The Deadliest Weapons in Any Sci-Fi Universe, Ranked

We've catalogued the deadliest weapons in any universe, guaranteed to send your foe or foes off into that good night. The rankings were determined by how many people--or aliens--can potentially be offed at a time, plus the weapon's relative brutality. For the sake of simplicity, we decided to eliminate several categories, including super-soldiers, vehicles, armor, or anything with a purpose other than destruction... and then we added a generous pinch of our own personal preferences.

(Photo: Marvel Entertainment/Walt Disney Motion Pictures)

Lightsabers are totally badass, no question about it. But when you think about it, this iconic and most stylish of weapons is essentially... just a laser sword. Your ability to dispatch enemies is limited to how quick and skilled you are in close combat situations.

Sure, Force-sensitive types can fling a saber at a group of people, mow them all down, and then watch as the saber returns, boomerang-like, to the wielder's hand. But how many times has that happened? Star Wars lore doesn't make it easy to count. More likely, you'll only be able to kill one person at a time using one of these... though you'll look good doing it.

(Photo: Lucasfilm/Walt Disney Motion Pictures)

Sure, this palm-sized firearm is tiny and has a very silly name, but you'll be glad you have it when facing hostile extraterrestrials. Utilized by the Men in Black, the gun launches a green orb of tremendous energy strong enough to take off an alien's head, level a truck, or blast through five feet of concrete. It's an unsubtle weapon of brute force that can utterly decimate whoever you're targeting or, if you're not careful, seriously injure you with its massive kickback.

(Photo: Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures)

The shooter of choice among Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and the Borg may not be as elegant as the ubiquitous phasers, but they can seriously mess a body up. True to their name, they "disrupt" matter, which can lead to severe and rather untidy damage. In fact, Varon-T disruptors were so brutal--literally tearing a body apart from the inside out--that the Federation banned them.

(Photo: Paramount Pictures)

Don't be fooled by this standard-issue rifle for the U.S. Colonial Marines. Its lightweight construction is shockingly rugged and can operate in almost any condition, even a vacuum. Just squeeze the trigger to blast away Xenomorphs with a signature flash and rumble, or test out the handy underslung grenade launcher for bonus carnage.

(Photo: Twentieth Century Fox)

Also known as the "Mulcher" for its destructive properties, the ARC gun is an alien weapon that can only be operated by one of the Prawns themselves... or if you're a human (un)lucky enough to mutate into one.

Its stream of electricity superheats its target until it explodes in a most splat-tacular fashion. Stay clear of its blast radius, or at least wear a raincoat to deflect any airborne bloody bits.

(Photo: Sony Pictures Releasing)

The Gamemakers pulled out one of their most insidious horrors during the third Quarter Quell--a swift-moving poisonous fog that can make your skin erupt into gross pustules with just a touch... or atrophy muscles until you're left twitching in death.

The fog's potential to destroy anyone in its path gives it a far-reaching lethal power. And that seems to be what President Snow prefers. After all, limiting yourself to enemies within an arm's reach is just so... inefficient.

(Photo: Lionsgate)

Giant, fire-spitting, brain-sucking bugs, each the size of a five stacked Hummer limo? We'll answer that with a nuke.

The Tactical Oxygen Nuke is a grenade-sized nuclear warhead that goes hardcore on those bugs... and makes them go kablooey with no fallout. Gotta love tech-forward bug zappers.

(Photo: Columbia Pictures)

When the Constructicons combined to become Devastator and destroy a Pyramid of Giza, that was just wrong. We had no choice but to break out the big guns, literally. The ship-mounted railgun uses parallel conductors to electromagnetically launch a projectile 100 miles away, with enough power to take out a super robot, in disguise or not.

(Photo: Dreamworks Pictures/Paramount Pictures)

The Umbrella Corporation steps up the killing game by multiplying the number of victims. The t-Virus spreads rapidly and mutates whatever it infects. Plus, the mutation isn't anything cool, like X-Men-type powers. Instead, t-Virus somehow combines human and animal (or even plant!) DNA to create bio organic weapons, live killing machines that can decimate a populace at horrifying speed.

(Photo: Sony Pictures/Screen Gems)

The next generation of heavily armed Helicarriers are synced to a network of targeting satellites launched by the S.H.I.E.L.D. ship the Lemurian Star. They can strike targets anywhere in the world with such swiftness that they can eliminate potential threats before they happen.

The flaw in their design, however, is that their targeting systems are very easily hacked and reprogrammed with a new target--such as each other.

(Photo: Marvel Entertainment/Walt Disney Motion Pictures)

Thanks to so-called Peacekeepers who conducted a hybridization DNA experiment on the Leviathan (living ship) known as Moya, she gave birth to a son who--surprise!--was covered in guns. Labor pains are nothing compared to having your own baby shoot its way out of you because its weapons got stuck in your birth canal.

A ship armed with a sonic ascendancy cannon and other weapons inside and out can be deadly, but if you also take into account that the ship is sentient... and just a baby? Stay out of range during the Terrible Twos!

