History Main / NoEndorHolocaust

** The trope is named after a [[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html theory]] arguing that the destruction of the second Death Star in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' turned the Ewoks' homeworld of Endor into a smoking wasteland, as the destruction of such a large object so close to the planet (well, moon really) would have catastrophic atmospheric effects and create a hail of very dangerous debris. This would have given the heroes' actions a very nasty turn indeed. [[WordOfGod Canonically]], this did not happen (except outside [[{{Discontinuity}} Imperial propaganda]]), and Wookieepedia has a whole [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Endor_Holocaust article]] about why not, but among the fans the exact reason remains disputed. Among the several {{Hand Wave}}s about this:

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'':
** When the robot [[spoiler: that was terrorizing the city is finally deactivated, it falls into a lake and [[DefeatEqualsExplosion explodes into oblivion]]. Needless to say, an explosion big enough to disintegrate a robot of that size and strength would have resulted in catastrophic damage and casualties]].

* On the [[GrandFinale Grand Finale]] of ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'', [[spoiler: Anne Boonchuy pulls a [[HeroicSacrifice Heroic Sacrifice]] to destroy Amphibia's moon so she could prevent [[BigBad The Core]] from using it to [[ColonyDrop crash into Amphibia's surface]]. In the epilogue, it seems that there were no actual consequences despite the moon's destruction]].

* On the [[GrandFinale Grand Finale]] of ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'' [[spoiler: Anne Boonchuy pulls a [[HeroicSacrifice Heroic Sacrifice]] to destroy Amphibia's moon so she could prevent [[BigBad The Core]] from using it to [[ColonyDrop crash into Amphibia's surface]]. In the epilogue, it seems that there were no actual consequences despite the moon's destruction]].

-->'''Twilight''': "[[LetMeGetThisStraight Is that what you're saying?]] That somepony popped Equestria out of our reality and [[WhenDimensionsCollide crashed it onto his]]? How's that even meant to work? [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Several trillion tons of continent]] [[ColonyDrop does not make a gentle impact on another world]], not without [[GiantWallOfWateryDoom mega-tsunamis]] and earthquakes that would level entire cities, followed by a dust cloud that would blanket the world in an artificial winter lasting decades! [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse And what about the world we leave behind, what about Equus?]] Would it just carry on spinning without a care, despite having a hole several thousand miles across gouged out of the planet's crust? Even if you didn't breach the mantle, creating a supervolcano that would pull the planet inside-out, the change in mass and absence of the Princesses would throw the sun and moon out of their orbits, causing them to collide, or even worse, [[ColonyDrop to impact with Equus itself!]] [[FridgeHorror Anypony – anything, left behind would die, horribly!]] Every griffon, every dragon, zebra, reindeer, whatever!"

-->-- ''ComicBook/DamageControl'' on the ''lack'' of fatalities in [[Characters/IncredibleHulkBruceBanner The Incredible Hulk]]'s rampages

* Parodied in ''Anime/DirtyPairFlash'': After one of their little "accidents" involving a space station, Kei and Yuri are ordered to send a hand-written letter of apology to each one of the 300,000 survivors.

* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' often avoids this, but it's played straight when Lina [[spoiler:uses a Dragon Slave to blow up an enormous rock that threatened to fall on Seyruun. The spell accidentally destroys a sizable chunk of the city, and presumably kills hundreds of people]]. However, people react more or less like they normally do when Lina Dragon Slaves stuff, as described above.

** Defied in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E14TheNextDoctor "The Next Doctor"]], where after defeating the local [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever 50-Foot Whatever]], the Doctor makes sure to teleport it away before it falls over and crushes London. Along with why the event isn't recorded in history (the story being set in Victorian times), this is justified in a later episode by the whole event being [[{{Retgone}} sucked into a crack in time]].

** [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion "The Christmas Invasion"]]: Torchwood blows up the Sycorax's ship while it's still in the atmosphere, with no ill effects, when just earlier, the ship's entry into the atmosphere shattered windows. This is justified because we see the beam pass by the Moon before it strikes the ship. So, we should be able to assume the ship is more than 300,000km away from the planet and still fleeing, which momentum would be preserved by the debris. Earth's atmosphere stops at around 100km for all practical purposes, and there aren't many particles in the exosphere. Yes, parts of the ship reach the Mesosphere, burning like meteors into ash. Really, the [[RuleOfCool explosion shouldn't have been that large on screen]].

** ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' features a sequence where Obi-Wan and Anakin try to pilot General Grievous' flagship, the ''Invisible Hand'', to an emergency runway on Coruscant after the engines suffer irreparable damage. On their way down, the ship splits in two, with the back half flying off behind them, undeniably hitting a section of the planet with the potential of killing tens of thousands of people. All this gets is an off-handed quip from Anakin ("We lost something") and Obi-Wan ("We're still flying ''half'' a ship"). However, no real damage to the population seems to occur, and in the ''TabletopGame/StarWarsRoleplayingGame'' a cantina names itself after the ship while putting pieces of its hull on display with no complaints.

