The opposite to Worldbuilding: World Destruction
I am looking at different ways to destroy a planet. I am assuming the planet is of a similar size and composition to the Earth just to keep things simple.
I am starting at boiling the atmosphere to the point where it turns Earth into a dead barren rock with no vegetation, no oceans and no air left. This is as tame as I want my destruction (there's still a giant dead rock left, and I want to wreak more havoc than this!).
I am also looking into lasers powerful enough to obliterate a planet into dust, AKA the Death Star approach. At the most I am not sure if the energy required to achieve this makes this a feasible option. (Yeah, I know, I am concerned if this is feasible and then I go onto consider something else like:)
Ive been considering something that destabilizes the very structure of a planet, affecting everything from plate tectonics to the planets own gravitational pull on itself and causing a chain reaction which results in the planet flying apart. But I am not sure if I can back this up with any kind of science.
I have also considered launching another, large enough, rock in space at a planet to smash it into smithereens. I have also looked into detonating the nearby star to take out the planet and the entire system.
My problem is that I don't know which one of these (or any other crazy ideas that I have) forms of global destruction are the easiest to achieve. So my question is:
What would be the most effective or efficient way to destroy an entire planet?
I dont just want to destroy all life on the surface, I want to reduce the entire planet to rubble so that very little remains (I guess an asteroid field/belt being left behind is destruction enough, but bonus points if you can cause more destruction!).
I also want to do this in a relatively short time frame. Say, less than a day.
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I am surprised I didn't see this before (only saw it now because of a link in chat) but I'm even more surprised no-one mentioned my solution, especially in the era of fidget-spinners...
Simply add a couple of large engines - I'm thinking Ringworld attitude adjustment engines - on pylons high enough to get them above the majority of the atmosphere, pointed in such a direction as to increase the rotation speed of the earth.
Then keep adding fuel/energy (the equivalent of the annoying child who just won't stop spinning that fidget spinner thing!) until the planet gets close to breaking up.
Along the way, you'll lose water, atmosphere, people (at about 17xfaster than current rotation) most stuff, to be honest.
Of additional benefit, if you can build the engines to run on any matter, you can use the planet's matter as fuel - and if you start using the surface layer round the equator, this will help by increasing the spin speed in the same way ice skaters do by pulling in their arms.
Once close to break up, position yourself above one of the poles, set your GoPro to record and wait for the catastrophe in all its technicolour goodness.
Read this question for more details.
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