History Main / BiologicalWeaponsSolveEverything

* ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'': The Blacklight virus was designed as version 1.0 of all future genetic-triggered viruses. Since this took place in the 1950s and was headed by multiple [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain white supremacist]] leaders, you can guess [[FinalSolution what this was going to be used for]]... except the virus gained ''sentience'' and decided that humanity itself was a problem.

* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': In "[[Recap/CodenameKidsNextDoorS5E6AOperationVIRUS Operation: V.I.R.U.S.]]", it's revealed that chickenpox was invented by teenagers in order to torment kids, so the Kids Next Door retaliates by inventing an acne virus and unleashing it on Cree's prom.

* This plan works at the end of ''Literature/ThePuppetMasters''. The [[PuppeteerParasite parasitic mind-controlling slugs]] are vulnerable to a Venusian disease called Nine-day Fever, which is deliberately spread among them to cut back on their numbers and try to save humanity as a free race -the fever is dangerous to humans, too.

* ''Film/{{Outbreak}}'': General [=McClintock=] believes that weaponized Motaba will solve enough problems in wartime to merit killing off an entire American town and keeping it a secret.

* This nearly backfires in ''Literature/NewJediOrder''. The virus in question, Alpha Red, is specifically designed to target [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Yuuzhan Vong life-forms]] (and ''only'' Yuuzhan Vong life-forms). The Jedi oppose it for idealistic reasons (as not all the Yuuzhan Vong were evil, and they believed the race as a whole could likely be redeemed--and even if that were ''not'' the case, they would not be a party to genocide), but the final novel (''The Unifying Force'') adds several pragmatic considerations to the question (which had, to some extent, been brought up before, but in that novel they go from theoretical to ''actual''). On a planet the virus was tested on, the virus also affected a native form of life, proving the virus could mutate to infect other lifeforms. Worse, [[spoiler:an infected ship escaped, letting the Yuuzhan Vong know about the threat... and ''even worse'', Alpha Red was a threat to the living world Zonama Sekot, which was an offspring of the primordial homeworld of the Yuuzhan Vong. The last part of the novel includes the Yuuzhan Vong trying to crash that infected ship on the living planet, and the heroes attempting to stop it]].

* ''Literature/TheBible'': {{God}} has done this a few times, most notably in the Ten Plagues of Egypt, which turned the water to blood, unleashed frogs, lice and flies upon the land, pestilence upon livestock, hail and fire, boils, darkness, and even the deaths of the firstborn sons of Egypt.

->'''Salt:''' Shouldn't we contact the command center, let them know we have the antiserum?
->'''Daniels:''' They don't care; they wanna bury the town.
->'''Salt:''' Ah, this is crazy.
->'''Daniels:''' They want their weapon.
->'''Salt:''' They're gonna kill all those people?
->'''Daniels:''' Right, they want their weapon.
->'''Salt:''' They're gonna sit there, and watch all those innocent people die?!
->'''Daniels:''' Yes, they want their weapon!

So, if the heroes are experiencing their DarkestHour, and the end looms near, this is a simple and effective way to tip-toe around a situation where OnlyTheAuthorCanSaveThemNow. Likewise, if you want to demonstrate how depraved your villain is, you can certainly show victims of ThePlague dying in slow and horrible ways, and punctuate it with mounds of burning bodies.

# It has a half-life long enough or communicability rapid enough that it's nigh-impossible to escape.

Usually used in a GuiltFreeExterminationWar. Subtrope of FinalSolution (that trope doesn't specify ''how'' it gets carried out).
'''As an EndingTrope, BEWARE OF SPOILERS!!!'''

[[folder: Comics]]
* In ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' it is revealed that the bacteria which killed the martians during the events of ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' was in fact a hybrid of Anthrax and Streptococcus developed by Dr. Moreau while working for the British Military.

[[folder: Fan Works]]
* Averted in ''Fanfic/{{Origins}}'', a ''Franchise/MassEffect''[=/=]''Franchise/StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''VideoGame/Borderlands2''[=/=]''[=Halo=]'']] MassiveMultiplayerCrossover, since the salarian STG's attempts to develop one to fight off an AlienInvasion repeatedly fail to produce anything that would be viable against the enemy [[spoiler:though given that enemy is the Flood, this makes sense]].

[[folder: Film]]
* ''Film/BladeTrinity'': The crux of the third and final film is the use of a virus that will kill all vampires everywhere, seemingly instantaneously.
* Failed spectacularly in ''Film/{{Serenity}}''. The Alliance introduced the Pax, a chemical agent of their design, into the atmosphere of the planet of Miranda, designed to make the populace docile and well-behaved, to suppress any and all aggression (and thus resistance). The Pax worked ''[[GoneHorriblyRight too]]'' well: most of the population of Miranda became so apathetic that they just laid down and died. A small percentage of the population [[GoneHorriblyWrong had the exact opposite reaction to the Pax]] - they became hyper-violent and very aggressive, becoming the Reavers.
* ZigZaggedTrope on the George Pal version of ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds'': it maintains the original ending of the original story, but before the natural bacteria of Earth do the job, the military and the scientists were proposing to use bio-warfare (out of desperation, because nuking the machines didn't worked and the only option left was to try and see if it was possible to kill the Martians themselves). Unfortunately, the mobilization of the Martians towards L.A. means that the university the scientists are in needs to be evacuated, and [[ApocalypseAnarchy the trucks that carry the equipment are stolen by desperate Angelenos who smash it all to make room]] (in the words of ScienceHero protagonist Dr. Clayton Forrester: "they sliced their own throats!").
* ''{{Film/Outbreak}}'': General [=McClintock=] believes that weaponized Motaba will solve enough problems in wartime to merit killing off an entire American town and keeping it a secret.
* ''Film/ThePuppetMasters'': The alien slugs are vulnerable to encephalitis[[note]]inflammation of the brain[[/note]] - being almost all brain, they are ''far'' more vulnerable to it than humans are. After the disease is unleashed, a military man in the area admits that he and his men are "sick as hell", but are now free.

[[folder: Literature]]

** A subversion: the Andalites ''tried'' to do this to prevent the Yeerks from enslaving the Hork-Bajir race (by way of a virus that only affected the Hork-Bajir), but eventually failed.
** Later there is an attempt to use a virus to kill off the Yeerks, but because there was a possibility that it would mutate to infect their host species (such as humans) the Animorphs stopped it.
* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds''. In H.G. Wells's classic novel, Earth's bacteria do in the aliens. This is kept in most adaptations, from radio to the 1950's movie. Subverted at first in the 80s TV show that just had the aliens in hibernation. Later one of the characters develops a bacteria to kill off the aliens for good. The in-universe justification is that the Martians have evolved to the point they no longer have immune systems and were unprepared for Earth's microorganisms.
* In ''Auf zwei Planeten'' ("On Two Planets") by [[Creator/KurdLasswitz Kurd Laßwitz]], which was published a year earlier, Oß, the leader of the Antibat faction in Martian politics, wants to retaliate against the rebellion of Earth against the Martian "protectorate" by introducing the dreaded Martian disease Gragra there. However, when this morally abhorrent plan becomes known to the public, he is resoundingly defeated in the elections, enabling a peace treaty between Mars and Earth to be concluded.
* In Edward Willett's ''"Marseguro"'' a colony of genetically engineered humans called "Selkies" is invaded by the religious fanatics who rule the rest of human space. The Selkies unleash a plague designed not to harm them and vaccinate the baseline human colonists. The invaders die but the baseline who drew them there in the first place was vaccinated and an unknowing carrier, and he made it back to Earth where it kills a large chunk of the planet. The sequel "Terra Insegura" covers a Selkie mission to bring the vaccine to Earth.
* Creator/RobertRankin trumps H.G. Wells in his Victorian steampunk novel, ''The Educated Ape''. The ''War of the Worlds'' is referenced as having just been won, as per book, by the Martians not having thought to innoculate against Earth's diseases. But the devious Winston Churchill (in life a fervent nationalist who seriously considered the eugenic sterilization of genetically [[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill "degenerate Britons"]]) sent some of the captured Martian spacecraft back to them, loaded with volunteer crews of terminally ill humans, with every contagious diseases known to Man. A Mars cleansed of its higher life forms is then open to colonisation from the British Empire...
* In Creator/JackLondon's story "The Unparalleled Invasion," what prevents the YellowPeril from taking over the world is the bombardment of Chinese cities with glass tubes containing "every virulent form of infectious death," which exterminates the Chinese population in six weeks.
* In ''Literature/LastAndFirstMen'' the millennia-long war between the Second Men and the Martians (sentient clouds of bacteria) is brought to an end using a designer virus. Unfortunately it's too late for the Second Men at that point but they are succeeded by the Third Men.
* Nearly backfires in the ''Literature/NewJediOrder'' novels for Star Wars. The virus in question, Alpha Red, is specifically designed to target [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Yuuzhan Vong life-forms]] (and ''only'' Yuuzhan Vong life-forms). The Jedi oppose it for idealistic reasons (as not all the Yuuzhan Vong were evil, and they believed the race as a whole could likely be redeemed--and even if that were ''not'' the case, they would not be a party to genocide), but the final novel (''The Unifying Force'') adds several pragmatic considerations to the question (which had, to some extent, been brought up before, but in that novel they go from theoretical to ''actual''). On a planet the virus was tested on, the virus also affected a native form of life, proving the virus could mutate to infect other lifeforms. Worse, [[spoiler:an infected ship escaped, letting the Yuuzhan Vong know about the threat... and ''even worse'', Alpha Red was a threat to the living world Zonama Sekot, which was an offspring of the primordial homeworld of the Yuuzhan Vong. The last part of the novel includes the Yuuzhan Vong trying to crash that infected ship on the living planet, and the heroes attempting to stop it]].
* This plan works at the end of Creator/RobertAHeinlein's book ''Literature/ThePuppetMasters''. The parasitic mind-controlling slugs are vulnerable to a Venusian disease called Nine-day Fever, which is deliberately spread among them to cut back on their numbers and try to save humanity as a free race -the fever is dangerous to humans, too.

