History Main / FastKillingRadiation

* ''Videogame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'': Phazon is a ToxicPhlebotinum that is [[MutagenicGoo incredibly mutagenic]] and also emits radiation. Some minor enemies will immediately die when coming into contact with it. Samus without protection can't withstand it for long either and less than a minute of direct exposure (standing in it) will kill her. ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' and ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3'' at least have suit upgrades that make her immune to Phazon, but in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2'', she's out of luck for the entire journey.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'':

** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': The game has less radiation sources than ''Fallout 3'' (explained lore wise by New Vegas being hit with much less nuclear bombs than the [[VideoGame/Fallout3 national capital]]) but there is one spectacular exception with [[spoiler:Dry Wells, which you can only access by [[NukeEm nuking]] Legion territories at the end of the ''Lonesome Road'' [[DownloadableContent DLC]]]]. The crater's rim caps off at 250 rads/second. Venture any further and the game doesn't even bother with radiation anymore, simply making your character drop dead right there and now.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare'': The Pripyat levels are surrounded by invisible pockets of radiation that act like a BorderPatrol. If you go too far out of bounds, you'll rapidly die of radiation poisoning.

--> '''HEV Suit AI:''' ''"Warning: hazardous radiation levels detected!"''

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'': Both ''Film/StarTrekTheWrathOfKhan'' and ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'' feature climactic scenes in which ''Enterprise''[='s=] damaged warp core is manually repaired, saving the ship at the cost of someone's life due to radiation exposure. In TWOK, it's Spock; the radiation is an intense light that blasts him as he's making the repairs, leaving him blinded and with severe burns on his face and neck. In ID, it's Kirk; the radiation is only visible as heat shimmer and he suffers burns on his face, but they're not nearly as severe as Spock's. In both scenes, Spock and Kirk die within a few minutes of the exposure.

* ''VideoGame/{{Factorio}}'': The popular "Krastorio 2" mod introduces radiation damage... which means that you can die in mere seconds from having uranium or its ore in your inventory, or even from standing near a uranium ore patch.F

* ''Star Wars Saga Edition'' had rules for radiation exposure with different effects depending on the intensity. At maximum level it is instant death.

[[folder:MMORPGs]]

Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease This type of scenario is unlikely in real life and there have been no known cases of people dying from radiation on time scales of minutes or seconds. On average, people are exposed to about 81 mrem of radiation each year. Not counting X-ray machines or medical radiation, it takes 50 rem to start developing tumors and a lethal dose is about 400 rem or 2 grays (that's about 5,000x greater than the normal background level). The closest things possible that are capable of delivering a fast radiation kill in real life could be the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl) Elephant's Foot]] in the early days of the UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} disaster in 1986 (it has lost much lethality since) and UsefulNotes/{{Jupiter}}'s moon [[UsefulNotes/TheMoonsOfJupiter Io]], which has radiation levels measuring up to 3,600 rem/day due to being inside the planet's primary [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt Van Allen radiation belt]], but it would still take a few hours at least to kill a human. So, while technically possible, it would require situational circumstances that are far too rare and impractical for this to happen. And for anyone wondering if the sun's radiation would do it, while the star does output a whopping 3.8 * 10^26 watts, a majority of its energy is in the visual spectrum, which is decidedly non-cancerous. To get close enough for the higher-frequency radiation such as ultraviolet light to start causing severe damage, you're more likely to die from the ''thermal'' radiation than the ''nuclear'' radiation by that point.