History Main / PointlessDoomsdayDevice

* In ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'', the elves created a powerful weapon that is immune to all magical attacks. It could also spit out smaller duplicates. Unfortunately [[spoiler:since the artifact is immune to all magic, it cannot be controlled. So, the elves just buried it and hope no one will ever find it. Unfortunately, the guy who dug it up didn't realize why it had been buried until after it was dug up because he stopped reading the book about the elvish superweapon before he got to the section explaining why they never used it on anybody.]]

* ''Literature/PleaseDontTellMyParentsIHaveANemesis'': Penny semi-accidentally builds a machine to make a horde of rampaging giant robots. She admits that she has no reason to ''want'' a horde of rampaging giant robots, but inexplicably decides not to dismantle the machine. And sure enough, at the climax of the story it gets activated.

* In ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', the elves created a powerful weapon that is immune to all magical attacks. It could also spit out smaller duplicates. Unfortunately [[spoiler:since the artifact is immune to all magic, it cannot be controlled. So, the elves just buried it and hope no one will ever find it. Unfortunately, the guy who dug it up didn't realize why it had been buried until after it was dug up because he stopped reading the book about the elvish superweapon before he got to the section explaining why they never used it on anybody.]]

** Centerpoint Station, a massive space station with the power to both move and destroy celestial bodies. Built by an ancient race called the Celestials, it doesn't seem to serve a purpose besides being a handy superweapon for the plot. [[spoiler:Until ''Literature/FateOfTheJedi'' revealed it SealedEvilInACan... or rather, it was effectively a gun pointed at the Can that was supposed to go off should the Sealed Evil escape. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Too bad the heroes blew it up]] in the [[Literature/LegacyOfTheForce previous story arc]].]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* The worst thing about it is that, due to the aforementioned time machine, the Ancients were warned that Earth humans would one day visit Atlantis and the Pegasus Galaxy. They prepared accordingly, by programming a failsafe on Atlantis "submarine mode" (it resurfaces when the batteries that power its shield reach a critically low power level), a hologram about the Wraith controlling the galaxy, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking lights that turn on when you arrive]], which was nice of them. It would have been nicer to, say, take a few hours to destroy or at least document their explosive-tumors giving machines, leave a side note about the Replicators, and a list of planets ''not'' to go to (because, you know, the Wraith control them) before they were ready. But, since most of the series' plots [[IdiotPlot wouldn't have happened then]]... In all fairness, several of those hadn't happened yet so the Ancients couldn't be warned of the eventual problems they would cause. Several of them were also lost or forgotten about, which is another [[NeglectfulPrecursors trope]].

* [[GenericDoomsdayVillain Doomsday]] itself. He is created on prehistoric Krypton, which at that point was a hostile DeathWorld teeming with incredibly deadly species. Through some bizarre use of Kinensian evolution, Doomsday evolved into the ultimate killing machine within the span of 30 years, driving all hostile lifeforms on the planet into extinction in the process. It's then revealed that his creator hadn't actually planned for what to do once the process was complete, as he had anticipated it would take much longer, and Doomsday ends up killing him too. Ironically, it was also Doomsday driving Krypton's native fauna into extinction that allowed the Kryptonians to build their civilization. It's hinted that previously they were very isolationist and primitive as a result of their hostile homeworld.

* In the SoBadItsGood movie ''Film/PumaMan'', the artifact in question is a mask that can control minds. This mask was designed by a race of {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s who believe that "Each man is a god, each man is free." This mask has no purpose other than to steal people's will, it can even be used to [[PsychicAssistedSuicide force people to commit suicide]].

* In ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', the elves created a powerful weapon that is immune to all magical attacks. It could also spit out smaller duplicates. Unfortunately [[spoiler:since the artifact is immune to all magic, it cannot be controlled. So, the elves just buried it and hope no one will ever find it.]]

** Centerpoint Station, a massive space station with the power to both move and destroy celestial bodies. Built by a ancient race called the Celestials, it doesn't seem to serve a purpose besides being a handy superweapon for the plot. [[spoiler:Until ''Literature/FateOfTheJedi'' revealed it SealedEvilInACan... Or rather, it was effectively a gun pointed at the Can that was supposed to go off should the Sealed Evil escape. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Too bad the heroes blew it up in the previous story arc]].]]

