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*''Literature/TimeRiders'': The Kosong-ni Virus melts all organic matter that touches it, leaving human victims as nothing but piles of bones and hair. In the days following it there are only a handful of bunkered survivors left alive.
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* In ''Webcomic/GenocideMan'', the population of the world in 2109 is only 3 billion thanks to repeated {{Synthetic Plague}}s. Some of them caused by the titular people who are supposed to be preserving the human species.
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* In ''Webcomic/GenocideMan'', the population of the world in 2109 is only 3 billion thanks to repeated {{Synthetic Plague}}s. Some of them are caused by the titular people who are supposed to be preserving the human species.
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* The [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' wiped out most of their population, as well as the dinosaurs, with a weapon called the Iridium Bomb. The survivors eschewed technology for a pastoral existence in Earth's [[GhibliHills wildernesses]].[[note]]The iridium reference is TruthInTelevision. It was the detection of the rare element iridium at the geologic boundary layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods that first clued paleontologists in to the possibility that a large asteroid may have struck Earth at that time.[[/note]]
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* The [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' wiped out most of their population, as well as the dinosaurs, with a weapon called the Iridium Bomb. The survivors eschewed technology for a pastoral existence in Earth's [[GhibliHills wildernesses]].[[note]]The iridium reference is TruthInTelevision. It was the detection of the rare element iridium at the geologic boundary layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods that first clued paleontologists in to palaeontologists into the possibility that a large asteroid may have struck Earth at that time.[[/note]]
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* In ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'', the [[TheVirus Rash Illness]] killed and mutated into trolls most of the human race, leaving only few survivors who were lucky or TheImmune. When the story starts, the already sparsely populated Iceland is down to about 60% of the population the country had in real life at the time of publication [[labelnote:note]]Iceland's real population is growing while the story's is static, so the ratio is dropping as the comic continues[[/labelnote]]. Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, meanwhile, went from populations in the millions to numbers oscillating between 10,000 and 20,000. The level of depopulation is illustrated well on [[http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196 this poster]] (scroll to the lower half to see comparison).
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* In ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'', the [[TheVirus Rash Illness]] killed and mutated into trolls most of the human race, leaving only few survivors who were lucky or TheImmune. When the story starts, the already sparsely populated Iceland is down to about 60% of the population the country had in real life at the time of publication [[labelnote:note]]Iceland's real population is growing while the story's is static, so the ratio is dropping as the comic continues[[/labelnote]]. Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, meanwhile, went from populations in the millions to numbers oscillating between 10,000 and 20,000. The level of depopulation is illustrated well on [[http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196 this poster]] (scroll to the lower half to see a comparison).
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** On a much smaller scale, a town in Alabama had one third of its residents killed by a tornado.
* An even more tragic natural disaster example: In 1902, the volcano Mount Pelée erupted on the French Carribean island of Martinique. It sent a pyroclastic flow down towards the city of Saint-Pierre, killing nearly everyone in the city, about 30,000 all total, including the island's Governor. Famously it was reported that only one man, a prisoner protected by his cell, survived. There has been at least one other documented survivor, and a few more who lived but died later from injuries or ash suffocation. The city was eventually rebuilt and new residents moved in, but its present day population is only 4,590. And the town itself is indeed a shadow of its pre-eruption days, when it was called the "Paris of the Caribbean".
* An even more tragic natural disaster example: In 1902, the volcano Mount Pelée erupted on the French Carribean island of Martinique. It sent a pyroclastic flow down towards the city of Saint-Pierre, killing nearly everyone in the city, about 30,000 all total, including the island's Governor. Famously it was reported that only one man, a prisoner protected by his cell, survived. There has been at least one other documented survivor, and a few more who lived but died later from injuries or ash suffocation. The city was eventually rebuilt and new residents moved in, but its present day population is only 4,590. And the town itself is indeed a shadow of its pre-eruption days, when it was called the "Paris of the Caribbean".
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** On a much smaller scale, a town in Alabama had one third one-third of its residents killed by a tornado.
* An even more tragic natural disaster example: In 1902, the volcano Mount Pelée erupted on the FrenchCarribean Caribbean island of Martinique. It sent a pyroclastic flow down towards the city of Saint-Pierre, killing nearly everyone in the city, about 30,000 all total, including the island's Governor. Famously it was reported that only one man, a prisoner protected by his cell, survived. There has been at least one other documented survivor, and a few more who lived but died later from injuries or ash suffocation. The city was eventually rebuilt and new residents moved in, but its present day present-day population is only 4,590. And the town itself is indeed a shadow of its pre-eruption days, days when it was called the "Paris of the Caribbean".
* An even more tragic natural disaster example: In 1902, the volcano Mount Pelée erupted on the French
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* The Columbian Interchange was effectively this in relation to many Native American tribes. European (and native) diseases ended up wiping out most of the population in the densely populated cities of Mesoamerica; some cities saw as much as 90% of the local population die. The NobleSavage trope comes almost ''entirely'' from this. While it is sometimes incorrectly claimed that 90% of the population of *all* of the Americas died in these epidemics, scientific research has failed to back up these numbers. However, it was locally devastating; both the people of the Aztec Empire and the people of the Inca Empire suffered from smallpox epidemics during their respective wars with the Spanish conquistadors.
** During the war with the Spanish, the tlatoani (emperor) of the Aztecs, Cuitláhuac, died of smallpox. It didn't help either that when Tenochtitlan was seized, the Spaniards and natives (more that 90% of Cortés's men were allied tribes) dropped corpses on Lake Texcoco to infect the water supply.
* Strategic nuclear weapons were designed to destroy large areas of the enemy's infrastructure, such as cities. During the UsefulNotes/ColdWar the United States, Soviet Union and their allies were all pointing nukes at their enemies' cities, and over 70% of those countries' populations are urbanized.
** During the war with the Spanish, the tlatoani (emperor) of the Aztecs, Cuitláhuac, died of smallpox. It didn't help either that when Tenochtitlan was seized, the Spaniards and natives (more that 90% of Cortés's men were allied tribes) dropped corpses on Lake Texcoco to infect the water supply.
* Strategic nuclear weapons were designed to destroy large areas of the enemy's infrastructure, such as cities. During the UsefulNotes/ColdWar the United States, Soviet Union and their allies were all pointing nukes at their enemies' cities, and over 70% of those countries' populations are urbanized.
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* The Columbian Interchange was effectively this in relation to many Native American tribes. European (and native) diseases ended up wiping out most of the population in the densely populated cities of Mesoamerica; some cities saw as much as 90% of the local population die.died. The NobleSavage trope comes almost ''entirely'' from this. While it is sometimes incorrectly claimed that 90% of the population of *all* of the Americas died in these epidemics, scientific research has failed to back up these numbers. However, it was locally devastating; both the people of the Aztec Empire and the people of the Inca Empire suffered from smallpox epidemics during their respective wars with the Spanish conquistadors.
** During the war with the Spanish, the tlatoani (emperor) of the Aztecs, Cuitláhuac, died of smallpox. It didn't help either that when Tenochtitlan was seized, the Spaniards and natives (morethat than 90% of Cortés's men were allied tribes) dropped corpses on Lake Texcoco to infect the water supply.
* Strategic nuclear weapons were designed to destroy large areas of the enemy's infrastructure, such as cities. During the UsefulNotes/ColdWar the United States, the Soviet Union and their allies were all pointing nukes at their enemies' cities, and over 70% of those countries' populations are urbanized.
** During the war with the Spanish, the tlatoani (emperor) of the Aztecs, Cuitláhuac, died of smallpox. It didn't help either that when Tenochtitlan was seized, the Spaniards and natives (more
* Strategic nuclear weapons were designed to destroy large areas of the enemy's infrastructure, such as cities. During the UsefulNotes/ColdWar the United States, the Soviet Union and their allies were all pointing nukes at their enemies' cities, and over 70% of those countries' populations are urbanized.
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* The NeutronBomb has its own entry, but basically the concept is to maximize the amount of radiation damage short term, but avoid "poisoning" the area with long-lived fallout ... in other words, it's nearly the exact opposite of the cobalt bomb. They both do share the trait that blast damage is not the main point.
* The Black Death resulted in the deaths of an estimated 30-60% of the population of Europe, including wiping out entire villages. Over the course of less than 10 years it dropped the global population from an estimated 450 million to 350-375 million. It took Europe 150 years to recover from the social and economic aftermath.
* The Black Death resulted in the deaths of an estimated 30-60% of the population of Europe, including wiping out entire villages. Over the course of less than 10 years it dropped the global population from an estimated 450 million to 350-375 million. It took Europe 150 years to recover from the social and economic aftermath.
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* The NeutronBomb has its own entry, but basically basically, the concept is to maximize the amount of radiation damage short term, but avoid "poisoning" the area with long-lived fallout ... in other words, it's nearly the exact opposite of the cobalt bomb. They both do share the trait that blast damage is not the main point.
* The Black Death resulted in the deaths of an estimated 30-60% of the population of Europe, including wiping out entire villages. Over the course ofless fewer than 10 years years, it dropped the global population from an estimated 450 million to 350-375 million. It took Europe 150 years to recover from the social and economic aftermath.
* The Black Death resulted in the deaths of an estimated 30-60% of the population of Europe, including wiping out entire villages. Over the course of
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* UsefulNotes/WarOfTheTripleAlliance, while nowhere near being one of history's deadliest wars, still set the record for most deaths of any country percentage wise. It wiped out ''half the population'' of UsefulNotes/{{Paraguay}}.
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* UsefulNotes/WarOfTheTripleAlliance, while nowhere near being one of history's deadliest wars, still set the record for most deaths of any country percentage wise.percentage-wise. It wiped out ''half the population'' of UsefulNotes/{{Paraguay}}.
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** Most historical cases of changing dynasties were accompanied by a culling of China's population. The chaos during the [[UsefulNotes/ThreeKingdomsShuWeiWu fall of the Han dynasty and the rise of the Three Kingdoms]] was particularly devastating. A census conducted before the wars counted around 56 million people. The next century's census -- conducted during the Jin dynasty, which unified the Three Kingdoms -- counted 16 million people. In other words, the war reduced the population by ''70%''.[[note]]Modern estimates have put the population before and after the war at 60 and 35 million, respectively, which would mean the population was reduced by "only" a half. It's still damn high, though.[[/note]] The transition from Song to Yuan (Mongol) and Yuan to Ming also slashed the empire's population by half. The [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors fall of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty and ushering of the warlord era]] was actually an ''improvement'' because it wasn't accompanied by a catastrophic depopulation.
** Not including plagues or epidemics, the worst natural disasters in history by number of casualties were the 1931 floodings of the Yellow River in China, which resulted in the deaths of ''at least'' a million people. The Yellow River is by itself the deadliest area for natural disasters in history, as it's even the location of the ''second'' deadliest natural disaster in history, the Yellow River flood of 1887.
** Not including plagues or epidemics, the worst natural disasters in history by number of casualties were the 1931 floodings of the Yellow River in China, which resulted in the deaths of ''at least'' a million people. The Yellow River is by itself the deadliest area for natural disasters in history, as it's even the location of the ''second'' deadliest natural disaster in history, the Yellow River flood of 1887.
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** Most historical cases of changing dynasties were accompanied by a culling of China's population. The chaos during the [[UsefulNotes/ThreeKingdomsShuWeiWu fall of the Han dynasty and the rise of the Three Kingdoms]] was particularly devastating. A census conducted before the wars counted around 56 million people. The next century's census -- conducted during the Jin dynasty, which unified the Three Kingdoms -- counted 16 million people. In other words, the war reduced the population by ''70%''.[[note]]Modern estimates have put the population before and after the war at 60 and 35 million, respectively, which would mean the population was reduced by "only" a half. It's still damn high, though.[[/note]] The transition from Song to Yuan (Mongol) and Yuan to Ming also slashed the empire's population by half. The [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors fall of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty and ushering of the warlord era]] was actually an ''improvement'' because it wasn't accompanied by a catastrophic depopulation.
** Not including plagues or epidemics, the worst natural disasters in history by the number of casualties were the 1931 floodings of the Yellow River in China, which resulted in the deaths of ''at least'' a million people. The Yellow River is by itself the deadliest area for natural disasters in history, as it's even the location of the ''second'' deadliest natural disaster in history, the Yellow River flood of 1887.
** Not including plagues or epidemics, the worst natural disasters in history by the number of casualties were the 1931 floodings of the Yellow River in China, which resulted in the deaths of ''at least'' a million people. The Yellow River is by itself the deadliest area for natural disasters in history, as it's even the location of the ''second'' deadliest natural disaster in history, the Yellow River flood of 1887.
* Another intentional example of this trope comes from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrying_of_the_North Harrying of the North]]: After William the Conqueror defeated Harold and became the new king of England, the northern half of the country rose in revolt. William ended the resistance through the use of a scorched-earth campaign, to deny the northern rebels any stronghold to rise from. Entire villages were razed, and their inhabitants put to the sword; livestock slaughtered, and stores of food destroyed. A census recorded two decades after the event states only 25% of the population remained. Or, in the record keepers' own words, ''hoc est vast'' (''it is wasted'').
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* UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin, who studied Malthus, asserted that the human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply until it crashes, in what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well prepared to compare this to Augustin de Candolle's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones." It was Malthus the one that inspired Darwin's now-accepted theory of biological evolution.
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* UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin, who studied Malthus, asserted that the human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply until it crashes, in what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well prepared to compare this to Augustin de Candolle's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones." It was Malthus the one that inspired Darwin's now-accepted theory of biological evolution.evoution.
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->''"Chemical bomb, chemical bomb\\
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The earth is tired of human kind\\
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The earth is tired of human kind\\humankind\\
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Is gonna wash up in Hell"''
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Is gonna wash up in Hell"''Hell''
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In order for a CozyCatastrophe to remain cozy and small scale, it helps if said cozy catastrophe takes place AfterTheEnd. It helps to justify the existence of a nearly-deserted but intact urban wasteland that, even if civilization DID collapse in the real world for any reason other than a Depopulation Bomb, would probably still be teeming with people only a few months after the fact. Sometimes major characters have a fortunate random immunity to the widespread plague or chemical/bio-weapon. The use of a biological or chemical weapon may be due to the NuclearWeaponsTaboo.
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In order for a CozyCatastrophe to remain cozy and small scale, it helps if said cozy catastrophe takes place AfterTheEnd. It helps to justify the existence of a nearly-deserted nearly deserted but intact urban wasteland that, even if civilization DID collapse in the real world for any reason other than a Depopulation Bomb, would probably still be teeming with people only a few months after the fact. Sometimes major characters have a fortunate random immunity to the widespread plague or chemical/bio-weapon. The use of a biological or chemical weapon may be due to the NuclearWeaponsTaboo.
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# If the Depopulation Bomb is OnlyFatalToAdults, then this trope justifies ParentalAbandonment (e.g. ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'', ''Series/TheTribe'', ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials''). It also justifies storylines in which children and teens have to take on the [[PromotionToParent responsibilities of adults]], or form extended families of their own.
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# If the Depopulation Bomb is OnlyFatalToAdults, then this trope justifies ParentalAbandonment (e.g. , ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'', ''Series/TheTribe'', ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials''). It also justifies storylines in which children and teens have to take on the [[PromotionToParent responsibilities of adults]], or form extended families of their own.
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# An underpopulated world in which the Depopulation Bomb only affects humans (or only primates, only mammals, etc...) justifies a return to hunter-gatherer or other primitive lifestyles that can only support relatively small (non industrial-level) populations, thus solving the issue of how the characters feed themselves. May be part of an {{anvilicious}} GaiasVengeance.
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# An underpopulated world in which the Depopulation Bomb only affects humans (or only primates, only mammals, etc...) justifies a return to hunter-gatherer or other primitive lifestyles that can only support relatively small (non industrial-level) (non-industrial-level) populations, thus solving the issue of how the characters feed themselves. May be part of an {{anvilicious}} GaiasVengeance.
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* In ''Anime/SailorMoon'' Sailor Galaxia releases an attack that causes black lighting to rain down all over earth removing the starseeds of the people of earth. It either kills them or turns them all into [[MonsterOfTheWeek Phage]]. Only the Sailor Senshi are left unaffected.
* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Second Impact. Tidal waves and flooding wiped out the coastal regions while the surviving land was ravaged by shifts in the global climate and resulting famines. It's also been indicated that in addition to lower population and vastly reduced lifespans, the birth rate has dropped dramatically.
** Depending on your definition, [[spoiler:Third Impact, too. Fans just can't seem to agree just how depopulating the latter's effect was. [[AssimilationPlot Instrumentality]] depopulates as definitely as old-fashioned explosions, but unlike a bomb victim, those caught in it ''can'' return to life if they want... [[LotusEaterMachine it's just that wanting to isn't easy]].]]
* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Second Impact. Tidal waves and flooding wiped out the coastal regions while the surviving land was ravaged by shifts in the global climate and resulting famines. It's also been indicated that in addition to lower population and vastly reduced lifespans, the birth rate has dropped dramatically.
** Depending on your definition, [[spoiler:Third Impact, too. Fans just can't seem to agree just how depopulating the latter's effect was. [[AssimilationPlot Instrumentality]] depopulates as definitely as old-fashioned explosions, but unlike a bomb victim, those caught in it ''can'' return to life if they want... [[LotusEaterMachine it's just that wanting to isn't easy]].]]
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* In ''Anime/SailorMoon'' Sailor Galaxia releases an attack that causes black lighting ''Manga/{{Arachnid}}'', Japan was secretly ruled by a psychic ageless person who sought to rain down all over earth removing regulate the starseeds of the people of earth. It either kills them or turns them all into [[MonsterOfTheWeek Phage]]. Only the Sailor Senshi are left unaffected.
* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Second Impact. Tidal waves and flooding wiped out the coastal regions while the surviving land was ravaged by shifts in the global climate and resulting famines. It's also been indicated that in addition to lowerworld's population for [[ForTheEvulz not quite explained reasons]]. The atomic bombings on Hiroshima and vastly reduced lifespans, Nagasaki upon losing WWII were arranged on purpose to this end. During the birth rate has dropped dramatically.
** Depending on your definition, [[spoiler:Third Impact, too. Fans just can't seem to agree just how depopulatingstory, one of the latter's effect was. [[AssimilationPlot Instrumentality]] depopulates antagonists attempts to start a zombie outbreak spread by sex with her as definitely as old-fashioned explosions, the ruler. The heroine kills her, but unlike a bomb victim, those caught the zombies don't recover, and the Organization of assassins gladly let them out into the city in it ''can'' return hopes that half of Japan's population gets raped and then dies of starvation. By ''Manga/{{Blattodea}}'', the country looks like a post-apocalyptic scenario.
* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', the Astral Gate accident in 2021 [[DetonationMoon destroyed a large chunk of the moon]] and sent the debris raining down on Earth, devastating the surface of the planet, killing billions, and forcing most of the survivors tolife if they want... [[LotusEaterMachine evacuate. Fifty years later, the human population across the entire solar system is down to only 1.5 billion.
* In ''Manga/DeathNote'', the Kira killings. More specifically, the ones after Light started having Mikami act as his proxy. Mikami went more than a little crazy with his newfound power (which included [[{{Namedar}} the Shinigami Eyes]])... and even criminalized such ''horrible'' things as being lazy. Between that and all the Kira-related incidents up to that point, there were likely several ''[[AMillionIsAStatistic millions]]'', or even ''billions'' of people killed off worldwide. When [[spoiler:Mikami killed himself and Light's name was written down by Ryuk]], and all the Kiras (and most of the Kira Cult devotees) were gone, and the world was going (more-or-less) back to normal save for a few small remnants of the Kira Cult, it'sjust likely that wanting many countries were facing this issue.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'': The X-Virus, which Yggdrasil cooked up because it found the Digital World was getting stuffed toisn't easy]].]]capacity. Initially, it seemed to work, but then it turned out Digimon started developing an antibody, meaning not as many Digimon were dying. And then the antibody turned out to act as a power boost.
* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Second Impact. Tidal waves and flooding wiped out the coastal regions while the surviving land was ravaged by shifts in the global climate and resulting famines. It's also been indicated that in addition to lower
** Depending on your definition, [[spoiler:Third Impact, too. Fans just can't seem to agree just how depopulating
* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', the Astral Gate accident in 2021 [[DetonationMoon destroyed a large chunk of the moon]] and sent the debris raining down on Earth, devastating the surface of the planet, killing billions, and forcing most of the survivors to
* In ''Manga/DeathNote'', the Kira killings. More specifically, the ones after Light started having Mikami act as his proxy. Mikami went more than a little crazy with his newfound power (which included [[{{Namedar}} the Shinigami Eyes]])... and even criminalized such ''horrible'' things as being lazy. Between that and all the Kira-related incidents up to that point, there were likely several ''[[AMillionIsAStatistic millions]]'', or even ''billions'' of people killed off worldwide. When [[spoiler:Mikami killed himself and Light's name was written down by Ryuk]], and all the Kiras (and most of the Kira Cult devotees) were gone, and the world was going (more-or-less) back to normal save for a few small remnants of the Kira Cult, it's
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'': The X-Virus, which Yggdrasil cooked up because it found the Digital World was getting stuffed to
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* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' "Initial fighting lasted over one month, and saw both sides lose half their respective populations. People are horrified by the indescribable atrocities that have been committed in the name of independence..." This occurred as the result of a ColonyDrop (which actually wiped out Sydney, Australia, while causing widespread destruction everywhere else), the poison gassing of numerous colonies, on top of the actual battles. Most of this genocide took place over the course of ''[[http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/One_Year_War#Chronology a week]] or so''. It led directly to both sides signing a treaty prohibiting the use of "NBC" weapons ("Nuclear, Biological, Chemical") in warfare.
* ''Manga/RaveMaster'' had the Overdrive, which wiped out 1/10th of the world.
* In ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', it's not the [[{{Muggles}} blissfully ignorant]] humans who are dealing with population problems, it's everyone else. Previously, Angels were created by God, and enough of them were led astray for the Fallen Angels to keep their numbers up; Devils reproduced sexually, their low fertility [[ImmortalProcreationClause offset by long lifespans]]. After the GreatOffscreenWar, GodIsDead, and with him any new Angels, and those that are left are far too devout to ever fall, leaving both those factions considering each individual more precious than ever. Meanwhile, Devils experienced such a severe depopulation that extinction was an inevitability, and created the Evil Piece system in response in order to stabilize their population with reincarnated humans. [[spoiler:Later in the series, Angels and Fallen Angels have both borrowed the reincarnation techniques in their own ways, just in time for the vital element of it to get stolen.]]
* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', the Astral Gate accident in 2021 [[DetonationMoon destroyed a large chunk of the moon]] and sent the debris raining down on Earth, devastating the surface of the planet, killing billions, and forcing most of the survivors to evacuate. Fifty years later, the human population across the entire solar system is down to only 1.5 billion.
* In ''Anime/DeathNote'', the Kira killings. More specifically, the ones after Light started having Mikami act as his proxy. Mikami went more than a little crazy with his newfound power (which included [[{{Namedar}} the Shinigami Eyes]])...and even criminalized such ''horrible'' things as being lazy. Between that and all the Kira-related incidents up to that point, there were likely several ''[[AMillionIsAStatistic millions]]'', or even ''billions'' of people killed off worldwide. When [[spoiler:Mikami killed himself and Light's name was written down by Ryuk]], and all the Kiras (and most of the Kira Cult devotees) were gone, and the world was going (more-or-less) back to normal save for a few small remnants of the Kira Cult, it's likely that many countries were facing this issue.
* In ''Anime/HeatGuyJ'', after humanity appropriated the technology [[note]] [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo Possibly nuclear energy, though this is not stated]]. [[/note]] of the resident SuperiorSpecies and used it as a weapon of war, only a few small, isolated populations of humans remained. They became seven isolationist city-states, perhaps with a few surrounding villages or suburbs.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}:'' The X-Virus, which Yggdrasil cooked up because it found the Digital World was getting stuffed to capacity. Initially, it seemed to work, but then it turned out Digimon started developing an antibody, meaning not as many Digimon were dying. And then the antibody turned out to act as a power boost.
* In ''Manga/{{Arachnid}}'', Japan was secretly ruled by a psychic ageless person who sought to regulate the world's population for [[ForTheEvulz not quite explained reasons]]. The atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki upon losing WWII were arranged on purpose to this end. During the story, one of the antagonists attempts to start a zombie outbreak spread by sex with her as the ruler. The heroine kills her, but the zombies don't recover and the Organization of assassins gladly let them out into the city in hopes that half of Japan's population gets raped and then dies of starvation. By ''Manga/{{Blattodea}}'', the country looks like a post-apocalyptic scenario.
* In ''Manga/DrStone'', some mysterious event [[TakenForGranite turns all of humanity to stone]] (except [[spoiler:[[WhatAboutTheAstronauts six astronauts on the ISS]]]]). Subverted in that the petrification is reversible, and the means to do so is one of the first things the protagonist discovers.
* ''Manga/RaveMaster'' had the Overdrive, which wiped out 1/10th of the world.
* In ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', it's not the [[{{Muggles}} blissfully ignorant]] humans who are dealing with population problems, it's everyone else. Previously, Angels were created by God, and enough of them were led astray for the Fallen Angels to keep their numbers up; Devils reproduced sexually, their low fertility [[ImmortalProcreationClause offset by long lifespans]]. After the GreatOffscreenWar, GodIsDead, and with him any new Angels, and those that are left are far too devout to ever fall, leaving both those factions considering each individual more precious than ever. Meanwhile, Devils experienced such a severe depopulation that extinction was an inevitability, and created the Evil Piece system in response in order to stabilize their population with reincarnated humans. [[spoiler:Later in the series, Angels and Fallen Angels have both borrowed the reincarnation techniques in their own ways, just in time for the vital element of it to get stolen.]]
* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', the Astral Gate accident in 2021 [[DetonationMoon destroyed a large chunk of the moon]] and sent the debris raining down on Earth, devastating the surface of the planet, killing billions, and forcing most of the survivors to evacuate. Fifty years later, the human population across the entire solar system is down to only 1.5 billion.
* In ''Anime/DeathNote'', the Kira killings. More specifically, the ones after Light started having Mikami act as his proxy. Mikami went more than a little crazy with his newfound power (which included [[{{Namedar}} the Shinigami Eyes]])...and even criminalized such ''horrible'' things as being lazy. Between that and all the Kira-related incidents up to that point, there were likely several ''[[AMillionIsAStatistic millions]]'', or even ''billions'' of people killed off worldwide. When [[spoiler:Mikami killed himself and Light's name was written down by Ryuk]], and all the Kiras (and most of the Kira Cult devotees) were gone, and the world was going (more-or-less) back to normal save for a few small remnants of the Kira Cult, it's likely that many countries were facing this issue.
* In ''Anime/HeatGuyJ'', after humanity appropriated the technology [[note]] [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo Possibly nuclear energy, though this is not stated]]. [[/note]] of the resident SuperiorSpecies and used it as a weapon of war, only a few small, isolated populations of humans remained. They became seven isolationist city-states, perhaps with a few surrounding villages or suburbs.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}:'' The X-Virus, which Yggdrasil cooked up because it found the Digital World was getting stuffed to capacity. Initially, it seemed to work, but then it turned out Digimon started developing an antibody, meaning not as many Digimon were dying. And then the antibody turned out to act as a power boost.
* In ''Manga/{{Arachnid}}'', Japan was secretly ruled by a psychic ageless person who sought to regulate the world's population for [[ForTheEvulz not quite explained reasons]]. The atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki upon losing WWII were arranged on purpose to this end. During the story, one of the antagonists attempts to start a zombie outbreak spread by sex with her as the ruler. The heroine kills her, but the zombies don't recover and the Organization of assassins gladly let them out into the city in hopes that half of Japan's population gets raped and then dies of starvation. By ''Manga/{{Blattodea}}'', the country looks like a post-apocalyptic scenario.
* In ''Manga/DrStone'', some mysterious event [[TakenForGranite turns all of humanity to stone]] (except [[spoiler:[[WhatAboutTheAstronauts six astronauts on the ISS]]]]). Subverted in that the petrification is reversible, and the means to do so is one of the first things the protagonist discovers.
to:
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' In ''Manga/DrStone'', some mysterious event [[TakenForGranite turns all of humanity to stone]] (except [[spoiler:[[WhatAboutTheAstronauts six astronauts on the ISS]]]]). {{Subverted|Trope}} in that the petrification is reversible, and the means to do so is one of the first things the protagonist discovers.
* In ''Anime/HeatGuyJ'', after humanity appropriated the technology[[note]][[NuclearWeaponsTaboo Possibly nuclear energy, though this is not stated]].[[/note]] of the resident SuperiorSpecies and used it as a weapon of war, only a few small, isolated populations of humans remained. They became seven isolationist city-states, perhaps with a few surrounding villages or suburbs.
* In ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', it's not the [[{{Muggles}} blissfully ignorant]] humans who are dealing with population problems, it's everyone else. Previously, Angels were created by God, and enough of them were led astray for the Fallen Angels to keep their numbers up; Devils reproduced sexually, their low fertility [[ImmortalProcreationClause offset by long lifespans]]. After the GreatOffscreenWar, GodIsDead, and with him any new Angels, and those that are left are far too devout to ever fall, leaving both those factions considering each individual more precious than ever. Meanwhile, Devils experienced such a severe depopulation that extinction was an inevitability and created the Evil Piece system in response in order to stabilize their population with reincarnated humans. [[spoiler:Later in the series, Angels and Fallen Angels have both borrowed the reincarnation techniques in their own ways, just in time for the vital element of it to get stolen.]]
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'': "Initial fighting lasted over onemonth, month and saw both sides lose half their respective populations. People are horrified by the indescribable atrocities that have been committed in the name of independence..." This occurred as the result of a ColonyDrop (which actually wiped out Sydney, Australia, while causing widespread destruction everywhere else), the poison gassing of numerous colonies, on top of the actual battles. Most of this genocide took place over the course of ''[[http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/One_Year_War#Chronology a week]] or so''. It led directly to both sides signing a treaty prohibiting the use of "NBC" weapons ("Nuclear, Biological, Chemical") in warfare.
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'':
** Second Impact. Tidal waves and flooding wiped out the coastal regions while the surviving land was ravaged by shifts in the global climate and resulting famines. It's also been indicated that in addition to lower population and vastly reduced lifespans, the birth rate has dropped dramatically.
** Depending on your definition, [[spoiler:Third Impact, too. Fans just can't seem to agree just how depopulating the latter's effect was. [[AssimilationPlot Instrumentality]] depopulates as definitely as old-fashioned explosions, but unlike a bomb victim, those caught in it ''can'' return to life if they want... [[LotusEaterMachine it's just that wanting to isn't easy]]]].