* A recent discussion on a professional military historians' bulletin board tried to ascertain the existence of any statistics for civilian deaths caused by bullets, shrapnel, and aircraft parts falling out of the sky during a dogfight. While no contributor could answer the question, many observed that the Japanese and Germans used to collect aluminum from crashed aircraft and steel splinters from flak shells for recycling. The Americans used drop tanks (external fuel tanks for the extra range that could be jettisoned before combat to increase maneuverability) made out of paper after they realized the Germans were collecting the original metal tanks to ease their shortages.

* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg This train wreck]] only killed one person, and that was because of falling masonry.

-->-- ''ComicBook/DamageControl'' on the ''lack'' of fatalities in ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk's rampages

* Downplayed in ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'' when Korosensei blows up most of the Moon. This does not affect life on Earth in any way, but [[FreezeFrameBonus newspaper early on]] mentions the problems coming from the moon and in the finale [[spoiler:things finally begin to settle as the moon collapses and becomes closer to Earth, eventually making the Earth's system return to normal.]]

* Averted in Anime/GunBuster, the massive battles towards the end of the show explicitly cause damage to Earth. Notably, after [[CoolSpaceship the Excelion]] is detonated, it causes shockwaves that raze entire cities to the ground.
** Played straight in the finale, when the titular mecha ignites a bomb that ''[[spoiler:destroys the entire galaxy]]'', and yet the Earth is fine [[spoiler:12,000 years later]].

* Pell of ''Manga/OnePiece'' saved Alubarna by flying the giant bomb (designed to annihilate the whole city and its inhabitants) straight up for a few seconds. [[spoiler:And he also survived the blast, even though he was clutching onto the bomb. Hey, [[DisneyDeath unless it's a flashback, nobody dies]] in ''One Piece''.]]

* In ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', there's one episode where a coastal city is [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever attacked by a giant Tentacruel]]. The place is flooded within seconds and several large buildings are destroyed, yet there's never any mention of injuries or deaths. That's to be expected, though, considering the show's place on the [[SlidingScaleofIdealismVersusCynicism Sliding Scale]].

* In the ''Anime/SonicX'' adaptation of the plot of ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', it's stated that no one died when Chaos flooded downtown Station Square because everyone evacuated in time. They also blew up the moon at one point.
** For the former, 4Kids Entertainment didn't think that the implied details were good enough, so they had one of their developers state in the middle of the climax's episode that everyone (including those harmed in explosions and falls) were perfectly okay.

** At least during The Hulk and ComicBook/{{Superman}}'s bout in ''ComicBook/MarvelVersusDC'', they were teleported to the Grand Canyon, where Superman {{lampshade|Hanging}}s that it would be one place they wouldn't hurt anyone collaterally.

* ComicBook/ThePunisher:

* Played straight for the most part in ''ComicBook/AstroCity''. The city is frequently attacked by hundred-foot-tall monsters or rampaging gods, but most collateral damage either occurs off-screen or with scenes showing heroes rescuing civilians. Most aftermath is limited to broken windows and litter in the streets, and the residents take this all in stride, praising the city's robust public works services.
** Generally averted in stories set in the late '70s/early '80s (Astro City's version of UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks), though.

** ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} does her best to avoid and prevent collateral damage and civilian casualties, but being a younger and less experienced hero than her cousin, she sometimes fails. Every time it happens, she feels horribly guilty.
** In ''ComicBook/SupermanSupergirlMaelstrom'', she was unable to stop a ComicBook/{{Darkseid}} minion from bringing a hospital down.

* ''WesternAnimation/BackToTheOutback'': PlayedWith in regards to Maddie releasing a mated pair of cane toads, which are an invasive species in Australia and wreak havoc on the local ecosystem. Zoe tries to convince Maddie that there ''might'' be a good reason that the two animals in particular are in captivity in separate cages after noticing warning posters about cane toads, but ultimately nothing much comes from it, aside from the two having had '''[[ExplosiveBreeder lots]]''' of children by the end of the film, which admittedly ''is part of the problem.''

** When the robot [[spoiler: that was terrorizing the city is finally deactivated, it falls into a lake and [[DefeatEqualsExplosion explodes into oblivion]]. Needless to say, an explosion big enough to disintegrate a robot of that size and strength would have resulted in catastrophic damage and casualties.]]

* In the ''Anime/CuteyHoney'' movie, Panther Claw have this giant drill-like tower underneath ''Tokyo Tower''. Meaning: If you work in the area (which is a central business district in RealLife), don't bother coming in. Then, Scarlet Claw blows up three buildings. They all remain largely intact, save for a giant hole in the middle. One of them, hilariously, is Cutie Honey's former office, and the only reaction this gets is a dazed "what the...?" from the boss. And finally, the tower ''explodes''. If you're in Tokyo when this kind of thing is happening, ''get out of the city''. The only things we see? A traffic jam and other people not caring.
** FridgeHorror kicks in once you realize that there are also scads of women who have just been released from said structure. The fact that this was a ''mass kidnapping'' notwithstanding, these women would be effectively ''screwed''.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6'', there are two instances of this -- when the showcase building explodes and the only two people seen being mourned are [[spoiler: Tadashi and Callaghan -- and Callaghan turns out to not have died]] and again (although partly averted) when Yokai [[spoiler: sets the portal above the new Kreitech building]]. The second time, it's reported as "what could have been a major catastrophe", but there are no reported deaths. The second example was in the middle of its opening ceremony, so it makes sense that it would be unoccupied.
** To a much lesser extent, [[spoiler: many people may have lost their jobs when the building was destroyed]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/RatchetAndClank'' it isn't just featured, [[{{Narm}} it's outright played straight]] with the evacuation of Novalis shortly before [[EarthShatteringKaboom it's destroyed]]; while the populace lost their homes, not one of the 46 million people living there is killed or even injured. Aside from Ratchet feeling guilt over it, the film doesn't even acknowledge the inconvenience of having one's homeworld destroyed.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', there is no mention of [[spoiler:anyone getting injured or killed in Ming's rampage through Toronto and her subsequent damaging of the [=SkyDome=], even though the incident apparently went down in infamy as "Pandapocalypse 2002".]]