[[folder: Live-Action TV]]

* An erstwhile Alliance officer on ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' made his fortune using biological weapons to depopulate communities, then he looted their untouched valuables. [[spoiler: This was a lie, but it was certainly a plausible one.]]
* An arc in ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' involved an attempt to develop a virus that would turn Wraiths into humans. They never managed to make its effects permanent or figure out an effective delivery mechanism. And their first test subject, "Michael", became a major recurring villain. Never really exploited is the fact that even when it's only temporary in effect, it still renders them amnesiacs with no ability to operate their own ships' bio-technology until the virus wears off.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'' had two episodes ("2010" in season 4, and "2001" in season 5) about the Aschen, an alien race who conquer worlds by supposedly being nice and friendly and handing out life extending drugs... that sterilize most of the population, letting the Aschen move in and take over after nearly everyone on the target planet has died out. The Aschen also offered Earth a bacterium that could be engineered to wipe out the Gou'ld, and tried to use it on Earth when their "sterility drug" plan was uncovered.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': In the first season episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E05Babel Babel]]" the station is infected with a mysterious plague where victims develop aphasia before taking a turn for the worse. It turns out that the plague was caused by a bio-engineered virus created Bajoran resistance scientists to attack Cardassians and the computer program to replicate the virus was smuggled on board ''Deep Space Nine'' by members of the resistance. Chief O'Brien inadvertently activates the program while repairing the replicator systems and causes the virus to spread through the station. Naturally O'Brien is the [[ButtMonkey first]] to come down with the disease and comes closest to dying. While the doctor who created the virus is long dead, his assistant is still alive and able to develop a cure in time to save the station.
* Used in the 7th season of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' by the Leviathans against the other monsters. they used a special chemical in fast food that would make the bodies of humans who ate it to be deadly to all monster species, and this is a series where everyone is a [[ImAHumanitarian Humanitarian]].
* ''Series/{{V 1983}}'': In the mini-series, the human resistance develop the Red Dust that only kills the aliens, driving them off the planet. When the aliens return for the later TV series, the Dust can't be used again because long term studies have shown that any greater concentration in the atmosphere would damage the ecosystem.

[[folder: Religion ]]

* {{God}} has done this a few times, most notably in the Ten Plagues of Egypt, which turned the water to blood, unleashed frogs, lice and flies upon the land, pestilence upon livestock, hail and fire, boils, darkness, and even the deaths of the firstborn sons of Egypt.

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000''. [[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Virus_bombing Virus bombing]] is one of the ways Exterminatus (destroying a planet that has succumbed to TheCorruption or cannot be saved) can be carried out. As it destroys all life (and eventually, the ''atmosphere''), its use is rather limited. And now they've found out that using them strengthens Nurgle, the Chaos god of disease...
* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' has the [[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Redburn_Virus Redburn Virus]], the influenza strain from hell engineered by the Word of Blake. It isn't cureable, and has fatality rates of 30 per 100,000 and higher. Originally, it was non-contagious, but at least one variant strain has mutated. The rest of the Inner Sphere is horrified, as ''any'' biological weapons, including ''tear gas'', are [[EveryoneHasStandards supposed to be banned.]]

