What annoyed me about that, truth be told, was the supposedly it was some kind of mavericky think-outside-the-box prodigy-brilliance of Ender that prompted him to use the weapon against the planet. If I had a weapon that could destroy a planet, my first thought in deploying it it would always be “Can we destroy the planet?”
Heck, forget all the intermediate battles. Just send an automated ship straight to the Bugger homeworld, programmed to destroy the planet upon arrival. Send a dozen.
And the Earth generals didn’t need Ender because he was a genius. They needed him because they were all cowards. They knew that the war was going to end by matter disassociation of the Bugger homeworld, but none of them wanted to officially be the one to pull the trigger. So they engineered events so that someone else would do what they wanted to, so they could evade the responsibility for their decisions.
And so you just need to give the Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s POV Gun to Marvin. The Point-Of-View Gun will make everyone you shoot see everything from the shooter’s point of view. Since Marvin is chronically-depressed, he can make everyone just commit suicide. No messy destroying of the universe. Just a nice clean slate. Alternatively, if you want to stick around, use the POV Gun yourself and you’ll have an entire universe of creatures and think just like you!
I’ve noticed a Tim R. Mortiss about the place, but otherwise we seem to be under-represented here. Perhaps people find a name like Malagate The Woe hard to live up to.
In the extremely low-budget 1980 flick Battle Beyond the Stars, the evil overlord Sador has a “stellar converter,” which turns planets into small stars.
Man, that chart seriously needs to cite its sources. Yeah, yeah, “we talked to experts and this is what they said”. With what justification? Show your work!
Well, I’m guessing this could be a subjective question. For example, I have always hated bad smells. So, the most powerful weapon I’ve seen comes from the movie Despicable Me.
Did you see it? It was called the Fart Gun.
I hope you don’t mind a little humor in an otherwise gruesome discussion.
OMG! I just realized how the lead character (played by Steve Carell) got his name.