History Main / StarKilling

So you've got a star. Main sequence type, more or less middle of its life-cycle, nothing special. Probably has an inhabited planet or two orbiting it. Of course, the Evil ([[RecycledInSpace Space!]]) [[EvilEmpire Empire]] wants the people on the planet(s) dead. They ''could'' just carpet bomb the planet or maybe [[EarthShatteringKaboom even blow it up]], but instead they decide to go for broke. When a faction or character goes Star Killing they go about ending a star's life in any of a variety of ways that dooms all life in the system to a ApocalypseHow/ClassX2 ApocalypseHow.

* The Technarch Magus (in Marvel's X-Men titles) was an alien being who was physically large enough to rip a star in half with his bare hands.

** The Heralds of Galactus can also do this. At one point, Nova (Frankie Raye) destroyed a star that was being used to power a weapon created by the Elders of the Universe, after the Silver Surfer suggested said course of action.
* ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk:'' The Breaker of Worlds, an evil future version of the Hulk who has been completely taken over by [[EldritchAbomination the One Below All]] is capable of crushing stars like they were ''balloons''. This has left the entirety of the Ninth Cosmos completely dead and dark.

** In ''ComicBook/SupermanBrainiac'', ''ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}'' develops a weapon called solar aggressor which can make a star explode. He blows a star up and later attempts to detonate the Sun, but ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} manages to stop and destroy the weapon.
*** In another instance, Brainiac actually deployed such a weapon and destroyed a solar system, catching Superman in the blast and knocking him out so he could be captured.

* In [[Creator/ValiantComics Valiant Comics]]' version of [[ComicBook/DoctorSolar Solar, Man of the Atom]], the title character created a weaker [[LiteralSplitPersonality but more battle-focused detachment/incarnation of himself]] known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Solar the Destroyer]]. Unlike the original, this incarnation lacked a limitless power source, so he periodically recharged himself by consuming suns as he traveled through space searching for Solar's enemies.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' notes that Surtur's Great Captains - [[QuirkyMinibossSquad his most senior and powerful minions]] - are comfortably capable of destroying stars at the height of their power. Since their power depends on how tight the seal on Muspelheim (and therefore their boss) is, they're often BroughtDownToBadass... which is to say that they can 'only' destroy planets without too much effort, and 'only' (in the case of Jormungand) survive being thrown into a neutron star by Thor. Surtur himself destroyed a ''galaxy''.
* In ''FanFic/HarryPotterAndTheMethodsOfRationality'' Harry is prophesied to destroy the stars themselves, but not the people. When he hears this he points out that if he accomplishes his goal of developing {{Magitek}}, then to a culture with access to it the current stars are a giant pile of resources that some idiot set on fire.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueVsTheFatalFive'': At the end of the film, the Emerald Empress attempts to destroy the Earth's sun by using her magical Eye of Ekron which has been empowered by the energy of the Green Lantern Corps. Her plan ultimately fails thanks to Star Boy, [[HeroicSacrifice who sacrifices his life to destroy the eye and prevent it from reaching the sun's core]].

* A novel by Barrington J. Bayley included a weapon which worked by eliminating all of the electrons in a star, thereby rendering fusion impossible. A star hit by the weapon would lose about 0.05% of its mass and instantly go out. In RealLife, making the electrons spontaneously disappear without something else changing as well would cause the star to blow itself apart due to the immense repulsion between the protons. %% The 0.05% was formerly 1/1400. If that was the book's theory, it should probably stay.
** This is rather unrealistic, in that the electrons "disappear". In reality a collapsing star causes such pressure that protons and electrons are converted into neutrons and neutrinos. The outgoing neutrinos blast away a good fraction of the mass. Forcing this would effectively kill a star. It would be collapsed into a single tiny sphere (comparable to an asteroid). Planets orbiting the star would be blasted away.

See also TheStarsAreGoingOut, which is about what happens when someone on Earth ''watches'' stars getting killed. Compare EarthShatteringKaboom, PlanetDestroyer and DetonationMoon.

* One of the villains in ''Captain Kremmen'' were the Sun-Suckers, who drain heat from our sun [PlanetLooters as their own sun has died, leaving their world a frozen wasteland]].