[[folder: Videogames]]
* Creating biological weapons, such as viruses and such, forms the entire basis by which the events of ''Videogame/ResidentEvil'' occur, where various MegaCorp factions are in a biological arms race. Naturally, this goes to show why they do not "solve" anything, as the various [[TitleDrop Biohazards]] created by these companies are what's putting the world in danger in the first place.
* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyXIV'': In the ''Stormblood'' story, we're introduced to the Black Rose, a chemical agent that "stops the flow of aether" in any living being's body, resulting in instant death. It was developed by the Garlean Empire for use during an invasion of Eorzea. The weapon is so potent that even several of the most prominent antagonists in the Empire [[EvenEvilHasStandards are appalled by its use]]. The Black Rose becomes a major plot element in [[spoiler:''Shadowbringers'', where it turns out that in a BadFuture where the weapon was used, it went out of the Empire's control and spread across the entire world. So many people died from it that civilization and law completely collapsed, with the world being thrown back into a barbaric age of blood and tribalism. Even the [[PlayerCharacter Warrior of Light]] and his TrueCompanions were killed by the Black Rose, killing everyone who might have even had a chance of restoring order.]]
* The original ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' trilogy can be loosely interpreted to end this way. The eponymous Halos are installations which can wipe out all life within a certain radius, meant to "starve" [[TheVirus The Flood]]; they aren't biological weapons themselves, but they're clearly built to target certain forms of life (plants and most animals are left untouched, but anything sapient is toast). [[spoiler:The Chief fires one at the end of ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' to wipe out the Flood infecting the Ark.]]
* In ''Videogame/{{Resistance}}'', an eleventh-hour cure is used to defeat the Chimaera and end a war that, technically, humanity had already lost years ago.
* An eleventh-hour cure is also used in ''Videogame/GearsOfWar'' to destroy both the Locust and the Lambent.
* Subverted in ''Videogame/{{Metroid}}''. The Chozo created the eponymous Metroids as a biological weapon to control the rampant Parasite X on planet SR-388, which could have threatened the entire galaxy if left unchecked. Later, other races discovered the Metroid and the creatures began to spread across the galaxy, proving to be an even worse threat than Parasite X. Then, when Samus eradicated the Metroid, Parasite X came back stronger than ever.
* In the Destroy ending of ''Videogame/MassEffect3'', the trope is inverted, with the final weapon destroying all ''synthetic'' life, including the friendly ones, and leaving the organic life alone.
* The original ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' stated that the Liir rebelled against the Suul'ka by using a bioweapon to wipe them out. Given the species' adeptness with {{Synthetic Plague}}s everyone assumed that the bioweapon was one. Until the sequel revealed the true nature of the [[StrongerWithAge Suul]]'[[SpaceWhale ka]] and the [[HunterOfHisOwnKind "bio]][[LivingWeapon weapon"]] used to destroy them, and that seven of them survived.
** Averted in gameplay, planets hit by Biowar missiles are easily quarantined and it takes multiple warheads to wipe out a planetary population. And after first exposure a faction can research a vaccine to that specific virus.
* ''VideoGame/StarFoxAssault'' concluded with the heroes attacking the Aparoid queen with a electronic virus intended to induce apoptosis in their biological components. Though she is able to suppress it somehow until you finish killing her with conventional weapons.
* The eponymous ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' of the Blacklight virus was designed as the version 1.0 of all future genetic-triggered viruses. Since this took place in the 1950's and was headed by multiple white supremacist leaders, you can guess what this was going to be used for. Except, the virus gained ''sentience'' and decided that humanity itself was a problem...
* In ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations II: Dark Avatar'' the Korath use "spore" ships that wipe out all life on a planet and leave the remainder a toxic world, which they can colonize.

* In ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis 5'', the BigBad [[spoiler:Robert Baxter, [[RogueProtagonist previously the protagonist]] of ''Time Crisis II'',]] stole a drug three years ago that turns its victims into mindless zombies, or as [[spoiler:his former comrade Keith Martin]] puts it, makes them incapable of feeling pain or fear. [[spoiler:Robert then reveals that he has a bomb that can be detonated to spread the drug to entire cities, with New York as his first target.]]

