If you destroyed a modern city in your setting, how would you do it?

Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Using abilities, powers, magic, or weapons in your setting, how would you destroy a modern city? Alternatively, what's the most creative method you can think of to destroy a modern city?

why ask? In the story I am currently writing, I'm destroying, annihilating, blowing up a city for plot purposes. I know how I'm going to do it, but suddenly I am curious to see how other writers would go about it. (Personally, I'm using volcanoes. At least eight of them.)

So how about it?

edited 16th Aug '11 10:54:14 PM by battosaijoe

Rogue Power: Gravity could probably pull a Pein. Other than that, I can't think of much. (They don't have huge explosives yet. You could do it with a shitload of TNT...)

I'm partial to heavy riots/civil war. Metahumans causing collateral damage works too.

There seems the obvious answer of 'nuclear bomb', but perhaps that's too obvious.

@cityofmist if in the setting of a writing that's a viable option, then sure. But in my setting, it's not, it its not obvious at all. Haha

If I were to let my main villain loose on a mundane city, the first thing she'd do is encase it in a barrier that prevents transfer of energy across said barrier, then hit it with a spell that creates near-absolute zero temperatures. When she drops the field, everything shatters. Everything.

Simple. Who cares about the city when all you have to do is kill everyone inside it?

edited 16th Aug '11 9:41:02 PM by KSPAM

@animemetalhead that's one of the most creative ideas I've ever heard.

I'll go with a boring ol' "the well dried up". Though it's far more complicated to pull off now, and there will likely be hold-outs, poisoning, destroying, or otherwise removing a city's water supply will kill it. First, rationing, then water riots, followed by disease outbreeaks as unsuitable water is used, then finally mass emigration. You end up with a ghost city that's as dry as an egyptian tomb.

Poisoning may include radiation, biological agents, chemicals and even plants. The destruction of infrastructure like pumps, reservoirs, dams or treatment plants would do. Then again you could use major demolitions (or magic) to drain underwater reservoirs, lakes and alter the course of rivers or even dry them up. Weather control isngreat for that.

edited 16th Aug '11 10:02:19 PM by Earnest

Oh, there is a city in my setting that's going to be destroyed soon. Maybe in 20 pages or so?

I haven't quite decided how the city will be destroyed, but I know why it's destroyed- an employee of the college of mages is killed there (crazy bitch, she deserved it), and the college decides that a show of force is necessary to keep other cities in line with their current policy.

So all the head professors get together and annihilate the place from afar. I admit to being stuck on the best method to do so, but magic can do almost anything in my setting.

Of course, this is all a stretch since the city isn't exactly modern. But I'm with Earnest on this one, poisoning the wells (so to speak) is the way to go. No other nonmagical method would be nearly as devastating to the population, not even a nuclear bomb or several nuclear bombs.

edited 16th Aug '11 10:35:42 PM by deathjavu

The "destroy a modern city in your setting" part confuses me. What if your setting isn't the modern day? Or am I reading this wrong?

@ OP Are you saying how would I destroy a city in my setting? Also, like mentioned earlier, what if my setting ISN'T modern?

Seriously, clarify your question.

The question is supposed to be "using abilities, powers, or weapons in your setting, how would you destroy a modern city?" Whether your setting is set in modern times or not is irrelevant, and if you can't do it, you can't do it. Admittedly this is more aimed towards fantasy, action, and Sci-Fi settings than others. However, I can change it to a less specific "city or town", sans modern.

EDIT: Okay, edited for clarity and added an alternative.

edited 16th Aug '11 10:56:49 PM by battosaijoe

Screw Your Planet: Reality Distortion Munitions. Fortunately, there's only one running around the setting. Also, I just gave out a terrible spoiler.

Screw Your City, Suburbs, and Province/State: Arc-En-Ciel.

Clean Slate: Starship bombardment, area saturation fire (use of main batteries).

Clean But Radioactive Slate: Nuke it.

