History Main / WaveMotiongun

* ''MassEffect2'' has the Collector ship's main weapon, fully capable of blowing the original ''Normandy'' in half with a glancing hit. Later in the game, you can get the Thanix Cannon, a recent Turian creation, which takes two shots to vaporize the Collector ship in kind. Both these weapons are watered-down versions of a standard [[EldritchAbomination Reaper]] weapon; the beam is actually a constant stream of liquid metal fired at C-fractional velocity. If that description doesn't scare you, look up C-fractional velocity, we'll wait. According to the codex, the Reaper version hits with around the force of 450 kilotons of TNT. To put that into perspective: the Hiroshima bomb had a yield of 13 kilotons of TNT. Not only that, but this cannon can be fired every five seconds and never runs out of ammo.
** ''MassEffect3'' has a weapon that combines the effects of two ''MassEffect2'' [[{{BFG}} Heavy Weapons]] (the [[UnrealisticBlackHole Blackstorm Projector]], and [[TooAwesomeToUse the]] [[EverythingMakesaMushroom Cain]]): The one-shot [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Reaper_Blackstar Reaper Blackstar]]; it is guaranteed to OneHitKill any enemy within it's enormous radius, and according to it's codex entry, it is [[HandWave thought]] to cause both a [[NukeEm fission and fusion reaction]].

[[folder:Tabletop]]

* The 'Hell-class' weapons from Alastair Reynold's ''RevelationSpace''. Some can blast big holes in a planet's crust. Others can ''destroy stars'' (or so we're told). [[spoiler:The Inhibitors get some as well; how does a ''stellar flamethrower'' sound?]]
** Personally I found the Hypometric weapons to be more impressive, not that showy as they just remove a volume of space from existence and the workings are generally described as looking 'wrong'

* Roger Penrose theorised a particular kind of gravitational phenomenon... the "pp wave of death", a "gravitational plane wave exhibiting a strong nonscalar null curvature singularity, which propagates through an initially flat spacetime, progressively destroying the universe". A wave big enough to destroy the universe could never exist, but finite sized ones that could cause substantial damage might be created from certain kinds of black hole decay.
** Basically, the wave propagates at lightspeed so you'll never see it coming and spaghettifies everything it touches. From its point of origin, it will reach out to the cosmic horizon 30 billion lightyears away... effectively giving it ''infinite range''. Its size is limited, but whether that means it would only be capable of obliterating every solar system it reached or consuming entire galaxies is something for the theoritical physicists to discuss.

* Battleships from the Dreadnought era to the end of World War II had a reputation of being floating brings of death, obviously because of their ridiculously large guns.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positronium Positronium]] lasers have the potential to be ungodly powerful, directly resulting from matter/antimatter total mass conversion.

* A hypothetical real-life Wave Motion Gun would be [[http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3x1.html#shapedcharge Nuclear Shaped-Charge]] [[http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0510/0510071v5.pdf weapons]]. It believed that the needed technology does exist (Project Orion wouldn't have been considered without them). Basically, you take the might of a Nuke, and instead of wasting it in an undirected explosion, you convert it into a ravening plasma beam ''[[DoomyDoomsOfDoom of death]]'', as hot as a star's core, which remains lethal at a range of several ''light-minutes''. Simply awesome.

* SentinelsOfTheMultiverse has a hero named Bunker. (So named because of his PoweredArmor suit). His main tactic is to play his [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Omni-Cannon]], then sit there for several turns, putting cards from his hand under it. then, he can destroy all the cards under it to deal 2 damage for each card under it. Under most conditions, it's pretty much the most powerful attack in the game.

** And then there's Chachamaru's Artifact[[spoiler:, a freaking ''KillSat'' she uses to utterlly obliterate the EldritchAbomination that a few moments earlier had cut in half a Gold Dragon like butter.]]

* Arika's "Bolt From The Blue" in ''{{Mai-Otome}}''. Unfortunately, her equal and opposite number Nina has a similarly-powerful attack as well [[spoiler:in both her robes]]. Natsuki also has her Howling Silverwolf attack, debuting near the end of the series in a massive BeamOWar with Nagi's siege cannon.
* Similarly, in ''{{Mai-HiME}}'', Mai's CHILD Kagutsuchi can take out an entire aerial fleet.

* The manga series ''{{Blame}}''! features the ''Gravitational Beam Emitter'', a wave motion '''''pistol'''''. Its power is so great that if it were to be used in a regular atmospheric environment (like, you know, ''ours''...), it would have irreversible environmental side effects. [[InformedAbility Or so]] [[WordOfGod we've been told...]] The GBE is considered a Class 9 weapon of mass destruction in Blame and is VERY rare to to come across. To give you an idea, at lowest setting, it can shoot a beam 70 km long. Anything in this path is obliterated. At maximum firepower...um...you'd have to see it for yourself.

* From ''[[LyricalNanoha Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'':

* ''SpaceKnightTekkaman'' and its reimagining ''Anime/TekkamanBlade'' both have the Voltekka as ultimate attacks.

