History Main / ExplosiveOverclocking

* The human body itself has this in a fashion; when the "fight or flight" instinct kicks in, the body releases massive amounts of adrenaline. This allows ordinary schlubs to pace Olympic sprinters, lift/push something a dozen times their own weight, keep running from something chasing them long past when they should have collapsed from exhaustion, and in some rare cases even see things in slow motion and high detail that would make Hollywood special effects artists faint. Of course, the body isn't like this ''all the time'' because it tends to tear muscle and sinew, break bones, dislocate joints, cause heart attacks...

* KamenRiderDouble rarely uses the right sided memories for the Maximum Drives save for the [[spoiler: Prism Bicker]] and the Memory Gadget, for it puts the user at risk. [[spoiler: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeR6KKoST3c As seen in this fight against the Weather Dopant]]]]

* Early attempts to use [[http://www.kbptula.ru/eng/str/cannons/gsh6_30.htm GSh-6-30]] on aircraft (mainly [=MiG=]-27) suffered from the price of {{BFG}}'s performance -- vibrations caused by recoil, which proven to be too strong. This [[http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/GSh-6-30.htm led to lots of various damages]] -- from broken lights to breakages of various onboard devices to jammed gear doors to ''really wild'' cases, like failed locks causing spontaneous removal of the cockpit canopy or dash-board dropped right onto pilot's knees. In short, bursts longer than half-second shook planes so hard they just gradually fell apart, until either they were out of ammo, failed to shoot any more or gun overheat exploded ammo. ItGotBetter in CIWS, of course.

* Goku also did this in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' with his Kaiō Ken overtaking his body limits when he used the multiplier effect way beyond King Kai recommendation against Vegeta and latter Frieza

** ''GundamWing'' gives us the [[SuperPrototype Tallgeese]], which is an honourary example on account of the weak point being the ''pilot''; the thing was so ridiculously powerful that an inexperienced or careless pilot could do themselves serious injury from sheer G-forces.

** Metal-cased lithium-ion cells are relatively tame. You can get them to blow if you really '''try''' (by, say, puncturing them), but they have passive internal protection that'll kill them harmlessly if excessive pressure forms inside them. In contrast, lithium-polymer cells meant for radio-control models are insanely dangerous, not having any safety whatsoever. Shorting, overcharging, over''dis''charging, puncturing, bending... all activities that can cause them to emit a foot-long jet of flame that you ''can't extinguish with water or normal fire extinguishers'' (the only good ways of killing a lithium fire is to smother it with '''dry''' sand or using a Class C fire exstinguisher).
* While probably not creating a higher risk of explosion than normal, a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig_25 MiG-25's]] engines could be convinced to propel the plane to mach 3.2, which is and was comfortably higher than any combat plane field save for the YF-12. The downside? This would bypass the fuel pumps, resulting in the loss of any throttle control, and would also more than likely start expelling important bits of engine, rendering it an "[[OhCrap oh shit]]" contingency rather than a viable tactic. It was, however, sufficient to convince NATO that the Soviets had produced some sort of superpowered fighter jet, rather than a really heavy plane with really big engines.

* This is how ''HalfLife'' begins (''We boosted the anti-mass spectrometer to 105% - bit of a gamble but we need the extra resolution...'')
** ''HalfLife'' also has the Gauss Gun, a prototype weapon that you can charge up for a more powerful shot. Attempting to charge it past its maximum power will make it explode, reducing its hapless user to LudicrousGibs. The player first gains the weapon after a security guard accidentally demonstrates this rather glaring design flaw, [[FridgeLogic though how the gun remains usable is never explained.]]

* In ''The Honor of the Queen'', the second book of the ''HonorHarrington'' series, Commander Alice Truman is ordered to return to home base to inform the Admiralty [[spoiler:of Masada's impending attack on Grayson]]. She orders her chief engineer to take all safeties off their ship's hyperdrive, thus cutting a day off her travel time at the risk of destroying the ship along the way.

->--''Anime/FinalFantasyTheSpiritsWithin''. It isn't hard to guess what [[StuffBlowingUp happens next...]]

** The Monk class has an ability to store energy ForMassiveDamage. You can do this twice, but if you try on the third time, the monk have a good chunk of his/her health taken off.

* Subverted in an episode of ''MegasXLR''. Megas' [[MacGuffin photonic stabilizer]] is damaged and in danger of exploding if Coop overworks Megas, and a fight breaks out while Coop is trying to find a new one. Just when Megas is on the edge, a EurekaMoment provides Coop with a method of fixing the stabilizer, allowing Coop to resume fighting normally; ''[[DuctTapeForEverything duct tape]]''. Played straight when the bad guy's mecha, which also had a stabilizer which Coop broke in the course of their battle, resulting in a [[EarthShatteringKaboom rather spectacular explosion]].

