the characters don't deserve a proper consideration of their feelings.

They took the effort to struggle onto the page to play their part and it isn't very nice that you just discard them in this callous manner. 

For instance if you didn't introduce the Tom character the carnage would be drastically reduced. If this fine tale is ever made into a film the sensors will notice this too and I'm sure they will suggest that it has too high death rate per scene and you should reduce it by 50% and leave the Tom character out of the story. 

Plus you need to think about the children that may watch and how frightening it will be to have both main characters wiped out so late in the film when they have just spent the majority of the time getting to know them. 

They will associate with Tom, no doubt he will remind them of there old grandfather and his nameless wife will be the twenty six year old money grabbing bitch he moved in with when Nana died.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 7, 2008)

It occurred to me that, in Empire Strikes Back, the Imperial Fleet couldn't destroy the planet because they were detected too quickly - that's why Darth Vader killed the first Admiral.

Pyan, I think your characters are well fleshed out, but you should describe the scenes - add sights, sounds, and smells, as in, what animals were in the barn, what kind of work was Tom doing (shovelling hay or cow manure), what did his wife look like, and so on.


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## Ursa major (Dec 7, 2008)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Maybe there's a 'Gemini convention' on interstellar warfare that prevents the use of nasty weapons.


 
* Wonders, idly, which planet Earth is twinned with. *


If you really want to read some fiction where the concept of planet-destruction is both a means and an end, Scifi Fan, you might try the Revelation Space trilogy: _Revelation Space_, _Redemption Ark_ and _Absolution Gap_. (I won't go into more detail as that would consitute a spoiler.)





(Oh, and isn't cracking a planet unsafe? )


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## Pyan (Dec 7, 2008)

> *The Invaders!*​
> Chapter One
> 
> Tom was working in the barn, fixing the wheel on the left-hand side of the hay-rake - the one that always squeaked and pulled to that side - which was only to be expected, as he'd caught it on a gate-post ( the one on the entry to the top forty-acre field, that had come into the farm when his uncle had died - him that married a widow from over Hillhouse way, and never had a day's peace since - well, it was only to be expected, as she'd talked her first husband to death, they said - them being the local coterie of gossips and naggers that you get in any farming area) the very first time he'd tried to get it into the field - eventually, he'd had to move the post, as it'd always been a narrow entry - you had to sort of start to turn, then back up a ways and twist the wheels of anything larger than the dog-cart to get in there at all...anyway, he'd bent the stub-axle on the hayrake, and it'd never been right since, so as he had a few spare hours - and that was something that was rare indeed in a farmers life here in the far reaches of the Realm, as anyone can tell you that's tried to scratch a living from the soil - if that's what you'd dignify with that name, as most of it was as dry as dust and blew away with the slightest hint of a breeze (and a breeze in itself was a rare thing around there - it was usually either stifling hot and totally calm, so everyone baked in the sun, as was right and proper for the sort of poor peasants that all the locals really were, or it blew a hurricane, and all the topsoil, along with what was struggling to grow in it just disappeared over the horizon...so, he'd managed to get the axle-cap off, and was examining the end of the stub-axle with a worried expression on his honest, if somewhat careworn face - the usual sort of face you find in the countryside, when his wife rushed in.
> ...



That better, then?


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## Ursa major (Dec 7, 2008)

Now all you have to do is sort out is the title, Pyan.



From Wiktionary:




> *to invade* (_third-person singular simple present_ invades, _present participle_ invading, _simple past and past participle_ invaded)
> (transitive) To move into. _Under some circumstances police are allowed to *invade* a person's privacy._
> (transitive) To enter by force in order to conquer. _Argentinian troops *invaded* the Falkland Islands in 1982._
> (transitive) To infest or overrun. _The picnic was *invaded* by ants._


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## Pyan (Dec 7, 2008)

..for goodness sake...



