History Main / ExplosiveOverclocking

--> Edd/Double D: ''[[OhCrap Oh dear.]]''

** Also, in the game ''VideoGame/{{Blood}}'' and its sequel, there's a Tesla Gun you can Overclock to shoot a much more powerful and ammo consuming shot with alternate fire, but you can't shoot it again in a few seconds afterwards, while in the normal shoot mode it shoots at automatic rate. It is powerful enough to kill even some Bosses in a few shots.

** Subverted and mocked in "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."
** In "Overclockwise", Cubert overclocks Bender to increase his reaction speed in a video game, and Bender proceeds to increase his processing power until he becomes omnipotent but has to use ''Niagra Falls'' as a cooling system.

* In ''VideoGame/TouhouHisoutenScarletWeatherRhapsody'' (and its ExpansionPack ''Hisotensoku''), [[MoonRabbit Reisen Udongein Inaba]] has a move called "Patriot's Elixir" where she takes a swig of her master [[MadScientist Eirin]]'s [[PsychoSerum shady new drug]], granting a StatusBuff to her attack and defense. The effects stack for each potion drunk, up to three; if she drinks a fourth, she explodes. This doesn't actually harm Reisen, but it can be devastating to her opponent. It's generally a really bad idea to do this since it makes her lose the effects of her StatusBuff and the explosion is somewhat easy to avoid, but it could be useful as a surprise attack in the endgame when the loss of the buff won't make much of a difference.

* ''Literature/ChrysalisRinoZ'': Monsters can reinforce their cores by absorbing the cores of other monsters, giving them additional energy for their next evolution, up to a safe cap. However, more powerful monsters can leave "special" or "rare" cores, which can be absorbed to push one's own core past the usual limits -- causing burning pain that doesn't fully go away until evolution. The extra energy eventually pays dividends in the form of better evolutionary options and more stat points to allocate, but pushing it too far can actually be fatal. [[spoiler:At one point, Anthony absorbs both a special and a rare core, and nearly ''pops'' from the excess of energy, having to be wrapped up in Crinis' tentacles to hold him together long enough to evolve.]]

* In ''LightNovel/ICouldntBecomeAHeroSoIReluctantlyDecidedToGetAJob'', {{Magitek}} items can create truly spectacular effects when fed large amounts of magical power, such as a washing machine producing a tsunami or a hairdryer producing gale-force winds, with a risk of exploding. Demons, who naturally produce more magic than humans, are prone to accidental "overclocking" when trying to use appliances.

* ''Literature/UndefeatedBahamutChronicle'' has Over Limit, the removal of the safeguards that a Drag-Ride normally has to protect the user. This boosts performance by several times but will leave the user bed-ridden for days afterwards. Unmanned Drag-Rides do not have this issue and can therefore use Over Limit freely.

* ''Literature/RebuildWorld'': There are a category of knives and swords that work like this based on LostTechnology from {{Precursors}}: Shoot off the safety and a lengthy LaserBlade with AbsurdCuttingPower will come out and cut through walls, but only last a few seconds, before the weapon disintegrates. The main examples being household knives found in ruins, and [[KatanasAreJustBetter Shiori's katana]] built on reverse-engineered technology from those. The latter only loses its blade when it overclocks, and the blades are considered a consumable by Shiori’s MegaCorp.
* ''LightNovel/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'': Leon’s RobotBuddy Luxion does this to his HoverBike to help win a race, and he just barely escapes it exploding after the race finishes.

* In the the ''Legend of the Jade Phoenix'' novel (a ''Tabletopgame/BattleTechExpandedUniverse'' trilogy), Aidan's final battle in [[BloodSport the tournament]] to win his bloodname takes place on a low-gravity, airless moon. His [[HumongousMecha battlemech]]'s muscles are designed for standard Earth gravity, allowing the mech to sprint across the regolith at astonishing speeds once he throws a safety switch off. However, inertia is a harsh mistress and after sprinting to close the gap on an enemy, his mech's leg joints shatter as it makes contact with the ground, sending his mech sprawling at the legs of his opponent.

