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Made of Indestructium

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This Game Boy was recovered from a bombed-out barracks during The Gulf War, and was on display at Nintendo New York for nearly two decades. Why? Because it still ran.note 

Obi-Wan: Terribly convenient how it survived an explosion that big...
R2-D2: It's the primary quest object of the entire campaign. Of course it's going to be indestructible.
GM: Stop metagaming.
R2-D2: Well how else could it possibly have survived?
GM: ...You fly over and grab it.

Are your world-domination tools not durable enough? Pesky do-gooders keep cracking your power crystals and popping your Soul Jar's freshness seal? Then try our latest in our fine line of world domination products. With our Indestructium alloy, your superweapon or Cosmic Keystone is completely safe from anything the forces of good can throw at it. Warning: warranty void if dropped in a volcano, sun or black hole.

This is where a thing, usually the object required for the Big Bad to succeed in his master plan to Take Over the World, cannot be destroyed by conventional means, if at all. Maybe it's made of Unobtainium? A Wizard Did It? Whatever the case, the point is that this object cannot be destroyed easily and may only be able to be destroyed in a specific manner that usually involves rare and obscure means. This can often be used to justify why the heroes are carrying around such a dangerous object instead of destroying it. Sometimes, there will be one thing that can destroy Indestructium: Other Indestructium.

The logical opposite of Made of Explodium and a step above Nigh-Invulnerability. Curiously, most examples of this trope have a high chance of experiencing The Worf Effect where a new threat actually does manage to destroy them. Usually they'll be repaired and made even tougher in the process. In other cases, they'll likely be dumped for a new Indestructium weapon; see So Last Season for instances of that.

Compare Ragnarök Proofing. See Surprisingly Super-Tough Thing for indestructable everyday objects that's Played for Laughs. See also Made of Iron and Super-Toughness, for characters.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • The Hogyoku in Bleach, which is why Urahara was forced to seal it in Rukia's soul instead of destroying it.
  • In Digimon, Mega-level Digimon often have armor or weapons made of something called Chrome Digizoid. It's rare to see it damaged by something other than a weapon made from the same stuff, though it can be done.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • In the original manga, the Four-Star Dragon Ball once saves Goku's life when it blocks Mercenary Tao's Dodon Ray from piercing his heart.
    • Oddly enough, Vegeta once tells Krillin to destroy a Dragon Ball to keep the Ginyu Force from getting it when Frieza has already collected most of the set. There's no implication that it wouldn't have worked. Then again, the characters in Dragon Ball Z are way more powerful than they were in the original series.
      • Lampshaded in the same scene of Dragon Ball Z Abridged. When Vegeta tells him to break the Ball, Krillin tries to tell him they're indestructible, but he pressures him into trying to break it anyway, only for him to repeatedly bruise his hand doing so.
      • Worth noting is that Goku being protected by the Dragon Ball in his shirt was in the manga, but the claim of them being literally indestructible was not and thus probably isn't canon.
      • Even if they are indestructible (no Dragon Ball has ever actually been destroyed over the course of the franchise), Vegeta would have no way of knowing that and the situation was desperate enough that Krillin had no reason not to try.
    • When Gotenks is hammering Super Buu with his Die Die Missiles, Piccolo tells him to be careful not to destroy the Earth and by extension any Dragon Balls, as if even one was gone then Shenron couldn't be summoned to wish everyone back. However, the Dragon Balls were turned to stone and unusable at the time.
    • Katchin, the hardest metal in the universe. Snapped the Z Sword like a twig.
    • Super Saiyan 4 Goku once tried to eat a Dragon Ball to keep it away from a villain. The Dragon Ball not only survived unscathed, it popped out of his forehead. This ends up allowing Nuova Shenron, one of the seven Shadow Dragons, to be reborn as one of Goku's allies in the final battle with Omega Shenron.
    • Subverted as of Dragon Ball Super when Arc Villains Zamasu and Black, after wishing Zamasu immortal from the Eternal Dragon contained within, destroy the most powerful variant of the Dragon Balls: the Super Dragon Balls!
  • In Fushigi Yuugi, the Universe of The Four Gods aka Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho book is completely impossible to destroy on Earth, and it's proved several times:
    • In the prequel Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden, Takiko Okuda tried to rip it apart during a fight with her father Einosuke since she blamed his work on it for the family's unhappiness. Not only she couldn't destroy it, but she was thrown inside the book's universe itself and became the Genbu Priestess.
    • In another prequel, Fushigi Yuugi: Byakko Senki, Einosuke's heir/disciple Takao Osugi tried throwing it into a fire, using an industrial kiln, sealing it in a Shinto shrine, etc.. and NOTHING worked. He was about to either throw it into the nearest harbour or bury it in the mountains when Tokyo was destroyed in the Big Kanto Earthquake, and he decided to use the trope to his advantage by sending his daughter Suzuno into the Book for protection, which ultimately let her become the Byakko Priestess.
    • Finally, in the Fushigi Yuugi series proper, the book had to be stored away in the Tokyo Central Library. Then, Miaka and Yui got their hands on it...
  • The human flagship Eltreum from Gunbuster has a hull made out of a material that completely shrugged off everything they threw at it during testing. It's so indestructible in fact that the scientists who made it weren't sure whether even antimatter could harm it, in direct defiance of the laws of physics. And it seems they were right: not only did the Eltreum survive the battle of the galactic core without any visible damage, Diebuster reveals the hull is still in one piece ten thousand years later, after the rest of the ship was hollowed out and turned into a space habitat. Not only made of indestructium but Ragnarok-Proof Indestructium at that.
  • Gundams are usually made of this sort of thing, but what kind of metal and its durability differs from continuity to continuity.
    • The Universal Century continuity (as well as the Future Century and After War continuities) has Luna Titanium or "Gundarium" alloy, which is heavily durable to the point of slightly resisting beam weapons.
    • The After Colony continuity has "Gundanium" alloy, which is stupidly powerful, being able to even shrug off normal beam shots.
    • The Gundams of the Cosmic Era continuity has "Phase Shift Armor", which isn't actually this trope, but a low-level Deflector Shield.
    • The Gundams of the Anno Domini continuity cheat as they have basic e-carbon that is reinforced with GN Particles. However, despite this, the suits get constantly wrecked.
    • The Gundams of the Post-Disaster continuity has "Nano-Laminate Armor", the complete inverse of Luna Titanium — it laughs at beam weapons, but is useless against physical attacks.
  • In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Kira's secondary ability Sheer Heart Attack is seen as this. Despite repeated blows from Star Platinum, which is capable of destroying diamond-hard teeth, it barely shows signs of damage. It got to the point that repeatedly hitting it caused Jotaro's knuckles to bleed.
  • In Lupin III, Goemon's sword was forged by a secret process and is essentially indestructible (it actually breaks in The Secret of Twilight Gemini with no comment, but that was probably a mistake on the writer's part and can be safely ignored).
  • The Book of Darkness of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's may fit, considering it has regenerative powers and can come back again and again even if completely obliterated. Basically, the only theoretical way to stop it forever is to freeze it.
  • Mazinger Z is an early anime example. The titular Humongous Mecha is made from Chogokin ("Super Alloy") Z, an alloy containing Japanium, a rare metal can be found only in Mt. Fuji. Dr. Kabuto discovered the alloy and built Mazinger Z with it, thinking Mazinger would become indestructible. Throughout the series, the mecha got hit by giant monsters, missiles, bombs, got burned and electrocuted, got dumped in lava and doused in acid... and even though it got damaged every so often, the Super Alloy Z endured all of that until the last chapter, and kept Kouji alive. Several times Dr. Hell and his dragons would try and get their hands on a sample of Super Alloy Z to use in Mechanical Beast construction because not even Mazinger's own weapons would be strong enough to easily break it. The concept of "Chogokin" became so pervasive and widespread all Super Robots that followed Mazinger were made from some similar fabulous metal, and the word itself baptized one whole toy line.
    • Great Mazinger also contained Japanium, but the alloy it was made into was even sturdier, being called "Super Alloy New-Z".
    • On the other hand, UFO Robo Grendizer was made with Gren, an incredibly tough metal. Nevertheless, it could not be found on Earth, so when Grendizer got damaged, he was repaired with Super Alloy Z.
    • Finally, Mazinkaiser took that concept and RAN WITH IT with its even-sturdier alloy "Super Alloy New-Z Alpha". Nothing seems to be capable of even scratching it, not even tossing it into lava or even launching it from space to the Earth, performing a Pilder On and crash-landing.
  • One Piece:
    • The only reason why the Government Conspiracy hasn't completely erased all traces of the "Void Century" already is that the history is recorded on things called Poneglyphs, which are indestructible. They settle for killing anyone capable of reading them, such as Nico Robin.
    • Seastone, besides acting as a Kryptonite Factor for Devil Fruit users, is also said to be as hard as diamond. When Robin's hands are locked up with shackles made of the stuff, the Straw Hats have to fight all the members of CP9 to find which one has the right key, fearing she could be crippled for life otherwise. Likewise, when Zoro accidentally ends up handcuffed to Usopp in the same arc, they are stuck together (with Zoro using Usopp as a sword) until the right key is found; Zoro can cut through steel, but he can't cut through seastone.

    Asian Animation 
  • In the Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode "Candy House Fantasy", Wolffy can't seem to damage Paddi's candy house, no matter what weapons he uses.
    Wolffy: What kind of house is this anyway? It just won't break! How do you even build something like this?

    Comic Books 
  • The DCU:
    • In pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Comics at least, the most indestructible metal (aside from the 30th century's inertron) was probably either Supermanium (a metal created by Superman that he made the door to his Fortress of Solitude and the hull of the Supermobile out of) or Amazonium (the metal Wonder Woman's bracelets were made from).
    • Back in The Silver Age of Comic Books, inertron was a futuristic material that was completely indestructible, capable of containing even Kryptonians, Daxamites, and their ilk. It showed up fairly frequently in Legion of Super-Heroes storylines.
    • In the Silver Age, every Kryptonian costume was made like this, and anything from Krypton was effectively made of indestructium while on Earth. Perhaps the only time this wasn't true was when both Kal-L and Kal-El were in the Anti-Matter universe dealing with the Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
      • In The Supergirl From Krypton (1959), Alura made her daughter's super-hero costume before Kara left Argo because it would be indestructible on Earth.
      • In Kryptonite Nevermore, Superman is losing his powers, but his Kryptonian costume is still indestructible. This fact saves him when a thug shoots him and the bullet bounces off his costume.
      • Supergirl's outfit's indestructibility comes in handy in Supergirl (1982) #20 when Kara can't fly, so she glides downwards and lets her costume take the brunt of the impact.
        Supergirl: Of course, that still left me with the problem of being one mile high... So I counted on being able to glide down with my cape — knowing my still indestructible costume would take the brunt of my impact in the lake!
      • In the 2011 comics, Superman and Supergirl's cape and costume are once again a kind of indestructible Kryptonian armor.
    • Superman foe Metallo's exoskeleton is forged from Metal 0, a nigh-impervious alloy that, in modern continuity, was developed by Lex Luthor.
    • In Red Daughter of Krypton, Red Lantern Kara's outfit and cape never get damaged, no matter what happens to her. Justified since her RL uniform is made of raw energy.
    • Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth cannot be broken by even the strength of Kryptonians, Darkseid, or Doomsday. The rare times it is broken are due to Reality Warper powers (Bizarro was able to break it in a non-canon story). Her bracelets are also made from a metal called "feminum"/Amazonium, which is virtually indestructible and can stop virtually anything from Superman's heat vision to the magical attacks of gods. In The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016) the "armlets of Artemis" are outright said to be impenetrable and superior to any shield, but they lose this power when the gods retract their boons to Diana. On the other hand, her lasso retains its indestructible properties even after the Olympians attempt to destroy the powers of all of her items.
  • Gaston Lagaffe has one unusually tough walnut. Gaston's last attempt at cracking it involves putting it on the rails of an incoming tramway. The nut wins.
  • In the Johan and Peewit story "The Smurfs and the Magic Flute", The King tries to burn the magic flute to prevent Peewit from finding it, but the flute comes out of the fire completely unscratched. It's the first sign to Johan and the King that something's not right about the flute.
  • Marvel Universe:
    • Adamantium. While its first appearance was as the metal that made up Ultron's outer shell, it is best known as the substance that coatsnote  Wolverine's bones, making them nigh-unbreakable. There are only two widely recognized incidents of true adamantiumnote  being damaged by pure, physical force; once at the hands of Thor and again at the hands of an extremely enraged Hulk. Other incidents often involve either magic or some form of molecular manipulation. It's also occasionally brought up that while adamantium may be unbreakable by anything else, it can still be damaged by more adamantium, demonstrated by the Hulk ramming Wolverine's claws through his own skull.
    • The Marvel Universe also has Vibranium, which is functionally indestructible and has more flexible uses with its kinetic energy absorption properties. There's also Carbonadium, a cheaper form of adamantium which is functionally indestructible as well. Carbonadium is easier to make than adamantium, but its use is less widespread because it's also extremely toxic.
    • Captain America's shield, The Mighty Thor's hammer and Silver Surfer's Power Cosmic enhanced board are indestructible in most stories. note  The shield is also an example of Unobtainium, so much so that even the Molecule Man described its molecules as the weirdest thing he had ever come across. It's made of a vibranium-iron alloy with a mystery catalyst that no one can identify. The guy running the experiment fell asleep when it was added and couldn't duplicate the results. note  It has only been shattered a few times, once by Doctor Doom wielding the might of the Beyonder in Secret Wars (1984), by Thanos bringing The Infinity Gauntlet down on it, and Cul in Fear Itself. After the third instance, Iron Man reforged it with Uru (the metal Thor's hammer is made of.) It's probably even more indestructible now. It was also once dented by Thor striking it with Mjolnir.
    • Adamantium serves a similar role in the Ultimate Marvel universe as well. It's not entirely indestructible there, either; the Hulk is able to break an adamantium needle once.
    • Antarctic Vibranium actually acts as anti-Indestructium. Due to its unique nature, it melts any metal within its vicinity, even adamantium.
    • Whatever the Destroyer Armor is made of is incredibly durable. Even the Celestials (cosmic space gods) could only melt it into a puddle, and it reformed good as new later. Even blows from the Hulk can't dent it.
    • The Mighty Thor wields the hammer Mjolnir, made of the mystical metal Uru. We've seen it shatter meteors, stand up to implements made of vibranium, and it can only be forged in the heart of a star — outside that, next to nothing anywhere in the nine realms — natural, magical, or technological — can melt it so that it can be shaped. Other Asgardians' weapons such as Odin's spear are made of the stuff as well.
  • Papyrus: Justified. Pharaoh's soldiers encounter enemies who have indestructible swords. They capture the princess, but the soldiers manage to take a dagger. The author explains it in a footnote: that's just iron, which may as well be indestructium against the Egyptian bronze swords. (This is a common historical misconception, though. The reason people stopped using bronze for weapons and switched to iron was that the prices of tin increased substantially due to decreased supply. Iron is not a very good material for weapons, so in the Bronze Age, bronze weapons were superior to iron weapons. Yes, iron was a cheap substitute for bronze once people figured out how to forge iron weapons. This changed only after people learned how to fiddle with carbon content in iron (i.e. when they started making and perfecting steel).
  • Sonic the Comic had Metagal, an alloy Dr. Robotnik commissioned for his badniks which Tekno created. The first of these resisted its brainwashing and promptly joined the fight against him, while the second attempted to seize power for itself. The third (and final) version was actually a relative success. Metagal was only shown to be damaged four times: once by a combination of laser fire to weaken it and an attack by Sonic, once by corrosive acid, once by Super Sonic, and once by Freeze Ray to make it brittle.

