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| 3 | %% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks! |
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| 7 | ->''"The Skeksis with their hard and twisted bodies, their harsh and twisted wills. For a thousand years they have ruled. Yet now, there are only ten. A dying race, ruled by a dying Emperor, imprisoned within themselves, in a dying land."''\ |
| 8 | ...\ |
| 9 | ''"A thousand years ago, the Crystal cracked and here, far from the Castle, the race of Mystics came to live in a dream of peace. Their ways were the gentle ways of natural wizards. Yet now there are only ten. A dying race, numbly rehearsing the ancient ways in a blur of forgetfulness."'' |
| 10 | -->-- ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'' |
| 11 | |
| 12 | A race of sentient beings is past its prime. There are only a few of them left, and they're slowly dying out. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | This may be for any of a number of reasons. It may be caused by CreativeSterility -- or it may cause it. It could be the result of a DepopulationBomb or {{Gendercide}}. Sometimes the race is almost {{immortal|ity}}, and thus suffers from the ImmortalProcreationClause. The race may live in a time that's JustBeforeTheEnd. They could be dying out because another race has GottaKillThemAll; if ''humanity'' is the target, it's KillAllHumans. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | Whatever the reason is, the dying out may be viewed as a tragedy, because someone appreciates the UniquenessValue of the dying race and so regards them as an EndangeredSpecies. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | Sometimes the race will be trying to save themselves. This might lead to OnlyYouCanRepopulateMyRace. If they accept their fate, they may want to FlingALightIntoTheFuture. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[LogicalExtreme If the race is reduced to just a single individual]], that is the LastOfHisKind, not this trope. But then again maybe ThereIsAnother, too. See also HumanitysWake for when humanity is made extinct. Contrast RacialRemnant for when a race doesn't die out completely. Compare AdamAndEvePlot. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | ---- |
| 23 | !!Examples: |
| 24 | |
| 25 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 28 | %%* ''Manga/AnimalX'': Minato is working hard to propagate his dying race.%%Which is an example why? |
| 29 | * ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Humanity is this, with the titans having reduced most of humanity to a tiny fraction that is forced to live within three erected walls just to keep them from extinction. And with the Colossal Titan's invasion, it only continues to decline. [[spoiler:Subverted when Grisha's journals reveal there's a thriving and technologically sophisticated human population outside the Walls]]. [[spoiler:Subverted again when, after the Rumbling, eighty percent of the population was trampled and crushed under Eren's army of Wall Titans.]] |
| 30 | * ''Manga/{{Claymore}}'': This is probably true for all types of youma. Toward the end of the manga, the organization is defeated, so that no more half-youma warriornesses can be created. |
| 31 | ** Without the organization, no new youma will be created, and the warriornesses have decided to have all the youma left, hunt and destroy. |
| 32 | ** Likewise, they also want to kill all the Awakened Beings who are still left. The warriornesses can also be themselves awakened, but then they are probably quickly killed by the other warriornesses. |
| 33 | ** The "Abyss Feeders" have probably been killed during the plot of the manga all or almost all. |
| 34 | ** However, this applies only to the island where the plot took place. The organization on the continent can create more youma and half-youma warriors and warriornesses. |
| 35 | * ''Manga/DanceInTheVampireBund'': While vampires as a whole are not in any danger of dying out, pureblood vampires have dwindled down to the point where there are only four left by the start of the series, only one of which is female. And since pureblood vampires can only conceive once over the course of their long lives, that means that they're only three generations away from inbreeding at most, and if Mina or any of her future heirs ever bear a son, their race dead-ends immediately. The fact that Mina ''despises'' all three of the other purebloods for good reason doesn't help. |
| 36 | * ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': There are only eight pure-blooded Saiyans left (four in the original manga) after Freeza destroys the planet Vegeta. It's turned around somewhat by the time of ''Dragon Ball Online'', as most humans have some Saiyan blood in them at that point. |
| 37 | * ''Manga/FrierenBeyondJourneysEnd'': War with the demons, the extreme length of time needed to reach maturity and their own disinterest in the survival of their species have left elves on the brink of extinction, with only three confirmed survivors, not a single one of which has any interest in spending time together, let alone repopulating their species. Demons as well believe their species risks this if their war with humanity continues on as badly as it has, but only some of them care and even less would be willing to risk their lives to do anything about it, beyond trying to kill even more humans. |
| 38 | * ''Anime/GenesisOfAquarion'': The Shadow Angels. |
| 39 | * ''Literature/HumanityHasDeclined'': As indicated by the translation of the title, humankind is gradually fading away, even if they still have a few good years ahead of them. |
| 40 | * ''Manga/{{Karin}}'': This is something that worries the vampires. There are more vampires dying than there are children being born. The protagonist's parents are looked up to by younger couples since they have three children while most other parents only have one at most. |
| 41 | %%* ''Manga/MetroidManga'': It's implied that this is why the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Chozo]] trained Samus to be a warrior when they adopted her.%%"This" being what? |
| 42 | * ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold'': The Olmecs are trying to stave off their demise by [[HumanResources whatever means]] [[PoweredByAForsakenChild are necessary]]. |
| 43 | * ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'' has a rare historical example with the Emishi, a Japanese ethnic group believed to be related to the Ainu, who by the start of the film have been nearly wiped out by the Yamato people (i.e. modern Japan's majority ethnic group). It's hinted that Ashitaka's village may be their very last, and with him (their last prince) gone, they don't expect to live much longer (in fact, the real life Emishi were already extinct long before the time period the movie takes place in). |
| 44 | * ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': Following the Uchiha Clan Massacre, only a handful of Uchiha survived: Sasuke and Itachi [[spoiler:and Obito. By the end of the series, there are only two Uchiha left: Sasuke and his daughter Sarada.]] |
| 45 | * ''Literature/{{Shiki}}'': A village full of vampires could only be created in the country, because humans in the big cities immediately burn the corpses. This makes it very unlikely that the surviving vampires can create a new colony of vampires. |
| 46 | * ''Literature/SoImASpiderSoWhat'': The Demons are approaching this point. Their population has always been smaller than that of Humans and their birth rate is in decline. After the last war they experienced a nation-wide famine because there weren't enough hands available to supply food. This is a result of [[spoiler:their souls becoming too heavily damaged to reincarnate after dying]]. |
| 47 | * ''Manga/{{Toriko}}'': The Herac horses are in decline. Despite their power and near-immortality, the Herac horses are no longer able to consume the food they need to reach maturity. The only adult Herac alive is the Horse King. |
| 48 | [[/folder]] |
| 49 | |
| 50 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 51 | * ''ComicBook/{{Crossed}}'''s titular monsters are pretty numerous for a dying race, but that's only because they got a major head start due to having converted whatever humans they didn't simply kill. The majority of comics taking place in its universe happen in the first few years, when there were hundreds of millions of them around worldwide, and even at that point, they are clearly starting to burn out, thanks to their intensely violent lifestyles and lack of self-preservation. By the ''+100'' arc, which takes place a century after the initial outbreak of the HatePlague, they have been reduced to inbred and sickly clans fostered by whatever mothers had the mental fortitude to not murder their own young. |
| 52 | * ''Franchise/TheDCU'': |
| 53 | ** Both the White and Green Martians are Dying Races. None still live on Mars and there's only one Green Martian (the ComicBook/MartianManhunter) and a handful of White Martians (including Miss Martian) left (at least outside of the Phantom Zone). Technically, they aren't separate species, just separate races, so even if there were more White Martians left, the Martian species as a whole is dying out. |
| 54 | ** ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': While Superman is no longer the LastOfHisKind, Pre-''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' there were so few Kryptonians left after the ''ComicBook/NewKrypton'' storyline -- Superman and his first cousins ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} and ComicBook/PowerGirl -- that the species as a whole was doomed. Even in the Post-Crisis ''Man of Steel'' years when the LastOfHisKind trope was enforced by editorial demand, it still wasn't technically true, as the PhantomZone contained quite a few kryptonian prisoners. However, they were unlikely to bother communicating with their captor, much less ever be released due to their crimes, making this true in practice. |
| 55 | ** Maxima uses this to lure Superman, claiming that only she can save the kryptonian species, as she is the only one who is both genetically compatible and [[ManOfSteelWomanOfKleenex sufficiently durable enough to handle Superman]], [[BlessedWithSuck now that he's been drenched in empowering sunlight.]] It ''almost'' works too, until Maxima lets it slip that she leads a brutally expansionist empire that her kids will be continuing the proud traditions of. It turns out that human beings ''are'' also genetically compatible with Superman, however, and as his powers develop so to does his muscle control, making his SuperStrength and NighInvulnerability largely non issues. |
| 56 | * The [[AncientAstronauts aliens]] in ''ComicBook/DinosaursVsAliens'' rendered their original home planet inhospitable and have spent a long time since then wandering in space, losing half of their original population during their migration. They are no longer able to reproduce naturally and have to procreate via artificial means, but even with that, the only result is each successive generation being more frail and sickly than the last. |
| 57 | * ''ComicBook/SpiderGeddon'': The human race of the Earth where the Inheritors were imprisoned. After nuclear war nearly destroys the planet, the remaining population of humans is small enough to fit on a space station in stasis. Astro Spider-man's job is to scavenge for materials towards building a colony on the Moon. |
| 58 | * ''ComicBook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesMirage'': Played for an absolute TearJerker in ''Sons Of The Silent Age''. The Turtles, along with April and Casey Jones, find a dying fishlike humanoid creature on a riverbank who reveals she is the last female of her kind to April through telepathy. The last remaining four males briefly fight the Turtles until the female dies from the sickness she's gotten from a nearby power plant. The males carry her body back into the water, while the Turtles watch, both species doomed to extinction. The End. |
| 59 | * In ''ComicBook/TransformersLastBotStanding'', the Autobot and Decepticon war lasted for so long that it nearly ended all life in the galaxy. This includes the Cybertronians themselves who could no longer properly refuel or repair themselves since they ran out of Energon. The few Cybertronians seen in the miniseries are strongly implied to be the only ones ''left'' in existence, and all of them are in bad shape. And most of them [[spoiler:except Rodimus]] have gone to truly immoral lengths to find a way to sustain themselves without Energon [[spoiler:namely by liquefying organic life -- including sapient beings -- into "biofuel".]] [[spoiler:The world Rodimus has taken refuge on has the potential to restore the Cybertronians to glory since it has a motherlode of Energon, but Rodimus refuses to use it for this since he believes that this would simply lead to the war restarting and wipe out what's left of the galaxy.]] |
| 60 | * ''ComicBook/XMen'': At the beginning of the event ''ComicBook/XMenSecondComing'', the mutant species was declared to be this, as their lowered numbers (181 at the time) weren't sufficient for natural propagation. [[spoiler:Averted in the aftermath of ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen'', as the Phoenix's power has been used to restore the species.]] They are dying again in ComicBook/AllNewAllDifferentMarvel since the Terrigen Mists spread by Blackbolt's Terrigen Bomb are having adverse effects on many mutants. However, with the removal of the Mists, they made a major comeback. |
| 61 | ** In [[BadFuture the universe]] [[CrapsackWorld of]] ''ComicBook/OldManLogan'', however, mutantkind doesn’t have such luck. No new mutants appear to have been born in the last generation, and although Scotty and Jade (Logan’s kids) are a bit too young for mutant powers to emerge, they appear to simply be [[MuggleBornOfMages humans]]. ComicBook/EmmaFrost tells Logan that instead of being the next step in human evolution, as they were once believed to be, mutants are, in fact, a temporary genetic “blip”. Based on this, it appears that mutantkind is dying out and likely to go extinct in a few decades. |
| 62 | [[/folder]] |
| 63 | |
| 64 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 65 | * ''Fanfic/Ben10Guardians'': The Vladats are this instead of an extinct race, as although many of them were nearly wiped out, some remnants survived, such as Galactic Enforcers member Varn. The author did this because he thought a race a tough as them wouldn't die out so easily. |
| 66 | * ''Fanfic/BeyondTheOuterGateLies'': The Angels are one of these, even the youngest among them is thousands of years old, because there have been no true new Angels born since the death of God, as the addition of ascended mortals aren't real Angels, and they can't procreate amongst themselves without becoming Fallen Angels due to Lust. While the Devils and the Fallen have low birth rates, they at least have the ''ability'' which the Angels don't have, and their faction, led by the ArchangelMichael, is desperately trying to find a way. [[spoiler:Dresden suggests to them that artificial insemination might provide the answer.]] |
| 67 | * ''Fanfic/DeadOrAlive4TheDevilFactor'': Several characters mention that, in comparison to fiends, [[OurDemonsAreDifferent full-fledged demons]], have become one on Earth since Sparda's time, with high-level ones being particularly rare. |
| 68 | * ''Fanfic/KillThemAll'': Taylor can access Scion's memories and realizes that this is the case of the Entities. As Taylor has learned in her planeshifting adventures, the multiverse is full of things capable of destroying Entities. More often than not the Entities fail to complete their lifecycle on a planet, with a threat either killing them or forcing them to flee. |
| 69 | * ''Fanfic/TheMoonstoneCup'': The ghuls have been steadily dying out for a long time -- fewer and fewer children are born to them each year, their magic is fading, and many of their survivors have become the savage diamond dogs. Their king expects that after a couple of centuries, only the diamond dogs will be left, and eventually not even them. This has been ongoing for a long time and nobody has ever figured out a way to stop this, so they've mostly become resigned to their fate and hope to leave some kind of legacy to be remembered by. |
| 70 | * ''Fanfic/RainbowDoubleDashsLunaverse'': The dragons. Ironically enough, this is actually ''because'' of their formidable natural advantages. All other races on Cissanthema, from ponies to minotaurs to tapirs, have to band together for mutual trade and protection, but dragons have no needs other than rocks to eat and a hoard, and by far the biggest threat to a mature dragon is another dragon. As a result of this, dragons have no civilization to speak of. They don't trust each other in the slightest, and since they don't trust each other they can't work together, and thus cannot respond efficiently to crises or compete with more organized cultures. The whelps are left to fend for themselves from birth, since no dragon would take in a whelp for fear he might steal some of the treasure. There are barely a few thousand dragons left in the world. |
| 71 | * ''Fanfic/TheRigelBlackChronicles'': The magical population of Britain, and especially the pureblood population, is steadily shrinking as a result of the Fade (a lethal magical disorder that frequently affects second and subsequent children in a family), with a serious crisis anticipated within a generation or two. Draco notes that already their dorm at Hogwarts has six rooms and only four are in use. [[spoiler:Tom Riddle has determined that the Fade is caused by magical inbreeding, and intends to counteract it by having the purebloods marry half-bloods -- but at the same time, he hates muggles and their influence, so he wants to push muggle-born mages even further away, despite the potential genetic benefits they could bring.]] |
| 72 | * ''Webcomic/ATaleOfTwoRulers'': Gerudo are extremely rare due to a Hylian genocide centuries ago. Ganondorf has never met another Gerudo aside from his mother, who [[MissingMom died]] when he was a toddler. |
| 73 | * ''FanFic/WishCarefully'': In this ''Literature/HarryPotter'' fanfiction, the Dark Wizards and Witches of Death Eater Britain are fundamentally on their way out, thanks in no small part to the fact they've gotten almost [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor everything they wanted]] and it's biting them in the ass. They got to be king of their own little island with no half-bloods, Muggle-borns, or Muggles involved in their affairs, but compound inbreeding amongst a limited population is causing them to [[GenerationalMagicDecline steadily lose their magic with each generation]], and each Dark Wizard or Witch's only way out is either death or losing their magic entirely. What's more, wizardkind's traditional views of blood purity are now firmly on their way out on a ''global'' scale since the post-takeover history and trajectory of Death Eater Britain has exemplified to the world where that ideology leads and why it's utter bull. Of course, all of this is presented as a ''good'' thing, for obvious reasons. Harry in this fic has certainly earned his MagnificentBastard candidacy on this wiki. |
| 74 | [[/folder]] |
| 75 | |
| 76 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 77 | %%* ''Anime/{{Arrietty}}'': The Borrowers. |
| 78 | * ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'': The Atlanteans. Although they are granted close to eternal life, their [[CreativeSterility culture is slowly dying]] as their memories [[TheFogOfAges fade over the centuries]]. They can't even read their own language anymore, or use their own technology. |
| 79 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Wolfwalkers}}'': It's implied in the film and confirmed in the graphic novel adaptation that Mebh and her mother Moll are the last surviving [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Wolfwalkers]] at the start of the story. The number slowly grows after Robyn becomes a Wolfwalker by accident, [[spoiler:and her father Bill later becomes one as well]]. |
| 80 | [[/folder]] |
| 81 | |
| 82 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 83 | * ''Film/AeonFlux'': When an "industrial disease" wipes out 99% of the Earth's population in 2011, a scientist named Trevor Goodchild manages to develop a cure which also causes infertility in the survivors. Four hundred years later, the entire human population consists of clones bred to keep humanity alive while the eighth clone of Trevor works to cure the infertility and reintroduce natural childbirth. However, each time a person is cloned their minds become more unstable. The film subverts this trope by the end as it is revealed that humans had begun to get pregnant naturally, although the future of the human race is still left ambiguous. |
| 84 | * ''Film/TheAgeOfStupid'': Whilst our protagonist is not the last human out there, as others are seen in the opening, it's also made clear that humanity as a whole is on its way out thanks to GlobalWarming. |
| 85 | * ''Film/{{Automata}}'' features humanity as this after a deadly increase in solar radiation. By 2044, only 21 million people are left alive, and the radiation continues to increase. [[spoiler: In the BittersweetEnding, humanity has a high chance of extinction, but the robots will continue their civilisation.]] |
| 86 | * ''Film/Ben10RaceAgainstTime'': Eon is trying to save his dying race by taking over Earth. |
| 87 | * ''Film/BloodOfTheTribades'': The priests of Bathor are convinced vampires are dying out, which they blame on the lesbianism among the women (they reproduce sexually). From what's shown in the film however, it seems more a result of their oppression killing or exiling most other vampires, with only a small number of vampire women ever actually shown as being lesbians. Of course, they won't blame themselves for it. |
| 88 | * ''Film/ChildrenOfMen'': The human race is unable to reproduce as [[spoiler:almost]] everyone is infertile. |
| 89 | * ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick2004'': The leader of the Necromongers (a.k.a. the BigBad) tried to exterminate the Furians because of a prophecy which foretold he would be destroyed by one. |
| 90 | * ''Film/DarkCity1998'': The aliens are this; it's the reason the city was built in the first place. It's not clear exactly what they're dying ''from'', though, or how they expect the city to save them. |
| 91 | * ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'': |
| 92 | ** There are three dying races: the Skeksis, the Mystics, and the Gelflings. At the start of the movie there are only ten each of the Skeksis and Mystics left; and only one Gelfling. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie both the Skeksis and the Mystics are gone and only two known Gelflings are left to rebuild the world: Jen and Kira]]. |
| 93 | ** There's also Aughra, but there very well may only have been one of her ever anyways, and she's even more immortal than the Skekis and Mystics are. |
| 94 | * ''Film/GalaxyQuest'': It's revealed late in the movie that the Thermians' home world was destroyed by Sarris, and the reason that they recruited the main characters was to avert their species' extinction. |
| 95 | * ''Film/{{Highlander}}'': A secretive race of immortals duel each other to the death to win the Prize -- [[WhoWantsToLiveForever the chance to live as a mortal man]], which goes to the last one standing. By 1985, the immortals have largely long-since killed each other off and only four of them are left. |
| 96 | * ''Film/KillersOfTheFlowerMoon'': The only justification Hale gives for murdering the Osage besides pure {{greed}} is that they're dying out (so, presumably, [[SarcasmMode why not just kill them for their money]] too?). Of course, they aren't (and weren't) dying out either, but Hale cites this claim to Ernest. |
| 97 | * ''Film/NotOfThisEarth1957'': The main antagonist is an alien from planet Davanna who came to Earth to study if human blood could be used to heal his dying race from an incurable disease, through any means necessary. |
| 98 | * ''Film/{{Species}}'': Although the alien hybrids can cure injuries very quickly, they are very vulnerable to earthly bacteria and viruses. |
| 99 | * ''Film/StarTrek2009'': The Vulcans become an endangered species [[spoiler: when their homeworld is destroyed by a black hole]]. No exact figures are given, but Spock personally estimates that from a population numbering over six billion no more than ''ten thousand'' survived the catastrophe. |
| 100 | * A large part of humanity, if not ''all'' of humanity, becomes this in ''Film/{{Threads}}'' after WorldWarIII. Even though there are millions of survivors still left in Britain after the initial blast, famine, disease, and violence kill millions more. [[spoiler: The film ends with Jane being horrified by the sight of her newborn baby, which likely would not be an unusual experience for post-war mothers.]] |
| 101 | * ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds1953'': The Martians are described as a dying race. This is the reason why they invade Earth, as their planet is unsuitable for life now. |
| 102 | [[/folder]] |
| 103 | |
| 104 | [[folder:Gamebooks]] |
| 105 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'': An alien race known as the Takoi in a gamebook novel. The reader is given an option on risking himself to save them. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]] |
| 106 | [[/folder]] |
| 107 | |
| 108 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 109 | * ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': |
| 110 | ** After the Capasin attack on Ket nearly wiped out all Ketrans, the few survivors fled on an experimental spacecraft. All of them were eventually killed, except [[LastOfHisKind Toomin]], who became [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien the Ellimist]]. |
