History Main / SterilityPlague

Of course, the most popular agent for this problem by far is genetically engineered disease. If you are considering what type of Depopulation Bomb to use on your enemies, you may consider the Sterility Plague the best option for many reasons. First of all, it is a very covert and completely humanitarian method of mass genocide. It will not kill a single enemy civilian or combatant. It is incurable, except where the forces of pure good are involved (But really, what can't they fix?). Your enemies will live just as long as they would have otherwise, but they will not multiply and will cease to be any threat at all after a generation or two. If your race is particularly long-lived then you might consider waiting for everyone to die to be not such a big deal.

* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', the Combine have set up a suppression field, which makes humans unable to reproduce by impeding conception. After the [[EvilTowerOfOminousness Citadel]] is destroyed at the end of the game, the suppression field is destroyed along with it; in the MissionPackSequel ''Half-Life 2: Episode One'', Dr. Kleiner suggests to people that have already escaped City 17 that it is "an excellent time for procreation" to revive humanity as a species.
-->'''Alyx Vance:''' Did Dr. Kleiner just tell everyone to... get busy?

* Webcomic/OffWhite: No human babies have been born in the last three years because the human white spirit was eaten alive.

* The novel ''Literature/ChildrenOfMen'' by P.D.James, as noted with the film adaptation, is an archetype of this trope.

Compare {{Gendercide}} and ThePlague. Likely to result in a ChildlessDystopia and/or a BreedingCult. Sometimes may result in MandatoryMotherhood, or those that ''are'' fertile (women in particular) being forcibly used as [[BabyFactory baby factories.]]

* ''Anime/{{Vandread}}'': The heroes come across a planet in the second season which had this done to them by Earth. Needless to say, they cure it.

* In ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' it's revealed that [[spoiler: [[WellIntentionedExtremist Zeke Yeager]]]]'s master plan is to [[spoiler: MercyKill [[FinalSolution his entire race]] by using the power of the Founding Titan to render all Eldians infertile so that future generations [[FantasticRacism wouldn't exist just to suffer at the hands of the other races]].]]
* In ''Manga/AnimalLand'', the Zelyda Disease is what killed off [[spoiler:the original humans of the world]].

* A major plot point in the Gallimaufry arc of ''ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire'' is the outbreak of an engineered virus that completely eliminates human sex drive.

* In ''Fanfic/Earth27'', Kherans afflicted the Daemonites with one of these, leading to Daemonite scientist Arctus, who would be later known as Helspont, to look for a cure on Earth, with the intention of taking it over.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* The "castrate your enemies" version is referred to in ''Film/Conspiracy2001'' (meaning that this crosses over with RealLife). The Nazi leaders at the Wannsee Conference discuss the possibility of using radiation and/or injections to render Jews sterile, which would leave them alive [[PragmaticVillainy when there's a chronic shortage of slave labour]]. However, in addition to the technical problems with this, Heydrich lacks the patience for such a slow process, and insists on [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust a more direct approach]].
-->"Dead men don't hump, dead women don't get pregnant. Death is the most reliable form of sterilization--put it that way."

* The Elven Kingdom of the book series Sanctuary, whose males have all been rendered sterile by a [[spoiler: curse from the God of Death]] have been unable to produce any pure blooded children for hundreds of years, with many Elven woman turning to the lesser mortal races to produce half-breed children instead. One of their most holy figures is the Youngest Elf in the world, the only full-blooded Elven child born since the issue began, who they believe will one day save them from their sterility.[[spoiler: It is later revealed that a small isolated community of elves, who have existed on the edge of the Elven race and are largely ignored, have been able to reproduce the whole time, but have kept it a secret because they feel they owe nothing to the Elven Kingdom, which has long treated them as disposable assets.]]

* "But, you see, there aren't any children. They aren't born." The last line and premise of Stephen Vincent Benet's anti-war poem ''Nightmare for Future Reference'', first published in the April 2, 1938 issue of ''Magazine/TheNewYorker'' magazine.
* Due to insufficient research on long term effects, the "cure" for AIDS turns out to be one of these in the first third of the novel ''Literature/TheBreedsOfMan'' by making it impossible for women to have more than one child. The second third is about trying to find a cure for the cure before it's too late, and the last third is about trying to find a way to cure the cure for the cure (since the protagonists just can't stop [[NiceJobBreakingItHero breaking things]]).
* In ''Literature/GulliversTravels'', the Houyhnhnms decide the best way of wiping out the Yahoos is to castrate them all. They got the inspiration for this from Gulliver's description of how horses are treated in England (male horses were castrated to break their spirits and control the population.)

