What, no planet kablooey?

cthia wrote:Curious. Even in the Honorverse, as readers, we've often surmised the possibility of planet destruction by tossing huge asteroids at them. An option some of us thought available to the Masadans.

I'm curious, has anyone come across an incident where that particular method was actually used to destroy a planet? It would have happened in Armageddon if not for our unlikely band of heroes, but that was a random asteroid.

If so, please broadcast the transponder on the book. I'd like a read.

Starship Troopers, if I remember correctly ? The films for sure at least. It's been so long since I read the book, it seems I can't remember Heinlein's original storyline at all.

In the famous Space Battleship Yamato animation series, the aliens use "planetary bombs" which are basically asteroids tossed towards Earth to render it uninhabitable.

niethil wrote:

cthia wrote:Curious. Even in the Honorverse, as readers, we've often surmised the possibility of planet destruction by tossing huge asteroids at them. An option some of us thought available to the Masadans.

I'm curious, has anyone come across an incident where that particular method was actually used to destroy a planet? It would have happened in Armageddon if not for our unlikely band of heroes, but that was a random asteroid.

If so, please broadcast the transponder on the book. I'd like a read.

Starship Troopers, if I remember correctly ? The films for sure at least. It's been so long since I read the book, it seems I can't remember Heinlein's original storyline at all.

In the famous Space Battleship Yamato animation series, the aliens use "planetary bombs" which are basically asteroids tossed towards Earth to render it uninhabitable.

Thanks niethil. But in this case, I'm actually looking for situations where the planet itself is completely destroyed. Not just the life on it. Enough C-fracs impacting a planet in the Honorverse could render it practically uninhabitable.

Though your post reminded me of Battlefield Earth where such a tiny bomb was planned to utterly destroy it.

This may be of interest. I forgot about Spock's Prime - the planet destroyed by the Romulan, Nero. (Star Trek)

http://www.confused.com/news-views/info ... -destroyed

cthia wrote:I'll email a sentiment@dahakverse.come-on!

I'm sorry. I just can't wrap my head around that much senseless killing. After awhile -- alright already! What in the Universe of a conflict can fuel that sort of a grudge? Or is it something simple -- like coffee beans developing a universal blight. Hey, only thing I can figure is a lack of coffee that can fuel that source of animosity.

The conditions for the conflict in the Dahak books were... suitably extreme, but you'll want to go read to find out. The central book for that is the second of the three, Armageddon Inheritance. You could read it on its own or first (I did; accident of book access) without more than a bit of head-scratching for lack of context, but you'd be better overall reading them in order.

Curious. Even in the Honorverse, as readers, we've often surmised the possibility of planet destruction by tossing huge asteroids at them. An option some of us thought available to the Masadans.

I'm curious, has anyone come across an incident where that particular method was actually used to destroy a planet? It would have happened in Armageddon if not for our unlikely band of heroes, but that was a random asteroid.

If so, please broadcast the transponder on the book. I'd like a read.

The Eridani Edict in the Honorverse came from a background of a whole lot of what would have been EE violations; the early years of easy FTL travel meant a re-invention of war and a whole lot of atrocities, without enforcement mechanisms or a firm ethos to prevent them from happening or to cap their scale. It's not an era we have covered much if at all in the books - even the Stephanie Harrington and Manticore Ascendant books are too recent for that.

So there may well be planet-cracking in that history - it's just outside our view. If there was, an asteroid could possibly have been used, but impeller wedge driven projectiles would be much likelier.

cthia wrote:... I'm actually looking for situations where the planet itself is completely destroyed. Not just the life on it. Enough C-fracs impacting a planet in the Honorverse could render it practically uninhabitable.

Though your post reminded me of Battlefield Earth where such a tiny bomb was planned to utterly destroy it.

The only thing that comes to my mind in that case is, quite amazingly, a conjectured real life event (or should I say a real world event, since we are talking about planets ?) : the formation of the Earth/Moon couple from the impact of a Mars-size celestial body on proto-earth.

On the same account : none of the meteors that are conjectured to be responsible for mass extinction events came even close to making a real dent in the planet. So it obviously must be very difficult to break a planet that way. Intuitively, it makes more sense that in such an instance the celestial bodies would either agglomerate or bounce off each other instead of breaking apart, doesn't it ?

niethil wrote:

cthia wrote:... I'm actually looking for situations where the planet itself is completely destroyed. Not just the life on it. Enough C-fracs impacting a planet in the Honorverse could render it practically uninhabitable.

