History Main / KillSat

--> '''[[ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]]:''' There is one particularly sharp-witted boss who attacks you with a satellite missile system ''while standing on the same narrow rooftop''. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Didn't even need to shoot the bastard.]] [[{{Self-Disposing Villain}} It was practically assisted suicide]].

* WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime has established that before he founded MECH, leader Silas was involved in the development of these as part of "Project Damocles". [[AvertedTrope Thankfully, the project was cancelled long before the show started.]]
** [[spoiler: Not anymore, Project Damocles will be active again in "The Human Factor".]]

** In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode ''Maid of Honor'', villain Vandal Savage takes control of a [[ColonyDrop mass driver equipped]] Kill Sat owned by the country kingdom of his intended bride...and is promptly crushed (but not killed, thanks to his regenerative powers) by a shot from the weapon after his plans are foiled.

** Wedge: "We're going to face them with an enemy they've never had the displeasure of fighting. We're going to hit them with the Empire." Tycho: "They're not going to like the Empire."

[[folder:ReligionAndMythology]]
* There is a Kill Sat greater than all others on this page and His name is the '''[[Literature/TheBible LORD]]'''.
** Although He deals out punishment from Heaven several times throughout the Bible, special points go to the story of Elijah. The prophet is sitting on a hill when a captain leading fifty soldiers approaches and calls out, "Man of God, the king orders you to come down." Elijah responds, "If I am a man of God, may fire from heaven [[KillItWithFire consume you and you fifty men]]." A second captain leading fifty men suffers the same fate, and the third one appears begging for his life. An angel tells Elijah that this one is safe to go with.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films]]
* The Death Star from ''StarWars''. It's a space station filled with millions of staff, stuffed to the bursting point with weaponry, and has a planet shattering superlaser built right into it!
** The Death Star is mobile and in fact there would be no point to it if it wasn't. It is basically a giant starship that is called a space station.
* Dr. Evil's "Alan Parsons Project" in ''AustinPowers: The Spy Who Shagged Me''. He cheated a little by putting it on the Moon, but that's still in orbit.
** [[FridgeBrilliance This is]] [[JustifiedTrope actually justified]] as the Moon is a '''natural satellite''', making this the only genuine [[TropeName Kill Sat]].

* The disaster movie ''{{Meteor}}'' features two satellites armed with over a dozen nuclear weapons. It turns out Sean Connery designed one to be a defense against asteroids, but they thought it would be better used against Russia.
* The protagonists in ''SpaceCowboys'' go into space to fix what they're told is a communications satellite, only to find out it's an old Soviet Kill Sat armed with nuclear missiles and in danger of activating.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}'', a kid with a [[SolarPoweredMagnifyingGlass magnifying glass]] functions as the insect-sized version of this. He vaporizes one [[{{Mook}} soldier ant]] before chasing the protagonists down with a beam of sunlight. They get away, but end up hopelessly lost in the process.

* This is how WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}} actually kills [=MetroMan=]. [[spoiler: Except that it turns out that [=MetroMan's=] NotQuiteDead...]]
** In the straight-to-video ''Megamind: The Buttom of Doom'', the villain-turned-hero Megamind tries to sell off all his "evil" inventions at a garage sale, including the Kill Sat, which he markets as a barbeque starter. This is the only item he fails to sell. Of course, it turns out to be useful in the end [[spoiler:when he has to destroy a HumongousMecha he built a long time ago programmed to kill heroes, who he now happens to be]].

* {{Batman}}: The rogue Brother Eye satellite that Batman built can be used as a kill sat, it even has the A.I necessary to use and control all of it's functions(yes, even the ''really'' deadly ones) on it's own, which [[OhCrap sucks]] for Earth.

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has, in its archives, a ''Memetic'' Kill Sat. It makes people AxCrazy, and the effect 'splashes' at higher settings. It reports a maximum output of 238, which gets converted to 'keter' intensity - and apparently causes effects that ''screw with reality itself''. More worryingly, using it causes wear (and results in lower-intensity settings slowly becoming unavailable). What ''really'' worries the SCP, though, is [[spoiler: the fact that the Kill Sat says it was built to help protect a site that they never built.]]

* In the anime-style fighting game ''VideoGame/EvilZone'', MetalHeroes parody Danzaiver's LimitBreak has him calling upon a Kill Sat to strike at his enemy from orbit, complete with cutaway to the satellite itself. [[SlapOnTheWristNuke It's not as painful as it sounds.]]
** It should be noted, however, that this technique is actually a ''grappling maneuver'', which takes the concept to an unforeseen level of ridiculous.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', Exterminatus is the command used by the Inquisition when demons or heresy spread too far across the planet to be contained by covert or even overt military action. All possible (or at least important) Imperial forces pull out, and the orbiting fleet blows the hell out of the planet in any of a wide variety of ways, ranging from glassing the surface with hundreds of multi-gigaton warheads and ship-based beam weapons, to bombs filled with viruses that turn all organic matter into sludge, and "cyclonic torpedoes" that ''light the atmosphere on fire'' in a rather ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}''-esque way. All of these methods aim for one thing: rendering life on the planet impossible.

* WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic has an image macro titled "[[Hate Detected. Firing The Orbital Friendship Cannon.]] (It's not actually a Kill Sat though, just SpeedLines combined with MundaneMadeAwesome). [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x8bZJPovUQ This]] [[WebVideo/MLPFIMFanFic fanvid]], however, plays it straight.

A variation of the "WaveMotionGun", {{Kill Sat}}s have the added advantage that you don't need to be anywhere near either the weapon or the target. Instead, you can fire it from the safety of your headquarters: your satellite will move into position and unleash a shiny descending PillarOfLight on your unsuspecting target. Power/accuracy on Kill Sats vary, ranging from "lone vehicle" to "entire building" to (rarely) "town or small city." [[EarthShatteringKaboom Planet busters]] are another category entirely, as firing them remotely from ''anywhere'' on the surface is inadvisable.

* One of the major subplots in the original ''BubblegumCrisis'' revolved around a MacGuffin which would allow a [[ArtificialHuman Boomer]] to gain control of the military's network of {{Kill Sat}}s.

* {{Kill Sat}}s show up in many ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' series, although they aren't quite as common as the ColonyDrop.

* The penultimate issue of the ''GlobalFrequency'' comic is based around a preset plan by the US government to cause a population reduction by blasting a few major cities with {{Kill Sat}}s. These are kinetic harpoons, a single shot weapon mostly by virtue of being a fancy orbiting crossbow that fires an artificial diamond at enough speed that the kinetic energy goes off like a nuke when it strikes the ground.

** The titular weapons in ''Film/{{Goldeneye}}'' were single-shot EMP-based {{Kill Sat}}s. The first one is used to cover up the theft of the satellite control codes by destroying the operations base. The BigBad plotted to use the second one to knock out London (and all evidence of a grand electronic bank raid to be completed first), but was stopped by Bond and his [[GirlOfTheWeek Girl of the Movie]], Natalya.

** It's a control for a ''network'' of {{Kill Sat}}s.

* ''[[Literature/JackRyan The Cardinal of the Kremlin]]'' by Creator/TomClancy had as a major plot point the simultaneous development of anti-satellite weapons by the US and the USSR. As the lasers were ground-located, they weren't technically {{Kill Sat}}s, but the US system included the ability to bounce the laser beam off of multiple orbiting mirrors, thus hitting any target on the planet. It worked, too, except that the laser was too weak to do much more than give the target a mild sunburn.
* A very literal KillSat (and a rare occurrence of a Kill Sat being used by a good guy) is found in Jim Butcher's ''Literature/DeathMasks''. [[spoiler: Harry's mentor Ebenezar [=McCoy=] brings down an old Soviet satellite on the home of villainous vampire Paolo Ortega, killing him and his dozens of vampire subjects... as well as the humans they fed from.]]
** That's really a ColonyDrop, not a KillSat.

* ''Powersat'' by BenBova: a microwave power satellite is turned into a killsat by a bunch of terrorists.

* There is a KillSat greater than all others on this page and His name is the '''[[Literature/TheBible LORD]]'''.

** ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'' had Bahamut Fury turn ''the Moon'' into a KillSat.

** As nice as SOL was, it's hard to argue against "Floyd", the KillSat used by the US Military near the end of the manga, having it beaten hands-down. Able to fire multiple beams at once, move the beam ''while'' firing, widen the beam... [[GeneralRipper the American commander]] actually orders ''[[NoKillLikeOverkill the entirety of Japan]]'' to be targeted at one point! [[spoiler:Not that any of these features kept Tetsuo from [[DeathFromAbove boarding the thing and crashing it on top of the US command carrier...]]]]

* The Damocles from ''CodeGeass''. Technically not a satellite but a floating fortress armed with a cannon that shoots [[SphereOfDestruction FLEIA warheads]], but since it was supposed to be flown out of the atmosphere and placed on a geosynchronous orbit, it fulfills all the criteria for a KillSat (it's in space, it rains doom on people).

* In ''GreatMazinger'' -the sequel of ''MazingerZ''-, [[TheDragon Great Marshall of Hell]] fabricated a massive lens of ice orbited around Earth and worked like a KillSat by focusing sunrays in one single point and blasting it with a massive, hot-melting [[DeathFromAbove heat ray]]. It appeared only in one of the manga continuities, though.

