The Ultimate Weapon of Terror
When you are a villain trying to terrorize all that there is to serve your evil ends, you’ll find it a much easier job to do once you get yourself the ultimate weapon to terrorize with. We’ve seen this kind of weapon again and again in the world of fiction, haven’t we? Every other bond film has the bond villain hijacking some kind of weapon of mass-destruction. Like a laser satellite installation to set someones lawn ablaze, preferably that of the White House or the British parliament.
The most iconic ultimate weapon of terror has to be the Death Star in Star Wars. A moon shaped space station capable of wiping out an entire planet in the blink of an eye. That’s really hard to top in terms of size, scope and comprehension. Its overwhelmingly terrifying and very easy to explain and understand. Though we can find a more subtle example of an ultimate weapon of terror, I believe, in the form of the One Ring of Power in Lord of the Rings. A magic ring capable of corrupting and dominating all living things through the mere whim of its dark creator.
True, it’s not as overwhelming and to the point as a giant space station with a world destroying death ray. But it is more insidious in how it cloaks its potential of terror, even when you know its history of ushering in a time of terror. What harm can a little ring do, eh? And there also lies the temptation of using the ring and its power against the enemy, which, due to the corrupting influence of the ring, would only result in playing it into the hands of the enemy. You have every reason to fear what this ring can do should it be returned to its master, or what it can do to you as its bearer, but it likely doesn’t come to your senses until its too late to fight back.
At least in the case with the Death Star you can fight back at the ultimate weapon of terror directly. In the case of the One Ring of Power you can’t. You don’t lay siege on the ring. The ring however lays siege on you every step on your way to Mount Doom, the only place it can be destroyed by simply being let go off (Simply, but not easily). Either one in each fashion, the Death Star or The One Ring, I consider a formidable ultimate weapon of terror. And with those examples presented to you, dear readers, I would now like to present a different angle to this topic.
Now, we do usually see the villains use an ultimate weapon of terror, yes? But what if we would have a scenario where the good guys uses an ultimate weapon of terror instead. For it to be justified it would in all likelihood be used for defense purposes. A weapon of deterrence against an evil force that would be unmanageable without the force and fear from said weapon. Now, for simplicity’s sake, let’s say its a weapon along the lines of the Death Star, as in: a superpowerful ray weapon of some kind.
And then this ray weapon mysteriously seizes to be operational. And unless the hero or heroine can go in and make this quest to have it operational again, the capital, or the homeworld, of the good side will be overrun and destroyed by the evil force. Sounds like a cool idea for a potential story I just came up with on the go. Might be something for any adventurous storyteller out there to make happen, maybe?
So what are your thoughts on the ultimate weapon of terror? Have you ever implemented such an element in your storytelling? Does the idea about having the good guys use one of those for ones tickle your imagination?
Let me know in the comments. Now, if you excuse me, I need to go back to my side project of inventing a giant ray beam that can target and eliminate any lifeform on the globe, on the atomic level, on a mass scale. My first target will be covid-19. And then—THE WORLD!!!
Helixfinger out!
Post by Andreas Helixfinger! - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Andreas_Helixfinger/
- Banes is taking family leave for a little while.
The Ultimate Weapon of Terror
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Jan. 27, 2022
3 likes!
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Andreas_Helixfinger at 8:01PM, Jan. 27, 2022
@PaulEberhardt - The ultimate weapon of terror of the 21st century: Social media (Dun-Dun-Duuuuuun!) But really, that could be a good example of a the one ring kind of ultimate weapon of terror in a fictional setting.
bravo1102 at 1:09PM, Jan. 27, 2022
The Doomsday Machine as envisioned by Kubrick and was featured in another movie as Skynet. Any attack and there's a full response no matter what. Of course Skynet didn't wait for an attack it launched its own. There was also Colossus:the Forbin Project with a ultimate computer and it just took over the world because it decided humans couldn't run the place. Then there's the great Star Trek episode the Doomsday Machine with its planet killer weapon. Still among the best depictions of such a thing. Lucas saw that and the Comet Empire in Space Cruiser Yamato to make up the Death Star.