    Fan Works 
  • Absolute Trust:
    • Meteor iron is a powerful material to begin with. But when they use dragon fire to forge it, the quality of the metal is without equal. When they meet Piandao, the Gaang gets five weapons out the meteor: Sokka's jian, new broadswords for Zuko, a spear for Alec, a knife for Mai, and a katana for Suki, replacing the damaged blade of her old sword.
    • Only one substance is tougher than the above: a red tree in Piandao's castle that grew from the corpse of a dragon who was dishonorably hunted by a dozen firebenders. It swore that the tree that grew from its body would stand as a reminder of their weakened fire, as nothing could fell the tree except true fire. Which is to say, firebending from a dragon or someone who learned from one. Alec uses a branch from this tree to form the haft of his spear.
  • Citadel of the Heart: Combining modern-day building materials with Chrome Digizoid as shown in Digimon Re: Adventure has caused the AQUA CiTY shopping mall and aquarium to ultimately become this. A bunch of cybernetic impostors of a certain person, two Perfect Levels in the form of Lilimon and Garudamon, and an Adult Level in the form of Aquilamon, about the only thing close to damage the fight at the bottom floor causes is simply shaking the whole building, but otherwise the building stays completely intact from beginning to end.
  • Easter Egg - Snow on Mt. Silver references the Real Life reputation the Game Boy Advance has in regard to this. When Angie's brother falls victim to a bout of temporary insanity, he throws the console at a wall, which leaves a dent in the wall, but the console still works perfectly fine.
  • Fallout: Equestria: As in the source material, all technology Stable-Tec is described as being this. Every terminal Littlepip comes across survived with its contents intact through a nuclear War, and the Pip-Buck she wears on her leg is durable enough to be used as a shield against bullets. Even when it becomes permanently fused to her leg, it continues to work perfectly fine.
  • Gaz Dreams of Genie: While the genie bottle is easily breakable, the cushions and lamps that make up the room inside it are impossible to damage, as Gaz finds out when she's cursed to become a genie and is trapped inside the restored lamp.
  • My Iron Giant: Izuku has the ability to manifest a Humongous Mecha around himself. Mei breaks multiple high-quality drill bits trying to access the inside of his head. Only All Might and a specially designed Nomu managed to cause any damage.
  • In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Ochaco's armored costume is revealed to be partially made from feminum, the same metal used to create Wonder Woman's indestructible Bracelets of Submission. It's only a watered-down alloy mixed with plenty of other materials, but it still makes her costume so durable that Tenya's armor cracks when he tries to kick her.
  • In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Pokedexes are durable enough to withstand being stepped on by a Snorlax.
  • Pony POV Series:
    • The Concept Killing Spear is this. It's so indestructible, the only known thing capable of destroying it is Destruction himself. The only other time its shown breaking is in an Alternate Universe where its creator attempted to kill Turris, the God of Unbreakable Defense with it and his shield proved tougher than it, causing it to eventually snap but it took a long time. It's also not invulnerable to its own Ret-Gone abilities and hitting the two broken halves against each other erased one another.
    • Flash Magnus's legendary shield Netitus, a gift to a mortal knight who impressed the above mentioned Turris, is also this. No fire in existence can burn it other than Fauna Luster's fires, and nothing can pierce it.

    Films — Animation 
  • Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Flint's homemade spray-on shoes. The material is so strong that in the Creative Closing Credits, he's shown to have repurposed it as a roofing sealant.
  • In Wreck-It Ralph, Vanellope claims that the jawbreakers found in Sugar Rush are this trope; therefore she's quite impressed (and inspired) when Ralph manages to split one in half. She accurately deduces that, if he can break something so resilient, an armored vault door would be no match for him!

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In The Brass Teapot, the titular Teapot cannot be destroyed by any known means. After Arnie runs it over with his truck, the dents just fix themselves and the Teapot returns to mint condition.
  • Averted in Forbidden Planet. During their tour of the vast Krell city, Dr. Morbius has Commander Adams try out his blaster on a door made of 26 inches of molecular-condensed metal; the beam doesn't even warm it up. However when Morbius tries to use those same doors to hold off the ID Monster it's to no avail, because the monster can draw on as many of the city's thermonuclear generators as it needs to burn through it.
  • Ghost Note: In one scene, when Xander shows Rodney the Ghost Note record, he puts it on a table and strikes it with a hammer. Rodney comments on how he destroyed it, only for Xander to show he didn't even scratch it, stating that the record is indestructible.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Captain America's shield doesn't disappoint. In its most impressive showing in The Avengers (2012), it blocks Thor's hammer, which levels the forest they are in and sends Thor flying, while Cap is completely unharmed. The shield suffers The Worf Effect in Avengers: Endgame when Thanos breaks through it with his double-bladed sword.
    • Black Panther's vibranium weave suit in Captain America: Civil War is rather impressive as well, allowing him to harmlessly shrug off a hail of bullets. His vibranium claws also leave marks on Cap's shield, considering they're made of the same material.
    • In a bizarre, corkscrew maneuver of this trope, the Aether from Thor: The Dark World is a force of pure destruction, capable of obliterating the entire universe — but it can't be destroyed itself, at least not by any means the heroes can think of. Of course, it's an Infinity Gem.
    • Also, Carol Danvers herself. Have you just read about the Aether in the above bullet point? Carol received a full blast from it. Just a few minutes after that, you can see that she didn't have even a scratch!
  • The Meg: Jaxx assures everyone that the cylindrical polycarbonate shark cage is in fact more than capable of resisting the megalodon's jaws. She's right...so the giant shark tries to swallow it whole instead.
  • In The Wolverine, Wolverine's claws and the Silver Samurai suit and swords are made of adamantium. It's revealed that the swords can be superheated, which allow them to cut through Wolverine's claws. Fortunately, the bones within still grow back.

    Gamebooks 
  • Lone Wolf: The Sommerswerd, a sword gifted to mankind by the gods. It can be taken from Lone Wolf, but destroyed? Not a chance. Offensive magic is just absorbed or deflected, and physical force ignored. In The Caverns of Kalte, to escape a trap Lone Wolf has the option to use it to pierce through a door made from a thick slab of stone. It takes several hours, but it's quite clear that breaking or even dulling the blade is not an option. The one time it's threatened is while absorbing an energy vortex generated by a Ring of Power crafted by the God of Evil Naar himself in Dawn of the Dragons. The Sommerswerd's tip becomes molten for a moment before it eventually triumphs and sends the vortex back at the ring's bearer.
  • Star Challenge: In the fifth book, "Galactic Raiders", novium — respectively the Gold Rush and gold Recycled In Space — survives being put into an antimatter chamber for a couple of hours. 2-Tor lampshades it, noting it has never seen something that does not disintegrate there before.

    Literature 
  • In the world of F. Paul Wilson's The Adversary Cycle and Repairman Jack, the Gaijin Masamune is an antique katana forged from a combination of earthly and Other-tainted steel. The two metals never blended, and its blade is now full of holes where the normal steel melted away, leaving the tainted metal completely untouched by a direct hit from the Hiroshima bomb.
  • Battlefield Earth. Jonnie Tyler has to knock out an automated gas drone that on its way to destroy La Résistance. Unfortunately, the drone is made of laminated layers of molecular-bonded material that's so indestructible an atomic bomb has only left a scorch mark on it.
  • A Certain Magical Index:
    • The Walking Church is a magical garment that is supposed to be indestructible. However, while it can stop blades and explosions, it still shatters just like any other magical item when touched by Touma's Imagine Breaker. It is briefly mentioned that the Dragon of St. George would have been powerful enough to destroy it.
    • Aleister Crowley's stronghold the Windowless Building is said to be able to effortlessly withstand a nuke. At one point, Accelerator picked up a building and threw it at the Windowless Building, and Mikoto dropped a lightning bolt dozens of times stronger than the strongest lightning that occurs in nature. Both the thrown building (shattered on impact) and the lightning bolt failed to leave a scratch. However, the Windowless Building has flaws and weak points. Touma and Thor manage to exploit them and break in.
    • Original Grimores cannot be destroyed. They draw on the earth's magical field to protect themselves, and although theoretically taking them into space would weaken them, mages believe that it would be impossible to take them out of the atmosphere if that placed them at risk of destruction. In fact, because of how they work, even Imagine Breaker may not be able to destroy them.
  • Chrysalis (RinoZ): In all the millennia that the Dungeon has existed, nothing has managed to even scratch the third stratum pillars — and demons are insane enough and powerful enough to give it a solid try. No one knows what they're made of, but whatever it is, they're strong enough to hold up the first and second strata, uncounted millions of tons of rock and dirt.
  • In The Conquerors Trilogy, the alien Zirrch have hulls which seem to be this, at first. The deadliest human missiles do nothing. It's not until the perspective flips that we find out they're very sturdy, yes, but the shockwaves of the explosions devastate the ship's insides. Also, humans eventually figure out how to destroy them.
  • The Vickers machine gun appears in Cryptonomicon, where it's a described as a gun with infrastructure. A truck-mounted Vickers is used to cut a jeep in half, turned vertical and used to rain bullets down on German soldiers and is only destroyed when it plays chicken with a German fighter.
  • In Deltora Quest, the gems of the Belt of Deltora cannot be destroyed. Supposedly, the belt itself cannot be destroyed either as long as the heir to the throne of Deltora lives, although this is entirely unsubstantiated in The Belt of Deltora, as Lief realizes when he believes that the royal line may be dead after all.
  • In The Dresden Files, the thirty silver denarii that house the Fallen are invulnerable to damage, at least by any agency the Church and Knights of the Sword have ever been able to apply. The best they can do is try to lock them away.
  • The Ring Station in The Expanse. It refuses to move at all, and any attempts to drill into or damage it are futile. Then, in Tiamat's Wrath, the station takes a point-blank gamma ray burst that destroyed two rings and everything else it hit. All that happens is that it's left glowing for weeks.
  • In the Formic Wars book The Swarm, the fact that humans haven't yet figured out a way to even dent a Formic ship's hull is a major plot point. Even gravity-based weapons only harm the inside of a ship and only a few meters deep at that. While Formic fighter craft are a completely different case, there's no way to defeat the approaching Formic fleet without a weapon capable of destroying their capital ships. For that matter, scientists have absolutely no idea what the material is even made of, only knowing that silicon is involved somehow. The outer hull has no visible seams. It's no until later that someone suggests that the Hive Queen is using genetically engineered organisms to fuse sections together using special enzymes, effectively turning the hull into a singular shell. Eventually, Jukes, Ltd., comes up with a way of using nanites to eat silicon, but the delivery method is still unreliable.
  • In the Gentleman Bastard series, the only relics of the long-vanished Eldren Precursors are made from elderglass, a substance completely unaffected by any mundane, magical, or alchemical force that humans are capable of throwing at it. However, elderglass shards have been found, suggesting that some means of destroying it was known to the Eldren or the extraterrestrial power that might have wiped them off the planet.
  • Hyperfiber in the Great Ship universe is an incredibly durable metallic or ceramic material that has an innate Reinforce Field as it scatters impacting energy through multiple universes. It's implied that the only man-portable weapon that can destroy it is a Plasma Cannon. The Great Ship has an outer hull made of ultra high grade hyperfiber several miles thick, allowing it to take largely only superficial damage from impacts at a third of the speed of light. The material's sheer strength backfires when a man with hyperfiber body armor in Eater of Bone is thoroughly gored when a bullet ricochets around inside his armor's cuirass.
  • Harry Potter:
    • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Goblin metal, if not outright indestructible, is incredibly hardy. The properties of the metal allow it to absorb the properties of anything that would strengthen it while resisting anything that would weaken it (it never dulls or rusts). If it is possible to destroy something made of Goblin metal, however, it's never been shown. This was exemplified in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, where one such object made from the metal, the Sword of Gryffindor, was used by Harry to kill Salazar Slytherin's basilisk. This act wound up causing the sword to absorb the properties of basilisk venom, which is reputed to be able to destroy objects beyond magical repair.
    • Also, Horcruxes. No matter what they're made of, the only known ways to destroy one are to use basilisk venom (or a goblin-made sword that has absorbed its power) or Fiendfyre. Everything else so far has failed — and given that one attempt at destroying a Horcrux was a crazy house elf (which has more magical power than a human wizard) trying everything he could come up with... A big factor in the resilience of a Horcrux is that, whenever it senses the presence of something that can actually damage it, it does everything it can to protect itself. This includes, as seen early in Deathly Hallows, the part of Voldemort's soul inside Harry defending itself even from its own creator.
    • Taken one step further by the Resurrection Stone, which Voldemort turned into one of his aforementioned Horcruxes. In order to destroy the portion of Voldemort's soul inside the stone, Dumbledore struck it with the Sword of Gryffindor, which had acquired the qualities of basilisk venom. Despite this, the stone itself remained intact and suffered no actual damage beyond a crack across its face where it was hit. It also retained its original innate abilities to recall the spirits of the dead, which it possessed prior to being turned into a Horcrux, making it the only object turned into a Horcrux that was still usable even after the destruction of the soul fragment inside it. The stone is thus likely the magical object most resilient to destruction in the series, insofar as that trait has been tested. However, according to a tweet from Word of God, Dumbledore's magical abilities likely also played a role in maintaining the stone's integrity and allowing it to withstand the destruction of the soul fragment it contained.
  • The character Monkey (or Sun Wukong in the original Chinese), from Journey to the West, is a living being Made of Indestructium. It's probable that the fact his mother was a mountain impregnated by the cosmic forces of the universe made him tough to begin with (he is described repeatedly as a "stone monkey"), but after he got into Heaven, he gorged himself on both Peaches of Immortality, Wine of Heaven and Elixir of Long Life. And even before he got to Heaven, he had caused trouble by beating up all of the gods and demons of the Underworld and crossing his name out of the Register of the Dead, meaning that his soul couldn't pass on to the afterlife if he died anyway. And then, after he ate all that immortality-granting foodstuff, he was finally captured and spent 49 days being cooked inside Lao Tzu's crucible, which should have been enough to kill even another god, but which only cooked him even harder than before... and he was thrown in the crucible in the first place because even the strongest god in Heaven couldn't scratch him with his sharpest sword!
  • In Known Space, the hulls of General Products ships are advertised to be invulnerable to harm. In one story, it's revealed that they can be destroyed by contact with antimatter; they can also be destroyed by turning off the effect that's holding the hull together. However, anything enclosed in a stasis field reflects all forms of energy and is completely indestructible — except perhaps by being dropped into a black hole.
  • Keill Randor, protagonist of Last Legionary, starts out with his bones full of deadly radiation that's slowly killing him. The Overseers replace his entire skeleton with an unbreakable organic alloy.
  • Densecris and carbonex serve as this in the Matador Series. It's mentioned that a few centimeters of densecris are enough to protect from a direct missile hit and that a bunker with carbonex plating is 'going to take a long time to dig through'.
  • In The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, the KEEP (Key Enclosure for Enemies of the Public), which is the high-security prison converted from the Institute, has emergency drop barriers made of a material called glastanium. This has properties of glass and the strength of titanium. The Society has several dilemmas trying to figure out the timing and alarm systems so they can progress through the KEEP while dropping the glastanium walls behind them for safety, all while negotiating the threat of the Ten Men pursuing them.
  • The closest thing in the Perry Rhodan universe may be "molkex" (from "molecular extract"), a substance from an early arc that was a byproduct of the reproductive cycle of a now-extinct species of rather literal alien locusts. The material could obviously be worked with the right know-how — the plot point was that another hostile alien species used it as practically indestructible starship armor in place of more conventional force fields — and would rapidly dissolve and vanish into hyperspace when exposed to a highly specific two-component counteragent, but was otherwise pretty much immune to anything else up to and including energy and nuclear weapons.
  • Railhead: The C12 Zodiak class of wartrains, designed from the ground up to be the biggest, baddest and toughest fighting machines on the Network, have an almost impenetrable layer of thick ceramic armour protecting their hull. In Black Light Express, one of them, the Ghost Wolf, is able to No-Sell dozens of missiles and smash straight through tanks blocking the line as if they were cardboard.
  • The Two-Faced Ring in Septimus Heap will make its wearer indestructible. Subverted with the Ring itself, as it is targeted for destruction at the end of Darke.
  • A comic example in the Stephanie Plum books with a '53 powder blue Buick owned by Stephanie's late Uncle Sandor. Every other car Stephanie has owned tends to explode, get set on fire, crushed, flattened, or stolen... all except the Buick. She has used it as a battering ram against other cars several times, and it has incurred absolutely no damage while totalling the opposing vehicle.
  • Tolkien's Legendarium:
    • The Lord of the Rings:
      • The One Ring, having been infused by its creator with a massive amount of demonic power. Gandalf confirms that nothing that Middle-earth possesses can even damage it. He gets rather specific as to the methods that could be attempted. Divine assistance from the more powerful de facto Physical Gods of the setting would probably work, but they're on the other side of a major ocean and have explicitly limited their aid to sending Gandalf himself, who is not capable of damaging it. Gandalf specifically mentions that not even dragon-fire (which had destroyed three of the Seven Rings of Power given to the Dwarves), from the most powerful dragon who ever existed no less, would've been able to harm it. In the end, the only way to destroy it is to throw it into Mt. Doom, where it was made.
      • The walls of Orthanc and Minas Tirith are made of a smooth black stone-like material, the creation of which is implied to be a lost art of ancient Númenor, making these walls invulnerable to all known weapons and projectiles. Even the Ents, who rip apart solid rock like it was silly putty, are unable to so much as dent Orthanc and are forced to give up.
      • Mithril is an incredibly resistant (and precious) metal. While wearing a chain mail made of mithril, Frodo survives being speared by a huge orc (upgraded to a freaking troll in the movie), with only a bruise as a result. Not only that, but the mail is undamaged after this impact.
    • In The Silmarillion, the eponymous Silmaril jewels, containing as they do the light of primordial creation itself, appear to be totally indestructible. It's stated that their light could be used to rekindle the two great trees from whence it was taken, which presumably would have destroyed the physical form of the gems themselves, but only with direct divine assistance and given their status as Artifacts of Attraction that affect even Physical Gods, it's not certain that even the Top God Manwë could have brought himself to do it. It's stated that the fate of the Silmarils is inextricably bound with the fate of Creation; they currently exist as a star in the sky, in the bottom of the ocean, and at the Earth's fiery heart, where they will presumably stay until the setting's version of Ragnarok.
  • Critically subverted in the fourth-generation Tom Swift novel Mind Games, where Tom surprises everyone during the Galaxy Masters game by destroying one of the two Memory Cubes, locking Dedstorm out of victory while still allowing the heroes to accomplish their goal. The game's designer himself notes that he's effectively broken the game. It's not the last time he does so.
  • "Victory Unintentional": The ZZ robot series is made of mostly iridium, beryllium, tin, and copper. The exotic alloy means these robots can regulate their own temperature, survive vacuum and Jupiter's pressure, and tolerate extreme temperatures.
  • In The Voyage of Alice, the Space Pirates had the ship of one of the legendary captains for years and couldn't cut it open thanks to its impermeable hull. Nothing works.
  • In The Wheel of Time, cuendillar is "an indestructible substance created during the Age of Legends. Any known force used in an attempt to break it is absorbed, making it stronger." However, this doesn't stop the Dark One's seals from breaking.
  • Subverted in the Wing Commander novel Fleet Action. The Kilrathi launch a fleet of heavily armored super-carriers, designed to be able to fight their way deep into Confederation space despite the best efforts of a (recently downsized) Confederation Navy. The solution? Space Marines board the carriers, and plant nuclear warheads as deep inside the ships as they can fight their way to. The very same armor that made the carriers immune to outside attack doom them as they prove equally capable at concentrating the destructive force of anything set off inside of them.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Beast in Angel, though he is killed by a weapon made out of himself.
  • Blake's 7:
    • Herculanium ("the strongest known metal in the universe") is used for spacecraft hulls and blast doors.
    • In "Deliverance", an impact life capsule can drop from outer space onto the surface of a planet without parachutes or retro-thrusters.
      Jenna: They're bullet-shaped, built to be energy-absorbing. Theoretically, they could free fall from the edge of the atmosphere onto solid rock without even bruising the people inside.
    • The villain of "Orbit" tries to kill Avon by sabotaging his shuttle so it won't reach orbit, crashlanding in a marshy area. Servalan is worried that a valuable MacGuffin Avon has in his possession will also be destroyed but is assured that while the crew will be reduced to Ludicrous Gibs, the equipment will survive with minimal repair and even the shuttle could be salvaged.
  • Doctor Who:
    • Kronos' crystal in "The Time Monster", preventing the king of Atlantis from destroying the dangerous object and ridding his civilization of its threat.
    • In "Warrior's Gate", the hull of the slaver ship is made of dwarf star alloy to stop the enslaved Tharils from using their time-traveling powers to escape. Unfortunately, after the slavers are trapped in a Pocket Dimension, the extreme density of the dwarf star alloy causes the dimension to eventually collapse in on itself.
    • "The Power of Three" has the Shakri black cubes. Kate Steward (leader of UNIT) subjects them to positive and negative 200 degrees Celsius, a simulated underwater depth of 5 miles, a drop from a height of 10,000 feet and then had them run over by a tank. There wasn't as much as a blemish on them afterward.
  • Knight Rider: KITT's hull is molecularly bonded with a material called Tri-Helical Plasteel 1000 MBS, which is apparently a material that makes the car arguably tougher than a frontline heavy battle tank. Furthermore, it must be infused with KITT's entire car structure to explain why he is never worried about its integrity after all the jumps he makes. KITT however is wary of pushing this trope too far when dealing with rockets or heavy artillery. It's not so much that explosive warheads are certain to penetrate KITT's armor, but rather he doesn't know whether or not they can, and he sensibly prefers not to chance it.
  • In The Lost Room, all the cursed Objects are indestructible, regardless of their normal ability. The best way to tell it from a fake is to attack it. In a pinch, the Coat can be used as a bulletproof vest, although, while no bullet will penetrate it, your body will still feel the full force of the impact.
  • The crib that Ron builds in Parks and Recreation. He tests its strength by hitting it with his truck, which is noticeably damaged afterward.
  • According to Lister, Starbug's hull in Red Dwarf is made from the same substance as the dolls in Empathy Doll Shots, since they always survive disasters.
  • Stargate:
    • The Stargates are very nearly indestructible (excluding the much older models in Stargate Universe anyways), especially when active. They've survived direct hits from meteors, nuclear explosions, being swallowed up by lava, being dropped into suns (although that one had an energy shield to bolster it)... often, not only do they survive these ordeals but they keep functioning perfectly. That's not to say they never get destroyed; the Earth military eventually does make a bomb capable of it: the Mark IX "Gatebuster" Naquadriah-enhanced nuke. Stated at one point to have a blast radius of well over 1,000 km. The Gatebuster's blast is also enhanced by the Stargate itself.
    • In the series finale of Stargate Atlantis, a Wraith Hiveship becomes this when enhanced by Zero Point Modules. Hiveships are biological in nature and thus able to recover naturally from damage, and with ZPMs as a power source this is amped up to the level of a Healing Factor so strong that even Ancient drone weapons and Asgard plasma beams can't hurt it, because its armor heals faster than they can damage it. The only way to destroy it was to detonate a nuclear warhead inside the ship, which destroyed the ZPMs and nullified its ability to heal.
  • Star Trek:
    • Star Trek: The Original Series has "The Doomsday Machine", which is made of solid neutronium and can only be destroyed by blowing up a starship inside it. However, even this rather extreme method only manages to disable it by damaging the sensitive equipment inside. The outside is entirely unscathed. In later series, neutronium is synonymous with being the toughest, strongest material in-universe.
    • The Borg are sometimes presented as this (for example, in the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, when Federation weapons don't even scratch the Borg cube) when they have adapted to your weapons. The Borg Collective may be indestructible, but their individual drones and ships are damaged by weapons just like anything else. They're just really, really good at coming up with defenses quickly. But there's Always a Bigger Fish...
  • Jeremy Clarkson and James May on Top Gear make multiple attempts to destroy a Toyota Hilux pickup truck including driving it into a tree, tying it to a jetty and letting it be submerged by the tide (it eventually got washed away and took four hours to find) dropping a caravan on it, hitting it with a wrecking ball, setting it on fire and finally putting it on top of a 240 foot block of flats that was subsequently demolished. No spare parts were allowed (Well, they did replace the windshield after the original was lost to the tide, but that was so that they could drive it through a shack without risking injury to the driver) and only equipment found in a basic toolkit was allowed to be used... it still works and now occupies a place of honor in the studio. The trio were told to make amphibious cars. Jeremy decided to use a Hilux, which turned out to not be the best choice because he needed the bullbar to come off the front. Cue a failure montage of trying to get the thing off, one attempt of which nearly set Jeremy's hair on fire.
  • Wonder Woman (1975) has Wonder Woman's indestructible bracelets made of "Feminum", a metal found only on Paradise Island. (The metal is called "Amazonium" in the comics, and has different origins.)