*** It ''could'' happen, but it didn't, because the [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] says the Death Star, equipped with {{FTL}} capabilities, was sucked into a wormhole as it was destroyed, sending the debris into parts unknown (including the infamous [[Literature/TheGloveOfDarthVader Glove of Darth Vader]]); any dangerous leftovers were caught by Rebel tractor beams.

** ''Film/IronMan2'' features more collateral damage than you can shake an explosion at, including a swarm of combat drones going amok among a crowd of people, and not a single bystander is shown with so much as a scratch. Even the test pilot being shown having his ''spine'' snapped ([[BloodlessCarnage bloodlessly]]) is pointed out to have survived albeit by an individual of extremely dubious trustworthiness (though a throwaway line from Film/DoctorStrange2016 seems to confirm this).

*** ''Series/{{Daredevil 2015}}'' sees [[ComicBook/TheKingpin Wilson Fisk]] gain a stronghold in Hell's Kitchen by skimming on reconstruction contracts. His construction company Union Allied is able to secure numerous reconstruction contracts, at least until [[Creator/DeborahAnnWoll Karen Page]] exposes their numbers games. At one point, [[Creator/BobGunton Leland Owlsley]] says "[[OpportunisticBastard Heroes and their consequences are why we have our current opportunities]]" referring to the damage caused by the battle. Elsewhere, Matt says to Karen that "the world watched half of New York get destroyed", though this appears to be hyperbole since the Chitauri appeared to confine the battle to Midtown Manhattan and didn't go into any of the other boroughs or Jersey City. It's also mentioned that the battle caused real-estate values in Hell's Kitchen to drop dramatically, and this is the reason Matt and Foggy can afford the office space in which they set up Nelson & Murdock. One of the framed ''Bulletin'' front pages on the wall in Ben Urich's office (which later becomes Karen's office after she gets hired by Ellison towards the end of season 2) is about the invasion and says hundreds were killed.

* In the Franchise/StarTrek novel ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterpriseRelaunch Beneath the Raptor’s Wing]]'', several starships carrying antimatter explode in orbit over Andoria. The planet is fine but characters do note that had the explosions been a certain degree more powerful, the atmosphere ''could'' have been stripped away.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'':
** The moon [[spoiler:falls close enough to the planet for the HumongousMecha-sized Four Giants to catch it, and is later disintegrated, all without harm to the surrounding area. The scenes with the moon in the atmosphere make the moon look a ''lot'' smaller than it does in the sky..]].
** Averted when it does hit -- rather than just crushing the city like it might do, it catches fire in the low atmosphere and causes a planet-wide flaming shockwave that kills all living creatures. It also fucks up the planet's gravity fairly dramatically.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''. Near the end of the game, when [[spoiler:Lavos]] goes out of control, the entire floating continent [[spoiler:Zeal]] which used him as a power source crashes down to earth, bringing significant climactic change and death along with it.
* Notably [[Administrivia/NotASubversion Averted]] in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''. The Rikti invasion included an enormous mother ship that hovered over Paragon City. When it was eventually defeated by a huge gathering of heroes (many of which died in the battle), the ship crashed into a section of the city now known as the "Rikti Crash Site," which is walled off from the rest of the town and considered extremely dangerous for all but the most powerful and experienced heroes. It's also a quite sizable game map of what one would expect a cityscape to look like after a gigantic alien battleship fell on it.
** The back-story indicates that the heroes saw the damage they were doing when they took down the ships, so they then started tossing them into the ocean instead, which is why there's even a city left standing at all.
* Pick a cinematic attack in the game ''VideoGame/TouhouSoccer 2''. There's no way the audience could have survived this. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u823w5GI24 Rising Game]] ''starts'' with the world [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing up]]. And then Sakuya and Eirin send knives and arrows flying in every direction. If the explosion didn't kill the audience, all those pointy implements would've skewered them!
* Speaking of ''Videogame/{{Touhou}}'', the actual games raise some questions about the collateral damage from [[BulletHell danmaku]]. ZUN is [[ShrugOfGod expectedly obtuse on the matter]], and interpretations range from it being only dangerous to the intended target, only dangerous to people and not the surroundings (''[[AllThereInTheManual Perfect Memento]]'' mentions that while danmaku duels are pretty, a safe distance is advised), to potentially damaging everything it impacts but most people and things in Gensoukyou are resilient enough to avoid lasting damage.
* One between-levels cutscene in ''VideoGame/{{Afterburner}} Climax'' passes you orders to hunt down a nuke-bearing bomber, and explicitly tells you not to worry about the "sympathetic detonation" of the nuclear device.
* Averted (slightly) at the end of the [[spoiler:Ghirlandaio]] mission in ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles''. [[spoiler:The explosion that Selvaria causes is explicitly stated to have vaporized the entire army and demolished the fortress, but this has no impact on the player or Squad 7 because the army is painted as an unsympathetic hindrance to the militia.]]
** [[spoiler:By that point, most of the Imperial army was defeated so the militia can handle their remnants. And if the Universal Conscription is anything to go by, I'm guessing that the bulk of Gallia's military might is in their militia anyway, which explains why the regular army doesn't get anywhere much while the militia does the heavy lifting.]]