* In ''Literature/TheBelgariad''[='s=] past, when Gorim of the godless finally got a god to accept him, he asked for his people to follow and cursed those who refused with sterility. In ''Belgarath The Sorcerer'' he expresses regret on this and surprise that the curse wasn't lifted.
* In ''Literature/{{Bumped}}'', a virus went around causing all adults to be sterile. As a result, adults will pay lots of money to teenagers (and in extreme cases, preteens) to be surrogates.
* In ''Prized'', the sequel to ''Birthmarked'' by Caragh O'Brien, Gaia travels to Sylum, a {{matriarchy}} where 9 out of every 10 babies are male, so females are prized members of society. On top of that, a couple hundred of the men are infertile. It is revealed that [[spoiler: some sort of problem with the water is causing the men to be intersex, thus making them infertile.]]
* ''Le Dernier Homme'' is an 1805 science fiction novel written as a prose poem where humanity as a whole is going sterile. It involves the voyage of the last fertile man to meet the last fertile woman only to meet with Adam, who has been charged by God to convince the couple to not reproduce, thereby allowing the world to end and be reborn.
* In ''Literature/ChildhoodsEnd'' it is mentioned that there is no biological reason for more children to be born, when the existing children start to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence.
* In ''Literature/AlienChronicles'', the Dancing Death severely reduced the population of the Viis, and is believed to be responsible for their now much lower fertility and high rates of mutation. They keep many races of slaves, one of which is ironically an ExplosiveBreeder.

* In William Barton and Michael Capobianco's ''Alpha Centauri'' the organization known as Indigo developed "autoviroids" that replicate in infected men's sperm and destroy the eggs of women they have sex with. This is intended to solve the solar system's overpopulation crisis. Their agent Mies manages to infect all but one of the women on the Alpha Centauri expedition.
* This comes to afflict all of humanity in ''Literature/{{Galapagos}}'', with the only people unafflicted being a tour group marooned on the eponymous island. As [[DirectLineToTheAuthor the narrator]] is a ghost who observes said tour group and their descendants, he gets to observe how humanity further evolves from these few survivors.
* The villains of the ''Creator/CliveCussler'' novel ''Plague Ship'' are planning to sterilize half the human race, honestly thinking they'll be hailed as heroes.
* Vashti and Champagne discover in ''Literature/{{Edenborn}}'' that the combination of [[ThePlague Black Ep]] and its treatment leaves women incapable of carrying a child to term.
* Though the female aufwaders in Robin Jarvis's ''Whitby Witches'' trilogy can still conceive, the curse on their race means that, unless they end the pregnancy, their blood will turn to brine, causing an agonizing, and ultimately fatal, illness. As if that wasn't bad enough, the mother will be reduced to a briny sludge and the child, if it survives to term, will crumble to dust within minutes of birth. Only one aufwader born since the laying of the curse has survived infancy.
* A virus spreads through the world in one sci-fi story that causes women to spontaneously abort with the only cure being the women having to consume a diet containing a rare fruit for the duration they want to get pregnant and have a child. It's not a real cure as they'll promptly reinfect as soon as they stop eating. The kicker? It was created and released by the scientist who 'discovered' the cure because he didn't want there to be anymore unwanted children in the world.
* "Fade to White", an AlternateHistory short story by Creator/CatherynneMValente is set in a post-WorldWarIII United States that [[CrapsaccharineWorld maintains the facade]] of TheFabulousFifties. The few men who are not infertile serve as fathers in rotation to several families, who pretend the others don't exist and the father is working at a non-existent job while away.
* ''When She Woke'' has this as the source of its plot. A sexually transmitted disease caused many people to become sterile and birth rates fall dramatically. Due to this, a constitutional amendment has been passed in the US forbidding abortion. Those who have illegal abortions, like the main character, are punished with a gene therapy that turns their skin red (other crimes get some different colors). It's based on ''Literature/TheScarletLetter'', updated to a dystopian future world.