* In ''NajicaBlitzTactics'', one of the [[RobotGirl android girls]] actually is the remote control for a KillSat, making a fair grab for the sexiest use of this trope in fiction.

* Wormhole Driver from ''TheThirdTheGirlWithTheBlueEye'' is an old (but still fully operational) KillSat capable of creating Black Holes on top of the targeted area (which means that depending on the power used in such attack it can most likely destroy anything up to the entire planet)

* ''LegendOfGalacticHeroes'' featured two variants of KillSat, both of which are designed as space-based defences: the giant Iserlohn Fortress occupying an important choke-point in the Imperial frontier and the Artemis Necklace network of battle-satellites orbiting around the Alliance capital planet.
* Saya from ''Manga/{{Onidere}}'' has access to a KillSat that strikes her father every time she says a phrase. However her [[MadeOfIron father is so tough]] that despite destroying his house he doesn't even notice it.

* WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic has an image macro titled "[[Hate Detected. Firing The Orbital Friendship Cannon.]] (It's not actually a KillSat though, just SpeedLines combined with MundaneMadeAwesome). [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x8bZJPovUQ This]] [[WebVideo/MLPFIMFanFic fanvid]], however, plays it straight.
* In ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'', Kyon's {{Morph Weapon}}s can assemble into a KillSat called "[[ShoutOut Spear]] [[VideoGame/{{Touhou}} the Gungnir]]".

** ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'' had a slight twist on it: Hugo Drax's KillSat was also an inhabited space station, where his master race would remain safe and sound while nerve gas wiped out the rest of humanity.

* The plot of the Steven Seagal movie ''[[UnderSiege Under Siege 2]]'' revolves around a DiabolicalMastermind seizing control of a military KillSat and threatening to use it to blow up Washington, D.C. Bonus points are awarded since the DiabolicalMastermind was the one who had built the satellite for the government in the first place before [[NotQuiteDead faking his own death]].\\

* The stolen MacGuffin in ''Film/EscapeFromLA'' is a control for a KillSat.

** In the straight-to-video ''Megamind: The Buttom of Doom'', the villain-turned-hero Megamind tries to sell off all his "evil" inventions at a garage sale, including the KillSat, which he markets as a barbeque starter. This is the only item he fails to sell. Of course, it turns out to be useful in the end [[spoiler:when he has to destroy a HumongousMecha he built a long time ago programmed to kill heroes, who he now happens to be]].

* The fourth boss in the SNES game ''VideoGame/TheNinjaWarriorsAgain'' wields a pimp cane that can direct an unseen Killsat to fire on your position.

* If you built a Microwave power station in ''Videogame/SimCity 2000'', it could occasionally "miss" and rain KillSat-like destruction on your helpless citizens.

* In ''VideoGame/TargetTerror'', the player can acquire a one-use "SmartBomb" by firing at a miniature KillSat that quickly scrolls across the screen at regular intervals. When used, a {{cutscene}} shows a satellite charging and firing into the earth, immediately killing all hostile targets with individual lasers while leaving friendly {{NPC}}s unharmed, even indoors.

* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', the ''Dawnguard'' expansion features Auriel's bow, a weapon forged by a God. Whenever this weapon is used to fire Sun-Hallowed Elven Arrows directly at the Sun, cue the magical equivalent of a powerful KillSat being unleashed onto nearby enemies.

* The graphic novel-esque flash series ''BrokenSaints'' features a fanatical CorruptCorporateExecutive who sets up a KillSat network [[spoiler: in order to broadcast a signal triggering his vision of Judgment Day.]] It also has the ability to lock on to anywhere on the planet and emit highly-focused [[ShockAndAwe EM pulses]].

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has, in its archives, a ''Memetic'' KillSat. It makes people AxCrazy, and the effect 'splashes' at higher settings. It reports a maximum output of 238, which gets converted to 'keter' intensity - and apparently causes effects that ''screw with reality itself''. More worryingly, using it causes wear (and results in lower-intensity settings slowly becoming unavailable). What ''really'' worries the SCP, though, is [[spoiler: the fact that the KillSat says it was built to help protect a site that they never built.]]

* In ToBoldlyFlee, BigBad the Executor has a KillSat that he uses [[spoiler: to (almost) kill ThatSciFiGuy. And plans to use it to destroy the Earth]].

** Later in the episode, the same scientist converted the same mirror into a more traditional KillSat at the request of the President of Earth, RichardNixon. The plan was to use it to destroy the Galapagos Islands, where Nixon had tricked all of Earth's robots into going with a massive party, when it was discovered that robots were the cause of global warming. ItMakesSenseInContext.