* Franchise/{{Gamera}}'s Mana Cannon and any variant of Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'s Breath Weapon, be it Red, Golden or [[ThisIsADrill Spiraling Red]] all count as such. When things are hit with them, they die almost universally and they often rearranges the landscape. Godzilla's usually occur after a brief chargeup period. Gamera's does as well, but also has other nasty side effects--like cutting him off from humanity and draining the health of the earth itself.
** Kiryu also had the 'Absolute Zero Cannon', which was capable of equal destruction. In ''Film/GodzillaVsMegaguirus'', the humans decide to try and use one called the Dimension Tide on Godzilla, which literally fires a Black Hole. Side effects include ripping a hole in the fabric of space and time and [[spoiler: creating the movie's main monster]].

** All the above come ''after'' the real Wave Motion Guns of the series, the "primaries", so-called because they're the primary weapons of the ships early in the series. When some new tech comes along, those become the primaries and the former primaries become secondary (or tertiary, and as far down the list as you care to go before they're no longer worth the mass/space to take along) weapons. The culmination of this (which happens before they start throwing planets around) is the one-shot primaries, which are the strongest beam weapons they can get deliberately overloaded so that they emit one unbelievably strong pulse before exploding. This was initially developed by some Boskonian genius who realized that trading one gun and its crew for one enemy ship and ''its'' crew was actually a pretty good exchange if you weren't a member of the gun crew involved. The Patrol, once they figured out what was going on, made it non-lethal (to the attacker) by shielding the hell out of the inside of the turret and operating them by remote control.

* Three major versions exist in ''EscapeVelocity Nova''. There's the Vell-os psionic weapons, including the "turreted" [[ThemeNaming Autumn Petal]] and the even-deadlier [[FixedFowardFacingWeapon fixed]] Winter Tempest. The [[ProudWarriorRace Aurorans]] get in on the action by importing Vell-os tech, applying their standard [[TimTaylorTechnology Tim Taylor-meets-Worf]] design scheme to it, and create the ''[[ShockAndAwe Thunderforge]]'' dreadnought and its "Triphammer" main guns. Meanwhile, the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens Polaris]] [[OrganicTechnology Capacitor Pulse Lasers]] were just as deadly as either and ''vastly'' more common, being mounted on all their capital ships save the Dragon (frigate analog).

*** That's nothing. Later, when the Yamato has to deal with an enemy base on Pluto, '''''blowing up the whole damn planet''''' is considered a viable option. NoKillLikeOverkill indeed.

* In AlanDeanFoster's ''HumanxCommonwealth'' series:

** In ''SuperRobotWars: Original Generation'', the capital ship "Hagane" wields a massive, energy-guzzling [[{{Unobtainium}} Tronium]] Cannon. However, it can be fired with no real recharge time for the ship, and is in fact used often with the 'gravity brake' off so the ship can use the massive inertia in a fancy escape maneuver. The "Hiryu Custom"'s Gravity Cannon and the SRX's Hyper [[strike:Titanic Blasting]] Tronium Buster Cannon also count. Its full name, [[CallingYourAttacks according to]] [[AscendedFanboy Ryusei]], is the Tenjo Tenga Ichigeki Hissatsu ho or Heaven and Earth One-Hit Sure-Kill Cannon.

* The "Hellball" spell in NeverwinterNights 1 probably qualifies for this trope because it's the most powerful Area Of Effect spell in the game and although it acts as a GuidedMissile, it takes time to reach the enemy giving them time to kill you first, and also if you don't back off immediately after casting, you'll be caught in the blast and suffer its effects as well.

The CoolShip needs an equally cool weapon. If it's a sufficiently humongous CoolShip, it will be equipped with a [[FrickinLaserBeams Laser Beam]] [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on steroids]]: the Wave Motion Gun -- an enormous RayGun that fires a massive energy beam capable of blowing away an enemy ship (in the "blow a battleship in half" sense), sometimes an entire fleet, with one shot, and maybe even [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing up an entire planet]]. It doesn't necessarily have to even hit; if you're too close, [[SplashDamage the sheer energy bleeding off from the beam can be deadly]]. And don't even think about trying to waste your time with puny DeflectorShields -- it'll just [[NoSell punch right through 'em]].

* Terran capital ships in the ''StarCraft'' universe are equipped with a Yamato Gun (naturally, named after ''UchuuSenkanYamato''), which fires a massive bolt of energy with massive SplashDamage in exchange for a large chunk of the unit's [[ManaMeter energy meter]]. This is easily acceptable, though, given the fact that the Yamato Gun is the only use for said energy.

** ''StarCraft2'' brings back the Yamato Gun, and also has the Drakken Lazer Drill (only seen in the campaign mission The Dig), a beam capable of taking out a Protoss Archon, which have 300 shields and great defense, in under three seconds. On the Protoss side we have the Void Ray, which should qualify as its initially super-powerful attack becomes stronger over time, and the Planet Cracker, a cut ability for the Mothership.

** Which sounds [[LifeImitatesArt suspiciously similar]] to the [[AllThereInTheManual concept behind]] the [[StarCraft Battlecruiser's]] [[ShoutOut Yamato Cannon]].

* The Egg Carrier in Sonic Adventure has one of these.
** The Eclipse Cannon that first appeared in ''[[SonicTheHedgehog Sonic Adventure 2]]''. Also, the Power Laser for Tails' and Eggman's mechs (battle mode and second enemy boss battle only). The former of which is advertised as being powerful enough to destroy planets when fully charged, and delivers as promised in ShadowTheHedgehog.

* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'':