| 111 | ** The [[PerfectPacifistPeople Pemalites]] were dying of a SyntheticPlague created by the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Howlers]] when they came to Earth tens of thousands of years ago. The [[RobotBuddy Chee]] preserved their "essence" in wolves, which created the first dogs. |
| 112 | ** The [[ExtremophileLifeforms Venber]] were actually driven completely extinct before the events of the series, to use their melted bodies as superconductors. The Yeerks recovered some genetic material and cloned them (with some human DNA mixed in), but even then, and especially after the events of Book #25, there are only a few left roaming the Arctic. And it's unknown if the cloned Venber can reproduce on their own, or if there's even anything they can eat on Earth. |
| 113 | ** The Arn, the creators of the Hork-Bajir, became this when they failed to realize that making themselves useless as hosts wouldn't make the Yeerks leave them alone; they'd just get used for target practice. Eventually they're reduced to [[LastOfHisKind a single individual]] in Book #34. |
| 114 | * ''Literature/TheAlchemyOfStone'' by Ekaterina Sedia. Mattie's quest is to save an ancient race. |
| 115 | * The elves in ''Literature/TheArtsOfDarkAndLight''. Thanks to their magic they are still very powerful, especially given how few they are, but their back was broken by the war with the [[SorcerousOverlord Witchkings]]. They never really recovered, and now only three of the seven elvish kingdoms remain -- and those are in steady decline as they fall further behind the rapidly multiplying humans and "subhumans" (goblins, trolls, etc) in demographic terms. The elves themselves are well aware of their problems, but no political authority is powerful enough to impose the radical (and hence, unpopular) changes that would be needed for a national rebirth. Instead, things slowly continue to grow ever worse, and individual elves react with anything from indifference to hedonism and apathy to despair. |
| 116 | * ''Literature/BeautifulLosers'': The A. tribe is a group of Indians with only thirteen remaining members. |
| 117 | * ''Literature/CodexAlera'': [[spoiler:The [[HiveQueen Vord Queens,]] and the Vord by extension,]] end the book series as a Dying Race. [[spoiler:The primary Vord queen woken in the first book was forced to make all her daughters sterile because [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters they inevitably turned on her]] [[HumanityIsInfectious due to her contamination.]] With her death in the final volume, the only one left in Canea is sterile and thus can't reproduce. Once she dies, the Vord are finished.]] |
| 118 | * The [[CallARabbitASmeerp Shanti]] in ''Literature/TheConquerorFromADyingKingdom''. They're basically [[OurElvesAreDifferent elves]] with genocidal enemies and suffer from the ImmortalProcreationClause. |
| 119 | * ''Literature/ACourtOfThornsAndRoses'': Alis mentions that her race is this, needing 75 years to mature and pregnancies being extremely rare. |
| 120 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': |
| 121 | ** In an early book, one troll mentions that they're a dying race. This is not mentioned in later books. |
| 122 | ** It's suggested that vampires ''not'' wanting to become this trope is a major motivation for the foundation of [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampires the Uberwald Temperance League]]. With human technology and civilization on the ascent, they know it's their only chance. |
| 123 | * In N. R. Eccles-Smith's HighFantasy series, ''Literature/{{DragonCalling}}'', the four remaining serpentine drakes (thought by most to be long-ago extinct) are fated to die in order to restore the flow of their Beacon Thrones. |
| 124 | * ''Literature/EarthsChildren'': The Neanderthals series are, of course, destined for extinction, although it's hinted that at least some of their hybrid offspring may interbreed with modern humans and so have descendants. |
| 125 | * ''Literature/{{Genome}}'' has the Taii, a VestigialEmpire that now only controls about a dozen worlds. It used to rule what is now controlled by the younger races before a mutually-destructive war with an equally-powerful empire. At this point, their culture is slowly dying, remembering their past glory. Their technology is now significantly behind the galactic standard (it's mentioned that their ancient planetoid-sized battleships are easily outmatched by a tiny human destroyer). |
| 126 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': The giants can be considered as such: wizards have killed many of them, and the few that are left have a tendency to fight each other to the death. They aren't built to be cooped up together, but don't have many options besides huddling together in the mountains. |
| 127 | * ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'': The dragons were almost completely exterminated by Galbatorix when he rose to power -- by the time he was done, the once-prosperous species was down to three eggs and two males. Complicating this is the fact that the two dragons that hatch over the body of the trilogy find themselves on opposite sides of the war. In ''Inheritance'', [[spoiler:it's however revealed that [[ThereIsAnother a cache of dragon eggs]] was hidden away, giving the species the chance of having a future again.]] |
| 128 | * ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'': While Barsoom is a dying world with most of their people struggling to survive, none are as doomed as the Lotharians of which only 1000 remain with no females and children among them. They live as recluses in the Torquas swamps and developed such advanced psychic powers to create life-like soldiers to defend them as well as extend their own lifespans. Their leader Tario attempted to use his powers to circumvent this problem by materializing a female in secret, though he had no success. |
| 129 | * in''Literature/TheLongPriceQuartet'': |
| 130 | ** The cities of the Khaiem depend totally on the powers of the andat to run their economies and defend them from attack. But since an andat which has been bound and then released can never again be bound in the same way, the power of the andat diminishes slightly with every lost binding. One character contrasts this with the Galts, whose technology grows more and more powerful each year, as new discoveries build on old. |
| 131 | ** [[spoiler:Both the Khaiem and the Galts]] become this at the end of ''An Autumn War'', when the andat Corrupting-The-Generative slips from control and sterilizes every [[spoiler:Khaiate woman and every Galtish man]]. |
| 132 | * ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': By the time of the War of the Ring, most races are on their way out, with humans likely to fill in the gap. |
| 133 | ** TheAgeless Elves are dwindling thanks to huge losses over millennia of wars and cataclysms. More of the survivors are choosing to pass over the sea to the Undying Lands, and even the youngest elves in the story are well over two thousand years old. In the years after the series' end, all but a few sail west to the Undying Lands, with the stragglers slowly fading away into spirits. |
| 134 | ** Although the Ents are nearly immortal, the demographic hit they took when Sauron's forces burned their homeland (now called the Brown Lands), particularly the extinction of the Entwives therein, means they can't reproduce, and therefore they're on a slow but inevitable road to extinction. |
| 135 | ** The might and power of the Dwarves has been lessened over time by their many wars (mainly with the Enemy but also with others) and the fall of their ancestral home, Moria. The fact that only a third of their population is female doesn't help with the population growth and many of the men will not marry, choosing instead to focus on their crafts. Furthermore, many of the women refuse to marry if they cannot have the man that they desire. They do go through a final renaissance after the story concludes, but after that, it's all downhill. |
| 136 | ** Goblins, orcs and trolls find themselves dying off in droves after the fall of Mordor, reduced to being monsters under beds and villains in fairy tales and stories, never again to be the great threats they once were. |
| 137 | ** The last balrog and the last giant spider die and retreat from the world, respectively, in the course of the story, and the last of the {{Giant Flyer}}s that the Riders use dies as well. |
| 138 | ** The Dragons have by and large died out before the story starts, most having been killed in wars against the Elves and Dwarves or slain by heroes over time. While various lesser wyrms and drakes endure in the north, by the time ''Literature/TheHobbit'' starts, Smaug is the last of the true, great dragons left. |
| 139 | * ''Literature/TheManWhoFellToEarth'': The protagonist comes from a planet suffering a debilitating drought; about 300 of his kind are left, and he must establish himself on Earth as a businessman powerful enough to have a rescue ship constructed and launched to bring them to Earth, where they can blend in with humanity and thrive. |
| 140 | * Creator/JohnVarley's ''Literature/Millennium1983''. The future human race can't reproduce because their DNA has been damaged by pollution. This also appears in the FilmOfTheBook, ''Film/Millennium1989''. |
| 141 | * Creator/MichaelMoorcock has a few: |
| 142 | ** The people of Elric's race in ''Literature/TheElricSaga''. The Melniboneans used to rule the world, but now they're just a remnant, trying to cling to scraps of their former glory. |
| 143 | ** And the Vadhagh in ''The Swords Trilogy'' [[spoiler:(at first)]]. |
| 144 | * ''Literature/AMemoirByLadyTrent'': The [[spoiler:Draconeans]] once had a civilization spanning the world, but collapsed so long ago that everyone's forgotten that [[spoiler:they weren't human but DraconicHumanoids]]. In the final book, Isabella finds [[spoiler:a HiddenElfVillage in the highest mountains of the world]] but there are still no more than a few thousand left. |
| 145 | * ''Literature/TheMoteInGodsEye'': According to Whitbred's Motie, the Moties are this, culturally if not biologically. With every Cycle, a little more of their system's resources are used up in ways that can't easily be replaced, and it becomes that much harder for the next batch of civilizations to lift themselves up out of barbarism. |
| 146 | * ''Literature/NewJediOrder'': Although the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Yuuzhan Vong]] initially seem to be an awe-inspiring powerful military juggernaut, it's gradually revealed that they're actually a decaying, decrepit civilization and merely TheRemnant of a once-great empire. Locked in a downward spiral of stagnation and riven by internecine strife, they were briefly revitalized by finding a common enemy in the New Republic but, as the series goes on, the old problems start resurfacing again. By the end of the series, [[spoiler:the Vong's rediscovery of their ancestral home and renunciation of their warlike ways seems to have given them a new, healthier lease on life.]] |
| 147 | * ''Literature/{{Paradox}}'' has the Eldritch. The genetic modifications that gave them their longevity caused severe fertility problems, more than one child is uncommon, and inbreeding is becoming an issue. But the thing is, many of the [[HumanSubspecies Pelted]] races of the Alliance had similar issues, and they've used their technology to alleviate the problem, it's just that most Eldritch are isolationist xenophobes. |
| 148 | * In ''Literature/RaptorRed'', the whip-tails (a type of diplodocid sauropod that is still around in the novel’s setting of the Early Cretaceous) are dying out, due to being decimated by a plague. |
| 149 | * "Literature/ARoseForEcclesiastes": The Martians. As much existential as it is biological in this case. The Martians aren't even trying to avert their extinction, because they all believe in a prophecy that tells them how it's going to go. It turns out that the prophecy [[spoiler:also tells them how they will be saved. Their inaction wasn't because they'd given up but because they were waiting for the time specified in the prophecy.]] |
| 150 | * ''Literature/SecondApocalypse'': The Nonmen suffered a {{gendercide}} and were cursed with immortality, so the race consists of ancient men who are being driven insane by TheFogOfAges and the inevitable doom of their race. |
| 151 | * ''Literature/{{Semiosis}}'': The human colonists on Pax move into the ruins of a town built by disappeared aliens, whom they call Glassmakers. A century later they learn that a small remnant of Glassmakers survive as nomads, crippled by long-term malnutrition and the breakdown of their social structure. The colonists take great pains to bring them into their community and help them recover. |
