History Main / DoomsdayDevice

* Busting {{Doomsday Device}}s is pretty much ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'''s hobby, with Dr. Drakken the major builder of them.

* ''{{WesternAnimation/Motorcity}}'': The Genesis Pod, which could wipe out all of Motorcity.

* In the "Turtles in Space" arc of ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'', Professor Honeycutt never intended his teleportation device to be a super-weapon, but ''two'' warring empires saw the potential for it to be one, as they could use it to teleport nuclear bombs into the cores of planets.

* ''Film/DrStrangelove'' features an automatic DoomsdayDevice that will fire if Russia is hit with a bomb. The rest of the movie revolves around stopping the bombing some [[GeneralRipper maniacal general]] ordered. [[spoiler:[[DownerEnding They don't]].]] TruthInTelevision: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) Dead Hand.]] Also note that the movie highlights the foolishness of keeping such a device ''secret'' (it was recently completed and was supposed to be announced within a week; they just got ''really'' unlucky with the timing).

* ''Film/DrStrangelove'' features an automatic DoomsdayDevice that will fire if Russia is hit with a bomb. The rest of the movie revolves around stopping the bombing some maniacal general ordered. [[spoiler:[[DownerEnding They don't]].]] TruthInTelevision: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) Dead Hand.]] Also note that the movie highlights the foolishness of keeping such a device ''secret'' (it was recently completed and was supposed to be announced within a week; they just got ''really'' unlucky with the timing).

* WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGoToTheMovies has one, initially labelled as a movie-streaming device by Jade Wilson. [[spoiler:Later Revealed to be a MindControlDevice that brainwashes people into doing Slade's bidding.]]

* The SeriesFinale of ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'', appropriatedly titled "The Doomsday Project", was the culmination of the show's climatic story arc. The titular device was a gigantic tower-like machine that produced UFO-like pods and dispursed them around Mobius in order to subjugate the remaining pockets of resistance on the planet.

* Takahashi-Sensei wrote a short story in the early 1970's (with many of the plot elements later ending up in ''Manga/UruseiYatsura''). In this tale, three alien races all decide to blow up Earth for their own reasons and launch tiny planet-busters, all of which end up in the same person. Then they discover each other and compare notes. The Horrible Truth: Their planet-busters all work by different principles, and if they go off together in one person, they will literally destroy the universe. So the aliens all set about making sure nothing bad happens to the person with the Doomsday Devices inside him, resulting in an age of galactic peace and unity.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': Comicbook/DoctorOctopus likes to build Atomic Doomsday Devices.
* In Franchise/{{Superman}} story ''ComicBook/WarWorld'', Superman and Comicbook/{{Supergirl}} face up to Warworld, a star-sized satellite packed with enough firepower to incinerate entire worlds, built by a race or war-mongers. ComicBook/MartianManhunter even calls it "a Doomsday weapon".
* ComicBook/{{Magneto}}'s usually consist of trying to alter the rotation of the Earth or a friggin' huge meteor.

* ''Wandering Star''.[[spoiler: President Andrews destroys Earth by secretly activating the Weapon Armageddon, an old doomsday device believed to have been disarmed, to prevent Earth from being enslaved by the Bono Kiro.]]

* Hickman's Avengers arc has the Illuminati having to make the hard choice of destroying Earths from parallel universes to stop both universes from being destroyed in a metaphysical collision called an Incursion. To this end they develop devices capable of injecting antimatter into a planetary core to detonate the whole thing. They begin stockpiling these devices.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': In the first season finale has Slade unveil his chronoton detonator, a machine that can permanently stop time across an entire city. [[spoiler:It turns out to be a fake; making the Titans ''think'' he had a DoomsdayDevice was all part of a BatmanGambit.]]
** In "X" Professor Chang uses the stolen Zynothium to power a giant laser cannon, which he intends to use to destroy the city because . . . [[ForTheEvulz reasons]].

* Apparently, the [[RedsWithRockets Soviet Union]] had a semi-autonomous system set up during the Reagan years called [[http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all# Perimeter,]] or [[FanNickname Dead Hand]]. The purpose of this system was so that, in the event of nuclear war, the country's nuclear arsenal could be deployed quasi-automatically in response to a nuclear attack on Soviet soil, regardless of whether or not the Soviet leadership was even still alive - thus allowing the Soviet nuclear arsenal to function as a doomsday device. [[Film/DrStrangelove Sound familiar?]]

[[caption-width-right:330:[[CutLexLuthorACheck Of course, what you desire is to rob banks and destroy Superman.]]]]

