List of fictional super metals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In science fiction and fantasy media, super or wonder metals are fictional metals which possess unnatural physical properties beyond any that are currently known and are often used as plot enabling devices. The properties of such metals usually include the following:

• Superior strength
• Extreme hardness
• Fantastic thermal tolerance
• Great elasticity
• Very low or very high density

Examples of super-metals include:

• X, the metal which made space flight possible in The Skylark of Space by E.E. "Doc" Smith.
• Resistium, (the "hydrogen" of the 'ultra-elements' which had a nucleus of negatrons and had orbital protons) was first featured in The Incredible Planet by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• Durium, an alloy made from resistium and other ultra-elements from The Infinite Atom by John W. Campbell, Jr. (and was also used by E.E. "Doc" Smith in later works).
• Radium X, the extra-terrestrial element which Dr. Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff) made a death beam device in the film The Invisible Ray.
• In Marooned by John W. Campbell, Jr., the Jovian exploration ship Mercury was constructed from Parium and Synthium, elements which had great tensile strength.
• Byzanium, a fictional fissile element from Raise the Titanic! by Clive Cussler.
• Unobtanium, the material from which the ship Virgil was constructed in the film The Core. the word unobtanium is also colloquially used by engineers to describe non-existent materials with desirable mechanical properties ("That shaft would have to be made of unobtanium in order to carry such a high load").
• In the Marvel Comics universe, Wolverine's claws and metal skeleton are made of the super alloy adamantium.
• Neutronium (incredibly dense, degenerate ionised matter) is featured in many works of science fiction.
• Bendezium of the Metroid Prime series can only be destroyed by the Power bomb weapon.
• Mithril is a super metal from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth universe. It is precious and silvery, stronger than steel but much lighter in weight. It first appears in The Hobbit, where it is also called "silver-steel". Its properties were developed in The Lord of the Rings.
• Durasteel is a brown super alloy of exceptional strength in the Star Wars universe.
• In Star Trek, spacecraft hulls are made from the super metal alloys Duranium and Tritanium.
• in StarCraft, Neosteel is a super strong metal used to construct Terran Battlecruisers, proccessed from mineral crystals.
• In Warhammer 40,000, the Necrons utilize a material called Necrodermis (which translates into "Corpse Skin"), a metal that heals itself, for everything, including their own bodies.
• The Yautja (the alien hunter race from the Predator films) use a super-light metal that can be forged to a monomolecular edge.