Doomsday device
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A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon — which could destroy all life on the Earth, or destroy the Earth itself (bringing "doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth).
Doomsday devices have been present in literature and art especially in the twentieth century, when advances in science and technology allowed humans to plausibly imagine in a definite way about the possibility of actively destroying the world or all life on it (or at least human life). Many classics in the genre of science fiction take up the theme in this respect, especially The Purple Cloud (1901) by M.P. Shiel in which the accidental release of a chemical gas kills all people on the planet. (Weart 1988)
After the advent of nuclear weapons, especially hydrogen bombs, they have usually been the dominant components of fictional doomsday devices. RAND strategist Herman Kahn proposed a "Doomsday Machine" in the 1950s which would consist of a computer linked to a stockpile of hydrogen bombs, programmed to detonate them all and bathe the planet in nuclear fallout at the signal of an impeding nuclear attack from another nation. Such a scheme, fictional as it was, epitomized for many the extremes of the suicidal logic behind the strategy of mutually assured destruction, and it was famously parodied in the Stanley Kubrick film from 1964, . It is also a main topic of the movie Beneath the Planet of the Apes, in parallel with the species extermination theme. Most such models either rely on the fact that hydrogen bombs can be made indefinitely large (see Teller-Ulam design) or that they can be "salted" with materials designed to create long-lasting and hazardous fallout (e.g. a cobalt bomb).
Alleged implementations
A number of nations continue to maintain nuclear stockpiles in the thousands of warheads which could be potentially used to a similar end (see, e.g., the idea of nuclear winter), although these are not doomsday devices in the strict sense.
The Perimeter system developed by the former Soviet Union is occasionally cited as a doomsday device (the “dead hand”), but in fact it is only a communications continuity system designed to keep missile defense operable even after massive infrastructure damage.
In popular culture
Use of this concept for humor purposes has occurred several times in popular entertainment.
- In the film Dr. Strangelove, the Soviet Ambassador, upon learning that the Americans could not call back a bomber set to deliver nuclear weapons inside the Soviet Union, informs the President that Soviet Premier Kissoff had ordered the creation of a doomsday device. Though fully functioning, he hadn't informed the world because he was hoping to save the announcement for the upcoming party congress.
- In Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Cat's Cradle. A doomsday device is created called ice-nine with the capability to freeze all the water on Earth.
- In Robert McCammon's novel, Swan Song, the President of the United States, delusional and believing himself God fallen from heaven, decides that evil has won on Earth (after the nuclear holocaust he helped induce) and the planet must therefore be purged using the Talons of Heaven. This concept involves firing a massive payload of nuclear weapons at the poles, knocking the earth off its axis, causing massive icecap melting and subsequent flooding.
- In the television cartoon series The Flintstones, the comic sidekick character The Great Gazoo appears in the show because he was sent to earth as punishment for creating a doomsday button which could destroy not just the planet it was on, but the whole universe, i.e. it could annihilate everything in existence.
- In the popular superhero cartoon of Spider-Man several Cold War era heroes such as Captain America battle the villain Red Skull many years after his attempt to create a doomsday device.
- In the novel Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams, the supercomputer Hactar was asked by the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax to "create the ultimate weapon." When he asked them what they meant by ultimate, he was told to "look it up in the dictionary", and concluded that they wanted him to destroy the universe. He thus created the Supernova bomb, capable of linking all the cores of all the stars in the universe together in a massive universe-engulfing supernova.
- In the TV comedy Whoops Apocalypse a numerical overload of a space invaders game almost causes a nuclear alert and the Russian's doomsday device mistakes a crashing space rocket for a missile and starts a nuclear war that results in the end of the world. There is also a super bomb invented called the Quark Bomb, which is powerful enough to destroy an entire country (so the US decide to base their tests in Europe.)
- On The Simpsons episode You Only Move Twice, the character Hank Scorpio threatens the United Nations with a doomsday device. In order to prove he isn't bluffing, he destroys the 59th Street Bridge near the UN headquarters.
- In the animated television series Exosquad, the leader of Neosapiens, Phaeton, tried to destroy the Earth with a doomsday device as a revenge for the destruction of Mars.
- Occurs occasionally in Futurama. Professor Farnsworth in particular is known to possess several doomsday devices, which (ironically) infrequently come in handy for saving the universe (as in 'Time Keeps on Slippin'', where he is forced to part with one of them with the rueful reflection "I suppose I could part with one and still be feared.")
- The real time strategy game Total Annihilation features a heavy defensive installation, mounted with three different kinds of lasers, named the "Doomsday Machine". It is a 3rd level unit built by the Core.
- In 2005, melodic death metal band Arch Enemy released an album titled "Doomsday Machine".
See also
References
- Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear fear: a history of images (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988).
External links
- [Herman Kahn's Doomsday Machine]
- [The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel] hosted by Project Gutenberg.
- ["How to destroy the Earth"] — humorous page about the difficulty in destroying the entire planet.
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