* ''Manga/RaveMaster''had has the Overdrive, which wiped out 1/10th of the world.
* In''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', it's not ''Anime/SailorMoon'', Sailor Galaxia releases an attack that causes black lighting to rain down all over earth removing the [[{{Muggles}} blissfully ignorant]] humans who are dealing with population problems, it's everyone else. Previously, Angels were created by God, and enough starseeds of the people of Earth. It either kills them were led astray for or turns them all into [[MonsterOfTheWeek Phage]]. Only the Fallen Angels to keep their numbers up; Devils reproduced sexually, their low fertility [[ImmortalProcreationClause offset by long lifespans]]. After the GreatOffscreenWar, GodIsDead, and with him any new Angels, and those that Sailor Senshi are left are far too devout to ever fall, leaving both those factions considering each individual more precious than ever. Meanwhile, Devils experienced such a severe depopulation that extinction was an inevitability, and created the Evil Piece system in response in order to stabilize their population with reincarnated humans. [[spoiler:Later in the series, Angels and Fallen Angels have both borrowed the reincarnation techniques in their own ways, just in time for the vital element of it to get stolen.]]
* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', the Astral Gate accident in 2021 [[DetonationMoon destroyed a large chunk of the moon]] and sent the debris raining down on Earth, devastating the surface of the planet, killing billions, and forcing most of the survivors to evacuate. Fifty years later, the human population across the entire solar system is down to only 1.5 billion.
* In ''Anime/DeathNote'', the Kira killings. More specifically, the ones after Light started having Mikami act as his proxy. Mikami went more than a little crazy with his newfound power (which included [[{{Namedar}} the Shinigami Eyes]])...and even criminalized such ''horrible'' things as being lazy. Between that and all the Kira-related incidents up to that point, there were likely several ''[[AMillionIsAStatistic millions]]'', or even ''billions'' of people killed off worldwide. When [[spoiler:Mikami killed himself and Light's name was written down by Ryuk]], and all the Kiras (and most of the Kira Cult devotees) were gone, and the world was going (more-or-less) back to normal save for a few small remnants of the Kira Cult, it's likely that many countries were facing this issue.
* In ''Anime/HeatGuyJ'', after humanity appropriated the technology [[note]] [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo Possibly nuclear energy, though this is not stated]]. [[/note]] of the resident SuperiorSpecies and used it as a weapon of war, only a few small, isolated populations of humans remained. They became seven isolationist city-states, perhaps with a few surrounding villages or suburbs.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}:'' The X-Virus, which Yggdrasil cooked up because it found the Digital World was getting stuffed to capacity. Initially, it seemed to work, but then it turned out Digimon started developing an antibody, meaning not as many Digimon were dying. And then the antibody turned out to act as a power boost.
* In ''Manga/{{Arachnid}}'', Japan was secretly ruled by a psychic ageless person who sought to regulate the world's population for [[ForTheEvulz not quite explained reasons]]. The atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki upon losing WWII were arranged on purpose to this end. During the story, one of the antagonists attempts to start a zombie outbreak spread by sex with her as the ruler. The heroine kills her, but the zombies don't recover and the Organization of assassins gladly let them out into the city in hopes that half of Japan's population gets raped and then dies of starvation. By ''Manga/{{Blattodea}}'', the country looks like a post-apocalyptic scenario.
* In ''Manga/DrStone'', some mysterious event [[TakenForGranite turns all of humanity to stone]] (except [[spoiler:[[WhatAboutTheAstronauts six astronauts on the ISS]]]]). Subverted in that the petrification is reversible, and the means to do so is one of the first things the protagonist discovers.unaffected.
* In ''Anime/HeatGuyJ'', after humanity appropriated the technology[[note]][[NuclearWeaponsTaboo Possibly nuclear energy, though this is not stated]].[[/note]] of the resident SuperiorSpecies and used it as a weapon of war, only a few small, isolated populations of humans remained. They became seven isolationist city-states, perhaps with a few surrounding villages or suburbs.
* In ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', it's not the [[{{Muggles}} blissfully ignorant]] humans who are dealing with population problems, it's everyone else. Previously, Angels were created by God, and enough of them were led astray for the Fallen Angels to keep their numbers up; Devils reproduced sexually, their low fertility [[ImmortalProcreationClause offset by long lifespans]]. After the GreatOffscreenWar, GodIsDead, and with him any new Angels, and those that are left are far too devout to ever fall, leaving both those factions considering each individual more precious than ever. Meanwhile, Devils experienced such a severe depopulation that extinction was an inevitability and created the Evil Piece system in response in order to stabilize their population with reincarnated humans. [[spoiler:Later in the series, Angels and Fallen Angels have both borrowed the reincarnation techniques in their own ways, just in time for the vital element of it to get stolen.]]
* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'': "Initial fighting lasted over one
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'':
** Second Impact. Tidal waves and flooding wiped out the coastal regions while the surviving land was ravaged by shifts in the global climate and resulting famines. It's also been indicated that in addition to lower population and vastly reduced lifespans, the birth rate has dropped dramatically.
** Depending on your definition, [[spoiler:Third Impact, too. Fans just can't seem to agree just how depopulating the latter's effect was. [[AssimilationPlot Instrumentality]] depopulates as definitely as old-fashioned explosions, but unlike a bomb victim, those caught in it ''can'' return to life if they want... [[LotusEaterMachine it's just that wanting to isn't easy]]]].
* ''Manga/RaveMaster''
* In
* In ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', the Astral Gate accident in 2021 [[DetonationMoon destroyed a large chunk of the moon]] and sent the debris raining down on Earth, devastating the surface of the planet, killing billions, and forcing most of the survivors to evacuate. Fifty years later, the human population across the entire solar system is down to only 1.5 billion.
* In ''Anime/DeathNote'', the Kira killings. More specifically, the ones after Light started having Mikami act as his proxy. Mikami went more than a little crazy with his newfound power (which included [[{{Namedar}} the Shinigami Eyes]])...and even criminalized such ''horrible'' things as being lazy. Between that and all the Kira-related incidents up to that point, there were likely several ''[[AMillionIsAStatistic millions]]'', or even ''billions'' of people killed off worldwide. When [[spoiler:Mikami killed himself and Light's name was written down by Ryuk]], and all the Kiras (and most of the Kira Cult devotees) were gone, and the world was going (more-or-less) back to normal save for a few small remnants of the Kira Cult, it's likely that many countries were facing this issue.
* In ''Anime/HeatGuyJ'', after humanity appropriated the technology [[note]] [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo Possibly nuclear energy, though this is not stated]]. [[/note]] of the resident SuperiorSpecies and used it as a weapon of war, only a few small, isolated populations of humans remained. They became seven isolationist city-states, perhaps with a few surrounding villages or suburbs.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}:'' The X-Virus, which Yggdrasil cooked up because it found the Digital World was getting stuffed to capacity. Initially, it seemed to work, but then it turned out Digimon started developing an antibody, meaning not as many Digimon were dying. And then the antibody turned out to act as a power boost.
* In ''Manga/{{Arachnid}}'', Japan was secretly ruled by a psychic ageless person who sought to regulate the world's population for [[ForTheEvulz not quite explained reasons]]. The atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki upon losing WWII were arranged on purpose to this end. During the story, one of the antagonists attempts to start a zombie outbreak spread by sex with her as the ruler. The heroine kills her, but the zombies don't recover and the Organization of assassins gladly let them out into the city in hopes that half of Japan's population gets raped and then dies of starvation. By ''Manga/{{Blattodea}}'', the country looks like a post-apocalyptic scenario.
* In ''Manga/DrStone'', some mysterious event [[TakenForGranite turns all of humanity to stone]] (except [[spoiler:[[WhatAboutTheAstronauts six astronauts on the ISS]]]]). Subverted in that the petrification is reversible, and the means to do so is one of the first things the protagonist discovers.
* ''ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire'': A major plot point in ''Buck Godot: The Gallimaufry'' is the discovery of an engineered virus that doesn't kill outright, but instead ''completely eliminates the human sex drive''.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'', it is said that out of a population of 6 billion, only 200 million of humans survived C-Day, the mass infestation event that unleashed the Crossed virus into the world.
* In ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', Lex Luthor and Brainiac placed an entire network of these in orbit around Earth that lets them hold the entire world hostage which they use to force Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel to work for them. Near the end, Luthor plans to unleash ''all'' of them at once to reduce humanity to a "manageable" population of a billion. [[spoiler:He's foiled when Green Lantern makes them all vanish.]]
* In ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'', it is said that out of a population of 6 billion, only 200 million of humans survived C-Day, the mass infestation event that unleashed the Crossed virus into the world.
* In ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', Lex Luthor and Brainiac placed an entire network of these in orbit around Earth that lets them hold the entire world hostage which they use to force Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel to work for them. Near the end, Luthor plans to unleash ''all'' of them at once to reduce humanity to a "manageable" population of a billion. [[spoiler:He's foiled when Green Lantern makes them all vanish.]]
Changed line(s) 57,61 (click to see context) from:
* A major plot point in ''ComicBook/{{Buck Godot|Zap Gun for Hire}}: The Gallimaufry'' is the discovery of an engineered virus that doesn't kill outright, but instead ''completely eliminates the human sex drive''.
* The whatever that killed off all the men in ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan''
* In ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', ComicBook/LexLuthor and ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} placed an entire network of these in orbit around Earth that lets them hold the entire world hostage which they use to force Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel to work for them. Near the end, Luthor plans to unleash ''all'' of them at once to reduce humanity to a "managable" population of a billion. [[spoiler:He's foiled when Green Lantern makes them all vanish.]]
* In ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'' it is said that out of a population of 6 billions, only 200 millions of humans survived C-Day AKA the mass infestation event that unleashed the Crossed virus into the world.
* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' ends with [[spoiler:Ozymandias killing millions of people in New York City.]] TheMovie made it even worse as it was just one of ''several'' cities destroyed.
* The whatever that killed off all the men in ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan''
* In ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', ComicBook/LexLuthor and ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} placed an entire network of these in orbit around Earth that lets them hold the entire world hostage which they use to force Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel to work for them. Near the end, Luthor plans to unleash ''all'' of them at once to reduce humanity to a "managable" population of a billion. [[spoiler:He's foiled when Green Lantern makes them all vanish.]]
* In ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'' it is said that out of a population of 6 billions, only 200 millions of humans survived C-Day AKA the mass infestation event that unleashed the Crossed virus into the world.
* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' ends with [[spoiler:Ozymandias killing millions of people in New York City.]] TheMovie made it even worse as it was just one of ''several'' cities destroyed.
to:
* The whatever that killed off all the men in ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan''
* In ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', ComicBook/LexLuthor and ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} placed an entire network of these in orbit around Earth that lets them hold the entire world hostage which they use to force Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel to work for them. Near the end, Luthor plans to unleash ''all'' of them at once to reduce humanity to a "managable" population of a billion. [[spoiler:He's foiled when Green Lantern makes them all vanish.]]
* In ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'' it is said that out of a population of 6 billions, only 200 millions of humans survived C-Day AKA the mass infestation event that unleashed the Crossed virus into the world.
* The whatever that [[{{Gendercide}} killed off all the men]] in ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan''.
Changed line(s) 65,66 (click to see context) from:
* In the ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' fan adventure ''Webcomic/ACompleteWasteOfTime'', the MMORPG META has a policy of determining the players meant to play the game by compiling a list of everyone the server player knows. If anyone on that list does not install the game within one day after the server starts, they inexplicably die. On the planet Seconia (pop. 12.5 million), the ithicans are all connected with each other through some natural network, and thus everyone would know each other on an unconscious level. Unfortunately, only eight copies of the game were made on that planet, and only the owners of those eight copies survived the ensuing near-extinction of the species.
* In ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'', it's mentioned that centuries ago there was [[ThePlague a plague equivalent to the real world's Black Death]], that afflicted Kalos and the other European equivalent regions of the Pokémon world, killing about half the population. The narrative hints it had something to do with the Ultra Space.
* In ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'', it's mentioned that centuries ago there was [[ThePlague a plague equivalent to the real world's Black Death]], that afflicted Kalos and the other European equivalent regions of the Pokémon world, killing about half the population. The narrative hints it had something to do with the Ultra Space.
to:
* In the ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' fan adventure ''Webcomic/ACompleteWasteOfTime'', the MMORPG META has a policy of determining the players meant to play the game by compiling a list of everyone the server player knows. If anyone on that list does not install the game within one day after the server starts, they inexplicably die. On the planet Seconia (pop. 12.5 million), the ithicans are all connected with each other through some natural network, and thus everyone would know each other on an unconscious level. Unfortunately, only eight copies of the game were made on that planet, and only the owners of those eight copies survived the ensuing near-extinction of the species.
* In ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'', it's mentioned that centuries ago there was [[ThePlague a plague equivalent to the real world's Black Death]], that afflicted Kalos and the other European equivalent regions of the Pokémon world, killing about half the population. The narrative hints it had something to do with the Ultra Space.species.
* In ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'', it's mentioned that centuries ago there was [[ThePlague a plague equivalent to the real world's Black Death]], that afflicted Kalos and the other European equivalent regions of the Pokémon world, killing about half the population. The narrative hints it had something to do with the Ultra Space.
Changed line(s) 68 (click to see context) from:
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' FanFiction ''Fanfic/ItsAKidsWorld'' has an OnlyFatalToAdults variant. [[spoiler:An event called The Big Vanish suddenly wipes out the entire world populace over 15 years of age in a single instant, leaving only children behind. This paves the way for a story about the kids having to fight for power, resources, and survival in a new and hostile unorderly world.]]
to:
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' FanFiction ''Fanfic/ItsAKidsWorld'' has an OnlyFatalToAdults variant. [[spoiler:An event called The Big Vanish suddenly wipes out the entire world populace over 15 years of age in a single instant, leaving only children behind. This paves the way for a story about the kids having to fight for power, resources, and survival in a new and hostile unorderly world.]] ]]
* In ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'', it's mentioned that centuries ago there was [[ThePlague a plague equivalent to the real world's Black Death]], that afflicted Kalos and the other European equivalent regions of the Pokémon world, killing about half the population. The narrative hints it had something to do with the Ultra Space.
* In ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'', it's mentioned that centuries ago there was [[ThePlague a plague equivalent to the real world's Black Death]], that afflicted Kalos and the other European equivalent regions of the Pokémon world, killing about half the population. The narrative hints it had something to do with the Ultra Space.
Deleted line(s) 72,74 (click to see context) :
* In ''The World, the Flesh and The Devil'' (adapted from M.P. Shiel's ''The Purple Cloud'', see Literature below), use of a radioactive poison kills most of the earth's population, resulting in a remaining New York population of only three people.
* The Franchise/JamesBond film ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'' had the villain attempting to use a chemical weapon which would kill all humans on earth (only humans; other animals will be fine), to be repopulated with humans from his space station. With him as their leader, of course.
* The eponymous menace in ''Film/NightOfTheComet'' literally erases animal (and human) life on Earth, except for a few people who were indoors/underground -- and a few who were "partially protected" who became [[ZombieApocalypse zombies]].
* The Franchise/JamesBond film ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'' had the villain attempting to use a chemical weapon which would kill all humans on earth (only humans; other animals will be fine), to be repopulated with humans from his space station. With him as their leader, of course.
* The eponymous menace in ''Film/NightOfTheComet'' literally erases animal (and human) life on Earth, except for a few people who were indoors/underground -- and a few who were "partially protected" who became [[ZombieApocalypse zombies]].
Deleted line(s) 76,83 (click to see context) :
* ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''/''Film/TwentyEightWeeksLater'' has a spectacularly contagious Rage virus, plus intense aggression by Infected against non-infected. Britain is drastically depopulated by the end of ''Days'', [[spoiler:and ''Weeks'' has the virus spreading in Europe, thus probably worldwide, setting up the InferredHolocaust]].
* ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' reveals that [[spoiler:the Alliance tested an experimental chemical called Pax on a populated planet, meant to curb their more violent impulses. It succeeded too well, causing them to develop severe amotivational disorder, to the point where just about all of them just lay down and died. The ones who survived had the exact opposite reaction to the Pax, becoming the psychotically violent and cannibalistic Reavers]].
* The Rapture serves as one in the ''Film/LeftBehind'' film series, the ''Film/{{Apocalypse}}'' film series, and the ''Moment After'' film series.
* In ''Film/LChangeTheWorld'', Blue Ship, a bio-terrorist group, creates an incredibly deadly virus to depopulate the earth. They stave off releasing it until they create an antidote so that they can survive it, [[{{Hypocrite}} naturally]].
* In ''Franchise/StarTrek'''s Genesis arc, the Klingons believe the Genesis Device was developed by the Federation to wipe out Klingon populations, leaving planets intact for easy conquest.
* Polish comedy[[note]]Yes, this trope in a comedy, although a rather dark one[[/note]] ''Film/SexMission'' introduces us to a bomb which was supposed to temporarily suppress Y chromosome in humans, but instead killed all males and left some deadly radiation on the surface of Earth, forcing women to populate caves, use parthenogenesis to reproduce, utilise chemical food and so on. The male protagonists survived because they already were underground during their HumanPopsicle experiment. [[spoiler:The bomb effects turn out later to be rather blown up, if you forgive the pun, by history revisionism.]]
* In ''Film/{{Automata}}'' natural occurring solar flare activity has skyrocketed to the point that planet Earth is now mostly desert and radiation is slowly poisoning organic life.
* ''Film/JuanInAMillion'': Juan is left alone in an empty Santiago, Chile
* ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' reveals that [[spoiler:the Alliance tested an experimental chemical called Pax on a populated planet, meant to curb their more violent impulses. It succeeded too well, causing them to develop severe amotivational disorder, to the point where just about all of them just lay down and died. The ones who survived had the exact opposite reaction to the Pax, becoming the psychotically violent and cannibalistic Reavers]].
* The Rapture serves as one in the ''Film/LeftBehind'' film series, the ''Film/{{Apocalypse}}'' film series, and the ''Moment After'' film series.
* In ''Film/LChangeTheWorld'', Blue Ship, a bio-terrorist group, creates an incredibly deadly virus to depopulate the earth. They stave off releasing it until they create an antidote so that they can survive it, [[{{Hypocrite}} naturally]].
* In ''Franchise/StarTrek'''s Genesis arc, the Klingons believe the Genesis Device was developed by the Federation to wipe out Klingon populations, leaving planets intact for easy conquest.
* Polish comedy[[note]]Yes, this trope in a comedy, although a rather dark one[[/note]] ''Film/SexMission'' introduces us to a bomb which was supposed to temporarily suppress Y chromosome in humans, but instead killed all males and left some deadly radiation on the surface of Earth, forcing women to populate caves, use parthenogenesis to reproduce, utilise chemical food and so on. The male protagonists survived because they already were underground during their HumanPopsicle experiment. [[spoiler:The bomb effects turn out later to be rather blown up, if you forgive the pun, by history revisionism.]]
* In ''Film/{{Automata}}'' natural occurring solar flare activity has skyrocketed to the point that planet Earth is now mostly desert and radiation is slowly poisoning organic life.
* ''Film/JuanInAMillion'': Juan is left alone in an empty Santiago, Chile
Changed line(s) 85,87 (click to see context) from:
* ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'': [[spoiler:Thanos successfully obtains all six of the Infinity Gems and wipes out half the population of the entire universe. ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' shows both the fallout of this, and eventually restores all the snapped out life]].
* ''Film/{{XXX}}'': A terrorist group plots to send biochemical weapons to large cities all over the world. They use a poison gas called Silent Night, to "kill millions", provoke World War and Civilization Collapse, and to restore global anarchy and "absolute, beautiful freedom".
* ''Film/{{Grimsby}}'': Terrorists plan to release a deadly virus (called [=RD9=] or World Cure) to "delete the garbage, the imbeciles, who lie around drunk, reproduce like rabbits, and expect others to pay". The name [=RD9=] can be translated to "'''[=R=]'''e'''[=D=]'''uce by '''9'''0%", as announced by The Georgia Guide Stones.
* ''Film/{{XXX}}'': A terrorist group plots to send biochemical weapons to large cities all over the world. They use a poison gas called Silent Night, to "kill millions", provoke World War and Civilization Collapse, and to restore global anarchy and "absolute, beautiful freedom".
* ''Film/{{Grimsby}}'': Terrorists plan to release a deadly virus (called [=RD9=] or World Cure) to "delete the garbage, the imbeciles, who lie around drunk, reproduce like rabbits, and expect others to pay". The name [=RD9=] can be translated to "'''[=R=]'''e'''[=D=]'''uce by '''9'''0%", as announced by The Georgia Guide Stones.
to:
* ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'': ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' and ''Film/TwentyEightWeeksLater'' have a spectacularly contagious [[HatePlague Rage virus]], plus intense aggression by Infected against non-infected. Britain is drastically depopulated by the end of ''Days'', [[spoiler:and ''Weeks'' has the virus spreading in Europe, thus probably worldwide, setting up the InferredHolocaust]].
* In ''Film/{{Automata}}'', natural occurring [[SolarFlareDisaster solar flare activity]] has skyrocketed to the point that planet Earth is now mostly desert and radiation is slowly poisoning organic life.
* In ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', [[spoiler:Thanos successfully obtains all six of the Infinity Gems and wipes out half the population of the entire universe. ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' shows both the fallout of this, and eventually restores all thesnapped out snapped-out life]].
* ''Film/{{XXX}}'': A terrorist group plots to send biochemical weapons to large cities all over the world. They use a poison gas called Silent Night, to "kill millions", provoke World War and Civilization Collapse, and to restore global anarchy and "absolute, beautiful freedom".
* ''Film/{{Grimsby}}'': Terrorists plan to release a deadly virus (called [=RD9=] or World Cure) to "delete the garbage, the imbeciles, who lie around drunk, reproduce like rabbits, and expect others to pay". The name [=RD9=] can be translated to "'''[=R=]'''e'''[=D=]'''uce "'''R'''e'''D'''uce by '''9'''0%", as announced by The Georgia Guide Stones.Stones.
* ''Film/JuanInAMillion'': Juan is left alone in an empty Santiago, Chile.
* In ''Film/LChangeTheWorld'', Blue Ship, a bio-terrorist group, creates an incredibly deadly virus to depopulate the earth. They stave off releasing it until they create an antidote so that they can survive it, [[{{Hypocrite}} naturally]].
* ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'' has the villain attempting to use a chemical weapon which would kill all humans on earth (only humans; other animals will be fine), to be repopulated with humans from his space station -- with him as their leader, of course.
* The eponymous menace in ''Film/NightOfTheComet'' literally erases animal (and human) life on Earth, except for a few people who were indoors/underground -- and a few who were "partially protected" who became [[ZombieApocalypse zombies]].
* In ''Film/{{Automata}}'', natural occurring [[SolarFlareDisaster solar flare activity]] has skyrocketed to the point that planet Earth is now mostly desert and radiation is slowly poisoning organic life.
* In ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', [[spoiler:Thanos successfully obtains all six of the Infinity Gems and wipes out half the population of the entire universe. ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' shows both the fallout of this, and eventually restores all the
* ''Film/JuanInAMillion'': Juan is left alone in an empty Santiago, Chile.
* In ''Film/LChangeTheWorld'', Blue Ship, a bio-terrorist group, creates an incredibly deadly virus to depopulate the earth. They stave off releasing it until they create an antidote so that they can survive it, [[{{Hypocrite}} naturally]].
* ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'' has the villain attempting to use a chemical weapon which would kill all humans on earth (only humans; other animals will be fine), to be repopulated with humans from his space station -- with him as their leader, of course.
* The eponymous menace in ''Film/NightOfTheComet'' literally erases animal (and human) life on Earth, except for a few people who were indoors/underground -- and a few who were "partially protected" who became [[ZombieApocalypse zombies]].
* ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' reveals that [[spoiler:the Alliance tested an experimental chemical called Pax on a populated planet, meant to curb their more violent impulses. It succeeded too well, causing them to develop severe amotivational disorder, to the point where just about all of them just lay down and died. The ones who survived had the exact opposite reaction to the Pax, becoming the psychotically violent and cannibalistic Reavers]].
* The Polish comedy[[note]]Yes, this trope in a comedy, although a rather dark one[[/note]] ''Film/SexMission'' introduces us to a bomb which was supposed to temporarily suppress Y chromosome in humans, but instead killed all males and left some deadly radiation on the surface of Earth, forcing women to populate caves, use parthenogenesis to reproduce, utilize chemical food and so on. The male protagonists survived because they already were underground during their HumanPopsicle experiment. [[spoiler:The bomb effects turn out later to be rather blown up, if you forgive the pun, by history revisionism.]]
* In ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'', the Klingons believe that [[GenesisEffect the Genesis Device]] was developed by the Federation to wipe out Klingon populations, leaving planets intact for easy conquest.
* In ''The World, the Flesh and The Devil'' (adapted from M.P. Shiel's ''The Purple Cloud'', see Literature below), use of a radioactive poison kills most of the earth's population, resulting in a remaining New York population of only three people.
* ''Film/XXx'': A terrorist group plots to send biochemical weapons to large cities all over the world. They use a poison gas called Silent Night, to "kill millions", provoke World War and Civilization Collapse, and to restore global anarchy and "absolute, beautiful freedom".
* The Polish comedy[[note]]Yes, this trope in a comedy, although a rather dark one[[/note]] ''Film/SexMission'' introduces us to a bomb which was supposed to temporarily suppress Y chromosome in humans, but instead killed all males and left some deadly radiation on the surface of Earth, forcing women to populate caves, use parthenogenesis to reproduce, utilize chemical food and so on. The male protagonists survived because they already were underground during their HumanPopsicle experiment. [[spoiler:The bomb effects turn out later to be rather blown up, if you forgive the pun, by history revisionism.]]
* In ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'', the Klingons believe that [[GenesisEffect the Genesis Device]] was developed by the Federation to wipe out Klingon populations, leaving planets intact for easy conquest.
* In ''The World, the Flesh and The Devil'' (adapted from M.P. Shiel's ''The Purple Cloud'', see Literature below), use of a radioactive poison kills most of the earth's population, resulting in a remaining New York population of only three people.
* ''Film/XXx'': A terrorist group plots to send biochemical weapons to large cities all over the world. They use a poison gas called Silent Night, to "kill millions", provoke World War and Civilization Collapse, and to restore global anarchy and "absolute, beautiful freedom".
* In ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverseBethRevis'', 3/4 of the population of the GenerationShip ''Godspeed'' was killed off in an event called the Plague. The population has been slowly rebounding since then, but the limited gene pool has led to problems with inbreeding.
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': At the end of ''The Hork-Bajir Chronicles'', Alloran's method of "accepting defeat" by the Yeerks is to engineer a quantum virus which will annihilate the Hork-Bajir population, leaving only a small fraction of the potential number of hosts without directly harming any other organisms. FridgeLogic questions why he couldn't have targeted it at the Yeerks, you know, the enemy he was ''actually supposed to be fighting'' thus decimating their population without harming the Hork-Bajir. In fact, Arbat tries to do exactly this much later on Earth, but the Animorphs stop him because [[PoweredByAForsakenChild the virus could mutate to kill humans as well]].
* ''Literature/{{Changes}}'' features a magical ritual to kill every member of a bloodline by targeting its youngest member. [[spoiler:Harry uses it to commit genocide against the Red Court.]]
* In ''Literature/TheDayOfTheTriffids'', the only people who can really survive are those who keep their sight, or those who are just plain lucky.
* In Creator/AlanDeanFoster's remake of ''Design for Great-Day'', the Solarian Combine is said to have used a Depopulation Bomb on the worlds of a particularly belligerent species; the effect of said bomb being to completely stop them from reproducing. One hundred or so years later, there were no more belligerent aliens. This rumor is enough to bring the Solarians' current target species to the negotiating table, although it's later revealed that they've grown far beyond such crude methods in the intervening centuries.
* ''Literature/{{Digitesque}}'': If a child encounters too many people before they grow old enough, they will become "overwhelmed," meaning they will quickly fall sick and die. This even applies in the womb, so cities are filled with adults and absolutely no children. [[spoiler:This was part of the technophage that broke humanity.]]
* In ''Literature/{{Galapagos}}'', a nuclear war and ThePlague wipe out everyone except a few castaways stranded on the Galapagos Islands.
* In ''In the Mothers' Land'' by Élisabeth Vonarburg, far in the future, many children don't survive to adulthood, and the survivors are [[LadyLand more than 95% female]]. Different societies in this world cope with the situation in various ways, but this story takes place in Maerlande, where the official religious explanation is that things changed to the current state as [[GaiasVengeance divine punishment on men who misused technology and behaved badly]]. In this society, men have very few rights and are confined to reproductive duty, being traded between cities to keep genetic diversity up.
* In ''Literature/IronManSteelTerror'', these are what Ultron plans to use to KillAllHumans; they are called {{Neutron Bomb}}s, but are in fact this.
* In ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'', the protagonist recalls how, during the [[GreatOffscreenWar Vague War]], the [[{{Cyborg}} Meklar]] try to wipe out the human race with a virus specifically tailored to destroy ''spinach''. This is because some joker successfully feeds them false information about human dietary needs, claiming that spinach is vital to humans. They spend countless resources creating the virus and then lose many ships trying to seed human worlds with it. After they eventually realize that humans aren't dropping like flies, the shock is so great that they immediately sue for peace. They could've just as easily tailored the virus to kill humans. Of course, from then on, spinach can only be grown in self-contained greenhouses.
* In ''Literature/LucifersHammer'', Earth is depopulated by an asteroid strike. Recovery might take ages since the asteroid started nuclear winter conditions.
* ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' treats a magical incantation by the white witch Jadis as this. After ruling her home planet of [[MeaningfulName Charn]] as a cruel and capricious tyrant with a ZeroPercentApprovalRating and on the eve of defeat by her own subjects, Jadis out of pure spite uttered the deplorable word, resulting in [[OmnicidalManiac the death of every living thing]] on the planet except herself.
* In ''Literature/TheMazeRunner'', the Flare virus was unleashed to cull those competing for scarce resources in a world devastated by solar flares. At first, it killed its victims quickly, but it rapidly mutated and the infected started taking longer to die. Not only that, but the Flare also robbed them of their humanity and turned them into animalistic beings known as Cranks. However, a small percentage of the world's population is immune to the virus; WICKED was set up to study such people in the hope that finding out the reason for their immunity might lead to a cure.
* ''Literature/OldMansWar'' has a minor Depopulation Bomb in the backstory, as justification for the quarantine of Earth. An alien disease called "The Crimp" caused a third of the planet's male population to go sterile.
