Editing Exterminatus (section)

==Methods of Exterminatus==
The Imperium has several means for dealing with hopeless infestations:

===Just Shoot the Shit Out of It (Orbital Bombardment)===
Saturating planets with over-sized cannons larger than apartment buildings is the stereotypical way of nuking the fuck out of something you don't like. Nuclear warheads, Space Marine Battle Barge bombardment batteries, Nova cannons, and/or banks of Lances are often used. Examples of this include the [[Dark Angels]] destroying their homeworld, Caliban, <s>after it was lost to heretics within their legion</s> {{BLAM|AFTER SOMEONE THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HUNT FOR DINNER FOR OUR TOTALLY NON-HERETICAL AND OBVIOUSLY LOYAL BROTHERS USING THE ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT CANNONS}} and the [[Night Lords]]' purge of Nostramo.

If we take the purging of Typhon Primaris from Dawn of War II as canon, this method can also be used during the opening stages of the Exterminatus before you unleash one of the Inquisition's more thorough toys upon it.

===Virus Bombs===
Virus Bombs are warheads loaded with the Life Eater virus, a biological payload that causes all living tissue to super-quickly rot and decompose (which gives Nurgle a massive boner). The bombs are designed to release their payload mid-air, so that the aerosol form of the virus gets spread out through the atmosphere, potentially achieving [[meme|complete global saturation]] in minutes under the right conditions. This immediate rot causes a build-up of methane and other flammable gases, which in turn can be ignited by one of the lasers above (or any still smouldering Lho sticks, or any other source of flame), 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 [[Horus|Warmaster Horus]] to kill off loyalists in the Traitor Legions during the Istvaan Campaign of the [[Horus Heresy]] (the Life Eater virus eats through any filters and corrodes power armour till it gets to the gooey marine inside, though a Dreadnought can endure it easily if its shell isn't even slightly cracked). Though popular during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy, according to [[Amberley Vail]], virus bombings are rarely used in the 41st millennium, because the Inquisition has figured out that they feed the fucking [[Nurgle|Plaguefather]] every time they're used. [[Fail|Whoops]]. 

(That said, they were falling out of favour even before that: since as demonstrated on [[Armageddon]] one virus bomb usually isn't enough to kill the whole planet and you might need to hit the planet several times all around. Plus, since it's airborne, this can result in hilarious [[FAIL]] when the wind patterns disperse the virus in the wrong direction, as canonically happened with [[Herman von Strab]]'s use of them on Armageddon).

===Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo===
Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedoes are [[plasma]] torpedoes that burst in low planetary orbit and super-heat the atmosphere of a planet until all combustible material ignites. So it's essentially [[Rape|a napalm airburst bomb on steroids and an additional dose of plasma, designed to directly turn the planet's surface into an endless expanse of raging hellfire.]]

This method of Exterminatus was used on Medusa IV. It is said that the aftermath of the Exterminatus, Medusa IV's surface was melted to glass and that the entire world burned like a piece of amber in space even a month after the attack had been launched. However, they're only effective on planets with relatively stable atmospheres made of flammable gas, and plasma torpedoes are both somewhat rare and expensive.

===Modalis Atmospheric Missile===
Another weapon that has similar results from the Atmospheric Incinerator Torpedo but its function is completely different. Regarded as the most powerful incendiary device accessible in the Imperium. The Modalis Atmospheric Missile is one ECKS BAWKS HUEG [[Phosphor Weaponry|Phosphex weapon]] used to burn a planet into a crisp. Think White Phosphorous on steroids. A salvo of several Modalis Atmospheric Missiles from orbiting warships will blanket an entire world in deadly Phosphex. The resultant firestorm of living fire will eat away at every carbon-based element on the planet, rendering it uninhabitable. All that would be left would be dust and echoes.

===Cyclonic Torpedoes===
The primary method of Exterminatus used in the 41st millennium, these are basically skyscraper-sized nuclear missiles that've eaten their weight in steroids. These capital ship-fired warheads each generate a series of massive, self-sustaining nuclear 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 and royally buttfucking the entire planet in the process ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYXj9xOUFIM see the ''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 and in some sources are described as standard nukes. This was the method that 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 or to weaken planets crust.) Only the [[Inquisition]] and the [[Space Marines]] are authorized to carry cyclonic torpedoes in their warships, the former because the Inquisition has the authority to do anything, and the latter because the Imperium figures that if the Space Marines can't beat it, nothing else will.

