Forrest Cameranesi Geek of all Trades

(3x17) Light of the Foundation: Part 3, Episode 2

Xio meanwhile has moved further into the solar system in defense of Earth. As the Berol reach Earth and overwhelm the conventional fleets defending it, Xio orders the surviving human defenders to fall back, and instead gives the Lunar forces the go-ahead to use their secret gravitic weapon to destroy large swathes of the Berol fleet at once. The superweapon works by using gravitomagnetic effects to artificially generate a microsingularity large enough to catch and draw in surrounding ships in a wide area of effect, but small enough to quickly evaporate via Hawking radiation in an enormous explosion, destroying the ships it had ensnared.

The Berol quickly adapt, and scatter their formation further, making targeting clusters of them with the superweapon more difficult and less efficient. These scattered forces then reconverge on the superweapon itself in the time it takes to repower between shots, and destroy it moments before it is able to fire again. This attack on the Lunar superweapon causes it to self-destruct in a catastrophic way, accidentally forming a microsingularity within itself, which then sinks quickly into the Lunar surface absorbing enormous quantities of mass as it falls, even while it continues evaporating away that energy it is absorbing, until it settles at last inside the hollow it has temporarily made at the center of the Moon, evaporating before the Lunar mass can settle into that space again, releasing the energy content of all the mass it had absorbed in an enormous explosion which shatters the entire Moon; exactly the kind of catastrophe in fear of which gravitic weaponry was banned in the first place, centuries ago.

Pieces of the shattered moon scatter into unstable orbits near the old Lunar orbit, many of them quickly decaying in subsequent collisions, and a devastating shower of Moon fragments begins to rain down upon the Earth below. On their way down, many of these strike the World Ring, destabilizing it and the four Starbridges attached to it, sending them all crashing down to Earth along with shattered pieces of the moon.

Next: Light of the Foundation: Part 3, Episode 3