> *The Destroyers​*
> Chapter One
> 
> Tom was working in the barn, fixing the wheel on the left-hand side of the hay-rake - the one that always squeaked and pulled to that side - which was only to be expected, as he'd caught it on a gate-post ( the one on the entry to the top forty-acre field, that had come into the farm when his uncle had died - him that married a widow from over Hillhouse way, and never had a day's peace since - well, it was only to be expected, as she'd talked her first husband to death, they said - them being the local coterie of gossips and naggers that you get in any farming area) the very first time he'd tried to get it into the field - eventually, he'd had to move the post, as it'd always been a narrow entry - you had to sort of start to turn, then back up a ways and twist the wheels of anything larger than the dog-cart to get in there at all...anyway, he'd bent the stub-axle on the hayrake, and it'd never been right since, so as he had a few spare hours - and that was something that was rare indeed in a farmers life here in the far reaches of the Realm, as anyone can tell you that's tried to scratch a living from the soil - if that's what you'd dignify with that name, as most of it was as dry as dust and blew away with the slightest hint of a breeze (and a breeze in itself was a rare thing around there - it was usually either stifling hot and totally calm, so everyone baked in the sun, as was right and proper for the sort of poor peasants that all the locals really were, or it blew a hurricane, and all the topsoil, along with what was struggling to grow in it just disappeared over the horizon...so, he'd managed to get the axle-cap off, and was examining the end of the stub-axle with a worried expression on his honest, if somewhat careworn face - the usual sort of face you find in the countryside, when his wife rushed in.
> ...



Better?


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## Scifi fan (Dec 7, 2008)

I think we've found a new Isaac Asimov. I presume there won't be a trilogy?


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## Vladd67 (Dec 7, 2008)

Of course the planet could just be destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass and the only survivors could be oh I don't know sort of galactic hitch hi....hang on this rings a bell somewhere.


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## Dozmonic (Dec 7, 2008)

Yeah, it's scarily similar to the lord of the rings ;-)


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## Scifi fan (Dec 7, 2008)

Pyan,

I've been thinking - the characterizations take away from the action sequence, so how about cutting out the fluff in your story. How about ...



> THE DESTROYERS
> 
> BANG!​


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 7, 2008)

Scifi I couldn't disagree more. I think your version lacks the world building that contrast so well against the suddenness of the ending.

Pyan: Again you fail to develop the wifes reason for being there. You could just have Tom looking up and seeing something without the need for wife's demise. 

As for the possibility of developing a trilogy Scifi - Why the hell not. There must be billions of planets out there. Each book could have its Tom character - He could even keep the name of the hero the same and could call it the 'Worlds End'

He could have Tom the farmer as above.
Tom the miller and so on.

Lets face it the plot beats Star Wars hands down and look what happened there.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 7, 2008)

What's a wife's reason for being there? In fact, give her a name and advise if the farmer's wife is good looking, kinda like Zsa Zsa Gabor in Green Acres.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 7, 2008)

Scifi fan said:


> What's a wife's reason for being there? In fact, give her a name and advise if the farmer's wife is good looking, kinda like Zsa Zsa Gabor in Green Acres.


 
Now here I have to agree Scifi. Yes indeed. A bit a sexual tension always does wonders to a story line. Even if the wife's as ugly as an ugly thing there would still be plenty of time between the B and the G to develop Toms feeling of inadequacy and deeper psychological frustrations.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 7, 2008)

Then we have to talk of the Destroyer's motivations for cracking the planet. We don't even know if they're human or alien. Or will this be revealed in the second volume of the trilogy?


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 8, 2008)

No, no I think we might risk a prologue. 

Their deep dislike of planets resulting from some trauma suffered in early life could be fully explored. 

Maybe they were treated badly by their own planet in their formative years.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 8, 2008)

Who're "they"? Aliens or other humans?


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## Pyan (Dec 8, 2008)

Final version...



> The Destroyers
> 
> 
> Chapter One
> ...



Tht's it - no more revisions. Thanks for all the input, but I feel that that can't be improved upon.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 8, 2008)

Will there be a sequel? Or perhaps a trilogy? George Lucas must be getting nervous.


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## Harpo (Dec 8, 2008)

I feel I must point out that "BANG!" isn't very specific.  Is it the barn door slamming shut in a gust of wind? Is it Tom's wife shooting him after finding out about him and Zsa Zsa Gabor? Is it the world being cracked? Is it the shiny saucer-shaped thing in the sky breaking the sound barrier as it departs hastily, for fear that Tom's wife might be running to fetch a camera?


