Exterminatus

"Kill them all, The Emperor will recognize His own."

– Inquisitor Arnaud Amalric

"FUKKIN' HERETICS!"

– If the Emperor had a Text-to-speech device, Heresy Scene

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

Exterminatus is the biggest middle finger the Imperium can give to xenos and Chaos infestations on their own planets. It basically involves UTTERLY DESTROYING THE PLANET SURFACE via heavy orbital bombardment if they decide that it would be impossible to retake the planet by drowning their enemies in corpses, like they usually do.

And, of course, there is no kill like overkill.

Before you go into some sort of sanctimonious tirade about the morality of blowing the fuck out of an entire planet, understand the 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 reality-warping omnicidal fungi that reproduce into millions of spores every time one dies and will all kill you because they think it's fun 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 saved. It's the last-ditch measure and it's there because the alternative sucks even worse. It is the Scorched Earth strategy on a planetary scale: if you can't have it, burn it, and that shit's broken the back of more empires and armies than we can count.

... Or, you know, because the Inquisitor who ordered it decided he wanted one for his birthday. Oversight on Exterminatus orders is fairly nonexistent and it's easy to see why. The problem is the same one real life atomic weapons have, who do you want to have to be able to launch them? You want the most powerful, highly ranked people to have that authority, but if there so highly ranked and with so much power, who watches them? Who second guesses an Inquisitor's judgement about if a world is to be blown up or not? Nobody. The Imperium's only solution is to just declare the trigger happy sod Excommunicate Traitoris afterwards if they don't agree. The over the top villainy of Warhammer 40k means that some fuckholes within the Imperium do get trigger happy with this, ordering 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, or a loose pubic hair being in the Imperial's cereal this morning.

On the bright side, these instances are few and far between, and anyone caught destroying an uncorrupted planet, either for the lulz or stupidity, is seen as wasting the "Emprah's Resource, Time and Money", and is forced to explain their legitimate reasoning; though their excuse would most likely be something along the lines of "Chaos was there!" (or this could actually save Holy Terra here, but he was still called a heretic publicly sidelined from active duty for going overboard (yet being kept as 'consultant' by his colleagues because he just might be right).) and they would proceed to get a light slap on the wrist... unless they unfortunately meet a giant, angry black dude in green. What, you're surprised that an Empire of "Space Nazis 2.0" can have actual legitimate excuses, common sense, reasoning and sensibility? You're in for a whole new series of surprises...

(Joking aside, it's somewhat fluff dependent; in Seventh Retribution by Ben Counter, for instance, the Exterminatus is never even mentioned as a 'solution' despite the fact that the planet got infested with half a dozen demons with great powers. They use said power to mind control thousand of civilians to use them as cannon folder against the Imperial guard, or sacrifice hundreds of innocents to raise a well known flaying daemon to wreak havoc (although part of this was because the Officio Assassinorium had to be 100% sure that they had absolutely killed the antagonist with no margin for error). Also in both the Space Wolves Omnibus and in the Ultramarines Nightbringer books, we get Inquisitors saying they have been at it for well over a century without calling down the Exterminatus even once. Even in Retribution, Lord General Castor admits that the world was lost anyway.)

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

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 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 HUGE lazor is often used. Examples of this include the Dark Angels destroying 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 TOTALLY 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 warheads loaded with the Life Eater virus, a biological payload that causes living tissue (plant or animal) to rot and decompose (which probably gives Nurgle a massive boner). The gist is that they release a virus that spreads by contact and 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 (or any still smoldering 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 Warmaster Horus to kill off loyalists in the Traitor Legions during the Istvaan Campaign of the Horus Heresy (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). Though a popular method of Exterminatus during the Great Crusade, according to Amberley Vail, virus bombs are only rarely used in the "present time" because the Inquisition has figured out that every time they're used, they feed the fucking Plaguefather. Whoops.