** Ostensibly, Cell at the height of his strength had the power to do this. Of course, a bit of Power-Scaling and we reach the conclusion that Gohan can do exactly the same, seeing as he was able to utterly obliterate Cell the same way he tried to destroy the Solar System. Both of these are confirmed in [[AllThereInTheManual official guidebooks]], and Cell is also depicted doing this in a few video games.

* ''Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem'': Dark forest strikes usually do this by shooting a star with a "photoid," which is essentially just a rock...fired at speeds ''just'' under the speed of light, so that its relativistic mass is a fraction of the star's mass. The impact literally blows the star open, spewing its contents onto surrounding planets before the star ultimately collapses. [[spoiler: This is what happens to Trisolaris due to the dark forest broadcast.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicRoundabout'': The threat is presented in a more ArtisticLicensePhysics light than would be realistic, but Zeebad's plan is to use the magic diamonds to freeze the sun itself. He almost succeeds.

[[quoteright:350:[[Anime/VampireWars https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/suneater_large.png]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/VampireWars https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/suneater_large.png]]]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound'': Brainiac's Solar Aggressor missile is designed to cause stars to go supernova and wipe out the planets that he's collected cities from. He never bothered destroying Krypton's star because could tell the planet would explode on its own, sparing him the trouble.

* ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperheroes'': The finale of Season 1 is an adaptation of the Legion storyline, "The Doomed Legionnaire", in which the Legion have to reluctantly team up with the Fatal Five in order to stop a weapon of mass destruction known as the Sun-Eater. Just like the original, the two-part finale ends with Ferro Lad pulling a HeroicSacrifice to stop the Sun-Eater.

Interesting: even though immediate aging of a star is extremely unlikely, it is theoretically possible to increase the speed of a normal star's aging. Usually, most matter within a star is a hydrogen/helium mixture, and most of the star's life cycle it fuses hydrogen into helium. However, a tiny part of the star's mass consists of carbon-nitrogen-oxygen, which transform into each other through the CNO cycle, catalyzing (i.e. accelerating) the burning of hydrogen. So, dump enough carbon or nitrogen[[note]]Not ordinary oxygen. Any time O16 appears in its ground state, that particular participant in the CNO cycle ends.[[/note]] into an average star[[note]]The CNO cycle won't run at all if the star isn't massive enough to trigger catalyzed fusion in its core. It takes at least 1.3 solar masses for the CNO cycle to become its dominant energy source. The prime candidates for adding carbon or nitrogen would be massive, old stars that formed before the interstellar medium became enriched with heavy elements.[[/note]] and it probably will age faster AND burn hotter.[[note]]That may be the natural conclusion, but in RealLife, [[RealityIsUnrealistic the opposite would happen]]. Upon the initial boost in fusion, the star would expand, slowing down the fusion reaction. Gravity would be weaker as well. A new stable equilibrium [[https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003SoPh..212....3S/abstract estimated to be reached millions of years later]] would be reached where fusion would occur at the slower rate sufficient to balance the weaker gravity. Stellar fusion would slow down. Of course, while the star may not explode and incinerate its planets, the effects of a more luminous star in something as fragile as a developed biosphere is another topic[[/note]] The effect won't be immediate, though. The mixing of star matter is slow, and distribution of additions will take many years, maybe even ages.

Interesting: even though immediate aging of a star is extremely unlikely, it is theoretically possible to increase the speed of a normal star's aging. Usually, most matter within a star is a hydrogen/helium mixture, and most of the star's life cycle it fuses hydrogen into helium. However, a tiny part of the star's mass consists of carbon-nitrogen-oxygen, which transform into each other through the CNO cycle, catalyzing (i.e. accelerating) the burning of hydrogen. So, dump enough carbon or nitrogen[[note]]Not ordinary oxygen. Any time O16 appears in its ground state, that particular participant in the CNO cycle ends.[[/note]] into an average star[[note]]The CNO cycle won't run at all if the star isn't massive enough to trigger catalyzed fusion in its core. It takes at least 1.3 solar masses for the CNO cycle to become its dominant energy source. The prime candidates for adding carbon or nitrogen would be massive, old stars that formed before the interstellar medium became enriched with heavy elements.[[/note]] and it probably will age faster AND burn hotter.[[note]]That may be the natural conclusion, but in RealLife, [[RealityIsUnrealistic the opposite would happen]]. Upon the initial boost in fusion, the star would expand, slowing down the fusion reaction. Gravity would be weaker as well. A new stable equilibrium would be reached where fusion would occur at the slower rate sufficient to balance the weaker gravity. Stellar fusion would slow down.[[/note]] The effect won't be immediate, though. The mixing of star matter is slow, and distribution of additions will take many years, maybe even ages.

* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's novel ''Literature/{{Competitors}}'', the Seekers get their hands on MatterReplicator plans for an Extinguisher, a missile capable of blowing up a star that the creators of the [[SpaceStation Platform]] have, for some reason, left in the station's databanks. The weapon requires a certain rare metal and must be carried by a sufficiently large ship. After replicating the Extinguisher, the Seekers mount it on their largest ship, a ''Prime'', and threaten the people on the Platform with it. The Seekers believe that they are not in Space but are InsideAComputerSystem. They hope that destroying a star will cause the "game" to crash and wake everyone up. In the end, they are proven wrong, when the Seeker fleet is forced to use the Extinguisher on a star later revealed to be Rigel to escape a large [[InsectoidAliens Bug]] fleet (the Extinguisher creates a "tunnel" of sorts through the core of the star as a side effect of the explosion). Many of the smaller ships with inadequate shielding are still lost. The Bugs then communicate with the Seekers and force them to return to Platform Space by threatening Earth with an Extinguisher. One of the Seekers notes that astronauts back on Earth will be pissed at the loss of Rigel, which is used in Space navigation, but another person points out that Earth won't know about it for another 800 years, since Rigel is that far away.
* Creator/RogerZelazny's ''Literature/CreaturesOfLightAndDarkness'' has The Hammer That Smashes Suns. In addition to its star-killing powers, it's one of the few weapons that's truly effective against a God.
* Iain M. Banks' ''Literature/TheCulture'': An appendix to ''Literature/ConsiderPhlebas'' summarises the vast interstellar war the novel was set in, with a casual mention that among the tally of destruction was six stars. In a later book, we learn that one of them harboured an inhabited planet.

* In ''Down The Bright Way'' by Creator/RobertReed, the [[HumansAreBastards UnFound]] are wiped out [[ExpendableAlternateUniverse on each separate Earth]] via star killing. Since the [=UnFound=] inhabit every planet, and thousands upon thousands of asteroids and comets in each Earth's solar system, making the sun burn away most of its mass in a miniature supernova becomes the most effective way to kill the [=UnFound=].

* The Creator/LarryNiven short story "The Fourth Profession". The Monks are a species of alien traders who travel from star to star. Normally they travel using light sails pushed by launching lasers built by intelligent races in the systems they visit. If there's no intelligent race in a system or the race refuses to build a launching laser for them, they use a device on their ship to make the system's star go nova and use that for propulsion.
* In the ''Galactic Center'' series by Creator/GregoryBenford it is implied that the mechs are the cause behind a number of recent novae.
* In Creator/AndreyLivadny's ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' series, it's revealed that the [[FishPeople Delphons]], unable to escape the oncoming [[PlanetEater Forerunner]] swarm (their only means of FasterThanLightTravel was via a PortalNetwork), the Delphons chose to [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice]] their entire race to allow younger races (including humanity) to evolve. How? They used the Forerunners' natural attraction to starlight to allow them to get close before triggering nova reactions in their own stars. Three million years later, humanity is spreading through the galaxy and discovers dead stars in the so-called Sleeve of Emptiness, dozens of dead systems in a roughly linear shape. A human is then imprinted with the memories of a frozen Delphon, who discovers the fate of their race (and also their status as AncientAstronauts). It's not clear why the Delphons didn't attempt to evacuate using STL ships, as the swarm also moved at STL speeds.