* ''Literature/{{Semiosis}}'': The second and third generations of human colonists on the planet Pax have high rates of sterility among the men as their bodies adapt to local conditions. It's not severe enough to threaten the colony, but Higgins has conflicted feelings about being effectively put to stud as a fertile man.
* Creator/NKJemisin's ''Literature/InheritanceTrilogy'': All the gods and godlings have been sterile since the [[GodIsDead death]] of Enefa, Goddess of [[FertilityGod Life]] and [[GodOfTheDead Death]]. Zig-zagged at the end of the first book when [[spoiler:Yeine [[DeityOfHumanOrigin ascends to godhood]] in her place.]]
* ''Literature/TheKingstonCycle'' by C.L. Polk: The nobility of Aeland are threatened with a {{Curse}} of sterility by the [[OurElvesAreDifferent Amaranthine]] for the crime of [[spoiler:stealing witches' souls for [[SoulPoweredEngine power]]]]. It's not an idle threat: when an Amaranthine once told an offending king that "You will wither", his wife miscarried on the spot, his entire bloodline became infertile, and his dynasty fell out of power well before it died out.
* In ''Literature/Inferno2013'', [[spoiler:the titular bioweapon modifies the DNA of about a third of its victims, preventing them from having children.]]

* The Forced Evolutionary Virus in the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series renders its subjects sterile, so the only way for Super Mutants to increase their ranks is to capture and mutate more humans. Just as well, they have [[TheAgeless biological immortality]]. The Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion in ''The Pitt'' sterilizes those residents who aren't turned into Trogs or Wildmen (except for Ashur and Sandra, whose infant daughter is resistant to TDC). Ghouls are also universally sterile, although this is caused by radiation rather than a traditional plague.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* This is part of the reason of the Elves isolationism in ''Webcomic/ErrantStory'' (That and a healthy dose of CantArgueWithElves). Misa was the last known full-blooded elf birth and she's 1500 years old. No one knows why and no one's been able to fix it. Note that Elves are only sterile with ''each other''; they can cross-breed with humans with little issue.
* In ''{{Webcomic/Drowtales}}'', members of Zala'ess Vel'Sharen's bloodline start becoming affected by this as a result of their [[DemonicPossession demonic taint]], with the female members either miscarrying early into the pregnancy or giving birth to stillborn and horribly deformed children. It's unknown if this has any affect on the male members, but since drow [[LineageComesFromTheFather trace lineage through the mother]] it wouldn't matter as much to them if it did. It's eventually revealed that this was intentionally done by Zala's sister Snadhya'rune, who chose this method as form of {{irony}} since Zala [[MassiveNumberedSiblings is known for her]] [[ReallyGetsAround many many children]].
* In ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'', the Angels' birthrates have sharply declined to the point that they are becoming a DyingRace. It's later implied that [[spoiler:the Dragons]] have something to do with that, and that the Angels aren't the only race they've rendered extinct.

* In James Tiptree Jr.'s short story "The Screwfly Solution", a HatePlague turns male sexual urges into murderous violence against women. The female protagonist concludes that it's meant to depopulate the Earth prior to colonisation by aliens. The title comes from the techniques used to eradicate insects via this trope (see RealLife).

* In ''Manga/AnimalLand'', the Zelyda Disease is what killed off [[spoiler: the original humans of the world.]]

* ''LightNovel/SundayWithoutGod'': For whatever reason, when people stopped being able to die, they also stopped being able to give birth. This makes Ai's existence even more perplexing, as she was born three years ''after'' that fateful day God supposedly abandoned humanity.

** HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is ''effectively'' an example of this: although having HIV doesn't directly incapacitate a person's ability to reproduce, hetrosexual survivors who refrain from unprotected sex to ensure their partners won't become infected are, in effect, removing themselves from the human gene pool.