| 152 | * In the ''Literature/{{Silverwing}}'' prequel ''Darkwing'' ([[WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck No, not that one]]), the Saurians are on their way out. They are [[RaptorAttack raptor-like]] dinosaurs (and pterosaurs) who have survived the cataclysm that wiped out most of their kind at the end of the Cretaceous Period and are still around in the novel’s setting of the Early Paleogene, but are slowly dying out due to lack of food, climatic changes, and a rotting virus. Even so, an adult or even juvenile Saurian is still too powerful for the small mammal protagonists to take down in a fight, and the mammals have decided to exterminate what little eggs the surviving Saurians have laid to prevent them from making a comeback. |
| 153 | * In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', the fantastical races tend to be this due to the encroaching expansion of baseline humans. |
| 154 | ** The Others, described by the author as "the [[TheFairFolk Sidhe]] made of ice", once threatened all Westeros in the Long Night, but were so reduced by that conflict that they haven't been seen in thousands of years and are believed extinct. They seem to be on the comeback in the series, but we've still no evidence there are more than a dozen of them of left. Their [[NightOfTheLivingMooks wight army]] is a different matter. |
| 155 | ** There are only a few hundred Giants left, despite them having once inhabited most of Westeros and Essos where they built towns and castles, and their domesticated animals like mammoths (which they use for riding) and unicorns (which survive only on the island of Skagos) are similarly rare. The small population of Giants that does survive just barely subsists north of the Wall, having been killed off by men of all types, most notably the Jogos Nhai and the First Men of the North. By the time the series begins, the last reports of giants in Westeros are more than a century old. |
| 156 | ** Direwolves are on their way out, too, although they will likely last longer than the rest. As [[CanisMajor super-intelligent wolves the size of ponies]] (making them about twice as large -- and much smarter -- than our historical direwolves), they were once an apex predator in the northern half of Westeros, where they were organized to the point there were about 100 direwolves per pack (for context, gray wolf packs average 6, and the largest ever documented reached 37). It is precisely because of this that the First Men of the North hunted them to near-extinction. While an extent population survives north of the Wall, the last documented sighting of a direwolf when the series begins is two centuries old, and we've only seen six (all from the same litter) so far. |
| 157 | ** Dragons are extinct at the beginning of the series. They were speculated to be an artificial subspecies of the smaller wyvern created by the Valyrians, and with them the Valyrian Freehold and their descendants dominated the known world for centuries. The Doom of Valyria killed most of them, with three surviving under the control of a minor Valyrian lord named Aegon Targaryen, who used them to conquer Westeros. Over the next three centuries, the original dragons died of old age and their descendants were killed off either in fights with each other (during Targaryen civil wars) or the occasional freak incident where particularly lucky and numerous humans managed to bag one. The surviving eggs were tainted, and the last few that hatched were badly degenerated and barely the size of dogs. There might be hope for them again after Daenerys manages to hatch three healthy specimens. |
| 158 | ** The Children of the Forest, a race of meter-tall catlike magical humanoids, were the original sapient inhabitants of Westeros alongside the giants and the Others. They forged an alliance with the First Men to defeat the latter, but after the Others were banished, said men turned on them and hunted them to near-extinction like the giants. A notable population survived north of the Wall, but they have been slowly dying out over the course of centuries. By the books' time, one village is all that's left. |
| 159 | ** In ''A World of Ice and Fire'', there's mention of the Hairy Men, a subspecies of shaggy, stout humanoids that were once very widespread in western Essos, dominating the central grasslands and the western hills and islands, but were displaced over time by the advance of the humans, who drove them out of their kingdoms one after the other. It's hinted that the Ibbenese are all that remains of their race. |
| 160 | ** The Ibbense themselves are a borderline example. A [[HumanSubspecies subspecies of humans]] very similar to typical [[OurDwarvesAreDifferent fantasy dwarves]] (short, squat, broad, strong, hairy, clan-based culture, skilled craftsmen, love gold, favor axes in battle), they once ruled a large part of the Essosi mainland with urban colonies throughout its northern coast. Almost all of these were destroyed in the Age of Blood by the [[HordesFromTheEast Dothraki]] ZergRush, and the same fate (just at the hands of different humans) presumably befell now-abandoned Ibbense cities in places like the Lorathi isles and Thousand Islands. Currently they're almost entirely restricted to the Iceland-sized island of Ib itself, with one modest fiefdom (New Ibbish) on the mainland. |
| 161 | ** While not elaborated on in very much detail, firewyrms (somewhat smaller dragon-like creatures that can breathe fire but lack wings) appear to be extinct, as they only show up in historical records. By contrast, thriving populations of wyverns (more birdlike dragons that ''can't'' breathe fire, and vary from 2 to 10+ meters depending on subspecies) are still thriving in Sothoryos. |
| 162 | ** Surviving Valyrians, the Elf-like progenitors of House Targaryen, can be counted on one hand. After the Doom that destroyed their civilization the only known survivors were people who had outposts far away from the mainland such as Aegon and his family. In the century after that cataclysm, wars broke out among the colonies and their empire fell. The culture and language still exists as it was passed down to the Free Cities, but outside a few aristocratic families the very ethnicity is dead, following years of intermingling with locals. |
| 163 | * ''Literature/TheSpaceTrilogy'': All three races of Malacandra are destined to die off in the coming centuries, as their inhuman and animalistic form no longer belongs in a universe where their creator, Maleldil the Young, has taken [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} human form.]] |
| 164 | * ''Literature/TheSparrow'': In ''Children of God'', [[spoiler:the Runa uprising against their Jana'ata overlords]] nearly wipes out the entire race. The only hope of survival is a "reservation" system which will allow the 1500 or so [[spoiler:Jana'ata]] remaining to repopulate without [[spoiler:having to rely on eating the Runa]]. |
| 165 | * The ''Literature/StarTrekNovelVerse'' portrays the Andorians as this. Their complex four-sex biology is failing them and their window of fertility has dropped to only four or five years. The Andorian culture has reorganized itself around ArrangedMarriage for quads of young people who are genetically compatible. Unless their genome can be repaired, the Andorians face extinction within fifteen generations. Note that events in later stories -- ''Literature/StarTrekDestiny'' most notably -- make the problem even worse. |
| 166 | %%* The alien race that the [=AIs=] have contact with in Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Literature/{{Sunstorm}}''. |
| 167 | * Thomas Burnett Swann used this in most of his novels for all the mythological creatures that were being displaced by encroaching humans. |
| 168 | * ''Literature/TalesOfKolmar'': [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Kantri]] are just starting to enter this phase in ''Song In The Silence''. Five thousand years ago the total population of sentient "greater" Kantri was cut in half and the remaining two hundred retreated to isolation on an island. In that time their numbers haven't rebuilt at all, in fact the opposite is true, though the dying is very slow. The species is just becoming collectively dispirited and there are fewer mated pairs and fewer births all the time; they live long, but not forever. Only a few of them recognize that it's happening in that book. [[spoiler: In later books it's solved, and they manage to flourish.]] |
| 169 | * ''Literature/{{Uprooted}}'': When [[spoiler:Agnieszka]] is shoved into a heart-tree, it tells its history: ''she'' was once a tree-person. When the tree-people began fading and dying out, her sister tried marrying a human king to revitalize her people through their offspring, but she was betrayed and the tree-people decided to revert entirely to trees. The Wood sprang up from the queen's rage when some unwitting woodcutters came to the grove. |
| 170 | * The ''Literature/{{Wayfarers}}'' series has the Grum, Dr Chef's species. They reduced themselves to critically-endangered status in a particularly awful civil war, and after the war ended the three hundred or so scattered survivors collectively decided it would be best for them to go quietly extinct. |
| 171 | * The aufwaders in Robin Jarvis's ''Literature/WhitbyWitches'' trilogy are under a curse which kills any female of their races who becomes pregnant, unless she takes a special herb to end the pregnancy. Even if the pregnancy is carried to term, both mother and baby will die shortly after the birth; the mother dissolves into a briny sludge (the curse causes its victim's blood to turn into salt water) while the baby crumbles to dust. As a result only a handful of mostly middle-aged and elderly aufwaders remain, Nelda (one of the main characters in the trilogy) being the only member of their race born since the laying of the curse to survive infancy. |
| 172 | * Similar to the above, ''Franchise/TheWitcher'' world is slowly being rid of nonhuman sapients and fantastical beasts through the expansion of humans. The best-off nonhuman sapients, like the Black Seidhe elves that founded the Nilfgaardian Empire, merely slowly fade away through intermarriage with the fast-breeding humans, leaving negligible genetic impact but significant cultural impact on their descendants (the official language of the Empire is still an elvish dialect, and a few small pure elvish communities survives as client fiefdoms or districts). The less lucky ones, like a lot of local Aen Seidhe elf, dwarf, and halfling populations in the Northern Kingdoms, are simply [[HumansAreBastards displaced or exterminated]]. Trolls, succubi, and dopplers are not interfertile with humans and generally inoffensive enough that most humans let them stick around, but their populations are still noticeably small and don't seem to be expanding. As for the monsters (such as griffins, wyverns, giants, and cockatrices), they used to comprise various dangerous invasive species, but due to the efforts of both the witchers and regular human armies, have progressively been declining in numbers. By ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'', some monsters like royal griffins are considered endangered species. The titular Witchers are one as well, since the mutations an aspiring Witcher has to undergo invariably render the subject sterile, so they can't reproduce by breeding - and Kaer Morhen, the Witcher base where Geralt himself was created, has been destroyed by a mob some sixty years or so before the "present". |
| 173 | [[/folder]] |
| 174 | |
| 175 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 176 | * ''Series/BabylonFive'' -- Several examples: |
| 177 | ** The Minbari -- fewer are born with each generation and the greatest of their souls are no longer found among them, for [[spoiler:their souls are being reborn into humans (a large plot point in the series).]] |
| 178 | ** The Narn and the Centauri are both said to be dying races according to Kosh. However, this is more philosophical than literal -- Kosh meant that both were trapped in a cycle of revenge and fixated on each other's deaths to their own detriment, and were therefore (from a Vorlon point of view) on the path to eventual destruction. Both the Narn and Centauri are in fact populous and relatively vital... [[spoiler:although the Narn were devastated by the Centauri bombardment of their homeworld, and the Centauri by the damage done to their homeworld by the Drakh. Word of God is that both species survive, but neither ascend to First-One status, by the ending of the story.]] |
| 179 | ** The Hyach are a more literal example; though there are still quite a few of them around, their genome is slowly collapsing due to having become dependent on a counterpart species that is no longer around [[spoiler: because the Hyach killed them all.]] |
| 180 | ** And many of the "First Races" are dying races... |
| 181 | ** The Markab went from thriving race to virtually extinct over the course of a single episode, thanks to a plague that many of its victims refused to acknowledge having caught, as an old folk tale claimed that only the sinful could catch it. |
