History Main / GenocideDilemma

** A downplayed version of this trope is popularized in tabletop RPG language, especially amongst D&D fans, as the "[[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Orc_Baby_Dilemma Orc Baby Dilemma]]". It stems from the fact that, in 2nd edition, orcs were not only an AlwaysChaoticEvil race, but also had a bestiary entry that specifically noted what percentage of an orc camp's population was likely to be children. This then forced the uneasy mental arithmetic upon many players; once you wipe out the malevolent adults... what do you do with the orphans left behind? The scenario was often used as measuring stick to differentiate LawfulGood players from LawfulStupid and {{Munchkin}} players (Especially among Paladins who have strict code of ethos in 2nd edition that include "Opposing Evil" and "Protecting the Innocent"). Lawful Good players would often TakeAThirdOption [[note]]Taking the children to be raised by a good church or a knightly order, justifying it as "fighting evil" by good deeds, knowing that while it doesn't guarantee the kids will turn out good, they will have a chance to, and should they fall to evil another hero will be there to stop them, and they'll be condemned for things they did, not things they might've done.[[/note]] or at least offer a deeply reasoned argument for their choice. LawfulStupid players tended to slaughter them all simply because the rules say they are evil, while Munchkins did it for the XP.

* The reason [[PersonOfMassDestruction Zebra]] was imprisoned in ''Manga/{{Toriko}}''. The 26 species he wiped out were damaging the ecosystem...but he's still responsible for making 26 species extinct.

** Mordin will talk about the genophage, and reveal that it was stedily becoming ineffective, and eventually would let the krogan reproduce at the explosive rate they did 1500 years ago when they expanded their territory, threatening galactic stability. Mordin says that, following many, many simulations, the only viable options were to alter the genophage, making it effective again, or to wipe out the krogan completely. In the end it was decided to alter the genophage, as wiping out a species completely ws seen as abhorent.

** A variation is used in the ''Franchise/XMen'' tie-in to the [[ComicBook/SecretInvasion2008 actual event]]: the group questions whether or not to thwart a Skrull squadron's attack on San Francisco with a virus that has a chance of going out of control and infecting the entire race. [[spoiler:They use it in the end, and the attacking aliens kill themselves before any others get infected.]]

** But only to try to make them into a weapon. Lampshaded in the ''Franchise/GreenLantern / Alien'' crossover, Hal points out that the xenomorphs are just animals, so they move the hive to Lantern Mogo (a living planet) since he can watch them and make sure no-one runs into one.

** For understandable reasons, Ripley in ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' seems to have no moral reservations on this point:
--->'''Ripley:''' Just tell me one thing, Burke. You're going out there to destroy them, right? Not to study. Not to bring back. But to wipe them out.\\

* This becomes the central conflict of ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', after the TimeSkip. [[spoiler:The Eldian people are the source of the Titans, a fact that causes the rest of the world to hate them. Paradis Island is the focus of most of the world's hatred, and four years of negotiations with Lady Kiyomi suggest they would need at least 50 years to reach a point where they could defend themselves on equal footing with the rest of the world. Eren kickstarts the endgame by [[OutGambitted outwitting]] Zeke's plot of sterilizing the Eldian race, and instead starts the Rumbling to exterminate all life outside of Paradis. Throughout the arc, the other characters struggle with whether or not Eren's genocidal plan is their only hope of survival, or whether there might have been another option. Ultimately, a small group of Survey Corps soldiers and Marleyan Warriors decide to fight together to try to stop Eren from destroying the world, [[BecauseDestinySaysSo an outcome that Eren had foreseen]]. This ends up preventing the genocide of his own people...at the price of 80% of humanity being massacred. However, it ended up being AllForNothing as [[ShaggyDogStory the survivors end up bombing Eldia into dust anyway]].]]

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks "Genesis of the Daleks"]], where the Doctor doesn't want to wipe out the Daleks for fear of being no better than they are, provides the page quote. Since time travel's involved, it overlaps with HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct — could you kill a child in their cradle if you knew they'd grow up to be a war criminal? (The thing about Dalek genocide is that it never takes. Since they're [[JokerImmunity the Doctor's most iconic villains]], not even [[RetGone erasing them from history]] is enough to actually get rid of them permanently.)
** Davros even calls out the Twelfth Doctor in ''The Magician's Apprentice'', playing his own words from the above episode back to him, once again tempting him to eliminate every Dalek in existance, to prove that he isn't so different to himself - genius, thinking about his people and willing to do what it takes.

** The Doctor even had to go through with it ''again'' in the Christmas Special [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]]. It was a split second decision and he ''gave'' the villain of the week a chance to drop the VillainBall… but in the end the Doctor decides to drown the last offspring of an extinct species to save the Earth. ''Then'' the Doctor exiles his half-human clone to a parallel universe for going through with Dalek genocide at the end of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd Journey's End]]", in order to save everyone and everything else in the universe.

* ''[[ComicBook/WhatIf What if the Skrulls succeeded in their Secret Invasion?]]'' has a variant: the shape-shifting aliens Skrulls successfully invaded earth. They rule countries, live among humans, and even allowed humans to become Skrulls. The Avengers, now a terrorist outlaw band, got a sample of the Legacy Virus adapted against the Skrulls. They face the dilemma: waste precious time trying to turn it into a vaccine, reverting the change in humans and removing the shape-shifting powers from the Skrulls, or simply use the virus as it is and kill them all. [[spoiler:in the end, it is the villain Norman Osbourn who uses the virus and causes the Skrull genocide. He is beheaded by Captain America for it.]]

