Buster Machine III
Encyclopedia
Buster Machine III
Buster Machine III (バスターマシン三号）, also known as the Black Hole Bomb（ブラックホール爆弾）, is a superweapon
of megastructure
scale that appears in the science fiction
anime
OVA Aim for the Top! Gunbuster
.
that is jet-black in color. Measuring 896 kilometers along its longest axis and 415 kilometers in diameter, BMIII easily dwarfs the 70 kilometer-long Eltreum-class warship.
BMIII is so numbered as it is the third in a series of Buster Machines, powerful anti-space monster weapons in the Gunbuster universe. Buster Machines 1 and 2 were large spacecraft
that combined to form the title mecha
of the OVA, Gunbuster.
BMIII is, as its nickname suggests, a single-use artificial black hole
generator. Most of its mass is actually taken up by the planet
Jupiter
, which was collapsed to 1/30000 of its original size using gravity manipulation and inserted as the weapon's core.
BMIII is capable of long-range warp travel (from the Solar System to the center of the Milky Way
). Although it is unarmed, BMIII is protected by a tremendously strong energy barrier that was able to weather a continuous space monster kamikaze
attack for several minutes before collapsing. (Many space monsters in Gunbuster are thousands of meters in length and can travel close to the speed of light, so surviving such a barrage can indeed be considered an outstanding feat.)
BM III is manned during transit by a crew of one pilot. However, as it prepares to detonate, the Black Hole Bomb is completely remote-controlled from the bridge of the battleship Eltreum.
on a swarm of space monsters, authorities decided to scrap the evacuation plan and began drawing up Operation Carneades instead. (Named after the philosopher Carneades
, who is said to have postulated that if two shipwrecked men will endanger both their lives by clinging onto the same plank of wood, one of them cannot be blamed if he murdered the other in order to ensure his own survival). The ultimate goal of Operation Carneades was the extermination of the space monsters, for the sake of humanity's survival.
Operation Carneades involved the creation of BMIII and the conversion of the Eltreum into a heavily armed dreadnought that would serve as the flagship of the Galactic Core Attack Fleet. (Eltreum was originally intended to be a colony ship to be used for the evacuation of Earth)
The plan was to launch a massive fleet of warships into the center of the galaxy to lure the space monsters (which were biologically capable of warp travel) away from Earth. BMIII, slowly completing its detonation process, would then warp into the galactic center where the fleet would protect it until it detonated. The fleet would only warp out of the area once the core reached its explosive compression stage. If everything went as planned, the simultaneous detonation of BMIII and 3000 internally-mounted slave units would create a giant black hole that would consume all of the space monsters and their nesting areas within a radius of 10,000 light-years--including a large portion of the galactic core.
, even including "science lessons" at the end of each episode to explain the various scientific phenomena featured in the OVA. Thus, an explanation for the BMIII detonation process would not be so far-fetched.
While the actual science was never explained in the anime, it can be inferred that BMIII was meant to transform Jupiter into a black hole by compressing it until its Schwarzschild radius
was larger than its actual radius. (Operators on the bridge of the Eltreum were observing how far Jupiter was from collapsing to its Schwarzschild radius) An object that is smaller than its Schwarzschild radius is considered a black hole.
An object with Jupiter's mass (1.899 x1027kg) has a Schwarzschild radius of 2.82 meters. In order to transform Jupiter into a black hole, it needed to be compressed into a sphere that measured less than 5.64 meters from its original equatorial diameter of 142984km. While the actual process is not described, it can be said that the process requires all of the slave generators to fire. A failure of as few as 2% of the slave generators would result in a complete dud.
However, the heroine of the series, Noriko Takaya, volunteered to use her own spacecraft's collapser reactor to jumpstart the failed reaction and achieve explosive compression. Although Admiral Tashiro Tatsumi refused at first, he eventually allowed Takaya and her partner, Kazumi Amano, to enter BMIII. Noriko tore out Gunbuster's first collapser reactor and shoved it into the slave generator as it exploded. The explosion resumed the collapsing chain and detonated the Black Hole Bomb. The result was a titanic black hole that consumed the entire galactic center. Towards the end of the anime, images of the Milky Way with a massive hole punched through its center were shown.
Buster Machine III (バスターマシン三号）, also known as the Black Hole Bomb（ブラックホール爆弾）, is a superweapon
Superweapon
A superweapon is an extremely powerful weapon by the standards of its time and its scale. Examples include the Tsar Bomba , various superguns and other various weapons employed to give a decisive advantage over opposing countries or forces. The given advantage is usually based on intimidation and...
of megastructure
Megastructure
A megastructure is a very large manmade object, though the limits of precisely how large this is vary considerably. Some apply the term to any especially large or tall building....
scale that appears in the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
OVA Aim for the Top! Gunbuster
Gunbuster
Gunbuster, known in Japan as is a six episode anime OVA series created by Gainax in 1988. It was the directorial debut of Hideaki Anno, best known as the director of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The title is a combination of the titles of classic tennis anime Aim for the Ace!, whose plot inspired...
.
Description
Meant to be Earth's trump card against the space monsters, Buster Machine III (BMIII) is a giant prolate spheroidProlate spheroid
A prolate spheroid is a spheroid in which the polar axis is greater than the equatorial diameter. Prolate spheroids stand in contrast to oblate spheroids...
that is jet-black in color. Measuring 896 kilometers along its longest axis and 415 kilometers in diameter, BMIII easily dwarfs the 70 kilometer-long Eltreum-class warship.
