History Main / PoweredByABlackHole

While it is [[UnrealisticBlackHole popularly believed that black holes are like giant vacuum-cleaners in space]], [[ScienceMarchesOn it is not actually completely true]] that anything that falls into a black hole is lost forever. [[RealityIsUnrealistic In reality]], black holes are actually the most powerful sources of energy in the universe, even more so than stars themselves. Even though black holes are famous for not allowing even light to escape, this is only true if light enters the event horizon: their accretion disks are capable of producing light as long as there's a constant source of matter feeding them. When matter falls into a black hole, tidal forces stretch and heat up the material to extremely hot temperatures which gives off potent x-rays. Supermassive black holes in particular, when fed ''a lot'' of matter, have the potential to outshine entire galaxies.

[[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness Harder science fiction]] will typically rely on one or more of the following real-world theories:

* Brainiac's ship is powered by six miniature black holes in ''ComicBook/SupermanRedSon''. He primes them to go off when he's defeated so Superman [[spoiler:has to make a HeroicSacrifice and fly the ship away from Earth.]]

* According to one of the guidebooks for ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/AttackOfTheClones'' (the book is now considered ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''), gravitational devices such as repulsorlifts, tractor beams, and accelerator compensators were built in unmanned energy refineries that were constructed around black holes to harvest the energy emitted from them.

** This first discovered by accident in "A Matter of Time" when an attempt to retrieve a missing SG team GoesHorriblyWrong: the SGC unwittingly dials a gate on a planet whose sun has just become a black hole, and the gate becomes stuck to that destination, remaining open even after the power from the SGC side is disconnected.
** In "Beachhead," the Ori use a force field projected through a stargate to forcibly collapse the planet in question below its Schwartzchild radius, creating a micro-black hole that is used to power a "super-gate" big enough to send the Oris' invasion fleet through. That attempt is foiled. Their next, in the season finale, is not.
** In "The Pegasus Project", the SGC successfully blockades the super-gate by placing one normal stargate next to it, and another next to a solar mass black hole, then detonating a nuclear warhead through the wormhole to energize the super-gate and force it to connect to the black hole, rendering it useless to the Ori.

** The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration [[UniverseBible Writers' Technical Manual]]'' states that the Romulan ''D'Deridex''-class warbird is believed to be powered by x-ray emissions from a captured microsingularity, rather than fusion and matter/antimatter reactors like most other ships. ''Star Trek'' canon has usually adhered to this since then, DependingOnTheWriter.
** Becomes a plot point in the ''TNG'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E23Timescape Timescape]]", when an alien species' attempts to incubate their offspring in the artificial singularity core of a Romulan warbird (as opposed to [[BizarreAlienBiology the natural singularities they would normally use]]) results in fracturing local space-time when the ''Enterprise''-D comes to assist the warbird after a DistressCall.
** {{Exploited}} in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E17Visionary Visionary]]" when the crew are able to [[StealthInSpace locate a cloaked warbird]] by hunting for the emissions of its drive singularity.

** The Huckebeins are a series of Gundam {{Expy}} mechs which use gravity-based {{Energy Weapon}}s and DeflectorShields, powered by a Black Hole Engine.

*** The ''[[VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration Original Generation]]'' Huckebein's history is similar to its ''Alpha'' counterpart, except that its Black Hole Engine was retrofitted onto a design already in development, and the flaw in the Black Hole Engine was introduced by the Zuvorg Alliance (a rival group of aliens) tampering with the meteor for their own purposes.
** Shu Shirakawa's personal machine, Granzon, is a monster of a mech that jumps straight past "Super Robot" into "God-like Robot" territory with the ability to use its three contained singularities to create weaponized black holes, wormholes, and a gravitational warp field that protects it from attacks.

** The Huckebeins are a series of Gundam {{Expy}} mechs which use gravity-based {{Energy Weapon}}s and DeflectorShields. Their original prototypes were powered by a Black Hole Engine, until one went haywire in the infamous "Vanishing Trooper" incident. In the ''Original Generation'' continuity the development of a stable Black Hole Engine turns out to have been a SecretTest by the alien Zuvorg Alliance to see if human technology was worth looting, which was sabotaged by Shu Shirakawa in order to buy Earth more time to defend against invasion.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' provides two very different examples with it's OriginalGeneration lineup. The first is the Huckebein, a series of Gundam {{Expy}} mechs whose original prototypes were powered by a Black Hole Drive, allowing for use of Graviton weaponry. The other example is the Granzeon, a monster of a mech that jumps straight past "Super Robot" into "God-like Robot" territory with the ability to use it's three contained singularities to create weaponized black holes, wormholes, and a gravitational warp field that protects it from attacks.

* Brainiac's ship is powered by six miniature black holes in ''ComicBook/SupermanRedSon''. He prime's them to go off when he's defeated so Superman [[spoiler:has to make a HeroicSacrifice and fly the ship away from Earth.]]