History Main / SwordsToPlowshares

Great news! [[ForeverWar The war]] is over! Now, what do we do with all these leftover weapons? Turn them into things civilians can use! All that scrap steel can make heavy machinery or be used in construction. Those nuclear weapons? Fuel rods. TNT? Use it for earth-moving. Factories that built bombers and warships? Use 'em to build cars! Train lines that moved troops hither and yon? Use 'em as the basis for a civilian rail transport network! Just ''imagine'' all the possibilities!

Great news! [[ForeverWar The war]] is over! Now, what do we do with all these leftover weapons? Turn them into things civilians can use! All that scrap steel can make heavy machinery or be used in construction. Those nuclear weapons? Fuel rods. TNT? Use it for earth-moving. Factories that built bombers and warships? Use 'em to build cars! Just ''imagine'' all the possibilities!

->''"And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up their sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." ''

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!

Most inversions of this trope fit under ImprovisedWeapon or {{MacGyvering}}, with GardeningVarietyWeapon being a particularly common inversion. There's also TorchesAndPitchforks when a group (usually an AngryMob) converts their farm implements into weapons. See also TheRuleOfFirstAdopters, where sex and porn helps in spreading a new fledgling technology far and wide.

* ''Literature/BewareOfChicken'' sees a literal sword-to-plow conversion; Sun Ken the bandit is defeated, and his intelligent (though nobody realizes it at the time) sword is turned into a plow to insult his memory, then given to Jin as a wedding present (Jin had joked about turning the sword into a plow but didn't expect be taken seriously). .Being a spirit blade, it's very receptive to qi reinforcement, making it supernaturally effective, and Jin is very pleased with the gift. After considering how Sun Ken must be turning over in his grave, Jin decides to call the plow Sunny and paint it a bright cheery yellow. The blade is actually quite happy with it's current situation since it gets to do a lot of cutting of the earth.

* Discussed in John Gardner's ''Literature/JamesBond'' novel ''Role of Honor''. A major plot point is that both the Soviet Union and the United States have top secret computer codes which, if sent with proper authentication, will start an irrevocable process of shutting down all nuclear warheads in their countries. The novel centers around a plot by SPECTRE to [[spoiler:falsely transmit only the US code from an airship positioned directly above Geneva, where the American President and Soviet Premier are holding a critical summit meeting]].

Most inversions of this trope fit under ImprovisedWeapon or {{MacGyvering}}, with GardeningVarietyWeapon being a particularly common inversion. There's also TorchesAndPitchforks when a group (usually an AngryMob) converts their farm implements into weapons.

* PlayedForLaughs in '' Manga / SleepyPrincessInTheDemonCastle'' when the princess turns a bunch of high-level weapons into a hammock.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/MaouJouDeOyasumi'' when the princess turns a bunch of high-level weapons into a hammock.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has a card named "[[https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=559783 Swords to Plowshares]]." It exiles a creature (IE DeaderThanDead), but because White is obsessed with fairness, itgives that creature's controller HitPoints equal to the creature's power, representing the repurposing of a combat unit to a non-violent function. Despite the EquivalentExchange, this is one of the most powerful spells in the game, reprinted continuously for its entire [[LongRunner 30-year]] existence and rarely worth less than $1 a copy: how are Hit Points going to help your opponent after you just used this card for a DecapitationStrike on their KeystoneArmy?

--->'''Tohdfraug Admiral:''' "But if you break a sword through abuse or neglect, it's useless."
--->'''Petey:''' "As a sword, yes. Eventually I'll be needing plowshares."

* ''Literature/BewareOfChicken'' sees a literal sword-to-plow conversion; Sun Ken the bandit is defeated, and his intelligent sword is turned into a plow to insult his memory, then given to Jin as a wedding present. Being a spirit blade, it's very receptive to qi reinforcement, making it supernaturally effective, and Jin is very pleased with the gift. After considering how Sun Ken must be turning over in his grave, Jin decides to call the plow Sunny and paint it a bright cheery yellow.

** Invoked in ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'', when Kring, Hrun's [[MagicSword talking sword]], mentions a wish to be forged into a plowshare.

* TheInternet. Invented in 1969 for military and scientific uses when it was called ARPANET, it is now used for information, communication, business, and research, as well as [[TheInternetIsForPorn plenty of]] [[TheInternetIsForCats other]] [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife things]].

** Even before that, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Automatic_Ground_Environment Semi-Automatic Ground Environment]], a network of air defense radars, missile installations, and command stations, all controlled by a series of massive computers, developed many of the necessary technologies such as remote workstations, parallel processing and redundancy, and multinode computer networks.