PaulEberhardt at 10:13AM, Jan. 27, 2022
Alternatively, let's just poison the universe, and some other dimensions too for good measure, using a giant stink bomb. Evil doesn't need any rational justification, because only good people would think of tedious stuff like that. The key is thinking like a little boy here.
PaulEberhardt at 10:06AM, Jan. 27, 2022
In the days of the Tsar Bomba (which its concerned creators reduced in size and whose explosion still had noticeable effects many hundreds of kilometres away) this concept of an ultimate weapon was an all too real thing, even if it was mainly made to show off (it was hoped). As a person living in the here and now, I'd rather settle for something insidious that won't be noticed until it's way too late - closer too the one ring in a way. Only, I haven't got the type of story for it, and if I had - knowing me - it'd turn out too be too silly to be credible, like an internet video platform that gives you an insuperable urge to spend all your time pointlessly watching people pretending to be amateurs making music or creatively destroying stuff, kittens and, above all, advertisements until your brain turns to mush and you're a submissive slave to the algorithm... Wait a moment! ;)
Andreas_Helixfinger at 9:58AM, Jan. 27, 2022
@MOrgan - "Make me ruler of the world or I'll upload the cursed video from The Ring on Youtube for the whole world to see. You have seven days to comply"^^
Andreas_Helixfinger at 9:55AM, Jan. 27, 2022
@Corruption - Now that would be something to justify having a Death Star as a weapon of defense. Cthulhu versus the Death Star! Epic!!!
Andreas_Helixfinger at 9:12AM, Jan. 27, 2022
@Bravo - The premise of that comic you mentioned reminds me of the comedic Cold War approach to the ultimate weapon of terror in Dr Strange Love or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). How the Soviets create a Doomsday machine, which is surprisingly cost effective to make and all that is recquired really is the will to build it, in fear of a doomsday machine gap with the US. Imagine a similar mentality but with Death Stars or sun killer technologies.
bravo1102 at 9:01AM, Jan. 27, 2022
The universe timeline shared by my current comics is in our galaxy that has had several great galactic wars with ultimate weapons until finally they were abolished. But the last war, well someone wanted it to be the LAST war so sun killer technology was brought back. Why destroy the whole galaxy? Don't you live here too? Don't you want to defest the enemy and take their stuff? Blow up a system is enough to make the enemy stop in their tracks. It could also kill whole fleets of invading ships in one go unlike the Death Star whose weapon could be repelled by Admiral Ackbar's shields just not repeatedly. So that devolved into a fleet action. But a while star? Well there goes your whole base and fleet in one go. But it's a big ship with a hefty power source so you go the Admiral Fisher route and build a specific big ship killer. The dreadnought. Just stuff to think about.
bravo1102 at 8:45AM, Jan. 27, 2022
There was a Richard Corben comic that paralleled WW2 with the two powers and the search for an ultimate weapon and an Einstein looking scientist came up with one. So they decided to test it on a moon. Problem was the weapon would end the whole universe and there was no way to tell the guys testing it to stop the countdown. Oops. The whole thing about weapons is you have to power them. So for a weapon to destroy a sun you might need a whole planet to power it. The Death Star needed to be the size of a moon for its power source. So one to destroy a galaxy might be the size of a Dyson sphere (a whole solar system harnessed to the weapon) Big weapons need big power sources.
MOrgan at 3:06AM, Jan. 27, 2022
Villain, "Either do what I say or I'll show you every episode of Two Broke Girls on an endless loop.." Hero, "I'll do what you say! I'll do what you say! For the love of God don't press play!!!" ;-)
Corruption at 2:06AM, Jan. 27, 2022
In Tenchi Muyo they had weapons capable of destroying galaxies, and used them against enemies that needed that kind of firepower to stop. Yeah, Galaxies. In real life we do use the Ultimate Weapon of Terror. It is called the M.A.D. nuclear deterance system. (M.A.D. stands for Mutually Assured Destruction, as well as summing up the logic used). In the comic Angels and Aliens, for a species to be considered worthy of being considered part of the space faring community, they had to have weapons capable of destroying the universe, mostly so others would not just invade and destroy them. Remember, when you come to the Godzilla Threshold, all weapons of terror, no matter how horrible and dangerous they are designed to be, are just tools to use. I mean, the Death Star? If Chulthu came around, I'd use the Death Star on it, and be praised if it worked!