* During the climax of the [[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Dresden Files]] novel ''Literature/WhiteNight'', Lash (who resides in the [[NinetyPercentOfYourBrain so-called "unused parts"]] of Harry Dresden's brain) temporarily over-clocks Harry's brain in order to gain additional time to react to a threat. It is made clear that this is a very Bad Idea and will likely result in brain damage if done for an extended period of time. In truth, this overclocking is ''normal'' in stressful situations. It can happen to normal humans during dangerous periods, for exactly the purpose of giving them a smaller reaction time. [[http://www.livescience.com/2117-time-slow-emergencies.html More here.]]

* In ''[[Literature/HonorHarrington The Honor of the Queen]]'', 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. [[spoiler:It pays off, as that extra day means relief forces get to Yeltsin in time.]]
* In the book version of ''Literature/TheHuntForRedOctober'', the Russian [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_class_submarine Alfa subs]] are desperately attempting to catch up to the titular escaping sub, redlining the reactors and working the engines for all they're worth. The engine room technicians notice a possible problem and want to slow down in order to perform a repair, but the [[PointyHairedBoss political officer]] doesn't want to waste time and orders the Overclock to continue. It doesn't take long for things to [[GoingCritical go badly]]. The process is [[ShownTheirWork meticulously described]] in an epitomical example of TechnologyPorn.

* In Creator/EEDocSmith's ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series, the bad guys invent a new devastating weapon on the fly at the beginning of the second novel by explosive overclocking of their energy weapons into WaveMotionGun territory. Eventually, both sides figure out how to do this "safely," and future wars are fought by with "primary beams" that blow up entire gun mounts in explosive overclocking reminiscent of RealLife bomb pumped lasers.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov and Creator/JanetAsimov's ''Literature/NorbyAndTheCourtJester'': When Jeff wants to get past a locked door, Ing advises him to overload the stun gun he has. Jeff tries that, and the explosion breaks down the door, just as predicted.
* In Alastair Reynolds's ''Redemption Ark'', Skade tries to overclock her inertia-suppressing engine to go faster than light. It fails, kills her technicians, and blows up.
* Averted in ''The Sands Of Mars'' by Creator/ArthurCClarke. The ship's communications officer has to boost a radio transmitter (using [[TechnologyMarchesOn valves]]) by increasing the power supply from 750 to 1,000 volts. "Gibson, who had been expecting sparks to start flying, was disappointed. [...] Bradly, who knew better, looked at his meters and bit his lip savagely."
* Mentioned rather nastily in Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''Literature/ShardsOfHonor''.
-->'''Aral Vorkosigan:''' You'll make it in five days, boosting six points past emergency max the whole way. If the engineer's been doing his job, the engines won't blow until you hit eight. Quite safe.
* Anakin Solo experienced one of these in order to save his sister Jaina, and defeat The Voxyn Queen, then experienced a SuperPowerMeltdown.

* ''LightNovel/UndefeatedBahamutChronicle'' has Over Limit, the removal of the safeguards that a Drag-Ride normally has to protect the user. This boosts performance by several times but will leave the user bed-ridden for days afterwards. Unmanned Drag-Rides do not have this issue and can therefore use Over Limit freely.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': "White Hole". The crew develops a technique which increases Holly's intelligence by several orders of magnitude, but they discover that this has reduced her lifespan to three minutes.
** To be exact, they had intended to restore Holly's (the titular ship's AI) IQ to it's original 6000 as Holly had gained a form of "computer senility" due to being in continuous use for 3,000,000 years. (And having no one to interact with during that time.) Kryten had theorised that the procedure may result in Holly being smarter than previously but increasing it's IQ to 12,000 rather than 6,000 or a bit higher was far beyond their expectations.

