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I'm writing a fan story for Warhammer 40k, and the climactic scene is the main character giving the order for an Exterminatus while on a planet to destroy a Chaos horde. What I need to know is, what would an Exterminatus look like from the surface of the planet, and which method would look coolest. I want to go with planetary lance bombardment, but I want to know what you guys think would look cool as this story will be available to the public.

I am not too familiar with the lance technique of exterminatus. A small scale planetary bombardment is described in The First Heretic as:

Aaron Dembski-Bowden wrote:

Spoiler:

The sky grew brighter still - too bright, too fast. Barely past dawn, it was already becoming as bright as noon.
Cyrene raised her head, watching with weeping eyes as the clouds of heaven lit up with a second sunrise.
She saw the fire fall from the sky, lances of unbelievable light spearing into the perfect city from above the clouds. But she could not watch for long. The sun-spears' incomparable brightness stole her sight after only the first few moments, leaving her in darkness as she listened to the sounds of a city dying. The world shook beneath Cyrene's feet, casting her to the ground. Worst of all, her eyes itched as they failed, and the last clear sight she ever saw was Monarchia in ruin, its towers falling into the flames.

If you want a bigger earth-shattering kaboom! like a death star laser, one article that I found interesting suggests that it is not the laser tearing the planet apart, but instead just punching through the crust and heating the core until that destroys the planet. I have no clue how this would look, but if you aren't near where the laser is hitting, then all you get is the kaboom! which would be boring.

Virus bombs are described in the Horus Heresy novels (book 3? I don't have them with me) and are fun as the effects are visible to anyone on the ground, which makes for cool story descriptions. The virus bombs start by melting anything not protected by thick environmental gear, turning them into puddles of goo and gas (descriptions of the enemy/ allied forces on the ground reacting in horror as they die). Then a lance ignites the gas, being described as a firestorm that spread over the surface of the planet as the gases in the atmosphere burn (write about how your character watches the planet burn from a viewport/ the bridge). Definitely the one I would use to write a story.

Lance Bombardment is the slowest and most spectacular method of exterminatus. It involves walking the lances across the surface of the planet until the surface melts. The more ships you have lancing the planet, the faster it goes, but it could take several days of continual bombardment to take effect. You'll get a line of stabbing brightness travelling towards you as the bombardment creeps across the surface.

Cyclonic Torpedo is the next slowest method. All the people on the surface will see - if they're close enough to the impact site to see anything - is a fireball arrowing straight down into the ground. Over the next few hours, however, you could easily watch 2012 to get an idea of how the destruction would spread across the planet, although it would end with a barren, dry rock rather than a world-ocean, since the water would all drain away into the mantle during the seismic upheaval. No plucky survivors here.

Virus Bombing is the fastest method, the most horrifying, but also the least spectacular. Several atmospheric burn-ups, like shooting stars, followed by everything living - including you - starting to dissolve and sublime into a mix of goo and gas. The smell would be terribly, but since your head would be the first thing to dissolve due to it being exposed first, you wouldn't really notice. Once a sufficient amount of the population has succumbed to the virus, a lance shot would turn all the hydrogen and methane in the atmosphere that used to be organic beings into a firestorm that would destroy the rest with temperatures of about 2,000 degrees C.

It varies from sources but can go anywhere from this.


To even this I guess.


Obviously the bear is optional.

What the heck did I just watch?

Galaxy in Flames gives a pretty great ground-view of an Exterminatus via virus bombs and the aftermath on the ground. Basically the virus causes all organic matter to dissolve, releasing immense amounts of hydrogen and methane gases into the atmosphere. Then an orbital lance ignites it all and there's a massive global firestorm.

Like the sky is falling. As for the method, either lance or virus bomb

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Lance Bombardment is the slowest and most spectacular method of exterminatus. It involves walking the lances across the surface of the planet until the surface melts. The more ships you have lancing the planet, the faster it goes, but it could take several days of continual bombardment to take effect. You'll get a line of stabbing brightness travelling towards you as the bombardment creeps across the surface.