* In ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'', and its sequel ''The Year of the Flood'', a genetic engineering genius creates a super-virus to wipe out the world's decadent human population, which he plans to replace with a race of genetically engineered new humans. His virus is only mostly successful, leaving (by [[SarcasmMode sheer coincidence]]) a [[PlotImmunity number of people]] who he [[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether personally knew]] alive.
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': At the end of ''The Hork-Bajir Chronicles'', Alloran's method of "accepting defeat" by the Yeerks is to engineer a quantum virus which will annihilate the Hork-Bajir population, leaving only a small fraction of the potential number of hosts without directly harming any other organisms. FridgeLogic questions why he couldn't have targeted it at the Yeerks, you know, the enemy he was ''actually supposed to be fighting'' thus decimating their population without harming the Hork-Bajir. In fact, Arbat tries to do exactly this much later on Earth, but the Animorphs stop him because [[PoweredByAForsakenChild the virus could mutate to kill humans as well]].
* ''Literature/{{Changes}}'' features a magical ritual to kill every member of a bloodline by targeting its youngest member. [[spoiler:Harry uses it to commit genocide against the Red Court.]]
* In ''Literature/TheDayOfTheTriffids'', the only people who can really survive are those who keep their sight, or those who are just plain lucky.
* In Creator/AlanDeanFoster's remake of ''Design for Great-Day'', the Solarian Combine is said to have used a Depopulation Bomb on the worlds of a particularly belligerent species; the effect of said bomb being to completely stop them from reproducing. One hundred or so years later, there were no more belligerent aliens. This rumor is enough to bring the Solarians' current target species to the negotiating table, although it's later revealed that they've grown far beyond such crude methods in the intervening centuries.
* ''Literature/{{Digitesque}}'': If a child encounters too many people before they grow old enough, they will become "overwhelmed," meaning they will quickly fall sick and die. This even applies in the womb, so cities are filled with adults and absolutely no children. [[spoiler:This was part of the technophage that broke humanity.]]
* In ''Literature/{{Galapagos}}'', a nuclear war and ThePlague wipe out everyone except a few castaways stranded on the Galapagos Islands.
* In ''In the Mothers' Land'' by Élisabeth Vonarburg, far in the future, many children don't survive to adulthood, and the survivors are [[LadyLand more than 95% female]]. Different societies in this world cope with the situation in various ways, but this story takes place in Maerlande, where the official religious explanation is that things changed to the current state as [[GaiasVengeance divine punishment on men who misused technology and behaved badly]]. In this society, men have very few rights and are confined to reproductive duty, being traded between cities to keep genetic diversity up.
* In ''Literature/IronManSteelTerror'', these are what Ultron plans to use to KillAllHumans; they are called {{Neutron Bomb}}s, but are in fact this.
* In ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'', the protagonist recalls how, during the [[GreatOffscreenWar Vague War]], the [[{{Cyborg}} Meklar]] try to wipe out the human race with a virus specifically tailored to destroy ''spinach''. This is because some joker successfully feeds them false information about human dietary needs, claiming that spinach is vital to humans. They spend countless resources creating the virus and then lose many ships trying to seed human worlds with it. After they eventually realize that humans aren't dropping like flies, the shock is so great that they immediately sue for peace. They could've just as easily tailored the virus to kill humans. Of course, from then on, spinach can only be grown in self-contained greenhouses.
* In ''Literature/LucifersHammer'', Earth is depopulated by an asteroid strike. Recovery might take ages since the asteroid started nuclear winter conditions.
* ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' treats a magical incantation by the white witch Jadis as this. After ruling her home planet of [[MeaningfulName Charn]] as a cruel and capricious tyrant with a ZeroPercentApprovalRating and on the eve of defeat by her own subjects, Jadis out of pure spite uttered the deplorable word, resulting in [[OmnicidalManiac the death of every living thing]] on the planet except herself.
* In ''Literature/TheMazeRunner'', the Flare virus was unleashed to cull those competing for scarce resources in a world devastated by solar flares. At first, it killed its victims quickly, but it rapidly mutated and the infected started taking longer to die. Not only that, but the Flare also robbed them of their humanity and turned them into animalistic beings known as Cranks. However, a small percentage of the world's population is immune to the virus; WICKED was set up to study such people in the hope that finding out the reason for their immunity might lead to a cure.
* ''Literature/OldMansWar'' has a minor Depopulation Bomb in the backstory, as justification for the quarantine of Earth. An alien disease called "The Crimp" caused a third of the planet's male population to go sterile.
* In ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'', and its sequel ''The Year of the Flood'', a genetic engineering genius creates a super-virus to wipe out the world's decadent human population, which he plans to replace with a race of genetically engineered new humans. His virus is only mostly successful, leaving (by [[SarcasmMode sheer coincidence]]) a [[PlotImmunity number of people]] who he [[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether personally knew]] alive.
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* M.P. Shiel's 1901 novel ''The Purple Cloud'' has the title phenomenon destroying seemingly all human and animal life on earth save for [[TheAloner one man]]...until he [[TheLastManHeardAKnock learns otherwise]].
* Literature/TheMagiciansNephew prequel in the Narnia series treats a magical incantation by the white witch Jadis as this. After ruling her home planet of [[MeaningfulName Charn]] as a cruel and capricious tyrant with a ZeroPercentApprovalRating and on the eve of defeat by her own subjects, Jadis out of pure spite uttered the deplorable word, resulting in [[OmnicidalManiac the death of every living thing]] on the planet except herself.
* ''Literature/TheDayOfTheTriffids'' probably belong in here as well. The only people who could really survive were those who kept their sight, or those who were just plain lucky.
* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheStand'', A "[[ThePlague superflu]]" kills 99.5% of the population. The post-plague population of the United States is estimated at 1.5 million people. The world's population would be 30 million, equal to everyone on Earth dying except in California or the entire nation of Canada.
** Similarly, there's his short story 'Night Surf', which was reportedly the inspiration for The Stand.
* Creator/KurtVonnegut uses this trope a few times, noticeably in ''Literature/{{Galapagos}}'' and "Slapstick". In ''Galapagos'' a nuclear war and ThePlague wipe out everyone except a few castaways stranded on the Galapagos Islands. In ''Slapstick'', a highly contagious virus [[spoiler:made of miniaturized Chinese Communists]] kills almost the entire population of Manhattan. Various disasters take care of the rest of the world. ''Literature/CatsCradle'', as well. When the ''ice-nine'' hits the fan it completely annihilates all life on Earth.
* In the Creator/MargaretAtwood novel ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'', and its sequel ''The Year of the Flood'', a genetic engineering genius creates a supervirus to wipe out the world's decadent human population, which he plans to replace with a race of genetically engineered new humans. His virus is only mostly successful, leaving (by [[SarcasmMode shear coincidence]]) a [[PlotImmunity number of people]] [[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether he personally knew]] alive.
* ''In the Mothers' Land'' by Élisabeth Vonarburg. Far in the future, many children don't survive to adulthood, and the survivors are [[LadyLand more than 95% female]]. Different societies in this world cope with the situation in various ways, but this story takes place in Maerlande, where the official religious explanation is that things changed to the current state as [[GaiasVengeance divine punishment on men who misused technology and behaved badly]]. In this society, men have very few rights and are confined to reproductive duty, being traded between cities to keep genetic diversity up.
* ''Literature/LucifersHammer'': Earth is depopulated by an asteroid strike. Recovery might take ages since the asteroid started nuclear winter conditions.
* ''Literature/TheSubtleKnife'', seems like this at first, as the Spectres in Cittàgazze target adults and leave them as mindless zombies, so that a city is found completely empty except for a few scavenging children. However there are still a fair number of adults around, but as they're hugely vulnerable and often have to go into hiding, society can barely function.
* At the end of ''[[Literature/{{Animorphs}} The Hork-Bajir Chronicles]]'', Alloran's method of "accepting defeat" by the Yeerks is to engineer a quantum virus which will annihilate the Hork-Bajir population, leaving only a small fraction of the potential number of hosts without directly harming any other organisms.
** FridgeLogic questions why he couldn't have targeted it at the Yeerks, you know, the enemy he was ''actually supposed to be fighting'' thus decimating their population without harming the Hork-Bajir. In fact, Arbat tries to do exactly this much later on Earth, but the Animorphs stop him because [[PoweredByAForsakenChild the virus could mutate to kill humans as well]].
* ''Literature/OldMansWar'' has a minor Depopulation Bomb in the backstory, as justification for the quarantine of Earth. An alien disease called "The Crimp" caused a third of the planet's male population to go sterile.
* Creator/CormacMcCarthy's ''Literature/TheRoad'' has some unspecified disaster leading to this.
* John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' has a mysterious energy wave vaporize almost everyone in the continental United States, as well as the bulk of the populations of Canada, Mexico, and Cuba. While not a global depopulation bomb, it still thoroughly depopulates North America.
* In Creator/AlanDeanFoster's remake of ''Design For Great-Day'', the Solarian Combine is said to have used a Depopulation Bomb on the worlds of a particularly belligerent species; the effect of said bomb being to completely stop them from reproducing. One hundred or so years later, there were no more belligerent aliens. This rumor is enough to bring the Solarians' current target species to the negotiating table, although it's later revealed that they've grown far beyond such crude methods in the intervening centuries.
* Jeff Carlson's ''Literature/PlagueYearSeries'': An artificial nanotech virus is released. It kills any warm-blooded animal with a few hours exposure. It's only limitation is that it was designed to shut off at low air pressure - it will not operate at altitudes above 10,000 feet. The only survivors are the people who lived on or managed to flee in time to high mountain peaks, most of which are isolated from each other by lower altitude plague zones. There are two sequels, ''Plague War'' and ''Plague Zone''.
* ''Literature/ZForZachariah'' opens AfterTheEnd came about thanks to both literal Depopulation Bombs as well as nerve gas. The protagonist believes she's the last living human, until her valley is found by another man. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse]] from there.
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'', the protagonist recalls how, during the [[GreatOffscreenWar Vague War]], the [[{{Cyborg}} Meklar]] try to wipe out the human race with a virus specifically tailored to destroy ''spinach''. This is because some joker successfully feeds them false information about human dietary needs, claiming that spinach is vital to humans. They spend countless resources creating the virus and then lose many ships trying to seed human worlds with it. After they eventually realize that humans aren't dropping like flies, the shock is so great that they immediately sue for peace. They could've just as easily tailored the virus to kill humans. Of course, from then on, spinach can only be grown in self-contained greenhouses.
* In ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverseBethRevis'', 3/4 of the population of the GenerationShip ''Godspeed'' was killed off in an event called the Plague. The population has been slowly rebounding since then, but the limited gene pool has lead to problems with inbreeding.
* Creator/JackLondon's ''The Scarlet Plague''.
* ''Literature/TheWildBoy'' the Lindauzi made virus. Two waves, twenty years apart, and AIDS was said to be part of it. All so they could show up wit a vaccine and get humanity's remains to like them.
* In the Literature/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineRelaunch, the Trill homeworld is targeted by a series of artificial pulses harmless to the vast majority, but deadly to Joined Trills, who form a privileged minority. Many of the Joined are killed, with the average citizen completely unaffected.
** In one of the ''Literature/StarfleetCorpsOfEngineers'' stories, the Miradorn homeworld almost falls victim to a depopulation bomb that was accidentally triggered from the planet's moon. It would have killed 98% of the population (all those Miradorn with [[TwinTelepathy psychic links to identical twins]]), but was halted in time to prevent a significant reduction in numbers.
** Another Star Trek novel, ''The Last Stand'', has a long-standing conflict between the Krann and the Lethanta. Long ago, the Lethanta developed space travel and discovered the Krann on another planet in the same system. They subjugated them. Eventually, the Krann rose up and fought back. But a virus began wiping out the Krann. Assuming it was an attack by the Lethanta, the Krann bombed their homeworld, making it uninhabitable. The surviving Lethanta fled in sublight ships constructed out of asteroids. The surviving Krann, with their planet also no longer habitable due to the virus, built a fleet and gave chase. Near the end of the novel, as the Lethanta-Krann war is coming to a head, Dr. Crusher discovers that the virus was natural, not engineered. Thus the Krann have no reason to try to wipe out the Lethanta. But the temporary peace is fragile, and one of the Krann leaders points out that the long feud isn't going to end just because a doctor saw something in a microscope.
* In ''Literature/TroyRising'', the Horvath drop a series of viruses (and one parasite) on Earth. The parasite is designed to weed out the stupid, being incredibly easy to treat, but fatal otherwise. Four of the viruses target various defects - colorblindness, increased risk of cancer, etc. The last will kill everyone who isn't blond, thus eliminating 90% of the human population. Thankfully, we manage to stop it in time.
* Literature/TheMagiciansNephew prequel in the Narnia series treats a magical incantation by the white witch Jadis as this. After ruling her home planet of [[MeaningfulName Charn]] as a cruel and capricious tyrant with a ZeroPercentApprovalRating and on the eve of defeat by her own subjects, Jadis out of pure spite uttered the deplorable word, resulting in [[OmnicidalManiac the death of every living thing]] on the planet except herself.
* ''Literature/TheDayOfTheTriffids'' probably belong in here as well. The only people who could really survive were those who kept their sight, or those who were just plain lucky.
* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheStand'', A "[[ThePlague superflu]]" kills 99.5% of the population. The post-plague population of the United States is estimated at 1.5 million people. The world's population would be 30 million, equal to everyone on Earth dying except in California or the entire nation of Canada.
** Similarly, there's his short story 'Night Surf', which was reportedly the inspiration for The Stand.
* Creator/KurtVonnegut uses this trope a few times, noticeably in ''Literature/{{Galapagos}}'' and "Slapstick". In ''Galapagos'' a nuclear war and ThePlague wipe out everyone except a few castaways stranded on the Galapagos Islands. In ''Slapstick'', a highly contagious virus [[spoiler:made of miniaturized Chinese Communists]] kills almost the entire population of Manhattan. Various disasters take care of the rest of the world. ''Literature/CatsCradle'', as well. When the ''ice-nine'' hits the fan it completely annihilates all life on Earth.
* In the Creator/MargaretAtwood novel ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'', and its sequel ''The Year of the Flood'', a genetic engineering genius creates a supervirus to wipe out the world's decadent human population, which he plans to replace with a race of genetically engineered new humans. His virus is only mostly successful, leaving (by [[SarcasmMode shear coincidence]]) a [[PlotImmunity number of people]] [[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether he personally knew]] alive.
* ''In the Mothers' Land'' by Élisabeth Vonarburg. Far in the future, many children don't survive to adulthood, and the survivors are [[LadyLand more than 95% female]]. Different societies in this world cope with the situation in various ways, but this story takes place in Maerlande, where the official religious explanation is that things changed to the current state as [[GaiasVengeance divine punishment on men who misused technology and behaved badly]]. In this society, men have very few rights and are confined to reproductive duty, being traded between cities to keep genetic diversity up.
* ''Literature/LucifersHammer'': Earth is depopulated by an asteroid strike. Recovery might take ages since the asteroid started nuclear winter conditions.
* ''Literature/TheSubtleKnife'', seems like this at first, as the Spectres in Cittàgazze target adults and leave them as mindless zombies, so that a city is found completely empty except for a few scavenging children. However there are still a fair number of adults around, but as they're hugely vulnerable and often have to go into hiding, society can barely function.
* At the end of ''[[Literature/{{Animorphs}} The Hork-Bajir Chronicles]]'', Alloran's method of "accepting defeat" by the Yeerks is to engineer a quantum virus which will annihilate the Hork-Bajir population, leaving only a small fraction of the potential number of hosts without directly harming any other organisms.
** FridgeLogic questions why he couldn't have targeted it at the Yeerks, you know, the enemy he was ''actually supposed to be fighting'' thus decimating their population without harming the Hork-Bajir. In fact, Arbat tries to do exactly this much later on Earth, but the Animorphs stop him because [[PoweredByAForsakenChild the virus could mutate to kill humans as well]].
* ''Literature/OldMansWar'' has a minor Depopulation Bomb in the backstory, as justification for the quarantine of Earth. An alien disease called "The Crimp" caused a third of the planet's male population to go sterile.
* Creator/CormacMcCarthy's ''Literature/TheRoad'' has some unspecified disaster leading to this.
* John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' has a mysterious energy wave vaporize almost everyone in the continental United States, as well as the bulk of the populations of Canada, Mexico, and Cuba. While not a global depopulation bomb, it still thoroughly depopulates North America.
* In Creator/AlanDeanFoster's remake of ''Design For Great-Day'', the Solarian Combine is said to have used a Depopulation Bomb on the worlds of a particularly belligerent species; the effect of said bomb being to completely stop them from reproducing. One hundred or so years later, there were no more belligerent aliens. This rumor is enough to bring the Solarians' current target species to the negotiating table, although it's later revealed that they've grown far beyond such crude methods in the intervening centuries.
* Jeff Carlson's ''Literature/PlagueYearSeries'': An artificial nanotech virus is released. It kills any warm-blooded animal with a few hours exposure. It's only limitation is that it was designed to shut off at low air pressure - it will not operate at altitudes above 10,000 feet. The only survivors are the people who lived on or managed to flee in time to high mountain peaks, most of which are isolated from each other by lower altitude plague zones. There are two sequels, ''Plague War'' and ''Plague Zone''.
* ''Literature/ZForZachariah'' opens AfterTheEnd came about thanks to both literal Depopulation Bombs as well as nerve gas. The protagonist believes she's the last living human, until her valley is found by another man. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse]] from there.
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'', the protagonist recalls how, during the [[GreatOffscreenWar Vague War]], the [[{{Cyborg}} Meklar]] try to wipe out the human race with a virus specifically tailored to destroy ''spinach''. This is because some joker successfully feeds them false information about human dietary needs, claiming that spinach is vital to humans. They spend countless resources creating the virus and then lose many ships trying to seed human worlds with it. After they eventually realize that humans aren't dropping like flies, the shock is so great that they immediately sue for peace. They could've just as easily tailored the virus to kill humans. Of course, from then on, spinach can only be grown in self-contained greenhouses.
* In ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverseBethRevis'', 3/4 of the population of the GenerationShip ''Godspeed'' was killed off in an event called the Plague. The population has been slowly rebounding since then, but the limited gene pool has lead to problems with inbreeding.
* Creator/JackLondon's ''The Scarlet Plague''.
* ''Literature/TheWildBoy'' the Lindauzi made virus. Two waves, twenty years apart, and AIDS was said to be part of it. All so they could show up wit a vaccine and get humanity's remains to like them.
* In the Literature/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineRelaunch, the Trill homeworld is targeted by a series of artificial pulses harmless to the vast majority, but deadly to Joined Trills, who form a privileged minority. Many of the Joined are killed, with the average citizen completely unaffected.
** In one of the ''Literature/StarfleetCorpsOfEngineers'' stories, the Miradorn homeworld almost falls victim to a depopulation bomb that was accidentally triggered from the planet's moon. It would have killed 98% of the population (all those Miradorn with [[TwinTelepathy psychic links to identical twins]]), but was halted in time to prevent a significant reduction in numbers.
** Another Star Trek novel, ''The Last Stand'', has a long-standing conflict between the Krann and the Lethanta. Long ago, the Lethanta developed space travel and discovered the Krann on another planet in the same system. They subjugated them. Eventually, the Krann rose up and fought back. But a virus began wiping out the Krann. Assuming it was an attack by the Lethanta, the Krann bombed their homeworld, making it uninhabitable. The surviving Lethanta fled in sublight ships constructed out of asteroids. The surviving Krann, with their planet also no longer habitable due to the virus, built a fleet and gave chase. Near the end of the novel, as the Lethanta-Krann war is coming to a head, Dr. Crusher discovers that the virus was natural, not engineered. Thus the Krann have no reason to try to wipe out the Lethanta. But the temporary peace is fragile, and one of the Krann leaders points out that the long feud isn't going to end just because a doctor saw something in a microscope.
* In ''Literature/TroyRising'', the Horvath drop a series of viruses (and one parasite) on Earth. The parasite is designed to weed out the stupid, being incredibly easy to treat, but fatal otherwise. Four of the viruses target various defects - colorblindness, increased risk of cancer, etc. The last will kill everyone who isn't blond, thus eliminating 90% of the human population. Thankfully, we manage to stop it in time.
to:
* Literature/TheMagiciansNephew prequel in the Narnia series treats a magical incantation by the white witch Jadis as this. After ruling her home planet of [[MeaningfulName Charn]] as a cruel and capricious tyrant with a ZeroPercentApprovalRating and on the eve of defeat by her own subjects, Jadis out of pure spite uttered the deplorable word, resulting in [[OmnicidalManiac the death of every living thing]] on the planet except herself.
* ''Literature/TheDayOfTheTriffids'' probably belong in here as well. The only people who could really survive were those who kept their sight, or those who were just plain lucky.
** Similarly, there's his short story 'Night Surf', which was reportedly the inspiration for The Stand.
* Creator/KurtVonnegut uses this trope a few times, noticeably in ''Literature/{{Galapagos}}'' and "Slapstick". In ''Galapagos'' a nuclear war and ThePlague wipe out everyone except a few castaways stranded on the Galapagos Islands. In ''Slapstick'', a highly contagious virus [[spoiler:made of miniaturized Chinese Communists]] kills almost the entire population of Manhattan. Various disasters take care of the rest of the world. ''Literature/CatsCradle'', as well. When the ''ice-nine'' hits the fan it completely annihilates all life on Earth.
* In the Creator/MargaretAtwood novel ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'', and its sequel ''The Year of the Flood'', a genetic engineering genius creates a supervirus to wipe out the world's decadent human population, which he plans to replace with a race of genetically engineered new humans. His virus is only mostly successful, leaving (by [[SarcasmMode shear coincidence]]) a [[PlotImmunity number of people]] [[EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether he personally knew]] alive.
* ''In the Mothers' Land'' by Élisabeth Vonarburg. Far in the future, many children don't survive to adulthood, and the survivors are [[LadyLand more than 95% female]]. Different societies in this world cope with the situation in various ways, but this story takes place in Maerlande, where the official religious explanation is that things changed to the current state as [[GaiasVengeance divine punishment on men who misused technology and behaved badly]]. In this society, men have very few rights and are confined to reproductive duty, being traded between cities to keep genetic diversity up.
* ''Literature/LucifersHammer'': Earth is depopulated by
* ''Literature/TheSubtleKnife'', seems like this at first, as the Spectres in Cittàgazze target adults and leave them as mindless zombies, so that a city is found completely empty except for a few scavenging children. However there are still a fair number of adults around, but as they're hugely vulnerable and often have to go into hiding, society can barely function.
* At the end of ''[[Literature/{{Animorphs}} The Hork-Bajir Chronicles]]'', Alloran's method of "accepting defeat" by the Yeerks is to engineer a quantum virus which will annihilate the Hork-Bajir population, leaving only a small fraction of the potential number of hosts without directly harming any other organisms.
** FridgeLogic questions why he couldn't have targeted it at the Yeerks, you know, the enemy he was ''actually supposed to be fighting'' thus decimating their population without harming the Hork-Bajir. In fact, Arbat tries to do exactly this much later on Earth, but the Animorphs stop him because [[PoweredByAForsakenChild the virus could mutate to kill humans as well]].
* ''Literature/OldMansWar'' has a minor Depopulation Bomb in the backstory, as justification for the quarantine of Earth. An alien disease called "The Crimp" caused a third of the planet's male population to go sterile.
* Creator/CormacMcCarthy's ''Literature/TheRoad'' has some unspecified disaster leading to this.
* John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' has a mysterious energy wave vaporize almost everyone in the continental United States, as well as the bulk of the populations of Canada, Mexico, and Cuba. While not a global depopulation bomb, it still thoroughly depopulates North America.
* In Creator/AlanDeanFoster's remake of ''Design For Great-Day'', the Solarian Combine is said to have used a Depopulation Bomb on the worlds of a particularly belligerent species; the effect of said bomb being to completely stop them from reproducing. One hundred or so years later, there were no more belligerent aliens. This rumor is enough to bring the Solarians' current target species to the negotiating table, although it's later revealed that they've grown far beyond such crude methods in the intervening centuries.
* Jeff Carlson's ''Literature/PlagueYearSeries'': An
*
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'',
* In ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverseBethRevis'', 3/4
* Creator/JackLondon's ''The Scarlet Plague''.
* ''Literature/TheWildBoy''
* In
** In one of the ''Literature/StarfleetCorpsOfEngineers'' stories, the Miradorn homeworld almost falls victim to a depopulation bomb that was accidentally triggered from the planet's moon. It would have killed 98% of the population (all those Miradorn with [[TwinTelepathy psychic links to identical twins]]), but was halted in time to prevent a significant reduction in numbers.
** Another Star Trek novel, ''The Last Stand'', has a long-standing conflict between the Krann
* M.P. Shiel's 1901 novel ''Literature/ThePurpleCloud'' has the title phenomenon destroying seemingly all human and
* In ''Literature/TheQuietPlace'', a
* In ''Literature/TroyRising'', the Horvath drop a series of viruses (and one parasite) on Earth. The parasite is designed to weed out the stupid, being incredibly easy to treat, but fatal otherwise. Four of the viruses target various defects - colorblindness, increased risk of cancer, etc. The last will kill everyone who isn't blond, thus eliminating 90% of the human
Changed line(s) 120,127 (click to see context) from:
* ''The Sixth Extinction'', book 10 of the ''Literature/SigmaForce'' series by JamesRollins, has [[spoiler:an [[TheSocialDarwinist extremist environmentalist geneticist]] engineer a universally infectious prion virus that would destroy all higher conscious brain functions of humans, turning the human species back into mindless feral animals. At the same time he accelerated evolution in other species to make them more deadly and aggressive. The end result would be the "natural" extinction of humans and a return of nature to the planet. [[StrawHypocrite Of course he intended to protect himself and his followers from the infection to build a new less destructive civilization in the aftermath.]]]]
* ''Changes'' in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' features a magical ritual to kill every member of a bloodline by targeting its youngest member. [[spoiler:Harry uses it to commit genocide against the Red Court.]]
* In ''A Planet For The President'', in order to put an end to the growing environmental crisis derived from global warming, the United States cabinet decides to infect most of Earth's population with a deadly virus, which the US inhabitants are vaccinated against. Thing is, the President is allergic to eggs, so his vaccine must be produced elsewhere. However, all the vaccines (save for the President's) turn out to be faulty, and the illness also affects the US population: in the end, the President is the last human alive.
* In S. M. Stirling's ''Literature/TheShadowspawn'' series, the titular species of superhuman beings, who have been [[AncientConspiracy secretly controlling humanity for thousands of years]], have decided that the global population is growing too large to control, so needs to be curbed. The only problem for them is that they can't agree on how. The ruling elders want to use a string of [=EMPs=] to destroy all modern technology, and corral all remaining humans. A progressive movement of younger members, however, want to use a SyntheticPlague to merely kill enough to lower numbers, while they then come in with the antidote, letting them be welcomed as saviors and handed open control on a silver platter.
* In ''Literature/IronManSteelTerror'', these are what ComicBook/{{Ultron}} plans to use to KillAllHumans; they are called {{Neutron Bomb}}s, but are in fact this.
* In ''Literature/TheMazeRunner'' series, the Flare virus was unleashed to cull those competing for scarce resources in a world devastated by solar flares. At first, it killed its victims quickly, but it rapidly mutated and the infected started taking longer to die. Not only that, the Flare robbed them of their humanity and turned them into animalistic beings known as Cranks. However, a small percentage of the world's population is immune to the virus; WICKED was set up to study such people in the hope that finding out the reason for their immunity might lead to a cure.
* In ''Literature/TheQuietPlace'', a group of astronauts return to Earth after a botched FirstContact mission. Because of TimeDilation, they return to a future Earth that's reverted to the Stone Age and with a smaller population. It turns out that [[spoiler:an experimental drug to reverse aging was distributed worldwide. The most major side effect was widespread infertility.]]
* ''Literature/{{Digitesque}}'': If a child encounters too many people before they grow old enough, they will become "overwhelmed," meaning they will quickly fall sick and die. This even applies in the womb, so cities are filled with adults and absolutely no children. [[spoiler:This was part of the technophage that broke humanity]].
* ''Changes'' in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' features a magical ritual to kill every member of a bloodline by targeting its youngest member. [[spoiler:Harry uses it to commit genocide against the Red Court.]]
* In ''A Planet For The President'', in order to put an end to the growing environmental crisis derived from global warming, the United States cabinet decides to infect most of Earth's population with a deadly virus, which the US inhabitants are vaccinated against. Thing is, the President is allergic to eggs, so his vaccine must be produced elsewhere. However, all the vaccines (save for the President's) turn out to be faulty, and the illness also affects the US population: in the end, the President is the last human alive.
* In S. M. Stirling's ''Literature/TheShadowspawn'' series, the titular species of superhuman beings, who have been [[AncientConspiracy secretly controlling humanity for thousands of years]], have decided that the global population is growing too large to control, so needs to be curbed. The only problem for them is that they can't agree on how. The ruling elders want to use a string of [=EMPs=] to destroy all modern technology, and corral all remaining humans. A progressive movement of younger members, however, want to use a SyntheticPlague to merely kill enough to lower numbers, while they then come in with the antidote, letting them be welcomed as saviors and handed open control on a silver platter.
* In ''Literature/IronManSteelTerror'', these are what ComicBook/{{Ultron}} plans to use to KillAllHumans; they are called {{Neutron Bomb}}s, but are in fact this.
* In ''Literature/TheMazeRunner'' series, the Flare virus was unleashed to cull those competing for scarce resources in a world devastated by solar flares. At first, it killed its victims quickly, but it rapidly mutated and the infected started taking longer to die. Not only that, the Flare robbed them of their humanity and turned them into animalistic beings known as Cranks. However, a small percentage of the world's population is immune to the virus; WICKED was set up to study such people in the hope that finding out the reason for their immunity might lead to a cure.
* In ''Literature/TheQuietPlace'', a group of astronauts return to Earth after a botched FirstContact mission. Because of TimeDilation, they return to a future Earth that's reverted to the Stone Age and with a smaller population. It turns out that [[spoiler:an experimental drug to reverse aging was distributed worldwide. The most major side effect was widespread infertility.]]
* ''Literature/{{Digitesque}}'': If a child encounters too many people before they grow old enough, they will become "overwhelmed," meaning they will quickly fall sick and die. This even applies in the womb, so cities are filled with adults and absolutely no children. [[spoiler:This was part of the technophage that broke humanity]].
to:
* ''Literature/TheRoad'' has some [[UnspecifiedApocalypse unspecified disaster]] leading to this.