*** Dialing a 9 symbol address to reach the ''Destiny'' billions of lightyears away in ''Series/StargateUniverse'' requires overclocking the Stargate using a planet with a naquida core. It's such a power release that any instability causes an EarthShatteringKaboom. ''Destiny'' was dialed twice and subsequently the galaxy now has two fewer planets. The third (heavily populated) planet with a naquida core is understandably unwilling to dial Destiny, and is not reassured by Rodney's claim that they have found a way to dial ''Destiny'' without blowing up the planet.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' did this in all sorts of ways over the course of the franchise, overloading phasers, the engines, the main deflector, pretty much whatever.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** There's at least one instance of a handheld phaser being rigged to overload, basically turning it into a fairly powerful grenade. It was a ShoutOut to the same thing happening to phasers occasionally on ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''.
** At least one episode implied that all Federation technology is designed to be overclocked to some extent. Which makes a certain degree of [[FridgeBrilliance sense]] when one considers how often Federation characters have to jury-rig their tech into different configurations, realignments, polarizations, etc to solve the NegativeSpaceWedgie of the week. This is practically the Federation's Hat.
** Averted in "Relics," Scotty chides Geordi for ''not'' padding his estimates, and later tells Geordi that he knows a particular component can take a lot more stress than the regulations say it can -- because he wrote the regs, and "A good engineer is always a wee bit conservative...at least on paper."
** In the episode "Tin Man", a Romulan ship, known in-universe to be slower than a Galaxy-class starship like the Enterprise-D, overclocks its engines in order to overtake the Enterprise and reach that episode's Macguffin. The Romulan ship was noted to have done irreversible damage to their engines because of this.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** The ''Defiant'', by its original design specs, suffered from this. Sisko designed it in the aftermath of Wolf-359, or to put it another way, he crammed so many high-powered weapons into a tiny saucer that its shakedown cruise almost shook it to pieces. The Federation resurrected the design in the face of the new Dominion threat and toned it down, leaving it still powerful but also functional.
** One of the novels had a particularly unique use: Deep Space 9 is attacked by a bunch of aliens with reflective armor that renders them and their ships immune to phaser fire. They make do, running around with bags of phasers and using them as grenades, until someone finally thinks of replicating a good old fashioned gun.
** O'Brien once rigged a tricorder to explode upon command, making it a matter of MacGyvering to remove safety features preventing that type of thing from happening.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
** In the two-part episode "Year of Hell", the ship is attacked by the Krenim Weapon Ship. Seven theorizes that the ship's mass prevents it from exceeding warp 6, so ''Voyager'' (which can travel at warp 9) can escape. But traveling too fast could tear parts of the heavily damaged hull off. Since its the only way for anyone to live Janeway orders them to do so, and as ''Voyager'' warps away we see pieces of the hull come flying off.
** In the episode "Fury", the Vidians have locked onto ''Voyager'' with a clamp and then try a tractor beam as well. In a possible nod to ''[[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry The Undiscovered Country]]'' above:
-->'''Chakotay:''' Reverse thrusters, full power!
-->'''Kim:''' That'll tear the hull apart.
-->'''Chakotay:''' Then ''tear'' it apart!

* In the start of the third season of ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'', the rangers were getting pounded by new foes, and tried this to give the Thunderzords more power to resist them. It fails, resulting in the Command Center's power going out, their Ranger powers irreparably damaged (not destroyed, as we see [[Series/PowerRangersInSpace in]] [[Series/PowerRangersWildForce later]] [[Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive seasons]]), and their zords destroyed.

* ''Film/WarGames'' brings in this trope at the climax when David Lightman locks the [[AIIsACrapshoot WOPR]] into playing Tic-Tac-Toe against itself, drawing in more and more power and causing several instrument panels to blow up.

* ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'': There are a category of knives and swords that work like this based on LostTechnology from {{Precursors}}: Shoot off the safety and a lengthy LaserBlade with AbsurdCuttingPower will come out and cut through walls, but only last a few seconds, before the weapon disintegrates. The main examples being household knives found in ruins, and [[KatanasAreJustBetter Shiori's katana]] built on reverse-engineered technology from those. The latter only loses its blade when it overclocks, and the blades are considered a consumable by Shiori’s MegaCorp.

** The washing machine stopped ''looking'' like a washing machine long before -- the outer panels had to be removed to A)Defeat all the safety features, and b) Provide sufficient power to spin Buster's weight by replacing the stock motor with one meant for an electric ''car''.

* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has the bridge office abilities Override Subsystem Safeties and Exceed Rated Limits from the Intelligence and Miracle Worker specializations, respectively. The former grants a massive boost to all current and maximum subsystem power levels. This boost decreases over time, and when it ends, a random subsystem is knocked offline. The later greatly accelerates the fire rate of energy weapons and negates the weapon power drain from firing them while afflicting the user with damage over time and an all-subsystem power drain.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' pretty much any Skaven "wonder weapon" tends to be souped-up equivalents of other races' weapons but with a higher chance to go wrong. They totallu embracing this trope with the [[{{Pun}} ratling gun]] -- a two (rat)man-portable [[MoreDakka multi-barreled rifle]]. You get as many shots as you roll on a dice and can either stop there,or roll again. And again. ''And again''. But if at any time you roll the same number as one you rolled before then [[HilarityEnsues it has funny]] and most likely lethal consequences.

* Pretty much any [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Skaven]] "wonder weapon", as they tend to be souped-up equivalents of other races' weapons but with a higher chance to go wrong, but total embracing this trope with the [[{{Pun{{ ratling gun]] -- a two (rat)man-portable [[MoreDakka multi-barreled rifle]]. You get as many shots as you roll on a dice and can either stop there, or roll again. And again. ''And again''. But if at any time you roll the same number as one you rolled before then [[HilarityEnsues it has funny]] and most likely lethal consequences.
* In ''Franchise/YuGiOh'', there is a card called "Limiter Removal" that will double the attack strength of all Machine-type monsters on the field, destroying them all at the end of the turn.

*** Since the character who usually uses this card in the anime uses it for a Fusion monster whose base attack points equal the starting starting life points (this is only true in the anime; in the real-life game life points start at 8000 instead of 4000), he normally uses this combo as a OneHitKill. Since the duel ends there, the end of the turn never comes and he avoids the damage.[[note]]Both ''Limiter Removal'' and ''Power Bond'' can be used in combination in the "[[OneHitKill Ultimate Ancient Golem OTK]]" strategy. The player first summons Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem (4400 attack) with Power Bond (8800 Attack), Limiter Removal is activated which doubled it again (17600 Attack). The kicker? Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem naturally has an ArmorPiercingAttack, and prevent traps from being activated until the End Phase. No monster in the game has more than 5000 Defense.[[/note]]

* Sasorina in ''Anime/HeartcatchPrettyCure'' is given a three-jeweled Dark Bracelet in a desperate attempt to finish off the Cures or be subjected to YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness. It makes the Desertian she fuses with much more stronger (strong enough to withstand three Forte Bursts and shatter Sunshine's Sunflower Aegis in one punch), but its power was too much and threatens to fry her. The girls realize what's going on and finally put her out of her misery.

* ''Franchise/CommandAndConquer'' series:

* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'' the Chinese nuclear power plants can be forced to provide 50% more power, but you better get started building more because overloading the reactors leads to the building slowly destroying itself. This can even be used offensively, by hijacking opponents power plants and deliberately putting them into overload mode. When they blow, they'll contaminate a large area and damage any troops/vehicles in it.

* 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. His body is able to adapt to the degree of "overclocking" he used against Vegeta, so naturally Goku has to overclock himself ''even more'' just to keep up with Frieza. The Super Saiyan state is alluded to be this as both Goku and Vegeta note that it puts huge amounts of strain on their bodies and when preparing to fight Cell Goku focuses on reducing this strain as opposed to getting stronger like Vegeta did, allowing it to be used constantly and more effectively. SSJ 3 takes this UpToEleven, burning through several hours worth of Goku's day on earth in just a few moments (and later he is unable to maintain the state for more than a few moments before it drains all his stamina) and shortens Goten and Trunks fusion from half an hour to five minutes (leaving them unable to even turn Super Saiyan afterwards).

