Are Superweapons real?

[Sierra85]

i think there are satellites that can shoot concentrated lazers at people and kill them. i have no proof of this other than what i have seen with my telescope.

[Gheld]

It's worth mentioning that Carl Sagan, who wasn't a nuclear physicist, or a climatologist is the one who came up with the whole "Nuclear Winter" scenario. The rest of the scientific community snubbed the idea, but the media picked it up before corrections were issued to the study he lead (such as the fact that fallout was based on surface detonations, while most nuclear weapons are actually set off for atmospheric detonations in order to maximize the range.

So for all intents and purposes there is no such thing as a nuclear winter.

Yeah, we'd be pretty fucked if somebody set up us the bomb, but there would be plenty of remote areas that would remain relatively unscathed.

[Tierbook]

A railgun is not a weapon of mass destruction and certainly not a super weapon, OP was talking about weapons that could theoretically destroy the earth or at least all life on it.

Fine.... A space mounted railgun with a tungsten payload....

[Gheld]

Fine.... A space mounted railgun with a tungsten payload....

Future wars will be fought with Rube Goldberg machines.

[Zethras]

Future wars will be fought with Rube Goldberg machines.

If/when humans start building interstellar spacecraft, rail guns will likely be the point-defense systems of choice. No friction in space, except when you hit the bad guy.

[Generalfrisk]

Even if they all were detonated all at once, they would not be world-ending.

Most humans would survive, most plants and animals would and the good, ol' Earth itself would still be sittin there in the Sun's gravity well.
(Worse-case, civilization would just be knocked back a century and life would suck for a few generations)

World-ending would have to be something with either the capability to end 90%+ of all life on or destroy/irreparably damage the Earth. Nothing humans are currently capable of can accomplish such a feat of devastation. Pretty much something that would end human civilization.

Think a device that pulls asteroids out of their orbits and down onto the Earth, or the Death-Star of Starwars fame which could annihilate a planet entirely with an oversized laser beam. That is the type of overwhelmingly powerful weapon which would be required to initiate either a doomsday apocalypse event or outright end the world and we just don't have the technological or logistical capability as a species to accomplish such feats.

You obiously don't know your facts.

Two bombs were dropped to essentially end the second world war. The US had 2104 ACTIVE warheads in 2013, and 7315 total.

Then we add in the (Active) 1600, 160, 290, from Russia, UK, and France, and then an unknown amount from China. Again, these are the ACTIVE ones from 2013.

So tell me, if TWO Bombs ended a war, what is 4154 + An Unknown amount from China going to do? Then let's make it SUPER fun and add in the Inactive bombs too!


And then, just for good measure, add in the unknown amount claimed to be owned by India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel

[Duronos]

No they do not exist (yet), the resources and funding required for such a weapon would be immense, it would be impossible to hide all that. It would also need a shitload of troops to maintain and train to use it, it would only take one Bradley Manning for it all to come out.

Are we referring to the closet or the whistleblowing?