(Photo: Jim Henson Productions)

Resistance is futile if you encounter a Borg cube, a massive space structure that responds to the hive mind of the Borg, making its weaponry swiftly adaptable to any opponent. From tractor beams and missiles to torpedoes and multiple trans-warp coils, everything works in concert with the goal of assimilation.

Oh, and to make things even more unfair, the cube has a cockroach-like quality of resisting lots of damage. You may as well join the collective now.

(Photo: Paramount Pictures)

Forget the biblical plagues. Earth has never seen the likes of the disease caused by the weaponized Kalavirus.

Thanks to the mysterious organization known as the Army of the 12 Monkeys, the highly contagious airborne virus spread rapidly and then mutated into three more deadly new strains that killed off 98 percent of the world's population ... making the human race an endangered species.

(Photo: Syfy)

There is every reason to be intimidated by Dark Helmet's ship the Spaceball I. Not only is it incredibly long, but it also houses a mall, a circus and a zoo. So evil!

However: Its ability to transform into Mega Maid and suck all the air out of a planet is its deadliest asset of all. Can you imagine all the lint in there?

(Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

The Galactic Empire really had a great idea: Create a moon-sized battle station that can destroy a planet using a single shot of its superlaser. And unfortunately, Princess Leia's home planet of Alderaan was its one and only target. Approximately 2 billion people died from the laser beam.

Its defenses, however, were designed to ward off a large-scale attack, and therefore it left itself critically open to a single X-wing fighter that was eventually the station's undoing.

(Photo: LucasFilm/Walt Disney Motion Pictures)

This battle station was going to be even bigger than the original, with a superlaser that only took three minutes to recharge, not a whole day. Progress!

That potential for power lands it higher on our list than the first Death Star, even though it got destroyed by Rebel forces before construction on it could be completed. The Empire really should look up the word "hubris" someday.

(Photo: Twentieth Century Fox)

The Spheroboom is one of Professor Farnsworth's many doomsday devices, and his personal favorite. (The name alone warrants respect.)

Although it was squandered by torpedoing an alien ship, the Spheroboom's potential destructive force- causing objects to implode in a green blast of doom radiation--could level a planet. Plus: It's small enough to fit into a backpack!

(Photo: Twentieth Century Fox)

You may think that one nuclear bomb is enough destruction, but in the universe of Dr. Strangelove, that's merely the catalyst for a Soviet-created doomsday device of multiple connected cobalt bombs. Once triggered, this system can enhance radioactive fallout so much that it can wipe out everything on Earth for nearly 100 years.

(Photo: Columbia Pictures)

Also known as the Death Cloud, this weapon is a latticework superstructure that envelops a planet before launching thousands of thermonuclear missiles deep into the planet's core. The resulting cloud of contaminated gas and the seismic upheaval will eliminate all life, while also physically tearing the world apart. Overkill much?

(Photo: Warner Bros. Television)

The First Order really outdid itself this time with Starkiller Base, a mobile ice planet that basically sucks the energy out of a star as if it were a battery. Its superweapon not only has the ability to obliterate entire star systems, but also do so easily from afar--halfway across the galaxy, in fact.

(Photo: Lucasfilm/Walt Disney Pictures)

Why target a sole planet when you can annhilate a solar system? All you have to do is fire a nova bomb into a sun, which destabilizes its gravity and makes the sun go supernova. Then you get to destroy everything within that star's vicinity.

Also, for the very ambitious, firing multiple nova bombs into a black hole will somehow (science, presumably) transform it into a white hole, or mini Big Bang--a Baby Bang!

(Photo: Tribune Entertainment)

This hidden device can either break down all matter into its elements or reshuffle its components. Because of this ability to bypass matter, it can penetrate shields and zap entire crews of ships easily.

Although it can't reach far, it can travel through the nearby Dakara Stargate, which was hacked to dial every Stargate in the galaxy, making a simultaneous cosmic massacre possible.

(Photo: MGM/Sony)

Leave it to the Doctor to have the second-most-ultimate weapon in all of creation. Not only can the Moment lay waste to entire galaxies simultaneously, but it can also tear the fabric of creation into time fissures that will let people drift through time untethered.

But wait--there's more! The Moment isn't content to just be an inanimate object of destruction. It also wants to toy with your emotions, because it's sentient, it can read your memories, and of course, it wants to take the form of your ex.

But here's the worst part of all: The Moment is so complex it has a conscience. So after you've destroyed everything, the Moment will judge you for it. This is why the Doctor can't have nice things.

(Photo: BBC America)

After the Big Bang, six singularities were left over, and these became the much coveted Infinity Stones, which were separated and scattered throughout the universe. Each colored stone has its own unique properties, including opening wormholes, destroying civilizations and undoing the universe as we know it.

The Infinity gauntlet (in the MCU, there are two, a right- and left-handed one) was created to combine the powers of all the stones. Wielding the gauntlet makes anyone omniscient and unstoppable: in short, a god. And then, let the smiting beginneth.

(Photo: Marvel Entertainment/Walt Disney Motion Pictures)