* A [[AGodIsYou God Game]]. Which worked by orbiting a few hundreds satellites over some inhabited planets, and a console to give the locals orders. Built by the same guys who, once ascended, forbade any interfering with lower planes because "[[AGodAmI Playing god]] is wrong".

* ''Franchise/StarWars'' [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]]
** The [[ComicBook/MarvelStarWars Shawken Device]], which is supposed to destroy the universe. It is notable for operating on principles that are considered dubious at best even by characters in the comic book in which it appears. But nobody really wants to test it, just in case. Luke and his sort-of apprentice even go to great lengths to disable it.

** Best of all, succession games incorporate the "LostTechnology" aspect of the trope -- within real-time days or weeks, as one player constructs such a device and connects levers to it, but then doesn't label any of the levers so that a few players later, somebody inherits it and literally has a) no idea how to activate the device if they wanted to and b) no idea which lever does what. The results are pretty much inevitable, especially given that tantruming dwarves often throw levers without being ordered to.

'''Difficulty''': Very high. Extremely dangerous.\\
'''Usefulness''': None, by definition, but highly amusing.
--> -- '''VideoGame/DwarfFortress [[https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Stupid_dwarf_trick Wiki]]'''

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
* In ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', the elves created a powerful weapon that is immune to all magical attacks. It could also spit out smaller duplicates. Unfortunately [[spoiler: since the artifact is immune to all magic, it cannot be controlled. So, the elves just buried it and hope no one will ever find it.]]
* ''Anime/DragonBallGT'' brings us the Black Star Dragon Balls. They appear to function exactly like those from Franchise/DragonBall, collect all seven and summon an ancient dragon who will grant a single wish. Except that if they're used, ''the planet they were used on will be destroyed a year later'', unless they're gathered back together before then. As an added bonus, they're harder to find than the normal kind, as they spread themselves all over the universe.

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* The [[Franchise/MarvelUniverse Ultimate Nullifier]] is a device that can nullify anything (not just disintegrate, but remove from existence entirely and even retroactively . . . after it's used, it's target isn't, and never was)--up to and including the entire universe. It only has two limitations: the user has to fully perceive and understand the target (easier for a rock than a person, let alone a galaxy), and unless the user is an Abstract Entity or otherwise beyond mortal limitations, the user is nullified as well. It's been used to stand off Galactus, but it's not at all clear why the thing exists in the first place, or why it's kept in Galactus' starbase. It's actually [[spoiler:a part of Galactus himself.]]

[[folder: Film ]]

-->'''[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 Crow]]''': [[SchmuckBait Let's go drop it on some other planet, see who bites.]]
* ''Film/Plan9FromOuterSpace'': The aliens' motivation for (ineffectively) terrorising Earth is because they believe if humans continue to advance, we'll create exploding sunlight that will cascade-detonate the universe.
* The Russians' [[DoomsdayDevice Doomsday Machine]] from ''Film/DrStrangelove'' actually had a very good point to it: to prevent nuclear holocaust [[SwordOfDamocles by threatening to destroy the entire world]] in the event of a nuclear exchange -- the ultimate form of [[MutuallyAssuredDestruction mutually assured destruction]]. [[BlackComedy Unfortunately, the Russians hadn't gotten around to telling anybody about it just yet. They were saving the announcement for a special occasion, because, as the ambassador puts it, "The Premier loves surprises".]] As the eponymous [[MadScientist doctor]] points out, a deterrent isn't very deterring if nobody knows about it, which turns it into this trope.

[[folder: Stargate Verse ]]

