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Neutron bomb in popular culture
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Neutron bombs have appeared in popular culture in several capacities.
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Neutron bombs have appeared in popular culture in several capacities.
- Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, was nicknamed Neutron Jack for his management style, which wipes out his employees (out of the company) while leaving the company structure intact.
- During his 1977 lecture at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Hunter S. Thompson was asked his opinion of the neutron bomb. He responded that it is an ideal representation of capitalism at the time — a bomb that destroys tissue but not property.
- Natrone Means, a running back in the National Football League from 1993–2000, was nicknamed the "Natrone Bomb".
- Olivia Newton John, Famous 80s Pop Singer, once earned the nickname Olivia "Neutron" Bomb.
Art and literature
- In Frank Herbert's novel Dune Messiah (1969), set more than 22,000 years in the future, an atomic weapon with an adjustable radiation yield called a stone burner is used in an assassination attempt.
- In Kurt Vonnegut's book Deadeye Dick (1982), an American town, Midland City, Ohio, is depopulated because a neutron bomb detonates on the freeway. All structures are intact, the townspeople are buried under a parking lot and the area fenced off. Because of the lack of property damage, there is talk of using the fenced off town as a camp for Haitian refugees.
- In Richard Ryan's novel Funnelweb (1997), the Australian government negotiates for an American neutron bomb to be detonated in the city of Sydney to dispatch the infestation of enormous mutant spiders. However, the blast does not have any effect on spiders living beneath the ground, allowing these later, stronger generations of mutant spiders to take hold.
- In 1979, artist Chris Burden created a piece of installation art called The Reason for the Neutron Bomb, which consists of 50,000 nickels with matchstick tips glued to them, arranged in tight rows across the floor of the gallery. It can be said to represent the 50,000-strong Soviet tank force at the time.
- A popular book about the development of punk rock in 1970s California is entitled We Got the Neutron Bomb : The Untold Story of L.A. Punk. The title itself being the name of a song by the punk rock band, the Weirdos.
- The comic-book series The Incredible Hulk featured the "gamma bomb", an "anti"-neutron bomb which destroyed buildings and landscape, but often left living targets alive and intact. An experiment with a gamma bomb transformed Bruce Banner into his green-skinned alter-ego.
- In David Graham's paperback Down to a Sunless Sea, during the nuclear war, a neutron bomb was used to attack Lajes Field in the Azores, because the Soviet command wanted to use the refueling station during a follow-up conventional attack on America.
- In David Lynn Goleman's sci fi novel Event, the Event Group uses a neutron bomb to kill the alien Talkhans after weakening them with dust off of a local salt flat.
- In the novel 48 Hours by Thom Whittaker, many neutron bombs were assembled by Russia to continue with their plan of world domination, and launched from a Russian space station at targets all over the United States.
- Neal Stephenson's novel Anathem features "Everything Killers" which are analogous in functionality to a neutron bomb, only much smaller.
Film and television
- In the television show Ashes to Ashes, the RWF claims that the government is testing a neutron bomb.
- In the 2006 film District B13, the French government attempts to detonate a neutron bomb with a range of 4 miles inside District B13 to wipe out the gangs and criminals in the area. They seem to be certain that the bomb will cause no collateral damage and that the district will be reinhabitable within a few days. It is also referred to as a "clean bomb" due to the lack of long term radiation it is said to produce, of course they are detonating it in the middle of a city, but apparently the walls built around the district will stop any stray radiation from harming nearby Paris.
- The character "J. Frank Parnell" in the 1984 film Repo Man mentions the neutron bomb in the course of justifying voluntary lobotomies: "Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. You ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people - leaves buildings standing. Fits in a suitcase. It's so small, no one knows it's there until - BLAMMO. Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. So immoral, working on the thing can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again." The DVD release contains footage of Alex Cox interviewing, then watching Repo Man with nuclear physicist Samuel Cohen, inventor of the W70 warhead. Cohen mentions it being one of his favorite films.
- In The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror VIII", France uses a 6-megaton neutron bomb to wipe out Springfield, leaving the town intact but its residents turned to charred skeletons in their places. The French Launch button is marked Le Bombe Neutron. The bomb features an Intel Processor.