| 182 | * ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': |
| 183 | ** Humans themselves after the Cylon destruction of the Twelve Colonies, when there are only about 50,000 survivors who flee into deep space and the number proceeds to dwindle over the course of the series. |
| 184 | ** Cylons play it straight after the resurrection hub is destroyed. They can't procreate with each other, and they can't transfer their essence into new bodies anymore. [[spoiler:The last Cylons eventually interbreed with the last humans to form a new race.]] |
| 185 | * In the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' comic continuation, the Seed of Wonder [[TheMagicGoesAway was destroyed]]. Among other things, this meant that no more vampires could be created, instead the humans killed by vampires become a kind of zombie vampire. Finally, the Seed of Wonder [[TheMagicComesBack is restored]], and a new race of vampires emerges, much more powerful than the old race. Both the old race of the vampires and the zompires can no longer be created, but only the new race of the vampires. |
| 186 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 187 | ** In between the old and new series, the Doctor used "the Moment" to wipe out all the Time Lords, leaving just him, [[spoiler:an OppositeSexClone genetic anomaly that may or may not "count", a handful of part-human hybrids, and, at least for a time, his arch-enemy the Master]]. [[spoiler:Following "The Day of the Doctor" and the events of Series 9, however, the Time Lords have been returned to the universe.]] |
| 188 | ** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E1TheLeisureHive The Leisure Hive]]", the Argolians are a dying race, having been afflicted by a SterilityPlague in the aftermath of their twenty minute war with the Foamasi. |
| 189 | * ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'': the Taelons are dying. As are their "cousins" the Jaridians. Both races are the result of an Atavus cult leader draining most of the race from their "core energy" and infusing his small group of followers with it. This group (augmented with Kimera DNA/energy) became the Taelons, while what's left of the Atavus became the Jaridians. No wonder the Jaridians hate the Taelons. By Season 5, both races are virtually gone. Only a single Taelon is left (another one is resurrected, before being converted into an Atavus and then killed), while the Jaridian homeworld is mentioned to have imploded (for some reason). |
| 190 | * ''Series/{{Farscape}}'''s Ancients, the ones who gave John the wormhole information. |
| 191 | * The Second Age in ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' is the beginning of the end for the Elves, and they know it. They are desperate to get their hands on the mithril to avoid fading away because of the growing evil in Middle-earth. Unfortunately for them, becoming a DyingRace by the end of the Second Age is a ForegoneConclusion. |
| 192 | * ''Series/{{Primeval}}'': In the BadFuture which Matt comes from; humans, Mutated Future Predators and a few other future creature species exist after the ApocalypseHow which turned the Earth's surface into a dead wasteland, but according to Matt, ''all'' of them are still gradually but surely hurtling towards extinction. |
| 193 | * ''Franchise/{{Quatermass}} and the Pit'' features a dying race of alien AncientAstronauts who apparently attempted to genetically engineer humanity to become their successors. |
| 194 | * ''Series/StargateSG1'': |
| 195 | ** The Asgard, who survive only through cloning, and have found that every new generation of clones suffers a slight degeneration. [[spoiler:Then, after thousands of years of cloning, they decide to commit mass suicide instead of dying slowly and give all their knowledge and technology to humanity. However, a branch of the race, calling themselves Vanir, still exists in the Pegasus Galaxy, having managed to partly cure their degradation by performing experiments on humans. It's unknown how many Vanir are still alive, but it's likely they can't reproduce any more than their cousins in the Ida Galaxy could.]] |
| 196 | ** The Tok'ra cannot reproduce. Their only symbiont queen has been killed so she cannot create a new symbiont. However, from time to time, some Goa'uld have joined the Tok'ra, perhaps one day a new queen will be among them. |
| 197 | * ''Franchise/StarTrek'': |
| 198 | ** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': |
| 199 | *** The pilot "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E0TheCage The Cage]]" (and two-part episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E11TheMenageriePartI The Men]][[Recap/StarTrekS1E12TheMenageriePartII agerie]]"). The Talosians are condemned to eventual extinction because their power of mental illusions acts like an addicting drug. They consider their dreams to be more important than reality, so they gave up travelling, building, and creating. They can't even repair the machines left by their ancestors. |
| 200 | *** "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E20ReturnToTomorrow Return to Tomorrow]]" featured a race that had been all but destroyed in a massive war thousands of years ago, and by the time the episode occurred only three individuals had survived as [[SoulJar disembodied consciousnesses preserved in storage devices]]. |
| 201 | *** The Scalosians in "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E11WinkOfAnEye Wink of an Eye]]" |
| 202 | ** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': |
| 203 | *** The episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E18UpTheLongLadder Up the Long Ladder]]". The inhabitants of the planet Mariposa reproduce by cloning and are suffering from a disorder called [[CloneDegeneration replicative fading]] that occurs when DNA is cloned too many times. If not corrected, they won't be able to reproduce. |
| 204 | *** The episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E16WhenTheBoughBreaks When the Bough Breaks]]": The inhabitants of the planet Aldea have become sterile as a side effect of their planetary cloaking device. The Aldeans decide to steal children from the Enterprise to carry on their civilization. |
| 205 | ** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': The Changeling race is slowly dying, due to a {{synthetic plague}} engineered by Section 31 to bring about a Changeling genocide. [[spoiler: In the series finale, Odo returns to the Great Link to cure his people of the Section 31 virus and avert the genocide.]] |
| 206 | ** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' gives us the Hirogen. Their obsession with HuntingTheMostDangerousGame has made them spread themselves too thin, with one of them worried that within a thousand years they'll go extinct. |
| 207 | * ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': By Season 13, the angels are this. No new angels have come into existence since God first created them all at the dawn of time, and between the Apocalypse, the Leviathans, the Fall, the Darkness, and all the infighting, their numbers have been significantly whittled down, to the point there's hardly any left. They're so desperate that they are willing to allow Lucifer to temporarily take over Heaven when he says he knows the secret of making more angels ([[ILied he's lying]]). It's shown that Heaven itself is powered by angels and will eventually crumble if they die out, and they were hoping that bringing back an archangel, any of them, would solve that problem as well. In Season 14, the angel Duma manages to convince Jack, the [[AntiAntichrist good-hearted demi-human son of Lucifer]], to make more angels by [[AngelicTransformation transmuting human souls into grace]]. Castiel intervenes before he can produce more than a handful, however. By the end of the series, after [[spoiler:Jack has replaced Chuck as the new God, he presumably replenished their population fully again to keep Heaven stable.]] |
| 208 | [[/folder]] |
| 209 | |
| 210 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 211 | * The Squonk in the Music/{{Genesis|Band}} song of the same name. |
| 212 | * In the song ''Shadow of the Mithril Mountains'' of Music/{{Dragonland}}, Duviel -- the Elven queen -- describes her race as a withering one. |
| 213 | [[/folder]] |
| 214 | |
| 215 | [[folder:Podcasts]] |
| 216 | * In the ''Podcast/CoolKidsTable'' ''Franchise/HarryPotter''-themed game ''Hogwarts: The New Class'', magical people have taken a huge hit to their population during the war against Voldemort. Now they need to bring their numbers back up through complex plans, such as reintroducing American muggle-borns to the community via time-travel. |
| 217 | [[/folder]] |
| 218 | |
| 219 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 220 | * ''TabletopGame/FiftyFathoms'': The Doreen, Kraken and Scurrilans. The Doreen habitats were destroyed by the recent apocalypse, the Kraken were hit hard by first said apocalypse and by the {{Big Bad}}s later. There have never been more than 200 Scurrilans, and Scurrilans don't get along with anyone, even each other. |
| 221 | * ''TabletopGame/DragonTheEmbers'': In the distant past, the Dragons made a [[DealWithTheDevil deal with the Deep Ones for immortality]], the price of which was their ability to increase their numbers. Now, the only way for a new Dragon to be created is for someone to kill an existing Dragon and eat their Heart. Which also means that every time a Heart is destroyed without being eaten, the number of Dragons is forever decreased. |
| 222 | * ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': |
| 223 | ** In "B4: The Lost City", an early ''D&D'' adventure, the weird underground humans of Cynedicea are this trope. |
| 224 | ** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'': Dwarves may or may not be this trope, depending on which products you credence. Some of the 2E products suggest that dwarf males may be marrying human women (and breeding true) as a counter to their own race's slow birth rate and scarcity of females. |
| 225 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'': |
| 226 | ** The Dragon-Kings (dinosaur-folk) have been dying for thousands of years now. Due to the way the Dragon-Kings reincarnate, they can't expand beyond the number of available souls, and that number has suffered enormous periodic drop offs throughout the history of Man. Even among those who remain, the devastation of their culture (and past life memories of their grief) means that the vast majority are never educated past the feral first stage of their life. |
| 227 | ** TheFairFolk are in a similar boat; the majority of them invaded Creation during the Balorian Crusade and were subsequently all but wiped out by the [[LostSuperweapon Realm Defense Grid]], leaving scant millions remaining. This combined with how they "reproduce" slowly and their original home being occupied by a ravenous offshoot means they've largely fallen into melancholy. |
| 228 | * ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'': |
| 229 | ** "Dying race" (by that exact name) is a racial disadvantage in ''GURPS Aliens'': "For whatever reason, the race's death rate has exceeded the birth rate. If this trend isn't reversed, the race will be extinct in a few generations." The Jarrel are a race described as having this trait, but are trying to recover and start growing again. |
| 230 | ** It was eliminated in 4e on charges of not actually being disadvantageous to the individual player. You can still simulate it by taking other disadvantages, you'd just ''actually have to earn your points.'' |
| 231 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Numenera}}'': |
| 232 | ** Athamak sailwings are a very ancient race, but have been steadily deteriorating for a very long time. They must periodically undergo long hibernations, but their brains decay during these periods and cause them to awaken as beasts until they can consume a large quantity of brain matter; even when they do this, they often regain only parts of their previous faculties, decaying in intellect and knowledge with every cycle. They are also unable to reproduce, and thus cannot make up for any losses in their numbers. |
| 233 | ** Every year on Naharrai is a bit drier than the year before it, while the storms likewise grow more violent. The ellaticurids are well aware that their race and their world are dying, and they can do nothing about either. |
| 234 | * ''TabletopGame/PrometheanTheCreated'': While Prometheans as a whole are not exactly on the verge of extinction (though they are implied to be one of the rarer races of the ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness''; the original core book estimates there's less than one for every million humans, so roughly eight thousand as an upper limit), shifts in the world and in the nature of Azoth will sometimes render specific lineages unable to reproduce, dooming them to eventually die out as their members either die or achieve the New Dawn without being replaced. Specific examples of this include the Hollows (born of the Dust Bowl agricultural disaster and unable to be created after the long drought ended), and the Amirani (the choler-aspected Lineage who preceded the Frankensteins, the reason for their fading is unclear). |