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. This method of Exterminatus was used on Medusa IV. Pretty much like the Virus Bomb, except it skips right to the firestorm part and directly turns the planet's surface into an endless expanse of raging hellfire. It is said that the aftermath of the planet's surface (Medusa IV's case) 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. They are only effective on planets with relatively stable atmospheres made of flammable gas, however, and plasma torpedos 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 Phosphex weapons 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 green mist 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 nukes OD'd on 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, royally buttfucking the entire 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 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 cyclonic torpedo has never been nailed down in official materials. In one case, ol' 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.

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 but leave the planet as a whole mostly intact. Talos of the Night Lords used a smaller version of these when a Genesis Chapter strike cruiser tried to hide behind a moon. So he blew a continent-sized hole through the moon, 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, 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; orbital bombardments only cost about one day's worth of rations and fuel, plus the ammunition, which comes out to be less expensive.

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, given that they'll attempt to kill anything within visual range, friend or foe.

Non-Imperium Exterminatus

Several factions outside the Imperium do things similar to the Imperial Exterminatus (adding any examples from the lore would be greatly appreciated). However, most of them don't use these methods often. Some examples:

Craftworld Eldar

The Craftworld Eldar have some respect for life (and not nearly as many weapons of mass destruction as they had before the Fall) so they don't do it often. Didn't stop them from purging all life in the Octarius system to clean up Kryptman's mess, though. The most well-known Eldar engines of planetary destruction are called Blackstone Fortresses, which are ancient weapons they designed to fight the C'tan. To put it simply, think of a floating citadel with a distort weapon (like the ones the Wraithguard have) the size of an Emperor-class battleship. During the Gothic Wars, three Blackstone Fortresses combined their power to cause a star to go supernova, destroying an entire solar system.

In Apocalypse War Zone: Valedor, the Craftworld Eldar from Iyanden procured another type of ancient WMD, the Fireheart: a complex nodal resonator capable of causing a planet's molten core to enter violent death throes and send lakes of lava to the surface. The Dark Eldar originally had this, but they gave it away because they didn't have the psychic power to active the weapon. The Fireheart was used successfully on Valedor and prevented Hive Fleets Kraken and Behemoth from joining forces. If they had, the Tyranids would have had all of the genetic data of the Orks and the Eldar, enabling them to fashion unthinkable monstrosities.

Before the fall (and possibly still kicking around somewhere) they had devices that fired entire suns or black holes at their enemies.

Dark Eldar

The Dark Eldar lack a good stockpile of planet-killing weaponry and prefer to keep planets intact for slaves, although they are still capable of exterminating the populace of entire planets if they wanted to. One method is pillaging the shit out of it. Its been proven time and time again that an entire Kabal is more than capable of kidnapping an entire planet of it's populace, faster than that local PDF trooper can finish his scream of agony. There has also been one instance of an entire Hive World being poisoned by the Dark Eldar, smashing a Space Hulk at a realm and havings its warp drives detonate to release hordes of daemons, and there's also counting the DE's ability to steal entire suns; allowing them to turn entire habitable planets into ice worlds if need be. They also possess a psychic doomsday device called The Fireheart to implode a planet's core -- originally invented and mass-produced by the Eldar Empire, what few Firehearts they have left are triggered by psychic resonance (and thus useless to Dark Eldar unless they can trick some Craftworlders into using it). The Kabal of the Dying Sun has devices that extinguish stars, while Vect keeps black holes in his back pocket to troll people.

Let's not forget just taking their sun as a trophy and letting the entire star system die...

The Dark Eldar can also just have other races kill planets for them. Through manipulation from the sides; they could convince (and managed to do so at one point) the Imperium to declare Exterminatus on a planet.

Necrons

The Necrons have lost many WMDs, 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're no witnesses). One of their most notorious Exterminatus-tier machines was the World Engine, which was a planet-sized vessel equipped with the largest gauss weapon known to man. It looked like the combination of a Death Star, Unicron and a Forerunner Shield-World all rolled into one. A flying rape-machine of ungodly proportions, it took a coalition of several Space Marine chapters and the entire Imperial fleet of the Vidar Subsector to destroy it. For some reason, it had shields that could withstand the bombardment of an entire navy, yet it was vulnerable to a ship impacting at sufficient velocity. (Although it is possible that the shields weren't designed to deflect speeding projectiles the size of battle barges.)

