Let the Nazis take good note of the western horizon. There they will see a cloud no bigger than a man's hand. But behind that cloud lies the whole massive power of the United States.
—Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet, Marshal of the Royal Air Force
I have heard tales of sorcerers that can forecast your doom, warriors whose screams freeze the blood, machines that fight with the grace of a dancer, and fiery daemons that cannot die. None of these dangers concerned me, except one. When fighting the Eldar, watch the skies!
— Colonel Ishmail Mott, Warhammer 40,000
"Hehe, this is gonna be one hell of a highlight reel."
"I heard that!"
"I heard that!"
— AC-130 fire control officer and TV operator, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
Look out below, motherfuckers!
— Helicopter pilot, [PROTOTYPE]
Then there are the airstrikes. Mercenaries 2 has a massive enthusiasm for airstrikes. They feature prominently in their tutorial, you find them lying innocently by the side of the road next to signs saying, "Boy I hope no one steals me (wink wink)". And every time you die in a mission, the game throws up tips that are usually along the lines of, "See, if you had listened to us and used an airstrike, maybe this wouldn't have happened!"
—Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, Zero Punctuation, on Airstrikes 2: Hooray for Airstrikes
If at first you don't succeed, call an air strike.
— Mercenaries 2
Wipe this pathetic planet from the face of the galaxy!
— Darth Malak, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.
— A quote linked to both Game Masters and starship crews engaged in orbital bombardment
The explosives rained down, and halfway through their fall, the twenty-four plummeting cluster bombs came apart, each deploying twenty-five self-propelled ground-strike munitions. Each bomb had been pre-programmed by a Gabriel using data provided by the EVA wielded by Commander Karrde, using laser targeting telemetry supplied by the individual Caprica teams. It was an example of networked, coordinated warfare at its finest.
Each bomb found a target, and accelerated toward the Nod soldiers even as the militia below looked up at the screaming sonic passage of the Firehawks. The smarter or more experienced ones were already yelling for cover, and diving behind whatever safety they could find.
Six hundred individually-guided cluster munitions detonated a heartbeat later. Half of the bombs were loaded with high-explosive warheads, the complex devices within each detonating with the force of two tons of TNT. The other half of the munitions were loaded with white phosphorous.
It was like God took a bucket of hell, pissed in it, and then poured it on the men below.
Each bomb found a target, and accelerated toward the Nod soldiers even as the militia below looked up at the screaming sonic passage of the Firehawks. The smarter or more experienced ones were already yelling for cover, and diving behind whatever safety they could find.
Six hundred individually-guided cluster munitions detonated a heartbeat later. Half of the bombs were loaded with high-explosive warheads, the complex devices within each detonating with the force of two tons of TNT. The other half of the munitions were loaded with white phosphorous.
It was like God took a bucket of hell, pissed in it, and then poured it on the men below.
—Tiberium Wars, Chapter XVII
Jet fighter, jet fighter
Turbo jet engines ignite
Jet fighter, jet fighter
Death will filling the sky
Jet fighter, jet fighter
An airborne assault and attack
Jet fighter, jet fighter
A cold blooded stab in the back
Turbo jet engines ignite
Jet fighter, jet fighter
Death will filling the sky
Jet fighter, jet fighter
An airborne assault and attack
Jet fighter, jet fighter
A cold blooded stab in the back
— "Death from Above" by Anthrax
Maxim 4: Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.
Maxim 5: Close air support and friendly fire should be easier to tell apart.
Maxim 36: When the going gets tough, the tough call for close air support.
Maxim 5: Close air support and friendly fire should be easier to tell apart.
Maxim 36: When the going gets tough, the tough call for close air support.
— Schlock Mercenary, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
Take a look to the sky
Just before you die
It's the last time you will!
Just before you die
It's the last time you will!
— "For Whom The Bell Tolls" by Metallica
Carpet bombing cities
And grinding them to dust
Able men and women
Will all be victims
Everyone will suffer
In the wake of their attack
Bombers show no mercy
A land in ruin
Homes are turned to rubble
When the airstrike has been approved
Facing their destruction
Fear the black wings of death
Burn Burn
Rage of the heavens
Burn Burn
Death from above
Die Die
Merciless killing
Burn Burn
Death from above
And grinding them to dust
Able men and women
Will all be victims
Everyone will suffer
In the wake of their attack
Bombers show no mercy
A land in ruin
Homes are turned to rubble
When the airstrike has been approved
Facing their destruction
Fear the black wings of death
Burn Burn
Rage of the heavens
Burn Burn
Death from above
Die Die
Merciless killing
Burn Burn
Death from above
— "Firestorm" by Sabaton
"Contrary to popular belief, we at artillery command do not believe we're God. We merely borrowed His "Smite" button."
— Anonymous
"Artillery knows neither friend nor foe — only good targets."
— Anonymous (slogan in the German Bundeswehr)
"I will fly high above Monsteropolis / And I will rain terror down on the general populace..."
"Lives on this earth I grow tired of / Death from above / The annihilation of everyone you know and love..."
"Lives on this earth I grow tired of / Death from above / The annihilation of everyone you know and love..."
— "The Annihilation of Monsteropolis" by The Megas
Close your eyes and see the skies are fallin'
— Queens of the Stone Age, "The Sky is Fallin'"
(Temple of Nod builds up)
Nod Commando: Look at that beautiful construction! So strong... so powerfu-
(two GDI aircraft carpetbombs the Temple into dust)
Commando: THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS!!! >:( Okay, okay, let's rethink this. They know we're here. We should step up our defenses immediately!