* In ''Series/KamenRiderDouble,'' the hero's forms (actually, the ''[[FusionDance heroes']]'' forms) come from two Gaia Memory TransformationTrinkets, and the Maximum Drive {{Finishing Move}}s is activated by placing just ''one'' of those into their weapon for weapon finishers or a side-slot for the physical ones. Doing ''both'' when desperate (such as when the [[ArcVillain Weather Dopant]] was getting the better of them) is very, very much ''not'' recommended. It'll take your power UpToEleven, but also the strain on the components and wearer -- it's a good way to fry the suit ''and'' yourselves! This keeps the "Twin Maximum" a DangerousForbiddenTechnique.

*** A good example is the canceled Intel Tejas. Tejas was supposed to be built on the Pentium 4 Prescott, which was already melt-your-PC hot. The highest stock speed for a Prescott chip was 3.8 [=GHz=], while Tejas was supposed to '''start''' at ''[[UpToEleven 7 GHz]]''. Thankfully, saner minds prevailed, and chip manufacturers instead decided to focus on cores, cache and architecture. To put in perspective, the heat density produced by a processor can be hotter than that of a clothing iron, which already is meant to vaporize water.

* In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption,'' Samus's [[ToxicPhlebotinum Phazon corruption]] and PED suit allow her to overclock ''herself'' by sending her into Hyper Mode whenever she wants, which [[CastFromHitPoints uses health as ammo]] and causes [[NonstandardGameOver total corruption]] if she stays in it for too long.
** Strangely enough, there are some enemies that will induce this mode in Samus as a form of attack. The logic behind it is essentially taking an enemy that can already overpower herself and pushing the berserk button, on the off chance she'll lose herself in rage before she can blow your face off.[[note]]They don't ''purposefully'' activate her hypermode. They are simply armed with phazon weapons of their own, which when absorbed into Samus's body overload her phazon supply. The only way to purge said phazon is to enter hypermode, otherwise she would end up corrupted.[[/note]]
** In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', Samus's [[LimitBreak Final Smash]] (while wearing her PowerArmor) is "Zero Beam", which fires off a [[WaveMotionGun blast of energy]] powerful enough to ''destroy her suit'' afterwards. Instead of outright hurting her however, this just leaves Samus in her [[LatexSpaceSuit Zero suit]].
* In ''VideoGame/Persona3'' Aigis (a robot girl) can go into Orgia Mode (releases the limiters on her body) for three turns, but after the three turns she requires a cool down period before being able to do anything.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' as visited by Creator/AAPessimal, the standard witch's broomstick is a sedate thing likened to an old Morris Minor car on our world -- it will do the job reliably and consistently at an unremarkable speed. Then the WrenchWench mentality arrived[[note]]Two flight-minded Witches out of [[UsefulNotes/{Russia}} Far Überwald]] who REALLY wanted to know how to make them go faster, higher and further. And above all, ''faster''.[[/note]], along with the {{Magitek}} of ground-based engineers and broomstick designers with interesting ideas. The Air Watch, backed by the goodwill of Vetinari and the unlimited development cash provided by Sam Vimes, attracts Witches of the right mind-set backed by ground Tekniks. Accidents happen. An early error when a broom was overloaded with more thaumic potential than the staff and bristles could hold led -- very briefly -- to a fast, powerful, aircraft. And then an incandescent fireball over Ankh-Morpork. Pilot Dorothy Culpclapper is now remembered on the memorial plaque. Now go to ''Fanfic/ThePriceOfFlight'', an ongoing tale.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' as visited by Creator/AAPessimal, the standard witch's broomstick is a sedate thing likened to an old Morris Minor caron our world -- it will do the job reliably and consistently at an unremarkable speed. Then the WrenchWench mentality arrived[[note]]Two flight-minded Witches out of Far Überwald who REALLY wanted to know how to make them go faster, higher and further. And above all, ''faster''[[/note]], along with the {{Magitek}} of ground-based engineers and broomstick designers with interesting ideas. The Air Watch, backed by the goodwill of Vetinari and the unlimited development cash provided by Sam Vimes, attracts Witches of the right mind-set backed by ground Tekniks. Accidents happen. An early error when a broom was overloaded with more thaumic potential than the staff and bristles could hold led -- very briefly -- to a fast, powerful, aircraft. And then an incandescent fireball over Ankh-Morpork. Pilot Dorothy Culpclapper is now remembered on the memorial plaque.