%%* Creator/JackLondon's ''TheSixth Extinction'', book 10 of the ''Literature/SigmaForce'' series by JamesRollins, has [[spoiler:an [[TheSocialDarwinist extremist environmentalist geneticist]] engineer a universally infectious prion virus that would destroy all higher conscious brain functions of humans, turning the human species back into mindless feral animals. At the same time he accelerated evolution in other species to make them more deadly and aggressive. The end result would be the "natural" extinction of humans and a return of nature to the planet. [[StrawHypocrite Of course he intended to protect himself and his followers from the infection to build a new less destructive civilization in the aftermath.]]]]
* ''Changes'' in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' features a magical ritual to kill every member of a bloodline by targeting its youngest member. [[spoiler:Harry uses it to commit genocide against the Red Court.]]
Scarlet Plague''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* In''A Planet For The President'', in order to put an end to the growing environmental crisis derived from global warming, the United States cabinet decides to infect most of Earth's population with a deadly virus, which the US inhabitants are vaccinated against. Thing is, the President is allergic to eggs, so his vaccine must be produced elsewhere. However, all the vaccines (save for the President's) turn out to be faulty, and the illness also affects the US population: in the end, the President is the last human alive.
* In S. M. Stirling's ''Literature/TheShadowspawn'' series,''Literature/TheShadowspawn'', the titular species of superhuman beings, who have been [[AncientConspiracy secretly controlling humanity for thousands of years]], have decided that the global population is growing too large to control, so needs to be curbed. The only problem for them is that they can't agree on how. The ruling elders want to use a string of [=EMPs=] {{EMP}}s to destroy all modern technology, technology and corral all remaining humans. A progressive movement of younger members, however, want to use a SyntheticPlague to merely kill enough to lower numbers, while they then come in with the antidote, letting them be welcomed as saviors and handed open control on a silver platter.
*In ''Literature/IronManSteelTerror'', these are what ComicBook/{{Ultron}} plans to use to KillAllHumans; they are called {{Neutron Bomb}}s, but are in fact this.
* In ''Literature/TheMazeRunner''''The Sixth Extinction'', book 10 of the ''Literature/SigmaForce'' series, the Flare has [[spoiler:an [[TheSocialDarwinist extremist environmentalist geneticist]] engineer a universally infectious prion virus was unleashed to cull those competing for scarce resources in a world devastated by solar flares. At first, it killed its victims quickly, but it rapidly mutated and that would destroy all higher conscious brain functions of humans, turning the infected started taking longer to die. Not only that, human species back into mindless feral animals. At the Flare robbed same time, he accelerated evolution in other species to make them of their humanity more deadly and turned them into animalistic beings known as Cranks. However, aggressive. The end result would be the "natural" extinction of humans and a small percentage return of nature to the planet. Of course, [[StrawHypocrite he intended to protect himself and his followers from the infection]] to build a new less destructive civilization in the aftermath]].
* In Creator/KurtVonnegut's "Slapstick", a highly contagious virus [[spoiler:made of miniaturized Chinese Communists]] kills almost the entire population of Manhattan. Various disasters take care of the rest of the world.
* In ''Literature/TheStand'', a "[[ThePlague superflu]]" kills 99.5% of the population. The post-plague population of the United States is estimated at 1.5 million people. The world's population would be 30 million, equal to everyone on Earth dying except in California or the entire nation of Canada.
* ''Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse'':
** In the ''Literature/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineRelaunch'', the Trill homeworld isimmune targeted by a series of artificial pulses harmless to the virus; WICKED vast majority, but deadly to Joined Trills, who form a privileged minority. Many of the Joined are killed, with the average citizen completely unaffected.
** In one of the ''Literature/StarfleetCorpsOfEngineers'' stories, the Miradorn homeworld almost falls victim to a depopulation bomb that wasset up accidentally triggered from the planet's moon. It would have killed 98% of the population (all those Miradorn with [[TwinTelepathy psychic links to study such people identical twins]]) but was halted in time to prevent a significant reduction in numbers.
** Another novel, ''The Last Stand'', has a long-standing conflict between the Krann and the Lethanta. Long ago, the Lethanta developed space travel and discovered the Krann on another planet in thehope that finding same system. They subjugated them. Eventually, the Krann rose up and fought back. But a virus began wiping out the Krann. Assuming it was an attack by the Lethanta, the Krann bombed their homeworld, making it uninhabitable. The surviving Lethanta fled in sublight ships constructed out of asteroids. The surviving Krann, with their planet also no longer habitable due to the virus, built a fleet and gave chase. Near the end of the novel, as the Lethanta-Krann war is coming to a head, Dr. Crusher discovers that the virus was natural, not engineered. Thus, the Krann have no reason to try to wipe out the Lethanta. However, the temporary peace is fragile, and one of the Krann leaders points out that the long feud isn't going to end just because a doctor saw something in a microscope.
* ''Literature/TheSubtleKnife'' seems like this at first, as the Spectres in Cittàgazze target adults and leave them as mindless zombies, so that a city is found completely empty except fortheir immunity might lead a few scavenging children. However, there are still a fair number of adults around, but as they're hugely vulnerable and often have to a cure.
go into hiding, society can barely function.
* In''Literature/TheQuietPlace'', a group of astronauts return to Earth after a botched FirstContact mission. Because of TimeDilation, they return to a future Earth that's reverted to ''Literature/TroyRising'', the Stone Age and with Horvath drop a smaller series of viruses (and one parasite) on Earth. The parasite is designed to weed out the stupid, being incredibly easy to treat, but fatal otherwise. Four of the viruses target various defects -- colorblindness, increased risk of cancer, etc. The last will kill everyone who isn't blond, thus eliminating 90% of the human population. It turns out that [[spoiler:an experimental drug Thankfully, we manage to reverse aging was distributed worldwide. The most major side effect was widespread infertility.]]
* ''Literature/{{Digitesque}}'': If a child encounters too many people before they grow old enough, they will become "overwhelmed," meaning they will quickly fall sick and die. This even appliesstop it in time.
* In ''Literature/TheWildBoy'', thewomb, so cities are filled Lindauzi caused two waves of viruses, twenty years apart, with adults and absolutely no children. [[spoiler:This was AIDS said to be part of the technophage it, all so that broke humanity]].they could show up with a vaccine and get humanity's remains to like them.
* John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' has a mysterious energy wave vaporize almost everyone in the continental United States, as well as the bulk of the populations of Canada, Mexico, and Cuba. While not a global depopulation bomb, it still thoroughly depopulates North America.
* ''Literature/ZForZachariah'' opens AfterTheEnd came about thanks to both literal Depopulation Bombs as well as nerve gas. The protagonist believes she's the last living human, until her valley is found by another man. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse]] from there.
%%* Creator/JackLondon's ''The
* ''Changes'' in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' features a magical ritual to kill every member of a bloodline by targeting its youngest member. [[spoiler:Harry uses it to commit genocide against the Red Court.]]
* In
* In S. M. Stirling's ''Literature/TheShadowspawn'' series,
*
* In ''Literature/TheMazeRunner''
* In Creator/KurtVonnegut's "Slapstick", a highly contagious virus [[spoiler:made of miniaturized Chinese Communists]] kills almost the entire population of Manhattan. Various disasters take care of the rest of the world.
* In ''Literature/TheStand'', a "[[ThePlague superflu]]" kills 99.5% of the population. The post-plague population of the United States is estimated at 1.5 million people. The world's population would be 30 million, equal to everyone on Earth dying except in California or the entire nation of Canada.
* ''Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse'':
** In the ''Literature/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineRelaunch'', the Trill homeworld is
** In one of the ''Literature/StarfleetCorpsOfEngineers'' stories, the Miradorn homeworld almost falls victim to a depopulation bomb that was
** Another novel, ''The Last Stand'', has a long-standing conflict between the Krann and the Lethanta. Long ago, the Lethanta developed space travel and discovered the Krann on another planet in the
* ''Literature/TheSubtleKnife'' seems like this at first, as the Spectres in Cittàgazze target adults and leave them as mindless zombies, so that a city is found completely empty except for
* In
* ''Literature/{{Digitesque}}'': If a child encounters too many people before they grow old enough, they will become "overwhelmed," meaning they will quickly fall sick and die. This even applies
* In ''Literature/TheWildBoy'', the
* John Birmingham's ''Without Warning'' has a mysterious energy wave vaporize almost everyone in the continental United States, as well as the bulk of the populations of Canada, Mexico, and Cuba. While not a global depopulation bomb, it still thoroughly depopulates North America.
* ''Literature/ZForZachariah'' opens AfterTheEnd came about thanks to both literal Depopulation Bombs as well as nerve gas. The protagonist believes she's the last living human, until her valley is found by another man. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse]] from there.
Changed line(s) 131,146 (click to see context) from:
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Miri" features a duplicate Earth where a genetic engineering project got out of hand and killed off everyone over puberty. The children are still around, because the intended effect of the project was agelessness and it worked fine on anyone it didn't kill.
** Not quite so fine - the kids still age about a month per century. Miri herself shows the first sign of the disease later in the episode (if the fact that she caught the Kirk bug didn't tip you off she was going into puberty).
** Another TOS episode, "The Mark of Gideon", had Kirk kidnapped by a vastly overpopulated planet who wanted to use germs in his blood to drop a Depopulation Bomb on ''themselves''. This scheme involves a large amount of FridgeLogic, when one wonders where they found the space to construct a full-scale replica of the interior of the ''Enterprise''.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The Sound of Drums", the Master sends the Toclafane from the end of the universe to shred apart tenth of the Earth's population.
* 'The Virus' in ''Series/TheTribe'' was a Depopulation Bomb with a bonus OnlyFatalToAdults.
* Done with a vengeance in ''Series/Jericho2006'', where over a dozen major U.S. cities are bombed with nuclear weapons, leaving only small towns and two major cities standing.
* The '70s MadeForTVMovie ''Where Have All the People Gone?'' has a solar flare causing this.
* Creastor/TheBBC has produced two series, one in the 1970s and one in the 2000s, entitled ''Series/{{Survivors}}'', which had most of the world population wiped out by a virus which it's strongly implied was artificial.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', the eponymous characters slide into a world where a Middle-Eastern country detonated a bioweapon that specifically targets the Y-chromosome, killing most of the men in the world. This gave rise to a new UsefulNotes/ColdWar, this time between US and Australia, the two countries least touched by the virus. Instead of nukes, each tries to "out-breed" the other. The surviving men are rounded up and placed in breeding centers, where they are forced to impregnate multiple women each day. Also, only the most "fit" women are allowed to take part in the breeding program. It seems artificial insemination does not exist in that world.
** Professor Arturo explicitly complains about the failure to discover artificial insemination on that world, noting that he could have revolutionized things for them if they actually treated him as more than an animal only good for breeding and actually listened to him.
** It's also revealed that the humans of Kromagg Prime used a weapon on their Kromagg enemies that kills any Kromagg female attempting to give birth. The goal is to eventually drive the Kromaggs to extinction, as this prevents positive population growth. The Kromaggs are trying to compensate by [[HalfHumanHybrid interbreeding with humans]].
* ''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.
** It helps that the Aschen are ''extremely'' patient, willing to wait a few centuries to take over a planet, which becomes yet another farming world for them.
** The Aschen can also do this in a more active way. They possess a bioweapon that can be keyed to a particular genome, which kills off most of the species. In the backstory of "2010" they used it on the Goa'uld, and in "2001" they try to use it on Earth when SG-1 figures out their ''modus operandi''. Fortunately the SGC [[TeleFrag closes the iris in time]].
** The episode ''Past and Present'' implies that one of these, similar to the ''Star Trek TOS Miri'' example above, was set off. The team encounters a planet with no children or elderly suffering from amnesia after an incident known as "The Vorlix". Inverted when It turns out [[spoiler:the planet had been using a pesticide which caused sterility (hence the lack of children), and "The Vorlik" was a deliberate test set off, by a villain from a previous episode, after she learned that this same pesticide had properties which could stop or reverse aging. The test reversed the aging of the entire planet turning the entirely elderly population into middle aged adults, but inadvertently causing amnesia in the process.]]
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': During the final episode of the miniseries revival, "My Struggle II", TheConspiracy enact their endgame by unleashing the Spartan Virus, which shuts down the immune system of anyone exposed to it who hasn't also had alien DNA inserted into their genome. [[BigBad The Cigarette Smoking Man]] tries to present this as a case of [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-lntentioned extremism]], stating that humanity was wiping out itself and killing the planet anyway, but this way at least humanity will have a chance to rebuild (naturally, with himself and his allies in charge).
** Not quite so fine - the kids still age about a month per century. Miri herself shows the first sign of the disease later in the episode (if the fact that she caught the Kirk bug didn't tip you off she was going into puberty).
** Another TOS episode, "The Mark of Gideon", had Kirk kidnapped by a vastly overpopulated planet who wanted to use germs in his blood to drop a Depopulation Bomb on ''themselves''. This scheme involves a large amount of FridgeLogic, when one wonders where they found the space to construct a full-scale replica of the interior of the ''Enterprise''.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The Sound of Drums", the Master sends the Toclafane from the end of the universe to shred apart tenth of the Earth's population.
* 'The Virus' in ''Series/TheTribe'' was a Depopulation Bomb with a bonus OnlyFatalToAdults.
* Done with a vengeance in ''Series/Jericho2006'', where over a dozen major U.S. cities are bombed with nuclear weapons, leaving only small towns and two major cities standing.
* The '70s MadeForTVMovie ''Where Have All the People Gone?'' has a solar flare causing this.
* Creastor/TheBBC has produced two series, one in the 1970s and one in the 2000s, entitled ''Series/{{Survivors}}'', which had most of the world population wiped out by a virus which it's strongly implied was artificial.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', the eponymous characters slide into a world where a Middle-Eastern country detonated a bioweapon that specifically targets the Y-chromosome, killing most of the men in the world. This gave rise to a new UsefulNotes/ColdWar, this time between US and Australia, the two countries least touched by the virus. Instead of nukes, each tries to "out-breed" the other. The surviving men are rounded up and placed in breeding centers, where they are forced to impregnate multiple women each day. Also, only the most "fit" women are allowed to take part in the breeding program. It seems artificial insemination does not exist in that world.
** Professor Arturo explicitly complains about the failure to discover artificial insemination on that world, noting that he could have revolutionized things for them if they actually treated him as more than an animal only good for breeding and actually listened to him.
** It's also revealed that the humans of Kromagg Prime used a weapon on their Kromagg enemies that kills any Kromagg female attempting to give birth. The goal is to eventually drive the Kromaggs to extinction, as this prevents positive population growth. The Kromaggs are trying to compensate by [[HalfHumanHybrid interbreeding with humans]].
* ''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.
** It helps that the Aschen are ''extremely'' patient, willing to wait a few centuries to take over a planet, which becomes yet another farming world for them.
** The Aschen can also do this in a more active way. They possess a bioweapon that can be keyed to a particular genome, which kills off most of the species. In the backstory of "2010" they used it on the Goa'uld, and in "2001" they try to use it on Earth when SG-1 figures out their ''modus operandi''. Fortunately the SGC [[TeleFrag closes the iris in time]].
** The episode ''Past and Present'' implies that one of these, similar to the ''Star Trek TOS Miri'' example above, was set off. The team encounters a planet with no children or elderly suffering from amnesia after an incident known as "The Vorlix". Inverted when It turns out [[spoiler:the planet had been using a pesticide which caused sterility (hence the lack of children), and "The Vorlik" was a deliberate test set off, by a villain from a previous episode, after she learned that this same pesticide had properties which could stop or reverse aging. The test reversed the aging of the entire planet turning the entirely elderly population into middle aged adults, but inadvertently causing amnesia in the process.]]
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': During the final episode of the miniseries revival, "My Struggle II", TheConspiracy enact their endgame by unleashing the Spartan Virus, which shuts down the immune system of anyone exposed to it who hasn't also had alien DNA inserted into their genome. [[BigBad The Cigarette Smoking Man]] tries to present this as a case of [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-lntentioned extremism]], stating that humanity was wiping out itself and killing the planet anyway, but this way at least humanity will have a chance to rebuild (naturally, with himself and his allies in charge).
to:
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Miri" features ''Series/AlexRider'': Dr. Greif gives a duplicate Earth where lecture in which he discusses a genetic engineering project got out of hand and mass cull as a solution to overpopulation. Alex questions this, asking who decides who gets killed off everyone over puberty. The children are still around, because the intended effect of the project was agelessness off, and it worked fine on anyone it didn't kill.
** Not quite so fine - the kids still age about a month per century. Miri herself shows the first sign of the disease later in the episode (if the factDr. Greif laughingly tells him that she caught the Kirk bug didn't tip you off she was going into puberty).
** Another TOS episode, "The Mark of Gideon", had Kirk kidnapped by[[BlatantLies it's only a vastly overpopulated planet who wanted to use germs in his blood to drop a Depopulation Bomb on ''themselves''. thought experiment]]. This scheme involves makes Alex pretty sure that a large amount mass cull is part of FridgeLogic, when one wonders where they found the space to construct a full-scale replica of the interior of the ''Enterprise''.
Dr Greif's long-term plan.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode"The "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums The Sound of Drums", Drums]]", the Master sends the Toclafane from the end of the universe to shred apart tenth of the Earth's population.
*'The Virus' in ''Series/TheTribe'' was a Depopulation Bomb with a bonus OnlyFatalToAdults.
*Done with a vengeance in ''Series/Jericho2006'', where in which over a dozen major U.S. cities are bombed with nuclear weapons, leaving only small towns and two major cities standing.
* The '70s MadeForTVMovie ''Where Have All the People Gone?'' has a solar flare causing this.
* Creastor/TheBBC has produced two series, one in the 1970s and one in the 2000s, entitled ''Series/{{Survivors}}'', which had most of the world population wiped out by a virus which it's strongly implied was artificial.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', the eponymous characters slide into a world where a Middle-Eastern country detonated a bioweapon that specifically targets the Y-chromosome, killing most of the men in the world. This gave rise to a new UsefulNotes/ColdWar, this time between US and Australia, the two countries least touched by the virus. Instead of nukes, each tries to "out-breed" the other. The surviving men are rounded up and placed in breeding centers, where they are forced to impregnate multiple women each day. Also, only the most "fit" women are allowed to take part in the breeding program. It seems artificial insemination does not exist in that world.
** Professor Arturo explicitly complains about the failure to discover artificial insemination on that world, noting that he could have revolutionized things for them if they actually treated him as more than an animal only good for breeding and actually listened to him.
** It's also revealed that the humans of Kromagg Prime used a weapon on their Kromagg enemies that kills any Kromagg female attempting to give birth. The goal is to eventually drive the Kromaggs to extinction, as this prevents positive population growth. The Kromaggs are trying to compensate by [[HalfHumanHybrid interbreeding with humans]].
* ''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.
** It helps that the Aschen are ''extremely'' patient, willing to wait a few centuries to take over a planet, which becomes yet another farming world for them.
** The Aschen can also do this in a more active way. They possess a bioweapon that can be keyed to a particular genome, which kills off most of the species. In the backstory of "2010" they used it on the Goa'uld, and in "2001" they try to use it on Earth when SG-1 figures out their ''modus operandi''. Fortunately the SGC [[TeleFrag closes the iris in time]].
** The episode ''Past and Present'' implies that one of these, similar to the ''Star Trek TOS Miri'' example above, was set off. The team encounters a planet with no children or elderly suffering from amnesia after an incident known as "The Vorlix". Inverted when It turns out [[spoiler:the planet had been using a pesticide which caused sterility (hence the lack of children), and "The Vorlik" was a deliberate test set off, by a villain from a previous episode, after she learned that this same pesticide had properties which could stop or reverse aging. The test reversed the aging of the entire planet turning the entirely elderly population into middle aged adults, but inadvertently causing amnesia in the process.]]
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': During the final episode of the miniseries revival, "My Struggle II", TheConspiracy enact their endgame by unleashing the Spartan Virus, which shuts down the immune system of anyone exposed to it who hasn't also had alien DNA inserted into their genome. [[BigBad The Cigarette Smoking Man]] tries to present this as a case of [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-lntentioned extremism]], stating that humanity was wiping out itself and killing the planet anyway, but this way at least humanity will have a chance to rebuild (naturally, with himself and his allies in charge).standing.
** Not quite so fine - the kids still age about a month per century. Miri herself shows the first sign of the disease later in the episode (if the fact
** Another TOS episode, "The Mark of Gideon", had Kirk kidnapped by
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode
*
*
* The '70s MadeForTVMovie ''Where Have All the People Gone?'' has a solar flare causing this.
* Creastor/TheBBC has produced two series, one in the 1970s and one in the 2000s, entitled ''Series/{{Survivors}}'', which had most of the world population wiped out by a virus which it's strongly implied was artificial.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', the eponymous characters slide into a world where a Middle-Eastern country detonated a bioweapon that specifically targets the Y-chromosome, killing most of the men in the world. This gave rise to a new UsefulNotes/ColdWar, this time between US and Australia, the two countries least touched by the virus. Instead of nukes, each tries to "out-breed" the other. The surviving men are rounded up and placed in breeding centers, where they are forced to impregnate multiple women each day. Also, only the most "fit" women are allowed to take part in the breeding program. It seems artificial insemination does not exist in that world.
** Professor Arturo explicitly complains about the failure to discover artificial insemination on that world, noting that he could have revolutionized things for them if they actually treated him as more than an animal only good for breeding and actually listened to him.
** It's also revealed that the humans of Kromagg Prime used a weapon on their Kromagg enemies that kills any Kromagg female attempting to give birth. The goal is to eventually drive the Kromaggs to extinction, as this prevents positive population growth. The Kromaggs are trying to compensate by [[HalfHumanHybrid interbreeding with humans]].
* ''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.
** It helps that the Aschen are ''extremely'' patient, willing to wait a few centuries to take over a planet, which becomes yet another farming world for them.
** The Aschen can also do this in a more active way. They possess a bioweapon that can be keyed to a particular genome, which kills off most of the species. In the backstory of "2010" they used it on the Goa'uld, and in "2001" they try to use it on Earth when SG-1 figures out their ''modus operandi''. Fortunately the SGC [[TeleFrag closes the iris in time]].
** The episode ''Past and Present'' implies that one of these, similar to the ''Star Trek TOS Miri'' example above, was set off. The team encounters a planet with no children or elderly suffering from amnesia after an incident known as "The Vorlix". Inverted when It turns out [[spoiler:the planet had been using a pesticide which caused sterility (hence the lack of children), and "The Vorlik" was a deliberate test set off, by a villain from a previous episode, after she learned that this same pesticide had properties which could stop or reverse aging. The test reversed the aging of the entire planet turning the entirely elderly population into middle aged adults, but inadvertently causing amnesia in the process.]]
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': During the final episode of the miniseries revival, "My Struggle II", TheConspiracy enact their endgame by unleashing the Spartan Virus, which shuts down the immune system of anyone exposed to it who hasn't also had alien DNA inserted into their genome. [[BigBad The Cigarette Smoking Man]] tries to present this as a case of [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-lntentioned extremism]], stating that humanity was wiping out itself and killing the planet anyway, but this way at least humanity will have a chance to rebuild (naturally, with himself and his allies in charge).
Changed line(s) 148,156 (click to see context) from:
** In "Resurrection", humanity was wiped out due to a biological war on July 24, 1997, which was then 18 months in the future. In 2009, two androids named Martin and Alicia recreate a human named Cain from uncontaminated DNA samples.
** In "Rite of Passage", humanity was wiped out centuries ago [[UnspecifiedApocalypse through unknown means]]. The Vorak discovered Earth sometime later and used their genetic expertise to recreate humanity using the samples left behind on skeletons.
** In "The Human Factor", humanity is almost completely wiped out in the final phase of the war between the Free Alliance and the Coalition of Middle Eastern and Pacific States. On April 23, 2084, the Free Alliance launched an all-out attack on the Eastern Coalition in the hope of finally bringing the long war to an end. However, they underestimated the Coalition's firepower, which was equal to their own, and Earth is rendered uninhabitable.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'':
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E8TimeEnoughAtLast Time Enough at Last]]", Henry Bemis may be the last survivor in the aftermath of the nuclear war.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E127TheOldManInTheCave The Old Man in the Cave]]", a nuclear war devastated Earth in 1964, killing millions of people in the process. Major French tells Mr. Goldsmith that there are approximately 500 people alive between Buffalo, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. In the ten years since the war, many people have died as a result of eating food contaminated with Strontium-90 or from the plague.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]", Colonel Cook's people are wiped out in a devastating war within less than a day. The entire coast of Cook's country was destroyed in only 12 minutes, after which they responded in kind.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Quarantine", a nuclear holocaust occurred in 2043 when each side fired six missiles at the other. 80% of the world's population were wiped out and all of the major cities were destroyed. By 2347, Earth has a population of only 200,000.
* ''Series/AlexRider'': Dr Greif gives a lecture where he discusses a mass cull as a solution to overpopulation. Alex questions this, asking who decides who gets killed off, and Dr Greif laughingly tells him [[BlatantLies it's only a thought experiment]]. This makes Alex pretty sure a mass cull is part of Dr Greif's long-term plan.
** In "Rite of Passage", humanity was wiped out centuries ago [[UnspecifiedApocalypse through unknown means]]. The Vorak discovered Earth sometime later and used their genetic expertise to recreate humanity using the samples left behind on skeletons.
** In "The Human Factor", humanity is almost completely wiped out in the final phase of the war between the Free Alliance and the Coalition of Middle Eastern and Pacific States. On April 23, 2084, the Free Alliance launched an all-out attack on the Eastern Coalition in the hope of finally bringing the long war to an end. However, they underestimated the Coalition's firepower, which was equal to their own, and Earth is rendered uninhabitable.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'':
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E8TimeEnoughAtLast Time Enough at Last]]", Henry Bemis may be the last survivor in the aftermath of the nuclear war.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E127TheOldManInTheCave The Old Man in the Cave]]", a nuclear war devastated Earth in 1964, killing millions of people in the process. Major French tells Mr. Goldsmith that there are approximately 500 people alive between Buffalo, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. In the ten years since the war, many people have died as a result of eating food contaminated with Strontium-90 or from the plague.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]", Colonel Cook's people are wiped out in a devastating war within less than a day. The entire coast of Cook's country was destroyed in only 12 minutes, after which they responded in kind.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Quarantine", a nuclear holocaust occurred in 2043 when each side fired six missiles at the other. 80% of the world's population were wiped out and all of the major cities were destroyed. By 2347, Earth has a population of only 200,000.
* ''Series/AlexRider'': Dr Greif gives a lecture where he discusses a mass cull as a solution to overpopulation. Alex questions this, asking who decides who gets killed off, and Dr Greif laughingly tells him [[BlatantLies it's only a thought experiment]]. This makes Alex pretty sure a mass cull is part of Dr Greif's long-term plan.
to:
** In "Resurrection", "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S2E2Resurrection Resurrection]]", humanity was wiped out due to a biological war on July 24, 1997, which was then 18 months in the future. In 2009, two androids named Martin and Alicia recreate a human named Cain from uncontaminated DNA samples.
** In"Rite "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S4E8RiteOfPassage Rite of Passage", Passage]]", humanity was wiped out centuries ago [[UnspecifiedApocalypse through unknown means]]. The Vorak discovered Earth sometime later and used their genetic expertise to recreate humanity using the samples left behind on skeletons.
** In"The "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S7E21TheHumanFactor The Human Factor", Factor]]", humanity is almost completely wiped out in the final phase of the war between the Free Alliance and the Coalition of Middle Eastern and Pacific States. On April 23, 2084, the Free Alliance launched an all-out attack on the Eastern Coalition in the hope of finally bringing the long war to an end. However, they underestimated the Coalition's firepower, which was equal to their own, and Earth is rendered uninhabitable.
*''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'':
''Series/{{Sliders}}'':
** In"[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E8TimeEnoughAtLast Time Enough at Last]]", Henry Bemis may be one episode, the last survivor in eponymous characters slide into a world where a Middle Eastern country detonated a bioweapon that specifically targets the aftermath of the nuclear war.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E127TheOldManInTheCave The Old Man in the Cave]]", a nuclear war devastated Earth in 1964,Y-chromosome, killing millions most of people the men in the process. Major French tells Mr. Goldsmith that there are approximately 500 people alive world. This gave rise to a new UsefulNotes/ColdWar, this time between Buffalo, New York US and Atlanta, Georgia. In Australia, the ten years since two countries least touched by the war, many people have died as a result virus. Instead of eating food contaminated with Strontium-90 or from the plague.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]", Colonel Cook's people are wiped out in a devastating war within less than a day. The entire coast of Cook's country was destroyed in only 12 minutes, after which they responded in kind.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Quarantine", a nuclear holocaust occurred in 2043 whennukes, each side fired six missiles at tries to "out-breed" the other. 80% of The surviving men are rounded up and placed in breeding centers, where they are forced to impregnate multiple women each day. Also, only the world's most "fit" women are allowed to take part in the breeding program. Professor Arturo explicitly complains about the failure to discover artificial insemination on that world, noting that he could have revolutionized things for them if they actually treated him as more than an animal only good for breeding and actually listened to him.
** It's also revealed that the humans of Kromagg Prime used a weapon on their Kromagg enemies that kills any Kromagg female attempting to give birth. The goal is to eventually drive the Kromaggs to extinction, as this prevents positive populationwere wiped out and all of the major cities were destroyed. By 2347, Earth has a population of only 200,000.
* ''Series/AlexRider'': Dr Greif gives a lecture where he discusses a mass cull as a solutiongrowth. The Kromaggs are trying to overpopulation. Alex questions this, asking who decides who gets killed off, and Dr Greif laughingly tells him [[BlatantLies it's only a thought experiment]]. This makes Alex pretty sure a mass cull is part of Dr Greif's long-term plan.compensate by [[HalfHumanHybrid interbreeding with humans]].
** In
** In
*
** In
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E127TheOldManInTheCave The Old Man in the Cave]]", a nuclear war devastated Earth in 1964,
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]", Colonel Cook's people are wiped out in a devastating war within less than a day. The entire coast of Cook's country was destroyed in only 12 minutes, after which they responded in kind.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Quarantine", a nuclear holocaust occurred in 2043 when
** It's also revealed that the humans of Kromagg Prime used a weapon on their Kromagg enemies that kills any Kromagg female attempting to give birth. The goal is to eventually drive the Kromaggs to extinction, as this prevents positive population
* ''Series/AlexRider'': Dr Greif gives a lecture where he discusses a mass cull as a solution
* ''Series/StargateSG1'':
** The episode "[[Recap/StargateSG1S3E11PastAndPresent Past and Present]]" implies that one of these, similar to the ''Star Trek TOS'' "Miri" example below, was set off. The team encounters a planet with no children or elderly suffering from amnesia after an incident known as "the Vorlix". {{Inverted|Trope}} when it turns out that [[spoiler:the planet had been using a pesticide which caused sterility (hence the lack of children), and "the Vorlik" was a deliberate test set off by a villain from a previous episode after she learned that this same pesticide had properties which could stop or reverse aging. The test reversed the aging of the entire planet, turning the entirely elderly population into middle-aged adults, but inadvertently causing amnesia in the process.]]