* The Asuran Replicators: a form of machine life built as a weapon to destroy the Wraith but then abandoned to its own devices when it proved to be a "failure" in some undefined way. The Ancients at least did try to destroy it, but of course didn't do a particularly thorough job.
** Well, they actually ''did'' do a pretty thorough job, but since the [[GreyGoo Replicators]] are called that way [[MeaningfulName for a reason]], the few who survived rebuilt the civilization. So it's kind of like throwing an Ebola virus sample away and [[TooDumbToLive assuming nothing wrong will happen]]. To their credit, the war with the Wraith is implied to have been quite advanced by that point, so maybe they just didn't have the resources available for a proper cleaning.
* Project Arcturus, an attempt to build a super-powerful power source[[note]]Specifically, by extracting zero-point energy from our own spacetime, rather than from an artificially created pocket universe ''à la'' the zero-point module.[[/note]] that turned out to be inherently unstable. Worse, while in operation, it inevitably emitted deadly hard radiation, plus absurd amounts of energy (and, of course, the device can't be turned off once it starts to overload). The device killed everyone on the planet with its radiation, but they left it in place for future tinkerers to mess with (and eventually wound up exploding, destroying 5/6 of the star system it was in).
** After the original blew up, the Atlantis crew revisited the concept (and built it [[TooDumbToLive in their own city]]), and this time almost managed to destroy a parallel universe. Apparently they were fast learners.

* The worst thing about it is that, due to the aforementioned time machine, the Ancients were warned that Earth humans would one day visit Atlantis and the Pegasus Galaxy. They prepared accordingly, by programming a failsafe on Atlantis "submarine mode" (it resurfaces when the batteries that power its shield reach a critically low power level), a hologram about the Wraith controlling the galaxy, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking lights that turn on when you arrive]], which was nice of them. It would have been nicer to, say, take a few hours to destroy or at least document their explosive-tumors giving machines, leave a side note about the Replicators, and a list of planets ''not'' to go to (because, you know, the Wraith control them) before they were ready. But, since most of the series' plots [[IdiotPlot wouldn't have happened then]]…
** In all fairness, several of those hadn't happened yet so the Ancients couldn't be warned of the eventual problems they would cause. Several of them were also lost or forgotten about, which is another [[NeglectfulPrecursors trope]].

[[folder: Literature ]]

* ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' has the Deplorable Word which, once spoken, will eliminate all life in the world other than the speaker. Its pointlessness is sort of the point--the fact that [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Jadis the White Witch]] was willing to kill ''everyone'' in her world rather than lose a war to her sister proves that she [[ItsAllAboutMe literally sees everyone as means to her end]].

--> '''Zach''': That's the problem with scientists; the thrill of invention often stops them from thinking through the consequences of their actions. They never stop to think: "Hey, there might be some potential to misuse this doomsday device so maybe it's not such a hot idea to invent it."

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' has multiple doomsday devices, spells and other various things.
** Slightly more justified as most of those were created by [[AlwaysChaoticEvil demons]] whose entire cultures seem to have an OmnicidalManiac bent. The only documentation are esoteric instructions on how to use them.
* The planet-eating "doomsday machine" that appears in an episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' seems to be one of these. Kirk can only guess as to where it may have come from or why it was activated, but he still has to stop it before it destroys anything else.
** His guess is that it was built for an ancient war that neither side survived after it was activated. If true, the trope wouldn't apply, since it wasn't forgotten so much as it just kind of wandered off while still in use.
*** Creator/PeterDavid's [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]] novel ''Vendetta'' expands on the doomsday machine: It was built as a last-ditch weapon by a race which had been nearly wiped out by The Borg. The one that Kirk destroyed was on an automated course, not to Earth, but ''through'' Earth to get to Borg territory. The one Kirk destroyed was also just the prototype. A far more powerful one has to be dealt with over the course of the novel. [[spoiler: Ultimately very, very pointless as it attempts to go to warp 10 and gets stuck in the Dichotomy motion Paradox. Amazingly, references to transwarp (Voyager) don't really break continuity as you need special gizmos go into transwarp. The ship was just using a regular warp drive.]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* Played with in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Finding ancient doomsday weapons with no clear purpose evident is pretty common, but the setting being what it is, pretty much all of them did have a purpose at one point in time. The Blackstone Fortresses, for example, seemed pointless until the Necrons, whom the Fortresses were built to combat, returned.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Web Animation ]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

---> '''Professor Farnsworth:''' I suppose I could part with ''one'' and still be feared...

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'' has Vegnagun. It is a powerful superweapon, yes, and would probably be actually quite useful -- if it didn't destroy the ''entire world'' upon firing.
** If fired up at the roof of an underground cavern, then yes it will blow the surface above to smithereens. Presumably that is not how it was meant to be used. The reason it's sealed away is because it can't distinguish between friend and foe, and it can sense if some even thinks about dismantling it which it proceeds to judge as a foe. So it can't even be dismantled.

