Which is your favourite doomsday's weapon in sci-fi genre?

[DragonAether]

There are a lot of ways to annihilate the universe, a planet or an entire civilization, which on is your favourite?

My favourite, as a good Star Wars fan, is the death star.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Berserkers from Fred Saberhagen' series .

 

[J Riff]

Hard to beat The Thing if it ever got loose.

 

[Danny McG]

Grey goo

 

[BAYLOR]

The Planet Killer in the Star Trek Episode The Doomsday Machine and the Souped up version of the planet killer in the Peter David's sequel Next Generation Star Trek novel Vendetta

 

[reiver33]

The Stellar Converter (Battle Beyond The Stars)

 

[Dave]

Not meant or designed as a weapon as such, but if you are asking "a lot of ways to annihilate the universe, a planet or an entire civilisation, which on is your favourite?" then it would have to be Ice-9 from Cat's Cradle. I don't believe we will annihilate the world deliberately, on purpose, or with malice. I do believe that we might annihilate it by accident.

 

[DragonAether]

That's an interesting point of view, hope it isn't how mankind will end, you can change people minds and stop wars, but accidents behave in an another way.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Mega Maid

 

[Alex The G and T]

Planet Busting Rock Band Disaster Area.

 

[farntfar]

Not your standard sci-fi perhaps but I always liked the sound of the Big-Boy Boomeroo from Dr. Seuss's Butter Battle book

 

[reiver33]

What, nobody has mentioned Tribbles???

 

[kythe]

I'm reading Stephen King's "The Stand" right now, and I think that bioengineered virus did a pretty thorough job of annihilating human civilization.

 

[DelActivisto]

Has anyone ever done little tiny machines that multiple and turn the entire planet into themselves by consuming all that lies in their path? That sounds pretty scary to me.

 

[Mike Donoghue]

Not sure if this counts as a doomsday machine, but I have been a long time fan of asteroids as weapons of mass destruction, such as in Starship Troopers. That stuff can actually exist!!

 

[Alex The G and T]

Has anyone ever done little tiny machines that multiple and turn the entire planet into themselves by consuming all that lies in their path? That sounds pretty scary to me.

Blood Music Greg Bear. (sort of. More like a nanotech virus IIRC.)

 

[Mirannan]

Has anyone ever done little tiny machines that multiple and turn the entire planet into themselves by consuming all that lies in their path? That sounds pretty scary to me.

Yes. It's a pretty standard trope, called grey goo, and is featured in non-fiction works as well. Drexler's works, for example.

Incidentally, there are a couple of variants of the idea I've heard of, maybe more: Khaki goo is basically weaponised grey goo, aimed specifically at militarily important targets. And blue goo is the immune system to the grey goo disease.

I'm a bit old-fashioned. Two of my favourites are from EE Smith and the Lensmen series. First, the negasphere of planetary anti-mass; basically an antimatter planet, although negative matter in his stories doesn't behave quite as real antimatter does. And the sunbeam, which doesn't sound scary but really is. Basically, it weaponises the local sun.

One more: The Countermeasure from Fire Upon the Deep. I won't write spoilers here.

 

[Mirannan]

Sorry for the double post - tried to edit the first one.

For some more info about various nanotech goos, see this link:

Goo & Paste Glossary

 

[Danny Creasy]

I'm reading Stephen King's "The Stand" right now, and I think that bioengineered virus did a pretty thorough job of annihilating human civilization.

Concur, I chose a weapons grade influenza to take out 99.99% of the worlds population in my books. I don't have a science background, so I kept it vague. I concentrate on the survivors not why their ancestors survived.

 

[Harpo]

Has anyone written a story in which Venus is destroyed, and we on Earth have to endure a newly forming Venus Asteroid Belt?