    Multiple Media 
  • Star Wars: Several examples have popped up throughout the years.
    • The Jedi Academy Trilogy introduces quantum-crystalline armor, which was designed to be "completely indestructible" and is used to armor a ship known as the Sun Crusher. If Spaceship Sue were a trope, then the Sun Crusher would be the picture at the top, because not only is it a Star Killing Imperial superweapon the size of a fighter, it's durable enough to remain in perfect condition after sitting in the heart of a gas giant and at one point brings down a capital ship by flying through it while remaining completely unharmed. The Sun Crusher's only weakness is the fact its conventional weapons are externally mounted; in its first battle against Imperial forces, they just blasted the Crusher until all its cannons were slag, which just so happens to have led to the aforementioned ramming attack. It's finally destroyed after A: being crippled by a near-miss from the Death Star prototype's superlaser, and B: getting sucked into a black hole.
    • A metal alloy known as Phrik is essentially Marvel's adamantium in all but name. Once it's set after molding, it's strong enough to survive anything: lightsabers, starship crashes, a blast from the Death Star, anything. The new canon had Emperor Palpatine make his lightsaber's hilt out of phrik to guarantee it couldn't be destroyed by an opponent's lightsaber, as had happened to his apprentice, Darth Maul.
    • Mandalorian Iron — known as beskar in Mando'a — is already extremely durable as an ore, but the special forging techniques used by Mandalorian armorsmiths make it one of the most versatile and durable metals in the galaxy, capable of resisting blaster bolts from beyond point-blank range and even lightsabers, and said to be nearly indestructible by conventional means. (The shatterpoint Force technique, however, is decidedly not conventional.) The armor worn by the titular character in The Mandalorian is made of beskar; once, he charges a phalanx of Stormtroopers, and the worst their massed fire does is knock him over. In the Season 2 finale, the Mandalorian gets pinned to a wall and pummeled by a super-strong Dark Trooper; turns out the deck plating of an Imperial cruiser will give way before a beskar helmet even gets dented.
    • A rare organic example is Orbalisk shells, which can withstand anything from lightsabers to rancor jaws. While the creatures themselves are vulnerable to electricity, not even the full power of Darth Bane's lightning reflected back upon him could crack their shells. The problem is that they're parasites: Orbalisks will multiply and spread across their host's body until they envelop and suffocate the victim, and they can't be removed without potentially killing their host.