* ''VideoGame/AirForceDelta Strike'' sends the squadron to destroy a space elevator located in the center of a city, then in the immediate next mission, ''you'' have to destroy the falling debris to prevent the [[InferredHolocaust Endor Holocaust]]
* ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2'' has Yamato plan to shoot the airborne Alioth down, meaning it would land in Sapporo. Several of the party members are concerned about this trope and ask if that isn't going to endanger anyone still living there, wanting to evacuate first. Yamato soothes any worries by claiming that it won't be a problem[[spoiler:, since Sapporo is already devoid of human life]]. A later scene does avert this[[spoiler:, with Makoto mentioning to Yamato that she had heard that there were still survivors. Yamato sees no problem with that. [[HalfTruth Any person who wasn't crushed by Alioth would be dying due to the Septentrione's toxin in the area, anyway]]]].
* Averted in ''VideoGame/EveOnline: The Empyrean Age''. The falling wreckage from the Minmatar and Amarr fleets fighting over Mekhios were more destructive than any orbital bombardment could have been.
* ''VideoGame/IntoTheBreach'': While the game takes its time to show the consequences of the collateral damage that mechs can do, setting buildings ablaze does no damage to them, meaning that a region can be completely on fire and be no worse for wear.

* Franchise/MassEffect has a few examples:
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpgxry542M a Gunnery Sergeant is shouting at his troops]] that if you fire a gun in space that projectile keeps on going and will eventually hit something. When using a weapon that strikes with the impact of a city-buster, this is a very bad thing, so under no circumstances are you to "eyeball" it.
-->'''Sergeant''': "It keeps going until it hits something! That can be the ship, or the planet behind the ship! It may keep going into deep space, and hit someone else in ten thousand years! If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining ''somebody's'' day, somewhere and sometime!"
** Sovereign's destruction at the end of the first game seemed to play this straight, except for the one piece that landed on the Citadel Tower. The sequel (set two years later) reveals that at ''least'' tens of thousands were killed by falling debris, and they're ''still'' clearing out debris and making repairs and are expected to continue for at least five years (five years more or five in total, it isn't clear). From the destruction of '''one''' 2 KM ship.
** Subverted in ''Arrival''. In order to stop an imminent Reaper invasion, Shepard is forced to [[spoiler: cause the destruction of a Mass Relay, wiping out an entire star system along with a colony filled with 300,000 Batarians]]. The third game opens with Shepard in custody over this very incident, before he is released and free of all charges when the Reapers finally show up to invade Earth.
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', the Extended Cut DLC changed the ending to make it clear that [[spoiler: the Normandy's crew survived their crash, the mass relays were repaired and therefore averted the stranding of millions of aliens on Earth, and that galactic civilization rebuilt itself. The original ending before the extended cut involved exploding mass relays, some of which were located in rather populated star systems, including Earth's. Add to that the fact that according to the aforementioned ''Arrival'' DLC, an exploding relay has the power to destroy an entire star system, and you might realize that humanity would have gone extinct. The extended cut, however, changed it into the relays simply falling apart, causing a LOT less damage.]]
** [[spoiler: Averted by the "Destroy" extended ending with low EMS, which can be summed up as a galaxy-wide extinction event for all organic life above microbes, whether involved in the war or not. There are barely any survivors and the narrator doesn't express much hope for their future.]]
* Despite the series already having [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure a major metropolitan area and a military island base]] among its human casualties, and despite ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' being a DarkerAndEdgier spinoff, the game makes note that all civilians evacuated the capital city before [[MultipleEndings it was destroyed by a giant space laser or overrun with alien forces]]. A slightly more justifiable example from the same game occurs during the final boss, where the heroic [=NPCs=] comment that they were able to escape the aliens' comet/organic spaceship, freeing the protagonist to not worry about destroying the thing. This is also averted: the main villain is spreading a paralyzing gas over the Earth, and though you don't see it since you're fighting in the sky you can hear the [=NPCs=] choking and passing out over the radio as the fight goes on.
** In the opening cutscene of ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', Eggman cracks open the planet but no attention is given to the extremely high probability that he just slaughtered billions of people.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' seems to play this straight with the Reactor Bombings at the start of the game. However, late in the story Cait Sith[[spoiler: Actually Shinra employee Reeve]] makes it clear that the Trope was ''not'' in effect. A lot of people were either hurt or killed when the reactors blew, either from the explosion itself or by falling debries.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/MegaManX''. The post-''[[VideoGame/MegaManX5 X5]]'' games show that, if anything, the collateral damage caused by the pieces of Eurasia falling to Earth was ''even worse'' than what the damage would have been if simply the colony itself had fallen.

