History Main / SelfDestructMechanism

** In "The Day of Cleansing", also in Season 8, which serves as a crossover with ''Series/MartialLaw'' (serving as Part 2 of "[[Recap/MartialLawS2E16HonorAmongStrangers Honor Among Strangers]]") and rips the UsefulNotes/OklahomaCityBombing [[RippedFromTheHeadlines from the headlines]], Cliff Eagleton and his militia group rig up semi trucks with explosive chemicals to go off within four minutes after the driver pulls the loop, with their intended targets being police stations, banks, churches, courthouses and other government and diverse locations at exactly 9:00 AM. After Eagleton's men are captured, the semi operated by Eagleton had Sydney, whose cover was blown while she and Gage were undercover, tied up, but Walker and Sammo free her and manage to drive the truck as far away from Dallas as possible before it exploded. Afterwards, the explosion was strong enough to trigger a seismic reaction.

** In "The Day of Cleansing", also in Season 8, which serves as a crossover with ''Series/MartialLaw'' (serving as Part 2 of "[[Recap/MartialLawS2E16HonorAmongStrangers Honor Among Strangers]]") and rips the UsefulNotes/OklahomaCityBombing [[RippedFromTheHeadlines from the headlines]], Cliff Eagleton and his militia group rig up semi trucks with explosive chemicals to go off within four minutes after the driver pulls the loop, with their intended targets being police stations, banks, churches, courthouses and other government and diverse locations at exactly 9:00 AM. After Eagleton's men are captured, the semi operated by Eagleton had Sydney, whose cover was blown while she and Gage were undercover, tied up, but Walker and Sammo free her and manage to drive the truck as far away from Dallas as possible before it exploded.

** "Full Recovery" in Season 8 had the CEO of a genetics lab plotting to blow up a military base with sarin, a deadly nerve gas, which one of his employees (played by Creator/ScottWeinger, whom he eventually murders) and his younger brother stole so they can show it to the Rangers. After the genetics lab employee is killed, his brother develops {{amnesia|episode}} while the company's mercenaries pursue him and try to assassinate him before he tells any authorities of their plans. Walker, Gage and Sydney are able to jog his memory and then stop the scheme in time by removing the sarin from the rig before it blew.

** "Full Recovery" in Season 8 had the CEO of a genetics lab plotting to blow up a military base with sarin, a deadly nerve gas, which one of his employees (played by Creator/ScottWeinger, whom he eventually murders) and his younger brother stole so they can show it to the Rangers. After the genetics lab employee is killed, his brother develops {{amnesia|episode}} while the company's mercenaries pursue him. Walker, Gage and Sydney are able to jog his memory and then stop the scheme in time by removing the sarin from the rig before it blew.

** "Full Recovery" in Season 8 had the CEO of a genetics lab plotting to blow up a military base with sarin, a deadly nerve gas, which one of his employees (played by Creator/ScottWeinger, whom he eventually murders) and his younger brother stole so they can show it to the Rangers. After the genetics lab employee is killed, his brother develops {{amnesia|episode}} while the company's mercenaries pursue him. Walker, Gage and Sydney stop the scheme in time by removing the sarin from the rig before it blow.

** "Full Recovery" in Season 8 had the CEO of a genetics lab plotting to blow up a military base with sarin, a deadly nerve gas, which one of his employees (played by Creator/ScottWeinger, whom he eventually murders) and his younger brother stole so they can show it to the Rangers. Walker, Gage and Sydney stop the scheme in time by removing the sarin from the rig before it blow.

** In Season 3's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS3E16AndS3E17WarZone War Zone]]", an armored car dispatcher is killed in his home by the villains, who were committing robberies by dressing up like clowns. When Walker and Trivette find his corpse hanging from a noose and cut him down, they find out too late it was rigged with a fishing line that is connected to explosives that'll blow the house to smithereens the moment his corpse hits the floor.

** This was done to a meth lab in Season 9's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS9E19UnsafeSpeed Unsafe Speed]]" after Sydney and Gage, who were posing as [[AllBikersAreHellsAngels outlaw bikers]] to infiltrate it, have their cover blown by a mule who witnessed them arrest a drug dealer earlier in the episode. The leader of the bikers gets his meth lab ready to [[StuffBlowingUp blow sky-high]] and leaves Sydney to die in there while he and his gang escape, but Walker and Gage arrive in time to save her. Gage had to free Sydney after she was cuffed to the leg of a table by the lead biker using her own handcuffs while Walker dukes it out with the leader himself. At the same time Gage frees Sydney, Walker had just given the lead biker the finishing blow, but they weren't about to let him die in the explosion.

