Red Mercury - Usage in Fiction

Usage in Fiction

• In the 1936 novel The Ultimate Weapon by John W. Campbell scientists trying to harness atomic energy create a strange red crystalline substance from mercury in an experimental reactor. This red mercury becomes the key to atomic power, and while it is never specifically called "red mercury" in the story it may in fact be the source of all later speculation on the substance.

• Red Mercury is a 1996 novel by Max Barclay.

• Red Mercury Blues is the first Artie Cohen mystery written by Reggie Nadelson. Published 1995. Reissued in 2006.

• Storylines based on the sale and terrorist applications of red mercury have appeared in episodes of two BBC drama series. Bugs contained an episode during its second series concerning a large quantity of Red Mercury being held by international arms dealers and being traded to fictional middle-eastern factions. In the BBC thriller series Spooks Series 3, Episode 2, "The Sleeper", a Nobel winning chemist is coerced into participating in an MI5 sting of a terrorist group in possession of plutonium who are seeking a short-cut to a bomb. It suggested that red mercury was a myth.

• There is a brief mention of red mercury being used as a weapon (along with "foam-phase hydrogen" warheads) in the novel Redemption Ark.

• Red Mercury bombs are used in the 7th Son trilogy by J.C. Hutchins.

• In the Dark•Matter role-playing game, red mercury does exist, and the player characters may find themselves having to hunt down terrorists who may want to use it for weapons of mass destruction. In keeping with the conspiracy theory and unidentified flying object (UFO) themes of the game, while red mercury is indeed usable as a seemingly impossibly potent nuclear fuel, it's actually originally meant to be a foodstuff for a bizarre alien race. The red mercury on Earth arrived when that species visited, and humans have been trying to duplicate it (with very limited success) since.

• The video game Warhawk also featured red mercury as a central component of its plot. In the game red mercury is an extremely powerful weapon as well as a vaguely alluded-to serum that is exploited by the primary antagonist and megalomaniac, Kreel.

• The video game Shadow Ops: Red Mercury's plot revolves around hunting down a terrorist who controls two red mercury nuclear bombs.

• Red mercury also plays a central role in the plot of the videogame Splinter Cell: Double Agent, when Emile Dufraisne, head of John Brown's Army (JBA), seeks to acquire some in order to build a bomb capable of destroying the greater NYC area.

• In an episode of the American spy-fi television series Alias (#1.22, "Almost Thirty Years"), a character refers to an explosive device as a "red mercury charge with a mechanical fuse". When the device explodes later, it acts similarly to a conventional explosive such as C-4.

• The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, a novel by Mario Acevedo (HarperCollins, 2006, ISBN 978006833268), uses red mercury as a MacGuffin.

• It also appears in the thriller Dead water Deep, by Terence Strong: described as a "highly pure rare-earth element" it is claimed to be the basis of a "structural bond energy release" (SBER) device. This potent fictional technology ("...two kilos of the stuff give you a ten-kiloton explosion") is said to have originated in the Soviet Union.

• Red Mercury is also used as a plot device in the novel "The Double Tap" by Stephen Leather, where an arms dealer is attempting to purchase the substance from a Russian salesman.

• In Scepticism Inc., a novel by Bo Fowler, red mercury is described as "mercury antimony oxide dissolved into mercury and then left to irradiate in a nuclear reactor for twenty days". A bomb made of red mercury is used to destroy the Sceptic Tower, headquarters of the metaphysical betting company Scepticism Inc.

• Yet another appearance is in the thriller Bunker 13 by Aniruddha Bahal where it is described (by a Russian mafia arms-dealer) as being in the nose of a "Swift arrow" missile, creating a "super-high-temperature blowtorch" that can burn its way through "three feet of steel armour."

• In science-fiction stories Samolot von Ribbentrop (Von Ribbentrop's plane) and Atomowa Ruletka (Nuclear Roulette) by Polish writer Andrzej Pilipiuk, "red mercury reactors" are used as highly efficient power sources, although no further information about either the substance or said reactors is given.

• In the last episode of Galileo (Japanese television drama), this substance is said to be "a legendary alloy that reflects 100% of neutrons" and "an urban legend among scientists". Nonetheless it's actively and covertly researched by the main character's antagonist (and seemingly successfully, as it's used to create a small bomb with enough nuclear yield to wipe out half of Tokyo).

• Red mercury appears in the novel Blood is Dirt, by Robert Wilson, as a nuclear material sought by a corrupt West-African tribal chief.

• In the season 4 premiere episode of Criminal Minds, called Mayhem, after an explosive device was used to destroy a Federal SUV, SSA Dr. Spencer Reid says, " was likely made using oxidizing agents including chromates, peroxides, perchlorates, chlorates, and red mercury all jammed into a device no larger than a cell phone."

• The titles of three films: Red Mercury (film), a 2005 UK film about terrorists making a bomb; Finish Line (2008, released as Red Mercury on DVD in Australia), which purports to be on a similar subject but instead spends most of its running time on race car drivers; and an Estonian film from 2010 about small-time criminals who venture to Russia to buy a case of red mercury.

• In the manga Mudazumo Naki Kaikaku, the Chernobyl meltdown was caused by a test run of a reactor that used red mercury as a neutron reflector. Some of the alloy was salvaged from the ruins afterwards.

• Matthew Reilly's 2011 novel Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves includes "red uranium" as a crticial part of a Soviet-era superweapon that can ignite the atmosphere.

• In the 1999 novel Manifold: Time by British writer Stephen Baxter, a resentful worker uses red mercury "capable of releasing hundreds of times the energy contained in the same mass of TNT" to destroy the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• In the season 6 episode of the original Hawaii Five-O titled "Anybody Can Build A Bomb" a nuclear blackmailer claims to have built a nuclear device and enhanced it with "red mercury". The blackmailer threatens to detonate the bomb unless he's paid a large sum of money.

• In the reboot of the Star Trek film franchise, one of the plot elements is referred to as "red matter," a substance that is able to produce artificial, fast acting black holes. The relationship between actual nuclear materials and red mercury is similar to that of antimatter and red matter.