** Two episodes ("[[Recap/StargateSG1S4E162010 2010]]" in season 4, and "[[Recap/StargateSG1S5E102001 2001]]" in season 5) are 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. It helps that the Aschen are ''extremely'' patient, willing to wait a few centuries to take over a planet, which becomes yet another farming world for them. The Aschen can also do this in a more active way -- they possess a bioweapon that can be keyed to a particular genome, which kills off most of the species. In the backstory of "2010", they used it on the Goa'uld, and in "2001", they try to use it on Earth when SG-1 figures out their ''modus operandi''. Fortunately, the SGC [[TeleFrag closes the iris in time]].
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
** The episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E8Miri Miri]]" features a duplicate Earth where a genetic engineering project got out of hand and killed off everyone over puberty. The children are still around, because the intended effect of the project was agelessness, which ''partially'' worked for anyone it didn't kill -- the kids still age about a month per century. Miri herself shows the first sign of the disease later in the episode (if the fact that she caught the Kirk bug doesn't tip you off she was going into puberty).
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E16TheMarkOfGideon The Mark of Gideon]]" has Kirk kidnapped by a [[OverpopulationCrisis vastly overpopulated]] planet who want to use germs in his blood to drop a Depopulation Bomb on ''themselves''. This scheme involves a large amount of FridgeLogic, when one wonders where they found the space to construct a full-scale replica of the interior of the ''Enterprise''.
* Creator/TheBBC has produced two series, one in the 1970s and one in the 2000s, entitled ''Series/{{Survivors}}'', which have most of the world population wiped out by a virus which is strongly implied to be artificial.
* 'The Virus' in ''Series/TheTribe'' is a Depopulation Bomb with a bonus OnlyFatalToAdults.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'':
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E8TimeEnoughAtLast Time Enough at Last]]", Henry Bemis may be the last survivor in the aftermath of the nuclear war.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E127TheOldManInTheCave The Old Man in the Cave]]", a nuclear war devastated Earth in 1964, killing millions of people in the process. Major French tells Mr. Goldsmith that there are approximately 500 people alive between Buffalo, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. In the ten years since the war, many people have died as a result of eating food contaminated with Strontium-90 or from the plague.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]", Colonel Cook's people are wiped out in a devastating war within less than a day. The entire coast of Cook's country was destroyed in only 12 minutes, after which they responded in kind.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Quarantine", a nuclear holocaust occurred in 2043 when each side fired six missiles at the other. 80% of the world's population were wiped out and all of the major cities were destroyed. By 2347, Earth has a population of only 200,000.
* The '70s MadeForTVMovie ''Where Have All the People Gone?'' has a SolarFlareDisaster causing this.
* In the final episode of the miniseries revival of ''Series/TheXFiles'', "[[Recap/TheXFilesMiniseriesE06MyStruggleII My Struggle II]]", TheConspiracy enact their endgame by unleashing the Spartan Virus, which shuts down the immune system of anyone exposed to it who hasn't also had alien DNA inserted into their genome. [[BigBad The Cigarette Smoking Man]] tries to present this as a case of [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned extremism]], stating that humanity was wiping out itself and killing the planet anyway, but this way at least humanity will have a chance to rebuild (naturally, with himself and his allies in charge).
** The episode "[[Recap/StargateSG1S3E11PastAndPresent Past and Present]]" implies that one of these, similar to the ''Star Trek TOS'' "Miri" example below, was set off. The team encounters a planet with no children or elderly suffering from amnesia after an incident known as "the Vorlix". {{Inverted|Trope}} when it turns out that [[spoiler:the planet had been using a pesticide which caused sterility (hence the lack of children), and "the Vorlik" was a deliberate test set off by a villain from a previous episode after she learned that this same pesticide had properties which could stop or reverse aging. The test reversed the aging of the entire planet, turning the entirely elderly population into middle-aged adults, but inadvertently causing amnesia in the process.]]
** Two episodes ("[[Recap/StargateSG1S4E162010 2010]]" in season 4, and "[[Recap/StargateSG1S5E102001 2001]]" in season 5) are 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. It helps that the Aschen are ''extremely'' patient, willing to wait a few centuries to take over a planet, which becomes yet another farming world for them. The Aschen can also do this in a more active way -- they possess a bioweapon that can be keyed to a particular genome, which kills off most of the species. In the backstory of "2010", they used it on the Goa'uld, and in "2001", they try to use it on Earth when SG-1 figures out their ''modus operandi''. Fortunately, the SGC [[TeleFrag closes the iris in time]].
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
** The episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E8Miri Miri]]" features a duplicate Earth where a genetic engineering project got out of hand and killed off everyone over puberty. The children are still around, because the intended effect of the project was agelessness, which ''partially'' worked for anyone it didn't kill -- the kids still age about a month per century. Miri herself shows the first sign of the disease later in the episode (if the fact that she caught the Kirk bug doesn't tip you off she was going into puberty).
** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E16TheMarkOfGideon The Mark of Gideon]]" has Kirk kidnapped by a [[OverpopulationCrisis vastly overpopulated]] planet who want to use germs in his blood to drop a Depopulation Bomb on ''themselves''. This scheme involves a large amount of FridgeLogic, when one wonders where they found the space to construct a full-scale replica of the interior of the ''Enterprise''.
* Creator/TheBBC has produced two series, one in the 1970s and one in the 2000s, entitled ''Series/{{Survivors}}'', which have most of the world population wiped out by a virus which is strongly implied to be artificial.
* 'The Virus' in ''Series/TheTribe'' is a Depopulation Bomb with a bonus OnlyFatalToAdults.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'':
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E8TimeEnoughAtLast Time Enough at Last]]", Henry Bemis may be the last survivor in the aftermath of the nuclear war.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E127TheOldManInTheCave The Old Man in the Cave]]", a nuclear war devastated Earth in 1964, killing millions of people in the process. Major French tells Mr. Goldsmith that there are approximately 500 people alive between Buffalo, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. In the ten years since the war, many people have died as a result of eating food contaminated with Strontium-90 or from the plague.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E129Probe7OverAndOut Probe 7, Over and Out]]", Colonel Cook's people are wiped out in a devastating war within less than a day. The entire coast of Cook's country was destroyed in only 12 minutes, after which they responded in kind.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Quarantine", a nuclear holocaust occurred in 2043 when each side fired six missiles at the other. 80% of the world's population were wiped out and all of the major cities were destroyed. By 2347, Earth has a population of only 200,000.
* The '70s MadeForTVMovie ''Where Have All the People Gone?'' has a SolarFlareDisaster causing this.
* In the final episode of the miniseries revival of ''Series/TheXFiles'', "[[Recap/TheXFilesMiniseriesE06MyStruggleII My Struggle II]]", TheConspiracy enact their endgame by unleashing the Spartan Virus, which shuts down the immune system of anyone exposed to it who hasn't also had alien DNA inserted into their genome. [[BigBad The Cigarette Smoking Man]] tries to present this as a case of [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned extremism]], stating that humanity was wiping out itself and killing the planet anyway, but this way at least humanity will have a chance to rebuild (naturally, with himself and his allies in charge).
Changed line(s) 162 (click to see context) from:
-> A spaceship from another star / They ask me where all the people are\\
to:
Changed line(s) 166,168 (click to see context) from:
Please take me with you.
* It's implied that some sort of Depopulation Bomb is used at the end of ''Music/{{Ayreon}}'''s "01011001," given the lines like "Washed away by deadly gamma waves" and "All the world's a blazing funeral pyre." And, well, that everyone on Earth is dead afterward.
** It was a nuclear bomb, as sung about on the Universal Migrator album, presumably the gamma waves line is there simply because of the RuleOfCool.
* It's implied that some sort of Depopulation Bomb is used at the end of ''Music/{{Ayreon}}'''s "01011001," given the lines like "Washed away by deadly gamma waves" and "All the world's a blazing funeral pyre." And, well, that everyone on Earth is dead afterward.
** It was a nuclear bomb, as sung about on the Universal Migrator album, presumably the gamma waves line is there simply because of the RuleOfCool.
to:
Please take me with you.
you.''
*It's implied that some Some sort of Depopulation Bomb nuclear bomb (as sung about on the Universal Migrator album) is used at the end of ''Music/{{Ayreon}}'''s "01011001," "01011001", given the lines like "Washed away by deadly gamma waves" and "All the world's a blazing funeral pyre." And, well, that everyone on Earth is dead afterward.
** It was a nuclear bomb, as sung about onafterward. Presumably, the Universal Migrator album, presumably the gamma waves "gamma waves" line is there simply because of the RuleOfCool.
*
** It was a nuclear bomb, as sung about on
Changed line(s) 172 (click to see context) from:
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' Creation was almost reduced to formless chaos as a result of The Great Contagion, followed by the Balorian Crusade.
to:
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'':
** Creation was almost reduced to formless chaos as a result of The Great Contagion, followed by the Balorian Crusade.
** Creation was almost reduced to formless chaos as a result of The Great Contagion, followed by the Balorian Crusade.
Changed line(s) 175 (click to see context) from:
* The [=VITAS=] (Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome) pandemic serves as this in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''. The disease, first appearing in India in 2010, proceeded to spread globally and wipe out approximately a quarter of the world's population over the next few years, most of them in Africa, followed by a second wave in 2022 that killed another 900 million. Proportionally, Madagascar was among the worst hit, losing over ''70%'' of its population. [=VITAS=] not only caused several governments to collapse, but also set the stage for the setting's bizarre set-up; though highly contagious, the disease was far more lethal to humans than metahumans, and more easily cured through magical means than mundane treatments. This is why there is such a significant number of metahumans, magic is so widespread and respected, and the world is run by the megacorporations — who used their stockpiles to save their own executives and employees first. It also made the [[MagicalNativeAmerican Native American Nations]] a superpower; as millions of Amerindians were confined to isolated "internment" camps during the initial outbreaks, their populations were spared — and their magical talents made future outbreaks a chore instead of a threat.
to:
* The [=VITAS=] VITAS (Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome) pandemic serves as this in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''. The disease, first appearing in India in 2010, proceeded to spread globally and wipe out approximately a quarter of the world's population over the next few years, most of them in Africa, followed by a second wave in 2022 that killed another 900 million. Proportionally, Madagascar was among the worst hit, losing over ''70%'' of its population. [=VITAS=] VITAS not only caused several governments to collapse, but also set the stage for the setting's bizarre set-up; though highly contagious, the disease was far more lethal to humans than metahumans, and more easily cured through magical means than mundane treatments. This is why there is such a significant number of metahumans, magic is so widespread and respected, and the world is run by the megacorporations — who (who used their stockpiles to save their own executives and employees first. first). It also made the [[MagicalNativeAmerican Native American Nations]] a superpower; as millions of Amerindians were confined to isolated "internment" camps during the initial outbreaks, their populations were spared — spared, and their magical talents made future outbreaks a chore instead of a threat.
Changed line(s) 179,191 (click to see context) from:
* The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]] of ''Franchise/MassEffect'' were hit by a Depopulation Bomb referred to as the "Genophage", designed by the salarians during the Krogan Rebellions. The krogan evolved on Tuchanka, an [[DeathWorld extremely lethal planet]] where only massive fertility and hardy physiology made it possible for them to survive, and once they moved off Tuchanka, their numbers, lifespan, and birthrates were so explosive that in order to satisfy the need for more territory to support their growing numbers, they began aggressively moving in on worlds already colonized by other sapient species. The genophage reduced krogan birthrates to less than one successful live birth per thousand pregnancies.\\
Interestingly, the salarians do ''not'' view the genophage as a Depopulation Bomb, but rather as a device to control the krogan birthrate to keep them from overpopulating the galaxy. As Mordin so blunty points out, if the salarians wanted to ''wipe out'' the krogan, it would have been a hell of a lot easier just to slap them with a permanent sterility version of the genophage instead of the carefully tailored one that allows for "pre-industrial growth levels" which would enable the krogan to give birth to enough young to keep up a steady population. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' it's revealed that [[spoiler:the krogan began to adapt to the genophage, prompting the salarians to update it to maintain a stable birthrate]].\\
Unfortunately, coming from a DeathWorld where only the strongest and meanest survive means that the krogan are all genetically and culturally inclined towards hyper-aggression, and rather than adapt to their decreased birthrate they kept on killing each other as much as ever, without the super-fertility to compensate. Wrex points out this, and the tendencies of the krogan to scatter and work as thugs for hire rather than pull together to preserve their own culture, as contributing more to the decline of the krogan than the genophage itself. Demonstrating himself as one of the few really progressive krogan, Wrex argued in favor of focusing on breeding and rebuilding, but gave up the fight in disgust and disillusionment when his own father tried to kill him over their differing views. In ''Mass Effect 2,'' he's revealed to have taken over clan leadership on Tuchanka and is busily dragging the rest of his species kicking and screaming into a more sustainable way of life.
** Curing the genophage is a critical plot point in ''Videogame/MassEffect3''. Not only does Wrex or Wreav (depending on who survived) want it to recover their population, it is also the only thing that will get a disunified and fractured krogan society together enough to focus on the Reaper threat. And once they're united, the krogan bring together the most powerful ground force in the entire galaxy.
** The genophage returns in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', since the krogan that launched for Andromeda left before the cure may or may not have been administered in ''3''. Apparently, Clan Nakmor had a mutation that is (very slowly) rendering the genophage ineffective, and they've applied some kind of gene therapy during the 600 year stasis sleep to Andromeda to enhance it. As a result their birth rates have greatly multiplied (they now have a viability ratio of 1/25). If the trend continues, the Andromeda krogan could be cured of the genophage within a few thousand years.
* The [[spoiler:murder of Vigilance by Median's hands]] in ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' turned Haephnes into a ''very'' slow version of this trope. Births became decreasingly common and the land slowly became more and more barren as a result of [[spoiler:there not being a [[{{Psychopomp}} Master of Death]] to maintain the flow of souls, and another world/god, Drazil, stealing the souls of the dead for his [[AndIMustScream walking graveyard]]]], and by the time the events of the game comes around the land is little more than a dustbowl inhabited by one of the last generations of sentient life. [[OmnicidalManiac Gig]] [[spoiler:(Vigilance ReforgedIntoAMinion by Drazil)]], of course, greatly hastened this process by killing off most of the population and burning most of the land to a crisp, before he was stopped by Median's daughter, Layna, and sealed off within a black sword.
* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'', [[GreenRocks Tiberium]] itself is intended as both this ''and'' a device for [[{{Terraform}} terraforming]] by the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Scrin.]]
** Ironically, they don't care about either effect. They only seed planets with [[GreenRocks Tiberium]] for one-time future harvesting (once all planetary mass is converted Tiberium, it won't grow anymore) They only attack humans because they're still alive; normally, Tiberium kills off all non-Tiberium-based life before the detonation of a significant mass of liquid Tiberium, which signals them to arrive. Once they do arrive, they judge that humanity needs to be exterminated anyway, as they're apparently criminally insane - GDI and Nod are still fighting each other ''during'' a freaking ''alien invasion'', after all.
*** The Scrin, who themselves are so uncaring about other species as to destroy entire planets for harvesting, called humans "Warlike in the extreme".
** ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals Generals]]'' also has the GLA with a variety of bio-chemical weapons and their airburst bomb is in fact a depopulation bomb (it unleashes one of three varieties of a modified Anthrax virus, depending on your upgrades). China gains neutron weapons in ZH which only kill infantry even in vehicles.
* The Stone-Like in ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'', which is designed to keep depopulating the planet until humans learn the error of their ways.
* The eponymous ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''s, which kill all sentient life in the galaxy; specifically, ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' says that they use "bursts of cross-phased supermassive neutrinos" tuned to destroy nervous systems. They do this in order to starve out [[TheVirus the Flood]], by killing both their potential hosts and any Flood form more advanced than a basic Infection Form. Before they fired the Halos, the Forerunners made sure to evacuate as many species as they could to an extragalactic safe spot; afterwards, they were resettled on their homeworlds, with each species forced to start off as hunter-gatherers again. Each individual Halo does have a limited range though, which is why there's seven of them. It should be noted that this was very much a last-ditch plan; the Forerunners first tried both a conventional war and researching an actual cure, and neither of those worked.
* The Gen-Select bioweapon in ''VideoGame/WingCommander IV'' releases nanobots that kill everyone who doesn't meet the Black Lance's genetic standards. This weapon killed roughly 90% of the population on the planet it was used on.
Interestingly, the salarians do ''not'' view the genophage as a Depopulation Bomb, but rather as a device to control the krogan birthrate to keep them from overpopulating the galaxy. As Mordin so blunty points out, if the salarians wanted to ''wipe out'' the krogan, it would have been a hell of a lot easier just to slap them with a permanent sterility version of the genophage instead of the carefully tailored one that allows for "pre-industrial growth levels" which would enable the krogan to give birth to enough young to keep up a steady population. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' it's revealed that [[spoiler:the krogan began to adapt to the genophage, prompting the salarians to update it to maintain a stable birthrate]].\\
Unfortunately, coming from a DeathWorld where only the strongest and meanest survive means that the krogan are all genetically and culturally inclined towards hyper-aggression, and rather than adapt to their decreased birthrate they kept on killing each other as much as ever, without the super-fertility to compensate. Wrex points out this, and the tendencies of the krogan to scatter and work as thugs for hire rather than pull together to preserve their own culture, as contributing more to the decline of the krogan than the genophage itself. Demonstrating himself as one of the few really progressive krogan, Wrex argued in favor of focusing on breeding and rebuilding, but gave up the fight in disgust and disillusionment when his own father tried to kill him over their differing views. In ''Mass Effect 2,'' he's revealed to have taken over clan leadership on Tuchanka and is busily dragging the rest of his species kicking and screaming into a more sustainable way of life.
** Curing the genophage is a critical plot point in ''Videogame/MassEffect3''. Not only does Wrex or Wreav (depending on who survived) want it to recover their population, it is also the only thing that will get a disunified and fractured krogan society together enough to focus on the Reaper threat. And once they're united, the krogan bring together the most powerful ground force in the entire galaxy.
** The genophage returns in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', since the krogan that launched for Andromeda left before the cure may or may not have been administered in ''3''. Apparently, Clan Nakmor had a mutation that is (very slowly) rendering the genophage ineffective, and they've applied some kind of gene therapy during the 600 year stasis sleep to Andromeda to enhance it. As a result their birth rates have greatly multiplied (they now have a viability ratio of 1/25). If the trend continues, the Andromeda krogan could be cured of the genophage within a few thousand years.
* The [[spoiler:murder of Vigilance by Median's hands]] in ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' turned Haephnes into a ''very'' slow version of this trope. Births became decreasingly common and the land slowly became more and more barren as a result of [[spoiler:there not being a [[{{Psychopomp}} Master of Death]] to maintain the flow of souls, and another world/god, Drazil, stealing the souls of the dead for his [[AndIMustScream walking graveyard]]]], and by the time the events of the game comes around the land is little more than a dustbowl inhabited by one of the last generations of sentient life. [[OmnicidalManiac Gig]] [[spoiler:(Vigilance ReforgedIntoAMinion by Drazil)]], of course, greatly hastened this process by killing off most of the population and burning most of the land to a crisp, before he was stopped by Median's daughter, Layna, and sealed off within a black sword.
* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'', [[GreenRocks Tiberium]] itself is intended as both this ''and'' a device for [[{{Terraform}} terraforming]] by the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Scrin.]]
** Ironically, they don't care about either effect. They only seed planets with [[GreenRocks Tiberium]] for one-time future harvesting (once all planetary mass is converted Tiberium, it won't grow anymore) They only attack humans because they're still alive; normally, Tiberium kills off all non-Tiberium-based life before the detonation of a significant mass of liquid Tiberium, which signals them to arrive. Once they do arrive, they judge that humanity needs to be exterminated anyway, as they're apparently criminally insane - GDI and Nod are still fighting each other ''during'' a freaking ''alien invasion'', after all.
*** The Scrin, who themselves are so uncaring about other species as to destroy entire planets for harvesting, called humans "Warlike in the extreme".
** ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals Generals]]'' also has the GLA with a variety of bio-chemical weapons and their airburst bomb is in fact a depopulation bomb (it unleashes one of three varieties of a modified Anthrax virus, depending on your upgrades). China gains neutron weapons in ZH which only kill infantry even in vehicles.
* The Stone-Like in ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'', which is designed to keep depopulating the planet until humans learn the error of their ways.
* The eponymous ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''s, which kill all sentient life in the galaxy; specifically, ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' says that they use "bursts of cross-phased supermassive neutrinos" tuned to destroy nervous systems. They do this in order to starve out [[TheVirus the Flood]], by killing both their potential hosts and any Flood form more advanced than a basic Infection Form. Before they fired the Halos, the Forerunners made sure to evacuate as many species as they could to an extragalactic safe spot; afterwards, they were resettled on their homeworlds, with each species forced to start off as hunter-gatherers again. Each individual Halo does have a limited range though, which is why there's seven of them. It should be noted that this was very much a last-ditch plan; the Forerunners first tried both a conventional war and researching an actual cure, and neither of those worked.
* The Gen-Select bioweapon in ''VideoGame/WingCommander IV'' releases nanobots that kill everyone who doesn't meet the Black Lance's genetic standards. This weapon killed roughly 90% of the population on the planet it was used on.
to:
* The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]] of ''Franchise/MassEffect'' were hit by a Depopulation Bomb referred to as In the "Genophage", designed by [[AllInTheManual backstory]] for ''VideoGame/AlienLegacy'', FirstContact with the salarians during the Krogan Rebellions. The krogan evolved on Tuchanka, an [[DeathWorld extremely lethal planet]] where only massive fertility and hardy physiology made it possible for [[AbsoluteXenophobe Centaurians]] involved them to survive, and once they moved off Tuchanka, their numbers, lifespan, and birthrates were so explosive sending an armed probe into the Solar System that in order vaporized a ship sent to satisfy the need for more territory to support their growing numbers, they began aggressively moving in on worlds already colonized by other sapient species. The genophage reduced krogan birthrates to less than one successful live birth per thousand pregnancies.\\
Interestingly, the salarians do ''not'' view the genophage as a Depopulation Bomb, but rather as a device to control the krogan birthrate to keep them from overpopulating the galaxy. As Mordin so blunty points out, if the salarians wanted to ''wipe out'' the krogan, it would have been a hell of a lot easier just to slap themrendezvous with a permanent sterility version of the genophage instead of the carefully tailored one that allows for "pre-industrial growth levels" which would enable the krogan to give birth to enough young to keep up a steady population. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' it's revealed that [[spoiler:the krogan began to adapt to the genophage, prompting the salarians to update it to maintain a stable birthrate]].\\
Unfortunately, coming from a DeathWorld where only the strongestand meanest survive means that the krogan are all genetically and culturally inclined towards hyper-aggression, and rather than adapt to their decreased birthrate they kept on killing each other as much as ever, without the super-fertility to compensate. Wrex points out this, and the tendencies of the krogan to scatter and work as thugs for hire rather than pull together to preserve their own culture, as contributing more to the decline of the krogan than the genophage itself. Demonstrating himself as one of the few really progressive krogan, Wrex argued in favor of focusing on breeding and rebuilding, but gave up the fight in disgust and disillusionment when his own father tried to kill him over their differing views. In ''Mass Effect 2,'' he's revealed to have taken over clan leadership on Tuchanka and is busily dragging the rest of his species kicking and screaming into a more sustainable way of life.
** Curing the genophage is a critical plot point in ''Videogame/MassEffect3''. Not only does Wrex or Wreav (depending on who survived) want it to recover their population, it is also the only thing that will get a disunified and fractured krogan society together enough to focus on the Reaper threat. And once they're united, the krogan bring together the most powerful ground force in the entire galaxy.
** The genophage returns in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', since the krogan thatthen launched for Andromeda left before missiles containing a deadly plague at Earth. One missile made it through the cure may or may not have been administered in ''3''. Apparently, Clan Nakmor had a mutation that is (very slowly) rendering defenses and killed millions of people. Ignoring the genophage ineffective, and they've applied some kind question of gene therapy during the 600 year stasis sleep to Andromeda to enhance it. As how [[NoBiochemicalBarriers an alien race with no prior contact with humans developed a result their birth rates have greatly multiplied (they now have a viability ratio plague capable of 1/25). If the trend continues, the Andromeda krogan could be cured of the genophage within a few thousand years.
* The [[spoiler:murder of Vigilance by Median's hands]] in ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' turned Haephnes into a ''very'' slow version of this trope. Births became decreasingly common and the land slowly became more and more barren as a result of [[spoiler:there not being a [[{{Psychopomp}} Master of Death]] to maintain the flow of souls, and another world/god, Drazil, stealing the souls of the dead for his [[AndIMustScream walking graveyard]]]], and byaffecting us]], it only gets worse from there. [[spoiler:By the time the events of the game comes around proper starts, it's heavily implied that Earth has been depopulated by the land is little more than a dustbowl inhabited by Centaurians for centuries, if not millennia]].
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2'', one ofthe last generations of sentient life. [[OmnicidalManiac Gig]] [[spoiler:(Vigilance ReforgedIntoAMinion by Drazil)]], of course, greatly hastened this process by Warren Vidic's emails features a news story concerning talks in Africa. In 2006, a disease called L-11 broke out in Africa, killing off most ''96%'' of the continent's population over a 3-month period. Six years later, the continent is still virtually uninhabited and burning most of world powers take discussed once again dividing up the land land. [[spoiler:This is later revealed to all be a crisp, before he was stopped hoax created by Median's daughter, Layna, and sealed off within a black sword.
* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'', [[GreenRocks Tiberium]] itself is intended as both this ''and'' a device for [[{{Terraform}} terraforming]] by the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Scrin.Abstergo.]]
** Ironically, they don't care * The major conflict in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare'' comes about either effect. They only seed planets with [[GreenRocks Tiberium]] for one-time future harvesting (once all planetary mass is converted Tiberium, it won't grow anymore) They only attack humans because they're still alive; normally, Tiberium kills off all non-Tiberium-based life before {{Private Military Contractor|s}} CEO Jonathan Irons [[spoiler:developed a special biological agent that can distinguish between his own Atlas Corporation forces and anyone else caught in its blast radius. He intends to use this to remove obstacles in his quest to undo the detonation of a significant mass of liquid Tiberium, world's governments, which signals them to arrive. Once they do arrive, they judge that humanity needs to be exterminated anyway, he sees as they're apparently criminally insane - GDI a blight and Nod are still fighting each other ''during'' a freaking ''alien invasion'', after all.
*** The Scrin, who themselves are so uncaring about other species as to destroy entire planets for harvesting, called humans "Warlikeineffective, taking out countless citizens in the extreme".
** ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals Generals]]'' also has the GLA with a variety of bio-chemical weapons and their airburst bomb is in fact a depopulation bomb (it unleashes one of three varieties of a modified Anthrax virus, depending on your upgrades). China gains neutron weapons in ZH which only kill infantry even in vehicles.
* The Stone-Like in ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'', which is designed to keep depopulating the planet until humans learn the error of their ways.
* The eponymous ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''s, which kill all sentient life in the galaxy; specifically, ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' says that they use "bursts of cross-phased supermassive neutrinos" tuned to destroy nervous systems. They do this in order to starve out [[TheVirus the Flood]], by killing both their potential hosts and any Flood form more advanced than a basic Infection Form. Before they fired the Halos, the Forerunners made sure to evacuate as many species as they could to an extragalactic safe spot; afterwards, they were resettled on their homeworlds, with each species forced to start off as hunter-gatherers again. Each individual Halo does have a limited range though, which is why there's seven of them. It should be noted that this was very much a last-ditch plan; the Forerunners first tried both a conventional war and researching an actual cure, and neither of those worked.
* The Gen-Select bioweapon in ''VideoGame/WingCommander IV'' releases nanobots that kill everyone who doesn't meet the Black Lance's genetic standards. This weapon killed roughly 90% of the population on the planet it was used on.process]].
Interestingly, the salarians do ''not'' view the genophage as a Depopulation Bomb, but rather as a device to control the krogan birthrate to keep them from overpopulating the galaxy. As Mordin so blunty points out, if the salarians wanted to ''wipe out'' the krogan, it would have been a hell of a lot easier just to slap them
Unfortunately, coming from a DeathWorld where only the strongest
** Curing the genophage is a critical plot point in ''Videogame/MassEffect3''. Not only does Wrex or Wreav (depending on who survived) want it to recover their population, it is also the only thing that will get a disunified and fractured krogan society together enough to focus on the Reaper threat. And once they're united, the krogan bring together the most powerful ground force in the entire galaxy.
** The genophage returns in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', since the krogan that
* The [[spoiler:murder of Vigilance by Median's hands]] in ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' turned Haephnes into a ''very'' slow version of this trope. Births became decreasingly common and the land slowly became more and more barren as a result of [[spoiler:there not being a [[{{Psychopomp}} Master of Death]] to maintain the flow of souls, and another world/god, Drazil, stealing the souls of the dead for his [[AndIMustScream walking graveyard]]]], and by
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2'', one of
* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'', [[GreenRocks Tiberium]] itself is intended as both this ''and'' a device for [[{{Terraform}} terraforming]] by the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Scrin.
*** The Scrin, who themselves are so uncaring about other species as to destroy entire planets for harvesting, called humans "Warlike
** ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals Generals]]'' also has the GLA with a variety of bio-chemical weapons and their airburst bomb is in fact a depopulation bomb (it unleashes one of three varieties of a modified Anthrax virus, depending on your upgrades). China gains neutron weapons in ZH which only kill infantry even in vehicles.
* The Stone-Like in ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'', which is designed to keep depopulating the planet until humans learn the error of their ways.
* The eponymous ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''s, which kill all sentient life in the galaxy; specifically, ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' says that they use "bursts of cross-phased supermassive neutrinos" tuned to destroy nervous systems. They do this in order to starve out [[TheVirus the Flood]], by killing both their potential hosts and any Flood form more advanced than a basic Infection Form. Before they fired the Halos, the Forerunners made sure to evacuate as many species as they could to an extragalactic safe spot; afterwards, they were resettled on their homeworlds, with each species forced to start off as hunter-gatherers again. Each individual Halo does have a limited range though, which is why there's seven of them. It should be noted that this was very much a last-ditch plan; the Forerunners first tried both a conventional war and researching an actual cure, and neither of those worked.
* The Gen-Select bioweapon in ''VideoGame/WingCommander IV'' releases nanobots that kill everyone who doesn't meet the Black Lance's genetic standards. This weapon killed roughly 90% of the population on the planet it was used on.