| 235 | * ''TabletopGame/RuneQuest'': Most of the Elder Races are dying out for various reasons. |
| 236 | ** Dwarves aren't doing too well in general terms, but the Mostali are in an especially bad spot. While it can be used to refer to the dwarven race as a whole, "Mostali" strictly refers to the original dwarves made by the god Mostal, who benefited from the greater skill and knowledge of their maker and are thus more talented, cunning and skillful than lesser dwarves. Since Mostal is dead, no new Mostali can be made -- Mostali and dwarves can manufacture new individuals of their kind, but lack the skill to create true Mostali. Almost all Mostali perished during the Great Darkness, and the few who made it through have slowly but steadily died off through the ages. |
| 237 | ** Trolls have been slowly declining due to an ancestral curse that makes most of their births come out as stunted, barely sapient trollkin. Mistress Race trolls in particular are so rare that they are largely believed extinct by men and only a few thousand are left in all Glorantha. |
| 238 | * ''TabletopGame/Space1889'': The canals of Mars are slowly decaying and cannot be repaired, which will result in Mars becoming arid and basically uninhabitable again, destroying most native life including the three types of sentients. Canal Martians generally more or less accept this, which the Europeans, who believe in Progress and sometimes in social darwinism, find offensive or a sign of weakness. |
| 239 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Stormbringer}}'' supplement ''Stormbringer Companion'', adventure "The Crystal of Daerdaerdarth". Valyk's Island holds a race of creatures known as the Kay, who were created using sorcery by the Melnibonean wizard Earl Valyk thousands of years earlier. They're in decline because 80% of their breeding females die soon after birth. |
| 240 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': |
| 241 | ** The Elves are dying off due to the various catastrophes that have hit them over the millennia. Dark Elves, again, don't seem to have this problem (presumably they breed at least fast enough to make up the numbers lost from their sacrifices and constant warfare). |
| 242 | ** Dwarfs are also dying, and have stayed in decline since the destruction of their greatest kingdoms, something not at all helped by their obsession with grudges that causes them to constantly go from one war to the next. |
| 243 | ** The obscure Gnomes, ancient relics of old lore [[TheBusCameBack reintroduced in]] ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay 4th Edition'', are said to be even more isolationist and less prolific than the Dwarfs. With their city-state of Glimdwarrow destroyed by the WAAAGH! of Grom the Paunch, the Gnomes are reduced to eight scattered and vengeful clans [[WeAreStrugglingTogether who all blame each other for Glimdwarrow's downfall and thus have as little to do with each other as possible]]; as each clan literally represents an eighth of the remaining Gnomes' gene-stock, this means despite all their [[MasterOfIllusion aptitude at disguise and illusion]], their prospects aren't looking that bright. |
| 244 | ** The Slann used to be a dying race in older editions. It was subsequently {{retcon}}ned to make the Lizardmen slightly less grimdark; however, the younger spawnings are orders of magnitude less powerful and thus the originals are still irreplaceable. |
| 245 | ** According to ''Magazine/WhitwDwarf'' 307, little is known with confidence about the Amazons, but stories available to Old World scholars suggest that they have been slowly dying out due to being unable to restore losses to their ranks due to only being female. Their numbers have swelled again in recent times, which is believed to be due to their inducting groups of outsider women into their culture to make up for this. |
| 246 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': |
| 247 | ** ''Humanity''. Their vast interstellar empire has devolved into a brutal theocratic dictatorship and is slowly shrinking and beset on all sides by aliens and monsters, all their best technology is slowly being forgotten, their PhysicalGod [[GodEmperor Emperor]] is half-dead and being sustained by a life-support machine [[spoiler:that is falling into disrepair and will eventually fail completely]]. They are still extremely powerful, with legions of fanatical soldiers, genetically-engineered {{Super Soldier}}s, [[HumongousMecha Titans]] and legendary heroes capable of amazing feats. The human race is going down, but the sheer size of the Imperium means that it will take thousands of years for the end to come, and even then, they're more than capable of [[TakingYouWithMe dragging their destroyers down with them]]. |
| 248 | ** The Craftworld Eldar are this trope traditionally as well. They suffered a calamity that destroyed their empire long ago, and now they exist as scattered remnants wandering space seeking purpose. Although the status of how far gone they are [[DependingOnTheWriter Depends On The Writer]]: Gav Thorpe, who did most of their older fluff, said that they're as low as a dozen Craftworlds with a dozen million each, whereas new writer Phil Kelly says that there are hundreds of Craftworlds with populations ranging from a few hundred million to many billions. Matt Ward ([[BerserkButton if you actually]] [[TheScrappy acknowledge him]] [[CanonDefilement or anything he writes]]) seems to agree with Kelly, with his Craftworld Iyanden supplementary codex describing the troubled craftworld as "definitely rising from the ashes". The Eldar also suffer from low birth rates for various reasons: reluctance to do anything pleasurable since that might attract Slaanesh, gestation periods of several years, and a limited number of waystones to protect Eldar souls. Though with 8th Edition, some recent snippets of backstory hint that the Eldar may not be this trope after all... Which is not really a good thing for humanity, because it means a race of hyper-advanced, xenophobic nomads with a grudge may in fact be ''on the up''. |
| 249 | *** {{Subverted|Trope}} by the Drukhari (the "Dark Eldar"). They have a far higher death rate than their Craftworld cousins due to being more war-prone and most of them living in the most WretchedHive in the galaxy, but they use cloning and batch-births to get around the species' slow birthrate. Naturally conceived Drukhari children are known as "Trueborn" and are considered a status symbol for the ruling elites. Again, this is a very bad thing for mankind, [[AlwaysChaoticEvil because these are the Drukhari]]. |
| 250 | ** Though it's not brought up too often, the Necrontyr are slowly but surely dying out. Since they were transformed into the robotic Necrons they cannot reproduce. [[spoiler:''Devourer'' reveals that a good number of Necrons are actually "false Necrons": artificial intelligences based on the minds of former generals and nobles of the necrontyr.]] |
| 251 | * ''TabletopGame/TheWitcherGameOfImagination'': Elves and dryads suffer this fate due to human expansion and exploitation. It's easier to find a naturalized dryad (which is a well-disguised, [[HeelFaceBrainwashing brainwashed]] [[TykeBomb human girl]]) than an actual born one. |
| 252 | [[/folder]] |
| 253 | |
| 254 | [[folder:Toys]] |
| 255 | * ''ComicBook/BeastWarsUprising:'' The Builders of Cybertron, the remnants of the Autobots and Decepticons, who can't create any new 'bot without the Matrix (lost) or Vector Sigma (destroyed). While Cybertronians can still go on, Maximals and Predacons are a biologically different race created via different means. [[spoiler:By the end of the Uprising, thanks to what's happened, it's acknowledged there's barely any Builders left at all.]] |
| 256 | [[/folder]] |
| 257 | |
| 258 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 259 | * ''VideoGame/TheBannerSaga'': The [[OurGiantsAreBigger Varl]] were all created individually from clay by the god Hadrborg, and are all male thus cannot breed. This wasn't a problem, [[KillTheGod until the gods all killed each other]]. By the second game, the vast majority of varl in existence are probably marching with your caravan - only a few hundred, despite being excellent warriors with a lifespan of centuries. You can either contribute to their extinction, or attempt to save as many as you can. |
| 260 | * In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow'', the bestiary entries of various monsters state that their races are dying. The goblins were already slowly vanishing from the world before Gabriel started killing them in droves. The last Ogre also dies by Gabriel's hand. The only Dragon left in the world is a corpse animated by necromancy and Gabriel kills that too. [[spoiler:He even kills the last Old God Pan.]] The Aghartians fell long ago to the Lycans, and Gabriel destroys the last remnants of their civilization the Titans [[spoiler:[[KillTheCutie as well as the last Aghartian Claudia]] thanks to MindControl.]] By defeating the Lords of Shadow, Gabriel (seeing a pattern?) also breaks the power of the Lycans, Vampires, and Necromancers. He later [[spoiler:helps those last three back to their feet]]. |
| 261 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Darksiders}}'' series features plenty of examples: |
| 262 | ** Humanity already died out due to the game taking place a century after the Apocalypse taken place. The second game revolves around Death's attempt to restore humanity back to life in order to exonerate his brother War [[spoiler:which he succeeds at the end]]. The DLC also features a human character known as the Hunter, who reveals that pockets of survivors still remained but whether or not they are still around is unclear, and if not, he "hopes that their end was quick". |
| 263 | ** The Four Horsemen belong to an ancient ProudWarriorRace known as the Nephilim, whom they destroyed to save all of creation and left them as its sole survivors. [[spoiler:There is a fifth survivor, Absolom, who survived his death and became the living embodiment of TheCorruption and serves as the BigBad of the second game]] |
| 264 | ** The [[OurGiantsAreBigger Makers]] were another ancient race on the verge of extinction due to their Kingdom nearing the end of its life cycle with Corruption having overrun it and killing most of its members. It's implied that all that remains of their people are the seven inhabitants of the Tri-Stone sanctuary, Ulthane (who lives in exile on Earth) and the Mad Smith (who is implied to have turned himself into an undead construct). |
| 265 | * ''Franchise/DragonAge'': The dwarves are stuck in a HopelessWar with the darkspawn that has already reduced a once-thriving kingdom to two city states. [[spoiler:Worse, the entire population of one of these city states is Tainted.]] They'd be doing better if their own traditions didn't bar a chunk of the population from serving in the conventional military (or getting any kind of decent treatment). However, this is only a cultural case rather than a racial case, due to the thriving population of surface dwarves. |
| 266 | * ''VideoGame/ElohimEternalTheBabelCode'': The remaining few Cainites are slowly dying out due to the lack of Manna and their losses in the war with the Idinites. There's a source of Manna at the top of Mount Tsaphon, but the trip up there is perilous due to the shedim. |
| 267 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'': |
| 268 | ** The [[WellIntentionedExtremist Master]] from the [[VideoGame/Fallout1 first game]] wishes his [[YouWillBeAssimilated Unity]] will be a MasterRace, but an essential part of the [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath diplomatic ending]] is showing him proof (in the form of a Super Mutant autopsy report) that his mutants are sterile and it's inevitable that his Super Mutants will end up this trope. |
| 269 | ** The Wanamingos encountered in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'', as stated in the [[WordOfGod Fallout Bibles]] have a built-in "genetic clock" (they're pre-war [[BioweaponBeast Bioweapon Beasts]]) that makes sure they won't breed beyond a certain generation, and they all die 5 years after ''Fallout 2'' ends. |
| 270 | ** The Vault 87 [[{{Mutants}} Super Mutants]] encountered in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', just like in the first game, were once a massive [[ImAHumanitarian flesh-eating]] horde that prevented large civilization from forming in the capital wasteland due to their constant attacks. The [[MutagenicGoo FEV]] that created them also [[DepopulationBomb renders them sterile]] so they have to capture humans to [[AssimilationPlot make more of themselves.]] However, by the time the Lone Wanderer enters the wasteland they are running low on FEV which is revealed through their EnemyChatter and they are sending groups to try and find more. By ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' it's heavily implied that they have been [[GuiltFreeExterminationWar wiped out completely]] by the east coast Brotherhood of Steel. |
