Exterminatus

"I didn't expect that kind of Imperial Inquisition-" *BLAM*

Exterminatus is the Imperium's biggest middle finger they can give to xenos and Chaos infestation on their own planets. It basically involves them UTTERLY DESTROYING THE PLANET via heavy orbital bombardment if they see that it would be impossible to re-take the planet by drowning their enemies in corpses, like they always do.

Before you go onto some sort of moral tirade about the morality of blowing the fuck out of a planet, understand the motherfucking context. A world deemed worthy of Exterminatus is one considered past the point where anything can be salvaged from it - whether because it's about to be lost to countless ravening giant insects that will zerg-rush and eat fucking everything or because it will be turned into a fucking daemon-and-tentacle-rape-infested shit-pit where neither sanity nor time has any meaning. The alternative is fucking glassing a planet and trying to deny it to the enemy or ensure SOMETHING can be fucking saved. It's the last-ditch measure and it's there because the alternative sucks even fucking worse. Well that's the theory, but the over the top villainy of Warhammer 40k means that the Imperium does sometimes get trigger happy with this, using an Exterminatus on worlds over things like a few of its people coming into contact with alien technology, or a small hint of heresy that would probably not require killing everything.

Deal with it. Bitching any further will rile the Commissariat. You have been warned.

Ways of Exterminatus

The Imperium has several means for dealing with infestations:

Just Shoot the Shit Out of It

Saturating planets with oversized lazor cannons larger than apartment buildings is the stereotypical way of nuking the fuck out of something you don't like. Space marine battlebarge bombardment cannons, Nova cannons, Lance batteries and any type of HUEG lazor is often used. An example of this being used is when the Dark Angels destroyed their homeworld, Caliban, after it was lost to heretics within their chapter AFTER SOMEONE THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HUNT FOR DINNER FOR OUR NON-HERETICAL AND OBVIOUSLY LOYAL BROTHERS USING THE ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT CANNONS, the Night Lords' purge of Nostramo, and during the purging of Typhon.

Virus Bombs

Virus Bombs are biological warheads loaded with the Life Eater virus, a biological payload that causes living tissue (plant or animal) to rot and decompose The general gist is that they spread a virus that spreads by contact that causes necrosis of tissues and rapid decay of plant and animal tissues. This immediate rot causes a buildup of flammable gases, which in turn, can be ignited by one of the lazors above, sweeping the area in firestorms. A relentless bombing of these fucking things is what reduced Tallarn from a verdant forest world to the desert hellhole it is now. They were also used by Warmaster Horus to kill off loyalists in the Traitor Legions during the Istvaan Campaign of the Horus Heresy. According to Amberley Vail, Virus Bombs are only rarely used now because every time they're used, they feed the fucking Plaguefather.

Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo

Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedoes are Plasma torpedoes that bursts in low planetary orbit and super-heats the atmosphere of a planet until all combustible material ignites. This method of Exterminatus was used on Medusa IV. Pretty much like the Virus Bomb but it skips right to the firestorm and directly turns the planet's surface into hellfire.

Cyclonic Torpedoes

The primary method of Exterminatus in the 41st millennium, these are basically nukes OD'd on steroids. These capital ship-fired warheads each generate a series of massive self-sustaining reactions, which, when fired in bulk, fuels a much larger reaction that causes the devastation to spread and multiply, eventually glassing the entire world with a thermonuclear holocaust given a sufficient barrage. If you fire enough in the same spot it will break through the crust of a planet causing part of the mantle to erupt out, royally butt fucking the planet in the process (See Fire Warrior End Cinematic). Krieg is an example of a radioactive perpetual-winter World that survived multiple cyclonic torpedo strikes, though in this case it was on a much smaller scale. This was the method that probably killed Typhon in combination with the above shoot the shit out of it method. (Another theory holds that the bombardment is used to remove anything that might prevent the torpedo from reaching the surface). Only the Inquisition and the Space Marines are authorized to carry cyclonic torpedoes, the former because the Inquisition has the authority to do anything, the latter because the Imperium believes that if the Space Marines can't beat it, nothing else will.

