Line #18 Main/PhlebotinumBomb


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7	A Phlebotinum Bomb is a WeaponOfMassDestruction, minus the "Mass Destruction." Instead of destroying everything within its blast radius, it only destroys ''certain'' things, like life forms or computers, and leaves everything else miraculously untouched.
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9	Name comes from a dream [[Tropers/{{Crisis}} one contributor]] had, in which he built "a Phlebotinum Bomb" from various bits of Phlebotinum to cause a planet-wide wave that would destroy all the evil [[LivingShadow shadow-monsters]].
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11	A SubTrope of TrickBomb and often a {{superweapon}} as its targets have no meaningful way of defense. May also be a WaveMotionGun. Not to be confused with a FantasticNuke, which is a full-on WeaponOfMassDestruction, but often runs on phlebotinum. A form of DamageDiscrimination, giving this attribute to weapons is a possible way to justify FriendlyFireproof. In general, many examples of SmartBomb will overlap with this.
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13	----
14	!!Examples:
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17	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
18	* In the ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' episode "[[Recap/CowboyBebopSession4GatewayShuffle Gateway Shuffle]]", a terrorist organization develops a [[DevolutionDevice de-evolutionary virus]] known as "Monkey Business" which targets only the two percent of human DNA that makes us different from other apes.
19	* Markarov's Fairy Law in ''Manga/FairyTail'' only hits those the user sees as enemies. It also has about a city-sized radius. [[spoiler:Laxus]] can use it as well.
20	* In the ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'' anime, [[spoiler:Vash's Angel Arm can vaporize an entire city and yet not kill a single inhabitant caught in the blast. Of course, a bunch of people in the desert with no shelter don't exactly fare well after the fact]].
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23	[[folder:Comic Books]]
24	* The ''Eclipso'' comic book series from Franchise/TheDCU features a 'sun bomb', as 'Eclipso zombies' are [[WeakenedByTheLight vulnerable to the sun]]. {{Hand Wave}}d by a previous {{crossover}} having the DC super-geniuses working long hours on sun weapons -- the device simply covers every inch of the local area with the sun's rays. Someone needs to send this stuff to ComicBook/{{Superman}}.
25	* ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'': In the short-lived ''Guy Gardner'' comic book series, one of his many, many changes involves a bizarre alien heritage (now CanonDiscontinuity) allowing him to [[LovecraftianSuperpower generate any weapon he can think of from his own body]]. In short, his body ''is'' his [[ImaginationBasedSuperpower Green Lantern ring]]. He creates a sticky nuke which only fries that which it is touching ([[ComicBook/CaptainAtom Major Force]]).
26	* In the ''ComicBook/MarvelAdventures'' version of ComicBook/{{the Incredible Hulk}}'s origin, the gamma bomb is apparently supposed to be the anti-NeutronBomb -- destroy inanimate material, leave living things aside. [[ForegoneConclusion That's not quite what happens]], but you ''can'' say this about the end product -- he doesn't specifically go after civilians and can be persuaded to try and save them.
27	* In ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'', in the 21st century (which was ten thousand years before Sonic's plot started), an alien race known as the Xordas didn't take kindly to human scientists murdering and dissecting their peace-bringing emissary. They responded by detonating "gene-bombs" across the Earth, which specifically targets all of its organisms' DNA; if they're human, they were to die (a tiny fraction survived and devolved over 10,000 years into the Overlanders, like Robotnik and such), but as for non-human animals, they ''evolved'' into the Mobians during said period (e.g., Sonic and pals), and were meant to be the new dominant species of the planet. They even created all of the [[GreenRocks Chaos Emeralds]] (yes, the Master Emerald included)!
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30	[[folder:Fan Works]]
31	* ''Fanfic/TheSecretReturnOfAlexMack'': [[spoiler:The Collective base]] is covered in GC-161 bombs, which will empower regular humans -- usually with unstable powers, thus temporarily incapacitating them while they get used to the changes -- and dissolve Orphans.
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34	[[folder:Film]]
35	* In ''Film/CasinoRoyale1967'', the rather height-challenged antagonist devises a weapon that will make all women beautiful and kill all men who are taller than he is.
36	* The first movie of ''Series/GetSmart'', titled ''The Nude Bomb'', features a bomb that [[TheNudifier only destroys clothes]].
37	* The "pinch" in ''Film/OceansEleven'' releases an {{EMP}} pulse that causes a [[BigBlackout momentary blackout]] in Las Vegas.
