Ooooookay, maybe no hyperspace wormhole stuff is needed. That's a ridiculously huge blast. Frankly, it's rather preposterous that it's not destroying the rest of the atmosphere on its way out into space; look at those clouds! Definitely explains the snowy looking planet; the weather patterns must be absolutely trashed from even test firing this thing. It's like the movie designers saw the Sunbeam question and thought "that's a great idea for a superweapon!" And since this is Star Wars, there's no need to Dyson Sphere an actual star to make it happen. (yes, I know that the question was published after the movie was out)

I know there's no such thing as overkill, but this is really pushing that phrase to the limit. Unless there's an obvious weak point to the Cataclysm Beam, I can't think how this is going to be spun out into a win for team good guys. Maybe this is only capable of targeting known systems? If so, that would make the map BB-8 has incredibly valuable. I'd thought the map could have been the only thing left that wasn't hit by Nute/First Order hackers, but what if this is actually something newly charted? If those places aren't generally known yet, then they might be safe from targeting by this weapon.

...

I still think Cataclysm Cannon would be a better name.