Buntarization is the term for the total extermination of all life on a planet. In the process of Buntarization, a large fleet of capital starships fires barrages of missiles fitted with nuclear warheads and boils off the planet´s atmosphere with prolonged and continuous laser fire from the bays of all ships combined. The novel Renegade´s Honor describes the process:
- After two (2) hours, cities are completely razed, all forests have been burned down, along with all settlements that escaped the nuclear missiles aimed at the centers of civilisation. It is statistically improbable that any human life still exists on the planet.
- After four (4) hours, the oceans boil. No life exists, except for the deepest parts of the ocean floor.
- After fourteeen (14) hours, which is given as the "protocol duration" of a Buntarization, the entire surface of the planet has been sterilised. Only shallow water still exists, the rest having boiled off into space.
- If the laser barrage were to be continued for one or two days, the last remnants of the oceans and the atmosphere would dissipate.
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The process can only be initiated when the planet has been rendered completely helpless; all the space defenses must have been destroyed, because the firing ships have to follow fixed low trajectories around the planet and are sitting ducks for defending vessels. In both instances mentioned in canon, Buntarization was inflicted on planets which had surrendered unconditionally, as a calculated and vindictive act rather than out of any military necessity.
Buntarization leaves a planet completely uninhabitable. It is considered a weapon of terror by TOG (which is the only polity in the Milky Way galaxy that would even consider such an atrocity), but it is used only very rarely - the only instances mentioned in canon are Caesar Buntari´s destruction of the KessRith planet Durmella in 6679, and the razing of Trothas commanded by Overlord Magnan Gracchi in the novel Renegade´s Honor.
Even the most ruthless Overlords and Caesars view Buntarization as an incredible waste of resources - an inhabitable planet is an extremely valuable asset that is not thrown away lightly. Buntarization has severe repercussions: while the act cements the TOG´s rule of fear, it also creates billions of martyrs for Renegade propaganda and is ultimately harmful to the Empire´s stability. Buntari´s treatment of Durmella is viewed today as the act of a dangerously unstable narcissist even within the ranks of the TOG government - who would very much prefer to use only the threat of Buntarization to keep planets in line, along with the less crude measures of propaganda, infiltration, subversion, and Diaspora.
Etymology[]
The term Buntarization was coined after the first instance of this horrid practice, when Caesar Ivanolo Buntari ordered the world Durmella to be completely sterilised by the laser fire of his fleet in 6679.