There's a Hole in the Planet

[Michael Hopcroft]

In the first edition of DC Heroes back in the mid-1980's, it occurred to me that it would be possible for a pre-Crisis Kryptonian to destroy the Earth by punching a good-sized hole in the planet's crust. The effects of such a large "wound" being open to the mantle wouldn't exactly have been fun for anyone on Earth at the time, although the one doing the punching would be tough enough not to be destroyed.

 

Which makes me wonder how high a STR you would need to do the same trick in Hero, how big a hole you would actually need to punch, and whether anyone would have time to get off the planet to safety once that happened. This might be the stuff of a far-future Legion-style campaign where there are entire planets whose populations are completely, utterly evil. I don't think you'd want this level of power in the hands of an Earthbound villain because that would make things too easy for him. How do you stop a guy from whacking the ground?

 

That also led me to wonder about the consequences of the Superman trick of tunneling through the Earth's mantle to get from, say, Metropolis to Hong Kong. What would the mantle do to the two Superman-sized holes in the crust this would create? (Of course these days he wouldn't do it -- especially since he can fly the distance in about a minute!)

[Ravor]

Re: There's a Hole in the Planet

 

Honestly, it seems to me like the hole would probably just colaspe somewhere behind him but if it didn't then my gut ruling would be that Earth just got two new volcanoes with nasty first eruptions.

[Christopher]

Re: There's a Hole in the Planet

 

Someone recently posted this article on how to destroy the earth. It's waaayy harder than you think:

http://qntm.org/destroy

[mattingly]

Re: There's a Hole in the Planet

 

There's a hole in the planet, dear Liza, dear Liza. There's a hole in the planet, dear Liza, a hole.

 

Personally, I'd do it as a version of Tunneling (possibly with a wider AOE on it than man-sized), and put on a Side Effect on it that affects the nearby environment.

 

A STR Power Trick Roll probably wouldn't cut it, unless it were some uninhabited planet and the stunt was just pulled for a small plot reason. I figure a pre-Crisis Kryptonian will already have a giant VPP or MP for tricks like this anyway, so adding a planet-buster slot shouldn't be too big a deal.

[Christopher]

Re: There's a Hole in the Planet

 

In this discussion about the APG II and Object Creation the question came up how expensive a "Create Earth" Power would have to be.

 

This it what I came too using a estimate with Permanent levels of Density increase, but it is only a rough estimate (for example I have no idea at wich values 100kg of Rock should start ED/PD/Body wise):

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/86839-APG-II-Commentary-Discussion-thread?p=2220328#post2220328

[Lucius]

Re: There's a Hole in the Planet

 

There's a hole in the planet, dear Liza, dear Liza. There's a hole in the planet, dear Liza, a hole.

 

Personally, I'd do it as a version of Tunneling (possibly with a wider AOE on it than man-sized), and put on a Side Effect on it that affects the nearby environment.

 

A STR Power Trick Roll probably wouldn't cut it, unless it were some uninhabited planet and the stunt was just pulled for a small plot reason. I figure a pre-Crisis Kryptonian will already have a giant VPP or MP for tricks like this anyway, so adding a planet-buster slot shouldn't be too big a deal.

 

S0 fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry, so fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, so fix it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary sings a duet with itself.