History Main / CivilizationDestroyer

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': {{Subverted|Trope}}. [[BigBad Salem]] has been trying to divide humanity for thousands of years, co-opting the [[AnimalisticAbomination monstrous Grimm]] for [[KillAllHumans her own ends]], and pitting civilisations or Humans and Faunus against each other. Every time humanity gets too peaceful or settled, she arrives to destroy it from within. However, [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum her goal]] isn't to destroy civilisations, it's to [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroy the entire planet]]. The BigGood has spent millennia encouraging people to oppose her, thwarting her enough for "only" individual civilisations to fall, but ensuring the planet and humanity survives to rebuild. [[spoiler:In Volume 8, Salem takes a giant step towards that goal by destroying the Kingdom of Atlas to obtain two of the four Relics she needs to destroy the planet.]]

* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'': [[spoiler:Father]] is revealed to have been behind the destruction of Xerxes, a genocide so thorough as to leave only one survivor, and ''he'' was only spared because the culprit had a soft spot for him. Most of the plot turns out to be driven by his plan to repeat it [[spoiler:using Amestris. Xerxes was destroyed to create two philosophers' stones: the one that empowers Father, and the one that empowers Hohenheim. The attempted Amestrian genocide, which [[NearVillainVictory almost works]], is to empower Father enough to [[HijackingCthulhu capture God]].]]
* ''Anime/GodzillaPlanetOfTheMonsters'': Godzilla Earth destroys human society and comes very close to destroying all of humanity, and in ''City on the Edge of Battle'' he brings about the extinction of the Bilusaludo. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that Ghidorah has destroyed countless planets, and the Exif are summoning him to destroy more.]]
* ''Literature/Overlord2012'': Ainz runs into the Quagoa, a civilization of mole-men. As he's entered an alliance with the dwarves (their competitors for territory and ore), he tells Shalltear and Aura to reduce their numbers a little and ask them to surrender. When the Quagoa don't see why they should surrender to two little girls, their numbers are culled from 80,000 to ''10,000'' by Shalltear because they didn't agree quickly enough. This has the curious effect of later creating an OddFriendship between their leader Riyuro and [[spoiler:Jircniv]], as both were leaders of mighty empires who had no reason to believe they could be curbstomped by anyone before meeting Ainz, and pledged themselves to his service to save their people.
* ''Literature/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'':
** The True Demon Lords have a reputation for doing this when they go on the war-path. [[WorldsStrongestWoman Milim Nava]] destroyed the advanced elven nation of Soma when they made the mistake of killing her pet dragon in their attempts to control her, which is how she evolved into a True Demon Lord in the first place.
** The [[MonsterProgenitor Primordial Demons]] had a habit of doing this in the past. Before he became a True Demon Lord, Guy Crimson back when he was known as the Primordial Rouge was summoned to destroy an enemy nation. He wiped it out and then wiped out his summoner's nation for kicks and [[EvilIsPetty to drive home how he doesn't like being told what to do]]. Testarossa, Ultima, and Carrera (Primordials Blanc, Violet, and Jaune respectively) in part chose to join [[TheHero Rimuru Tempest]] because they thought serving such a powerful yet interesting being would bring more entertainment than destroying random civilizations for kicks and killing time.
** [[DragonsAreDivine True Dragon]] Veldora did this plenty of times in the past before [[SealedBadassInACan he got sealed away]] in order to "let off steam". No, really, [[PentUpPowerPeril if he didn't release his magicules after storing them up too long it would rush out in a massive explosion]] that could also birth powerful monsters like [[DraconicAbomination Charbydis]]. His sisters don't have this problem since they have much better control of their power (though Velzard deliberately lets her power leak out passively to cause a continent-wide EndlessWinter). One of the nations he destroyed was one for vampires [[spoiler:which caused their VampireMonarch and True Demon Lord Luminous Valentine to establish a new empire in Ruberios that lurks in the shadows.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'': The Blood Men's civilization is destroyed in the Toba supervolcano eruption. [[spoiler:If it ever existed in the first place, as the story of its destruction is told by a archeologist infected with the Crossed virus.]]