The Maynarkh dynasty deploys a peculiar device that causes supercharged solar flares that incinerate the daylight-facing sides of ALL planets in a system. Granted, it only exterminates roughly half of each planet, but if they want to finish the job all they need is to wait half a day cycle and fire it again. While dull people may not realize it, incinerating half a planet's surface would also incinerate its atmosphere, stripping the whole planet bare of its life giving biosphere, or whatever gases it had trapped. Unfortunately for the survivors, Maynarkh Necrons are more interested in making a planetfall and skinning them alive.

Maybe under certain circumstances, if the Necrons wanted to destroy a world, they could just unleash a particularly powerful Transcendent C'tan shard on it without a Tesseract Vault. Though it would most likely escape and be nearly impossible to return to Necron control, it would achieve the same effects. Also, the Tombworld of Thanatos has a giant hologram map of the galaxy known as the Celestial Orrery, and if you were to destroy a star on it, the real life counterpart would go supernova. However, the Necrons don't really use it (since they're more about conquering planets than destroying them). Instead, they just treat it like a giant bonsai tree. (You would think a branch to clip would be Terra, Fenris, Macragge, Baal etc but nope)

The Necrons can also employ an Abattoir when directly terraforming a planet. They are large, monolith-like devices except that they physically carry what they're transporting, are the size of a small city, and are covered in tentacles that disintegrate organic material while harvesting its anguish.

Tyranids

No, Tyranids, you are the exterminatus.

A Tyranid fleet's primary objective is to devour entire planets and systems for biomass. After they're done, the world they invaded is left a lifeless rock, utterly devoid of life.

The Tyranids also travel through sublight via gravity manipulations, and these can rip apart asteroids and small moons entirely before the 'nids make planetfall.

Orks

In theory, the Orks could develop an Exterminatus-size weapon (as much by accident and luck as by design); they grab an asteroid, put engines and weapons and armor on it, fill it with Orks, and then ram it full speed into a planet. It wouldn't matter if it turned out to function as a giant transport or just a suicide missile; it generates tremendous amounts of lulz and serves its purpose of making a big boom, which is all the Orks are concerned with. This haphazard design and construction process would limit the amount of these contraptions the Orks could build (if any). In general, however, Orks want to avoid wiping out everything on the planet from orbit, as it would leave them with nothing to fight on the ground. Although a Big Mek in need of roks once smashed a moon into a planet and took his pick from the best bits.

Ork Roks. Big hollowed asteroids they slam into planets as one way reentry vessels. Used during the Third War for Armageddon.

Tau Empire

While the Tau almost certainly have the technological capability to destroy entire planets (I mean, if the fucking Orks can figure it out, then the Tau definitely can), there are a number of philosophical, political, and strategic reasons that they would avoid doing this in all but the most extreme circumstances. For one, the Tau Empire is in the process of expanding, and it isn't exactly conducive to your expansion efforts to blow up perfectly colonizable worlds; thus the Tau would likely see Imperial Exterminatus orders as an egregious waste of resources, which they wouldn't be completely wrong about. Also, the Tau are arguably the only race in the 40k universe who operate by something parodying a moral compass, so the idea of obliterating a planet and its inhabitants is likely appalling to their naive wittle sensibilities.

On the other hand, the Tau have officially declared some races (Orks, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, and Necrons) "lost causes" to be destroyed wherever encountered, so one could plausibly imagine a situation hopeless enough that they would sacrifice a planet to be rid of them. Still, they would probably try to at least leave the world itself salvageable and only exterminate the infesting species. There are stories of populations being sterilized or generally dispatched, which is about as mean as the Tau get; one such case was the Poctroon, who were the first sapient species they ever encountered. Their planet was ripe for colonization, and when the Tau arrived, the Poctroon all died of a 'mysterious' contagion, though the Tau obviously have admitted no diabolical fuckery.