| 271 | ** Their [[VideoGame/Fallout4 Commonwealth]] cousins aren't faring much better. Thanks to [[spoiler:Virgil shutting down the Institute's FEV program]], Commonwealth Super Mutants have no way to propagate, leaving them a dangerous but finite threat. |
| 272 | * Very few ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' games have the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Manaketes]] numerous and thriving. More often than not, the timeline’s local Manakete tribe has been gutted by wars with humanity. |
| 273 | * As of ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' humanity is viewed as this by the other races of Tyria. Ascalon and Orr have been dead for centuries, Cantha has withdrawn into isolation, and Elona is enslaved by Palawa Joko, leaving only Kryta as a free human state. Many view them as overly conservative and tied down by their faith in silent gods. Humans, of course, disagree with this notion. All the same, developers have noted that every other race in the setting has been steadily expanding and growing despite their hardships. Humans, on the other hand, have been in a steady decline. |
| 274 | * ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': The Prophets were already rapidly declining when the war with humanity started. The Covenant's Prophets all come from the gene pool of a single ship launched from their (allegedly) now-destroyed homeworld, meaning they have to be very careful to avoid inbreeding. Then ''High Charity'', their major population center, was consumed by [[ZombieApocalypse The Flood]]. According to their file on ''Waypoint'', there are less than a thousand members of their species left in the whole galaxy. |
| 275 | * ''Franchise/MassEffect'': |
| 276 | ** The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]], due to the "genophage", a biological weapon that reduces the number of live krogan births to a fraction of its normal level. This actually turns out to be carefully tuned to keep their population stabilized rather than to cause extinction; because krogan are from a DeathWorld, they're {{Explosive Breeder}}s ''and'' live [[WeAreAsMayflies around a thousand years]] (if nothing kills them first). This meant that their population ''exploded'' once removed from their natural environment -- until the genophage leveled things out. Given that krogan are almost universally {{Blood Knight}}s who are fond of WeHaveReserves, their culture hasn't quite caught up with their new biology yet. Wrex at one point comments that the Genophage ''infected'' the krogan, but it isn't what's ''killing'' them. Their species is actually dying out because they haven't learned to adapt to their new way of life. If he's still alive in the second game, he's shown forcing a number of clans to work together, focus on breeding, and having basic infrastructure in an attempt to ensure his species survives. |
| 277 | *** This becomes a plot point in the second game, as Mordin's loyalty mission is rescuing a former colleague of his who is working to cure the genophage so that the krogan can breed again. Mordin reveals over the course of this mission that the krogan were adjusting to the genophage and their numbers were increasing again, so the salarians put the genophage on them ''again'' to control their numbers. The genophage causes only 1 in 1000 babies to be born alive. You do have the option to save the genophage's data at the end of the mission, though. |
| 278 | *** The third game makes curing the genophage a plot point. You can either do exactly that, or sabotage the effort. [[spoiler: If both Wrex and Eve are alive, it's hinted that their stabilizing influence will keep the krogan from becoming a threat to the universe if you cure the genophage. If either or both are dead, then it's strongly suggested that the krogan Rebellions are going to start up again if you give them the cure.]] |
| 279 | ** The eealen race in the Andromeda galaxy is never encountered, but it's noted that their population was reduced to below the point of viability after they were conquered by the Kett Empire. |
| 280 | * In ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', the Chozo realized too late that their longevity had come at the cost of reproductive capability. Without any means of propagating their race, the Chozo were doomed to extinction. Wanting to leave a lasting positive legacy behind, the Chozo became peaceful scientists and diplomats and helped form the Galactic Federation. When the Chozo on Zebes found Samus Aran after she was orphaned by the Space Pirates, they raised her as their own and bequeathed her with their own DNA and a suit of Chozo PoweredArmor since they considered her to be the last living legacy of their race. |
| 281 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'', after the Omnic Crisis, the omnics gained sapiency and became their own people. But no new omnics have been built since the Crisis, and due to old hatreds from the war, violence and genocide against the omnics has been a thing for thirty years. Their numbers are dwindling, which inspired Ramattra to found Null Sector in the hopes of [[KillAllHumans pushing back against mankind]] to ensure a future for omnics. |
| 282 | * ''VideoGame/{{Paladins}}'': |
| 283 | ** The Stagalla are a race of [[{{Golem}} stone humanoids]] who were created to serve the Paladins many years ago. Now there are very few left, with the only two known Stagalla being Inara and Terminus. While fighting the Magisrate, Terminus was killed and was later ressurected into the Magistrate obidient undead brute. |
| 284 | ** The Fae are a race of fairies who are sworn to protect nature. However, their short lifespans and war on the encroachment modern civilization has dwindled their numbers. While most of the Fae are regrouping to strengthen their population, a tenacious fairy named Willo has taken it upon herself to keep fighting. |
| 285 | * ''VideoGame/RuneScape''. |
| 286 | ** The Mahjarrat is the perfect example, as there are only nine of them confirmed alive, and each one of them is "as powerful as one of your (human) armies". |
| 287 | *** It also doesn't help that for them to continue to survive in the world of Runescape, one of them must be sacrificed in a ritual every 500 years, meaning that even if no one manages to kill any of them, they'll still go extinct. It's just a matter of time. |
| 288 | *** And only one pure blooded female still exists, and she isn't interested in reproducing. Even if she were, the Mahjarrat are SemiDivine beings that cost massive amounts of difficult to replenish divine LifeEnergy to create. |
| 289 | ** The Dragonkin, the race that created dragons, has only a few individuals remaining. They were based on the Skeksis from ''Film/TheDarkCrystal''. |
| 290 | ** The reptilian race called the Illujanka, or Dragon Riders, originally joined Zaros's empire because he promised them a cure for their fertility problems. He did attempt to cure them, but by the time Zaros was banished, there were only five of them left on Gielinor. During "One of a Kind" the player frees what is believed to be the last Dragon Rider from suspended animation. At the end of the quest it is discovered there still is a population of them left on their home world but they have given up hope of escaping extinction. It is later determined that the cause of their infertility is due to a change in their planet's Anima (life energy), which made their world unsuitable for the growth of intelligent life, so they could recover if they moved to another planet. [[spoiler:This ends up happening when Seren decides to allow the elder god eggs to hatch on the illujanka's planet, forcing them to evacuate to Gielinor]]. |
| 291 | ** The plot of the quests "The Elder Kiln" and "The Brink of Extinction" is the player saving the Tzhaar race from going extinct. The Tzhaar are a race of creature made of living volcanic rock that pass their memories to their offspring when they reproduce, but recently they have only been able to create Ga'al, which are Tzhaar born without memories, and without the ability to pass their memories to their offspring, they fear that their culture will die. In "The Elder Kiln" they want to try fusing the remains of a dead Tzhaar to a Ga'al to give it memories. This reveals the horrifying truth that dead tzhaar remain [[AndIMustScream conscious and in agony]] when they die and are broken into pieces. In "The Brink of Extinction" they still want to continue doing this despite being told this horrible truth, and the player has to find and solve the cause of their loss of their ability to pass on their memories. [[spoiler: After the quest is over the player can confront the Tokhaar responsible for taking away the Tzhaar's ability to reproduce normally and he reveals that he was trying to force the Tzhaar to return to the Kiln in order to save them, because the Tzhaar are growing weaker with every generation because the transference of memories to their offspring isn't perfect. The Tzhaar were never meant to reproduce or die at all, they are supposed to be melted down and reborn in the Kiln -- the creation of the Ga'al wasn't something he expected to happen. As such, even though the player has saved the Tzhaar in the short term, they are still doomed in the long run if they don't return to the Kiln, which turns the end of the quest into a DownerEnding if the player finds out about this. The player later learns that the Tzhaar still have an important consolation; The Ga'al are a BlankSlate capable of learning at a rapid rate. While their original GeneticMemory will still fade over time, they can relearn from teachers of the previous generation or even create new ones to replace them.]] |
| 292 | * In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', TheFairFolk. They are desperate to survive, and only barely manage to do so by recovering the Holy Grail (Dagda's Cauldron) from the Angels and summoning Lady Danu to help restore everyone. However, she has become Black Maria in order to protect them, and can no longer reclaim her old position. It falls to recurring ally Nozomi to accept the fate of becoming the new Lady Danu in order to save them from extinction. |
| 293 | * ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': The echidna species, with Knuckles being the LastOfHisKind. |
| 294 | * ''VideoGame/StarControl Origins'': The DLC reveals that this is true of the Scryve, the main antagonists. When they achieved [[TheAgeless biological immortality]], they decided that they had become perfect as a lifeform, and any further evolution would be detrimental, so they sterilized themselves. Of course, they can still die due to accident or being murdered, which means it's inevitable that they will die out given enough time. The Scryve don't seem to care that much. |
| 295 | * ''VideoGame/WakingMars'' exhibits this with [[spoiler: the Sentients, a race of ancient Martian [[StarfishAliens spaghetti]][[BuffySpeak -things]] that were forced into stasis underground by some ancient cataclysm that made Mars the Red Planet we know today.]] |
| 296 | * ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': |
| 297 | ** The Forsaken are undead and thus incapable of reproducing. While they can reclaim some undead from the feral Scourge, for the most part their population is in constant decline. Recognizing this danger, Sylvanas has recruited the remaining Val'kyr to create new Forsaken soldiers out of their fallen enemies and allies. [[spoiler:As of ''Legion'', the Val'kyr are wiped out, leaving Sylvanas with no other way to create more Forsaken. They will die out, it's only a matter of time.]] |
| 298 | ** After the [[ZombieApocalypse invasion of Quel'thalas by the Scourge]], 90% of the High Elf population was wiped out. They've made some headway in recovering, [[CrapsackWorld but there's always some new disaster to cut into their already small numbers]]. |
| 299 | ** The Night Elves are no longer immortal after the destruction of the World Tree. However, with the sweeping changes and threats to Azeroth recently, their culture has changed from their static ways of druid sleep into a far more active one; becoming a dying race has them more active and powerful than ever before. |
| 300 | ** Dragons were immortal thanks to the blessing of the Titans, which was lost when they destroyed Deathwing. Not only did empowering the Dragon Soul weaken every dragonflight, it also rendered them sterile. The clutches of eggs laid before Deathwing's death are possibly the last generation that will ever be born. One of the most [[BrokenBase contentious]] achievements of the ''Legion'' expansion was awarded for [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential killing all the remaining red whelplings]]. |