38	* ''Film/VForVendetta'' has biological weapons that wipe out humans in a region while keeping the resources and atmosphere intact. [[spoiler:The corrupt UK government used it on one of their own regions to control their subjects with fear.]]
39	* ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'':
40	** At the end of ''Film/XMen1'', [[spoiler:Magneto tries to use a weapon that is supposed to turn normal humans into mutants but will actually kill them]].
41	** In ''Film/X2XMenUnited'', Cerebro is [[spoiler:repurposed to kill mutants by brainwashing the Professor into unintentionally killing them while the machine is targeting them. After that's foiled, Magneto alters it so it instead targets humans and lets the Professor keep going]].
42	** Arclight's shockwaves in ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'' allow her to target specific materials, the plastic weapons of the soldiers in this case. (In the comic books, she doesn't appear to be able to fine-tune it like that... and [[AxCrazy wouldn't have bothered]] sparing the soldiers anyway.)
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45	[[folder:Literature]]
46	* The "blue-rinse" bio-bomb in ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' kills all organic life, but leaves everything else untouched.
47	* ''Literature/BallLightning'' culminates with the discovery that macro-fusion can be used to destroy all the computer chips for hundreds of miles around. Ball lightning itself qualifies, as each instance has specific preferences as to what substances it'll cremate.
48	* ''Literature/BooksOfTheRaksura'': A plot point in the final book. [[spoiler:The villains obtain a {{Magitek}} artifact that can be activated to kill everything nearby that's descended from the Forerunner {{Precursors}}; the main characters have to prevent them from reaching its other component, an amplifier that can spread its effect across the continent.]]
49	* ''Literature/HyperionCantos'': Toward the end of ''Fall of Hyperion'', the [=TechnoCore=] convinces the Hegemony's leaders that the best way to deal with the invading Ousters is by unleashing the deathbomb, a weapon which kills all humans within several lightyears but has no effect on the environment or any other form of life.
50	* In ''Seeing Redd'', the sequel to ''Literature/TheLookingGlassWars'', there is a device called [[FunWithAcronyms WILMA]] (Weapon of Inconceivable Loss and Massive Annihilation), the exact workings of which are kept somewhat vague, but the effects of which seem to be [[spoiler:destroying the imaginative powers of anyone within range]].
51	* ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'': Threshold winnowers cause every aperture in their area of effect -- from doorways to eye sockets -- to boil over with spectral eyes and "corpselight" that fatally mutates, exsanguinates, and/or outright cooks every living thing it touches. Even the [[GalacticSuperpower Hexarchate]], which ritually tortures dissidents to death on holidays, considers them a weapon of last resort.
52	-->'''Kujen:''' They're bombs that kill living things within the gate radius without damaging nonliving structures. The part that scares all the civilians is all the eyes and mouths that chew up the victims. That's just cosmetic. Dead is dead.
53	* In ''Literature/{{Shatnerquake}}'', a bomb is planted at [=ShatnerCon=] with the purpose of retroactively eliminating all Creator/WilliamShatner-related media ever created.
54	* In ''Literature/SixthColumn'', the heroes perfect a ray-weapon that can be tuned to only kill Asians while leaving everyone else unharmed.
55	* In ''Literature/{{Uglies}}'', society was nearly destroyed many years in the past by a bacterium that [[PostPeakOil caused petroleum and its assorted byproducts to become unstable and burst into flame on contact with air]].
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58	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
59	* ''Series/BlakesSeven'': In "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS2E9Countdown Countdown]]", the Terran Federation have hidden a solium device on a planet as a SwordOfDamocles. If the population rebels, the device will [[DoomsdayDevice kill everyone on the planet]] while leaving the infrastructure intact to be resettled. The rebels try to seize the remote detonator before it's activated but are too late and [[RaceAgainstTheClock must find and disarm the device before it counts down to zero]].
60	* ''Series/DarkAngel'' has a massive {{EMP}} destroy the world's computer systems, creating enough record loss and confusion that Max and her fellow {{Super Soldier}}s could escape into normal society without immediately being tracked down.
61	* The ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' episode "[[Recap/FringeS02E14TheBishopRevival The Bishop Revival]]" features a former Nazi whose gas weapon can be altered to only target particular races, family lines or individuals, based on genetics.