Two-Stage Cyclonic Torpedoes

In the two-stage torpedo, they use a melta charge to burrow into the planet's crust and down to the core. A second thermonuclear charge then goes off causing the planet to break apart Death Star style. Really the only way to deal with Necron Tomb Worlds since due to their undergroundness they aren't overly bothered by the other methods which devastate the surface but leave the planet as a whole mostly intact.

Smashing It with a Fucking Moon

This method requires radically changing the orbit of the moon in question to a collision course with the planet, and therefore requires the use of several Mechanicus voidships. This method was used to destroy Phaenon Prime when the Virus Bomb failed to wipe out the planet's corruptive influence.

Non-Imperium Exterminatus

The World Engine A necron planet sized vessel equipped with the largest gauss weapon known to man. Looks like the combination of the Death-Star, Unicron and a Forerunner Shield-World all roled into one. A flying rape-machine of ungodly proportions, and needed an entire fleet of several space-marine chapters and a whole Imperial Navy to destroy it. For some reason, it has shields that could withstand the bombardment of an entire navy, yet it is vulnerable to a ship impacting at sufficient velocity.

Transcendent C'tan Shards

Maybe under certain circumstances, if the Necrons wanted to destroy a world, they could just unleash a particular powerful Transcendent C'tan shard on it without a Tessaract Vault. Though it would most likely escape and be nearly impossible to return to Necron control, it would achieve the same effects.

Blackstone Fortress

Ancient weapons of the Eldar designed to fight the C'tan. To put it simply, think of a large spaceship with a Distort weapon (like the ones the Wraithguard have) the size of a continent.

Abaddon's Blackstone Fortresses

Several factions outside the Imperium have access to this (adding any examples from the lore would be greatly appreciated). However, most of them don't use those methods often. For each faction, the reasons are;

• The Craftworld Eldar have some respect for life (and not as many WMDs left as they had before) so they don't do it often.
• The Dark Eldar don't have many (if any at all), and they see more benefit in keeping the inhabitants alive to ensure a regular supply of victims.
• The Necrons have lost some, but may have several more just waiting to be awakened (Maybe the Necrons are more trigger-happy with Exterminatus than the Imperium, but they're better at ensuring there's no witnesses).
• In theory the Orks could develop one (as much by accident and luck as by design), though many Orks would be lost in the process. This haphazard design and construction process would limit the amount Orks have (if any). That, and why kill all life on a planet when you can simply invade it and enjoy a proper fight?

Exterminatus-style Destruction in other Fiction

Samus

Deployment of a single female space marine on a xenos or chaos infested world. Though surprisingly effective, the High Lords of Terra and even the Inquisition have yet to formally sanction Samus's use as a method of Exterminatus. Mainly as she steadfastly claims that while she does leave the enemies of man as smouldering corpses, the planets, star ships, and space hulks blowing up afterwards usually isn't intentional.

General order 24

Despite being a bunch of NobleBright space hippies The United Federation of Planets do have their own Exterminatus and call it something really boring because they don't like the "kill everything on a planet" part. It's in the "sterilize its surface" type and each of the USS Enterprise and their respective ship class can solo the job. And since all of their starships are basically just cruise lines who go have wacky NobleBright High Adventures with their families, in space it really speaks volumes about Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly and carry a big stick". Or they would if the writers didn't fuck with the firepower with the setting constantly, so the theory is that their guns for whatever reason loses a lot of punch when not used on planets and not at specific settings (Then Again 40k ships can shurp off Exterminatus-grade weapons just as well, and all it takes to kill everything on a planet is dropping an four mile rock going 12 mps on it something a photon torpedo, which travels at warp 1, can replica).

