Neste caso, são 5 cápsulas dadas a indivíduos em todo o mundo.
"Cinco indivíduos de cinco nações, incluindo as" Superpotências ", EUA, URSS e China, de repente se encontram em uma espaçonave alienígena. Um alienígena dá a cada um um recipiente contendo cápsulas. Nenhuma energia na terra pode abrir um determinado recipiente, exceto um comando mental da pessoa a quem é dado.Cada pessoa recebeu o poder da vida e da morte. Qualquer um desses indivíduos tem a capacidade de lançar instantaneamente cápsulas para qualquer coordenada que ele escolher, e cada cápsula irá erradicar toda a vida humana em um raio de 3.000 milhas de sua localização designada. "
Um trecho da Wiki está listado abaixo, o que pode ajudar a confirmar que esta é a visão de que você está pensando. Em particular, como parte da parte do spoiler, há um "decodificador" das cápsulas que corresponde à sua descrição da declaração "Poder da Vida e Morte" (vs. Ou)
"Five people, Englishwoman Evelyn Wingate, American reporter Jonathan Clark, Chinese peasant Su Tan, German physicist Klaus Bechner, and Soviet soldier Ivan Godofsky, are randomly transported to an alien spacecraft in Earth orbit. There, they are met by a humanoid referring to himself only as "The Alien" (Arnold Moss), who explains that he is the representative of a world orbiting a sun about to go Nova. Needing a new world to inhabit within the next 35 days, yet prohibited by their moral code from killing intelligent life, The Alien provides each of the five with sets of three capsules in a clear, round, hand-held case. Each capsule is capable of destroying all human life within a 3,000-mile diameter, with the expectation that humanity will use all the capsules, obliterating itself, leaving the Earth free for alien colonization. The capsules' clear containers can only be opened by the thought waves of the person to whom they were given. Once out in the open, the capsules inside can then be used by anyone, but only during the next 27 days, after which they become inert."
No final da história, aprendemos:
On board a U. S. destroyer being used as a deterrent against the Soviet capsules being used against America, Bechner, Clark, and Eve discuss their concerns that the Soviets will use them at the last minute, avoiding retaliation. Determined to find another way, Bechner studies the remaining capsules and discovers an imprinted mathematical code on them. As the Soviet general prepares to use the capsules from a balcony, Godofsky rushes him, and the capsules fall to the ground two stories below. At the very same moment, Bechner simultaneously launches his remaining capsules and the ones from Clark's container. He has deciphered the hidden code and discovered that the capsules can be programmed. The world is then blanketed with a high-pitched sonic wave that kills every "known enemy of human freedom".
E no final:
In the aftermath, at an undisclosed later time, a now united humanity invites the aliens to coexist peacefully, sharing the Earth. It turns out, however, to have all been a test of mankind's character. The Alien's sun is quite stable. He in turn invites the people of Earth to join the Galactic Federation, having now passed its crucial test.