Kinetic Bombardment - in Science Fiction

In Science Fiction

Perhaps the earliest examples of kinetic bombardment come from E. E. "Doc" Smith's 1930s and 1940s Lensman series. In these books, however, planetary masses were used rather than smaller projectiles. It was in the mid-1960s that popular science interest in orbital mechanics led to a number of science fiction stories which explored their implications. Among these was The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein (which has been adapted into a screenplay of the same name by Tim Minear circulated widely over the Internet among Heinlein fans) in which the citizens of the moon bombard the earth with rocks wrapped in iron containers which are in turn fired from an electromagnetic launch system at Earth-based targets.

In the 1970s and 1980s this idea was refined in science fiction novels such as Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (the same Pournelle that first proposed the idea for military use in a non-fiction context), in which aliens use a Thor-type system. During the 1980s and 1990s references to such weapons became a staple of science fiction roleplaying games such as Traveller and Shadowrun as well as visual media including Babylon 5's "mass drivers" and the film Starship Troopers, itself an adaptation of a Heinlein novel of the same name.

One of the first references to the "crowbar" is in David's Sling by Mark Steigler (Baen, 1988). Set in the Cold War, the story is based on the use of (relatively inexpensive) information-based "intelligent" systems to overcome an enemy's numerical advantage. The orbital kinetic bombardment system is used first to destroy the Soviet tank armies that have invaded Europe and then to take out Soviet ICBM silos prior to a nuclear strike.

In the 2000s and early 2010s, kinetic weapons as science fiction plot devices appeared in video games, featuring prominently in the plot of Mass Effect 2 or the MAC from the Halo franchise, for example. In the 2004 military science fiction novel Orphanage by Robert Buettner, the Earth's major cities are being wiped out from kinetic projectiles from an exo-solar alien race's base on the Jupiter moon of Ganymede.

In the 2008 novel Tom Clancy's Endwar, kinetic strikes, known as "Rods from God", have replaced intercontinental ballistic missiles as US military's most destructive strategic weapon. They were used to destroy a large Russian armoured convoy in Alberta.

This weapons system was also described and used in Dan Simmons' 2011 novel Flashback.

Also in Clive Cussler's 2008 novel Plague Ship a satellite called Stalin's Fist is used by the protagonist to destroy a cult's underground fortress.

Neal Stephenson's novel Anathem contains an incident in which an orbiting spaceship attacks a planet with a rod, striking and activating a dormant volcano and causing it to destroy everything in the vicinity downhill.

In the science fiction game of Renegade Legion, the concept of the Thor system is used very close to the original, real world concept, including the name itself: Thor Missiles. The weapons are stored in space aboard satellites, the size of tree trunks, made of solid metal, and equipped with computers and guidance fins to steer them as they descend towards their target, and do not use explosives. Impact velocity and mass are sufficient to destroy any known tank in the game.

In Daniel Suarez's book Freedom, a suborbital version of Thor is deployed, composed of many small Arrows or Spikes, for anti-personnel use.

In John Varley's book Red Lightning a ship traveling at near-lightspeed impacts the Earth causing a massive tsunami in the Atlantic and devastating the East coast of the United States. The ship was believed to be piloted by members of a doomsday cult who were aiming at Washington DC, but missed.

This system was also described and used in "Stony Man #81, Sky Hammer".

In Peter F. Hamiltons The Night's Dawn Trilogy, "kinetic harpoons" are used to bombard the surface of a planet. The book in which the event occurs also specifies how the staggering of the harpoons impact caused the shockwaves from the impacts to contract and result in an artificial earthquake.

The trailer for the upcoming film G.I. Joe: Retaliation appears to show a kinetic bombardment of London. The space based weapon appears to be a pole shaped object with a motor, very much in line with the speculated design of such a weapon. Instead of an explosion, a violent earthquake appears to take place, which is again a characteristic of the weapon.

In the Shockwave mod for the PC video game Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour, the USA Superweapon General can access the super weapon called 'Rods from God'. The description mentions that the rods are made of tungsten.

In the Lost Fleet series of books by Jack Campbell, the use of "rocks" for planetary bombardment, for attacks on orbiting facilities and for some ship to ship combat is commonplace by both main protagonists. "Rocks" in this context are essentially large unguided metallic ball bearings varying in size according to the size of the launching ships. Larger ships, larger rocks. As they are intended to travel great distances in space, aerodynamic shaping is clearly considered irrelevant. In the novels they are sometimes launched from the opposite side of a solar system to a projected future position of the target. There is only 1 mention of the projectiles' actual size in the entire series, in which it is implied that none exceed a few hundred kilograms.