* The second act of ''VideoGame/{{Warzone 2100}}'''s single-player campaign appears to dodge this one at first, as it takes place in the ruins of a city that had a nuclear warhead dropped on it. Then comes a mission where you have to prevent the opposing faction flying a large number of civilians out of the area. The realisation that those half-wrecked apartment buildings (which some players had probably shot at just to see the rather cool collapse animation) might have had people inside them made this mission something of a WhamEpisode.
* Occurs in the ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'' demo. [[spoiler:PhysicalGod Wyzen assumes a form that is apparently larger than the planet the game is set on and attempts to crush Asura with a mountain-sized index finger, but he is destroyed. The following cutscene shows an even ''larger'' explosion that should have shattered the planet as well. The gravitational effects of having such a vast entity suddenly materialize just outside the atmosphere are also absent.]]
** ''Asura's Wrath'' proper never lets the collateral damage hit ''anywhere'' [[ApocalypseHow near the scale it actually would]]. [[spoiler: Yes, we're shown that humans have become slavishly loyal to [[GodGuise The Seven Deities]] to the detriment of society and that the Ghoma [[DoomedHometown burn villages left and right]]. However, the greater ecological effects, such as Wyzen's transformation, the [[KillSat Brahmastra's]] laser, or even Vlitra (an eight-headed snake growing out from the planet's core), are never addressed. By all accounts, Earth should have been space dust ''aeons'' ago.]]
* Occurs in ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'', when STAG brings in a giant ''flying aircraft carrier'' to bomb Steelport. It eventually gets blown up, but the city miraculously does not get flattened by the falling debris.
** Averted with an earlier cargo plane the player infiltrates and brings down, however -- it crashes into canisters carrying [[TheVirus a zombie-creating virus]] [[ContinuityNod from the previous game's DLC]], and for the rest of the game the only people you find in that specific part of the city are zombies.
* The last act of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' has players witness no less than [[spoiler:the Bionis and Mechonis, the HumongousMecha/continents the game's characters live on, '''coming to life and engaging in mortal combat.''' ''No'' one is shown dying or being injured, even though the simple act of the Bionis moving its leg should have ended at least 3 civilizations. We are told that Kallian evacuated Sword Valley and that "casualties were kept to a minimum", but the cutscene still shows ''thousands'' of people falling from Mechonis' sword, far more than could possibly have been saved by the aircraft in the area. Egil does speculate that he's probably killed thousands of Homs in a single strike when he first starts the fight and that was from a relatively weak attack. So a crap ton of deaths probably are happening, just not the extinction level events that logically would occur]].

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** In ''VideoGame/HaloReach'', Magnetic Accelerator Cannons, one of them a "Super" MAC, are twice fired at targets not far off the ground, destroying them neatly. In the books, Super [=MACs=] in particular are described as so powerful that they fire at 0.04% the speed of light, which in real life would cause ecological disaster on the scale of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, nevermind that the shockwave alone actually has the potential to ''rend continents and set the atmosphere itself on fire''. The seemingly careless use of them near the ground in ''Reach'' is lampshaded by one character, who expresses surprise that a mere ''regular'' (i.e. non-"Super") MAC cannon being used in-atmosphere. His commander's remark "One way to get [the Covenant]'s attention" suggests it's because they've passed the GodzillaThreshold. The general consensus among fans is that the [=MAC=] firings seen were fired at a slower speed to reduce their collateral damage.
** Also occurs in ''VideoGame/HaloWars'', where Captain Cutter's special ability is to fire MAC rounds from orbit to ground targets. Once again, no collateral damage. Although it should be noted that the Mac rounds being used in Halo Wars are stated in expanded material to not be large ship guns but rather smaller Mass Drivers mounted on the ship's outer hull, similar to the Mass Driver that is used in the last level of Halo Reach. The guns can be seen during the missions "Cleansing" and "Repairs", where you are moving about the dorsal surface of the ship, along with the cutscene that plays just before the latter mission that depicts the ship engaging a covenant vessel.
* In ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2016'', late in the game, [[spoiler:Novalis gets blown up by the Deplanetizer]]. However, Clank tells Ratchet that ''everyone'' was evacuated before it happened.
* All three ''Parasite Eve'' games avert this pretty hard.
** In [[VideoGame/ParasiteEve the first game]], casualties are kept to a minimum by evacuating the entire population as soon as a clear threat is identified, but Eve is still explicitly shown killing at least two concert halls full of people.
** Near the end of [[VideoGame/ParasiteEve2 the second game]], it's revealed that most of the monsters you've been fighting [[WasOnceAMan used to be human]].
** [[VideoGame/The3rdBirthday The third game]] shows several people being killed during the Twisted's initial attack (both by the Twisted themselves and as a result of the city-wide panic). [[AllThereInTheManual In-game files]] put the global death toll between 5.5 million and 335 million [[TimeyWimeyBall depending on the point in the game you're at]].