--> '''Professor Farnsworth:''' I suppose I could part with ''one'' and still be feared...

* ''Anime/DragonBallGT'' brings us the black dragon balls. They appear to function exactly like those from Franchise/DragonBall, collect all seven and summon an ancient dragon who will grant a single wish. Except that if they're used, ''the planet they were used on will be destroyed a year later.'' As an added bonus, they're harder to find than the normal kind, as they spread themselves all over the universe.

* [[GenericDoomsdayVillain Doomsday]] itself. He is created on prehistoric Krypton, which at that point was a hostile DeathWorld teeming with incredibly deadly species. Through some bizarre use of Kinensian evolution, Doomsday evolved into the ultimate killing machine within the span of 30 years, driving all hostile lifeforms on the planet into extinction in the process. Its then revealed that his creator hadn't actually planned for what to do once the process was complete, as he had anticipated it would take much longer, and Doomsday ends up killing him too. Ironically, it was also Doomsday driving Kryptons' native fauna into extinction that allowed the Kryptonians to build their civilization. It's hinted that previously they were very isolationist and primitive as a result of their hostile homeworld.

* Project Arcturus, an attempt to build a super-powerful power source[[note]]Specifically, by extracting zero-point energy from our own spacetime, rather than from an artificially created pocket universe ''à la'' the zero-point module.[[/note]] that turned out to be inherently unstable. Worse, while in operation, it inevitably emitted deadly hard radiation, plus absurd amounts of energy (and, of course, the device can't be turned off once it starts to overload). The device killed everyone on the planet with its radiation, but they left it in place for future tinkerers to mess with (and eventually wound up exploding, destroying 5/6 of the solar system it was in).

* A weapon used for destroying Stargates. It can be used to maintain a wormhole indefinitely (Beyond the 38 minute limit), but doing so causes the gate on the other side to eventually overload and explode, taking most of the planet with it. Given the abundance of Stargates and people who use them, this is actually a clever doomsday device used properly with no (known) nasty side-effects. Unless blowing up Stargates ''was'' the side-effect and the goal was simply to keep the wormhole open indefinitely, we never learn for certain.
* Not to mention, you know, ''Atlantis.'' Which given the chair platform, super shields, and the Ancient database, probably qualifies as a whole squadron of doomsday devices, at the very least.
* A [[AGodIsYou God Game]]. Which worked by orbiting a few hundreds satellites over some inhabited planets, and a console to give the locals orders. Built by the same guys who, once ascended, forbid any interfering with lower planes because "[[AGodAmI Playing god]] is wrong".

* It says something on the Ancient when the only non-ascended named one of the entire series, Janus, was kind of a MadScientist who built quite a few of these.
** Like a working TimeMachine. This one is an inversion, though : it's actually useful, doesn't have any nasty side effect we know about (aside from the [[ButterflyOfDoom usual risks]] involved with time travel), and has a great potential for, you know, world saving and the like. Still, the Ancients were frightened of it and ordered Janus to destroy it (he didn't).
** The Attero Device, which was specifically tuned to Wraith hyperdrives to cause them to blow up during a jump throughout the galaxy. Unfortunately, it had the nasty side effect of causing every active stargate to explode in a [[EarthShatteringKaboom planet-busting]] manner. To his credit, the lab where Janus had left it was hidden fairly well, and he put a note on it which indicated "Has nasty side effects", making the Attero Device the best documented Ancient device ever. This one also wasn't accidentally turned on the Atlantis Crew, but by another race who knew full well what the side effects were and deemed them acceptable. ''They'' didn't use the Stargates afterall.
* The worst thing about it is that, due to the aforementioned time machine, the Ancients were warned that Earth humans would one day visit Atlantis and the Pegasus Galaxy. They prepared accordingly, by programming a failsafe on Atlantis "submarine mode" (it resurfaces when the batteries that power its shield reach a critically low power level), a hologram about the Wraith controlling the galaxy, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking lights that turn on when you arrive]], which was nice of them. It would have been nicer to, say take a few hours a destroy or at least document their explosive-tumors giving machines, leave a side-note about the Replicators, and a list of planets ''not'' to go to (because, you know, the Wraith control them) before they were ready. But, since most of the series' plots [[IdiotPlot wouldn't have happened then]]…

** Slightly more justified as most of those were created by [[AlwaysChaoticEvil demons]] whose entire cultures seems to have an OmnicidalManiac bend. The only documentation are esoteric instructions on how to use them.