Changed line(s) 193,209 (click to see context) from:
* It is possible to research and build biological weapons in ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars''. When launched against a planet, each plague missile kills millions of people. Enough of them can quickly depopulate a world with no ill effect to the environment. Another version of the plague makes the target population more willing to join your empire. However, millions still die.
** Also, in the [[SapientCetaceans Liir]] [[AllThereInTheManual backstory]], they are conquered by a vicious race known to them only as the Suul'ka. When they finally [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebel]], the Liir use their advanced knowledge of biology to [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetically engineer]] a virus designed to kill only the Suul'ka. The virus actually wipes out all Suul'ka in the sector and, as it was previously thought, all Suul'ka everywhere. The sequel reveals that the Suul'ka are NotQuiteDead.
*** Technically, the manual stated that the Liir used a "bioweapon" and that the specific vector was unknown. The sequel states that the bioweapon is known as "The Black" [[spoiler:and is currently the leader of their military, the Black Swimmers. The Suul'ka are actually, very old, [[SpaceWhale very large]], and very insane Liir Elders, the Black is an artificial Suul'ka who is loyal to the younger Liir and was once the Voice of Muur (the ruler of a Liir planet is known as the Voice, and Muur is their homeworld) that led his people to rebel against the Suul'Ka in the first place.]]
* The ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' franchise features the recurring Armageddon spell, first given to the player character in ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'', that effectively destroys all life on Britannia apart from the caster (apart from ''VideoGame/UltimaVIII'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaIX'', where it kills the caster as well) and, if they're lucky, a few select [=NPCs=], such as [[AuthorAvatar Lord British]]. Naturally, the games are usually {{Unwinnable}} after casting the spell, so pretty much everyone who ever played these games cast the spell once and only once to see what happens, before reverting to an earlier savegame.
* In the backstory of ''VideoGame/{{NieR}}'', [[spoiler:humanity was wiped out by White Chlorination Syndrome, which was the result of Caim, Angelus and the Mother Grotesquerie entering the real world in the E Ending of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' and introducing magical particles to the world. The result is a ZombieApocalypse that wipes out almost all of humanity, the survivors being converted into Gestalts (what you know of as Shades). The "humans" we see in the game are actually Replicants, {{Empty Shell}}s meant only as bodies for humanity's restoration, but due to them developing sentience, their respective Gestalts are degenerating into mindless monsters, while the Replicants suffer from a degenerative and always lethal disease known as the Black Scrawl. Thanks to the effort of Nier, that plan's not going anywhere and humanity will be extinct within a generation, as he killed his own Gestalt, the Shadowlord and doomed all remaining Gestalts to lose their minds and die, and all the Replicants (except for Kainé, who is made fully human by Nier and Tyrann's sacrifice) to die to the Black Scrawl.]]
* The Facebook game ''WastelandEmpires'' is based on this type of scenario, though what type is not stated.
* The entire goal of the flash game ''VideoGame/{{Pandemic}}'' and its sequel is to make one of these in the form of ThePlague.
* Nukes in ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' will typically remove 3/4 of the population of a city they're dropped on, and pollute the surrounding region with fallout, making population recovery extremely difficult.
** Repeated nuking or nuking a sufficiently weak city will result in that city being removed from the game altogether. Unless it's a capital city, which are indestructible.
* In the penultimate story quest of ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', President Eden provides you a with a vial of [[SyntheticPlague Modified Forced Evolutionary Virus]], which will kill all mutated creatures in the Wasteland, including most humans (e.g. those not born in vaults), when inserted into Project Purity. During ''Broken Steel'', if you followed through with the President's orders, there will be people in the clinics dying from the virus, and you yourself die if you consume too much of the FEV-laced water.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', humanity gets hit with a whole series of these:
** 500 years before the main story, [[spoiler:Grahf]] unleashed the [[spoiler:"terminal interface weapons" of [[DeusEstMachina Deus]]]], killing over 95% of the population.
** Then, in the main game, the heroes' attempt to [[spoiler:use {{nanomachines}} to remove the Limiters on the general population]] triggers a failsafe that causes some of them to [[spoiler:turn into [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Wels]]]]. Just when the heroes begin making progress in [[spoiler:treating some of the people who transformed]], the [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Gazel Ministry]] [[spoiler:activates the Gaetia Key, turning most of the ''rest'' of the population into Wels]]. The [[spoiler:Wels]] are then absorbed by [[spoiler:[[BigBad Deus]]]], and [[spoiler:either used as spare parts or converted into Seraphs]], which begin slaughtering any humans who managed to survive this far. By the end of the game, over '''''90%''''' of the planet's population is ''dead''.
* ''VideoGame/TheLastFederation'', this was the first stage of Evucks attack on Hydral. If Evucks achieve the space travel and start a war with someone, they can use it again.
* According to some of ''Franchise/TouhouProject''[='=]s [[AllThereInTheManual compendiums]], scientific advances was this trope to TheFairFolk, {{Youkai}}, [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly gods]] and [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve beings that affirmed their existence]] by PaintingTheFrostOnWindows, hence causing the necessity for [[FantasticNatureReserve Genso]][[FantasyKitchenSink ukyou]] to be founded in the first place. The most notable example that is brough up is the yamabiko, benevolent echo sprits that dwell in valleys and mountains... or ''dwelled'' in valleys and mountains... Though it's uncertain how many there are left, aside from Kyouko Kasodani, it's canon that they nearly went extinct when a scientific explanation for what causes echoes was discovered.
* This is Wesker's plan in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5''. The "Uroboros" mutagen will tear through the world's populations (ensuring "COMPLETE GLOBAL SATURATION") and devolve anyone who doesn't meet the genetic criteria Wesker has researched into a slimy mass of tangled, oozing tentacles. More able subjects will "evolve" and become Wesker's chosen race to ascend past humanity.
* The major conflict in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare'' comes about because PrivateMilitaryContractor CEO Jonathan Irons [[spoiler:developed a special biological agent that can distinguish between his own Atlas Corporation forces and anyone else caught in its blast radius. He intends to use this to remove obstacles in his quest to undo the world's governments, which he sees as a blight and ineffective, taking out countless citizens in the process]].
** Also, in the [[SapientCetaceans Liir]] [[AllThereInTheManual backstory]], they are conquered by a vicious race known to them only as the Suul'ka. When they finally [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebel]], the Liir use their advanced knowledge of biology to [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetically engineer]] a virus designed to kill only the Suul'ka. The virus actually wipes out all Suul'ka in the sector and, as it was previously thought, all Suul'ka everywhere. The sequel reveals that the Suul'ka are NotQuiteDead.
*** Technically, the manual stated that the Liir used a "bioweapon" and that the specific vector was unknown. The sequel states that the bioweapon is known as "The Black" [[spoiler:and is currently the leader of their military, the Black Swimmers. The Suul'ka are actually, very old, [[SpaceWhale very large]], and very insane Liir Elders, the Black is an artificial Suul'ka who is loyal to the younger Liir and was once the Voice of Muur (the ruler of a Liir planet is known as the Voice, and Muur is their homeworld) that led his people to rebel against the Suul'Ka in the first place.]]
* The ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' franchise features the recurring Armageddon spell, first given to the player character in ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'', that effectively destroys all life on Britannia apart from the caster (apart from ''VideoGame/UltimaVIII'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaIX'', where it kills the caster as well) and, if they're lucky, a few select [=NPCs=], such as [[AuthorAvatar Lord British]]. Naturally, the games are usually {{Unwinnable}} after casting the spell, so pretty much everyone who ever played these games cast the spell once and only once to see what happens, before reverting to an earlier savegame.
* In the backstory of ''VideoGame/{{NieR}}'', [[spoiler:humanity was wiped out by White Chlorination Syndrome, which was the result of Caim, Angelus and the Mother Grotesquerie entering the real world in the E Ending of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' and introducing magical particles to the world. The result is a ZombieApocalypse that wipes out almost all of humanity, the survivors being converted into Gestalts (what you know of as Shades). The "humans" we see in the game are actually Replicants, {{Empty Shell}}s meant only as bodies for humanity's restoration, but due to them developing sentience, their respective Gestalts are degenerating into mindless monsters, while the Replicants suffer from a degenerative and always lethal disease known as the Black Scrawl. Thanks to the effort of Nier, that plan's not going anywhere and humanity will be extinct within a generation, as he killed his own Gestalt, the Shadowlord and doomed all remaining Gestalts to lose their minds and die, and all the Replicants (except for Kainé, who is made fully human by Nier and Tyrann's sacrifice) to die to the Black Scrawl.]]
* The Facebook game ''WastelandEmpires'' is based on this type of scenario, though what type is not stated.
* The entire goal of the flash game ''VideoGame/{{Pandemic}}'' and its sequel is to make one of these in the form of ThePlague.
* Nukes in ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' will typically remove 3/4 of the population of a city they're dropped on, and pollute the surrounding region with fallout, making population recovery extremely difficult.
** Repeated nuking or nuking a sufficiently weak city will result in that city being removed from the game altogether. Unless it's a capital city, which are indestructible.
* In the penultimate story quest of ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', President Eden provides you a with a vial of [[SyntheticPlague Modified Forced Evolutionary Virus]], which will kill all mutated creatures in the Wasteland, including most humans (e.g. those not born in vaults), when inserted into Project Purity. During ''Broken Steel'', if you followed through with the President's orders, there will be people in the clinics dying from the virus, and you yourself die if you consume too much of the FEV-laced water.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', humanity gets hit with a whole series of these:
** 500 years before the main story, [[spoiler:Grahf]] unleashed the [[spoiler:"terminal interface weapons" of [[DeusEstMachina Deus]]]], killing over 95% of the population.
** Then, in the main game, the heroes' attempt to [[spoiler:use {{nanomachines}} to remove the Limiters on the general population]] triggers a failsafe that causes some of them to [[spoiler:turn into [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Wels]]]]. Just when the heroes begin making progress in [[spoiler:treating some of the people who transformed]], the [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Gazel Ministry]] [[spoiler:activates the Gaetia Key, turning most of the ''rest'' of the population into Wels]]. The [[spoiler:Wels]] are then absorbed by [[spoiler:[[BigBad Deus]]]], and [[spoiler:either used as spare parts or converted into Seraphs]], which begin slaughtering any humans who managed to survive this far. By the end of the game, over '''''90%''''' of the planet's population is ''dead''.
* ''VideoGame/TheLastFederation'', this was the first stage of Evucks attack on Hydral. If Evucks achieve the space travel and start a war with someone, they can use it again.
* According to some of ''Franchise/TouhouProject''[='=]s [[AllThereInTheManual compendiums]], scientific advances was this trope to TheFairFolk, {{Youkai}}, [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly gods]] and [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve beings that affirmed their existence]] by PaintingTheFrostOnWindows, hence causing the necessity for [[FantasticNatureReserve Genso]][[FantasyKitchenSink ukyou]] to be founded in the first place. The most notable example that is brough up is the yamabiko, benevolent echo sprits that dwell in valleys and mountains... or ''dwelled'' in valleys and mountains... Though it's uncertain how many there are left, aside from Kyouko Kasodani, it's canon that they nearly went extinct when a scientific explanation for what causes echoes was discovered.
* This is Wesker's plan in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5''. The "Uroboros" mutagen will tear through the world's populations (ensuring "COMPLETE GLOBAL SATURATION") and devolve anyone who doesn't meet the genetic criteria Wesker has researched into a slimy mass of tangled, oozing tentacles. More able subjects will "evolve" and become Wesker's chosen race to ascend past humanity.
* The major conflict in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare'' comes about because PrivateMilitaryContractor CEO Jonathan Irons [[spoiler:developed a special biological agent that can distinguish between his own Atlas Corporation forces and anyone else caught in its blast radius. He intends to use this to remove obstacles in his quest to undo the world's governments, which he sees as a blight and ineffective, taking out countless citizens in the process]].
to:
** Also, in the [[SapientCetaceans Liir]] [[AllThereInTheManual backstory]], they are conquered by a vicious race known to them only as the Suul'ka. When they finally [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebel]], the Liir use their advanced knowledge of biology to [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetically engineer]] a virus designed to kill only the Suul'ka. The virus actually wipes out all Suul'ka in the sector and, as it was previously thought, all Suul'ka everywhere. The sequel reveals that the Suul'ka are NotQuiteDead.
*** Technically, the manual stated that the Liir used a "bioweapon" and that the specific vector was unknown. The sequel states that the bioweapon is known as "The Black" [[spoiler:and is currently the leader of their military, the Black Swimmers. The Suul'ka are actually, very old, [[SpaceWhale very large]], and very insane Liir Elders, the Black is an artificial Suul'ka who is loyal to the younger Liir and was once the Voice of Muur (the ruler of a Liir planet is known as the Voice, and Muur is their homeworld) that led his people to rebel against the Suul'Ka in the first place.]]
* The ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' franchise features the recurring Armageddon spell, first given to the player character in ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'', that effectively destroys all life on Britannia apart from the caster (apart from ''VideoGame/UltimaVIII'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaIX'', where it kills the caster as well) and, if they're lucky, a few select [=NPCs=], such as [[AuthorAvatar Lord British]]. Naturally, the games are usually {{Unwinnable}} after casting the spell, so pretty much everyone who ever played these games cast the spell once and only once to see what happens, before reverting to an earlier savegame.
* In the backstory of ''VideoGame/{{NieR}}'', [[spoiler:humanity was wiped out by White Chlorination Syndrome, which was the result of Caim, Angelus and the Mother Grotesquerie entering the real world in the E Ending of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' and introducing magical particles to the world. The result is a ZombieApocalypse that wipes out almost all of humanity, the survivors being converted into Gestalts (what you know of as Shades). The "humans" we see in the game are actually Replicants, {{Empty Shell}}s meant only as bodies for humanity's restoration, but due to them developing sentience, their respective Gestalts are degenerating into mindless monsters, while the Replicants suffer from a degenerative and always lethal disease known as the Black Scrawl. Thanks to the effort of Nier, that plan's not going anywhere and humanity will be extinct within a generation, as he killed his own Gestalt, the Shadowlord and doomed all remaining Gestalts to lose their minds and die, and all the Replicants (except for Kainé, who is made fully human by Nier and Tyrann's sacrifice) to die to the Black Scrawl.]]
* The Facebook game ''WastelandEmpires'' is based on this type of scenario, though what type is not stated.
* The entire goal of the flash game ''VideoGame/{{Pandemic}}'' and its sequel is to make one of these in the form of ThePlague.
**
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'':
** In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer3TiberiumWars'', [[GreenRocks Tiberium]] itself is intended as both this ''and'' a device for [[{{Terraform}} terraforming]] by the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Scrin.]] Ironically, they don't care about either effect. They only seed planets with [[GreenRocks Tiberium]] for one-time future harvesting (once all planetary mass is converted Tiberium, it won't grow anymore) They only attack humans because they're still alive; normally, Tiberium kills off all non-Tiberium-based life before the detonation of a significant mass of liquid Tiberium, which signals them to arrive. Once they do arrive, they judge that humanity needs to be exterminated anyway, as they're apparently criminally insane -- GDI and Nod are still fighting each other ''during'' a freaking ''alien invasion'', after all. The Scrin, who themselves are so uncaring about other species as to destroy entire planets for harvesting, call humans "[[HumansAreWarriors Warlike in the extreme]]".
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'' also has the GLA with a variety of bio-chemical weapons and their airburst bomb is in fact a depopulation bomb (it unleashes one of three varieties of a modified Anthrax virus, depending on your upgrades). China gains neutron weapons in ZH which only kill infantry even in vehicles.
* In the penultimate story quest of ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', President Eden provides you a with a vial of [[SyntheticPlague Modified Forced Evolutionary Virus]], which will kill all mutated creatures in the Wasteland, including most humans (e.g.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', humanity gets hit with a whole series of these:
** 500 years before the main story, [[spoiler:Grahf]] unleashed the [[spoiler:"terminal interface weapons" of [[DeusEstMachina Deus]]]], killing over 95% of the population.
** Then, in the main game, the heroes' attempt to [[spoiler:use {{nanomachines}} to remove the Limiters on the general population]] triggers a failsafe that causes some of them to [[spoiler:turn into [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Wels]]]]. Just when the heroes begin making progress in [[spoiler:treating some of the people who transformed]], the [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Gazel Ministry]] [[spoiler:activates the Gaetia Key, turning most of the ''rest'' of the population into Wels]]. The [[spoiler:Wels]] are then absorbed by [[spoiler:[[BigBad Deus]]]], and [[spoiler:either used as spare parts or converted into Seraphs]], which begin slaughtering any humans who managed to survive this far. By the end of the game, over '''''90%''''' of the planet's population is ''dead''.
* ''VideoGame/TheLastFederation'', this was the first stage of Evucks attack on Hydral. If Evucks achieve the space travel and start a war with someone, they can use it again.
* According to some of ''Franchise/TouhouProject''[='=]s [[AllThereInTheManual compendiums]], scientific advances was this trope to TheFairFolk, {{Youkai}}, [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly gods]] and [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve beings that affirmed their existence]] by PaintingTheFrostOnWindows, hence causing the necessity for [[FantasticNatureReserve Genso]][[FantasyKitchenSink ukyou]] to be founded in the first place. The most notable example that is brough up is the yamabiko, benevolent echo sprits that dwell in valleys and mountains... or ''dwelled'' in valleys and mountains... Though it's uncertain how many there are left, aside from Kyouko Kasodani, it's canon that they nearly went extinct when a scientific explanation for what causes echoes was discovered.
* This is Wesker's plan in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5''. The "Uroboros" mutagen will tear through the world's populations (ensuring "COMPLETE GLOBAL SATURATION") and devolve anyone who doesn't meet the genetic criteria Wesker has researched into a slimy mass of tangled, oozing tentacles. More able subjects will "evolve" and become Wesker's chosen race to ascend past humanity.
* The major conflict in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare'' comes about because PrivateMilitaryContractor CEO Jonathan Irons [[spoiler:developed a special biological agent that can distinguish between his own Atlas Corporation forces and anyone else caught in its blast radius. He intends to use this to remove obstacles in his quest to undo the world's governments, which he sees as a blight and ineffective, taking out countless citizens in the process]].
Changed line(s) 211,214 (click to see context) from:
* In the [[AllInTheManual backstory]] for ''VideoGame/AlienLegacy'', FirstContact with the [[AbsoluteXenophobe Centaurians]] involved them sending an armed probe into the Solar System that vaporized a ship sent to rendezvous with it and then launched missiles containing a deadly plague at Earth. One missile made it through the defenses and killed millions of people. Ignoring the question of how [[NoBiochemicalBarriers an alien race with no prior contact with humans developed a plague capable of affecting us]], it only gets worse from there. [[spoiler:By the time the game proper starts, it's heavily implied that Earth has been depopulated by the Centaurians for centuries, if not millennia]].
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2'', one of Warren Vidic's emails features a news story concerning talks in Africa. In 2006, a disease called L-11 broke out in Africa, killing ''96%'' of the continent's population over a 3-month period. Six years later, the continent is still virtually uninhabited and world powers take discussed once again dividing up the land. [[spoiler:This is later revealed to all be a hoax created by Abstergo.]]
* The ''Apocalypse'' DLC to ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' introduced Colossi, gigantic planet-killer spaceships that can be armed with a variety of genocidal superweapons. One of these, the Neutron Sweep, annihilates the target world's entire population with a single shot from orbit, leaving its infrastructure intact (albeit damaged and in need of eventual repair project) for your colonists to take over. Needless to say that ''any'' deployment of a Colossus is considered a huge war crime by almost anyone in the galaxy even against AlwaysChaoticEvil empires, so don't expect your reputation to come out of it unscathed.
** Finishing the [[{{Precursors}} Irassian Concordate]] quest chain unlocks the deadly plague that wiped them out as a unique orbital bombardment stance. It deals low damage to infrastructure but very high damage to armies and pops on the target planet, to the point that an entire world can be depopulated in only a few months of bombardment. Unlike the much more effective Colossus deployment mentioned above, this option trades time and effort for no one in the galactic community giving a shit (except for the empire currently getting virus-bombed into oblivion, natch).
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2'', one of Warren Vidic's emails features a news story concerning talks in Africa. In 2006, a disease called L-11 broke out in Africa, killing ''96%'' of the continent's population over a 3-month period. Six years later, the continent is still virtually uninhabited and world powers take discussed once again dividing up the land. [[spoiler:This is later revealed to all be a hoax created by Abstergo.]]
* The ''Apocalypse'' DLC to ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' introduced Colossi, gigantic planet-killer spaceships that can be armed with a variety of genocidal superweapons. One of these, the Neutron Sweep, annihilates the target world's entire population with a single shot from orbit, leaving its infrastructure intact (albeit damaged and in need of eventual repair project) for your colonists to take over. Needless to say that ''any'' deployment of a Colossus is considered a huge war crime by almost anyone in the galaxy even against AlwaysChaoticEvil empires, so don't expect your reputation to come out of it unscathed.
** Finishing the [[{{Precursors}} Irassian Concordate]] quest chain unlocks the deadly plague that wiped them out as a unique orbital bombardment stance. It deals low damage to infrastructure but very high damage to armies and pops on the target planet, to the point that an entire world can be depopulated in only a few months of bombardment. Unlike the much more effective Colossus deployment mentioned above, this option trades time and effort for no one in the galactic community giving a shit (except for the empire currently getting virus-bombed into oblivion, natch).
to:
* In The eponymous Halos in ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' kill all sentient life in the [[AllInTheManual backstory]] for ''VideoGame/AlienLegacy'', FirstContact with the [[AbsoluteXenophobe Centaurians]] involved them sending an armed probe into the Solar System galaxy; specifically, ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' says that vaporized a ship sent they use "bursts of cross-phased supermassive neutrinos" tuned to rendezvous with it and then launched missiles containing a deadly plague at Earth. One missile made it through destroy nervous systems. They do this in order to starve out [[TheVirus the defenses and killed millions of people. Ignoring the question of how [[NoBiochemicalBarriers an alien race with no prior contact with humans developed a plague capable of affecting us]], it only gets worse from there. [[spoiler:By the time the game proper starts, it's heavily implied that Earth has been depopulated Flood]], by the Centaurians for centuries, if not millennia]].
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2'', one of Warren Vidic's emails features a news story concerning talks in Africa. In 2006, a disease called L-11 broke out in Africa,killing ''96%'' of both their potential hosts and any Flood form more advanced than a basic Infection Form. Before they fired the continent's population over a 3-month period. Six years later, Halos, the continent Forerunners made sure to evacuate as many species as they could to an extragalactic safe spot; afterwards, they were resettled on their homeworlds, with each species forced to start off as hunter-gatherers again. Each individual Halo does have a limited range though, which is still virtually uninhabited and world powers take discussed once again dividing up the land. [[spoiler:This is later revealed to all why there's seven of them. It should be a hoax created by Abstergo.]]
* The ''Apocalypse'' DLC to ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' introduced Colossi, gigantic planet-killer spaceshipsnoted that can be armed with a variety of genocidal superweapons. One of these, the Neutron Sweep, annihilates the target world's entire population with a single shot from orbit, leaving its infrastructure intact (albeit damaged and in need of eventual repair project) for your colonists to take over. Needless to say that ''any'' deployment of a Colossus is considered a huge war crime by almost anyone in the galaxy even against AlwaysChaoticEvil empires, so don't expect your reputation to come out of it unscathed.
** Finishing the [[{{Precursors}} Irassian Concordate]] quest chain unlocks the deadly plague that wiped them out as a unique orbital bombardment stance. It deals low damage to infrastructure butthis was very high damage to armies and pops on the target planet, to the point that an entire world can be depopulated in only a few months of bombardment. Unlike the much more effective Colossus deployment mentioned above, this option trades time a last-ditch plan; the Forerunners first tried both a conventional war and effort for no one in the galactic community giving a shit (except for the empire currently getting virus-bombed into oblivion, natch).researching an actual cure, and neither of those worked.
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2'', one of Warren Vidic's emails features a news story concerning talks in Africa. In 2006, a disease called L-11 broke out in Africa,
* The ''Apocalypse'' DLC to ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' introduced Colossi, gigantic planet-killer spaceships
** Finishing the [[{{Precursors}} Irassian Concordate]] quest chain unlocks the deadly plague that wiped them out as a unique orbital bombardment stance. It deals low damage to infrastructure but
* In ''VideoGame/TheLastFederation'', this was the first stage of Evucks attack on Hydral. If Evucks achieve the space travel and start a war with someone, they can use it again.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]] were hit by a Depopulation Bomb referred to as the "Genophage", designed by the salarians during the Krogan Rebellions. The krogan evolved on Tuchanka, an [[DeathWorld extremely lethal planet]] where only massive fertility and hardy physiology made it possible for them to survive, and once they moved off Tuchanka, their numbers, lifespan, and birthrates were so explosive that in order to satisfy the need for more territory to support their growing numbers, they began aggressively moving in on worlds already colonized by other sapient species. The genophage reduced krogan birthrates to less than one successful live birth per thousand pregnancies.
** Interestingly, the salarians do ''not'' view the genophage as a Depopulation Bomb, but rather as a device to control the krogan birthrate to keep them from overpopulating the galaxy. As Mordin so blunty points out, if the salarians wanted to ''wipe out'' the krogan, it would have been a hell of a lot easier just to slap them with a permanent sterility version of the genophage instead of the carefully tailored one that allows for "pre-industrial growth levels" which would enable the krogan to give birth to enough young to keep up a steady population. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', it's revealed that [[spoiler:the krogan began to adapt to the genophage, prompting the salarians to update it to maintain a stable birthrate]].
** Unfortunately, coming from a DeathWorld where only the strongest and meanest survive means that the krogan are all genetically and culturally inclined towards hyper-aggression, and rather than adapt to their decreased birthrate they kept on killing each other as much as ever, without the super-fertility to compensate. Wrex points out this, and the tendencies of the krogan to scatter and work as thugs for hire rather than pull together to preserve their own culture, as contributing more to the decline of the krogan than the genophage itself. Demonstrating himself as one of the few really progressive krogan, Wrex argued in favor of focusing on breeding and rebuilding but gave up the fight in disgust and disillusionment when his own father tried to kill him over their differing views. In ''Mass Effect 2,'' he's revealed to have taken over clan leadership on Tuchanka and is busily dragging the rest of his species kicking and screaming into a more sustainable way of life.
** Curing the genophage is a critical plot point in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''. Not only does Wrex or Wreav (depending on who survived) want it to recover their population, it is also the only thing that will get a disunified and fractured krogan society together enough to focus on the Reaper threat. And once they're united, the krogan bring together the most powerful ground force in the entire galaxy.
** The genophage returns in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', since the krogan that launched for Andromeda left before the cure may or may not have been administered in ''3''. Apparently, Clan Nakmor had a mutation that is (very slowly) rendering the genophage ineffective, and they've applied some kind of gene therapy during the 600-year stasis sleep to Andromeda to enhance it. As a result, their birth rates have greatly multiplied (they now have a viability ratio of 1/25). If the trend continues, the Andromeda krogan could be cured of the genophage within a few thousand years.
* In the backstory of ''VideoGame/NieR'', [[spoiler:humanity was wiped out by White Chlorination Syndrome, which was the result of Caim, Angelus and the Mother Grotesquerie entering the real world in the E Ending of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' and introducing magical particles to the world. The result is a ZombieApocalypse that wipes out almost all of humanity, the survivors being converted into Gestalts (what you know of as Shades). The "humans" we see in the game are actually Replicants, {{Empty Shell}}s meant only as bodies for humanity's restoration, but due to them developing sentience, their respective Gestalts are degenerating into mindless monsters, while the Replicants suffer from a degenerative and always lethal disease known as the Black Scrawl. Thanks to the effort of Nier, that plan's not going anywhere and humanity will be extinct within a generation, as he killed his own Gestalt, the Shadowlord and doomed all remaining Gestalts to lose their minds and die, and all the Replicants (except for Kainé, who is made fully human by Nier and Tyrann's sacrifice) to die to the Black Scrawl]].
* The entire goal of the flash game ''VideoGame/{{Pandemic}}'' and its sequel is to make one of these in the form of ThePlague.
* The Stone-Like in ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'', which is designed to keep depopulating the planet until humans learn the error of their ways.
* This is Wesker's plan in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5''. The "Uroboros" mutagen will tear through the world's populations (ensuring "COMPLETE GLOBAL SATURATION") and devolve anyone who doesn't meet the genetic criteria Wesker has researched into a slimy mass of tangled, oozing tentacles. More able subjects will "evolve" and become Wesker's chosen race to ascend past humanity.
* The [[spoiler:murder of Vigilance by Median's hands]] in ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' turned Haephnes into a ''very'' slow version of this trope. Births became decreasingly common and the land slowly became more and more barren as a result of [[spoiler:there not being a [[{{Psychopomp}} Master of Death]] to maintain the flow of souls, and another world/god, Drazil, stealing the souls of the dead for his [[AndIMustScream walking graveyard]]]], and by the time the events of the game comes around the land is little more than a dustbowl inhabited by one of the last generations of sentient life. [[OmnicidalManiac Gig]] [[spoiler:(Vigilance ReforgedIntoAMinion by Drazil)]], of course, greatly hastened this process by killing off most of the population and burning most of the land to a crisp, before he was stopped by Median's daughter, Layna, and sealed off within a black sword.
* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'':
** The ''Apocalypse'' DLC introduces Colossi, gigantic planet-killer spaceships that can be armed with a variety of genocidal superweapons. One of these, the Neutron Sweep, annihilates the target world's entire population with a single shot from orbit, leaving its infrastructure intact (albeit damaged and in need of eventual repair project) for your colonists to take over. Needless to say, ''any'' deployment of a Colossus is considered a huge war crime by almost anyone in the galaxy even against AlwaysChaoticEvil empires, so don't expect your reputation to come out of it unscathed.
** Finishing the [[{{Precursors}} Irassian Concordate]] quest chain unlocks the deadly plague that wiped them out as a unique orbital bombardment stance. It deals low damage to infrastructure but very high damage to armies and pops on the target planet, to the point that an entire world can be depopulated in only a few months of bombardment. Unlike the much more effective Colossus deployment mentioned above, this option trades time and effort for no one in the galactic community giving a shit (except for the empire currently getting virus-bombed into oblivion, naturally).
* ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'':
** It is possible to research and build biological weapons. When launched against a planet, each plague missile kills millions of people. Enough of them can quickly depopulate a world with no ill effect to the environment. Another version of the plague makes the target population more willing to join your empire. However, millions still die.