[[folder: Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/GenocideMan'' takes place after several extremist groups used open-source biotechnology to kill billions. The titular Genocide Project is an international law enforcement agency that uses targeted plagues to wipe out "genetic deviants" and their creators.
** It later turns out that [[spoiler: the Genocide Project unleashed a gene therapy virus intended to make humanity immune to all the open-source designer plagues out there (but not their own). It killed a billion people.]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' Operation: V.I.R.U.S. it's revealed that chickenpox was invented by teenagers in order to torment kids, so the Kids Next Door retaliates by inventing an acne virus and unleashing it on Cree's prom.
[[/folder]]

* Used in the 7th season of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' by the Leviathans against the other monsters. they used a special chemical in fast food that would make the body's of humans who ate it to be deadly to all monster species, and this is a series where everyone is a [[ImAHumanitarian Humanitarian]].

* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds''. In H.G. Wells's classic novel, Earth's bacteria do in the aliens. This is kept in most adaptations, from radio to the 1950's movie. Subverted at first in the 80s TV show that just had the aliens in hibernation. Later one of the characters develops a bacteria to kill off the aliens for good. Unlike most examples, there's a justification for why humans don't get devastated by alien plagues - the martians have evolved to the point they no longer have immune systems, so it can be assumed that their ships were totally sterilized to avoid the crew getting sick. [[IdiotBall Why the aliens never considered that humans might have their own plagues to contend with is anyone's guess]].

* ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds''. In H.G. Wells's classic novel, Earth's bacteria do in the aliens. This is kept in most adaptations, from radio to the 1950's movie. Subverted at first in the 80s TV show that just had the aliens in hibernation. Later one of the characters develops a bacteria to kill off the aliens for good.

SisterTrope to DeusExNukina. May lead to a ZombieApocalypse.

Usually used in a GuiltFreeExterminationWar. Subtrope of FinalSolution (that trope doesn't specify ''how'' it gets carried out).

* A subversion: the Andalites ''tried'' to do this to prevent the Yeerks from enslaving the Hork-Bajir race (by way of a virus that only affected the Hork-Bajir), but eventually failed.

* A subversion in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': the Andalites ''tried'' to do this to prevent the Yeerks from enslaving the Hork-Bajir race (by way of a virus that only affected the Hork-Bajir), but eventually failed.

* This plan works at the end of Creator/RobertAHeinlein's book ''Literature/ThePuppetMasters''.
** The [[Film/ThePuppetMasters film adaptation]] has a more justified version of this, where the alien slugs are vulnerable to encephalitis[[note]]inflamation of the brain[[/note]] - being almost all brain, they are ''far'' more vulnerable to it than humans are. After the disease is unleashed, a military man in the area admits that he and his men are "sick as hell", but are now free.

* Failed spectacularly in ''Film/{{Serenity}}''. The Alliance introduced the Pax, a chemical agent of their design, into the atmosphere of the planet of Miranda, designed to make the populace docile and well-behaved, to suppress any and all aggression (and thus resistance). The Pax worked ''[[GoneHorriblyRight too]]'' well: most of the population of Miranda became so apathetic that they just laid down and died. The small percentage of the population [[GoneHorriblyWrong had the exact opposite reaction to the Pax]] - they became hyper-violent and very aggressive, becoming the Reavers.
* ZigZaggedTrope on the George Pal version of ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds'': it maintains the original ending of the Literature example below, but before the natural bacteria of Earth do the job, the military and the scientists were proposing to use bio-warfare (out of desperation, because nuking the machines didn't worked and the only option left was to try and see if it was possible to kill the Martians themselves). Unfortunately, the mobilization of the Martians towards L.A. means that the university the scientists are in needs to be evacuated, and [[ApocalypseAnarchy the trucks that carry the equipment are stolen by desperate Angelenos who smash it all to make room]] (in the words of ScienceHero protagonist Dr. Clayton Forrester: "they sliced their own throats!").

* In ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' it is revealed that the bacteria which killed the martians during the events of ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' (see Literature below) was in fact a hybrid of Anthrax and Streptococcus developed by Dr. Moreau while working for the British Military.

* {{God}} has done this a few times, most notably in the Seven Plagues of Egypt, which turned the water to blood, unleashed frogs, lice and flies upon the land, pestilence upon livestock, hail and fire, boils, darkness, and even the deaths of the firstborn sons of Egypt.

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' has the [[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Redburn_Virus Redburn Virus]], the influenza strain from hell engineered by the Word of Blake. It isn't cureable, and has fatality rates of 30 per 100,000 and higher. Originally, it was non-contagious, [[OhCrap but at least one variant strain has mutated.]] The rest of the Inner Sphere is horrified, as ''any'' biological weapons, including ''tear gas'', are [[EveryoneHasStandards supposed to be banned.]]