    Music 
  • "Clamavi de Profundis": Black diamond cannot be cut, broken, melted, or shaped in any way whatsoever. Whatever shape it happens to take when forming in the bowels of the earth, that's the shape it will keep. The dwarves of Irna refer to it as "the Humbler" as a result. The sword Negankerdak is considered their most precious treasure because, by either sheer coincidence or direct divine favor, it's a chunk of black diamond that just so happened to set in the form of a perfect, keen-edged sword, making a weapon both utterly unbreakable and utterly unique.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Major artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons surpass normal mortal magic and can only be destroyed by one of a few very specific methods — much like the One Ring from The Lord of the Rings. When given in sourcebooks they get "Suggested Means of Destruction" entry, usually with more than one variant, but those are things like being trampled under the heel of a specific god or a thousand stone giants one after another, or melting it down in the specific forge where it was created (which is itself generally at least a legendary item), or crushing it between two colliding meteors, or leaving it to rust in the tears of elven princesses for 999 years.
  • The Demon Hunter's Tassels from GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy are an amusingly mundane version of this. Cutting the threads is impossible, even a God must settle for untying them from whatever they are fixed to.
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • Darksteel items are capital-I Indestructible; in the fluff text, the substance is so durable that it's "forged" by using Retconjuration so that you just happen to find a piece in the right shape. This does not, however, prevent them from being exiled from the game, rendered incapable of doing anything, sacrificed, or killed by being reduced to 0 toughness via Wither or other weakening effects.
    • A creature or artifact with both the Indestructible and Hexproof or Shroud (which prevent it from being targeted by hostile spells and effects) properties would be the closest to totally invincible, but it could still be sacrificed or dealt with by non-targeted effects.
    • The keyword "Protection from [X]" also grants this property related to whatever [X] is. For example, a card with Protection From Red can't be affected, targeted, or blocked by any Red spell or creature. Other examples include such thing as Protection From Artifacts, From Creatures, and From Everything. The downside is they can't be aided by beneficial effects with the protected quality either.
  • One Paranoia module includes a Running Gag with a bunch of Commie propaganda pamphlets that turn out to be this. At one point, they get superglued to the PCs!
  • Warhammer 40,000 features the ever-bemoaned Necron Monolith, made of a 'living metal' that can physically alter its shape. It was already immune to the tank-killing effects of heat-based weapons (melta), targeting weapons (lance), rending weapons, and dedicated tank-hunting specialists, but thanks to a 5th edition rules change and a quirky Rules-as-Written interpretation, it physically cannot be destroyed by glancing hits (the new Hull Point system in 6th edition thankfully reverses that last part). The Monolith can be destroyed provided you have a Strength 9 or higher weapon, but that's the only way to destroy it. However, a Strength 9 or 10 (10 is about as high as you can get in a normal game) weapon simply means you have a chance at destroying it. Actually completing the feat means you need 2 consecutive 5's or 6's, not to mention hitting the damn thing first.

    Theme Parks 

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE has Protosteel, which is basically adamantium lite.