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## Pyan (Dec 8, 2008)

Harpo said:


> I feel I must point out that "BANG!" isn't very specific.  Is it the barn door slamming shut in a gust of wind? Is it Tom's wife shooting him after finding out about him and Zsa Zsa Gabor? Is it the world being cracked? Is it the shiny saucer-shaped thing in the sky breaking the sound barrier as it departs hastily, for fear that Tom's wife might be running to fetch a camera?


What shiny saucer-shaped thing would that be, Harpo? Can you quote _*from the last revision*_ exactly where this object might be mentioned?...


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## Harpo (Dec 8, 2008)

the one implied in the title, of course.

Tom's wife has been removed entirely, you've lost half the characters (and characterisation) of the story


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## Pyan (Dec 8, 2008)

Harpo said:
			
		

> the one implied in the title, of course.



Criticism of implication, eh? That's an interesting idea. 
I think I'll do a critical evaluation of _"Red Dwarf"_ regarding the total lack of Communist Persons of Restricted Growth in the crew...



			
				Harpo said:
			
		

> Tom's wife has been removed entirely, you've lost half the characters (and characterisation) of the story



No, I've streamlined the action by cutting unnecessarily complex complications of characterisation from the narrative - it's a different thing altogether...


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## Harpo (Dec 8, 2008)

You still haven't explained what the "BANG!" is, though.

Barn door in the wind? Tom dropping his hammer? Mystery event, leaving the way open for a sequel?


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## Pyan (Dec 8, 2008)

Sheesh!


> The Destroyers
> 
> 
> Chapter One
> ...



Happy now?


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## Harpo (Dec 8, 2008)

It'll do


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## Scifi fan (Dec 8, 2008)

Will there be a sequel?


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## The Procrastinator (Dec 8, 2008)

A suggested sequel.

D2


K'Tomk was working on a faulty radio transceiver, having drawn the short straw on this most stultifying and commonly repeated of jobs on the Royal Starship "_Business Opportunities Must Be Vigorously Pursued_", and was trying not to bounce ungracefully on the outer hull, for he knew the others would be watching in case he did something worthy of recording and sending in to _Funniest Home Space Accident Videos_, the highlight of the week around here. Suddenly his attention was distracted by a light smattering sensation, initially felt on his tentacle protectors, then growing heavier until he could feel it along his dorsal spike protectors. He turned, frowning, so that the little pebbles bounced off his faceshield. 
"Hold on," he thought. "Are those _planet crumbs_?"
He was about to signal his bored crewmates when a flash of light caught his far right visual receptor, which widened as he turned to see what it was...

*BANG!*


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## Scifi fan (Dec 8, 2008)

Do a trilogy and George Lucas will be quaking in his boots.




> THE RETURN OF THE BANG
> 
> Jane was working in her office, commanding trillions of credits of research funding, when she looked out the tall panes of her corner office and saw a large, saucer-shaped craft. It began glowing and ...
> 
> BANG!​


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 8, 2008)

I'm sensing a new thread here -

End of the world in less than 100 words.

It could be a competition too judged obviously by Pyan?


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## dustinzgirl (Dec 8, 2008)

Well, I don't understand why they would crack a planet. Generally the idea behind invading a land is to take over its resources (human and environment) for gain of the invaders. 

Even in genocide, there is a general reason of greed behind it. 

It would have to be a pretty strong emotional motive, an utter hatred of everything and anything the invaded people touched or possessed to warrant the destruction of an entire planet.

Or to get the princess to fess up to the location of rebel troops.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 8, 2008)

Dustingirl: Maybe they're not like us 

Pyan:

I have taken the liberty of starting a thread with your efforts included. I hope you don't object?

As far as the story goes I particularly liked the last sentence


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## dustinzgirl (Dec 8, 2008)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> Dustingirl: Maybe they're not like us



Likely not. But an advanced race that exists far beyond our understanding would ...

OK Well I don't know where I was going with that.

Wouldn't they need some reason for cracking a planet? Harvesting the energy, or other reason?


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 8, 2008)

Maybe they just don't like us. Who can blame them for that?

