Editing Doomsday device (section)

== In fiction ==
<!-- Please limit this section to one or two examples. Comprehensive litanies of every single mention in works of fiction are unencyclopedic and discouraged per [[WP:TRIVIA]]. -->

Doomsday devices started becoming more common in science fiction in the [[1940s]] and [[1950s]], due to the invention of nuclear weapons and the constant fear of total destruction.<ref name="Hamilton">{{Cite book|title=Weapons of Science Fiction|last=Hamilton|first=John|publisher=ABDO Digital|isbn=1617843636|location=New York|pages=14|chapter=Doomsday Devices|date=15 August 2006|oclc=1003840589}}</ref> A well-known example is in the film ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'' (1964), where a doomsday device, based on Szilard and Kahn's ideas, is triggered by an incompletely aborted American attack and all life on Earth is extinguished.<ref name="Hamilton" /> Another is in the Star Trek episode ''[[The Doomsday Machine (Star Trek: The Original Series)|The Doomsday Machine]]'' (1967), where the crew of the ''Enterprise'' fights a powerful planet-killing alien machine. In ''[[Beneath the Planet of the Apes]]'' (1970), a cobalt device destroys life on earth. However, doomsday devices also expanded to encompass many other types of fictional technology, one of the most famous of which is the [[Death Star]], a planet-destroying, moon-sized [[space station]].<ref name="Hamilton" />

Some works have also considered the erroneous activation of doomsday devices by external factors or [[chain reaction]]s. An example of both is ''[[Virus (1980 film)|Virus]]'' (1980), where an earthquake is misdetected as a nuclear explosion and triggers a sequence of ''Automated Reaction Systems (ARS)''. Various types of fictional doomsday devices have also been activated as part of an [[AI takeover]].<ref name="Pilkington">{{Cite book|title=Science Fiction and Futurism: Their Terms and Ideas|last1=Pilkington|first1=Ace G.|last2=Brin|first2=David|isbn=978-1476629551|location=Jefferson, North Carolina|pages=69|chapter=Doomsday Machine|oclc=973481576|date = 2017-03-05}}</ref> This includes the missile launch system in the movie ''[[WarGames]]'' (1983), control of which has been handed entirely to a computer, and [[Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet]]'s nigh-destruction of the human race in ''[[The Terminator]]'' (1984).<ref name="Pilkington" />