(later; the Temple is built again, with a fuckton of air defenses around it)
Commando: Heh, they ain't gettin' through here this time! I bet they shit their yellow pants.
(bystanders laugh their asses off... until GDI Kill Sats the Temple)
Commando: Ahem... so... why does GDI have the Ion Cannon positioned directly above us, AND NOBODY FUCKIN' TELLS MEEEE?!
— Tiberium Ecstasy
Herman: When he leaves the Kwik-E-Mart, we start the saturation bombing. You got the water balloons?
Bart: Two hundred rounds, sir. Is it okay if they say "Happy Birthday" on the side?
Herman: Well, I'd rather they say "Death from Above", but I guess we're stuck.
— The Simpsons, "Bart The General"
"Yes but - that's not it," words are bursting out between the pulses of shivering - "the other kind, those V-1s, you can hear them. Right? Maybe you have a chance to get out of the way. But these things explode first, a-and then you hear them coming in. Except that, if you're dead, you don't hear them."
"Same in the infantry. You know that. You never hear the one that gets you."
"Uh, but-"
"Think of it as a very large bullet, Slothrop. With fins."
Wedge: So, we're going to hit [the Yuuzhan Vong attackers] with an enemy they've never had the displeasure of facing. We're going to hit them with the Empire.
Artillery is the god of war.
"Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl."
"A magical item that can allow me to rain death from above my enemies AND lets me reach stuff on the top shelf? Done."
— Belkar Bitterleaf, The Order of the Stick
Neytiri: It is Toruk, Last Shadow.
Jake Sully: Yeah, right. The last one you'll ever see.
Jake Sully: Yeah, right. The last one you'll ever see.
—Regarding the Great Leonopteryx, Avatar
They stood in the mouth of the cave and watched them. The bombers were high now, in fast ugly arrowheads beating the sky apart with the noise of their motors. "They are shaped like sharks," Robert Jordan thought. "The wide-finned, sharp-nosed sharks of the Gulf Stream. But these, wide-finned and silver, roaring, the light mist of their propellers in the sun, these do not move like sharks. They move like no thing there has ever been. They move like mechanized doom."
The Unit has just traded a prisoner for Jonas.
Jonas: The man was Bin Laden 15 years ago. What are you doing handing him back?
Mack: It's what the other side wanted for Christmas.
Jonas: The State Department know about this?
Bob: No. But the Air Force does.
Mack: We left 'em a present.
Mack: It's what the other side wanted for Christmas.
Jonas: The State Department know about this?
Bob: No. But the Air Force does.
Mack: We left 'em a present.
A missile comes out of the sky and blows up the car containing the prisoner and his friends.
— The Unit
— The Unit
"Fury from the sky! Cut them down!"
— Assault Sergeant Thaddeus, Dawn of War II
"Justice RAINS from above!"
— Pharah, Overwatch
"Ultima ratio regum." ("The final argument of kings.")
— Engraved on the cannons of the army of Louis XIV, King of France
A shadow from the sky, much too big to be a bird
A screaming crashing noise louder than I've ever heard
It looked like two big silver trees that somehow learned to soar
Suddenly a summer breeze and a mighty lion's roar
I killed the dinosaur, I killed the dinosaur
A screaming crashing noise louder than I've ever heard
It looked like two big silver trees that somehow learned to soar
Suddenly a summer breeze and a mighty lion's roar
I killed the dinosaur, I killed the dinosaur
— "Walk the Dinosaur" by Was (Not Was)
They prayed for rain. This isn't what they had in mind...
— Flavour Text of the Infernal Bombardment magic, Dawn of the Dragons
Persian Soldier: Our arrows will blot out the sun!
Stelios: Then we will fight in the shade.
Stelios: Then we will fight in the shade.
— 300
But, somehow, she'd have to do something about both planets. Daxam would be easy. A shower of leaden hail across its surface, and the dead would litter the ground in heaps beyond Hitler's and Stalin's dreams.
— Satan Girl, Hellsister Trilogy
"A two-foot long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives. The bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."
Ali: God pity the men under those guns.
Lawrence: They're Turks.
Ali: Even so, God pity them.
Lawrence: They're Turks.
Ali: Even so, God pity them.
"The robot-craft as powered by the Sun— and used sunlight as its weapon... Swiftly, its beam swept across Kryptonopolis, leaving blackened devastation in its wake... When its mission was finished, nothing was left standing in Kryptonopolis... and no one was left living!"
"Turn it to ashes! That's not enough! Drop more bombs!"
— Osean B-52 pilot, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War
Ever wonder what they're thinkin' down there?
Watch 'em scatter!
Peg that skeeter!
Mulch 'em!
Watch 'em scatter!
Peg that skeeter!
Mulch 'em!
—Harbinger Gunship, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Uprising
"Semper Supra" ("Always above")
— Motto of the United States Space Force
Five thousand balloons capable of raising two men each, would not cost more than five ships of the line: and where is the prince who can afford to cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?
"It's raining me!"
— Dr. Krankcase, Skylanders: Trap Team
They should know whom to blame when the sky falls down on them.
— Daenerys Targaryen, Game Ofthrones
And if the night is burning
I will cover my eyes
For if the dark returns
Then my brothers will die
And as the sky is falling down
It crashed into this lonely town
And with that shadow upon the ground
I hear my people screaming out
I will cover my eyes
For if the dark returns
Then my brothers will die
And as the sky is falling down
It crashed into this lonely town
And with that shadow upon the ground
I hear my people screaming out
— "I see fire" by Ed Sheeran, created for The Hobbit