Maybe Junior has been let loose and he's just kicking over the sandcastles everyone else has built.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 8, 2008)

If they want the resources (particularly biological resources) of the planet, then yes, they wouldn't want to destroy it; but, if they don't, then they would want to destroy it. Far easier to destroy a planet that's housing the enemy than to go down and engage the defenders, who would presumably be dug in.


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## Zubi-Ondo (Dec 8, 2008)

You folks are just too funny. Stop it! (My gut hurts   - and it wasn't those raspberry scones I had this morning). 

When I first saw TEIN's post in the "writers workshop" I thought he was talking about the beginning, not the end. You know that silly theory that silly guy Stevie Hawking began to prove? (or was it Stevie Nicks?) ~ (I don't know who originally suggested it)

If Chris is still about, I'd like to pose this question to him - (or anyone who'd care to answer): If the core of the Earth is really as hot as they say, why not use that as a source of energy? The initial amount of energy required would just be enough to "poke" a hole deep enough to plant a million megaton bomb inside the middle somewhere.  Say even just at the border of the mantle and the outer core. Seems like that would be enough to create a "Mega-volcano" that would eventually cause the Earth's demise. Supposedly, estimate put the core's heat at around "The temperature of the inner core can be estimated using experimental and theoretical constraints on the melting temperature of impure iron at the pressure (about 330 GPa) of the inner core boundary, yielding estimates 5700 K . The range of pressure in Earth's inner core is about 330 to 360 GPa (over 3,000,000 atm), and iron can only be solid at such high temperatures because its melting temperature increases dramatically at these high pressures." - Wiki. 

So, basically my notion is to start the chain reaction, and let it finish itself. At those temperatures, and pressures there's a good chance the system would seek to balance itself any way possible, and high temp/pressure seeks low temp pressure, so fissures would inevitably radiate out from the original hole. 

 - Z. (I'll put this in the other thread too),


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## ktabic (Dec 8, 2008)

It should cause lots of damage to the surface, and would probably wipe of all life on the planet. For a while anyway. But there isn't really that much energy in a million megaton explosion.
A million megatons is roughly 10x1021 Joules.

Just to show people what they are up againist, early in Earths history, it was hit by a Mars sized object, with energy somewhere between 9x1032 and 1.81033 Joules, so 11 to 12 orders of magnitude greater. And inside 600 million years, life had appeared.

Bear in mind here, that being caught in the supernova of the Sun isn't even a guarantee of destruction of the Earth - there won't be anything living on it, the planet would be a husk, but still there.

Gotta think bigger people.


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## Somni (Dec 8, 2008)

Hmm, I'm sure I read about a huge planet-stripping mining ship in some scifi book.  Could we not just send in one of those to deal with the defenders and get the resources at the same time?

Anyone know how to build one?


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## Zubi-Ondo (Dec 8, 2008)

ktabic said:


> It should cause lots of damage to the surface, and would probably wipe of all life on the planet. For a while anyway. But there isn't really that much energy in a million megaton explosion.
> A million megatons is roughly 10x1021 Joules.
> 
> Just to show people what they are up againist, early in Earths history, it was hit by a Mars sized object, with energy somewhere between 9x1032 and 1.81033 Joules, so 11 to 12 orders of magnitude greater. And inside 600 million years, life had appeared.



We were talking about blowing the earth into bits, not vaporizing it. What I was suggesting is like pulling a cornerstone out of a building that is holding up the entire structure. Finding the chink in the armor so to speak. I don't think you are actually getting the whole picture. At the point where the mantle meets the core, there is ultra-extreme high temperature, and ultra-extreme high pressure, and it's liquid to boot. the liquid would now have a place to go. Like the hole on top of a pressure cooker that lets out steam, only the pressure cooker is not meant to withstand those kinds of pressures or temperatures. As the highly pressurized, superheated lava began flowing up through the hole, it would make the hole bigger and bigger and the earth would start to crack up near the top where it's very cool by comparison. I'll concede that it is not a guarantee, but I don't think you can disprove what I'm saying with numbers alone. Besides, you were talking about a collision from the outside of two bodies that have the same general consistency. I'm talking about a system that has to equalize itself. 

 - Z.   

 - Z.


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## Ursa major (Dec 8, 2008)

By the way, the final line of the forthcoming Wallace and Gromit film, _Star Truck: The Undiscovered County_**, is reputed to be "Cracking planet, Gromit!"









