History Main / WorldWreckingWave

* Taken to it's logical extreme in the Mortis-trilogy of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', where the healing and wrecking wave are following eachother in a constant circle, as part of the planet's [[BalanceOfGoodAndEvil Light and Dark in-balance]] symbolism: when night falls all plants die, and are reduced into ghastly glowing forms, and massive thunder storms start. When dawn approaches all plant life is renewed.

Compare FantasticNuke, which may set off a World-Wrecking Wave.

* The different armageddon events if ''FallFromHeaven'''s Armageddon counter rises, though spread out more over time.

* Both the Ultimate Annhilator and the Genesis Waves of [[ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog]] were this. Subverted in that the results of all three incidences didn't turn out exactly how their architects had intended due to sabotage of some kind either before or after implementation. As a result, most of the intended changes didn't take or weren't permanent. [[spoiler: Then its ''doubly'' subverted with the reversion of the last Genesis Wave. Only this time, its ''Eggman'' who sabotages ''Sonic''.]]

Natural disasters are scary enough, but what about ''super''natural disasters? One way to kick-start a story or motivate characters to pick up TheCall is to threaten the setting with a World-Wrecking Wave. The Wave can have any of a number of triggers; it may happen when the SealedEvilInACan is released, some [[GodOfEvil overwhelming evil force]] unleashes a powerful {{Curse}}, the CosmicKeystone is stolen or corrupted, or a scientific/technological device meant to better things GoesHorriblyWrong. The wave can have any or all of the following effects: natural disasters will be triggered, [[{{Mutants}} mutations]] will affect animal, plant, and even human life, areas will enter the DarkWorld or become haunted and toxic, and millions of {{Mooks}} (monsters, undead or other things) will roam the land and [[EverythingTryingToKillYou attack all humans]].

* The plasma wall that surrounds the otherdimensional Schwarzwelt in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'', capable of "disassembling any matter that it touches down to a molecular level." It started as a [[PillarOfLight 1m-wide cylinder that stretched upwards in the middle of Antartica]], but it has been expanding steadily ever since. Should the mission to investigate and destroy the Schwarzwelt fail (or should the Main Character die in combat), the wall will suddenly expand so rapidly as to engulf the entire world in ''seconds'', annihilating everything in its path and leaving behind a world of demons. (This is a WorldWreckingWave rather than an ApocalypseHow (though it counts as that too) because if the Schwarzwelt actually did what it was said to be capable of, the result would be more along the lines of "Earth ''vanishing from existence''".)

* [[RealityWarper Becquerel]] of {{Homestuck}} sets one off when diverting the massive meteor barreling at Jade as she undertook her entry into the game. The result is the blasted wastelands of Earth we see TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture when WV comes around.

* [[RealityWarper Becquerel]] of {{Homestuck}} sets one off when diverting the massive meteor barreling at Jade as she undertook her entry into the game. The result is the blasted remains of the entire Earth we see TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture when WV comes around.

Natural disasters are scary enough, but what about ''super''natural disasters? One way to kick-start a story or motivate characters to pick up TheCall is to threaten the setting with a World-Wrecking Wave. The Wave can have any of a number of triggers; it may happen when the SealedEvilInACan is released, some [[GodOfEvil overwhelming evil force]] unleashes a powerful {{Curse}}, the CosmicKeystone is stolen or corrupted, or a scientific/technological device meant to better things GoesHorriblyWrong. The wave can have any or all of the following effects: natural disasters will be triggered, [[{{Mutants}} mutations]] will affect animal, plant, and even human life, areas will enter the DarkWorld or become haunted and toxic, and millions of {{Mooks}} will roam the land and [[EverythingTryingToKillYou attack all humans]].

* In the second-to-last episode of ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'', Diagon emits a World Wrecking Wave [[spoiler:that turns ''every human being on Earth'' into an Esoterica (except Judy who escapes thanks to Ship encasing her in its power armor form).]]

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX:'' When the Iifa tree is destroyed, the mist covering the continents is removed, then when the party returns from Terra, it has returned. Thought, this is an example of the World-Wrecking Wave having been active before the start of the story.

* Third Impact in ''EndOfEvangelion'' manifests using this trope. Wherever the wave passes, the oceans turn red, all people explode into LCL while their souls fly off into low orbit and the ground spontaneously sprouts billions of CreepyCoolCrosses with the entire scene overlaid by '''humanity's collective DeathCryEcho'''. It's utterly [[ApocalypseWow awesome]] and horrifying at the same time.

* A small-scale version. Most reconstructions of the K-T extinction involve a blast of fire and heat moving outwards from the impact site.
Small scale? The explosion created by the K-T asteroid is estimated to have been the equivalent of 100 million megatons of TNT (roughly 2 million times more powerful than the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever made). The blast wave is estimated to have destroyed everything in the radius of several thousand kilometers (and the noise was probably heard all over the world), with the hot, molten pieces of the asteroid falling down on Earth shortly after raising the temperature all over the world to broiling oven levels for a few hours. Definitely a full-scale version.
* Another small-scale version, pyroclastic flows.

* [[EldritchAbomination The Destroyer]] from ''TheLegendOfSpyroTrilogy'' will let loose one of these in the event it finishes its trek around the world, destroying it in a wave of fire and ash. [[spoiler:Spyro reverses this by emitting a WorldHealingWave.]]
* The heroes of ''SuperRobotWarsAlpha'' [[NiceJobBreakingItHero accidentally unleash one of these after killing the final boss of the first game]] and the plot of ''Alpha Gaiden'' revolves around them trying to stop it from hitting Earth and getting trapped in a post-apocalyptic future where they apparently failed.

* In ''Literature/TheDarkTower'' novel ''TheDarkTower/WolvesOfTheCalla'', Roland and the crew experience a "Beamquake" as one of the Beams holding up the Tower gives way. Roland says the land was destroyed for thousands of miles near where the beam snapped.

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