| 301 | * ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' reveals that the Ethereals, the ruling species of the evil alien empire, are on the verge of dying out - their physical bodies aren't just atrophied from disuse, they can no longer sustain the Ethereals' tremendous PsychicPowers. While [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing no one in the Resistance is upset by this,]] the problem is that the Ethereals' solution to this crisis is the Avatar Project, harvesting HumanResources from Earth's population to make {{Custom Built Host}}s for their minds to inhabit. |
| 302 | [[/folder]] |
| 303 | |
| 304 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 305 | * ''VisualNovel/SablesGrimoire: A Dragon's Treasure'': Dragons have driven themselves to the brink of extinction by killing one another over petty squabbles. Only a hundred of them are still alive by the present day, with the survivors choosing to stay far away from each other to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. |
| 306 | [[/folder]] |
| 307 | |
| 308 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 309 | * ''Webcomic/CastleSwimmer'': |
| 310 | ** The shark merfolk are slowly dwindling away thanks to a DyingCurse from a minigod that was slain by a shark hero centuries ago, they are plagued by accidents that leaves them with scars until they finally die. They were forced to hide in a cavern system to minimize the danger to themselves and the prophecy is currently the only way to save them. |
| 311 | ** The [[spoiler: Octalia were also wiped out by a minigod, save for [[SoleSurvivor Mono, Queen Nethimir and Mucku]]]]. |
| 312 | ** In his youth, Kappa encountered a kingdom of porpoise merfolk who needed his scales in order to stop a curse that's wiping them out. [[spoiler: However, his scales weren't a permanent solution and they've completely died out by the present day]]. |
| 313 | * In ''Webcomic/DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'' it's stated that fewer and fewer Angels are being born, and this has caused much alarm in the Angel community. |
| 314 | * ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'': |
| 315 | ** The dark elves have all but vanished by the time the story takes place, having been replaced by their children, the titular drow, who [[BizarreBabyBoom evolved to better survive in the Underworld]]. The ones that are left -- and there aren't many -- have largely given up hope of ever seeing the surface again. Conversely, drow are perfectly capable of having dark elven offspring if they give birth on the surface, but these children are more or less considered a separate race from the originals due to the millennium of time between the two generations, and are culturally far more similar to their drow parents. Drow and dark elves are functionally two morphs of a single species and each will exist at least in potential as long as the other does, but what little is left of the original Dark Elf culture is doomed. |
| 316 | ** The light elves fared a bit better, in that a single city-state survives in the far north [[spoiler:in addition to a handful of elders among the leadership of the Kyorl'solenurn clan of drow]]. |
| 317 | ** The Beldrobbaen, a drow clan and more or less a nation onto itself, are in a similar state, having lost an entire generation of children during a demonic accident. Since then entire houses have died out and the clan is widely thought to be on its last legs. Their cousins from a neighboring city, the Balvhakara, have no such problems and demonstrate that this state of affairs is purely the result of bad luck and clinging to a tradition of turning the fathers of Val children into [[SpiderPeople driders]] that has greatly reduced the number of fertile male members of the clan. |
| 318 | ** Finally, the duergar (the dwarves) once ruled and inhabited most of the Underworld. Then the elven refugees and their drow descendants came along, conquered their lands and destroyed their nations. Nowdays, only a few dwarven communities exist in the fringes of the Underworld where the conditions are too harsh for even the drow. Many survive as slaves and servants living in drow cities, but these dwarves, called gnomes instead, are considered a separate race from the original, near-extinct dwarves. |
| 319 | * ''Webcomic/IrregularWebcomic'': The Martians, who are down to three living specimens -- all apparently male. Also [[WordOfGod David Morgan-Mar]]. When he discovered that this page did not exist yet, he made it himself. |
| 320 | * ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'': The Bradicor. At some point in the past they invented a method of immortality. However, their brains were unable to [[WhoWantsToLiveForever cope with this]] and they ended up going insane. The majority of them [[BrainUploading uploaded themselves]] into a giant computer and ended up wiping themselves out in the "Identity Wars". A small number decided to remain corporeal and instead replaced their brain with an artificial one (based on the same technology as Schlock and the other amorphs). While some of this group are still around they are all millions of years old and don't have any kids (it's not clear if they can't reproduce or simply don't want to) so the race will eventually die out. |
| 321 | * ''Webcomic/SlightlyDamned'': Angels and Demons have been at war with each other for so long that they have come close to wiping each other out. On top of that, both races have been having difficulty concieving children in the last few years for unknown reasons. |
| 322 | * ''Webcomic/{{Spacetrawler}}'': The Harlzoids briefly show up in the backstory. They're finished off by food poisoning from an improperly-calibrated food synthesizer. |
| 323 | * ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': Many breeds of Senet Beast -- [[TheAgeless ageless]] first creations of the Gods in TheTimeOfMyths -- are extinct or on their way out, either hunted by humans or simply unable to survive the mundane world. Duane kills what might well be the last [[{{Planimal}} Wandering Root]] to save Sette's life in Chapter 1, and mourns it deeply. |
| 324 | * ''Webcomic/VampireCheerleaders'': The mothmen had been hunted almost to the point of extinction by the Reptilians, who feared them for their ability to [[spoiler: [[{{seers}} perceive the future]]]]. Which is why [[http://www.vampirecheerleaders.net/strips-vc/the_death_of_stephanie_kane they abducted Stephanie]] and eventually persuaded her to [[OnlyYouCanRepopulateMyRace help them repopulate]] [[http://www.vampirecheerleaders.net/strips-vc/sisters_reunion their species.]] But the Reptilians found their homeworld and tried to wipe out [[http://www.vampirecheerleaders.net/strips-vc/all_lead_to_this what few remained.]] [[spoiler: They succeed, forcing Stephanie and the few survivors with her [[http://www.vampirecheerleaders.net/strips-vc/escape_from_mothworld to flee their planet's destruction]]]]. |
| 325 | [[/folder]] |
| 326 | |
| 327 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 328 | * ''Website/TheCrewOfTheCopperColoredCupids'': The Wellsians in ''The Resurrection of the Wellsians'' are a version of [[Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds H. G. Wells's Martians]], whose civilization was already crumbling before they set their views on Earth. Only seven of them survive the Earth plague and escape to Venus, where they encounter the Cupids and scheme to restore their empire. |
| 329 | --> "''We are the Wellsians! We are the last embers of the Martian Empire! '''And now we shall rise again!'''''" |
| 330 | * In ''Literature/TheJenkinsverse'', every spacefaring, intelligent civilization is eventually doomed to become a dying race, and nobody knows why. |
| 331 | * ''WebOriginal/Sagan4'': In the original version, sapient species evolved and were immediately wiped out by a mass extinction event three separate times. |
| 332 | * ''Website/{{Serina}}'': The mourners-in-the-mist are the last relic population of boomsingers, having survived the loss of their environment and competition from better-adapted grazers by holding out on a single island devoid of competitors or predators. However, they're still ultimately doomed -- in addition to being poorly adapted to its niche and only enduring because there's nothing to contest it from them, their small island can only support a hundred and fifty or so of them at any given time, making them very vulnerable to sudden disastrous events. Inbreeding is also taking a heavy toll of them, and most of their calves are stillborn; those that survive usually have significant problems with their immune systems, digestion, and organs. While they'll still endure for thousands of years, they're slowly but surely going extinct. |
| 333 | * ''Website/TaerelSetting'':The zu'aan are slowly dying, forced to fight over the slowly dwindling sustainable land by the ice sheets creeping down from the north they live in fear of the kin'toni clans outside their cities. The zu'aan are ravaged by disease. Despair and reckless hate lead many more into hopeless fights or suicide, and few zu'aan even live long enough to reproduce or see twenty years of age. Their numbers are slowly dwindling. |
| 334 | [[/folder]] |
| 335 | |
| 336 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 337 | * ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGummiBears'': At first, it's thought that only seven Gummi Bears remain and, although other communities of Gummi Bears are discover later on, they are more or less the same numbers or less each. |
| 338 | * ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'': The antagonists of the first season, the Highbreed, are doomed to die out in a generation since their inbreeding (done to keep themselves "pure") robbed them of the ability to reproduce. Their entire campaign is a SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum. They figure that if they're going to go extinct, all of the other "inferior" races have to join them. [[spoiler:All of this is past tense, since Ben uses the Omnitrix to save them once he discovers their problem.]] |
| 339 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'': The Manhattan Clan awoke in the 20th Century convinced that they were the last of their kind. However, the World Tour StoryArc reveals that Gargoyles exist all around the world and are even prospering in some areas. Their own clan's next generation is also thriving on Avalon. |
| 340 | [[/folder]] |
| 341 | |
| 342 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 343 | * Once a species declines too far, it may be declared "functionally extinct" as there are too few individuals to maintain a working gene pool. These remaining individuals are known as "endlings". A process called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutational_meltdown mutational meltdown]] can set in, whereby mutations accumulate and become widespread faster than natural selection can remove them from the population. As a result, more defects accumulate until the species is doomed to extinction.[[note]]The exact point at which this would occur is a bit nebulous; the 50/500 rule (a population of 50 is necessary in the short term, at least 500 in the long term) is often used, but it depends on the mutation rate, as well as how long the population spends at such low numbers. Less than that, and the population is likely doomed.[[/note]] |
| 344 | * The Parsis of UsefulNotes/{{India}} (Music/FreddieMercury's people) are the largest UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrian|ism}} population in the world, but they've been on the decline for decades due to their slow birth rate and their tradition of not marrying outside their community. |
| 345 | * UsefulNotes/{{J|udaism}}ews outside UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} tend to play this trope straight (except in certain UsefulNotes/{{Europe}}an and Anglophone countries), for the same reasons as the Parsis (and UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust played a part too, of course, up to 90% of UsefulNotes/PolishJews of the time died in it). |
| 346 | * UsefulNotes/NativeAmericans from the 16th to 19th centuries. Diseases from the Old World killed off four-fifths of the New World's native population within decades, and displacement, warfare, and intermarriage with European colonists further ground down the remainder. To give one example, there were an estimated 10 million people living north of the Rio Grande (in what are now the USA and Canada) in 1500, but there were fewer than a million people who identified as Native American in those places by 1950 (343,400 in the USA, about a third of that in Canada). Dozens of languages and religions have gone extinct along with the cultures that used them. |
| 347 | [[/folder]] |
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