** In Season 3's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS3E16AndS3E17WarZone War Zone]]", an armored car dispatcher is killed in his home by the villains, who were committing robberies by dressing up like clowns. When Walker and Trivette find his corpse [[HangingAround hanging from a noose]] and cut him down, they find out too late it was rigged with a fishing line that is connected to explosives that'll blow the house to smithereens the moment his corpse hits the floor.

** In "The Day of Cleansing", also in Season 8, which serves as a crossover with ''Series/MartialLaw'' and rips the UsefulNotes/OklahomaCityBombing [[RippedFromTheHeadlines from the headlines]], Cliff Eagleton and his militia group rig up semi trucks with explosive chemicals to go off within four minutes after the driver pulls the loop, with their intended targets being police stations, banks, churches, courthouses and other government and diverse locations at exactly 9:00 AM. After Eagleton's men are captured, the semi operated by Eagleton had Sydney, whose cover was blown while she and Gage were undercover, tied up, but Walker and Sammo free her and manage to drive the truck as far away from Dallas as possible before it exploded.

** In Season 3's "[[Recap/WalkerTexasRangerS3E16AndS3E17WarZone War Zone]]", an armored car dispatcher is killed in his home by the villains, who were committing robberies by dressing up like clowns. When Walker and Trivette find his corpse hanging from a noose and cut him down, they find out too late it was rigged with a fishing line that is connected to explosives that'll blow the house to smithereens the moment his corpse hits the floor.

* The Omnitrix in ''Franchise/Ben10'' has such a mechanism, with the resulting blast depending on how long the countdown is. 30 seconds was enough to sever Vilgax's arm, but given a few days it could take the Universe with it. The function can be voice-activated and deactivated by Ben, the code being "00-Destruct-0 (Time it should charge)".

* In the ''Literature/KnownSpace'' series, the Puppeteers have transparent, indestructible hulls. In one book, a Puppeteer scientist discovers a way to destroy said hulls [[spoiler:by destroying the optical computer holding it together]] which is used in ''Literature/DestroyerOfWorlds''.

** ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce 3'' has [[spoiler:[[TheDragon Joker]], who when defeated as Dread Joker, has his self destruction mechanism activated by [[BigBad Mr. King]] to blow up the entire secret Dealer base in order to [[TakingYouWithMe kill everyone in the building]], including [[TheHero Geo]], [[TheBrute Zack]] and [[TheDarkChick Tia]].]] [[spoiler:The blow is [[HeroicSacrifice absorbed entirely by Ace, killing him]].]]

This can also apply when {{Antimatter}} is used as fuel, weaponry or both. Simply releasing all of the antimater from whatever containment system is used keep it from coming into contact with matter can quite reasonably be expected cause extreme damage to the spaceship, even if there's not enough antimatter to outright annihilate it.

* Early on in ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbTheMovieAcrossThe2ndDimension'', when Phineas, Ferb, and Dr. Doofenshmirtz first meet, it's mentioned that the reason Doofenshmirtz's Otherdimensioninator doesn't work is that he improperly wired the self-destruct button. Phineas [[GenreSavvy asks him why it's neccessary]], and Doofenshmirtz slowly realizes that he doesn't need it. He also mentions attempting to take over with an army of robots...and put the self destruct buttons on the bottoms of their feet. [[spoiler: It is eventually revealed that Doofenshmirtz-2 also installed a self-destruct button on his robot army, but being more competent than his original counterpart he is smart enough to keep the button on his person rather than on the robots themselves.]]

* ''Cosmic Sin'' (2021). General Ryle decides to [[HeroicSacrifice destroy the alien portal gate]] by detonating the fuel in his spacesuit. Unfortunately the suit's AI won't activate the self-destruct because it detects a live person inside the suit. So he gives an order to blast him with the orbital cannon, and his own nephew is the one who has to pull the trigger.

* The ''Manga/{{Cyborg009}}'' episode "Mystical Island" has a self-destruct mechanism for the island base which is triggered by the destruction of security robots. The self-destruct sequence was disabled when the scarecrow robot removed the circuit control card from the main power circuit, causing the base's main power systems to shut down and the self-destruct countdown to stop with 6 seconds left on the timer.