Trih Xeem

One of the things that the Pfhor found in the Jjaro tech cache is a weapon that roughly translates as "Early Nova". As the name suggests, it makes suns go supernova, consuming the nearest planets and burning those just outside of its reach. The Pfhor usually only use it on very serious slave revolts, and don't use often on pure military matters.

Star Wars shenanigans

It is of no surprise that WH40K's equal, Star Wars have their own Exterminatus. However Star Wars is a little more elaborate on how they would screw someones day, infact Star Wars have way too much Superweapons in their disposal. It can go from the traditional Base Delta Zero, to the most iconic Death Star. One of the weirder/cooler ones includes the Sun Crusher which is essentially the lovechild of an Old One's Blackstone Fortress and a UNSC NOVA bomb. This shit right there can destroy Stars from another end of the Galaxy, and fire it once every minute or so...rape ensures. And to let you guys know, those are only a fraction of the amount of rape Star Wars can bring.

Protoss "Glassing"

Think of them as the more powerful version of the Covenant Glassing, while the Covenant only Glass the crust of the planet, the Protoss Glass right down to the mantel. Very overpowered in their universe, and the main reason why the Protoss can beat the Tau \in a versus match...until the Tau use their big guns and aim it at their mothership, then god help the Protoss. They are still the only race in Starcraft powerful enough to survive and thrive in WH40K however, and in most cases are actually stronger then the Imperium of Man. Hilariously outside of high-tier WH40K units, apocalypse-units and psykers, Protoss units are actually more overpowered then their Eldar or Covenant counterparts, contrary to popular beliefs. Which isn't hard to see as unlike the Eldar the Protoss are still a full fledged empire and only started to "fall" after Brood Wars.

IRL Exterminatus

SAGE Bombing

The electronic equivalent of Exterminatus, a Sagebomb is achieved by repeatedly using the SAGE tag on a thread, ergo reducing its priority. When fired in bulk by multiple users simultaneously, such barrages of SAGE are capable of dragging almost any thread screaming down to the depths of a given imageboard, where they will eventually be purged. The ultimate fate for all threads containing Furry and similar Heresy.

...Or at least that's how many fa/tg/uys think it works.

SAGE is supposed to add a "negative" response to a given thread, ergo reducing its apparent post-count. Because such a system would be easy to troll others, however, SAGE instead is used simply to reply without bumping a given thread. In olden times, SAGE did work that way supposedly, however, and was a tool of righteous wrath. Sagebombing still has an effect to the extent that once a thread passes the "autosage" limit it can no longer be bumped even by normal posts, and so even if it is still active it will still sink to the bottom of the board and into the depths of deletion; hence a large number of zero-content SAGEs will hasten the demise of the thread without bumping it in the process, although they do not actively cause the thread's departure.

An asteroid

Really, at it takes to kill everything on a planet is a big enough rock travelling fast enough. Normally its the cloud of dusk that is kicked up into the atmosphere and blocks out the sun does most of the work. Of course this doesn't really work too well on a forge or hiveworld which is already like that.

William Tecumseh Sherman

The only tree Khorne will ever decorate with bloody corpses on Christmas.

William, an Union commander and a tactical genius, is known for nuking a lot of pretty places like Atlanta and pwning every Confederates and Native American he faced. He invented the total war strategy, which it is basically the earliest form of exterminatus, rape, pillage, plunder Sherman didn't do any of these things and went out of his way in preventing civilian deaths and harshly punished any of his solders he found doing them meaning he's old-school Khrone, then burns every fucking thing down to ashes. Because of his hatred for everything, he becomes the spiritual forefather of anonymous, for the fact he has shown those basement dweller the true meaning to be humans. He probably ascended to daemonhood of Khorne after his death, like pretty much all extremely badass warlords.

Nine familial exterminations To put it simply, you and your family, grandmother, ancestor, cats and children are going to fucking hell!!! It is the most serious punishment created in the ancient imperial china in order to erase heresy stains at that time period.

The Fall of Typhon

Good to know there's a ceremony for blowing up a planet.