As their expansion accelerated deeper into Imperial space, the Tau started to deploy more and more experimental technologies to both battlefields and production lines, some of which weren't properly tested. As a result, quite a few moons, planets and even stars have been accidentally destroyed by various mishaps. While such destruction sometimes happened to be advantageous to Tau forces (for example, by shattering Imperial defenses with massive tidal waves and earthquakes after the destruction of a planet's moon), they have shown no attempts to weaponize it.

The Tau also have orbital high-yield nuclear warhead options, but they generally use them to generate EMP pulses to blackout a wide area. They can also use these warheads to scatter toxic radiation over an area instead, though, burning through flesh and killing those below.

The Tau are also one of the few factions in 40k who still possess functioning terraforming technology (the Eldar lost theirs during the Fall, Tyranid "terraforming" is more just them going about eating everything, and Necron terraforming is an Exterminatus on its own), so they can restore exterminated planets to habitability again, provided they haven't been utterly destroyed Deathstar-style. So yes, in the Tau Empire, Exterminatus get purged by YOU!

One of the notable example would be Commander Or'es'Ka from dawn of war soulstorm, where he had this huge ass gun called "Ar'Ka Cannon" installed on the moon of Kaurava system. The cannon can fire anywhere in the Kaurava system (including the moon where the cannon is), obliterate his enemies before he moves in. The said BIGGIZT GUNZ is also the most Eco-friendly WMD ever built in the grimdark future, as it is capable of damaging only advance life form, while preventing from harming plants and building. Hilariously, he got the idea of WMD from watching the inquisition doing their sorry excuse for fun killing the enemies of the mankind FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

Forces of Chaos

Being former servants of the Imperium, fleets of Chaos Space Marines often still possess the good old Imperial Exterminatus weapons, like virus bombs for the old legions, cyclonic torpedoes for more recently turned traitors, or Just Shoot The Shit Out Of It for any warband with ships in their fleet big enough to carry the guns. Occasionally they will pillage Imperial Exteminatus weapons, or else invent some of their own with technology, sorcery, daemonic shit or some combination of the three. Some Chaos guys tend to be quite inventive in finding ways to kill planets.

During one of his Black Crusades, Abaddon managed to steal or destroy all of the Blackstone Fortresses that the Imperium had in their possession. Naturally, they work just as well for Chaos as they did for the Eldar (and far better than they ever did for the Imperium). He also commissioned an incredibly huge destroyer of a spaceship, the front half of which is basically a battery of miles-long energy cannons. This "Armageddon Gun" can split a planet in half with one shot.

Then there is World Eaters, who live up to their name when they are united. 50,000 of these motherfuckers slaughtered 70 Sectors in Angron's Dominion of Fire campaign. Then all the planets they conquered was retaken. It seems like they forgot to salt the earth. To be fair though, Imperium needed four Chapters, two Titan Legions and more than thirty Guard Regiments (However, WAAAGH Skargor took on fifty Guard regiments and SIX space murheen chapters. Perhaps World Eaters lack the power of dakka.). Back in Great Crusade, these butchers manually killed everything on the planets they went to conquer. Most of the time, it took them one day. This gave birth to another problem: There was no subjects on these planets to rule over. So the Emprah had to sent fleets to colonize planets left over by World Eaters, which was a pain in the arse for him.

Uniquely amongst 40k factions, the armies of Chaos can make planets Exterminatus-proof by turning them into Daemon Worlds, where the laws of physics are fucked up so hard by the power of the Warp that all weapons just cease to function on and around it, or even achieve the opposite effect by nourishing the daemon patron of the world and making him even stronger (don't even think about virus bombing a Nurgle Daemon World). Though admittedly, from literally any point of view besides that of Chaos, Exterminatus is a preferable option to Daemon World transformation, as it would just kill you, rather than damning you to the eternity of torment.