* Franchise/StargateVerse:
** The Asgard suffer from the fact that they have totally abandoned sexual reproduction in favor of cloning.
** In the BadFuture portrayed in the ''SG-1'' episode "2010", the Aschen plan to surreptitiously conquer Earth involves one of these, distributed under cover of advanced medical tech. As shown in the later episode "2001", this is their ''modus operandi''.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** In one episode there's a group of colonists who had too few people to successfully build a colony, so instead of sex the went the cloning route. Now due to [[CloneDegeneration replicative fading]] they can't do that any more, so they steal DNA from people on the ''Enterprise''. The resolution is that they marry their cousins from {{Oireland}} InSpace.
** In another episode there's a world where all the remaining adults are sterile, and steal the kids from the ''Enterprise'' to be their next generation (no pun intended). [[spoiler:Turns out this world's impressive tech was what was causing the sterility, ensuring the children would become sterile in due time.]]
* ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'': The Companions are sterile; Zo'or is the last one to have been born.

* All the clones in ''Series/OrphanBlack'' are apparently sterile - with the exception of Sarah, who has a daughter named Kira. [[TheFundamentalist Tomas]] immediately decided to hunt Kira down upon learning of her existence, and Delphine purposely hid the existence of Kira from [[EvilutionaryBiologist Dr. Leekie]] when she was spying on Delphine. [[spoiler: It is revealed by Ethan, one of the original creators of the project, that the clones were intentionally made sterile, which also has led to the autoimmune disease that has killed many of the clones. Helena may also be fertile, due to having the same surrogate mother as Sarah.]]
** In season 3 [[spoiler: this trope is played more straight when Dr. Coady wants to turn the infertility defect (which in the Project CASTOR male clones is sexually transmitted) into a bio-weapon.]]

* The second season finale of ''Series/{{Zoo}}'' reveals that [[spoiler: the Shepherds and Jackson's father have planned all along for the "cure" for the animal outbreak actually be to sterilize the human race and return Earth to the animals.]]

** In "Dark Rain", a chemical war has left most of humanity sterile, after which harsh dystopian measures are enacted to try and preserve the population. The last generation of pre-blight children are taught that it is their duty to become sexually active as soon as possible, contraceptives of all kinds are banned, and when once in a blue moon a woman does become pregnant, the government seizes both mother and child; the child to be tested for any passed-on genetic traits that could improve fertility, and the mother to be similarly tested and also to be forcibly inseminated by other proven-fertile doners to try and replicate her success.
** In "The Origin of Species", humans began to experiment with genetic engineering in or before the 23rd Century, giving them superhuman abilities (which included having wings) but rendering them sterile. As such, humanity eventually died out. The ship which brought Hope and six students to the future Earth is able to take genetic samples from them to create babies, altering their DNA sufficiently to prevent inbreeding.
* A second season episode of ''{{Series/Spellbinder}}'' has the dimension-traveling protagonists find themselves in an Enlightenment-themed world where a deadly plague killed off a large amount of population before a cure was found. Strangely, the cure not only cured the plague but also made people immortal. Unfortunately, the ImmortalProcreationClause is in full effect, as humans are no longer able to conceive. Instead, they build automatons that play and entertain their "parents". When a scientist finds out that the protagonist (a teenage girl and a 20-some man) are fertile, he kidnaps them in order to set up PeopleFarm to try repopulate the world and even breaks their inter-dimensional ship. They manage to fix it and escape.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "The Leisure Hive", the Argolians are a DyingRace who were rendered sterile by radiation in the aftermath of the twenty minute war they fought with the Foamasi.

* ''Series/TheHandmaidsTale'': Birth rates in the US had plummeted to catastrophic lows by 2015. And of the babies that ''are'' born now, many didn't survive long past birth. This is apparently due to environmental toxins. The Republic of Gilead says it's only women who are sterile [[spoiler: but the doctor Offred sees tells her most of the Commanders are as well.]]
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1963'': In "The Inheritors", the aliens were infected with a blight which rendered them sterile.

* The "castrate your enemies" version is referred to in ''Film/Conspiracy2001'' (meaning that this crosses over with RealLife). The Nazi leaders at the Wannsee Conference discuss the possibility of using radiation and/or injections to render Jews sterile. However, in addition to the technical problems with this, Heydrich lacks the patience for such a slow process, and insists on [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust a more direct approach]].
-->"Dead men don't hump, dead women don't get pregnant. Death is the most reliable form of sterilization, put it that way."

* Wiki/SCPFoundation: