The 'Nuclear Gandhi' meme stems from a legendary urban legend within the Civilization video game community involving the historically pacifist leader. It was long believed that a programming bug in the original 1991 game caused Gandhi's aggression level to underflow and spike to the maximum value upon adopting democracy, leading to unexpected nuclear strikes. While developers later clarified the technical details, the persona of a bloodthirsty, nuke-happy Gandhi became a staple of internet culture. Today, it is used to satirize peaceful characters who harbor hidden destructive tendencies or to joke about the surprising logic found in strategy games.