"She cannae take any more captain! She's gonna blow!"
How many times has the chief engineer shouted that at you through the intercom spouting gibberish about what would happen if you continue on the current course? Well wonder no more what they are talking about with this crash course (no pun intended) into what happens when you overload your reactors at different technology levels.
From steam turbines to nuclear fission reactors, and beyond to more exotic near or not-so-near future versions we go through the consequences of overloading some of the more usually seen reactor types in different fiction types, and what kind of damage they can cause if the proverbial near-critical plasma ring hits the not so proverbial reactor lining separating it from the crew you were supposed to protect, or even worse, were part of. Past tense intended.