** In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode ''Maid of Honor'', villain Vandal Savage takes control of a [[ColonyDrop mass driver equipped]] KillSat owned by the country kingdom of his intended bride...and is promptly crushed (but not killed, thanks to his regenerative powers) by a shot from the weapon after his plans are foiled.

* In ''{{Spliced}}'', Octocat controls a KillSat that she uses on people who annoy her.
* A Kill Sat made a short appearance in an episode of ''KimPossible''. The series ArchEnemy tried to obtain the controls for it, but failed.

* SOL in ''Manga/{{AKIRA}}''. Used to sucker punch a rampaging [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity Tetsuo]], [[AnArmAndALeg incinerating his right arm in one shot]]. The reason it didn't get a second chance varies: in the anime, Tetsuo flies up and crushes it while the military is still recalibrating; in the manga, [[VillainExitStageLeft he just runs away and goes into hiding]][[spoiler:, leaving the satellite available for the Colonel to use against him in the final battle.]]

* BreathOfFire4 has it's 2 Dragon protagonist and antagonist, Ryu and [[spoiler: Fou-Lu]] have their ultimate dragon forms, Kaiser and Tyrant respectively. The method of attack is eerily similar to the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' Bahamut Zero example above, they both transform, fly high into space, and then Tyrant blasts the entire battlefield with a massive dark ball of power, while Kaiser beam spams the area.

** It appears in the third game as well - though instead of a summon for Natalie, it's a LimitBreak for Lance. And it's safer to use.

* There is a KillSat greater than all others on this page and His name is the '''[[TheBible LORD]]'''.

* In ''VideoGame/PlaystationAllStarsBattleRoyale'', [[ApeEscape Spike]]'s Level 3 [[LimitBreak super move]] involves the use of one of these to wipe out every player on screen.

* One drawback of proposals for the use of orbiting solar-power satellites as an environmentally-friendly form of power is that any means of delivering the energy to the Earth's surface quickly enough to be useful could potentially be used as one of these if someone hacked the controls.

* The second Watchtower in ''JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' had one of these, which caused the heroes no end of grief when it got hijacked for [[LexLuthor villainous purposes]].
** One episode named it the "Binary Fusion Generator", which (while never spoken as such in the show) has a [[{{BFG}} convenient acronym]].
*** Actually Martian Manhunter calls it that when they first fire it, and when Lex fired it.

** In the ''JusticeLeague'' episode ''Maid of Honor'', villain Vandal Savage takes control of a [[ColonyDrop mass driver equipped]] KillSat owned by the country kingdom of his intended bride...and is promptly crushed (but not killed, thanks to his regenerative powers) by a shot from the weapon after his plans are foiled.

* For reasons that aren't entirely clear a lot of White cards do this in MagicTheGathering. [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Smite%20the%20Monstrous Smite the Monstrous]] is a apparently as laser fires out of the moon.

** A different Angel started out dropping bits of itself on the city, gradually target-tracking onto the geofront, at which point the whole thing came crashing down and the Evas have to run up and catch it.

* A very literal KillSat (and a rare occurrence of a Kill Sat being used by a good guy) is found in Jim Butcher's ''[[DresdenFiles Death Masks]]''. [[spoiler: Harry's mentor Ebenezar [=McCoy=] brings down an old Soviet satellite on the home of villainous vampire Paolo Ortega, killing him and his dozens of vampire subjects... as well as the humans they fed from.]]

* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' included a Kill Sat angel. Eva being Eva, it fired a [[spoiler:MindRape beam at you to the tune of the [[SoundtrackDissonance Hallelujah]] chorus from Handel's ''Messiah'']]. [[spoiler:Asuka]] was unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of said beam, and needless to say, [[HeroicBSOD the results were not pretty]].

* The inversion is more common: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon Anti-satellite weapon]], or ASAT. These ranges between contemporary missiles, to nuclear explosions [[RecycledINSPACE (IN SPACE!).]] In this age of information, these have incredible destructive potential to the infrastructures (compare: 2006 internet slowdown when some undersea cables was destroyed by Taiwan earthquake). It's not entirely ominous though, as there are few ways to safely[[hottip:*:hey, it's either this or risk flaming debris falling on your head]] and economically dispose of unused old satellites.

* The Russian Almaz-class military space station ''OPS-2/Salyut 3'' sported a self-defense gun that was tested successfully on a target-satellite (probably an obsolete one of theirs, since shooting down an US satelite would have been considered an act of war). The intent here was probably taking out potential US killer satellites.

* The Russian Almaz-class military space station ''OPS-2/Salyut 3'' sported a self-defense gun that was tested successfully on a target-satellite (probably an obsolete on of theirs, since shooting down an US satelite would have been considered an act of war). The intent here was probably taking out potential US killer satellites.