62	* In the last episode of ''Series/PowerRangersInSpace'', [[spoiler:Zordon tells Andros to break open his tube, killing him, eliminating the Power Rangers' source of power, and most importantly wiping out all evil in the galaxy. It works, destroying nearly every villain that ever appeared on the show except Divatox, Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa, who are inexplicably turned into yuppies]]. Considering how many seasons there have been since then, this obviously didn't take.
63	* ''Series/StargateSG1'':
64	** The Goa'uld planet of Dakara turns out to be home to [[spoiler:a device that can create or destroy anything, including specific lifeforms or objects. Ironically, the device was originally used to recreate life in the Milly Way Galaxy after a plague swept through it]]. While its range normally only extends to the planet it's on and the surrounding space, SG-1 manages to [[spoiler:use it in conjunction with the gate system to destroy all the Replicator nano-bots in the galaxy]].
65	** Later, [[spoiler:the Ori are destroyed by the Sangraal (Holy Grail), a weapon designed to specifically destroy all Ascended beings in a galaxy while leaving all other lifeforms unharmed. Understandably, their followers remain a threat next season]].
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68	[[folder:Mythology & Religion]]
69	* ''Literature/TheBible'': One of the ten plagues kills every first-born son in Egypt.
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72	[[folder:Video Games]]
73	* The Death Mask from ''VideoGame/AstroBoyOmegaFactor'' is a gigantic {{Mayincatec}}[=-looking=] KillSat that can generate a worldwide EMP that would kill all the robots on Earth, created as a contingency plan in case a RobotWar breaks out. Unfortunately, its power source [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum Omotanium]] can also emit radiation harmful to humans, making it possible for the device to eradicate humanity instead, leading to extremists on both sides trying to gain control of the weapon.
74	* ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'': The Elven homelands were depopulated by a FantasticNuke that deployed [[DeadlyGas Deathfog]], which kills every living creature it touches. [[spoiler:[[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Justinia]]]] has a similar device shipped to [[spoiler:the Arx]], which the player characters can choose to deploy, inflicting the same fate on its citizens.
75	* In ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'', overloading a Patterson generator (like the ones powering [[FasterThanLightTravel FTL drives]] or large facilities) creates a pulse of minkowski radiation that kills every monster it hits. Unfortunately, that same radiation is intensely painful to the monsters even at low levels, higher levels can mutate them into newer and more dangerous forms, the overload process increases the output until it finishes building up, and they can detect Patterson tech. In short, any attempt to detonate a Patterson generator will be met with hordes of angry supermonsters dedicated to tearing it and you apart before it can go off.
76	* In ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', when the Hyper Gate is finally activated, all the [[spoiler:Nomads]] get sucked through to [[PutOnABus some faraway sector]], but the good-guy ships stay right where they are because the Hypergate messes with the power supplies used by the [[spoiler:Nomads]], since they all draw from the same quantum foam-based power technology.
77	* The Halos in the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' series are designed to starve out the Flood by killing all sentient life in the galaxy (including any Flood form more advanced than an infection form). Low-level lifeforms will survive the effect, but the Flood can't really feed on them. The Forerunners resorted to firing the Halos 100,000 years ago because there was no way to directly kill off ''all'' Flood forms without also killing off ''all'' life, period.
78	* ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'': [[spoiler:If you pick the Destroy ending, the Citadel can become one, destroying all synthetic life in the galaxy -- the Reapers, the Geth, and EDI.]]
79	* Bloodtox gas in ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' causes necrosis in those infected with TheVirus (including the protagonist) but is completely harmless to normal humans. "In fact, it's so harmless that [[OhCrap you've been breathing it since you entered this room]]."
80	* The Xel'Naga artifact you assemble over the course of the Terran campaign in ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' kills all Zerg and only Zerg within its blast radius. As a side effect, at full power it also [[spoiler:cures infested humans and restores them to normal]].
81	* Doom-Shroom in ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'' is one of these, and he is ''very'' aware of it. In the almanac, he [[LampShade directly tells the player]] that he "could destroy everything you hold dear" and doesn't do so only because he's "on your side".
82	* The ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter'' virus is [[SyntheticPlague genetically engineered]] to kill people of certain ethnicities.
83	* The Necrotic Mutox (or Rust Gas) of ''VideoGame/ThiefIITheMetalAge'' can function this way. The reaction it causes will spread until it runs out of organic matter to fuel it, with no inherent size or range limit other than constantly needing fresh material to spread to. It can (and was likely intended to) consume all organic life on the planet and is explicitly expected to destroy all human life.