* ''ComicBook/{{Irredeemable}}''. When the Plutonian does a FaceHeelTurn and kills his former superhero colleague Inferno, a group of supervillains investigate Inferno's secret headquarters in the hope of finding something they can use in case they're next on the list. Instead they discover Plutonian there, who proposes an alliance with his former enemies. As a test of this alliance he hands them several {{Big Red Button}}s, which he claims activate a device that will kill him. The villains all press them before he's finished talking, whereupon Plutonian asks [[DidYouActuallyBelieve if they seriously believed]] he'd hand them a weapon that could kill him, [[NighInvulnerable even if such a weapon did exist]].
-->'''Plutonian:''' What would you build into a headquarters to keep it out of your enemies' hands when you die?
-->'''Recorded voice:''' Four...three...two...one...
-->'''The Fixer:''' ''(OhCrap)'' A self destru--''([[KilledMidSentence bomb goes off]])''

* ''Series/DarkMatter'': When the android Ruac gets severely damaged, one of these is activated to wipe his mind.

[[caption-width-right:350:"Behold, my Blow-Itself-Up-Inator!"]]

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E6TheDoomsdayMachine The Doomsday Machine]]": Scotty turned the U.S.S. ''Constellation'''s impulse engines into a jury-rigged self-destruct device with a 30-second countdown. Note that once he enables the device, he warns Kirk that [[IrrevocableOrder activating it is irreversible]], presumably due to the considerable damage the ship has already taken. In his own words: "The way things are it's hard to ''keep'' it from blowin'!"
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E22ByAnyOtherName By Any Other Name]]": Scotty rigged the engines to detonate while the Enterprise was passing through the energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy.
** Used and aborted (complete with MagicCountdown) in the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E15LetThisBeYourLastBattlefield Let This Be Your Last Battlefield]]". The same code sequence to arm the device was used again in the film ''Film/{{Star Trek III|The Search for Spock}}'', this time destroying the Enterprise. :
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E26AssignmentEarth Assignment Earth]]": The missile carrying the orbital nuclear warhead platform has a self destruct device to destroy it in case it goes off course. Gary Seven deactivates it as part of his plan to scare the Earth governments into not using such weapons.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E14BlanceOfTerror Balance of Terror]]": The Romulan commander destroys his ship rather than surrender. Notably, the Romulan ship's destruct mechanism does not feature the usual count-down or multi-person activation. The Romulan commander simply pulls a lever and the ship goes boom immediately.

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E141001001 1001001]]", Riker and Picard activate the ''Enterprise''-D's self-destruct when they realize someone has taken the ship. Once they determine what's going on, they shut it down.

** In "Basics", Kazon ships had repeatedly hit one specific spot on Voyager in hit-and-run raids, damaging the secondary command processors. The reason became apparent when Voyager fell into a massive ambush and tried to activate the autodestruct to prevent capture. Turns out the secondary command processors are vital to the job, and the Kazon had been notified to this fact by a Cardassian spy on Voyager who had defected to them upon her discovery.

** In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E11Contagion another episode]], both Enterprise and a Romulan ship have had their computers invaded by Alien Phlebotinum. In a scene inside the Romulan ship, there's a computer-voice speaking (in Romulan) that sounds an awful lot like a self-destruct countdown.

* The Center for Disease Control in ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' is equipped with a high powered explosive device that is intended to incinerate everything in the facility in the event of total power loss.
* ''Series/OddSquad'':
** Precinct 13579's Headquarters is rigged to self-destruct if the "un-self-destruct" button, located in the South Control Room, is not pressed every 10 minutes. Usually, this duty is handled by agents in the Maintenance section of the Maintenance/Transportation department, but in "High Maintenance", Olympia and Otis, who are demoted to the Maintenance department, become so preoccupied with fixing other things around Headquarters that they forget to press the button, nearly causing Headquarters to self-destruct ''with people still inside of it.'' Luckily, they manage to figure out which button is the un-self-destruct button and press it with 10 seconds left on the clock.
** The Mobile Unit van has a self-destruct mode, which is activated by pushing a button that looks similar to the inside of a waffle maker. In one of the flashbacks from "The B-Team", Arctic Mr. O ends up pressing it because he thinks that it's the button to open the hatch door, and as a result, the mode is initiated as the Van Computer tells everyone to evacuate, causing Oswald to freak out while Orla and Arctic Mr. O can only stand in place in shock. Luckily, Orla, Oswald, Omar and Opal take off their What-It-Would-Have-Been-Like-inator helmets before things get explosive (and potentially gory).

* TheEvilOverlordList says that if you must include a self destruct on your evil lair it shouldn't be triggered by the BigRedButton labeled "Self Destruct Mechanism", that button just [[SchmuckBait triggers a hail of bullets]]