History ApocalypseHow / ClassX2

** In one of the movies, Broly went into a rampage and destroyed countless stellar systems in the South Galaxy, nearly obliterating it entirely, making it a case of a class X-2.5, ''way'' above a single Class X-2, but not quite enough to reach Class X-3.

*** However, in the ''very'' far future (''many'' billions after ''many'' billions of years) the probabilities of a star passing so close to our Sun that planetary orbits will get disrupted increase. It has been estimated that after [[TimeAbyss a quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) years]] our dead and dark Sun will have all of its planets stripped, so by then the Solar System will have ceased to exist.
* There are different ways this can happen at the end of a star's life cycle: medium-mass stars (like our Sun) swell up into a Red Giant, incinerating their inner solar system, then collapse, ejecting most of their mass into a Stellar Nebula, and turn into a tiny White Dwarf, which eventually cools down into a Black Dwarf: a dark, cold, dense lump of matter. High-mass stars die much more dramatically, swelling into Supergiants and then going supernova (exploding), leaving behind a nebula, a Neutron Star, or a Black Hole. Low-mass stars are estimated to last as long as ten times the current age of the universe. Any low-mass stars that might have become helium white dwarfs were originally higher-mass stars stripped of their mass.

* ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'': [[BigBad The Fallen]] actually wants to destroy the Solar System by using a powerful machine located within the Pyramids of Egypt that is pointed at the Sun. Fortunately, Optimus Prime destroys the machine before it activates, and later kills the Fallen by yes, tearing off his face.

* In ''Manga/HellstarRemina'', one of the early warning signs that the titular [[EldritchAbomination "planet"]] Remina could be a problem is that [[TheStarsAreGoingOut nearby stars start]] [[OhCrap disappearing]].

* ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'': After converting her prison ship, [[spoiler:Ruby White]] in "Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith" [[spoiler:travelled to many worlds, but warns Clyde not to look out for them, as they're "no longer with us".]]

'''The Doctor:''' I programmed the Hand of Omega to fly into Skaro's sun and turn it supernova.\\

* ''Literature/IntoTheLookingGlass'': At the end, the hero is given a device of unknown functionality. Using the [[TeleportersAndTransporters "Looking Glass" portals]] the device is taken to an uninhabited star system for testing. After the testers return to see the results of the test, they find ''the entire star system'' just plain ''gone''. Later books include a space station made by precursors that controls the entire output of a sun.

* Technically, the threat to the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' in ''Discworld/TheLastHero'' probably counts as this, although its sun (which is only a few miles in diameter) would've been a much smaller loss, as celestial bodies go, than Great A'Tuin and the world-bearing elephants.
* Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'' series has spaceships the size of moons with Black-Hole-generating engines that if used too close at too high a power setting to a sun, can cause it to go supernova. In the third book of the series, they figure out how to micro-miniaturize the supernova effect into a gravitic bomb that's less than ''nine feet long''.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/TheGodsThemselves'' is about a power source which, if not stopped, will cause this to happen to the Sun... and start a chain reaction bringing the catastrophe to just below Class X-3.
* Creator/AlanDeanFoster's ''Literature/HumanxCommonwealth'' series novel ''The End of the Matter'' is about a rogue Black Hole that threatens multiple star systems by devouring their suns, leaving them barren and lifeless. The protagonists spend their time looking for a LostSuperweapon reputed to have been developed by an ancient race specifically for use against this type of threat.
* In the book series ''Literature/IntoTheLookingGlass'', by Creator/JohnRingo, at the end the hero is given a device of unknown functionality. Using the [[TeleportersAndTransporters "Looking Glass" portals]] the device is taken to an uninhabited star system for testing. After the testers return to see the results of the test, they find ''the entire star system'' just plain ''gone''. Later books include a space station made by precursors that controls the entire output of a sun.
* One group of human survivors in ''Literature/TheKillingStar'' [[spoiler:cause an X-2 event by causing the Sun to partially implode in a desperate attempt to die rather than be captured by the alien attackers.]]

* Peter F. Hamilton's ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy'' has Alkad Mzu's Alchemist, which freezes a gravitational distortion node in time just before it reaches the point at which it would push itself out of the universe (many of these in a lattice around a ship are their method of FTL travel). It has two settings, one which, when fired into a star, will suck all the surrounding matter into it and create a neutron star. The lower powered setting is much more destructive, as the gravity isn't strong enough to overcome the explosive force of collapsing a star/gas giant. Which they use in order to destroy about two ships.
* In Creator/AlastairReynolds ''[[Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries Revelation Space]]'' trilogy, the Inhibitors build a device called a star-singer. It turns manipulates the gravity of a star to turn it into a giant flamethrower, both utterly incinerating all life on the targeted planet and turning the star into a dwarf too dim to allow any life to ever evolve in that system ever again. [[spoiler:Then the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Greenfly terraformers]] show up, and begin the slow, inevitable conversion of all the planets in the universe into swarms of plant-filled space habitats.]] %%Moving this to X-4 ruins the spoiler tags.

* Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Literature/TheSongsOfDistantEarth'' runs with the premise that humans calculate from unexpected scientific measurements only a brief few hundred years to leave the solar system due to stellar instability. Given that no technologies existed to send living humans away, the gesture was made of sending automated colonizers to populate other hypothetical worlds. Then things get a little weird.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' featured some pretty badass weapons, ridiculous as they were, including the Sun Crusher (which caused a sun to go nova, which would result in not only its own destruction but that of any system of habitable planets it may have maintained), and the Galaxy Gun, which can blow up planets anywhere in the galaxy, without having to the leave the safety of the Empire's most heavily defended world. There's also the innocuously named Centerpoint Station, an [[LostTechnology ancient superweapon]] whose functions had been long since forgetten...until it was discovered (by the BigBad of the story, naturally) that like the Sun Crusher, it can cause stars to go nova, along with other less directly destructive but still incredibly useful functions.
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and parodied in ''Destiny's Way'' by Creator/WalterJonWilliams, in which Han Solo ridicules the proliferation of super-weapons (and by extension the authors responsible for giving every new ExpandedUniverse novel in TheNineties a new superweapon-of-the-week).

* In Creator/RandallGarrett's short story "Time Fuze", Earth's first expedition to Proxima Centauri arrives just in time to watch the star go supernova a few billion years ahead of schedule. It turns out that it was caused by the FTL drive on their ship; on the return trip, they discover that they accidentally blew up our own Sun on exiting the solar system, too.
* In Creator/FrederikPohl's novel ''The World at the End of Time'' war between plasma-based beings that live inside stars results in the destruction of uncountable solar systems. The war is fought by directing energies into a star that tear apart the beings. It has the side effect of causing the stars that the beings inhabit to go supernova. That side affect is used to exterminate biological entities before they might threaten the beings. One notable example is the destruction of a Wolf Rayet type star when one being tricks another into believing that is the type of star he prefers. [[spoiler:It is revealed to be ''the'' Sun, and takes out Earth and all human civilisation except the colony the story is set in.]]
* One of the [[IHaveManyNames many names]] of the [[{{Satan}} Lone Power]] from the ''Literature/YoungWizards'' series is "Star Snuffer", since It has the ability to both render a star dark and cause it go supernova.

* [[Film/{{Transformers}} ''Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen'']]: [[BigBad The Fallen]] actually wants to destroy the Solar System by using a powerful machine located within the Pyramids of Egypt that is pointed at the Sun. Fortunately, Optimus Prime destroys the machine before it activates, and later kills the Fallen by yes, tearing off his face.
* ''Film/{{Sunshine}}'' is about a space mission to avert this trope and prevent the Sun's imminent collapse, apparently through natural processes.

* Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Literature/TheSongsOfDistantEarth'' runs with the premise that humans calculate from unexpected scientific measurements only a brief few hundred years to leave the solar system due to stellar instability. Given that no technologies existed to send living humans away, the gesture was made of sending automated colonizers to populate other hypothetical worlds. Then things get a little weird.
* The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' featured some pretty badass weapons, ridiculous as they were, including the Sun Crusher (which caused a sun to go nova, which would result in not only its own destruction but that of any system of habitable planets it may have maintained), and the Galaxy Gun, which can blow up planets anywhere in the galaxy, without having to the leave the safety of the Empire's most heavily defended world. There's also the innocuously named Centerpoint Station, an [[LostTechnology ancient superweapon]] whose functions had been long since forgetten...until it was discovered (by the BigBad of the story, naturally) that like the Sun Crusher, it can cause stars to go nova, along with other less directly destructive but still incredibly useful functions.
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] and parodied in ''Destiny's Way'' by Creator/WalterJonWilliams, in which Han Solo ridicules the proliferation of super-weapons (and by extension the authors responsible for giving every new ExpandedUniverse novel in TheNineties a new superweapon-of-the-week).
-->'''Han Solo''': What the Empire would have done was build a super-colossal Yuuzhan Vong–killing battle machine. They would have called it the Nova Colossus or the Galaxy Destructor or the Nostril of Palpatine or something equally grandiose. They would have spent billions of credits, employed thousands of contractors and subcontractors, and equipped it with the latest in death-dealing technology. And you know what would have happened? ''It wouldn't have worked.'' They'd forget to bolt down a metal plate over an access hatch leading to the main reactors, or some other mistake, and a hotshot enemy pilot would drop a bomb down there and ''blow the whole thing up.'' Now ''that's'' what the Empire would have done.
* In Creator/FrederikPohl's novel ''The World at the End of Time'' war between plasma-based beings that live inside stars results in the destruction of uncountable solar systems. The war is fought by directing energies into a star that tear apart the beings. It has the side effect of causing the stars that the beings inhabit to go supernova. That side affect is used to exterminate biological entities before they might threaten the beings. One notable example is the destruction of a Wolf Rayet type star when one being tricks another into believing that is the type of star he prefers. [[spoiler:It is revealed to be ''the'' Sun, and takes out Earth and all human civilisation except the colony the story is set in.]]
* In the book series ''Literature/IntoTheLookingGlass'', by Creator/JohnRingo, at the end the hero is given a device of unknown functionality. Using the [[TeleportersAndTransporters "Looking Glass" portals]] the device is taken to an uninhabited star system for testing. After the testers return to see the results of the test, they find ''the entire star system'' just plain ''gone''. Later books include a space station made by precursors that controls the entire output of a sun.