Of course, there's also the act of summoning Aetaos'Rau'Keres. Keres will turn any planet he's summoned on into a lifeless husk. He doesn't care what side you are on or even if you're the cult that summoned him; he will murder everyone unlucky enough to be on the planet he's currently on. Such is his methods that he's the closest thing the Chaos Daemons have to a true planetary exterminatus.

IRL Exterminatus

see Global Catastrophic Risk

Thermo-Nuclear Holocaust

Apparently, even when we aren't in the 41st millennium we still mastered the art of royally buttfucking a planet. In this case, it's ours, and a full-scale thermonuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union (who each have thousands and thousands of nukes) would be enough to kill off humanity multiple times over. This is how Mutually Assured Destruction works, threatening each other and our own planet with Exterminatus with zero chance of survival, just so we won't begin another World War. Because we're bastards like that. The Cobalt Bombs described by Dr. Strangelove above are actually possible, though currently theoretical. Nuclear weapons designed to be deployed as bombs or missiles aren't strong enough to destroy the world with only 50 warheads, but if you don't mind moving the weapon once it's built, the only limit on how big your nuke can get is how much material you're willing to use on it. In theory, the doomsday device of Dr. Strangelove could be achieved with a single massive bomb.

This is further worth mentioning because automated retaliation systems that could activate nuclear weapons in response to a detected threat actually existed. The Soviet Union had the "Dead Hand" system, based off of seismic, air pressure, and EM sensors. The system was normally kept inactive and was only supposed to be turned on during a crisis to guarantee that the Soviets would still be able to use their weapons even if their leadership was taken out by a first strike.

Some believe that elements of the Dead Hand system may have been lost or buried, and are active to this day. A ticking automated Exterminatus waiting for a signal from aging cold-war era sensors.

An old quote from the film WarGames summarizes the game of Global Thermonuclear War/Exterminatus: The only winning move is not to play..."

An Asteroid

Really, all it takes to kill everything on a planet is a big enough rock traveling fast enough. Normally it's the cloud of dust that is kicked up into the atmosphere and blocks out the sun that does most of the work. Dinosaurs learned this the hard way. Of course, this doesn't really work too well on a forge or hive world which is already like that. For raw destructive force, however, the damage is a function of the speed and size of the asteroid. The former has some practical limits (though a civilization looking to weaponize this sort of exterminatus could possibly bring the rock up to relativistic speeds), but the latter can be nearly unlimited. A collision with a near planet-sized object would be more devastating than most fictional exterminatus weapons, obliterating the target world entirely. There could be any number of so-called 'rogue' planets floating in the empty spaces between stars, ready to slide into the solar system and crash into Earth, assuming humanity fails its collective Save or Die roll for the week. They'd have to fail incredibly hard because the overwhelming chance is that the rogue body will end up into the Sun (or Jupiter as a distant second choice), but yeah. Shit happens, yo!

Super Volcano

Works on the same principal as the asteroid, that if you get enough shit into the atmosphere you've royally fucked all life bigger than a mouse. This may not be very likely though on Earth as one of the biggest volcanoes (see yellowstone park) wouldn't wipe out humanity, probably. Maybe.

Unless, of course, seismic activity from that eruption managed to trigger the OTHER NINETEEN super volcanoes.

SAGE-Bombing

The electronic equivalent of Exterminatus, a Sagebomb is achieved by repeatedly using the SAGE (Japanese for "lower") 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.

The Black Death

What can be said about the Black Death or more accurately the Bubonic plague. It's killed more people than every war in human history put together,in 541–542 it killed one in four of the population of Constantinople, the cemeteries filled up, they ran of open land in the city, then the mass graves out side the city filled up, they threw the dead into guard towers, onto ships to sail the Mediterranean just to get them out of the city. food rotted in the fields and there was famine. During the 14th century, the plague had a second tour of Europe killing 30-60% of the total population across Europe, all of Europe, Peasant, Priest, noble or criminal the Plague killed everyone. on top of that, the Plague is horrifying to die of: you grow boils, your skin rots off your body, Seizures, continuous vomiting of blood, and extreme pain caused by the decay of the skin. In one of the many examples of the repercussion of the plague on the modern world, which would require an entire book to cover in full, it would not be hard to say that without the Plague, Nurgle and the entire gothic aesthetic of the Imperium would not exist.