    Video Games 
  • Due to technical and resource limitations, just about everything in video games tends to be this. Even though a Rocket Launcher is one of the Standard FPS Guns, don't expect to be able to blow out a wall, or dent the ground, or even destroy a car depending on the game, especially prevalent in Linear Games. Although, there are a few aversions.
  • In Ancient Domains of Mystery, there are a number of different materials of different durability and quality, culminating in eternium, which can't be destroyed at all except by divine intervention and, in the case of weapons, also cannot be partially damaged by any means (though a Blacksmith character can turn eternium items back into ingots). And yes, in this game, you may get a god going after your items. Artifact items are a step above that because even direct divine intervention cannot harm them. You can actually humiliate your god (which they will acknowledge as such) by getting them angry enough to try to destroy all your items while you're wearing only artifacts, so that it has no effect. It's possible to effectively destroy artifacts by offering them as a sacrifice, but presumably, the in-universe explanation to that is that they are just transported into your god's hoard.
  • ANNO: Mutationem: The Limen crater had been subjected to various methods of experiments by The Consortium to find a method of destroying it, yet it remains virtually unscathed even after being hit with a colossal explosion. The Consortium's research discovers the only possible item that could destroy Limen is an Artifact of Doom that's sealed in a other dimension.
  • In Assassin's Creed, the pieces of Eden are said to be indestructible (admittedly, this was determined in the 12th and 17th centuries). The conspiracy files of subject 16 in Assassin's Creed II claim that Nikola Tesla did manage to destroy one... and a sizable chunk of the surrounding landscape. A Templar-employed scientist in Assassin's Creed Syndicate also blows up an Apple in his experiments and destroys the testing facility.
  • In Brain Dead 13, Lance's baseball cap can withstand ANYTHING in death scenes (except in cases of fire or electric shock). And it must have been made out of a very special fabric that can withstand acid and sharp objects.
  • The Scrin Threshold Towers in Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars are made of a Tiberium composite material whose exact contents are never revealed. While incomplete, blasting a Threshold once with an ion cannon will topple it but once it finishes construction, the material partially phases out of reality and renders the whole tower invulnerable to everything up to and including nuclear detonations, cometary impacts and low-yield stellar events.
  • Deep Rock Galactic: The dwarves may constantly grouse that the titular company needs to invest on better equipment, but seeing that absolutely none of their equipment seems in any way damageable while you're out digging, from the massive Drop Pods you arrive in to the M.U.L.E. mobile minecart and even Bosco the tiny robotic assistant, there's not much ground for complaints. The only damaged things you ever find are mini-MULEs and a previous expedition's old Drop Pod, and both are back in working order within a few minutes with some field repairs. And if you find the prototype BET-C armed minecart, you cannot damage it in any way; you need to kill the charge-sucking parasites scrambling its software, which will let it join you after a quick reboot. All in all, the only Deep Rock property that can be in any way destroyed is the OMEN towers, which are made badly enough to go haywire in the first place, the Drilldozer, which is made very cheaply to reduce costs when it's inevitably left behind, and the dwarves themselves — and even those get taken back to the infirmary alive with no explanation.
  • In Drakengard 3, the Flower is an Eldritch Abomination created by Jerkass Gods to destroy the world. Only dragonfire can destroy it, and its human host (who otherwise has a Healing Factor that can regenerate their corpse) needs to be incinerated too. Finding its many "seedlings" and killing them forms the plot of the game. Even then, it's suggested that the host survived her battle against Mikhail, something she almost certainly couldn't have done if the Flower were truly dead.
  • In Dwarf Fortress, artifact items are apparently invulnerable to everything, including being thrown down a volcano (they just sit around at the bottom). Furthermore, artifacts made of wood CAN catch on fire, but they take no damage from it and just keep burning forever. This completely ruins your framerate, though.
  • In The Elder Scrolls, the titular Elder Scrolls themselves are "Fragments of Creation", which exist partially outside of time. As such, no one has ever been known to successfully destroy an Elder Scroll, though any Scroll left unattended and unaccounted for by a sentient mind may simply disappear. The Player Character in Skyrim can lampshade this in one dialogue option, where you can say half-jokingly that you were hoping to use the indestructible Scrolls as armor.
  • Certain buildings in the Fallout universe, considering what they had to have survived. During the development of Fallout 3, Bethesda ran simulations to see what buildings in the D.C. area would survive a nuclear holocaust in Real Life. The answer: none of them, so they fudged it.
  • Fate Series: The weapons Excalibur, Arondight, and Durandal are said to be unbreakable in their respective myths. In Excalibur's case, it's also because of its status as the sword that reflects the light of the world — essentially, a sword so over-powered, it can drive aliens away.
  • Final Fantasy VII: The Shinra Building appears to be indestructible. This is what it looks like after Diamond Weapon, Meteor, the Lifestream, Sephiroth, Cloud, Chaos, and Omega all threw everything they had at it.
  • In Freespace, the Shivan superdestroyer Lucifer was protected by a 'subspace sheath' that rendered it invulnerable against any known type of weapon (in-game, this was represented by simply giving the ship an 'invincible' flag, the same one you could apply to your own ship with cheats.) Its weakness was that the shield didn't function while in subspace.
  • Averting this was a selling point of Future Tactics: The Uprising. Everything in that game, everything, could be destroyed. Scenery could be blown up, holes blasted in the ground, you name it. It was possible to kill tougher enemies in some levels by blasting the ground beneath them and sending them falling to their deaths, and the levels could even be rendered Unintentionally Unwinnable thanks to some diligence on the player's part.
  • Gift (2001): Justified. Many enemies are invincible, but it's implied that they are such only for Gift.
  • The 'Far Jumper' hyperdrive in Homeworld — even if a ship using it is completely destroyed, in the game it always emerges unscathed. Even a self-destruct with enough power to destroy nearby capital ships can't dent it.
  • The browser game IndestructoTank features a tank that is made out of a material called indestructium. Ironically, once the fuel runs out, it's more like explodium.
  • Professor E. Gadd notes that his Poltergust 3000 is almost indestructible in Luigi's Mansion.
  • Mass Relays in Mass Effect are composed of an unknown yet incredible resilient material, are equipped with self-cleaning and maintenance cycles, internal power generation, as well as emitting powerful mass effect stasis fields in response to threats, preserving the relay's structural integrity at a quantum level and preventing even state-of-the-art laser drilling from extracting pieces for analysis. It also helps that Mass Relays, which are natural choke points, are extensively guarded and patrolled, and Council species very heavily frown on anyone interfering with them. It's revealed during the Arrival mission in Mass Effect 2 that Relays can be destroyed, although it requires a colossal force to do so. Most scientists don't want to look too deeply into this because the detonation of a Relay's Mass Effect core can wipe out an entire solar system (leaving other systems stranded as well).
  • In Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, the only things in the game world that the player cannot destroy are the terrain, things that have already been destroyed, and... wooden crates, which are inexplicably indestructible. Not even a nuclear bunker-buster can do more than knock these unassuming boxes around.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: Huey explains that Peace Walker's main pod was made with material equivalent to a bomb shelter, thus he believes the only thing that could break through is an atomic bomb, which Snake doesn't have time to utilize.
  • Metroid:
    • Using Samus's scan visor on particularly large and gray Galactic Federation crates in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes tells her that they are made from "the strongest metals in the cosmos and cannot be destroyed".
    • In Metroid Dread, the E.M.M.I units have a plating made of "the strongest stuff in the universe" (possibly the same as the crates) and can only be damaged using an Omega Cannon or the Big Bad's huge Arm Cannon.
  • In Mike Shadow: I Paid for It!, the vending machine you're trying to get your snack from is apparently invulnerable. Ranging from beating the crap out of it to summoning the finger of God, nothing can so much as scratch it.
  • Bedrock in Minecraft is immune to explosions of every size and cannot be mined with any tool. Only in creative mode can it be removed in any way. Obsidian, too, is immune to explosions and can only be removed with a diamond pick, or by spending over four minutes to remove a single block.
  • Porky's Absolutely Safe Capsule in Mother 3 is indeed absolutely safe. Nothing the main characters do can damage it, and the battle is declared over after two turns. Of course, this also means that Porky himself can never leave (then he'd be unsafe, and the capsule is absolutely safe), affect the outside world (that'd compromise the absolute safety), or die (nothing can threaten Porky in the capsule, not even Porky himself), so it's effectively the same thing as him being killed.
  • Nara is treated this way in the Myst franchise: made from fusion-compounded rock, the D'ni used Nara when it absolutely, positively had to last the ages, which led to it suffering from a rare architectural version of The Worf Effect when it was shown not to be earthquake-resistant; furthermore, Myst IV: Revelation demonstrated that it can be shattered with the right sound frequencies. Deletheni, a lighter material used in the hazard suits employed by the Guild of Maintainers, is similarly nigh-indestructible but less so; this does not stop such a hazard suit from protecting its wearer from a supernova.
  • In NetHack, "artifact" items are the only things that can be put in a player's inventory that can't be destroyed. Not all of them, though. The Amulet of Yendor, in particular, is the only item that cannot even be removed from the game's code by transference into the higher planes.
  • Any given cell phone in Persona 2. Not even the ocean can stop them from working.
  • Played for laughs in Pokémon Black and White. Bianca accidentally destroys everything in your bedroom the first time you battle her. Your Wii isn't even scratched.
  • In Razing Storm, the shield you use to Take Cover! withstands not only relatively mundane regular shots, missiles, lasers, and plasma, but also ramming from Mini-Mecha or Humongous Mecha, falling building debris, and a Wave-Motion Gun.
  • Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves: Dr. M spent decades using his best equipment to break into the Cooper Vault. The entrance doesn't dent from all the weaponry Dr. M fires upon it, since it can only be opened by Sly's cane.
  • Team Fortress 2:
    • While hails of gunfire, flames, explosions and everything else goes on around the briefcase, the flag sits exactly where it was left, calmly rotating six inches above the surface of the floor.
    • The Payload bomb cart as well — at least until it gets to the end, anyway.
    • Actually, most things that aren't directly used by the characters themselves seem to be effectively indestructible.
  • Touhou Soccer has this soccer ball. What happens in this video is actually a pretty minor punishment compared to some others... Compared to, say... this. It's worth mentioning that Ran's shot does bisect it, but it reforms almost instantly.
  • In the 2012 reboot of Twisted Metal, when Dollface attempts to remove her mask she finds that it's this, as it's still intact following a blast from a loaded shotgun.
  • Like the Pokémon example above, The Wonderful 101 has Wonder-Black playing a portable system, highly implied to be a 3DS. When the Wonderful Ones get battle-damaged models near the late game, it is shown that his system has taken some damage as well, but it still runs!