* Gozer (also known as Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Gozer the Traveler, Volguus Zildrohar and Lord of the Sebouillia) in ''Film/{{Ghostbusters|1984}}'' is an extradimensional being worshiped as a god by ancient Sumerians and modern cultists. When it enters a world it annihilates the population; before it tried to come to Earth it already had destroyed the [[NoodleIncident Meketrex Supplicants and the Vuldronaii]].
* ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'': King Ghidorah's Showa and anime incarnations are renowned for traveling the cosmos, destroying civilizations. In the ''Franchise/MonsterVerse'' continuity, it's heavily implied in ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' that the {{Kaiju}} across Earth have caused the downfalls of ancient and prehistoric civilizations, which tried to exert control over them only for it to backfire horribly, in times long past. Also, whilst the ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' movie leaves it disappointingly ambiguous, the novelization more explicitly confirms that Godzilla caused the end of the civilization that King Kong's ancestors built in the HollowEarth, driving them to Skull Island on the surface where they were forced to eke out a more primitive lifestyle.
* ''Film/{{Hellboy|2004}}'' is apparently the BeastOfTheApocalypse and is fated to destroy human civilization on Earth, which is what Rasputin wants in the first movie. It is also prophesied by the [[TheGrimReaper Angel of Death]] in the sequel.
* The PlanetLooters from ''Film/IndependenceDay'' do not actually destroy the planets they loot, but after taking all the planet's resources nothing is left from any possible civilization to survive in it.
* PlayedForLaughs as a parody for alien invasions including ''Film/IndependenceDay'' is Creator/TimBurton's ''Film/MarsAttacks'' Martians do not want to destroy Earth itself but they do want to KillAllHumans and vandalize their monuments. The novelizations and tie-in books clarify that this is the entire basis of Martian civilization; they have no great purpose or joy than finding other planets with intelligent life, wiping out the inhabitants, taking everything they find interesting or useful, and then moving on to the next inhabited planet to repeat the process.
* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'': Thanos has quite a record of going to planets and brutally murdering half of their occupants in his mad, obsessive quest to prove himself right.

* Creator/{{Plato}}'s ''{{Atlantis}}'' was famously destroyed in a single day and night of misfortune. Many succeeding works treat it as a historical or mythical event and try to explain how it happened, despite it only being an allegory.

* Cixin Liu's ''Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem'' series reveals in ''The Dark Forest'' [[spoiler: that the universe is populated largely by xenophobic Civilization Destroyers; as in, every single alien civilization either is one, is hiding from them, or has been destroyed by one. ''Death's End'' drives home how utterly mundane our complete destruction is to them.]]
* In the Literature/PriscillaHutchins series the Omega Clouds--known as the "Engines of God" in the alien legends that first put humanity on to them--are planet-sized organized clouds of unknown nature which sweep through the galaxy in waves approximately every 8,000 years, destroying obvious signs of civilization. They seem to be primarily attracted to right angles. One now-extinct race went around building fake cities with lots of right angles on various uninhabited moons to try and distract them. The next wave is expected to reach Earth in about a thousand years.
* In Literature/ThereIsNoAntimemeticsDivision, SCP-3125 is a meme from somewhere outside our reality so alien and so powerful that once it takes hold in human minds, it completely wipes out civilization as we know it. A human in control of SCP-3125 is debatably a human being any longer.

* The Thirdspace Aliens in the ''Series/BabylonFive'' MadeForTVMovie ''Thirdspace'' have, according to the [[EnergyBeings Vorlons]], massacred thousands of races in their home universe and continue doing so every day because they believe only they have the right to exist.

*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E17ThatWhichSurvives That Which Survives]]": Thousands of years ago, an HumanAlien civilization called the Kalandans made an artificial planet to live on. Unfortunately, the process created a microorganism that killed the personnel stationed on the planet. By the time they died, the disease had been transported back to the original civilization via supply ships, completely wiping it out.