* In Creator/AlastairReynolds ''[[Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries Revelation Space]]'' trilogy, the Inhibitors build a device called a star-singer. It turns manipulates the gravity of a star to turn it into a giant flamethrower, both utterly incinerating all life on the targeted planet and turning the star into a dwarf too dim to allow any life to ever evolve in that system ever again. [[spoiler:Then the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Greenfly terraformers]] show up, and begin the slow, inevitable conversion of all the planets in the universe into swarms of plant-filled space habitats.]] %%Moving this to X-4 ruins the spoiler tags.
** [[spoiler:The Greenfly]] are stated to eventually cause a X-3 and then X-4 event. It is stated that [[spoiler:Greenfly]] will cause the [[spoiler:premature end of the universe by tainting the process of stellar birth and death]].
* In Creator/RandallGarrett's short story "Time Fuze", Earth's first expedition to Proxima Centauri arrives just in time to watch the star go supernova a few billion years ahead of schedule. It turns out that it was caused by the FTL drive on their ship; on the return trip, they discover that they accidentally blew up our own Sun on exiting the solar system, too.
* In ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'', using planets grabbed from a universe where the laws of physics are different from ours, mainly that superluminal inertial motion is the norm rather than impossible, one is fired into a sun causing it to go supernova.
* Peter F. Hamilton's ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy'' has Alkad Mzu's Alchemist, which freezes a gravitational distortion node in time just before it reaches the point at which it would push itself out of the universe (many of these in a lattice around a ship are their method of FTL travel). It has two settings, one which, when fired into a star, will suck all the surrounding matter into it and create a neutron star. The lower powered setting is much more destructive, as the gravity isn't strong enough to overcome the explosive force of collapsing a star/gas giant. Which they use in order to destroy about two ships.

* Technically, the threat to the Literature/{{Discworld}} in ''The Last Hero'' probably counts as this, although its sun (which is only a few miles in diameter) would've been a much smaller loss, as celestial bodies go, than Great A'Tuin and the world-bearing elephants.

** After converting her prison ship, [[spoiler:Ruby White]] in "Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith" [[spoiler:traveled to many worlds, but warns Clyde not to look out for them, as they're "no longer with us".]]

[[folder:Film]]

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld "The End of the World"]]: Mercury, Venus and the Earth are engulfed out by the expanding sun. Although Earth's technically an uninhabited protected landmark by that point.

* The Pfhor in the ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' Trilogy have a Trih Xeem in their arsenal, a [[{{Precursors}} Jjaro]] technology which roughly translates to "Early Nova". Guess what it does. They deploy it when they take heavy casualties or lose outright when waging wars and/or suppressing slave revolts. [[spoiler:Thing is, when ''you'' come along and spank them and cause them to unleash Trih Xeem, no one bothered to mention to them that the local sun was keeping a [[EldritchAbomination being of chaos]] imprisoned—the attempted X-2 cascades into an X-3 that you spend the final game trying to undo.]]

* The Pfhor in the ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' Trilogy have a Trih Xeem in their arsenal, a [[{{Precursors}} Jjaro]] technology which roughly translates to "Early Nova". Guess what it does. They deploy it when they take heavy casualties or lose outright when waging wars and/or suppressing slave revolts. [[spoiler:Thing is, when [[OneManArmy ''you'']] come along and spank them and cause them to unleash Trih Xeem, no one bothered to mention to them that the local sun was keeping a [[EldritchAbomination being of chaos]] imprisoned—the attempted X-2 cascades into an X-3 that you spend the final game trying to undo.]]

* The Pfhor in the ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' Trilogy have a Trih Xeem in their arsenal, a [[{{Precursors}} Jjaro]] technology which roughly translates to "Early Nova". Guess what it does. They deploy it when they take heavy casualties or lose outright when waging wars and/or suppressing slave revolts. [[spoiler:Thing is, when ''you'' come along and spank them and cause them to unleash Trih Xeem, no one bothered to mention to them that the local sun was keeping a [[EldritchAbomination being of chaos]] imprisoned—the attempted X-2 cascades into an X-3 that you spend the final game trying to undo.]]