    Webcomics 

    Web Originals 
  • The Creepypasta "The Beatles Cartoon Lost Episode" revolves around a tape with the titular episode on it. When the VCR plays it back, it catches fire. After applying a fire extinguisher to it, it's discovered that the VCR is fine because it still plays back tapes.
  • DEATH BATTLE!:
    • This trope is a pet peeve for Wiz, as he's expressed annoyance at fictional metals stronger and lighter than titanium alloy. However, he's fine with these if they have some kind of drawback or a reasonable justification as to its strength.
    • In "Beerus VS Sailor Galaxia", this trope is implied to be used for a box holding the Hakai energy, something which Zamasu, a Supreme Kai and hence, a god, was incapable of resisting the erasure effect.
  • Magmatter from Orion's Arm is effectively impossible to damage. Not only does it have an incredibly high binding energy, but normal matter will pass right through it.
  • In SCP Foundation, a good portion of the objects are indestructible. To the point where the rules for submissions specifically point this out as a Dead Horse Trope. The specific reasons here are two, one meta and one in-universe. The Foundation, in-universe, does not make it its mission to destroy SCPs. (That C? It stands for "Contain", as in "Secure, Contain, Protect". SCPs are Secured and Contained to Protect... well, everyone in the world.) You want to try the Global Occult Coalition for that. (There are exceptions, such as SCP-682, but 682 is... a special case.) The meta reason is that Decomissions do not happen anymore — bad SCPs don't get killed off in flashy ways, the article is simply removed if it falls under a certain rating (-8, usually), therefore reasonless indestructibility is pointless, because nothing can save an SCP from the site mods.

    Web Videos 
  • This trope is brought up in Freeman's Mind. Gordon goes ballistic (no pun intended) when he realizes the glass in all the doors is bulletproof for no apparent reason. He also comments on the seemingly random mixing of crowbar-proof and non-crowbar-proof grates. Oddly enough, he doesn't seem to consider it odd that the rocket test-fire blows up the crates of explosives but the two grenades that were sitting on top of them are still in one piece.
  • Helloween 4545 tends to refer to everything in games that should realistically be damaged easily, but can not be destroyed by the player, as "made of Decentanium".

    Western Animation 
  • The Amazing World of Gumball:
    • In "The Vase", Nicole entrusts her kids to destroy a vase sent by their grandmother and Make It Look Like an Accident, only for it to be resistant to all of their attempts at doing so.
    • In "The Best", after they've accidentally sent a video showing Carmen's troubled past which would destroy her reputation, Gumball and Darwin try to destroy their classmates' phones. Gumball finds Idaho (who has a 3310 Expy) takes his phone and throws it on the floor, but it's still intact. He then sees a truck going at full speed and throws the phone under it so it would be crushed, but it remains intact and makes the truck crash instead. After that, he simply opens a sewer and throws it under only so Idaho couldn't watch the video.
  • In the American Dad! episode "One Fish, Two Fish", the Smiths attempt to open a coconut and every attempt fails to an absurd degree: trying to cut it with knives either breaks or bends them, trying to crush it in the oven door breaks the door instead, throwing it on the kitchen floor breaks the floor, hitting it with a chainsaw knocks it away, bullets fired from an AK-47 just bounce off, and even running it over with a steamroller causes the steamroller to fall apart. They eventually resort to having Criss Angel open it with a magic trick.
  • Amphibia: In "Thai Feud", when attempting to control the runaway food truck, Anne and Sprig end up running into a tortoise which was crossing the road, which hides inside its shell from the oncoming vehicle. Rather than crush the animal underneath the tires, the collision actually sends the food truck flying through the air like it just hit a ramp, without so much as a scratch on the shell.
  • Parodied in Archer during the two-part episode "Space Race", in which the characters' spaceship is safe due to the fact that nobody figures out how to break the door open; they mention Mithril and Wolverine's bones, and sarcastically say that it was made by Space Dwarfs' technology to exemplify how impossible it is to break open.
  • Ben 10: This is what makes the Omnitrix a Clingy MacGuffin; no amount of brute force can damage it or cut it off Ben's wrist, requiring more delicate methods of removal.
  • Felix the Cat's Magic Bag of Tricks, already a Story-Breaker Power, is virtually impossible to damage or destroy. It's taken quite a few beatings from The Professor in the few times he gets his hands on it, right down to using piles of dynamite to blow it open, but they don't even singe the thing. Its transformations can receive damage or wear (such as its buzzsaw form getting worn out in "The Professor's Instant Changer"), but even that damage goes away when it returns back to normal.
  • Futurama:
    • Averted in the movie "The Beast with a Billion Backs", in which Farnsworth and Wernstrom both brag about their "indestructible" inventions: diamondium and diamondillium. Both are useless against Yivo. Played straight in that Yivo is made of electro-matter, which is impervious to anything from our universe.
    • There's also The Planet Express Ship's diamond tether.
      Farnsworth: Bender, be careful. That's the ship's diamond filament tether. It's unbreakable.
      Bender: Then why do I have to be careful?
      Farnsworth: It belonged to my grandmother.
  • In an episode of The Jetsons, George tests Spacely's new indestructible life jacket. It withstood being crushed, struck with lightning, buzzsawed and blown up with missles; as it turns out, it's not washable, so being ran through a washing machine completely destroys it.
  • In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Mutiny on the Krusty", SpongeBob tries to coerce Mr. Krabs into saving his customers from a monster by threatening to destroy his first dime. When Mr. Krabs refuses, SpongeBob attempts to rip the dime in half. When that doesn't work, he tries to split it with an ax, and the ax's head disintegrates. Then he tries to split it with a saw table, only for the saw to come loose and fly out.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Nintendium, Made Of Nintendium, Tonka Tough

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Mac's ant farm

In an episode of the 1993 Pink Panther series, Aardvark steals Mac's ant farm and tries to break it open, to no avail. Even when he uses a buzz saw and a jackhammer.

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