So it's like in Halo when they "glass" a planet? Thank you.

 the Signless wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Lance Bombardment is the slowest and most spectacular method of exterminatus. It involves walking the lances across the surface of the planet until the surface melts. The more ships you have lancing the planet, the faster it goes, but it could take several days of continual bombardment to take effect. You'll get a line of stabbing brightness travelling towards you as the bombardment creeps across the surface.

So it's like in Halo when they "glass" a planet? Thank you.

Yep, or when a Star Destroyer initiates a Base Delta Zero operation.

HH1 from Forgeworld has a very good description of what happened at Istvaan III.

The method used could also be affected by the circumstances of the exterminatus. Virus bombing and cyclonic torpedoes will provide fast, dramatic kills, perfect for bringing a sudden end to your enemy forces. These could be good for a plot where the destruction of the planet has to happen now or the entire region is doomed race against the clock.

Lances are slower for after the campaign in space is finished as you mop up the remaining ground forces and reduce their cities to dust. Perfect for a conclusion where you can reflect on your victory as you watch them burn.

the object of a lance strike exterminatus is to lance down through the mantle and literally crack the planet.
Imagine a fantastic beam of light striking the same location again, and again, and again. matter vaporizing and then exploading out, the air, and atmosphere heating up causing crazy atmospheric effects. Then, once the mantle cracks, the molten outer core of the planet gushing up to the surface. The tectonic plates being to collapse in as the magma they were floating on starts gushing into the surface. The earthquakes that would happen... Then there's the shockwave of contenants literrally fall and collapse together. The atmosphere would do crazy things, then the tsunamies, earthquakes. Then finally the mantle splits. Gravity starts to loose, atmosphere bleeds away, the protective outer atmosphere is gone, assuming the firestorm on the planet hasn't killed everyone, the solar radation and lose of atmosphere will next

Thank you guys for your input so far. To clarify, the two main characters (good and bad) will be on the surface on the planet. The villain impales the good guy with a daemon sword so that he dies slowly and painfully, but the good guy sends a signal from a hidden remote to begin the Exterminatus. Something like this:

Even as the Inquisitor's lifeblood drained from his severed arm and the gaping wound in his chest, he grinned through reddened teeth. "Checkmate" he coughed, spraying his foe with splatters of spit and blood, "Game Over". And as he slackened and lay on the cold steel of the balcony, unseeing eyes reflected a false sunrise, drawing steadily nearer as the Chaos Lord screamed in rage, lances of light impacting the surface of the planet and throwing up great clouds of molten stone. The massive shockwave brought the titanic daemon he had summoned to its knees before a wave of searing heat stripped the 'flesh' from its 'bones'. And as the Lord bellowed, he too was overcome, his twisted armour searing into his skin and his bare head crisping like a piece of paper in a fireplace.

A lance would definitely be sufficient then. It may take days or weeks to burn the entire planet to cinders, but a city can happen in a moment (see the nice little piece of writing by BL I posted).

Time to link the DoW2 Exterminatus sequence again, yay!




From the ground? It would look like fire raining from the sky, the earth would shatter and shake in the worst earthquake imaginable. Then, if you survived that, your flesh would begin dissolving as the life eater virus destroyed all living organisms on the planet. Then the gases given off would be ignited from orbit by a weapon strike and the planet would be consumed in fire.

No virus bombs, they feed the Plaguefather.

Haha that reminds me of the old fluff about not using virus bombs on nurgle deamon world's, didn't want to give him ideas.

Death. It would look like death.

 the Signless wrote:
The method used could also be affected by the circumstances of the exterminatus. Virus bombing and cyclonic torpedoes will provide fast, dramatic kills, perfect for bringing a sudden end to your enemy forces. These could be good for a plot where the destruction of the planet has to happen now or the entire region is doomed race against the clock.

Lances are slower for after the campaign in space is finished as you mop up the remaining ground forces and reduce their cities to dust. Perfect for a conclusion where you can reflect on your victory as you watch them burn.

40K: We've gotten so good at blowing up planets, we invented recreational methods to do it.

Well, you gotta do something for fun that won't summon a sex daemon by accident.

No, this just summons blood daemons. Much safer!