I read the title of this thread and flashed, instantly, to an image of a Pulp-era "Star Wars", with GM Tarkin laughing manaically beside his Planet-Shattering Giant Ray Gun aboard his Unstoppable Mobile Base (which, true to the conventions of the genre, eventually Goes Up Like the Hindenberg*)
* Watch every James Bond film, most other super-spy flicks, any over-the-top adventure movie - it's in the contract. The bad guy's base/vehicle/mountaintop lair always explodes in the end, sometimes for no adequately explained reason...