** Also, in the [[SapientCetaceans Liir]] [[AllThereInTheManual backstory]], they are conquered by a vicious race known to them only as the Suul'ka. When they finally [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebel]], the Liir use their advanced knowledge of biology to [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetically engineer]] a "bioweapon" designed to kill only the Suul'ka. The bioweapon actually wipes out all Suul'ka in the sector and, as it was previously thought, all Suul'ka everywhere. The sequel reveals that the Suul'ka are NotQuiteDead, also stating that the bioweapon is known as "The Black" [[spoiler:and is currently the leader of their military, the Black Swimmers. The Suul'ka are actually, very old, [[SpaceWhale very large]], and very insane Liir Elders, the Black is an artificial Suul'ka who is loyal to the younger Liir and was once the Voice of Muur (the ruler of a Liir planet is known as the Voice, and Muur is their homeworld) that led his people to rebel against the Suul'Ka in the first place]].
* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'': According to some of the [[AllThereInTheManual compendiums]], scientific advances was this trope to TheFairFolk, {{Youkai}}, [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly gods]] and [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve beings that affirmed their existence]] by PaintingTheFrostOnWindows, hence causing the necessity for [[FantasticNatureReserve Genso]][[FantasyKitchenSink ukyou]] to be founded in the first place. The most notable example that is brough up is the yamabiko, benevolent echo sprits that dwell in valleys and mountains... or ''dwelled'' in valleys and mountains... Though it's uncertain how many there are left, aside from Kyouko Kasodani, it's canon that they nearly went extinct when a scientific explanation for what causes echoes was discovered.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' franchise features the recurring Armageddon spell, first given to the player character in ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'', that effectively destroys all life on Britannia apart from the caster (apart from ''VideoGame/UltimaVIII'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaIX'', where it kills the caster as well) and, if they're lucky, a few select [=NPCs=], such as [[AuthorAvatar Lord British]]. Naturally, the games are usually {{Unwinnable}} after casting the spell, so pretty much everyone who ever played these games cast the spell once and only once to see what happens, before reverting to an earlier savegame.
* The Facebook game ''WastelandEmpires'' is based on this type of scenario, though what type is not stated.
* The Gen-Select bioweapon in ''VideoGame/WingCommanderIVThePriceOfFreedom'' releases nanobots that kill everyone who doesn't meet the Black Lance's genetic standards. This weapon killed roughly 90% of the population on the planet it was used on.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', humanity gets hit with a whole series of these:
** 500 years before the main story, [[spoiler:Grahf]] unleashed the [[spoiler:"terminal interface weapons" of [[DeusEstMachina Deus]]]], killing over 95% of the population.
** Then, in the main game, the heroes' attempt to [[spoiler:use {{nanomachines}} to remove the Limiters on the general population]] triggers a failsafe that causes some of them to [[spoiler:turn into [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Wels]]]]. Just when the heroes begin making progress in [[spoiler:treating some of the people who transformed]], the [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Gazel Ministry]] [[spoiler:activates the Gaetia Key, turning most of the ''rest'' of the population into Wels]]. The [[spoiler:Wels]] are then absorbed by [[spoiler:[[BigBad Deus]]]], and [[spoiler:either used as spare parts or converted into Seraphs]], which begin slaughtering any humans who managed to survive this far. By the end of the game, over '''''90%''''' of the planet's population is ''dead''.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]] were hit by a Depopulation Bomb referred to as the "Genophage", designed by the salarians during the Krogan Rebellions. The krogan evolved on Tuchanka, an [[DeathWorld extremely lethal planet]] where only massive fertility and hardy physiology made it possible for them to survive, and once they moved off Tuchanka, their numbers, lifespan, and birthrates were so explosive that in order to satisfy the need for more territory to support their growing numbers, they began aggressively moving in on worlds already colonized by other sapient species. The genophage reduced krogan birthrates to less than one successful live birth per thousand pregnancies.
** Interestingly, the salarians do ''not'' view the genophage as a Depopulation Bomb, but rather as a device to control the krogan birthrate to keep them from overpopulating the galaxy. As Mordin so blunty points out, if the salarians wanted to ''wipe out'' the krogan, it would have been a hell of a lot easier just to slap them with a permanent sterility version of the genophage instead of the carefully tailored one that allows for "pre-industrial growth levels" which would enable the krogan to give birth to enough young to keep up a steady population. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', it's revealed that [[spoiler:the krogan began to adapt to the genophage, prompting the salarians to update it to maintain a stable birthrate]].
** Unfortunately, coming from a DeathWorld where only the strongest and meanest survive means that the krogan are all genetically and culturally inclined towards hyper-aggression, and rather than adapt to their decreased birthrate they kept on killing each other as much as ever, without the super-fertility to compensate. Wrex points out this, and the tendencies of the krogan to scatter and work as thugs for hire rather than pull together to preserve their own culture, as contributing more to the decline of the krogan than the genophage itself. Demonstrating himself as one of the few really progressive krogan, Wrex argued in favor of focusing on breeding and rebuilding but gave up the fight in disgust and disillusionment when his own father tried to kill him over their differing views. In ''Mass Effect 2,'' he's revealed to have taken over clan leadership on Tuchanka and is busily dragging the rest of his species kicking and screaming into a more sustainable way of life.
** Curing the genophage is a critical plot point in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''. Not only does Wrex or Wreav (depending on who survived) want it to recover their population, it is also the only thing that will get a disunified and fractured krogan society together enough to focus on the Reaper threat. And once they're united, the krogan bring together the most powerful ground force in the entire galaxy.
** The genophage returns in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', since the krogan that launched for Andromeda left before the cure may or may not have been administered in ''3''. Apparently, Clan Nakmor had a mutation that is (very slowly) rendering the genophage ineffective, and they've applied some kind of gene therapy during the 600-year stasis sleep to Andromeda to enhance it. As a result, their birth rates have greatly multiplied (they now have a viability ratio of 1/25). If the trend continues, the Andromeda krogan could be cured of the genophage within a few thousand years.
* In the backstory of ''VideoGame/NieR'', [[spoiler:humanity was wiped out by White Chlorination Syndrome, which was the result of Caim, Angelus and the Mother Grotesquerie entering the real world in the E Ending of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'' and introducing magical particles to the world. The result is a ZombieApocalypse that wipes out almost all of humanity, the survivors being converted into Gestalts (what you know of as Shades). The "humans" we see in the game are actually Replicants, {{Empty Shell}}s meant only as bodies for humanity's restoration, but due to them developing sentience, their respective Gestalts are degenerating into mindless monsters, while the Replicants suffer from a degenerative and always lethal disease known as the Black Scrawl. Thanks to the effort of Nier, that plan's not going anywhere and humanity will be extinct within a generation, as he killed his own Gestalt, the Shadowlord and doomed all remaining Gestalts to lose their minds and die, and all the Replicants (except for Kainé, who is made fully human by Nier and Tyrann's sacrifice) to die to the Black Scrawl]].
* The entire goal of the flash game ''VideoGame/{{Pandemic}}'' and its sequel is to make one of these in the form of ThePlague.
* The Stone-Like in ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'', which is designed to keep depopulating the planet until humans learn the error of their ways.
* This is Wesker's plan in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5''. The "Uroboros" mutagen will tear through the world's populations (ensuring "COMPLETE GLOBAL SATURATION") and devolve anyone who doesn't meet the genetic criteria Wesker has researched into a slimy mass of tangled, oozing tentacles. More able subjects will "evolve" and become Wesker's chosen race to ascend past humanity.
* The [[spoiler:murder of Vigilance by Median's hands]] in ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' turned Haephnes into a ''very'' slow version of this trope. Births became decreasingly common and the land slowly became more and more barren as a result of [[spoiler:there not being a [[{{Psychopomp}} Master of Death]] to maintain the flow of souls, and another world/god, Drazil, stealing the souls of the dead for his [[AndIMustScream walking graveyard]]]], and by the time the events of the game comes around the land is little more than a dustbowl inhabited by one of the last generations of sentient life. [[OmnicidalManiac Gig]] [[spoiler:(Vigilance ReforgedIntoAMinion by Drazil)]], of course, greatly hastened this process by killing off most of the population and burning most of the land to a crisp, before he was stopped by Median's daughter, Layna, and sealed off within a black sword.
* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'':
** The ''Apocalypse'' DLC introduces Colossi, gigantic planet-killer spaceships that can be armed with a variety of genocidal superweapons. One of these, the Neutron Sweep, annihilates the target world's entire population with a single shot from orbit, leaving its infrastructure intact (albeit damaged and in need of eventual repair project) for your colonists to take over. Needless to say, ''any'' deployment of a Colossus is considered a huge war crime by almost anyone in the galaxy even against AlwaysChaoticEvil empires, so don't expect your reputation to come out of it unscathed.
** Finishing the [[{{Precursors}} Irassian Concordate]] quest chain unlocks the deadly plague that wiped them out as a unique orbital bombardment stance. It deals low damage to infrastructure but very high damage to armies and pops on the target planet, to the point that an entire world can be depopulated in only a few months of bombardment. Unlike the much more effective Colossus deployment mentioned above, this option trades time and effort for no one in the galactic community giving a shit (except for the empire currently getting virus-bombed into oblivion, naturally).
* ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'':
** It is possible to research and build biological weapons. When launched against a planet, each plague missile kills millions of people. Enough of them can quickly depopulate a world with no ill effect to the environment. Another version of the plague makes the target population more willing to join your empire. However, millions still die.
** Also, in the [[SapientCetaceans Liir]] [[AllThereInTheManual backstory]], they are conquered by a vicious race known to them only as the Suul'ka. When they finally [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebel]], the Liir use their advanced knowledge of biology to [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetically engineer]] a "bioweapon" designed to kill only the Suul'ka. The bioweapon actually wipes out all Suul'ka in the sector and, as it was previously thought, all Suul'ka everywhere. The sequel reveals that the Suul'ka are NotQuiteDead, also stating that the bioweapon is known as "The Black" [[spoiler:and is currently the leader of their military, the Black Swimmers. The Suul'ka are actually, very old, [[SpaceWhale very large]], and very insane Liir Elders, the Black is an artificial Suul'ka who is loyal to the younger Liir and was once the Voice of Muur (the ruler of a Liir planet is known as the Voice, and Muur is their homeworld) that led his people to rebel against the Suul'Ka in the first place]].
* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'': According to some of the [[AllThereInTheManual compendiums]], scientific advances was this trope to TheFairFolk, {{Youkai}}, [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly gods]] and [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve beings that affirmed their existence]] by PaintingTheFrostOnWindows, hence causing the necessity for [[FantasticNatureReserve Genso]][[FantasyKitchenSink ukyou]] to be founded in the first place. The most notable example that is brough up is the yamabiko, benevolent echo sprits that dwell in valleys and mountains... or ''dwelled'' in valleys and mountains... Though it's uncertain how many there are left, aside from Kyouko Kasodani, it's canon that they nearly went extinct when a scientific explanation for what causes echoes was discovered.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'' franchise features the recurring Armageddon spell, first given to the player character in ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'', that effectively destroys all life on Britannia apart from the caster (apart from ''VideoGame/UltimaVIII'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaIX'', where it kills the caster as well) and, if they're lucky, a few select [=NPCs=], such as [[AuthorAvatar Lord British]]. Naturally, the games are usually {{Unwinnable}} after casting the spell, so pretty much everyone who ever played these games cast the spell once and only once to see what happens, before reverting to an earlier savegame.
* The Facebook game ''WastelandEmpires'' is based on this type of scenario, though what type is not stated.
* The Gen-Select bioweapon in ''VideoGame/WingCommanderIVThePriceOfFreedom'' releases nanobots that kill everyone who doesn't meet the Black Lance's genetic standards. This weapon killed roughly 90% of the population on the planet it was used on.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', humanity gets hit with a whole series of these:
** 500 years before the main story, [[spoiler:Grahf]] unleashed the [[spoiler:"terminal interface weapons" of [[DeusEstMachina Deus]]]], killing over 95% of the population.
** Then, in the main game, the heroes' attempt to [[spoiler:use {{nanomachines}} to remove the Limiters on the general population]] triggers a failsafe that causes some of them to [[spoiler:turn into [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Wels]]]]. Just when the heroes begin making progress in [[spoiler:treating some of the people who transformed]], the [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Gazel Ministry]] [[spoiler:activates the Gaetia Key, turning most of the ''rest'' of the population into Wels]]. The [[spoiler:Wels]] are then absorbed by [[spoiler:[[BigBad Deus]]]], and [[spoiler:either used as spare parts or converted into Seraphs]], which begin slaughtering any humans who managed to survive this far. By the end of the game, over '''''90%''''' of the planet's population is ''dead''.
Deleted line(s) 219 (click to see context) :
* ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' gives us Radical-6, an epidemic virus with a 75% chance of driving the host to suicide. [[spoiler:The pandemic broke out 40 years before the events of the novel; coupled with a few nuclear disasters, it killed 6 out of 8 billion people on Earth, leaving it an AfterTheEnd ScavengerWorld. Safe shelters, quarantined moon bases and nomadic lifestyles were all key to humanity's survival.]] The point of [[VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma its sequel]] is preventing the virus outbreak in the first place.
* ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' gives us Radical-6, an epidemic virus with a 75% chance of driving the host to suicide. [[spoiler:The pandemic broke out 40 years before the events of the novel; coupled with a few nuclear disasters, it killed 6 out of 8 billion people on Earth, leaving it an AfterTheEnd ScavengerWorld. Safe shelters, quarantined moon bases and nomadic lifestyles were all key to humanity's survival.]] The point of [[VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma its sequel]] is preventing the virus outbreak in the first place.
Changed line(s) 225,233 (click to see context) from:
* In a ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' story arc, humanity in an alternate dimension is almost wiped out by the "ghouls." The only people spared were those onboard one of Earth's many space stations when the ghouls appeared.
** And in another AlternateUniverse, Riff accidentally teleports everyone on Earth but himself to [[AnotherDimension different dimensions]], replacing them all with butterflies.
* In ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'' the [[TheVirus Rash Illness]] killed and mutated into trolls most of the human race, leaving only few survivors who were lucky or TheImmune. When the story starts, the already sparsely populated Iceland is down to about 60% of the population the country had in real life at the time of publication [[labelnote:note]]Iceland's real population is growing while the story's is static, so the ratio is dropping as the comic continues[[/labelnote]]. Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, meanwhile, went from populations in the millions to numbers oscillating between 10,000 and 20,000. The level of depopulation is illustrated well on [[http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196 this poster]] (scroll to the lower half to see comparison).
* The [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' wiped out most of their population, as well as the dinosaurs, with a weapon called the Iridium Bomb. The survivors eschewed technology for a pastoral existence in Earth's [[GhibliHills wildernesses]].
** The iridium reference is TruthInTelevision. It was the detection of the rare element iridium at the geologic boundary layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods that first clued paleontologists in to the possibility that a large asteroid may have struck Earth at that time.
* The basic origin story for the world of ''Webcomic/TheWanderingOnes''.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', even if the four main protagonists succeed in TheGame and create a new universe, the human race and most other life on Earth will be destroyed by a hail of meteors known as The Reckoning. Only the four of them would survive to carry on the race--and bear in mind these are two pairs of 13 year-old full siblings being told they'll have to repopulate the planet. The kids TakeAThirdOption and scratch their session, rebooting The Game into a "void session" that at least preserves the possibility of human survival, so long as they eliminate certain outside threats.
* In ''Webcomic/TheCyantianChronicles'' it's stated AllThereInTheManual that between ''Akaelae'' and ''Campus Safari'' a super-rabies/zombie type virus wiped out over 90% of the fox population. Which is why fewer of them are villainous in the latter, their tyrannical government is gone and the sole remaining member of the royal family is less of a racist psychopath than his (adoptive) father and put a death warrant out on Exotica Genoworks for designing the virus.
* In ''Webcomic/GenocideMan'' the population of the world in 2109 is only 3 billion thanks to repeated {{Synthetic Plague}}s. Some of them caused by the titular people who are supposed to be preserving the human species.
** And in another AlternateUniverse, Riff accidentally teleports everyone on Earth but himself to [[AnotherDimension different dimensions]], replacing them all with butterflies.
* In ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'' the [[TheVirus Rash Illness]] killed and mutated into trolls most of the human race, leaving only few survivors who were lucky or TheImmune. When the story starts, the already sparsely populated Iceland is down to about 60% of the population the country had in real life at the time of publication [[labelnote:note]]Iceland's real population is growing while the story's is static, so the ratio is dropping as the comic continues[[/labelnote]]. Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, meanwhile, went from populations in the millions to numbers oscillating between 10,000 and 20,000. The level of depopulation is illustrated well on [[http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196 this poster]] (scroll to the lower half to see comparison).
* The [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' wiped out most of their population, as well as the dinosaurs, with a weapon called the Iridium Bomb. The survivors eschewed technology for a pastoral existence in Earth's [[GhibliHills wildernesses]].
** The iridium reference is TruthInTelevision. It was the detection of the rare element iridium at the geologic boundary layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods that first clued paleontologists in to the possibility that a large asteroid may have struck Earth at that time.
* The basic origin story for the world of ''Webcomic/TheWanderingOnes''.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', even if the four main protagonists succeed in TheGame and create a new universe, the human race and most other life on Earth will be destroyed by a hail of meteors known as The Reckoning. Only the four of them would survive to carry on the race--and bear in mind these are two pairs of 13 year-old full siblings being told they'll have to repopulate the planet. The kids TakeAThirdOption and scratch their session, rebooting The Game into a "void session" that at least preserves the possibility of human survival, so long as they eliminate certain outside threats.
* In ''Webcomic/TheCyantianChronicles'' it's stated AllThereInTheManual that between ''Akaelae'' and ''Campus Safari'' a super-rabies/zombie type virus wiped out over 90% of the fox population. Which is why fewer of them are villainous in the latter, their tyrannical government is gone and the sole remaining member of the royal family is less of a racist psychopath than his (adoptive) father and put a death warrant out on Exotica Genoworks for designing the virus.
* In ''Webcomic/GenocideMan'' the population of the world in 2109 is only 3 billion thanks to repeated {{Synthetic Plague}}s. Some of them caused by the titular people who are supposed to be preserving the human species.
to:
* In ''Webcomic/TheCyantianChronicles'', it's stated AllThereInTheManual that between ''Akaelae'' and ''Campus Safari'' a ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' super-rabies/zombie type virus wiped out over 90% of the fox population. Which is why fewer of them are villainous in the latter, their tyrannical government is gone, and the sole remaining member of the royal family is less of a racist psychopath than his (adoptive) father and put a death warrant out on Exotica Genoworks for designing the virus.
* In ''Webcomic/GenocideMan'', the population of the world in 2109 is only 3 billion thanks to repeated {{Synthetic Plague}}s. Some of them caused by the titular people who are supposed to be preserving the human species.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', even if the four main protagonists succeed in The Game and create a new universe, the human race and most other life on Earth will be destroyed by a hail of meteors known as The Reckoning. Only the four of them would survive to carry on the race -- and bear in mind these are two pairs of 13-year-old full siblings being told they'll have to repopulate the planet. The kids TakeAThirdOption and scratch their session, rebooting The Game into a "void session" that at least preserves the possibility of human survival, so long as they eliminate certain outside threats.
* The [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' wiped out most of their population, as well as the dinosaurs, with a weapon called the Iridium Bomb. The survivors eschewed technology for a pastoral existence in Earth's [[GhibliHills wildernesses]].[[note]]The iridium reference is TruthInTelevision. It was the detection of the rare element iridium at the geologic boundary layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods that first clued paleontologists in to the possibility that a large asteroid may have struck Earth at that time.[[/note]]
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'':
** In one story arc, humanity in an alternate dimension is almost wiped out by the"ghouls." "ghouls". The only people spared were are those onboard one of Earth's many space stations when the ghouls appeared.
**And in In another AlternateUniverse, Riff accidentally teleports everyone on Earth but himself to [[AnotherDimension different dimensions]], replacing them all with butterflies.
* In''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'' ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'', the [[TheVirus Rash Illness]] killed and mutated into trolls most of the human race, leaving only few survivors who were lucky or TheImmune. When the story starts, the already sparsely populated Iceland is down to about 60% of the population the country had in real life at the time of publication [[labelnote:note]]Iceland's real population is growing while the story's is static, so the ratio is dropping as the comic continues[[/labelnote]]. Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, meanwhile, went from populations in the millions to numbers oscillating between 10,000 and 20,000. The level of depopulation is illustrated well on [[http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196 this poster]] (scroll to the lower half to see comparison).
* The [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' wiped out most of their population, as well as the dinosaurs, with a weapon called the Iridium Bomb. The survivors eschewed technology for a pastoral existence in Earth's [[GhibliHills wildernesses]].
** The iridium reference is TruthInTelevision. It was the detection of the rare element iridium at the geologic boundary layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods that first clued paleontologists in to the possibility that a large asteroid may have struck Earth at that time.
*%%* The basic origin story for the world of ''Webcomic/TheWanderingOnes''.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', even if the four main protagonists succeed in TheGame and create a new universe, the human race and most other life on Earth will be destroyed by a hail of meteors known as The Reckoning. Only the four of them would survive to carry on the race--and bear in mind these are two pairs of 13 year-old full siblings being told they'll have to repopulate the planet. The kids TakeAThirdOption and scratch their session, rebooting The Game into a "void session" that at least preserves the possibility of human survival, so long as they eliminate certain outside threats.
* In ''Webcomic/TheCyantianChronicles'' it's stated AllThereInTheManual that between ''Akaelae'' and ''Campus Safari'' a super-rabies/zombie type virus wiped out over 90% of the fox population. Which is why fewer of them are villainous in the latter, their tyrannical government is gone and the sole remaining member of the royal family is less of a racist psychopath than his (adoptive) father and put a death warrant out on Exotica Genoworks for designing the virus.
* In ''Webcomic/GenocideMan'' the population of the world in 2109 is only 3 billion thanks to repeated {{Synthetic Plague}}s. Some of them caused by the titular people who are supposed to be preserving the human species.''Webcomic/TheWanderingOnes''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* In ''Webcomic/GenocideMan'', the population of the world in 2109 is only 3 billion thanks to repeated {{Synthetic Plague}}s. Some of them caused by the titular people who are supposed to be preserving the human species.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', even if the four main protagonists succeed in The Game and create a new universe, the human race and most other life on Earth will be destroyed by a hail of meteors known as The Reckoning. Only the four of them would survive to carry on the race -- and bear in mind these are two pairs of 13-year-old full siblings being told they'll have to repopulate the planet. The kids TakeAThirdOption and scratch their session, rebooting The Game into a "void session" that at least preserves the possibility of human survival, so long as they eliminate certain outside threats.
* The [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]] in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' wiped out most of their population, as well as the dinosaurs, with a weapon called the Iridium Bomb. The survivors eschewed technology for a pastoral existence in Earth's [[GhibliHills wildernesses]].[[note]]The iridium reference is TruthInTelevision. It was the detection of the rare element iridium at the geologic boundary layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods that first clued paleontologists in to the possibility that a large asteroid may have struck Earth at that time.[[/note]]
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'':
** In one story arc, humanity in an alternate dimension is almost wiped out by the
**
* In
** The iridium reference is TruthInTelevision. It was the detection of the rare element iridium at the geologic boundary layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods that first clued paleontologists in to the possibility that a large asteroid may have struck Earth at that time.
*
* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', even if the four main protagonists succeed in TheGame and create a new universe, the human race and most other life on Earth will be destroyed by a hail of meteors known as The Reckoning. Only the four of them would survive to carry on the race--and bear in mind these are two pairs of 13 year-old full siblings being told they'll have to repopulate the planet. The kids TakeAThirdOption and scratch their session, rebooting The Game into a "void session" that at least preserves the possibility of human survival, so long as they eliminate certain outside threats.
* In ''Webcomic/TheCyantianChronicles'' it's stated AllThereInTheManual that between ''Akaelae'' and ''Campus Safari'' a super-rabies/zombie type virus wiped out over 90% of the fox population. Which is why fewer of them are villainous in the latter, their tyrannical government is gone and the sole remaining member of the royal family is less of a racist psychopath than his (adoptive) father and put a death warrant out on Exotica Genoworks for designing the virus.
* In ''Webcomic/GenocideMan'' the population of the world in 2109 is only 3 billion thanks to repeated {{Synthetic Plague}}s. Some of them caused by the titular people who are supposed to be preserving the human species.
Changed line(s) 237 (click to see context) from:
* The ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has the case of [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1322 SCP 1322]], another world populated by HumanAliens that they found a portal to. Communications and cultural exchange went great until a viral outbreak killed millions of people on 1322's world. The Foundation offered to help and came up with a vaccine that, due to the alien biology of the other world's inhabitants, worked... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero and rendered everyone infertile.]] They hate our world now and have been trying to throw a Depopulation Bomb back at us.
to:
* The ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has the case of [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1322 SCP 1322]], another world populated by HumanAliens that they found a portal to. Communications and cultural exchange went great until a viral outbreak killed millions of people on 1322's world. The Foundation offered to help and came up with a vaccine that, due to the alien biology of the other world's inhabitants, worked... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero and rendered everyone infertile.]] infertile]]. They hate our world now and have been trying to throw a Depopulation Bomb back at us.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Changed line(s) 237 (click to see context) from:
* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has the case of [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1322 SCP 1322]], another world populated by HumanAliens that they found a portal to. Communications and cultural exchange went great until a viral outbreak killed millions of people on 1322's world. The Foundation offered to help and came up with a vaccine that, due to the alien biology of the other world's inhabitants, worked... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero and rendered everyone infertile.]] They hate our world now and have been trying to throw a Depopulation Bomb back at us.
to:
* The ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' ''Website/SCPFoundation'' has the case of [[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1322 SCP 1322]], another world populated by HumanAliens that they found a portal to. Communications and cultural exchange went great until a viral outbreak killed millions of people on 1322's world. The Foundation offered to help and came up with a vaccine that, due to the alien biology of the other world's inhabitants, worked... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero and rendered everyone infertile.]] They hate our world now and have been trying to throw a Depopulation Bomb back at us.
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* In ''Anime/DeathNote'', the Kira killings. More specifically, the ones after Light started having Mikami act as his proxy. Mikami went more than a little crazy with his newfound power (which included [[{{Namedar}} the Shinigami Eyes]])...and even criminalized such ''horrible'' things as being lazy. Between that and all the Kira-related incidents up to that point, there were likely several ''[[AMillionIsAStatistic millions]]'', or even ''billions'' of people killed off worldwide. When [[spoiler: Mikami killed himself and Light's name was written down by Ryuk]], and all the Kiras (and most of the Kira Cult devotees) were gone, and the world was going (more-or-less) back to normal save for a few small remnants of the Kira Cult, it's likely that many countries were facing this issue.
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* In ''Anime/DeathNote'', the Kira killings. More specifically, the ones after Light started having Mikami act as his proxy. Mikami went more than a little crazy with his newfound power (which included [[{{Namedar}} the Shinigami Eyes]])...and even criminalized such ''horrible'' things as being lazy. Between that and all the Kira-related incidents up to that point, there were likely several ''[[AMillionIsAStatistic millions]]'', or even ''billions'' of people killed off worldwide. When [[spoiler: Mikami [[spoiler:Mikami killed himself and Light's name was written down by Ryuk]], and all the Kiras (and most of the Kira Cult devotees) were gone, and the world was going (more-or-less) back to normal save for a few small remnants of the Kira Cult, it's likely that many countries were facing this issue.
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* The Killitron in ''ComicBook/{{Meanwhile}}'' kills every single human being not standing inside it when it's activated. [[spoiler: It already went off once, and depending on the reader's choices, it may go off again.]]
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* The Killitron in ''ComicBook/{{Meanwhile}}'' kills every single human being not standing inside it when it's activated. [[spoiler: It [[spoiler:It already went off once, and depending on the reader's choices, it may go off again.]]
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* In ''Fanfic/HalloweenUnspectacular 9'', it's revealed that the virus causing the ZombieApocalypse in the story "The Plague" was one of these [[spoiler: created to empty Earth for an AlienInvasion]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' FanFiction ''Fanfic/ItsAKidsWorld'' has an OnlyFatalToAdults variant. [[spoiler: An event called The Big Vanish suddenly wipes out the entire world populace over 15 years of age in a single instant, leaving only children behind. This paves the way for a story about the kids having to fight for power, resources, and survival in a new and hostile unorderly world.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' FanFiction ''Fanfic/ItsAKidsWorld'' has an OnlyFatalToAdults variant. [[spoiler: An event called The Big Vanish suddenly wipes out the entire world populace over 15 years of age in a single instant, leaving only children behind. This paves the way for a story about the kids having to fight for power, resources, and survival in a new and hostile unorderly world.]]
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* In ''Fanfic/HalloweenUnspectacular 9'', it's revealed that the virus causing the ZombieApocalypse in the story "The Plague" was one of these [[spoiler: created [[spoiler:created to empty Earth for an AlienInvasion]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' FanFiction ''Fanfic/ItsAKidsWorld'' has an OnlyFatalToAdults variant.[[spoiler: An [[spoiler:An event called The Big Vanish suddenly wipes out the entire world populace over 15 years of age in a single instant, leaving only children behind. This paves the way for a story about the kids having to fight for power, resources, and survival in a new and hostile unorderly world.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' FanFiction ''Fanfic/ItsAKidsWorld'' has an OnlyFatalToAdults variant.
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* ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'': [[spoiler: Thanos successfully obtains all six of the Infinity Gems and wipes out half the population of the entire universe. ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' shows both the fallout of this, and eventually restores all the snapped out life]].
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* ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'': [[spoiler: Thanos [[spoiler:Thanos successfully obtains all six of the Infinity Gems and wipes out half the population of the entire universe. ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' shows both the fallout of this, and eventually restores all the snapped out life]].
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* ''The Sixth Extinction'', book 10 of the ''Literature/SigmaForce'' series by JamesRollins, has [[spoiler: an [[TheSocialDarwinist extremist environmentalist geneticist]] engineer a universally infectious prion virus that would destroy all higher conscious brain functions of humans, turning the human species back into mindless feral animals. At the same time he accelerated evolution in other species to make them more deadly and aggressive. The end result would be the "natural" extinction of humans and a return of nature to the planet. [[StrawHypocrite Of course he intended to protect himself and his followers from the infection to build a new less destructive civilization in the aftermath.]]]]
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* ''The Sixth Extinction'', book 10 of the ''Literature/SigmaForce'' series by JamesRollins, has [[spoiler: an [[spoiler:an [[TheSocialDarwinist extremist environmentalist geneticist]] engineer a universally infectious prion virus that would destroy all higher conscious brain functions of humans, turning the human species back into mindless feral animals. At the same time he accelerated evolution in other species to make them more deadly and aggressive. The end result would be the "natural" extinction of humans and a return of nature to the planet. [[StrawHypocrite Of course he intended to protect himself and his followers from the infection to build a new less destructive civilization in the aftermath.]]]]