** TheMovie showed us that ''Trans-Am itself'' can be overclocked but doing so will detonate the GN Drive. It gets used several times against the [[YouWillBeAssimilated ELS]]; most importantly, [[spoiler:[[ExpendableClone Tieria]]'s Raphael Gundam, [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Graham's]] Brave and [[HeroicSacrifice Andrei's]] GN-XIV]] all check out this way.

* And then there's the high explosive bullets for your sniper rifle in ''MassEffect''. Sure, you only get one shot before it overheats, but that one shot is a 4m radius explosion with the animation of a 10cm explosion. Nothing like watching a itty-bitty explosion sending a geth trooper flying, while being incinerated.

* In VisualNovel/FateStayNight a Servant can overload their Noble Phantasm with prana and transform it into a Broken Phantasm, causing them to take a massive power hike in exchange for being LostForever. Given that most Servants only have between one to three Noble Phantasms ([[PublicDomainArtifact which are artifacts such as Excalibur]]), and Noble Phantasms represent the solidified history of each Servant the very idea is unthinkable. [[spoiler: Archer cheats his way around this as his Noble Phantasm ([[FieldOfBlades Unlimited Blade Works]]) makes infinite copies of the Noble Phantasms of EVERY OTHER SERVANT, allowing him to use ExplosiveOverclocking with no real downside. It's one of the reasons most Servants would be terrified of him, if they found out.]

* In VisualNovel/FateStayNight a Servant can overload their Noble Phantasm with prana and transform it into a Broken Phantasm, causing them to take a massive power hike in exchange for being LostForever. Given that most Servants only have between one to three Noble Phantasms ([[PublicDomainArtifact which are artifacts such as Excalibur]]), and Noble Phantasms represent the solidified history of each Servant the very idea is unthinkable. [[spoiler: Archer cheats his way around this as his Noble Phantasm ([[FieldOfBlades Unlimited Blade Works]]) makes infinite copies of the Noble Phantasms of EVERY OTHER SERVANT, allowing him to use ExplosiveOverclocking with no real downside. It's one of the reasons most Servants would be terrified of him, if they found out.]]

* Subverted and mocked in "Futurama" episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" when, in an attempt to save the members of the Star Trek cast, Fry suggests they do a crazy reconfiguring of the ship like they had done on the fictional show in the past. Leela suggests shifting power around and reconfiguring the weapons to the villain's frequency to create an energy ray that may overload his quantum structure. Then there's a shot of Bender with a blow torch working on the ship, and after a few moments of work he says, "Ok. I'm done reconfooballing the energymotron, or whatever."

* Subverted in an episode of ''MegasXLR''. Megas' [[MacGuffin photonic stabilizer]] is damaged and in danger of exploding if Coop overworks Megas, and a fight breaks out while Coop is trying to find a new one. Just when Megas is on the edge, a EurekaMoment provides Coop with a method of fixing the stabilizer, allowing Coop to resume fighting normally; ''[[DuctTapeForEverything duct tape]]''.

** ''HalfLife'' also has the Gauss Gun, a prototype weapon that you can charge up for a more powerful shot. Attempting to charge it past its maximum power will make it explode, reducing its hapless user to LudicrousGibs. The player first gains the weapon after a security guard accidentally demonstrates this rather glaring design flaw.

* In the pilot for ''Disney's WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'', the Sea Duck was equipped with an ''Overdrive'' that made it jet-fast, but would fry the engines if used for long stretches. Was burned out for good after the second episode and never mentioned again. (Why Baloo didn't just have it replaced is never explained, but can be handwaved as Rebecca not knowing about it when she had the Sea Duck rebuilt after its destruction.)

* Goku also did this in ''Manga/{{Dragon Ball}}'' with his Kaiō Ken overtaking his body limits when he used the multiplier effect way beyond King Kai recommendation against Vegeta and latter Frieza

* Rocket launchers in the ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' series have multiple barrels (as many as six in ''VideoGame/{{Unreal I}}'' and ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'', reduced to four in ''VideoGame/UnrealIITheAwakening'' and to three in the remaining games) which can be loaded sequentially by holding down the primary fire button. Releasing the fire button will fire all of the loaded rockets. The downside is that when the launcher is fully loaded it will immediately fire, with predictable results if the player happens to be facing a wall or looking at the floor.

Compare OverclockingAttack (you do this because you ''want'' something to explode),ForbiddenChekhovsGun, FlawedPrototype (which usually can be overclocked to match a "perfect" model), CastFromHitPoints (instead of a chance of complete self-destruction there is a guarantee of partial self-destruction), AwesomenessIsVolatile.