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Maybe my knowledge is short on this, but I have seen Light Sabers, laser guns, some fancy torpedoes against star ships, archaic weapons, but not a single weapon of mass destruction, even on dark side, except the Death Star.

Did anybody in Star Wars universe use weapons of mass destruction, be they nuclear, chemical, or any other kind, other than the Death Star?

Adding up some precision by phantom42's comment: I am looking for mentioning weapons which are able to destroy cities, continents, or wipe out the population by millions. I am sure if the dark side didn't have problems using the Death Star, then they would use these weapons if they existed in the Star Wars universe.

SQB
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CsBalazsHungary
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    Define "mass destructive", a simple bomb can be considered a weapon of mass destruction, and Amidala's ship was blown up by a bomb in Episode 2. – phantom42 Oct 16 '13 at 13:17
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    Would you count an army of droids, or maybe a single super-stardestroyer as weapons of mass destruction? – bitmask Oct 16 '13 at 13:25
  • Not army of droids, clearly not as effective as a well targeted bomb or chemicals. Droids can be defeated, it is bigger risk in values than a singe bomb, which in case if was neutralized, can be reproduced and relaunched easily. – CsBalazsHungary Oct 16 '13 at 13:28
  • I am not meaning here Thermal Detonators, they are just some more effective granades and they are used in face-to-face combats. – CsBalazsHungary Oct 16 '13 at 13:33

2 Answers2

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  1. First of all, there were tons of other superweapons. I may add more details later, but Wookieepedia has you fully covered: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Superweapons and https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Superweapon. Of particular interest may be:

  2. There were biological weapons. See Wookieepedia for full write-up (and here). Among most notable:

    • Krytos virus - A plague developed on Isard's orders to kill most non-humans on Coruscant (X-Wing series of books, especially showcased in "Krytos Trap")

    • Yuuzhan Vong's biological weapons

    • Alpha Red weapon developed to combat Wong

    • Vader's bioweapon that accidentally wiped out Prince Xizor's family on Falleen

    • Imperial Bioweapons Project I71A based on Sith Alchemy

  3. Nuclear weapons in SW were discussed on SciFi.SE here. There were some and there were good in-universe reasons why there weren't many.

  4. Also, a single SSD (or even regular Imperial Star Destroyer) could basically render the surface of the planet uninhabitable and kill most people.

    Quoting from my own answer here:

    • Capital ship turbolasers:

      There are 12 heavy turbolasers and roughly 120 light turbolasers on an ISD1 (ref. SWICS).
      The heavy turbolasers are roughly 125 times bigger than the light turbolasers (which were seen vaporizing asteroids in TESB).
      If firepower is proportional to size (an unsubstantiated but not unreasonable postulate) then the sustainable power outputs of the heavy and light guns work out to 47 million TW and 375,000 TW respectively.
      Refire rates seem to be roughly 1 shot per 2 seconds, so the energy level of each individual blast would have to be 94 million TJ (22 gigatons of TNT) for heavy turbolasers and 750,000 TJ ( 179 megatons) for light turbolasers.
      (src: https://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Beam/Beam2.html)

    • HAVw A6 Juggernauts could produce heat on the level of a nuclear bomb.

DavidW
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  • Thanks for the resources, it takes me closer to answer, but for example you mention super weapons, they aren't exactly I am looking for. Second one I would be satisfied, can you give reference when a Star Destroyer was used to wipe out population? Thanks in advance, and what you wrote worths one more points. – CsBalazsHungary Oct 16 '13 at 14:13
  • @CsBalazsHungary - several mentions were made in X-Wing series of books, some cities/colonies wiped out by SDs, as well as threats to Coruscant. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Oct 16 '13 at 14:57
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    @CsBalazsHungary, if you consider the Death Star I/II as a weapon of mass destruction, how are World Devastators not as well? They were both designed and built to destroy entire planets - except the WD was also able to harvest the remains. Similarly, the Sun Crusher was able to destroy entire solar systems. – phantom42 Oct 16 '13 at 15:12
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    This EU stuff doesn't really square with Motti's "this station is now the ultimate power in the universe" quote from Episode 4... –  Oct 16 '13 at 15:29
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    @JimmyShelter Motti can't be using hyperbole, or can't just be ill-informed? Vader chides him for comparing technical power versus the power of the Dark Side. – phantom42 Oct 16 '13 at 15:36
  • Motti wasn't privy to top secret designs. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Oct 16 '13 at 15:52
  • @JimmyShelter IIRC, the EU stuff was either far in the past (and probably no longer existed), or was created after the Death Star. – Izkata Oct 16 '13 at 23:16
  • this answer clearly becoming well detailed, thanks for extra info, approved! – CsBalazsHungary Oct 17 '13 at 13:16
  • Are any of these things (including Star Destroyers destroying cities) film canon? – Dronz Dec 19 '14 at 20:19
  • @Dronz Not so much cities but in Empire the rebels are worried enough about their Hoth base being pounded to dust from orbit to use the energy shield. – IG_42 Mar 16 '15 at 21:37
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If I remember correctly, there was a Force power that Palpatine used (in legends) called Force Storm, which acted similar to a WMD, as it created a wormhole destroying anything in its path. (Source: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Force_storm_(wormhole))

All of the other WMDs I can think of were already mentioned

DavidW
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  • Is the Force really a "weapon" though? – DCOPTimDowd Feb 23 '18 at 22:10
  • @DCOPTimDowd The way Palpatine uses it, yes. The Force Storm is a weapon utilised by Palpatine in Legends. The way it works is certainly a weapon: according to the Wikia, based on one of the comics, Force Storm can wipe out whole fleets (of course, Palpatine is killed by his own Storm in the end) – Matthew Barclay Feb 24 '18 at 01:32