BMIII is so numbered as it is the third in a series of Buster Machines, powerful anti-space monster weapons in the Gunbuster universe. Buster Machines 1 and 2 were large spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
that combined to form the title mecha
Mecha
A mech , is a science fiction term for a large walking bipedal tank or robot, including ones on treads and animal shapes.-Characteristics:...
of the OVA, Gunbuster.
BMIII is, as its nickname suggests, a single-use artificial black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
generator. Most of its mass is actually taken up by the planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
, which was collapsed to 1/30000 of its original size using gravity manipulation and inserted as the weapon's core.
BMIII is capable of long-range warp travel (from the Solar System to the center of the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
). Although it is unarmed, BMIII is protected by a tremendously strong energy barrier that was able to weather a continuous space monster kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
attack for several minutes before collapsing. (Many space monsters in Gunbuster are thousands of meters in length and can travel close to the speed of light, so surviving such a barrage can indeed be considered an outstanding feat.)
BM III is manned during transit by a crew of one pilot. However, as it prepares to detonate, the Black Hole Bomb is completely remote-controlled from the bridge of the battleship Eltreum.
Operation Carneades
The inhabitants of earth were originally planning to abandon Earth and the Solar System altogether as the space monsters pushed the battles closer and closer. However, after seeing the effectiveness of generating an artificial black holeBlack hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
on a swarm of space monsters, authorities decided to scrap the evacuation plan and began drawing up Operation Carneades instead. (Named after the philosopher Carneades
Carneades
Carneades was an Academic skeptic born in Cyrene. By the year 159 BC, he had started to refute all previous dogmatic doctrines, especially Stoicism, and even the Epicureans whom previous skeptics had spared. As head of the Academy, he was one of three philosophers sent to Rome in 155 BC where his...
, who is said to have postulated that if two shipwrecked men will endanger both their lives by clinging onto the same plank of wood, one of them cannot be blamed if he murdered the other in order to ensure his own survival). The ultimate goal of Operation Carneades was the extermination of the space monsters, for the sake of humanity's survival.
Operation Carneades involved the creation of BMIII and the conversion of the Eltreum into a heavily armed dreadnought that would serve as the flagship of the Galactic Core Attack Fleet. (Eltreum was originally intended to be a colony ship to be used for the evacuation of Earth)
The plan was to launch a massive fleet of warships into the center of the galaxy to lure the space monsters (which were biologically capable of warp travel) away from Earth. BMIII, slowly completing its detonation process, would then warp into the galactic center where the fleet would protect it until it detonated. The fleet would only warp out of the area once the core reached its explosive compression stage. If everything went as planned, the simultaneous detonation of BMIII and 3000 internally-mounted slave units would create a giant black hole that would consume all of the space monsters and their nesting areas within a radius of 10,000 light-years--including a large portion of the galactic core.
Detonation Process
Disclaimer: Since BMIII appears in a fictional anime work, the actual science involved in the following explanation is not to be taken seriously. However, the creators of Gunbuster did their best to maintain a sense of scientific verisimilitudeVerisimilitude
Verisimilitude is the quality of realism in something .-Competing ideas:The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory...
, even including "science lessons" at the end of each episode to explain the various scientific phenomena featured in the OVA. Thus, an explanation for the BMIII detonation process would not be so far-fetched.
While the actual science was never explained in the anime, it can be inferred that BMIII was meant to transform Jupiter into a black hole by compressing it until its Schwarzschild radius
Schwarzschild radius
The Schwarzschild radius is the distance from the center of an object such that, if all the mass of the object were compressed within that sphere, the escape speed from the surface would equal the speed of light...
was larger than its actual radius. (Operators on the bridge of the Eltreum were observing how far Jupiter was from collapsing to its Schwarzschild radius) An object that is smaller than its Schwarzschild radius is considered a black hole.
An object with Jupiter's mass (1.899 x1027kg) has a Schwarzschild radius of 2.82 meters. In order to transform Jupiter into a black hole, it needed to be compressed into a sphere that measured less than 5.64 meters from its original equatorial diameter of 142984km. While the actual process is not described, it can be said that the process requires all of the slave generators to fire. A failure of as few as 2% of the slave generators would result in a complete dud.
Explosive Compression
Operation Carneades was successful for the most part---BMIII made it safely to the galactic center and miraculously survived a vicious battle that claimed a large portion of the Earth fleet. Even after its barrier failed, BMIII was still operational. However, only 98% of the slave generators fired,(subsequent scenes showed some slave generators severely damaged) causing the mightiest weapon in human history to fail.However, the heroine of the series, Noriko Takaya, volunteered to use her own spacecraft's collapser reactor to jumpstart the failed reaction and achieve explosive compression. Although Admiral Tashiro Tatsumi refused at first, he eventually allowed Takaya and her partner, Kazumi Amano, to enter BMIII. Noriko tore out Gunbuster's first collapser reactor and shoved it into the slave generator as it exploded. The explosion resumed the collapsing chain and detonated the Black Hole Bomb. The result was a titanic black hole that consumed the entire galactic center. Towards the end of the anime, images of the Milky Way with a massive hole punched through its center were shown.