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': ''Life, the Universe, and Everything'' has at the heart of the plot a bomb that would cause every sun in the universe to go supernova at once, resulting in complete annihilation.
* The "iron-bombing" of Moscow's star in ''Literature/IronSunrise'' by Creator/CharlesStross. Not an "iron bomb" [[UsefulNotes/AirLaunchedWeapons in the USAF sense of the word]], the process involves sending the target star's core into a PocketDimension [[YearInsideHourOutside with a vastly accelerated time flow]]. [[TimeAbyss As quintillions of years pass in the mini-universe]], the superheated hydrogen cools and [[QuantumMechanicsCanDoAnything eventually transmutes through quantum tunneling into a solid iron crystal]]. When the now-shrunken core is returned to the center of the star, the outer layers fall toward it, bounce off (iron doesn't like to be fused) and rebound explosively. The entire process [[ShownTheirWork is a fair approximation of what actually occurs in a Type II supernova]] (apart from the pocket dimension, anyway).

* In the final ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' novel of Creator/EEDocSmith, ''Children of the Lens'', the sun of the Ploor system is destroyed by firing a planet from another universe whose intrinsic velocity is always faster than light into the star.

* In the ''Literature/NightsDawn'' trilogy by Creator/PeterFHamilton there is a star-killer called the "Neutronium Alchemist" which has two modes. The "humane" setting basically shoots a small black hole into the star which slowly siphons off fusion mass: eventually absorbing the entire star but slowly enough to evacuate the system. On the other hand "violent" ends up compressing all matter that comes into contact with the weapon into neutronium, releasing lots of energy in the process. This extra energy leads to the star [[spoiler: or gas-giant]] to go nova.

* In the ''[[Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries Revelation Space]]'' books, the [[BigBad Inhibitors]] "sing" Delta Pavonis apart[[note]]using a 'graver', a gravitational-wave laser tuned to the frequency of the star[[/note]] in order to destroy the local human colony: having already wiped out one species native to the system millennia ago, they're determined to do the job for good this time. It's also offhandedly mentioned that they know fifteen different ways to destroy a dwarf star.

* In Christopher Ruocchio's ''Literature/TheSunEater'', the glossary of the series mentions that there was a historical event during the Crusade where the Gododdin system was destroyed by protagonist Hadrian Marlowe. ''Howling Dark'', the 2nd book of the series, has a character Suzuha give Hadrian some information about her famous father Kharn Sagara. She mentioned that in the distant past humanity created A.I. called the Mericanii and it reached a point where they far exceeded human intelligence. The Mericanii created star killing weapons far beyond human capacity - weapons that created cold, weapons that actually destroyed matter and weapons that tore the fabric of reality. Her father Sagara liberated humanity from the Mericanii scions, the Extrasolarian exultants, and is the sole keeper of these weapons.

* ''Literature/XeeleeSequence'' gives us the Starbreaker rifle - that's right, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a handheld gun that can destroy stars]]. They were reverse-engineered from [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Xeelee]] technology, and fire powerful gravity beams that are capable of ripping through any kind of material, even the [[MadeOfIndestructium Xeelee's spacetime construction material]], which is all but indestructible against conventional matter and energy. A handheld Starbreaker requires a continuous beam to destabilize the core of a star and eventually cause it to explode, but the larger ship-mounted versions can destroy stars (even neutron stars) in a single shot.

* Brainiac's Solar Aggressor missile in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound'' is designed to cause stars to go nova and wipe out the planets that he's collected cities from. Krypton was spared this fate because Brainiac could tell it would explode of its own volition, sparing him the trouble.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueVsTheFatalFive'': At the end of the film, the Emerald Empress attempts to destroy the Earth's sun by using her magical Eye of Ekron, but her plan is thwarted by Star Boy [[HeroicSacrifice who sacrifices his life in the process]].

* At the end of ''ComicBook/DCeased'', [[spoiler:Superman]] is infected by the Anti-Life Equation, instilling in him a burning hatred of all life. While [[spoiler:he tries to destroy the colony ships escaping the doomed earth, he he is stopped by the Green Lantern Corps, who surround him and order him to stand down]]. Refusing to give up, [[spoiler:Anti-Life Superman]] enters the Sun, absorbing it in its entirety and dooming the solar system to a slow death.