* Near the beginning of ''VideoGame/CosmicStarHeroine'', the protagonist Alyssa hops into a giant mecha (Whose parts she and her allies just ''wrecked''. Don't ask.) to battle a giant monster in the middle of the city. No mention of any collateral damage is made, even after Alyssa activates the mecha's SelfDestructMechanism in a CoupDeGraceCutscene. Then again, it looks like the mechanism makes the mecha and whatever its LaserBlade was lodged into simply evaporate without sending any shockwave. [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment That incident doesn't appear to carry much consequence]], except maybe that Alyssa was declared dead.
* Zig-zagged several times in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder''.
** Early on, it is hypothesized that anyone killed in a Singularity is un-killed when the Singularity is resolved. Eventually you learn that the circumstances of their death are changed to something fitting the corrected history, but they're still dead.
** Played straight with the destruction of humanity in the first arc: by thwarting the BigBad's attempts to retroactively destroy human history, you un-destroy humanity. [[spoiler: However, it takes a year to do so... [[SubvertedTrope and all of humanity is aware of the year they were extinct]], the paradoxical existence of Chaldea, etc. The consequences of ''that'' are planned to set up the story of the second arc.]]
** [[spoiler: Painfully subverted during the second arc "Cosmos in the Lostbelt". Humanity is destroyed, the Earth is wiped clean and there are 7 "Lostbelts", alternate timelines that diverged too far from proper history. Initially, the story paints this as if it was just a normal singularity that will go back to normal once you resolve it. However, at the end of the first Lostbelt, the game explains in clear terms that if you wish to save humanity, everyone in the Lostbelts will have to die.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderman'', Sandman tries to help the mob jack crude from a tanker. Spidey shows up, and they do what superheroes and villains have done for ages...only now they do it on an oil tanker. In New York harbor. At least the ''Valdez'' wasn't anywhere near a human port of millions of people, though I'm sure that was cold comfort to the wildlife.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' episode ''Misplaced'', a spell is cast to split the world in two, one with everyone over 18 in it, and one with everyone under 18. While the spell only lasts a few hours, the death toll among the children would have been catastrophic, as drivers, pilots, and doctors suddenly disappeared, and only a dozen teenage heroes were around to save them. It's never discussed, implying that no one died.

* The Tunguska Event, also in Russia, in 1908, was a crazy large explosion that levelled 2000 square kilometres of forest, yet didn't cause a single human casualty.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 US Airways Flight 1549]] hit a flock of migrating Canadian geese shortly after takeoff from [=LaGuardia Airport=] in January of 2009, destroying the plane's engines. Due to the low altitude the plane was at, and the surrounding skyline of New York City, the plane's pilots were forced to make an emergency water landing in the Hudson river. Fortunately, the plane somehow touched down on the water in just the right way, turning an extremely risky last resort option into the "Miracle on the Hudson"; a few serious injuries occured, but everyone on board the plane - all 155 passengers and crew - survived thanks to the most successful emergency water landing in aviation history, and the immediate rescue response by every civilian ship and ferry in the Hudson at the time preventing anyone from drowning before official first responders could arrive on the scene.

*** Pointed out by an exasperated Alfred after the Tumbler chase, in which Bruce causes a lot of structural damage across the city and smashing into police cars. Alfred calls him out on his recklessness and emphasizes that it was [[HandWave a miracle that no one was killed.]]

[[folder:Film — Animation]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

-->'''Twilight''': "[[LetMeGetThisStraight Is that what you're saying?]] That somepony popped Equestria out of our reality and [[WhenDimensionsCollide crashed it onto his]]? How's that even meant to work? [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Several trillion tons of continent]] [[ColonyDrop does not make a gentle impact on another world]], not without [[GiantWallOfWateryDoom mega-tsunamis]] and earthquakes that would level entire cities, followed by a dust cloud that would blanket the world in an artificial winter lasting decades! [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse And what about the world we leave behind, what about Equus?]] Would it just carry on spinning without a care, despite having a hole several thousand miles across gouged out of the planet's crust? Even if you didn't breach the mantle, creating a supervolcano that would pull the planet inside-out, the change in mass and absence of the Princesses would throw the sun and moon out of their orbits, causing them to collide, or even worse, [[ColonyDrop to impact with Equus itself!]] [[FridgeHorror Anypony – anything, left behind would die, horribly!]] Every griffon, every dragon, zebra, reindeer, whatever!"

* Averted in ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfAnElderGod''. The body count in some battles is pretty high, even if the main characters aren’t fighting with their giant robots. At the end of episode nine, after defeating "[[EldritchAbomination The King of Yellow]]", Misato looks over the devastation and thinks:

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[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* Directly invoked in ''Film/PacificRim''. Creator/GuillermoDelToro — a famed pacifist — specifically included scenes making it clear that cities are evacuated before battles so that the HumongousMecha and {{Kaiju}} can smash everything up without FridgeHorror about innocents dying (when the battles even make it to cities at all — most happen in the middle of the ocean), and the few times that civilians ''are'' put in danger, the aforementioned mechas swiftly move to get the monsters away with no harm done. Essentially, you get all the juicy {{Sentai}} action [[JustHereForGodzilla you came to see]] with none of the downer implications, so it's "guiltless" and keeps the film's tone appropriately upbeat.