- In the 1987 film Robocop, a TV news report mentions a French-made, 3-megaton neutron bomb that the white ruling party in the "besieged city state" of Pretoria is prepared to use as a last line of defense.
- In the Doctor Who serial The Daleks (1963-64), neutron bombs were extensively utilized in the war between the Dals and the Thals many hundreds of years previous to the story.
- In the Blake's 7 episode "Countdown", a weapon whose effects are very similar to a neutron bomb is used by the Federation to enforce their will on a rebellious planet.
- In the Ultraman Tiga episode "Ultraman Tiga: Star of the Dinosaurs" (1996), the two Weaponizers each have half a neutron bomb inside them, able to kill all life on Earth when brought together.
- In an Alias second season episode, one of the Rambaldi artifacts is a reusable suitcase neutron bomb.
- Graham Chapman of Monty Python fame played a character known as "Mr. Neutron." As the voiceover implied, there was always a nuclear threat when Mr. Neutron was in town: "Mr. Neutron! The man whose incredible power has made him the most feared man of all time... waits for his moment to destroy this little world utterly!" Original Air Date: November 28, 1974 (Season 4, Episode 5).
- Neutron bombs are mentioned in various episodes of the science fiction television series Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. For example, a Nietzschian Princess plans to assassinate a capital city using a small pocket neutron bomb.
- In the science fiction series Deathlands, the characters often encounter the remains of cities that remained more or less intact, and their survival was attributed to the use of neutron bombs that killed the population and left the buildings.
- In the post-apocalyptic series Doomsday Warrior, the KGB primarily uses neutron bombs to destroy the American holdouts they discover.
- Working in a "nuke-proof" bunker 600 feet below the earth, Olga and Parker, in the TV series Seven Days, are spared the effects of an enhanced neutron bomb explosion which evaporates all animal life on the planet.
- In the 1987 Norwegian movie Etter Rubicon (After Rubicon), a neutron-grenade goes off when a US-military chopper crashes during a NATO-exercise, causing what is (at first) believed to be a mysterious illness. The main issue of the movie however, was the possible conflict between Norway as a "No Nukes-zone" and the USA as an ally.
- In Walter Klenhard's 2002 TV-movie Disappearance, the neutron bomb is offered as a clue as to what might have happened to the strange town of Weaver.
- In The Outer Limits 1996 season 2 episode "The Light Brigade", a Human cruiser, tasked with a mission to destroy the enemy homeworld in an interstellar war, is hit by the radiation from an alien neutron bomb, which kills the majority of the crew. The only survivors are a small number of men on the opposite side of the vessel from the blast, who nonetheless realize they have received a lethal, if not immediately fatal dose.
- In the television miniseries The Martian Chronicles, the Earth is devastated in a nuclear war that uses neutron bombs.
- The idea of a selectively-destructive bomb was parodied in the spy comedy The Nude Bomb, where a terrorist force utilized the 'bomb' of the film's title which destroyed only clothing, doing no other damage but leaving those in the effect zone completely naked.
- In a Captain America TV movie, Captain America forces a truck with a neutron bomb to stop by venting the truck's exhaust into the trailer, only to discover the bank robber in the trailer wearing a dead man's switch attached to it. Only the timely application of bottled oxygen saves the man and the city.
Music
- Pearl Jam's song "Wishlist" begins with the lines "I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off."
- R.E.M.'s song "The Wake-Up Bomb" features the lyrics "I had to write the great American novel, I had a neutron bomb / I had to teach the world to sing by the age of 21."
- The anarchist rock band the Zounds referred to the destructive power of the neutron bomb in their song "Target/Mr. Disney/War" during the Mr. Disney segment. "Oh Mr. Disney, where have you gone? Mickey's being threatened by a neutron bomb."
- A satirical Dead Kennedys song titled "Kill the Poor" discusses the possible use of the weapon for population control in inner city areas: "Efficiency and progress is ours once more/ Now that we have the Neutron bomb / It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done / Away with excess enemy / But no less value to property / No sense in war but perfect sense back home."
