If I had a doomsday device , would I be the greatest superpower?

I didnt want to make the thread title too long.

The real question is; if I had a doomsday device with my finger on the trigger, would I be the greatest superpower?

and Second question is would all countries disarm their nuclear weapons if they were threatened with total oblivion?

I am curious to your answers.

Mods if this is not the right topic for this thread please move.

I think youd face overwhelming political pressure in the form of 50 bunker buster nukes hitting your house in the middle of the night. whats making a few hundred thousand people die when youre saving the world.

In all seriousness it just reminded me of the whole cold war mind games. If you can blow the world up once... we'll show we can do it 10 times over and so on. I dont think youd gain much power at all. Not in an overall one touch endgame scenario

I don't know how useful a total doomsday device would be, I guess it depends on who has it. If it's some suicidal group that believes they will be going to heaven or the such, then perhaps they could wield some power with it, but I don't think many groups would seriously consider not just blowing away their enemy, but also themselves.

reply to post by Grey Magic

The real question is; if I had a doomsday device with my finger on the trigger, would I be the greatest superpower?

No, you would be a terrorist..(and I despise that word).
Honestly, what would make you ask this question?
Stupid movie quote in my head..
"LET'S PLAY... GLOBAL...THERMAL... NUCLEAR ...WAR"

reply to post by AccessDenied


Well my point is that if the technology would be possible and if any nation would ever have the technology would the world disarm under that pressure.

It is probably because I said earlier in another topic that I am sick of the superpower vs superpower stuff and talking with a friend about it that I came up with this topic to see some reactions.

Doomsday device is useless for political purposes, because side with such device will never use it and destroy itself too. On the other hand if there was a side with capability to stop chain reaction locally - side with this technology will be able to force its opinion on others.

reply to post by AccessDenied


I don't know, sort of reminds me of a different movie...and a quote:

Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?

Ambassador de Sadesky: It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.

No, you would become the enemy. See, you'd have the power to destroy everyone else, so you'd likely become a unifying factor amongst the warring tribes of the Earth, who would then temporarily set aside their differences to plot your absolute annihlation. Then, things would go back to normal, after a hearty round of self-satisfied backslapping.

Soon after, your device would be reverse engineered by France, Iran, Russia, US, England, Japan (who would figure out an upgrade in power and make it more mobile), Pakistan, Canada, and Sri Lanka. Then we'd really be screwed. Game over.

Whether or not the world would do as you asked doesn't really depend on whether or not you have a Doomsday Device. It depends on how credible your threat of having a Doomsday Device is.

If one of the 'nuclear club' announced that they had deployed such a device, the world would probably take them very seriously indeed, simply because those nations have demonstrated the technological ability to deploy such a device. If, on the other hand, Tonga were to announce a Doomsday Device to the world, the response would probably be much less in line with the demand, simply because there's no demonstrated ability to carry out the implied threat.

Even in the case of a nuclear power making a demand like the one you're describing, the likely response is a multi-lingual "Eff You!"...after all, how do the other nations of the world know in advance that you'd be a benevolent overlord?

If you had a doomsday weapon we would all die.

It wouldn't matter if you used it,
it wouldn't matter if someone else used it,
it wouldn't matter if it was accidental,
it wouldn't matter if it were purposeful,
it wouldn't matter if it were right away, or later;

Eventually it would get used. It is the nature of technology in human culture.

((sorry, was feeling a bit philosophical..., ))

reply to post by Grey Magic


Like others have said you'd be dead real quick.

The only way your idea would work is if you could keep your location secret, while being able to disclose to the world without being tracked that you do indeed have a "doomsday" device.

This day and age the chances of that are slim to none. If you could hold this over the world's collective heads from the shadows then you would be a force to be reckoned with and anything you would want to accomplish would be easily accomplished.

In the end though, it would just be you, dead.

Thanks though, I do love hypothetical questions.

Isn't the nuclear bomb "doomsday'ish" enough?

The person who said you would be a terrorist with one. It means that all countries with Nuclear bomb are terrorist countries.

The person who said game over when others reverse engineered it. I guess it is game over with all these nukes around!

M.A.D. is just that. Mad.

Originally posted by Sarkazmon
Isn't the nuclear bomb "doomsday'ish" enough?

The person who said you would be a terrorist with one. It means that all countries with Nuclear bomb are terrorist countries.

The person who said game over when others reverse engineered it. I guess it is game over with all these nukes around!

M.A.D. is just that. Mad.

MAD has one, and only one, redeeming virtue, but that's a fairly big one. It worked for the better part of 60 years. In practical terms, it's a hard doctrine to replace, since, to borrow a line from the movie "Wargames", "The only way to win is not to play". How does one "not play"? There are three basic methods:

1 - The "Kumbayah" method, where we all sit around singing "Kumbayah" and "Give Peace a Chance", chant motivational mantras, visualize world peace, and wait for the barbaric, awful nuclear weapons to vanish from the face of the earth in a flourish of pixie wings. As you can tell from my phrasing, I don't hold out much hope for this approach, since it requires a fundamental change in human nature that hasn't happened in 6,000 years, and probably isn't happening any time soon.

2 - The "It's not possible, even though we could do it in the 60s, and India can do it today" method. This one's also known as "Missile Defense". Nike-Hercules could pull contact kills on missile warheads in the 60s, and the Indian military (among others) is working on a missile defense system even as I type this. It's very possible to kill a ballistic missile, even a maneuvering one...after all, if it maneuvers too radically, it's not going to hit its target. Also remember that a missile shield doesn't have to be 100% effective (and, in fact, probably shouldn't be...I'll leave the "why" on that one as an exercise for the interested reader).

3 - The MAD method. This one doesn't require a change in human nature...in fact, it plays to the most basic of human behaviors, self-preservation. That makes it better than number 1. It's also cheaper than option 2, and less technically demanding...which makes it better to the bean-counters who make these decisions, regardless of what their pet engineers tell them.

If you had a doomsday weapon, a territory and the guaranteed ability to use your weapon regardless of any tactic brought against you then you would be not a superpower but you would be left alone and others would be careful not to rile you up. But for the rest of your life you would have to worry about being assassinated.

As for countries disarming because you have a doomsday weapon, perhaps, depends if they really really thought you were serious and capable, plus they would probably lie to you and just say they did. on balance i think it would take more than one man and his death ray to save the world.