** - Thought to be based on Hallamshire.


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## chrispenycate (Dec 9, 2008)

> I don't think you can disprove what I'm saying with numbers alone.



Ah, but I can; not enough energy. Not by a couple of orders of magnitude. And all that pressure exists because the bits around want to go to the centre of the Earth; they're not going to change their opinion just because there's an alternative escapr route, even if someone shouts 'fire'. Oh, I'll admit you might get a few good sized lumps into orbit; perhaps the size of France. But there's six and a half sextillion tons to get rid of, and to prevent it all falling back when you've finished and rebuilding a planet, you've got to throw it fairly hard.


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## Zubi-Ondo (Dec 9, 2008)

chrispenycate said:


> Ah, but I can; not enough energy. Not by a couple of orders of magnitude. And all that pressure exists because the bits around want to go to the centre of the Earth; they're not going to change their opinion just because there's an alternative escapr route, even if someone shouts 'fire'. Oh, I'll admit you might get a few good sized lumps into orbit; perhaps the size of France. But there's six and a half sextillion tons to get rid of, and to prevent it all falling back when you've finished and rebuilding a planet, you've got to throw it fairly hard.



So you're talking about gravity? It was my understanding that science itself can't even explain gravity yet, let alone what's actually going on in the Earths core. 

 - Z.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 9, 2008)

I think that, if the sun expanded to a red giant, it would envelope the Earth and burn it to ashes and then some. There's be no husk.

As for destroying the planet, in Ender's Game, the child hero had a ship descend to the earth with an "MD" or molecular destabilizer of some kind, which loosened the bonds that bound the molecules of the planet. The MD fired into the atmosphere, which caused a chain reaction, and destroyed the planet, taking the entire Bugger species with it (except for one isolated queen that he would find later).


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## Zubi-Ondo (Dec 9, 2008)

Actually SFFan, that's true. According to current understanding that is what the sun will do  when it dies, and perhaps the process would be slow enough tha the earth would not be moved out further into space. Which by the way I believe is the only way it would not be vaporized in the event that the sun went super-nova. The earth might be pushed along like a bulb of kelp in a tidal wave during a supernova event, but if it stayed were it is it would most certainly be vaporized. I took an actual science class where we talked about these things, so if you guys want to argue, I'm game. 

- Z.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 9, 2008)

> I took an actual science class where we talked about these things, so if you guys want to argue, I'm game.



You're on. But that would be in the science section, under the new thread, "The End of the Earth".


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## Ursa major (Dec 9, 2008)

Scifi fan said:


> As for destroying the planet, in Ender's Game, the child hero had a ship descend to the earth with an "MD" or molecular destabilizer of some kind, which loosened the bonds that bound the molecules of the planet. The MD fired into the atmosphere, which caused a chain reaction, and destroyed the planet....


 

But, as Chris has pointed out, it's gravity that's holding the earth together, not molecular bonds. (It would, however, make chemistry practicals very interesting if when a compound was split into its component elements, these all ceased to be affected by gravity; and rather dangerous.)


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## Ice fyre (Dec 9, 2008)

Isnt there a section of Lava build up under Yellowstone national park that when it bursts (rather like  blister) its going to be the equivalent of thousands of Nuclear bombs going off? If someone targeted a iron core asteroid big enough not to burn up on re-entry, couldnt that crack earth like an egg?


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## Scifi fan (Dec 9, 2008)

Ice fyre said:


> Isnt there a section of Lava build up under Yellowstone national park that when it bursts (rather like  blister) its going to be the equivalent of thousands of Nuclear bombs going off? If someone targeted a iron core asteroid big enough not to burn up on re-entry, couldnt that crack earth like an egg?



If it was big enough, yes. But the question is how big?


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## chrispenycate (Dec 9, 2008)

You don't just want to crack the Earth like an egg, you need the pieces to go flying off fast enough that they don't come back down. That would take a very fast moving asteroid, almost certainly not in solar orbit.

If you really want to go the kinetic route the thing to do is generate something with the same kinetic energy as the Earth (or several somethings, whose combined kinetic energy is the same) and put it into the Earth's orbit in the oppostie direction, so the planet is no longer circling its star and falls into it, to instant vaporisation.