William Tecumseh Sherman

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

William, yeah that guy, a Union commander and a tactical genius, is known for nuking a lot of pretty places like Atlanta and pwning every Confederate and Native American force he faced. He invented the total war strategy, which it is basically the earliest form of exterminatus. His "March to the sea" consisted of one massive offensive, abandoning supply lines and trying to cause as much damage as possible. The goal was a total disruption not only of the confederate's military, but of their economy and infrastructure. Crops were burned and fields salted, wells were poisoned, and everything was done so that when it came time for Sherman's troops to fall back the enemy could not use anything of the land. Telegraph lines, Rail lines, bridges and more were destroyed in massive amounts, and goods that weren't stolen for their own use were burned to prevent their use by the confederate states, even if said good has no direct military value. Even to this day the rage is legendary in the south. He and his troops are accused by southerners of rape, pillage, and plunder. Sherman was actually against unchecked rampages like this,Blam. 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 warlordsBlam Sherman is one of the few humans to ever experience Reincarnation, as he obviously would become Inquisitor Kryptman in the Tyrannic Wars.

Nine Familial Exterminations

To put it simply: for your HERESY, you, your entire family, your grandmother, your ancestors, your cats and your children are to be put to death! It is the most serious punishment created in the ancient Imperial china in order to erase heresy stains at that time period. This is still being practices today in North Korea, however.

Fun Fact: One man actually managed to piss off the emperor enough that he got a ten familial exterminations.

Wiki page Deletion

This article is bad and may or may not require deleting. Comment on the article's talk page. Reason: This is how you set an article to be deleted:: Just add "{{deletion|reason}}" somewhere on the page.

An electronic equivalent of Exterminatus for every wiki. To delete a page, the user must mark the page for review by the mod and provide a valid reason for why the article deserves to be purged. On this wiki for example, any non-/tg/-related shit should be removed to make sure that the only content is about a /tg/ related meme, or relates to traditional games in anyway. Unlike every other exterminatus above, the information can be reclaimed if the wiki has its backup file. That been said, vandalism is pointless, as users don't need mod permission to undo someone's shit changes.

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.
--Gabriel Angelos of the Blood Ravens

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

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada

Admiral Spire, it is said that heresy is like a tree.
Its roots lie in darkness while its leaves wave in the sun.
You can prune away its branches, even cut the tree to the ground.
Yet it will grow again, ever stronger.
Such is the nature of heresy and why it is so difficult to destroy.
Some may question my right to destroy a world of ten billion souls.
But for those who truly understand, realize I have no right to let them live.
No sacrifice is too great. No treachery too small.
--Inquisitor Horst

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.

As of 7th edition, it's now possible to forego the FoC chart and take whatever models you want. This means you can take 15 Chapter Masters in a 2k list.

In 40k terms, you can get some SERIOUS Exterminatus going with the 'Crons and their Doomsday Arks. In one Primary Detachment, for example, you can take a fully viable 1500-point Necron army as so: Overlord with Warscythe, 5 Immortals, 10 Warriors and 3 Doomsday Arks. If the Doomsday Arks don't move, they can provide one 72" Strength 10 AP 1 Primary Weapon Large Blast each, allowing for some serious butthurt from your opponents (and this may make you That Guy if done well because this is a level of cheese on the table that France would be proud of). If you're trying to break into a bunker-sized fortification, use these three things on the doors. Then you can re-enact the dying moments of The Conquest of Uttu Prime sans the Megalith!

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
• The unofficial theme-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_tIw9Il934
• The heresy scene mentioned in the quotes at the top.