* ''Creator/DCComics'': The Sun-Eaters are weapons of mass destruction created by an alien race known as the Controllers. As the name implies, they eat/absorb the energy of stars, which both destroys the star and empowers the Sun-Eater. Several of these weapons appear in various stories set during both the Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis continuities.
** The first appearance of the Sun-Eater was in Adventure Comics #353: "The Doomed Legionnaire", in which the ComicBook/LegionOfSuperheroes have to reluctantly team up with villains like the Fatal Five to stop it. Famously saw the death of Ferro Lad who pulled a HeroicSacrifice in order to stop the Sun-Eater.
** DC Comics Presents #43 saw Mongul unleash a Sun-Eater in an attempt to destroy the Earth. Superman is ultimately able to stop him with the help of the Legion of Superheroes.
** In the ''Franchise/GreenLantern'' installment of ''ComicBook/FinalNight'', a Sun-Eater was killing Earth's sun, Hal Jordan does a HeroicSacrifice that saves it and restores the damage. In the process, it shone green for a day.

* ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperheroes'': The finale of Season 1 is an adaptation of the Legion storyline, "The Doomed Legionnaire", in which the Legion have to reluctantly team up with the Fatal Five in order to stop a weapon of mass destruction known as the Sun-Eater. Just like the original, the two-part finale ends with Ferro Lad pulling a HeroicSacrifice to stop the Sun-Eater.

** The first appearance of the Sun-Eater was in Adventure Comics #353 in which the ComicBook/LegionOfSuperheroes have to reluctantly team up with villains like the Fatal Five to stop it. Famously saw the death of Ferro Lad who pulled a HeroicSacrifice in order to stop the Sun-Eater.

* In the ''Franchise/GreenLantern'' installment of ''ComicBook/FinalNight'', the Sun-Eater was killing Earth's sun, Hal Jordan does a HeroicSacrifice that saves it and restores the damage. In the process, it shone green for a day.

[[folder:Films — Animation]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

** "[[RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun Remember that time when you blew up a sun?]]" An oft-referred-to incident in "Exodus" where the team basically just dropped an open Stargate (connected to some far-off world orbiting a black hole) into a star, causing a fatal instability and immediate supernova, in order to wipe out an incoming armada.
** SG-1 also once poisoned a sun ''accidentally'' ("Red Sky") when a wormhole's trajectory passed through it and dropped superheavy elements as it passed. They (or the Asgard; they never actually clear that up) manage to fix it by the end of the episode.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Half A Life," an attempt at SolarCPR has the opposite (and explosive) effect.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "By Inferno's Light," a Changeling infiltrator posing as Bashir had planned on dropping a protomatter weapon into Bajor's star to wipe out a combined Klingon/Federation/Romulan taskforce (how useful that would have been in doing that is questionable, since the ships could easily go to warp, but it would wipe out Deep Space Nine and Bajor, and allow the Dominion to come out after the wake of the supernova and secure the Alpha Quadrant side of the wormhole).
** It's been previously established that going to warp inside a solar system is a high-risk move, and reiterated within the episode itself (Kira only does it because [[GodzillaThreshold if they don't, there won't be a solar system left]]). Some novels seem to indicate that activating a warp engine too close to a star can cause serious problems for the star, which also falls under this trope, so....
* In the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "The Q and the Grey", a civil war in the Q Continuum has the Q therein using weapons which cause stars to go nova as a side-effect of their use.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* An even more dramatic of the latter is the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_disruption_event tidal disruption of a star]] by a supermassive black hole, such as those existing in galactic centers. The poor star [[https://astrocrash.net/projects/tidal-disruption-of-stars/ gets compressed and pancaked]] before being destroyed, liberating a tremendous amount of energy.

* An astrophysicist [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpT3yfve30I will giggle and say if you want to kill a star, you have it in your kitchen: iron]]. When a star starts fusing material into iron, the game is up. Iron ''absorbs'' energy, and the outward force of energy will cease, and gravity will take over causing the core to collapse making the star go supernova from the resulting implosion. (Heavier elements are created ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis by]]'' supernovae, which have enough energy to get over the hump.)