A giant high density dust cloud slowing it by friction could do the same thing (never mind that the friction heating or the impact have already melted the whole thing, we're looking for disposal, not just uninhabibility), and it would spiral down to evaporation, but unfortunately the remaining dust, dragged into orbit by conservation of rotary inertia, might well generate a new planet in a billion years or so.


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## Zubi-Ondo (Dec 9, 2008)

chrispenycate said:


> A giant high density dust cloud slowing it by friction could do the same thing (never mind that the friction heating or the impact have already melted the whole thing, we're looking for disposal, not just uninhabibility), and it would spiral down to evaporation, but unfortunately the remaining dust, dragged into orbit by conservation of rotary inertia, might well generate a new planet in a billion years or so.





> ** unfortunately **


 ?????

So I guess you were disappointed when the Hadron Collider didn't destroy us. I think you and TEIN are part of a conspiracy to put the world out of it's misery ASAP. 

Just kidding Chris. I guess I see what you mean. Just because we don't understand gravity doesn't mean it isn't there, right? Even my poking a hole to the core idea would probably end up with the whole mess stuck together. If it did what I'm suggesting, though, it would be pretty spectacular, it could essentially turn the world "inside out".


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## ktabic (Dec 10, 2008)

Ice fyre said:


> If someone targeted a iron core asteroid big enough not to burn up on re-entry, couldnt that crack earth like an egg?



Would hardly make a dent. If being hit by a planet the size of Mars didn't do it, iron core asteroids aren't going to cut it.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 10, 2008)

Were we ever hit by a planet the size of Mars? I never heard that. I thought we were just hit by fragments that came from Mars, when that planet was itself bombarded by other fragments, but I never heard of something as big as the Red Planet hitting us.


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## ktabic (Dec 16, 2008)

It's the currently generally accepted method for the formation of the moon. A Mars sized object on the same orbit as the Earth impacts. The resulting debris field coalesce into the Moon. 
This all happened within 50 million years of the formation of the Earth (and may be the primary reason that life had a chance to develop on Earth). IIRC the theory also explains why the Earth has a smaller than expected iron core.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 16, 2008)

As it happens channel four had a program with Baldric doing the commentry last night. If you can catch the repeat I think it covers the early bits of the planet. Though you will need to be ready to bang your head against the wall every time he says 

"including the dinosaurs"


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## Ice fyre (Dec 16, 2008)

Oooo I think i saw part of that.

As to asteroid, if it hit on the super volcano fault line just under the surface of Yellowstone park I once heard about, woulnt that do it?


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 16, 2008)

It would certainly give it a headache.

I think we need something a bit less violent.

Maybe a butterfly flapping it's wings sets of a cataclysmic chain reaction where the Earth just bursts at the seems and every tectonic plate just looses cohesion and flies of into space


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## Ice fyre (Dec 17, 2008)

Now that is a fantastic idea, we could make into a movie.

We could call it "The flap of Doom" a rouge butterfly hunter could be at odds with his bosses at the NSA and have to track down the Butterfly of Doom. He would be typically grim and hard drinking (like most butterfly hunters) unshaven to give the girls a thrill. There would have to be a female interest, and enemy chaos butterfly cultists would be trying to get the butterfly to its correct spot to finish the world.

Hmm, think I have to pop off down to copyright office...


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## Pyan (Dec 17, 2008)

I'd read Terry Pratchett's_ Interesting Times_ before getting too excited about it, Ice...IIRC, the Butterfly of Doom features quite heavily in that...


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 17, 2008)

Bu**er, another great idea down the pan Ice.


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## Scifi fan (Dec 20, 2008)

I'm reading the Halo series, which talk of the alien enemy going and "glassing" every human planet they come across, meaning that they melt it, I guess. And, in the Babylon 5 TV series, the Vorlons went around destroying any planet that had contact with the Shadows. 

So there is a good number of stories involving the destruction of planets. I think that any combat story would have to explain why one side invades the planet instead of destroying it. The reason may have to be wanting the minerals, or wanting the biological material for genetic engineering, or simply wanting it as a base - but there must be an explanation.


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## Interference (Jan 5, 2009)

They want our apples.


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