Not necessarily killing off its inhabitants, or making it a barren wasteland, but actually destroying the planet, Alderaan-style, is not a project for the casual tinkerer, whatever you may have been told.
The Earth was built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you’ve had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.
This is not a guide for wusses whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined below will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems. If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible RIGHT NOW. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.
This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.
Ah… the Illudium Pu-36 Explosive Space Modulator. Glad to see it mentioned.
(Pu-36, PU-36, Pew-36, Q-36… wow, is this one ever an unclear product code. I personally prefer the Pu-36 because it sounds like what Marvin says in the cartoon and is representative of plutionum in the Periodic Table of Elements.)
I’m pretty certain it’s actually “Q-36,” but I could be wrong.
You could be wrong, and you are wrong! Or so say I.
I have a friend who insists that it’s “Q-36” because that’s what it said on some Marvin products, but we all know how accurate licensed products can be (anybody still have their 1977 “Darth Vadar Lives” button?). Listen to the cartoon carefully–it’s clearly pronounced “pew”! How you spell it is subjective, but there’s no doubt about the pronunciation if you listen!
Now, I also think that it’s “Eludium”, but that pronunciation could indicate either spelling, and I may have a bias in favor of using existing words in such names.
My gosh, I get fired up over the strangest things!