Burned-Out Shell: Heavy combat lasting at least a week and no concern for the infrastructure. Picture most German cities after WW 2. Starship involvement kept to occasional use of area suppression fire (use of secondary batteries). Frequent use will result in something more like "Dirty Slate".

Depopulation: Sic the Wolkenritter on it if large. Huckebein if small. Substitute large groups of Combat Cyborgs or extremely large groups of New Belkan mages if wanted. Bureau mages (and later Bureau Combat Cyborgs) are unsuitable as they are almost certain to resort to knocking down buildings.

edited 16th Aug '11 11:11:25 PM by Night

Come to think of it, all the settings I've recently written that have a faction capable of destroying cities have that faction utilizing some form of You Will Be Assimilated, with the faction's capability to destroy cities directly proportional to its capability to assimilate their citizenry.

I did write the Church Of The Rapture doing something like this once, albeit on a smaller scale. They used jury-rigged flamethrowers and propane bombs to set fire to an entire town.

edited 16th Aug '11 11:26:57 PM by KSPAM

Moments Before the Wind: The way most people's superpowers work means that with enough energy, someone with basically anything other than directly physical powers (super strength, bullet time, etc.) or non-combative ones (illusions, general luckiness, etc.) could easily decimate a large town, if not a small city. And that's without very much effort at all. Such delightful ends include:

• Fireballs from outer space. Or firewhirls. Or carpetbombing via telepathy.

• Outright flattening everything within a five-mile radius, or lifting said five mile radius five miles into the air and dropping it (more gravity controlling wackiness.)

• Turning into a shadow and spreading over the entire city before simply letting everyone fall in.

• Politically manipulating every ''actual'' politician running the city in order to let the city itself fall to a massive crime wave, covered up by the Big Bad 's Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass persona which usually involves him firing up his new laser just in time for The Hero to learn how to pull energy out of the air or aiming a shrink ray at the team's Sizeshifter . Either way, it's all for shits and giggles.

Yeah, my story pretty much takes place in a Crapsack World .

edited 17th Aug '11 1:22:43 AM by Winglerfish

I do destroy modern cities in my work. (Later on anyways, the first book mainly gets them a bit torn up via collateral damage and the fighting itself. They are not deliberately destroyed then.) Preferred means are massive orbital bombardment, kinetic energy strikes, and nuclear weapons.

It's actually quite rare for me to destroy entire cities in my stories - although instantaneous depopulation is always an option. I suppose if I wanted to I'd have one of my characters who's a Gravity Master simply reverse gravity in the city, and have the entire thing fly out into space.

edited 17th Aug '11 6:45:10 AM by RiotousRascal

Midgard-verse: Detonate an Tintreach Warhead, turning all matter in the entire city into pure energy...

Sixth Seal-verse: Drop a meteorite-swarm on the town...

Hmm... they do this three times in Innocence Lost. Once with nuclear artillery via aerial battleship (the French city of Amiens), once with nuclear missiles delivered via rocket artillery (the American city of Washington DC), and once with firebombing and a very large amount of heavy artillery and aerial bombardment—think the Bombing of Dresden, but much worse, and you have an idea of it (haven't decided what city in Germany specifically yet).

I guess I'm old-school with my dakka...

edited 17th Aug '11 7:12:10 AM by USAF713

A random background event.

In the background.

Nanomachine disassembly.

edited 17th Aug '11 9:44:00 AM by Yej

Conventionally? Cut off the city's transportation links by blowing up all the road, rail, and electricity transmission lines. It'll start to starve within a week, especially if you can keep the facilities from being easily repaired. Rioting and general chaos will start well before then, of course. You'll have a wave of refugees fleeing to the suburbs, wrecking things as they go. It would be a scene worthy of The Dark Knight's Joker.

Supernaturally? Oh, so many ways. Undermining the bedrock beneath the city so the whole thing collapses into a giant sinkhole would be hilarious.

edited 17th Aug '11 9:53:18 AM by Fighteer

If we count depopulation, Alexander could probably kill off an entire city hand-to-hand without much trouble. He might or might not go insane in the process.