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{{quote|''I will personally burn everything I’ve made to the fucking ground if I think I can catch them in the flames.''|''Gabe'', '''[[Penny Arcade]]'''}}
'''Salting the
So as a trope, characters will often have an analogous action, sometimes literally salting the earth, which performs as a symbolic act to indicate their embrace of scorched earth tactics and the increase of hostilities beyond it. The act can be a movement across the [[Moral Event Horizon|Moral]] or [[Despair Event Horizon
[[Truth in Television|The action was common in the ancient Middle East and extended to the Middle Ages]]. The thing to note, though, is that salt was costly then. Heck, even a bad winter can give us difficulty in getting salt supplies out to spread on the roads. So in these tales, look at salt as not just something bad for the crops but also as something with attributed mystical powers and that you probably aren't going to spread over an entire field, leaving just the corner of some garden being ploughed for the symbology of it. They knew their tropes, even then.
Enough salt ''will'' decrease the fertility of the land. This was discovered first in Mesopotamia, when salts left from irrigation reduced fertility enough that whole civilizations collapsed. Unlike the symbolic versions practiced by the Romans, this involved ''centuries'' of salt deposits building up.
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Film ==
* Cobalt bombs (see below) were popularized in the 1964 film ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]''. The element added to the bombs is referred to in the film as 'cobalt-thorium G'.
* The second ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'' movie had one.
* ''[[Idiocracy]]'': [[
* In ''[[The Ruins]]'', the people guarding the titular ruins do in fact salt the earth around the pyramid. Very, very heavily, and for excellent reasons. It's unfortunate that they [[Poor Communication Kills|can't explain them]].
* In the backstory of ''[[Tron
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* In the novel ''The Crash of '79'' by Paul Erdman, the Israelis use cobalt bombs on Saudi Arabia's oil fields to make them "off limits" to humanity for at least 30 years and end the Arab power over oil.
* The Pak in [[Larry Niven]]'s ''Protector'' are a human forerunner whose third stage of life is a superhuman keyed to protect its own as identified by scent, and so they're at war whenever one of them can see an advantage to their family. To protect the central Library that contains all the knowledge the families are willing to share, (and is tended by protectors who have lost their families) the land around it is seeded with radiocobalt to make the area undesirable.
* In the ''[[Wing Commander (
* [[The Bible]], Judges 9:45 - Abimelech conquered the city of Shechem and sowed it with salt. NIV translation: "All that day Abimelech pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it."
* Mentioned in passing in ''[[
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* [[Comedic Sociopathy|Sue Sylvester]] on ''[[Glee]]'': "I sold my house to a nice young couple and salted the earth in the backyard so that nothing could grow there for 100 years. Know why I did that? [[Disproportionate Retribution|Because they tried to get me to pay their closing costs...]]"
* The government's final disposition of The Initiative, in season 4 of [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]:
{{quote|
* ''[[Star Trek]]: [[Deep Space Nine]]'': When the Federation is unable to hold Deep Space Nine against the Dominion and Cardassian forces, they evacuate it. As soon as they're gone, Kira Nerys destroys the station's computer systems, effectively crippling it for months.
{{quote|
** The Cardassians trashed the station on their way out just before the beginning of the series. They also exploited Bajoran resources extensively enough that there was famine when they left due to ruined potential farmland (probably on purpose).
* The crew of Moya do something analagous in the season 1 finale of [[
{{quote|
* The theme song to [[Firefly]] uses it as a form of defiance. Their enemies can "burn the land and boil the sea," but they'll still have the sky.
== Tabletop Games ==
* In the history of the High Elves of ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'', there was a civil war that split the nation. The point of no return when [[Our Elves Are Better|two different races would form]] came when a king whose family had been killed by the enemy moved to scorched earth tactics and would salt the fields of their lands on the continent, driving them onto a completely different land.
* The ''[[Magic:
** Not to mention the much more literal [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74623 Sowing Salt].
* In the backstory of ''[[
== Video Games ==
* In the [[Fallout: New Vegas]] DLC ''Honest Hearts'', this is where the villain Salt-Upon-Wounds gets his name.
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* In the ''[[Three Panel Soul]]'' where one software developer drops a match and some salt shaker salt as he quits. It's done "in the spirit" of the idea.
** "That's not exactly burning and salting the ground as you leave.." "I'm really not that mad anymore"
* When [[The Simpsons (animation)|Homer Simpson]] needed flowers for a parade float he took all of the ones from the Flanders garden. Flanders didn't really have a problem with this, but questioned the point of salting the soil so nothing would grow again.
{{quote|
'''Homer''': Sorry, can't make a float without flowers!
'''Ned''': Well, I can understand that, but did you ''have'' to salt the ground so nothing will ever grow again?
'''Homer''': ''[[Jerkass|*starts giggling*]]'' }}
* This was essentially Fire Lord Ozai's plan during Sozin's Comet in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. Tired of the Earth Kingdom not being oppressed enough, he intended to have a fleet of dirigibles carrying comet-enhanced firebenders burn the entire kingdom to the ground. Then again, given that he is insane, and his sadistic daughter gave him the idea, it's likely less "salt the Earth" and more "kill them all."
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== Real Life ==
* [
* Nearly all the land between Berlin and Moscow was scorched and salted twice in [[World War II]]: once by the retreating Russians and two years later by the retreating Germans.
* The city of Palestrina in the Papal States (now in Italy) revolted in the 1290s. When Pope Boniface VIII's forces defeated the rebellion, he ordered the city symbolically plowed and salted. This is one of several reasons [[The Divine Comedy|Dante put Boniface in Hell]].
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** This was a metaphor for Rome's destruction of the city, and even then [[Newer Than They Think|wasn't thought up until much later.]] Most of the farmland surrounding Carthage was actually [[Boring but Practical|given to Roman veterans of the Punic Wars as a retirement pension]].<ref>Which is not only practical, but also arguably more effective at preventing future trouble.</ref>
* When the Mongols sacked Baghdad, it's said that a year later you could gallop a horse across where the city had been, for no stone lay atop another.
* The infamous [
*Temporary versions of this are known where an army tries to destroy the agriculture for a season or two whether to deprive the enemy of supplies, or to lure the enemy out to fight, or just out of [[Take That| symbolic malice.]] It is actually harder then it sounds as armies are not usually properly supplied with the equipment needed to do the job(often little different then normal agricultural tools). Some plants are to well rooted and tough to take time with, or are only dry enough to burn for part of the season. Nonetheless it was done throughout history. The Medieval word for that was Chauvauchee.
**Sheridan came riding down the Shenandoah and left it desolate as a response to it supplying the Army of Northern Virginia. As was often the case probably a lot of the worst damage was done by jackal-like scoundrels who follow every army waiting for the law to collapse in the district and not possessing a soldier's professional scruples about not treating civilians worse then ordered to.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:The Ground Beneath Our Feet]]
[[Category:Salt
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