* Though we don't see it all on screen, the stellar cataclysm that destroyed the planet Romulus and set Nero on his RoaringRampageOfRevenge in the ''Film/StarTrek2009'' would count. This was an averted X-3, according to [[spoiler:Spock Prime]], however, Romulus' system is the only one known to be affected.

* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Changeling-Bashir attempted to cause Bajor's sun to go supernova.
** In ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'' a weapons-dealing robot is encountered whose masters died out after their sun went supernova and a Dyson sphere is discovered that was abandoned for similar reasons (in "Relics").

* Though we don't see it all on screen, the stellar cataclysm that destroyed the planet Romulus and set Nero on his RoaringRampageOfRevenge in the 2009 ''Film/StarTrek'' Reboot would count. This was an averted X-3, according to [[spoiler:Spock Prime]], however, Romulus' system is the only one known to be affected.

-->-- ''Series/DoctorWho'': "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks Remembrance of the Daleks]]"

'''Doctor:''' I programmed the Hand of Omega to fly into Skaro's sun and turn it supernova.\\

-->-- "[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]": "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks Remembrance of the Daleks]]"

* Magazine/NationalGeographic progam, ''Evacuate Earth'' (Evacuation Earth) , has this kind of situation with a rogue neutron star, [[http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/videos/god-help-us/ not only destroying Earth]] but other plants in the solar system, possibly the sun as well.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'''s Samantha Carter [[RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun drops a stargate, opened onto a Black Hole, into a star, causing the star's mass to be depleted and explode]], destroying the BigBad's fleet, and [[spoiler:unfortunately throwing SG-1 into a different galaxy.]]
** Which ''makes no sense whatsoever'', given that long-lived stars have low masses, while Hypergiants have a life-span of one or two million years.
*** One possibility is by essentially having the core sucked out from the middle of the star, simulating the core collapse in high-mass stars that triggers a supernova.
** Likewise, Rodney [=McKay=] from ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' managed to destroy almost an entire solar system by mistake. Five-sixths, but it's not an exact science. Destroying a solar system rarely is.
*** Rodney doubtless also still resents the fact that Carter gets mad props for deliberately blowing up an entire star system, where as he only gets mockery for ''accidentally'' blowing up most of one...

* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Changeling-Bashir attempted to cause Bajor's sun to go supernova.
** In ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration The Next Generation]]'' a weapons-dealing robot is encountered whose masters died out after their sun went supernova and a Dyson sphere is discovered that was abandoned for similar reasons (in "Relics").

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The End of the World", Mercury, Venus and the Earth are engulfed out by the expanding sun. Although Earth's technically an uninhabited protected landmark by that point.
** In series 5's [[spoiler:"The Lodger", the time ship (disguised as an upstairs flat) that is powered by lifeforce is incompatible with human and Time Lord life. When it absorbs a human, it burns them, causing toxic rot to seep through the ship's floor, but if it reaches the Doctor, the energy would blow up the entire solar system]].
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks Remembrance of the Daleks]], the 7th Doctor pulls a BatmanGambit on Davros, tricking him into making Skaro's sun go supernova.

** The ancient weapon from "Colony In Space" was apparently capable of singling out any star in the Milky War galaxy and causing it to go nova. Whether or not its effects could reach other galaxies isn't stated.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', The Tumor is a bomb that can destroy the Incipisphere (a pocket dimension roughly with the size and contents of a solar system) [[spoiler:and is designed to do so to erase Null Sessions]]. [[spoiler:[[BigBad Jack Noir]]]] would have eventually destroyed the Kids' Session via a bunch of Class Xs, [[spoiler:and ends up doing this to the Trolls' Session]].

* [[Franchise/{{Transformers}} Unicron]], while mostly known for [[PlanetEater eating planets]], has also eaten stars, albeit never on screen. It's AllThereInTheManual.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

[[folder:Films]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* Peter F. Hamilton's ''NightsDawn'' trilogy has Alkad Mzu's Alchemist, which freezes a gravitational distortion node in time just before it reaches the point at which it would push itself out of the universe (many of these in a lattice around a ship are their method of FTL travel). It has two settings, one which, when fired into a star, will suck all the surrounding matter into it and create a neutron star. The lower powered setting is much more destructive, as the gravity isn't strong enough to overcome the explosive force of collapsing a star/gas giant. Which they use in order to destroy about two ships.

** And even the destruction of Starkiller Base isn't a savior for the system it was in. All it did was cause the star to swallow Starkiller Base, reconstituting in a new location. As a result, the system now has ''a new center of gravity'', and the orbits of its planets will be greatly disrupted, with all the havoc that may entail.