Ground burst vs. air burst? just check a place called Tunguska :biggrin:.

Dear silverblade33, I love you. For once, somebody who is conscious of the most destructive weapon realistically conceivable (blackholes and strangelets do not apply, obviously). For some info about kinetic weapons, see this page. For some info about the nightmarish capabilities of the relativistic weapons, check this page.

My personal favourite extinction technology are bioweapons. Stealthly kidnap some earthlings and study their immune system. Stealthly sample the environment for existing pathogena. Engineer half a dozen of super contagious superbugs and release them using tiny drones, attacking all major towns of this planet at the same time. Wait one year for the plagues to do their work and then land on a nearly empty Earth (remaining earthlings can be an interesting subject for hunt-the-humans safaris). The scariest part of this scenario is that the capability of engineering superbugs is probably already within reach for the the most advanced biowaepons labs on this planet. Wait for this technology to spread and then... imagine a Heaven's Gate bunch of wackos decide that humankind has to disvest itself from the meatbag in order to attain the next level of consciousness... yet another good way of self destruction, don't you think so?

Bye... as long as we are still alive.

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