*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E20ReturnToTomorrow Return to Tomorrow]]": A half-million years ago, a highly advanced HumanAlien civilization fought an apocalyptic war that destroyed the surface of their planet, ripped away the atmosphere and killed all living creatures on it. Before the end, a few members stored their minds in advanced devices to wait rescue.
*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E12TheEmpath The Empath]]": The star Minara is about to go nova, and all of its planets (several of which have populations) will be destroyed. The HumanoidAlien Vians can only save the population of one planet. They do so, but the other civilizations are doomed.
*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E15LetThatBeYourLastBattlefield Let That Be Your Last Battlefied]]": The HumanoidAliens of the planet Cheron completely wipe themselves out in a genocidal war.
*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E17ThatWhichSurvives That Which Survives]]": Long ago, every living thing on the planet Zetar was killed. The minds and LifeEnergy of 100 of its HumanoidAliens inhabitants traveled into space and search for new bodies to possess.
*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E8ForTheWorldIsHollowAndIHaveTouchedTheSky For the World Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Sky]]": Several thousand years ago the Fabrini people's home sun went nova and destroyed their planets, but some of them were put on a ship resembling an asteroid and sent to another planet.

*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E11WinkOfAnEye Wink Of An Eye]]": On the planet Scalos, radioactive water causes the entire race to live at hyper-accelerated speeds (which tremendously shortens their lifespans) and makes the male part of the population sterile. By the time the Enterprise arrives, there are only a few Scalosians left.

*** In "[[Recap/StarTrekPicardS1E06TheImpossibleBox The Impossible Box]]", Picard invokes this when he furiously disputes Jurati's suggestion that the Romulan-controlled Borg on the Artifact may be different.
--->'''Picard''': ''(outraged)'' Change? The Borg? They coolly assimilate entire civilizations, entire ''systems''! In a matter of hours! They don't change! They metastasize.
*** In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1", Sutra learns from her mind-meld with Jurati that there are [[spoiler:extragalactic synths who can be summoned to eradicate all biological life in the Milky Way. In the next episode, there are robotic tentacles emerging from an interdimensional portal, but Soji breaks the beacon's console before they fully enter our space.]]
*** In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", General Nedar's dialogue reveals that the Romulans have at least five different settings for planet-wide sterilization, and they [[spoiler:very nearly obliterate the androids (and presumably all plant and animal life as well) on Coppelius]].
* The Replicators in ''Series/StargateSG1'' would use all alloy and technologies available in a planet to keep replicating themselves destroying all civilization, but not the planet itself which would become one large Replicator-like world.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. The civilization of the nation of Blackmoor reached an incredibly high tech level compared with the rest of the planet. Unfortunately, their knowledge exceeded their wisdom, and the accidental detonation of some of their machines annihilated Blackmoor, the neighboring Thonian Empire, and other populated areas. They were submerged under the ocean and their populations wiped out.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'': The daelkyr brought down most of the old hobgoblin empire, and it's implied that they've caused similarly eldritch downfalls for other empires on other worlds. The quori devoured a ''lot'' of cultures as they built Riedra. This has...''worrying'' implications for Khorvaire given that the dwarves of the Mror Holds are now dealing with Dirrn the Corruptor, and the quori have ''big plans'' for the Five Nations.

* ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': Amok is an HumanoidAbomination capable of [[PersonOfMassDestruction mass destruction]] with the full control of {{mechanical abomination}}s that can unleash devastation that can wipe out all life. [[spoiler:In the bad ending, this comes to fruition when Amok is freed from her imprisonment and brings about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt by turning the entire world into a barren [[HellOnEarth hellscape]]]].
* ''VideoGame/CrashTeamRacing'': a DummiedOut dialogue shows that [[BigBad Nitrous Oxide]] was the reason there's no life on Mars: there ''was'', until Oxide came to them, challenged them to a racing competition, and won.

* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the Reapers come to the galaxy every 50,000 years or so and wipe out all advanced intelligent life before leaving. The Mass Relay network they leave behind ensures that galactic civilization develops along predictable lines, making it easier for them to destroy it. The first game starts with the Reapers about to return.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Subverted trope. [[BigBad Salem]] has been trying to divide humanity for thousands of years, co-opting the [[AnimalisticAbomination monstrous Grimm]] for [[KillAllHumans her own ends]], and pitting civilisations or Humans and Faunus against each other. Every time humanity gets too peaceful or settled, she arrives to destroy it from within. However, [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum her goal]] isn't to destroy civilisations, it's to [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroy the entire planet]]. The BigGood has spent millennia encouraging people to oppose her, thwarting her enough for "only" individual civilisations to fall, but ensuring the planet and humanity survives to rebuild. [[spoiler:In Volume 8, Salem takes a giant step towards that goal by destroying the Kingdom of Atlas to obtain two of the four Relics she needs to destroy the planet.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': The Other came very close to destroying all of Europa, and successfully destroyed the civilizations [[spoiler:of most of the ancient immortal god queens with only two queens and their lands and people known to have survived, though Zeetha is from a people whose civilization survived the destruction of their immortal queen.]]
* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': The Seven are serial examples of this, being {{Dimension Lord}}s who subdue, consume and destroy practically every civilization in every universe they touch. The 'nicer' ones, like Solomon, simply add you to their glorious empires. The less nicer ones, like Mottom or Gog-Agog, strip your land clean of resources or simply consume all life on the planet for their own benefit or entertainment.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfVoxMachina'': Season 2 opens with four mysterious ancient dragons completely obliterating Emon, the capital city of an entire continent. Thordak, a fire-breathing dragon, tells the survivors their monuments should fall and their civilization erazed before destroying the Royal Palace with his shout.
* ''WesternAnimation/ObanStarRacers'': [[BigBad Canaletto]] had destroyed many civilizations millennia ago, seeing them as "impure and imperfect". It's because he deemed Great Beings' view of life as "weak".

** ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'': Superman discovers that Brainiac kills every sentient life form on the planets he collects knowledge from. Brainiac's [[InsaneTrollLogic reasoning]] is that "the fewer beings who have the knowledge, the more precious it becomes," which naturally outrages Superman.
** ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': The three-part premiere episode "Secret Origins" shows that the same aliens that decimated the Martian civilization (leaving J'onn J'ozz as the sole survivor) are awakened on Earth.
* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTalesTheMovieTreasureOfTheLostLamp'', the Genie explains that Pompei and Atlantis were destroyed by [[BigBad Merlock the Magician]]'s wishes.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Literature/Overlord2012'': Ainz runs into the Quagoa, a civilization of mole-men. As he's entered an alliance with the dwarves (their competitors for territory and ore), he tells Shalltear and Aura to reduce their numbers a little and ask them to surrender. When the Quagoa don't see why they should surrender to two little girls, their numbers are culled from 80,000 to ''10,000'' by Shalltear because they didn't agree quickly enough. This has the curious effect of later creating an OddFriendship between their leader Riyuro and [[spoiler:Jircniv]], as both were leaders of mighty empires who had no reason to believe they could be curbstomped by anyone before meeting Ainz, and pledged themselves to his service to save their people.

* ''{{ComicBook/Crossed}}'': The Blood Men's civilization is destroyed in the Toba supervolcano eruption. [[spoiler:If it ever existed in the first place, as the story of its destruction is told by a archeologist infected with the Crossed virus.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'': King Ghidorah's Showa and anime incarnations are renowned for traveling the cosmos, destroying civilizations.
** In the Franchise/MonsterVerse continuity, it's heavily implied in ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019 Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]'' that the {{Kaiju}} across Earth have caused the downfalls of ancient and prehistoric civilizations, which tried to exert control over them only for it to backfire horribly, in times long past. Also, whilst the ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'' movie leaves it disappointingly ambiguous, the novelization more explicitly confirms that Godzilla caused the end of the civilization that King Kong's ancestors built in the HollowEarth, driving them to Skull Island on the surface where they were forced to eke out a more primitive lifestyle.