* ''WesternAnimation/RoswellConspiracies'': The EMP bomb, and [[spoiler: the Shadoen fleet]].

[[quoteright:330:[[Franchise/{{Superman}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/x_1923.jpg]]]]

* ''Film/{{Tenet}}''. The Algorithm causes temporal inversion of the entire world, destroying the past. The scientist who invented the Algorithm tried to hide the components in the past and committed suicide so she couldn't be forced to build another, but the components have been found and reassembled by Sator in the present day. While Sator is acting out of his own nihilistic reasons, it's not revealed why his sponsors in the future want him to use the Algorithm; either they think they will be immune to a GrandfatherParadox or they just don't care.

* A DiscussedTrope in ''Literature/AfterDoomsday'' when the surviving humans are trying to establish how the Earth was destroyed while they were away on a space expedition. A report comes in that an alien trader sold disruption bombs to a couple of Earth nations that would go off automatically if the nation was attacked. After discussing the issue, they decide the report is a false as the nation concerned would establish an off-world colony as a precaution, and the idea is [[NobodysThatDumb just plain insane anyway]].

* ''Film/{{Tenet}}''. The Algorithm causes temporal inversion of the entire world, destroying the past. The scientist who invented the Algorithm tried to hide the components and committed suicide so they couldn't be forced to build another, but the components have been found and reassembled by Sator in the present day. While Sator is acting out of his own nihilistic reasons, it's not revealed why his sponsors in the future want him to use the Algorithm; either they think they will be immune to a GrandfatherParadox or they just don't care.

* ''Film/{{Tenet}}''. The Algorithm causes temporal inversion of the entire world, destroying the past. The scientist who invented the Algorithm dispersed the components and committed suicide so they couldn't be forced to build another, but the components have been found and reassembled by the BigBad in the present day. It's not revealed why someone in the future is willing to use the Algorithm; either they think they will be immune to a GrandfatherParadox or they just don't care.

* ''Film/{{Tenet}}''. The Algorithm causes temporal inversion of the entire world, destroying the past. The scientist who invented the Algorithm dispersed the components and committed suicide so they couldn't be forced to build another. It's not revealed why someone in the future is willing to use the Algorithm; either they think they will be immune to a GrandfatherParadox or they just don't care.

* ''Film/{{Tenet}}''. The Algorithm causes temporal inversion of the entire world, destroying the past. The scientist who invented the Algorithm dispersed the components and committed suicide so they couldn't be forced to build another.

* A cobalt bomb (similar to the aforementioned one in Film/DrStrangelove), which would "salt" the surface of the earth with fallout and render it uninhabitable, was hypothesized by the progenitors of the Manhattan Project, but never attempted.

* A cobalt bomb (similar to the aforementioned one in [[Film/DrStrangelove]]), which would "salt" the surface of the earth with fallout and render it uninhabitable, was hypothesized by the progenitors of the Manhattan Project, but never attempted.

* A cobalt bomb (similar to the aforementioned one in [[Film/Dr. Strangelove]]), which would "salt" the surface of the earth with fallout and render it uninhabitable, was hypothesized by the progenitors of the Manhattan Project, but never attempted.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', you can build Colossus which is this, and there are 5 different flavors of doom to pick from, depending on your empire ethics. [[TheWallAroundTheWorld Global Pacifier]], [[DepopulationBomb Neutron Sweep]], [[TheAssimilator Nanobot]] [[UnwillingRoboticisation Dispersal]], [[MindControlDevice God Ray]] or vanilla flavor [[EarthShatteringKaboom Planet Cracker]]? Take your pick!

* A cobalt bomb (similar to the aforementioned one in ''Film/Dr. Strangelove''), which would "salt" the surface of the earth with fallout and render it uninhabitable, was hypothesized by the progenitors of the Manhattan Project, but never attempted.

* Building a DoomsdayDevice is the final goal of ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'' for the PC. The player actually has a choice of three possible devices to build, including a Gravity Disruptor, an Earthquake Ray and an ID Eliminator (that basically turns everyone into your minion). In [[Videogame/EvilGenius2 the sequel]], each of the playable characters have a unique Doomsday Device that their personal storylines are focused around.

** In [[WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseTheMovie the movie]], the villain shows up on Earth with a giant Kindergarten Injector that will drain all life from Earth in less than two days if not stopped.

* The Annihilatrix from ''WesternAnimation/FriskyDingo'' is a giant rocket engine built to send the Earth into the Sun.