What, no planet kablooey?

Loren Pechtel wrote:

niethil wrote:And under making a planet entirely disappear : Nova Bomb (Andromeda), Dahak (Dahak), Vogon fleet (H2G2), spade and a lot of work (Ringworld, Dyson), Hypergate explosion (Lost Fleet), Negasphere (Lensman)

Above that level, there is nothing, except maybe Chuck Norris.

How about the nutcracker (Lensman)? An amalgamation of the three planets involved was left behind.

Or the n-space planet strike on Ploor (Lensman)? It's fate was considered undescribeable--C-frac has nothing on what happened to it.

Three planets were destroyed then coalesced into one??? That's a triple brain freezing scoop of geewhiz on a cone.

jpiwf wrote:In 'Iron Sunrise' by Charles Stross a few asteroids with engines go on a multiple decade revenge expedition as kinetic missiles to a neighbouring starsystem after a planet is destroyed.

Peter F. Hamilton throws things he calls 'Hawking M-Sinks' (portable black hole) into a planet in 'Judas Unchained'. Lots of nastier weapons in that series though: quantumbusters, novabombs, DF-Spheres.

This really does sound interesting, the supporting text in the prospect of "death by singularity" would never cease to be alluring.

I always imagined a read of this scope to be a "Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy: Annotated Physics Edition."

Citha you need to read John Ringo's "Troy" books. not quite planet klabowie but it is based nowish unlike most science fiction and that is part of its charm as watch how earth goes from barely being able to make it into orbit to fighting several alien species with the most insane ideas.

now quite up to RFC's moon sized spacecraft but close and all of this using mostly standard human tech.

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:If we're getting precise... http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... calypseHow

The original premise of the thread is more http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... ringKaboom

What interesting links ... Didn't know this existed at all.

And to all those who asked why I didn't include this or that, the answer is simply : because I haven't read the relevant book and didn't know in which category to put them.
What I was most interested in with the ranking though, was the fact that kinetic weapons of different size, particularly asteroids launched at a planet, seem to appear in several different categories without much consistency. Since there is little reason to believe that every author researches the detailed effects of such events, I prefer to look at it from a psychological and societal point of view. Doesn't it beg the question :
Does "global catastrophic event" evoke the image of big rocks falling from the sky for a large percentage of the world population ? Have asteroid strikes become the shared metaphor for something threatening humanity as a whole ?

Strange how that would be the opposite of how the real world actually works, where it's the slow accumulation of individually, apparently insignificant things that is the bigger threat.

cthia wrote:I have the "Shiva Option" on my list as well. It caught my interest when I first logged on to Baen Books after joining the forums, which was, well, coming up on my two year anniversary as a member of this forum this month. My, how time hypers when you're having fun.

The Shiva Option has interested me since then, if only because of my curiosity about wanting to know exactly what the Shiva Option is -- which, I might add, I grossly miscalculated whilst failing to follow my own aged recommendation against trying to ascertain what's between the covers of a book by its title. The phrase should be "Don't judge a book by its cover or its title."

I imagined the Shiva Option to be somewhat of a tactical maneuver like the "Picard Maneuver" is a tactical maneuver.

It's okay though, I've been told that my embarrassment brings out the magic of my come-hither eyes.

Make sure you read In Death Ground before the Shiva Option. Those two come as a pair. Insurrection and Crusade take place in the same universe, but were written in the wrong order so consistency across the series suffers a bit.

The actual Shiva Option is a strategy of using massive planetary bombardment to inflict a psychic shock upon the survivors - particularly those crewing massive enemy fleets, which can then be easily massacred. Sort of a "I feel a great disturbance in the Force" effect, although it doesn't cross interstellar space. Obviously, only telepathic species are vulnerable to such a strategy.

Dauntless wrote:Citha you need to read John Ringo's "Troy" books. not quite planet klabowie but it is based nowish unlike most science fiction and that is part of its charm as watch how earth goes from barely being able to make it into orbit to fighting several alien species with the most insane ideas.

now quite up to RFC's moon sized spacecraft but close and all of this using mostly standard human tech.

You're probably right regarding its likely appeal to me. One of my best loved Sci-Fi series is the Mars Trilogy because of that very same reason. All utilized tech is current off the shelf tech. Though no CEK. (Cataclysmic Event Kablooey).

munroburton wrote:

cthia wrote:I have the "Shiva Option" on my list as well. It caught my interest when I first logged on to Baen Books after joining the forums, which was, well, coming up on my two year anniversary as a member of this forum this month. My, how time hypers when you're having fun.

The Shiva Option has interested me since then, if only because of my curiosity about wanting to know exactly what the Shiva Option is -- which, I might add, I grossly miscalculated whilst failing to follow my own aged recommendation against trying to ascertain what's between the covers of a book by its title. The phrase should be "Don't judge a book by its cover or its title."

I imagined the Shiva Option to be somewhat of a tactical maneuver like the "Picard Maneuver" is a tactical maneuver.

It's okay though, I've been told that my embarrassment brings out the magic of my come-hither eyes.

Make sure you read In Death Ground before the Shiva Option. Those two come as a pair. Insurrection and Crusade take place in the same universe, but were written in the wrong order so consistency across the series suffers a bit.

The actual Shiva Option is a strategy of using massive planetary bombardment to inflict a psychic shock upon the survivors - particularly those crewing massive enemy fleets, which can then be easily massacred. Sort of a "I feel a great disturbance in the Force" effect, although it doesn't cross interstellar space. Obviously, only telepathic species are vulnerable to such a strategy.

Thanks. I'll do that. To be sure, are you saying you recommend I begin the series with In Death Ground or just make sure it precedes the Shiva Option?

Or would you recommend one or both of Insurrection or Crusade for starters? I'll pass the same recommendations on to my friends.

take crusade first. its not vital but it does lay a lot of ground work for ship, weapons etc.

then in death ground, followed by shiva option.

insurrection is the weakest one in my opinion but is not terrible

Dauntless wrote:take crusade first. its not vital but it does lay a lot of ground work for ship, weapons etc.

then in death ground, followed by shiva option.

insurrection is the weakest one in my opinion but is not terrible

Thanks.

cthia wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:How about the nutcracker (Lensman)? An amalgamation of the three planets involved was left behind.

Or the n-space planet strike on Ploor (Lensman)? It's fate was considered undescribeable--C-frac has nothing on what happened to it.

Three planets were destroyed then coalesced into one??? That's a triple brain freezing scoop of geewhiz on a cone.

The thing is there was nothing they could do about the Bergenholm on Jarvenon--and so long as it was operating hitting it with a planet would just come down to the power of the planet vs the power of the tractors holding it in place--effectively zero damage to anything that mattered.

Thus they hit it with two planets with opposing vectors. Being free wouldn't protect it from being squashed. One gargantuan splash but the main part of the mass would simply be furiously hot. Since you now have basically three planetary masses at the target location it's going to have plenty of self-gravity and it will shape them into a new very big planet.