** His guess is that it was built for an ancient war that neither side survived after it was activated. If true the trope wouldn't apply, since it wasn't forgotten so much as it just kind of wandered off while still in use.
*** Creator/PeterDavid's [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]] novel ''Vendetta'' expands on the doomsday machine: It was built as a last-ditch weapon by a race which had been nearly wiped out by The Borg. The one that Kirk destroyed was on an automated course, not to Earth, but ''through'' Earth to get to Borg territory. The one Kirk destroyed was also just the prototype. A far more powerful one has to be dealt with over the course of the novel. [[spoiler: Ultimately very very pointless as it attempts to go to warp 10 and gets stuck in the Dichotomy motion Paradox. Amazingly, references to transwarp (Voyager) don't really break continuity as you need special gizmos go into transwarp. The ship was just using a regular warp drive.]]

--> -- '''VideoGame/DwarfFortress [[http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/cv:Stupid_dwarf_trick Wiki]]'''

* In ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', making these is a [[ComedicSociopathy typical dwarven hobby.]] They usually involve [[LavaAddsAwesome magma]]. Notable examples from [[LetsPlay succession games]] include {{LetsPlay/Boatmurdered}}'s Project: Fuck The World (which incidentally shortens to FTW), and Headshoots' [[spoiler:WEAPON.]]

* A weapon used for destroying Stargates. It can be used to maintain a wormhole indefinitely (Beyond the 38 minute limit), but doing so causes the gate on the other side to eventually overload and explode, taking most of the planet with it. Given the abundance of Stargates and people who use them, this is actually a clever doomsday device used properly with no (known) nasty side-effects.

** Like a working TimeMachine. This one is an inversion, though : it's actually useful, doesn't have any nasty side effect we know about, and has a great potential for, you know, world saving and the like. Still, the Ancients were frightened of it and ordered Janus to destroy it (he didn't).

* A [[AGodIsYou God Game]]. Which worked by orbiting a few hundreds satellites over some inhabited planets, and a console to give the locals orders. Built by the same guys who, once ascended, forbid any interfering with lower planes because "[[AGodIAm Playing god]] is wrong".

* This was Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik's M.O. from about 1998-2008 in ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog''. He would look for some SealedEvilInACan, often a god or EldritchAbomination of some sort. It would almost always run amok until [[BigDamnHeroes Sonic and his pals]] invariably showed up. After that phase, he seems to go back to creating original plans again.

** Check out the community pages (The forums and the wiki) for plenty more examples. Most notably, the wiki offers a suggestion that players build a 'doomsday clock'; a mechanism that will, [[DeadManSwitch if a certain pressure plate is not triggered for X amount of time or some other condition is not met]], destroy the fortress and render it permanently uninhabitable.

** In Syrupleaf, the same lever somehow got connected to both the outer drawbridges and the irrigation floodgates, so [[http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Syrupleaf/Update%2046/index.html raising the bridge to protect the trade depot would flood the farm plots]].

* The ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' series has the Armageddon spell, which will wipe out all life in the universe. (except Lord British, and sometimes the caster is immune too. Sometimes.) In ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'', you're given the spell as a freebie by the Xorinite, hoping to entice you into taking advantage of their information-brokering services. They don't think the spell is very impressive since it only affects the current plane of existence.

* Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse

* Project Arcturus, an attempt to build a super-powerful power source[[note]]Specifically, by extracting zero-point energy from our own spacetime, rather than from an artificially created pocket universe ''à la'' the zero-point module.[[/note]] that turned out to be inherently unstable. Worse, while in operation, it inevitably emitted deadly hard radiation, plus absurd amounts of energy (and, of course, the device can't be turned off once it starts to overload). Killed everyone on the planet with its radiation, but they left it in place for future tinkerers to mess with (and eventually wound up exploding, destroying 5/6 of the solar system it was in).