* ''Film/WonderWoman1984'': The Stone is said to be responsible for the destruction of the Hittite, Cushite, Mayan, and Roman civilizations, among others.
* ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague'': Darkseid is said to have conquered uncountable worlds by using the three boxes to turn the planet into something similar to his own and the few survivors become Parademons. In fact, Darkseid requested for Steppenwolf to conquer 50,000 worlds ''just'' to talk to him again.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E17ThatWhichSurvives That Which Survives]]". Thousands of years ago, an HumanAlien civilization called the Kalandans made an artificial planet to live on. Unfortunately, the process created a microorganism that killed the personnel stationed on the planet. By the time they died, the disease had been transported back to the original civilization via supply ships, completely wiping it out.
** ''[[Recap/StarTrekS1E29OperationAnnihilate Operation: Annihilate!]]" Going back to ancient times, a number of civilizations on different planets have been destroyed by outbreaks of mass insanity. The cause of the insanity is alien creatures that attack people and inject material into their bodies that takes control of their nervous systems. The aliens make the victims travel to other planets using starships, thus spreading the infection.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E7WhatAreLittleGirlsMadeOf What Are Little Girls Made Of?]]" The aliens who lived on the planet Exo 3 created android robots to serve them. When the androids developed ArtificialIntelligence, the aliens became afraid of them and started to turn them off. In self-defense, the androids TurnedAgainstTheirMasters and destroyed them.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E3TheChangeling The Changeling]]". The interstellar probe Nomad uses its alien technology-enhanced weapons to completely wipe out the population of the Malurian system, killing more than 4 billion people.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E8IMudd I, Mudd]]". The aliens who created the androids originally came from the Andromeda galaxy. Their home planet's star went nova and destroyed their civilization except for a few outposts, whose inhabitants died out over time.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E18TheImmunitySyndrome The Immunity Syndrome]]". The entire population of the Gamma Seven-A system, consisting of billions of inhabitants, is killed by having their LifeEnergy drained by a giant space amoeba.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E20ReturnToTomorrow Return to Tomorrow]]". A half-million years ago, a highly advanced HumanAlien civilization fought an apocalyptic war that destroyed the surface of their planet, ripped away the atmosphere and killed all living creatures on it. Before the end, a few members stored their minds in advanced devices to wait rescue.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E12TheEmpath The Empath]]". The star Minara is about to go nova, and all of its planets (several of which have populations) will be destroyed. The HumanoidAlien Vians can only save the population of one planet. They do so, but the other civilizations are doomed.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E15LetThatBeYourLastBattlefield Let That Be Your Last Battlefied]]". The HumanoidAliens of the planet Cheron completely wipe themselves out in a genocidal war.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E17ThatWhichSurvives That Which Survives]]". Long ago, every living thing on the planet Zetar was killed. The minds and LifeEnergy of 100 of its HumanoidAliens inhabitants traveled into space and search for new bodies to possess.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E8ForTheWorldIsHollowAndIHaveTouchedTheSky For the World Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Sky]]". Several thousand years ago the Fabrini people's home sun went nova and destroyed their planets, but some of them were put on a ship resembling an asteroid and sent to another planet.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E10PlatosStepchildren Plato's Stepchildren]]". When the planet Sahndara is destroyed by its sun going nova, almost all of its civilization is annihilated. A small number escape to Earth, then later another planet.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E11WinkOfAnEye Wink Of An Eye]]". On the planet Scalos, radioactive water causes the entire race to live at hyper-accelerated speeds (which tremendously shortens their lifespans) and makes the male part of the population sterile. By the time the Enterprise arrives, there are only a few Scalosians left.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E23AllOurYesterdays All Our Yesterdays]]". When the star Beta Niobe goes nova, its only planet, Sarpeidon, will be destroyed. However, the entire population of the planet has used time travel to journey into the planet's past. They are mentally and physically conditioned to fit in, but their civilization in the future is effectively destroyed.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': The Borg would not destroy any planet they conquer, but they would assimilate all the sentient life forms on the planet, essentially eliminating any form of native culture and civilization.
* ''Series/StarTrekPicard'':
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekPicardS1E06TheImpossibleBox The Impossible Box]]", Picard invokes this when he furiously disputes Jurati's suggestion that the Romulan-controlled Borg on the Artifact may be different.

** In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1", Sutra learns from her mind-meld with Jurati that there are [[spoiler:extragalactic synths who can be summoned to eradicate all biological life in the Milky Way. In the next episode, there are robotic tentacles emerging from an interdimensional portal, but Soji breaks the beacon's console before they fully enter our space.]]
** In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", General Nedar's dialogue reveals that the Romulans have at least five different settings for planet-wide sterilization, and they [[spoiler:very nearly obliterate the androids (and presumably all plant and animal life as well) on Coppelius]].

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' Superman discovers that Brainiac kills every sentient life form on the planets he collects knowledge from. Brainiac's [[InsaneTrollLogic reasoning]] is that "the fewer beings who have the knowledge, the more precious it becomes," which naturally outrages Superman.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' three-part premiere episode "Secret Origins" shows that the same aliens that decimated the Martian civilization (leaving J'onn J'ozz as the sole survivor) are awakened on Earth.
* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTalesTheMovieTreasureOfTheLostLamp'' the Genie explains that Pompei and Atlantis were destroyed by [[BigBad Merlock the Magician]]'s wishes.

* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'': [[spoiler:Father]] is revealed to have been behind the destruction of Xerxes, a genocide so thorough as to leave only one survivor, and ''he'' was only spared because the culprit had a soft spot for him. Most of the plot turns out to be driven by his plan to repeat it. [[spoiler:Using Amestris. Xerxes was destroyed to create two philosophers' stones: the one that empowers Father, and the one that empowers Hohenheim. The attempted Amestrian genocide, which [[NearVillainVictory almost works]], is to empower Father enough to capture God.]]

* ''Film/{{Hellboy|2004}}'' is apparently the BeastOfTheApocalypse and is fated to destroy human civilization on Earth, which is what Rasputin wants in the first movie. It is also prophesied by the [[TheGrimReaper Angel of Death]] in the sequel.
* ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'': King Ghidorah's Showa and anime incarnations are renowned for traveling the cosmos, destroying civilizations.

* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'': Thanos has quite a record of going to planets and brutally murdering half of their occupants in his mad, obsessive quest to prove himself right.

* ''VideoGame/CrashTeamRacing'': a DummiedOut dialogue shows that [[BigBad Nitrous Oxide]] was the reason there's no life in Mars: there ''was'', until Oxide came to them, challenged them to a racing competition, and won.

* ''VideoGame/FateExtella'' has the Servant Altera, aka [[UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun Attila the Hun]]. In reality, [[HistoricalGenderFlip she]] isn't human, but the remnant of an intelligent alien superweapon called "Sefar" that was sent to Earth to cleanse it of all forms of civilization. Obviously, Sefar was stopped in the past, but a small piece of it lived on as Altera, adopting human form to fit in on Earth. [[spoiler:Altera herself isn't actually an evil person; her desire to destroy civilizations is simply an built-in instinct for her. Through her experiences in life as Atilla and in the game, making friends with the protagonist, she ultimately decides that she will only destroy "bad civilization". Anything she likes she labels as "good civilization".]]

* ''VideoGame/FateExtella'' has the Servant Altera, aka [[UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun Attila the Hun]]. In reality, [[HistoricalGenderFlip she]] isn't human, but the remnant of an intelligent alien superweapon called "Sefar" that was sent to Earth to cleanse it of all forms of civilization. Obviously, Sefar was stopped in the past, but a small piece of it lived on as Altera, adopting human form to fit in on Earth. [[spoiler:Altera herself isn't actually an evil person, and through her experiences in the game and making friends with the protagonist, she ultimately decides that she will only destroy "bad civilization". Anything she likes she labels as "good civilization".]]

** Your Colossus can be outfitted with the Neutron Sweep, a weapon capable of killing any intelligent life while keeping the planet colonizable. Diplomacy-wise, it's treated about the same as using a [[EarthShatteringKaboom Planet Cracker]].
** A more specialized version is the [[MindControl Divine Enforcer]], which converts all inhabitants of a planet to spiritualism. Since robots and hive-minds can't be spiritualists, they will all be killed instead, leaving the planet empty.

* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the Reapers come to the galaxy every 50,000 years or so and wipe out all advanced intelligent life before leaving. The Mass Relay network they leave behind ensures that galactic civilization develops along predictable lines, making it easier for them to destroy it. The first game starts with the Reapers about to return.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'': One [[DraconicAbomination Fatalis]] single-handedly obliterated the ancient kingdom of Schrade.

* ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'': Ainz runs into the Quagoa, a civilization of mole-men. As he's entered an alliance with the dwarves (their competitors for territory and ore), he tells Shalltear and Aura to reduce their numbers a little and ask them to surrender. When the Quagoa don't see why they should surrender to two little girls, their numbers are culled from 80,000 to ''10,000'' by Shalltear because they didn't agree quickly enough. This has the curious effect of later creating an OddFriendship between their leader Riyuro and [[spoiler:Jircniv]], as both were leaders of mighty empires who had no reason to believe they could be curbstomped by anyone before meeting Ainz, and pledged themselves to his service to save their people.

* ''LightNovel/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'':