- On W.A.S.P.'s album "The Headless Children," there is a song called "The Neutron Bomber."
- The Circle Jerks song Making the Bombs alludes to neutrons bombs: "I like the kind that save the buildings / Why take it out on pillars of stone? / You gotta kill, you gotta maim / The real estate is not to blame."
- GWAR perform a song called "Bring Back the Bomb" on their album War Party.
- On Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger's live album "Precious friend", Guthrie talks to the audience about the neutron bomb and theorizes that if it exists then so must its opposite, "you can't have a light without a dark to stick it in." He then talks about an "un-neutron bomb" which destroys everything but living things (a term later coined vivatron bomb), "all the buildings melt, and all the guns disintegrate and there's nothing there but flowers growing and... there's naked people everywhere!"
- The short-lived Chicago punk rock band The Broadways are critical of neutron bombs in their song "I Hear Things Are Just As Bad Down In Lake Erie": "The neutron bomb is so fucking ingenious, / kill a million people instantly but preserve their machines. / Erase a culture and a race, but their fax machines are safe."
- Los Angeles punk band the Controllers have a song entitled (We Got the) Neutron Bomb which predates that of The Weirdos.
- Venezuelan folk singer Ali Primera in his song "Panfleto para Don Samuel" alludes to neutrons bombs: "Y además de sabotear aviones, ya produjo su bomba de neutrones que solo mata gente según dicen"
- Punk band The Weirdos have a song called "We Got the Neutron Bomb."
- Singer/actor Keith Carradine performed a song called "Neutron Bomb" on his 1978 album Lost and Found.
- In the 1981 release "You Are What You Is", Frank Zappa referred to the Neutron Bomb in the song "Dumb All Over" - "... Or rent a nice French bomb / to poof them out of existence / while leaving the real estate just where we need it / to use again / for temples in which to praise OUR GOD (Cause he can really take care of business)".
- The Diagram Brothers album "Some Marvels of Modern Science" on the New Hormones record label has a track entitled "Isn't It Interesting How Neutron Bombs Work".
Video Games
- In the PC strategy game series Master of Orion, a weapon called the Neutron Bomb is a high-yield space-to-ground bombing device used to destroy planetary defenses and population. It can also be used in ship-to-ship combat by bombers and heavy fighters. It has no special anti-personnel properties. The effects of real-world neutron bombs are best represented in-game by the Neutron Blaster, Death Ray, Death Spore, and Bio-Terminator weapons.
- In the collectible card game Shadowfist there is a card called Neutron Bomb which kills all characters in play.
- In the Playstation game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night there is a use item called the Neutron Bomb that does large amounts of damage to all enemies on the screen
- In the PC strategy game Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour the Chinese forces have access to neutron bombs and neutron mines. They are used to kill enemy infantry and disable enemy vehicles by killing their crews.
- In the PSP Game Metal Gear Acid 2, Metal Gear "Chaioth Ha Qadesh" has the ability to launch Neutron Bombs as its main weapon.
- In the PC game Soldier of Fortune, members of the terrorist group "The Order" are trying to create a neutron bomb, in order to wipe out the UN headquarters in New York.
- In the MMORPGs City of Heroes and City of Villains, the power 'Neutron Bomb' is available to characters with the Radiation Blast powerset.
- In an expansion to the board game Supremacy, Neutron Bombs are available for superpowers to use.
- In the PC strategy game Total Annihilation, the Core forces have access to a Neutron Missile launcher which destroys all Arm forces units in the missile's area of effect, leaving buildings unharmed.
- In the text-based MMORPG game Combat Grounds, the player can construct the neutron bomb.
- In the N64 game Perfect Dark, the player can unlock a handheld grenade like device named 'N-Bomb', described as a Neutron Weapon which disarms and eventually knocks out anyone caught in its blast radius.
- In the MMORPG Neocron, the Dome of York created a prototype Neutron Bomb to be used against the city of Neocron. It was later sabotaged causing it to detonate on its launch pad, wiping out all life in the Dome and nearly destroying the city.
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