Though your post reminded me of Battlefield Earth where such a tiny bomb was planned to utterly destroy it.

The only thing that comes to my mind in that case is, quite amazingly, a conjectured real life event (or should I say a real world event, since we are talking about planets ?) : the formation of the Earth/Moon couple from the impact of a Mars-size celestial body on proto-earth.

On the same account : none of the meteors that are conjectured to be responsible for mass extinction events came even close to making a real dent in the planet. So it obviously must be very difficult to break a planet that way. Intuitively, it makes more sense that in such an instance the celestial bodies would either agglomerate or bounce off each other instead of breaking apart, doesn't it ?

I'd think it would be a factor of asteroid size, speed and composition. A moon sized asteroid 75-80 % iron ferrite should definitely do the job, lest it's a glancing enough blow.

By the way. I saw something similar to the hypothesized formation of the Earth and moon. The two theories are that the moon came in on a perfect orbit and was trapped by the Earth's gravity. Another is an asteroid impact that split into two parts -- Earth, moon. Some Science/Universe/Creation production on one of the Science channels.

cthia wrote:I'll email a sentiment@dahakverse.come-on!

I'm sorry. I just can't wrap my head around that much senseless killing. After awhile -- alright already! What in the Universe of a conflict can fuel that sort of a grudge? Or is it something simple -- like coffee beans developing a universal blight. Hey, only thing I can figure is a lack of coffee that can fuel that source of animosity.


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I just remembered another planet killing source. Remember The Fifth Element? If it hadn't been for the lovely Milla Jovovich (Fifth Element), Earth would have been reduced to so much space dust.

Curious. Even in the Honorverse, as readers, we've often surmised the possibility of planet destruction by tossing huge asteroids at them. An option some of us thought available to the Masadans.

I'm curious, has anyone come across an incident where that particular method was actually used to destroy a planet? It would have happened in Armageddon if not for our unlikely band of heroes, but that was a random asteroid.

If so, please broadcast the transponder on the book. I'd like a read.

It is alluded to in Mutineer's Moon the first book of the Dahak series, the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars is the result of a planet being destroyed by the Alchuutani using c fractional rocks

In my original post, there is talk not only of planet killing, but solar system and universe destruction?

That boggles my mind. If you've got access to that kind of power, why use it to kill? Who would be your enemy? And what age would that represent, exactly -- I know of the atomic age. It's wouldn't be the Age of Aquarius because with this kind of absolute power, there is no Aquarius.

Incidentally, the atomic bomb had to first he tested on Earth out in the desert. How do you exactly test a universe destructive device and live to know it works?

George J. Smith wrote:

cthia wrote:I'll email a sentiment@dahakverse.come-on!

I'm sorry. I just can't wrap my head around that much senseless killing. After awhile -- alright already! What in the Universe of a conflict can fuel that sort of a grudge? Or is it something simple -- like coffee beans developing a universal blight. Hey, only thing I can figure is a lack of coffee that can fuel that source of animosity.


****** *


I just remembered another planet killing source. Remember The Fifth Element? If it hadn't been for the lovely Milla Jovovich (Fifth Element), Earth would have been reduced to so much space dust.

Curious. Even in the Honorverse, as readers, we've often surmised the possibility of planet destruction by tossing huge asteroids at them. An option some of us thought available to the Masadans.

I'm curious, has anyone come across an incident where that particular method was actually used to destroy a planet? It would have happened in Armageddon if not for our unlikely band of heroes, but that was a random asteroid.

If so, please broadcast the transponder on the book. I'd like a read.

It is alluded to in Mutineer's Moon the first book of the Dahak series, the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars is the result of a planet being destroyed by the Alchuutani using c fractional rocks

Thanks for broadcasting George. I'm interested because I'm curious of the mechanics that an author would utilize to actually get even a moon to nudge. I would think that Sci-Fi writers would steer clear of taking on such a herculean project -- other than as a passing reference -- because of the huge weight associated with the explanation of the plausible physics demanded by would be readers.

I'd surely find a blow by blow account of such an undertaking quite fascinating, even in a fictional world.

Planets were destroyed to create Ringworld, then the star and ring accelerated to fractional C to escape the core explosion.
Same for Dyson Sphere stories. There was another involving a steerable neutron star, but I can't remember the title. Venging had aliens preempting rivals by using antimatter needles to shatter the Earth's core.