We have arrived, and it is now that we perform our charge.
In fealty to the God-Emperor (our undying Lord) and by the Grace of the Golden Throne, I declare Exterminatus upon the Imperial World of Typhon Primaris.
I hereby sign the death warrant of an entire world and consign a million souls to oblivion.
May Imperial Justice account in all balance.
The Emperor Protects.

The Words of Gabriel Angelos

It is human nature to seek culpability in a time of tragedy. It is a sign of strength to cry out against fate, rather than to bow one's head and succumb. Inevitably many will fault the hands upon the sword which felled Typhon, the Ordo Malleus. But the Inquisition merely performs the duty of its office. To further fear them is redundant; to hate them, heretical. Those more sensible will place responsibility with those who forced the hands of the Inquisition. With some fortune, they may foster this hatred into purpose, and further rule their own fate by coming to the Emperor's service.

Yet ultimately, it was I who set these events into motion, with a single blow from my hammer, God Splitter.

-End-

Fuck, that's deep. The use of a properly modified version of this quote from Dawn of War Retribution has proved highly effective in saging furfag troll threads and thus has been sanctioned by the holy /tg/ Inquisition for public use (keep it on /tg/).

Exterminatus on the Tabletop

Though not the most effective of lists, it is particularly hilarious and surprisingly fluffy to declare Exterminatus on large table games of 40k. The general gist is to simply stock up on as many large blast templates fired from off table as possible, whether via army list or stratagems. One relatively simple list is to simply take a Grey Knights army, field a single Bro-Capt. or Grand Master with an orbital Strike Relay, Karamazov (who also has one) and two troop choices (if you're playing a regular game -- if you're playing Apocalypse, you can skip the troops) Then cram in as many Techmarines as you can, give them all Orbital Strike Relays and watch the bombs drop. For the average 3000 point game, you can get Krazypants off and 20 bare-bones techies with the relays. that's 21 Strength 10 AP1 pie-plates smashing down on your opponents Baneblades, Warhounds and other special hard-as-balls to kill shit your opponents have! Also great for swarm-busting (the relays can fire D3 pieplates each per guy but at Strength 6). Picture Krazypantsoff standing on a hilltop, pointing at buildings and going "Bang.", then watching them all blow up. Of course, if the Inquisitor dies, you're fucked. So maybe just camp him in cover. But that's only if you're lame.

For those of you with enough money to field the Horus Heresy army list from Forge World, Horus can call down an orbital strike with infinite range and S10 AP1 from anywhere on the map. Now you can reenact the Istvaan III atrocities yourself!

For an Apocalypse game you can also field an exterminatus guard force. All you need is: n * 6 guardsmen (one with a vox). The list is fairly simple - Just field as many Company Command Squads with nothing but Master of Ordinance and fire away (for a 3k game its almost 38 s9 ap3 blasts a turn) Don't forget to field some epic(troll) music to laugh at your opponents face, and after the battle proceed with knocking the table down to finish with a speech gritty nuff to make Sturnn himself proud.

TL;DR

You fuckers just backed Chaos and now you have a daemon infestation? Your planet 'gon git raaaaaaaaaaaaaaped.

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  Suffer not the Furry to live

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  The E-quisition vigilantly purges the Emperor's internets of chaos taint.

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  If the inhabitants of a planet remotely resembles this creature, it's guaranteed to be exterminatused upon discovery. If pictures like this are found on a thread in /tg/, it's guaranteed to be saged and trolled upon discovery

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  If said inhabitants started space-faring like a certain Chakat, then you could call your local Inquisition or any Xeno manly enough to get shit done, just like the Covenant shown in the image.

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  See? The Internet can even make the end of the world look sexy!

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  Don't suggest bolides as a method of exterminatus.

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  Although this is not a planet, it's just too B-E-A-weeaboo-TIFUL.

Vidya:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNc242mbiUs&feature=channel_video_title
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYXj9xOUFIM