84	* One of the many powerups in ''VideoGame/{{Warblade}}'' turns everything on the screen into diamonds, which only give 1000 points (a good score is about 2 billion so that's not a lot) but when you catch 100 of them you get a special bonus round where giant gems drop that are worth 100000+ each. You can normally get 10000000 from such a bonus round. Diamonds that increment the counter by 5 or 2 appear in other forms of bonus levels. There are 5 different forms of bonus levels by the way. Another powerup turns everything into money, which is much, much more beneficial in the long run.
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87	[[folder:Webcomics]]
88	* In ''Webcomic/JetDream'', the mysterious Virus-X is tested on the Thunderbird Squadron, changing them [[GenderBender from T-Birds to T-Girls]]. Later, the sinister forces of Z.E.R.O. detonate a weaponized Virus-X bomb over Miami Beach, Florida, turning the entire male population into women. Jet Dream finds an antidote in time to reverse the effects on the city, but [[FirstLawOfGenderBending it's too late for the T-Girls themselves]].
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91	[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
92	* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', Gorilla Grodd builds a device that can [[TransformationRay turn all humans within a 500-mile radius into apes]]. His downfall probably comes from his adding a switch that makes it do the opposite.
93	* The Omnitrix from ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'' has the ability to repair genetic damage, such as removing [=DNAlien=] parasites from their hosts. It reaches Phlebotinum Bomb proportions in the season finale, when [[spoiler:it repairs the genetic damage of the entire Highbreed race that had rendered them sterile due to inbreeding]].
94	* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS3E6DeadReckoning Dead Reckoning]]", Gorilla Grodd constructs a DevolutionDevice as part of the master plan he's been working on for the first half of the final season, but the effect is only temporary. Even worse for Grodd, finding out that ''this'' was his master plan finally gets Lex Luthor annoyed enough to shoot him and take over the Injustice League.
95	* In the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' episode "[[Recap/TeenTitansS1E12ApprenticePartOne Apprentice (Part 1)]]", Slade [[spoiler:presents the threat of a Cronoton Detonator (which will freeze everyone in time if detonated)]]. {{Subverted\|Trope}} when it turns out that [[spoiler:the actual goal is to separate Robin from the other Titans]], not to mention that [[spoiler:what it really does is ''break into pieces''. In the confusion this causes, the other Titans get zapped by a nanobot-inducing laser from behind]].
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98	[[folder:RealLife]]
99	* An {{EMP}} (electro-magnetic pulse) will disable electronics without affecting humans (at least directly). However, seeing that large scale tests were never conducted (mostly due to a potential side effect of knocking out all the electronics in too large a radius to make a test feasibly safe), its true effects in any realistic scenario are not precisely determined, and may range from doing near nothing at all to total destruction of all electronic circuits on the continent. Also, seeing that the only feasible way to produce an EMP powerful enough to be of use in warfare with current technology is a high-altitude nuclear explosion, we likely won't be seeing it used in anything short of a nuclear exchange.
100	* The likely inspiration for many fictional versions is the NeutronBomb, a special kind of nuclear warhead developed during the height of the Cold War. Although it's not entirely blastless, its purpose was to wipe out armored divisions with neutron radiation, which would leave the vehicles intact while lethally poisoning the soldiers within. The idea was always extremely controversial, and the last American neutron bomb was dismantled in 2003. The justification for this was that tanks are actually very good at withstanding a nuclear blast as long as they're not right at ground zero -- and the Soviet Union had a bajillion tanks they could use in a European ground war. Leaving the enemy vehicles intact wasn't the goal (or even desirable, as it presented the possibility that they could be decontaminated and put back into service), just a necessary side effect of increasing the radioactive output of a nuclear bomb by sacrificing explosive yield.
101	* [[BiologicalWeaponsSolveEverything Biological weapons]] usually contain some of the nastiest, most dangerous viruses, bacteria or other organisms as well as biologically produced and particularly biologically active organics ever known. These weapons are capable of causing mass destruction with very high lethality rate while leaving the infrastructure and most of the living environment intact. However, only the most insane people ever would be willing to use them in practice; they are notoriously unreliable and can easily mutate or demonstrate unexpected effects that will quickly turn against the original user as well. They are mostly being developed for the sake of finding countermeasures against them, just in case an insane enough person ever got their hands on them.
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Context Main / PhlebotinumBomb