* In the Franchise/StarTrek novel ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterpriseRelaunch Beneath the Raptor’s Wing]]'', several starships carrying antimatter explode in orbit over Andoria. The planet is fine but characters do note that had the explosions been a certain degree more powerful, the atmosphere ''could'' have been stripped away.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 US Airways Flight 1549]] hit a flock of migrating Canadian geese shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in January of 2009, destroying the plane's engines. Due to the low altitude the plane was at, and the surrounding skyline of New York City, the plane's pilots were forced to make an emergency water landing in the Hudson river. Fortunately, the plane somehow touched down on the water in just the right way, turning an extremely risky last resort option into the "Miracle on the Hudson"; a few serious injuries occured, but everyone on board the plane - all 155 passengers and crew - survived thanks to the most successful emergency water landing in aviation history, and the immediate rescue response by every civilian ship and ferry in the Hudson at the time preventing anyone from drowning before official first responders could arrive on the scene.

-->'''Twilight''': "[[LetMeGetThisStraight Is that what you're saying?]] That somepony popped Equestria out of our reality and [[WhenDimensionsCollide crashed it onto his]]? How's that even meant to work? [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Several trillion tons of continent]] [[ColonyDrop does not make a gentle impact on another world]], not without [[GiantWallOfWateryDoom mega-tsunamis]] and earthquakes that would level entire cities, followed by a dust cloud that would blanket the world in an artificial winter lasting decades! [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse And what about the world we leave behind, what about Equus?]] Would it just carry on spinning without a care, despite having a hole several thousand miles across gouged out of the planet's crust? Even if you didn't breach the mantle, creating a supervolcano that would pull the planet inside-out, the change in mass and absence of the Princesses would throw the sun and moon out of their orbits, causing them to collide, or even worse, [[ColonyDrop to impact with Equus itself!]] [[FridgeHorror Anypony – anything, left behind would die, horribly!]] Every griffon, every dragon, zebra, reindeer, whatever!"

* Averted in ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfAnElderGod''. The body count in some battles is pretty high, even if the main characters aren’t fighting with their giant robots. At the end of episode nine, after defeating "[[EldritchAbomination The King of Yellow]]", Misato looks over the devastation and thinks:

[[folder:Film — Animation]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* Directly invoked in ''Film/PacificRim''. Creator/GuillermoDelToro — a famed pacifist — specifically included scenes making it clear that cities are evacuated before battles so that the HumongousMecha and {{Kaiju}} can smash everything up without FridgeHorror about innocents dying (when the battles even make it to cities at all — most happen in the middle of the ocean), and the few times that civilians ''are'' put in danger, the aforementioned mechas swiftly move to get the monsters away with no harm done. Essentially, you get all the juicy {{Sentai}} action [[JustHereForGodzilla you came to see]] with none of the downer implications, so it's "guiltless" and keeps the film's tone appropriately upbeat.

* In the Franchise/StarTrek novel ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterpriseRelaunch Beneath the Raptor’s Wing]]'', several starships carrying antimatter explode in orbit over Andoria. The planet is fine but characters do note that had the explosions been a certain degree more powerful, the atmosphere ''could'' have been stripped away.

** The trope is named after a [[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html theory]] arguing that the destruction of the second Death Star in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' turned the Ewoks' homeworld of Endor into a smoking wasteland, as the destruction of such a large object so close to the planet (well, moon really) would have catastrophic atmospheric effects and create a hail of very dangerous debris. This would have given the heroes' actions a very nasty turn indeed. [[WordOfGod Canonically]], this did not happen (except outside [[Discontinuity Imperial propaganda]]), and Wookieepedia has a whole [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Endor_Holocaust Wookieepedia article]] about why not, but among the fans the exact reason remains disputed. Among the several {{Hand Wave}}s about this:

** The trope is named after a [[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html theory]] that argues the destruction of the second Death Star in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' turned the Ewoks' homeworld, the Forest Moon of Endor, into a smoking wasteland. The [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Endor_Holocaust Wookieepedia article]] explains that [[WordOfGod canonically]], the Endor Holocaust did not happen, [[DiscontinuityNod only existing as Imperial propaganda]]. Later material would HandWave it by explaining that the Death Star's destruction created a wormhole (long story; just know the Death Star was intended for faster-than-light capabilities) that sucked most of the debris (including Literature/TheGloveOfDarthVader) into parts unknown, with any dangerous leftovers being caught in Rebel tractor beams. Furthermore, there has been a rebuttal to the original theory that argues the original theory overestimated the size of the Death Star by a substantial amount (though even the low estimate is pretty nasty). Finally, and most bluntly, the Rebels and Ewoks would ''not'' have been able to throw that [[DancePartyEnding epic party]] on the surface, which is shown to take place at nightfall. If the hypothetical holocaust were to happen, it would have caused problems by then. ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' finally put the debate to bed once and for all in the ContinuityReboot, showing that Endor had survived the destruction of the Death Star II just fine and that the biggest pieces of debris had impacted on another, nearby and apparently uninhabited (at least, at the time of the Battle of Endor) moon named Kef Bir.
*** It should be noted, that the explosion as shown in the movie is quite slow, and most fragments would probably not reach enough velocity to immediately drop on Endor. Instead, they would most likely form a slowly spreading orbital cloud, then ring around Endor.
** ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' features a sequence where Obi-Wan and Anakin try to pilot General Grievous' flagship, ''Invisible Hand'' to an emergency runway on Coruscant after the engines suffer irreparable damage. On their way down, the ship splits in two, with the back half flying off behind them, undeniably hitting a section of the planet with the potential of killing tens of thousands of people. All this gets is an off-handed quip from Anakin ("We lost something,") and Obi-Wan ("We're still flying ''half'' a ship.") However, no real damage to the population seems to occur and in the ''TabletopGame/StarWarsRoleplayingGame'' a cantina names itself after the ship while putting pieces of its hull on display with no complaints.