Cyclonic Torpedoes are pretty variable in their strength, either due to there being different classes of torpedoes or the fact that the strength of a single torpedo has never been nailed down in official materials. In one case, ol' [[Abaddon|Abby]] dropped a dozen to fry a single hive; in another a single torpedo is a qualified planet cracker. Similarly, this method is the easiest to thwart with shields, as they disrupt the stacked efficiency needed for ongoing detonation. Presumably this variability in strength is due to "Cyclonic Torpedo" being as broad a description as "atomic bomb", which can refer to both a Davy Crockett and a Tsar Bomba.

===Two-Stage Cyclonic Torpedoes===
In the two-stage torpedo, a [[melta]] charge activates first to allow the weapon to burrow into the planet's crust and down to the core. The second stage thermonuclear charge then goes off, causing the planet to break apart Death Star style.

This is really the only way to deal with Necron Tomb Worlds since, due to their tendency to make everything subterranean, they aren't overly bothered by the other methods which devastate the surface (and anything alive) but leave the planet as a whole mostly intact. Talos of the Night Lords used this in a rather unconventional manner; faced with a [[Genesis Chapter]] strike cruiser hiding behind a moon, he [[Awesome|blew a continent-sized hole through the moon]] with one of these, and watched the loyalist ship get torn apart as a new asteroid field got shotgunned into space.

===Smashing It with a Fucking Moon===
This method involves radically altering the orbit of a nearby moon or large asteroid and placing it on 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. It was also used during the [[Horus Heresy]] by renegade Iron Hands commander Autek Mor to destroy the World Eaters recruitment world of Bodt and during the Badab War to finally smash through [[Huron Blackheart]]'s defensive Ring of Steel around Badab. Needless to say, this pretty much fucking annihilates the planet in question (or whatever else it's thrown at like Huron's defensive systems).

Despite its flair and effectiveness, [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Rocks_Are_Not_Free! the Administratum vehemently requests that Imperial commanders avoid this method whenever possible] because it's stupidly expensive -- it can take weeks or even months for the moon or asteroid in question to actually strike the planet, which costs rations and sublight fuel while the ships sit around doing fuck-all, while orbital bombardments only cost one day's worth of rations and fuel, plus ammunition. That said there is one advantage to doing this: you don't need to be near the planet to pull it off. If the planet in question has strong enough Orbital or Surface to Orbit Defences you can't get close, to do a traditional bombing, then a old fashion moon can be set up few thousand million kilometres away.

===Release the Krourk===
Krourk [[Ogryn]] are known as the most brutal, powerful, and primitive tribe of Ogryn in the Imperium (and that's saying something). They are so well-known for their frightening savagery in close combat that they're considered a solid match for Orks, and are also known for being so primitively stupid that the Imperial Guard can't even teach them to use traditional Ogryn weapons like ripper guns. Their reputation is so fearsome that it has gotten to the point where deploying thousands of these things is considered a crude method of Exterminatus amongst Imperial commanders since they can't be taught to discriminate between friend and foe.

===Send it to [[Warp|Hell]]===
Sending your problems somewhere else is a rather simple solution to most problems. Doing so with an entire planet is possible, though difficult. As a result, various factions have simply thought "Hey, if we send a planet into the Warp, it’s no longer in the Materium, and therefore it’s not our problem". 

There are many problems with this, but that has not stopped some particularly idiotic individuals from doing it anyway. The reason it is listed here (and not in the non-Imperium section) is because the Imperium believes that this is actually a valid method to dispose of Tyranids... and '''only''' Tyranids. (Anything else would be either [[ork|redundant]], or [[chaos|basically what they wanted in the first place]]). The Warp is [[Hive Fleet Kronos|mostly]] foreign to the Tyranids; as a result, it's one of the few things that they cannot truly combat on a wide scale, not to mention the fact that [[Chaos]] hates them.

However, the Shadow in the Warp makes it difficult to pull this off at the best of times, so it has not been tested yet (beside one or two desperation attacks, such as [[Hive Fleet Behemoth]] being wiped by ''Dominus Astra'' during the First Tyrannic War).