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* In ''Literature/TheQuietPlace'', a group of astronauts return to Earth after a botched FirstContact mission. Because of TimeDilation, they return to a future Earth that's reverted to the Stone Age and with a smaller population. It turns out that [[spoiler: an experimental drug to reverse aging was distributed worldwide. The most major side effect was widespread infertility.]]
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* In ''Literature/TheQuietPlace'', a group of astronauts return to Earth after a botched FirstContact mission. Because of TimeDilation, they return to a future Earth that's reverted to the Stone Age and with a smaller population. It turns out that [[spoiler: an [[spoiler:an experimental drug to reverse aging was distributed worldwide. The most major side effect was widespread infertility.]]
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** The episode ''Past and Present'' implies that one of these, similar to the ''Star Trek TOS Miri'' example above, was set off. The team encounters a planet with no children or elderly suffering from amnesia after an incident known as "The Vorlix". Inverted when It turns out [[spoiler: the planet had been using a pesticide which caused sterility (hence the lack of children), and "The Vorlik" was a deliberate test set off, by a villain from a previous episode, after she learned that this same pesticide had properties which could stop or reverse aging. The test reversed the aging of the entire planet turning the entirely elderly population into middle aged adults, but inadvertently causing amnesia in the process.]]
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** The episode ''Past and Present'' implies that one of these, similar to the ''Star Trek TOS Miri'' example above, was set off. The team encounters a planet with no children or elderly suffering from amnesia after an incident known as "The Vorlix". Inverted when It turns out [[spoiler: the [[spoiler:the planet had been using a pesticide which caused sterility (hence the lack of children), and "The Vorlik" was a deliberate test set off, by a villain from a previous episode, after she learned that this same pesticide had properties which could stop or reverse aging. The test reversed the aging of the entire planet turning the entirely elderly population into middle aged adults, but inadvertently causing amnesia in the process.]]
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** The genophage returns in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', since the krogan that launched for Andromeda left before the cure may or may not have been administered in ''3''. Apparently, Clan Nakmor had a mutation that is (very slowly) rendering the genophage ineffective, and they've applied some kind of gene therapy during the 600 year stasis sleep to Andromeda to enhance it, as a result their birth rates have greatly multiplied (they now have a viability ratio of 1/25). If the trend continues, the Andromeda krogan could be cured of the genophage within a few thousand years.
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** The genophage returns in ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'', since the krogan that launched for Andromeda left before the cure may or may not have been administered in ''3''. Apparently, Clan Nakmor had a mutation that is (very slowly) rendering the genophage ineffective, and they've applied some kind of gene therapy during the 600 year stasis sleep to Andromeda to enhance it, as it. As a result their birth rates have greatly multiplied (they now have a viability ratio of 1/25). If the trend continues, the Andromeda krogan could be cured of the genophage within a few thousand years.
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*** Technically, the manual stated that the Liir used a "bioweapon" and that the specific vector was unknown. The sequel states that the bioweapon is known as "The Black" [[spoiler: and is currently the leader of their military, the Black Swimmers. The Suul'ka are actually, very old, [[SpaceWhale very large]], and very insane Liir Elders, the Black is an artificial Suul'ka who is loyal to the younger Liir and was once the Voice of Muur (the ruler of a Liir planet is known as the Voice, and Muur is their homeworld) that led his people to rebel against the Suul'Ka in the first place.]]
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*** Technically, the manual stated that the Liir used a "bioweapon" and that the specific vector was unknown. The sequel states that the bioweapon is known as "The Black" [[spoiler: and [[spoiler:and is currently the leader of their military, the Black Swimmers. The Suul'ka are actually, very old, [[SpaceWhale very large]], and very insane Liir Elders, the Black is an artificial Suul'ka who is loyal to the younger Liir and was once the Voice of Muur (the ruler of a Liir planet is known as the Voice, and Muur is their homeworld) that led his people to rebel against the Suul'Ka in the first place.]]
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** 500 years before the main story, [[spoiler: Grahf]] unleashed the [[spoiler: "terminal interface weapons" of [[DeusEstMachina Deus]]]], killing over 95% of the population.
** Then, in the main game, the heroes' attempt to [[spoiler: use {{nanomachines}} to remove the Limiters on the general population]] triggers a failsafe that causes some of them to [[spoiler: turn into [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Wels]]]]. Just when the heroes begin making progress in [[spoiler: treating some of the people who transformed]], the [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Gazel Ministry]] [[spoiler: activates the Gaetia Key, turning most of the ''rest'' of the population into Wels]]. The [[spoiler: Wels]] are then absorbed by [[spoiler: [[BigBad Deus]]]], and [[spoiler: either used as spare parts or converted into Seraphs]], which begin slaughtering any humans who managed to survive this far. By the end of the game, over '''''90%''''' of the planet's population is ''dead''.
** Then, in the main game, the heroes' attempt to [[spoiler: use {{nanomachines}} to remove the Limiters on the general population]] triggers a failsafe that causes some of them to [[spoiler: turn into [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Wels]]]]. Just when the heroes begin making progress in [[spoiler: treating some of the people who transformed]], the [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Gazel Ministry]] [[spoiler: activates the Gaetia Key, turning most of the ''rest'' of the population into Wels]]. The [[spoiler: Wels]] are then absorbed by [[spoiler: [[BigBad Deus]]]], and [[spoiler: either used as spare parts or converted into Seraphs]], which begin slaughtering any humans who managed to survive this far. By the end of the game, over '''''90%''''' of the planet's population is ''dead''.
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** 500 years before the main story, [[spoiler: Grahf]] [[spoiler:Grahf]] unleashed the [[spoiler: "terminal [[spoiler:"terminal interface weapons" of [[DeusEstMachina Deus]]]], killing over 95% of the population.
** Then, in the main game, the heroes' attempt to[[spoiler: use [[spoiler:use {{nanomachines}} to remove the Limiters on the general population]] triggers a failsafe that causes some of them to [[spoiler: turn [[spoiler:turn into [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Wels]]]]. Just when the heroes begin making progress in [[spoiler: treating [[spoiler:treating some of the people who transformed]], the [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness Gazel Ministry]] [[spoiler: activates [[spoiler:activates the Gaetia Key, turning most of the ''rest'' of the population into Wels]]. The [[spoiler: Wels]] [[spoiler:Wels]] are then absorbed by [[spoiler: [[BigBad [[spoiler:[[BigBad Deus]]]], and [[spoiler: either [[spoiler:either used as spare parts or converted into Seraphs]], which begin slaughtering any humans who managed to survive this far. By the end of the game, over '''''90%''''' of the planet's population is ''dead''.
** Then, in the main game, the heroes' attempt to
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* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2'', one of Warren Vidic's emails features a news story concerning talks in Africa. In 2006, a disease called L-11 broke out in Africa, killing ''96%'' of the continent's population over a 3-month period. Six years later, the continent is still virtually uninhabited and world powers take discussed once again dividing up the land. [[spoiler: This is later revealed to all be a hoax created by Abstergo.]]
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* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreed2'', one of Warren Vidic's emails features a news story concerning talks in Africa. In 2006, a disease called L-11 broke out in Africa, killing ''96%'' of the continent's population over a 3-month period. Six years later, the continent is still virtually uninhabited and world powers take discussed once again dividing up the land. [[spoiler: This [[spoiler:This is later revealed to all be a hoax created by Abstergo.]]
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* The [=VITAS=] (Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome) pandemic serves as this in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''. The disease, first appearing in India in 2010, proceeded to spread globally and wipe out approximately a quarter of the world's population over the next few years, most of them in Africa, followed by a second wave in 2022 that killed another 900 million. Proportionally, Madagascar was among the worst hit, losing over ''70%'' of its population. [=VITAS=] not only caused several governments to collapse, but also set the stage for the setting's bizarre set-up; though highly contagious, the disease was far more lethal to humans than metahumans, and more easily cured through magical means than mundane treatments. This is why there is such a significant number of metahumans, magic is so widespread and respected, and the world is run by the megacorporations — who used their stockpiles to save their own executives and employees first. It also made the MagicalNativeAmericans a superpower; as they were confined to isolated "internment" camps during the initial outbreaks, their populations were spared — and their magical talents made future outbreaks a chore instead of a threat.
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* The [=VITAS=] (Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome) pandemic serves as this in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''. The disease, first appearing in India in 2010, proceeded to spread globally and wipe out approximately a quarter of the world's population over the next few years, most of them in Africa, followed by a second wave in 2022 that killed another 900 million. Proportionally, Madagascar was among the worst hit, losing over ''70%'' of its population. [=VITAS=] not only caused several governments to collapse, but also set the stage for the setting's bizarre set-up; though highly contagious, the disease was far more lethal to humans than metahumans, and more easily cured through magical means than mundane treatments. This is why there is such a significant number of metahumans, magic is so widespread and respected, and the world is run by the megacorporations — who used their stockpiles to save their own executives and employees first. It also made the MagicalNativeAmericans [[MagicalNativeAmerican Native American Nations]] a superpower; as they millions of Amerindians were confined to isolated "internment" camps during the initial outbreaks, their populations were spared — and their magical talents made future outbreaks a chore instead of a threat.
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* The [=VITAS=] (Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome) pandemic serves as this in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''. The disease, first appearing in India in 2010, proceeded to spread globally and wipe out approximately a quarter of the world's population over the next few years, most of them in Africa, followed by a second wave in 2022 that killed another 900 million. Proportionally, Madagascar was among the worst hit, losing over ''70%'' of its population. [=VITAS=] not only caused several governments to collapse, but also set the stage for the setting's bizarre set-up; though highly contagious, the disease was far more lethal to humans than metahumans, and more easily cured through magical means than mundane treatments. This is why there is such a significant number of metahumans, magic is so widespread and respected, and the world is run by the megacorporations — who used their stockpiles to save their own executives and employees first. It also made the MagicalNativeAmericans a superpower; as they were confined to isolated "internment" camps during the initial outbreaks, their populations were spared — and their magical talents made future outbreaks a chore instead of a threat.
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Moving Snatcher to the Visual Novels folder.
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* The eponymous ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''s, which kill all sentient life in the galaxy; specifically, ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' says that they use "bursts of cross-phased supermassive neutrinos" tuned to destroy nervous systems. They do this in order to starve out [[TheVirus the Flood]], by killing both their potential hosts and any Flood form more advanced than a basic Infection Form. Before they fired the Halos, the Forerunners made sure to evacuate as many species as they could to an extragalactic safe spot; afterwards, they were resettled on their homeworlds, with each species forced to start off as hunter-gatherers again. Each individual Halo does have a limited range though, which is why there's seven of them.
** One should note that this was very much a last-ditch plan; the Forerunners first tried both a conventional war and researching an actual cure, and neither of those worked.
* Lucifer Alpha in ''VisualNovel/{{Snatcher}}'' which results in deaths of 80% of the population in Eastern Europe and Asia.
** One should note that this was very much a last-ditch plan; the Forerunners first tried both a conventional war and researching an actual cure, and neither of those worked.
* Lucifer Alpha in ''VisualNovel/{{Snatcher}}'' which results in deaths of 80% of the population in Eastern Europe and Asia.
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* The eponymous ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''s, which kill all sentient life in the galaxy; specifically, ''Literature/TheForerunnerSaga'' says that they use "bursts of cross-phased supermassive neutrinos" tuned to destroy nervous systems. They do this in order to starve out [[TheVirus the Flood]], by killing both their potential hosts and any Flood form more advanced than a basic Infection Form. Before they fired the Halos, the Forerunners made sure to evacuate as many species as they could to an extragalactic safe spot; afterwards, they were resettled on their homeworlds, with each species forced to start off as hunter-gatherers again. Each individual Halo does have a limited range though, which is why there's seven of them.
** Onethem. It should note be noted that this was very much a last-ditch plan; the Forerunners first tried both a conventional war and researching an actual cure, and neither of those worked.
* Lucifer Alpha in ''VisualNovel/{{Snatcher}}'' which results in deaths of 80% of the population in Eastern Europe and Asia.worked.
** One
* Lucifer Alpha in ''VisualNovel/{{Snatcher}}'' which results in deaths of 80% of the population in Eastern Europe and Asia.
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* ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' gives us Radical-6, an epidemic virus with a 75% chance of driving the host to suicide. [[spoiler:The pandemic broke out 40 years before the events of the novel, and coupled with a few nuclear disasters killed 6 out of 8 billion people on Earth, leaving it an AfterTheEnd ScavengerWorld. Safe shelters, quarantined moon bases and nomadic lifestyles were all key to humanity's survival]]. The point of [[VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma its sequel]] is preventing the virus outbreak in the first place.
* ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'': In 2070, a lethal form of bird flu spread around the world, killing over 70% of the human race. The remaining humans then tried to spread a counter-virus to kill off the birds which were spreading the disease, but the virus instead changed the birds into [[UpliftedAnimal hyperintelligent mutants]]. Humans and birds waged war for thirty years, eventually resulting in birds becoming the dominant species. By 2188, the human population is less than 140 million, living in the wilderness and not allowed to self-govern. [[spoiler: Depending on what ending you get, this can become full-on human extinction.]]
* ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'': In 2070, a lethal form of bird flu spread around the world, killing over 70% of the human race. The remaining humans then tried to spread a counter-virus to kill off the birds which were spreading the disease, but the virus instead changed the birds into [[UpliftedAnimal hyperintelligent mutants]]. Humans and birds waged war for thirty years, eventually resulting in birds becoming the dominant species. By 2188, the human population is less than 140 million, living in the wilderness and not allowed to self-govern. [[spoiler: Depending on what ending you get, this can become full-on human extinction.]]
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* ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'' gives us Radical-6, an epidemic virus with a 75% chance of driving the host to suicide. [[spoiler:The pandemic broke out 40 years before the events of the novel, and novel; coupled with a few nuclear disasters disasters, it killed 6 out of 8 billion people on Earth, leaving it an AfterTheEnd ScavengerWorld. Safe shelters, quarantined moon bases and nomadic lifestyles were all key to humanity's survival]]. survival.]] The point of [[VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma its sequel]] is preventing the virus outbreak in the first place.
* ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'': In 2070, a lethal form of bird flu spread around the world, killing over 70% of the human race. The remaining humans then tried to spread a counter-virus to kill off the birds which were spreading the disease, but the virus instead changed the birds into [[UpliftedAnimal hyperintelligent mutants]]. Humans and birds waged war for thirty years, eventually resulting in birds becoming the dominant species. By 2188, the human population is less than 140 million, living in the wilderness and not allowed to self-govern.[[spoiler: Depending [[spoiler:Depending on what ending you get, this can become full-on human extinction.]]]]
* Lucifer Alpha from ''VisualNovel/{{Snatcher}}'' results in deaths of 80% of the population in Eastern Europe and Asia.
* ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'': In 2070, a lethal form of bird flu spread around the world, killing over 70% of the human race. The remaining humans then tried to spread a counter-virus to kill off the birds which were spreading the disease, but the virus instead changed the birds into [[UpliftedAnimal hyperintelligent mutants]]. Humans and birds waged war for thirty years, eventually resulting in birds becoming the dominant species. By 2188, the human population is less than 140 million, living in the wilderness and not allowed to self-govern.
* Lucifer Alpha from ''VisualNovel/{{Snatcher}}'' results in deaths of 80% of the population in Eastern Europe and Asia.
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* UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin asserted that the human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply until it crashes, in what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well prepared to compare this to Augustin de Candolle's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones."
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* UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin, who studied Malthus, asserted that the human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply until it crashes, in what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well prepared to compare this to Augustin de Candolle's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones."" It was Malthus the one that inspired Darwin's now-accepted theory of biological evolution.
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* UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin asserted that the human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply in what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well prepared to compare this to Augustin de Candolle's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones."
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* UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin asserted that the human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply until it crashes, in what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well prepared to compare this to Augustin de Candolle's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones."
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* UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin asserted that the human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply in what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. Darwin was well prepared to compare this to Augustin de Candolle's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that the "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones."
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* UsefulNotes/ThomasRobertMalthus, writing on ''Literature/AnEssayOnThePrincipleOfPopulation'', observed that an increase in a nation's food production improved the well-being of the population, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which was also temporary. In other words, humans had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, a view that has become known as the "Malthusian trap" or the "Malthusian spectre". Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship, want, and greater susceptibility to famine and disease, a view that is sometimes referred to as a Malthusian catastrophe. Malthus wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible.
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add Qing dynasty
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** Most historical cases of changing dynasties were accompanied by a culling of China's population. The chaos during the [[UsefulNotes/ThreeKingdomsShuWeiWu fall of the Han dynasty and the rise of the Three Kingdoms]] was particularly devastating. A census conducted before the wars counted around 56 million people. The next century's census -- conducted during the Jin dynasty, which unified the Three Kingdoms -- counted 16 million people. In other words, the war reduced the population by ''70%''.[[note]]Modern estimates have put the population before and after the war at 60 and 35 million, respectively, which would mean the population was reduced by "only" a half. It's still damn high, though.[[/note]] The transition from Song to Yuan (Mongol) and Yuan to Ming also slashed the empire's population by half. The [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors fall of the Manchu dynasty and ushering of the warlord era]] was actually an ''improvement'' because it wasn't accompanied by a catastrophic depopulation.
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** Most historical cases of changing dynasties were accompanied by a culling of China's population. The chaos during the [[UsefulNotes/ThreeKingdomsShuWeiWu fall of the Han dynasty and the rise of the Three Kingdoms]] was particularly devastating. A census conducted before the wars counted around 56 million people. The next century's census -- conducted during the Jin dynasty, which unified the Three Kingdoms -- counted 16 million people. In other words, the war reduced the population by ''70%''.[[note]]Modern estimates have put the population before and after the war at 60 and 35 million, respectively, which would mean the population was reduced by "only" a half. It's still damn high, though.[[/note]] The transition from Song to Yuan (Mongol) and Yuan to Ming also slashed the empire's population by half. The [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors fall of the Manchu Qing (Manchu) dynasty and ushering of the warlord era]] was actually an ''improvement'' because it wasn't accompanied by a catastrophic depopulation.
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Now a disambiguation
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It may be worth noting that while the NeutronBomb provides inspiration for many such weapons, a neutron bomb is ''not'' a straightforward "It only kills people" bomb. ''It is a thermonuclear weapon'', so this is mostly a simplistic comparison to other bombs with more straightforward KillEmAll purposes. That is, if you actually care about things like scientific accuracy.
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It may be worth noting that while the NeutronBomb provides inspiration for many such weapons, a neutron bomb is ''not'' a straightforward "It only kills people" bomb. ''It is a thermonuclear weapon'', so this is mostly a simplistic comparison to other bombs with more straightforward KillEmAll purposes. That is, if you actually care about things like scientific accuracy.
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* In ''Comicbook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', ComicBook/LexLuthor and ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} placed an entire network of these in orbit around Earth that lets them hold the entire world hostage which they use to force Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel to work for them. Near the end, Luthor plans to unleash ''all'' of them at once to reduce humanity to a "managable" population of a billion. [[spoiler:He's foiled when Green Lantern makes them all vanish.]]
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* In ''Comicbook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain'', ComicBook/LexLuthor and ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} placed an entire network of these in orbit around Earth that lets them hold the entire world hostage which they use to force Superman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel to work for them. Near the end, Luthor plans to unleash ''all'' of them at once to reduce humanity to a "managable" population of a billion. [[spoiler:He's foiled when Green Lantern makes them all vanish.]]
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* In the penultimate story quest of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', President Eden provides you a with a vial of [[SyntheticPlague Modified Forced Evolutionary Virus]], which will kill all mutated creatures in the Wasteland, including most humans (e.g. those not born in vaults), when inserted into Project Purity. During ''Broken Steel'', if you followed through with the President's orders, there will be people in the clinics dying from the virus, and you yourself die if you consume too much of the FEV-laced water.
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* In the penultimate story quest of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', President Eden provides you a with a vial of [[SyntheticPlague Modified Forced Evolutionary Virus]], which will kill all mutated creatures in the Wasteland, including most humans (e.g. those not born in vaults), when inserted into Project Purity. During ''Broken Steel'', if you followed through with the President's orders, there will be people in the clinics dying from the virus, and you yourself die if you consume too much of the FEV-laced water.
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* According to some of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}''[='=]s [[AllThereInTheManual compendiums]], scientific advances was this trope to TheFairFolk, {{Youkai}}, [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly gods]] and [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve beings that affirmed their existence]] by PaintingTheFrostOnWindows, hence causing the necessity for [[FantasticNatureReserve Genso]][[FantasyKitchenSink ukyou]] to be founded in the first place. The most notable example that is brough up is the yamabiko, benevolent echo sprits that dwell in valleys and mountains... or ''dwelled'' in valleys and mountains... Though it's uncertain how many there are left, aside from Kyouko Kasodani, it's canon that they nearly went extinct when a scientific explanation for what causes echoes was discovered.
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* According to some of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}''[='=]s ''Franchise/TouhouProject''[='=]s [[AllThereInTheManual compendiums]], scientific advances was this trope to TheFairFolk, {{Youkai}}, [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly gods]] and [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve beings that affirmed their existence]] by PaintingTheFrostOnWindows, hence causing the necessity for [[FantasticNatureReserve Genso]][[FantasyKitchenSink ukyou]] to be founded in the first place. The most notable example that is brough up is the yamabiko, benevolent echo sprits that dwell in valleys and mountains... or ''dwelled'' in valleys and mountains... Though it's uncertain how many there are left, aside from Kyouko Kasodani, it's canon that they nearly went extinct when a scientific explanation for what causes echoes was discovered.
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[[folder:Web Comics]]
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* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, being the deadliest war in human history obviously qualifies. Roughly 80 million people died and just to put that in perspective, UsefulNotes/WorldWarI killed only about a ''quarter'' of that number. A few eastern European countries got the worst of it, especially Belarus, which lost a quarter of its population. Worsening things were the genocidal campaigns carried out by UsefulNotes/NaziGermany (eleven million people, [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust six million of whom were Jewish]]) and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan (roughly three to fourteen million, [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondSinoJapaneseWar many of whom were Chinese, Filipino, Korean and others]]).
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* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, being the deadliest war in human history obviously qualifies. Roughly 80 million people died and just to put that in perspective, UsefulNotes/WorldWarI killed only about a ''quarter'' of that number. A few eastern European countries got the worst of it, especially Belarus, which lost a quarter of its population. Worsening things were the genocidal campaigns carried out by UsefulNotes/NaziGermany (eleven million people, [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust six million of whom were Jewish]]) and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan (roughly three to fourteen million, [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondSinoJapaneseWar [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar many of whom were Chinese, Filipino, Korean and others]]).
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* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, being the deadliest war in human history obviously qualifies. Roughly 80 million people died and just to put that in perspective, UsefulNotes/WorldWarI killed only about a ''quarter'' of that number. A few eastern European countries got the worst of it, especially Belarus, which lost a quarter of its population. Worsening things were the genocidal campaigns carried out by UsefulNotes/NaziGermany (eleven million people, six million of whom were Jewish) and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan (roughly three to fourteen million, many of whom were Chinese, Filipino, Korean and others).
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* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, being the deadliest war in human history obviously qualifies. Roughly 80 million people died and just to put that in perspective, UsefulNotes/WorldWarI killed only about a ''quarter'' of that number. A few eastern European countries got the worst of it, especially Belarus, which lost a quarter of its population. Worsening things were the genocidal campaigns carried out by UsefulNotes/NaziGermany (eleven million people, [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust six million of whom were Jewish) Jewish]]) and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan (roughly three to fourteen million, [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondSinoJapaneseWar many of whom were Chinese, Filipino, Korean and others).others]]).
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* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, being the deadliest war in human history obviously qualifies. Roughly 80 million people died and just to put that in perspective, UsefulNotes/WorldWarI killed only about a ''quarter'' of that number. A few eastern European countries got the worst of it, especially Belarus, which lost a quarter of its population.
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* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, being the deadliest war in human history obviously qualifies. Roughly 80 million people died and just to put that in perspective, UsefulNotes/WorldWarI killed only about a ''quarter'' of that number. A few eastern European countries got the worst of it, especially Belarus, which lost a quarter of its population. Worsening things were the genocidal campaigns carried out by UsefulNotes/NaziGermany (eleven million people, six million of whom were Jewish) and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan (roughly three to fourteen million, many of whom were Chinese, Filipino, Korean and others).
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* The Chi Bomb, or C-Bomb from ''TabletopGame/FengShui 2'', which was intended to wipe out every Feng Shui site in existence so that humanity and other species could live free of the "tyranny" of chi, instead wiped out every Feng Shui site in the Future juncture -- along with ninety-seven percent of the world's population in that juncture, as well as everyone else who was attuned to a feng shui site controlled by the Architects of the Flesh, who were all reduced to cellular powder. The bomb also had the effect of messing with the chi of many of the survivors, turning them into mutants.
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* The Chi Bomb, or C-Bomb from ''TabletopGame/FengShui 2'', which was intended created by the Jammers in order to wipe out every Feng Shui site in existence so that humanity and other species could live free of the "tyranny" of chi, instead wiped out every Feng Shui site in the Future juncture -- along with ninety-seven percent of the world's population in that juncture, as well as everyone else who was attuned to a feng shui site controlled by the Architects of the Flesh, who were all reduced to cellular powder. The bomb also had the effect of messing with the chi of many of the survivors, turning them into mutants.
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* The Chi Bomb, or C-Bomb from ''TabletopGame/FengShui 2'', which was intended to wipe out every Feng Shui site in existence so that humanity and other species could live free of the "tyranny" of chi, instead wiped out every Feng Shui site in the Future juncture -- along with ninety-seven percent of the world's population in that juncture, as well as everyone else who was attuned to a feng shui site controlled by the Architects of the Flesh, who were all reduced to cellular powder. The bomb also had the effect of messing with the chi of many of the survivors, turning them into mutants.
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* In ''Literature/TheQuietPlace'', a group of astronauts return to Earth after a botched FirstContact mission. Because of TimeDilation, they return to a future Earth that's reverted to the Stone Age and with a smaller population. It turns out that [[spoiler: an experimental drug to reverse aging was distributed worldwide. The most major side effect was widespread infertility.]]
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* ''Literature/LucifersHammer'': Earth is depopulated by an asteroid strike. Recovery might take ages since the asteroid started nuclear winter conditions.
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* ''Series/{{Spellbinder}}'': A number of parallel worlds have had their population reduced to a fraction of its former number. In the Spellbinder world (the setting of much of season 1), it's heavily implied that no one outside Australia survived the ancient cataclysm [[spoiler:caused by Spellbinders attempting to increase their power]]. The surviving population has reverted back to a MedievalStasis, with the elite Spellbinders being a CargoCult that suppresses all scientific advancement and is barely able to maintain the old tech they're passing off as sorcery. Another world went through a RobotWar with a few survivors eking out an existence on the ruins of civilization and fearing all forms of "tech". A third world was struck by a worldwide pandemic in Victorian times, wiping out a large part of the population. A cure was found and had the unexpected side effect of turning everyone into TheAgeless but also made everyone sterile. As a result, all progress stopped, and the survivors amuse themselves by building childlike automatons in lieu of actual children.
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** Another Star Trek novel, ''The Last Stand'', has a long-standing conflict between the Krann and the Lethanta. Long ago, the Lethanta developed space travel and discovered the Krann on another planet in the same system. They subjugated them. Eventually, the Krann rose up and fought back. But a virus began wiping out the Krann. Assuming it was an attack by the Lethanta, the Krann bombed their homeworld, making it uninhabitable. The surviving Lethanta fled in sublight ships constructed out of asteroids. The surviving Krann, with their planet also no longer habitable due to the virus, built a fleet and gave chase. Near the end of the novel, as the Lethanta-Krann war is coming to a head, Dr. Crusher discovers that the virus was natural, not engineered. Thus the Krann have no reason to try to wipe out the Lethanta. But the temporary peace is fragile, and one of the Krann leaders points out that the long feud isn't going to end just because a doctor saw something in a microscope.
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* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' FanFiction ''Fanfic/ItsAKidsWorld'' has an OnlyFatalToAdults variant. [[spoiler: An event called The Big Vanish suddenly wipes out the entire world populace over 15 years of age in a single instant, leaving only children behind. This paves the way for a story about the kids having to fight for power, resources, and survival in a new and hostile unorderly world.]]
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* Due to the demographic transition, as a result of family planning and greater access to education, many nations in the developed world, and a few in the developing, are seeing a slow-motion population decline, especially as the cost of education, child care, and housing skyrockets. Some nations, like Japan and China, could see their populations cut in ''half'' by the end of the century.
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** Repeated nuking or nuking a sufficiently weak city will result in that city being removed from the game altogether. Unless it's a capitol city, which are indestructible.
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** Repeated nuking or nuking a sufficiently weak city will result in that city being removed from the game altogether. Unless it's a capitol capital city, which are indestructible.
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It may be worth noting that while the NeutronBomb provides inspiration for many such weapons, a neutron bomb is ''not'' a straightforward "It only kills people" bomb. ''It is a thermonuclear weapon'', so this is mostly a simplistic comparison to other bombs with more straightforward KillEmAll purposes. That is, if you actually care about things like [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness scientific accuracy]].
to:
It may be worth noting that while the NeutronBomb provides inspiration for many such weapons, a neutron bomb is ''not'' a straightforward "It only kills people" bomb. ''It is a thermonuclear weapon'', so this is mostly a simplistic comparison to other bombs with more straightforward KillEmAll purposes. That is, if you actually care about things like [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness scientific accuracy]].
accuracy.
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It may be worth noting that while the NeutronBomb provides inspiration for many such weapons, a neutron bomb is ''not'' a straightforward "It only kills people" bomb. ''It is a thermonuclear weapon'', so this is mostly a simplistic comparison to other bombs with more straightforward KillEmAll purposes. That is, if you actually care about things like [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness scientific accuracy]].
to:
It may be worth noting that while the NeutronBomb provides inspiration for many such weapons, a neutron bomb is ''not'' a straightforward "It only kills people" bomb. ''It is a thermonuclear weapon'', so this is mostly a simplistic comparison to other bombs with more straightforward KillEmAll purposes. That is, if you actually care about things like [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness scientific accuracy]].
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* In ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverse'', 3/4 of the population of the GenerationShip ''Godspeed'' was killed off in an event called the Plague. The population has been slowly rebounding since then, but the limited gene pool has lead to problems with inbreeding.
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* In ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverse'', ''Literature/AcrossTheUniverseBethRevis'', 3/4 of the population of the GenerationShip ''Godspeed'' was killed off in an event called the Plague. The population has been slowly rebounding since then, but the limited gene pool has lead to problems with inbreeding.