* ''Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay'' averts this ''hardcore'' at first while examining the effects of everyone on Earth becoming immortal- Not only has the entire political climate changed, a complete overhaul of the medical care system is in the works since the very definition of life has changed. If anything, the global changes may be happening faster than they would in reality, sometimes dipping into ArtisticLicense. However, while there are some consequences that persist once the event ends, the draconian PopulationControl measures, martial law, and Second Great Depression all seem to vanish with no lasting ramifications.

** The trope is named after a [[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html theory]] that argues the destruction of the second Death Star in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' turned the Ewoks' homeworld, the Forest Moon of Endor, into a smoking wasteland. The [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Endor_Holocaust Wookieepedia article]] explains that [[WordOfGod canonically]], the Endor Holocaust did not happen, [[DiscontinuityNod only existing as Imperial propaganda]]. Later material would HandWave it by explaining that the Death Star's destruction created a wormhole (long story; just know the Death Star was intended for faster-than-light capabilities) that sucked most of the debris (including Literature/TheGloveOfDarthVader) into parts unknown, with any dangerous leftovers being caught in Rebel tractor beams. Furthermore, there has been a rebuttal to the original theory that argues the original theory overestimated the size of the Death Star by a substantial amount (though even the low estimate is pretty nasty). Finally, and most bluntly, the Rebels and Ewoks would ''not'' have been able to throw that [[DancePartyEnding epic party]] on the surface, which is shown to take place at nightfall. If the hypothetical holocaust were to happen, it would have caused problems by then. ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' finally put the debate to bed once and for all, showing that Endor had survived the destruction of the Death Star II just fine and that the biggest pieces of debris had impacted on another, nearby and apparently uninhabited (at least, at the time of the Battle of Endor) moon named Kef Bir.

** ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' features a sequence where Obi-Wan and Anakin try to pilot General Grievous' flagship, ''Invisible Hand'' to an emergency runway on Coruscant after the engines suffer irreparable damage. On their way down, the ship splits in two, with the back half flying off behind them, undeniably hitting a section of the planet and killings tens of thousands of people. All this gets is an off-handed quip from Anakin ("We lost something,") and Obi-Wan ("We're still flying ''half'' a ship.")

->''"I was worried for a second that it'd be one of those sad stories that you have to pull some sort of depressing meaning out of. [[VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands No thank you!]]''"

* Amazingly, despite making liberal use of HollywoodScience, [[DuelingWorks/{{Film}} rival movie]] ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'' averts this trope as it's used to explain why they can't just Nuke the Killer Asteroid. [[spoiler: Played straight at the end, however.]]

* Lampshaded at the end of the ''[[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]]: Trial by Fire'' arc, when [[spoiler:Plastic Man]], fighting Fernus, a.k.a. [[spoiler:Martian Manhunter]], throws him through three buildings while saying "Thank god... for this crummy economy... or we'd never have abandoned buildings... to smash!"
** Afterwards, it's noted that the League rebuilt the city (it could've referred to that city in Russia, not [[BigApplesauce New York]]).
* ''Comicbook/TheIncredibleHulk'': The Hulk can go a long way without killing anyone during his rampages. Hulk's buddy, Amadeus Cho, tries to explain this by suggesting that the Hulk is amazingly gifted, doing math to know exactly where every chunk of debris he creates will fall.
** At least during The Hulk and Franchise/{{Superman}}'s bout in ''DC Vs. Marvel'', they were teleported to the Grand Canyon, where Superman {{lampshade|Hanging}}s that it would be one place they wouldn't hurt anyone collaterally.

* Comicbook/ThePunisher, in his 30-odd years of punishing (racking up something in the order of 2000+ bodies, it's estimated) has never killed an innocent. It's reasoned that Frank's whole schtick is that he's a phenomenally well-trained, extremely diligent US Marine, who makes damn sure everything's in place before he starts his "work".

* Played straight for the most part in ''Comicbook/AstroCity''. The city is frequently attacked by hundred-foot-tall monsters or rampaging gods, but most collateral damage either occurs off-screen or with scenes showing heroes rescuing civilians. Most aftermath is limited to broken windows and litter in the streets, and the residents take this all in stride, praising the city's robust public works services.

* Parodied in ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' where one panel depicts the aftermath of King Kong with a ChalkOutline of King Kong on the street. Inside the outline of Kong are lots of outlines of people apparently flattened when he fell off the Empire State Building.
** Two others have the end of a dog leash coming out from under him, implying he crushed a dog, and a squashed shopping bag with a woman lamenting, "Well, there go my tomatoes."