* ''ComicBook/SecretInvasion'': A ''What if...'' one-shot made a variant: the shape-shifting aliens Skrulls successfully invaded earth. They rule countries, live among humans, and even allowed humans to become Skrulls. The Avengers, now a terrorist outlaw band, got a sample of the Legacy Virus adapted against the Skrulls. They face the dilemma: waste precious time trying to turn it into a vaccine, reverting the change in humans and removing the shape-shifting powers from the Skrulls, or simply use the virus as it is and kill them all. [[spoiler:in the end, it is the villain Norman Osbourn who uses the virus and causes the Skrull genocide. He is beheaded by Captain America for it.]]
* A variation is used in the ''Franchise/XMen'' tie-in to the actual event: the group questions whether or not to thwart a Skrull squadron's attack on San Francisco with a virus that has a chance of going out of control and infecting the entire race. [[spoiler:They use it in the end, and the attacking aliens kill themselves before any others get infected.]]

* ''Fanfic/LostInTheWoods'': The crew of the ''Enterprise'' grapples with one when facing the threat of the Reavers. While they have the opportunity to destroy the Reaver fleet, doing so would violate the Prime Directive. While they try to figure out [[TakeAThirdOption alternative options]], ultimately, [[spoiler:Picard deems the Reavers too dangerous to be spared, destroying their fleet]].

* ''Literature/TheSagaOfTanyaTheEvil'': At the conclusion of the first act, Tanya justifies her attempted pre-emptive strike on the fleeing Republic navy (and consequently, brutal subjugation bordering on genocide of the remaining factions), despite the Empire agreeing to a peace treaty and ending their 'conquest' before it got really genocidal, because (A) while the Empire might have enough reason to realize that their best bet to ruling the world is to just have the biggest slice of pie and use it responsibly, EVERY OTHER NATION wants them dead out of fear of a centralized world power that could easily bully whoever they wanted, and (B) Tanya's own history of witnessing hatred triumph over reason, from her "father's" death out of spite to a family man who cast them aside for revenge, led her to believe the soldiers would come back and willingly sacrifice themselves to get revenge and murder as many Empire citizens as possible. Sure enough, the war restarts despite the lack of profit for everyone involved.
* Played with in ''Manga/LandOfTheLustrous''. Kongou knows that he's the only person that can pray for the Lunarians' souls to pass on (and has done so when they come down to attack). It's not so much that killing the Lunarians was the problem, since [[DeathSeeker that's exactly what they want]], and they're not winning any favors by abducting and grinding up the Lustrous to get his attention and turning some of them against him. Due to being in long need of repair, his dillemma is that praying for all of them to pass at once will also kill off many innocent species that had nothing to do with the conflict since it affects [[HumanSubspecies every species derived from humans]], including the Lustrous themselves. [[spoiler:The Lunarians solve the problem by molding Phos into a being that can pray for them instead, in addition to converting the other species into Lunarians and isolating Phos from anyone who could possibly turn them away from the plan.]]
* ''Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam'': Uso Ewin aimed a WaveMotionGun at the gathered entire fleet of the antagonists, bearing in mind that it would kill dozens or hundreds of thousands of soldiers and non-combatant crew. The worst part... [[spoiler:he pulled the trigger.]]
* This becomes the central conflict of ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', after the TimeSkip. [[spoiler:The Eldian people are the source of the Titans, a fact that causes the rest of the world to hate them. Paradis Island is the focus of most of the world's hatred, and four years of negotiations with Lady Kiyomi suggest they would need at least 50 years to reach a point where they could defend themselves on equal footing with the rest of the world. Eren kickstarts the endgame by [[OutGambitted outwitting]] Zeke's plot of sterilizing the Eldian race, and instead starts the Rumbling to exterminate all life outside of Paradis. Throughout the arc, the other characters struggle with whether or not Eren's genocidal plan is their only hope of survival, or whether there might have been another option. Ultimately, a small group of Survey Corps soldiers and Marleyan Warriors decide to fight together to try to stop Eren from destroying the world, [[BecauseDestinySaysSo an outcome that Eren had foreseen]]. This ends up preventing the genocide of his own people...at the price of 80% of humanity being massacred. However, it ended up being AllForNothing as [[ShaggyDogStory the survivors end up bombing Eldia into dust anyway]].]]
* Ends up being the core conflict in ''Manga/ThePromisedNeverland'' as it turns out that [[spoiler:demons require human brains as food to keep their own sapence, otherwise, they'll decline and return to the state of mindless beasts.]]

* The Irinai in the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' AlternateUniverse story ''Fanfic/OnTheShouldersOfGiants'', who are best described as "[[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering Phyrexian]] {{Intelligent Gerbil}}s", prompted much discussion of this. WordOfGod has however been very, ''very'' definite about the fact that it will not be carried out in-universe.
* The boys in ''The Dark Past'' experience one of these toward the end of the story, when they realise that [[spoiler:they are carrying a virus deadly to all Soluan life, picked up while exploring the ancient warship.]] They decide against using it.
* This crops up twice in ''Fanfic/DiariesOfAMadman''. The first is where Nav intervenes to spare the changelings, since eliminating Chrysalis would result in their species starving. The second is where he helps the changelings eliminate a diamond dog clan after being unable to argue for peace, though he's disgusted with his role in this.

\\

\\

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
** A downplayed version of this trope is popularized in tabletop RPG language, especially amongst D&D fans, as the "[[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Orc_Baby_Dilemma Orc Baby Dilemma]]". It stems from the fact that, in 2nd edition, orcs were not only an AlwaysChaoticEvil race, but also had a bestiary entry that specifically noted what percentage of an orc camp's population was likely to be children. This then forced the uneasy mental arithmetic upon many players; once you wipe out the malevolent adults... what do you do with the orphans left behind? The scenario was often used as measuring stick to differentiate LawfulGood players from LawfulStupid and {{Munchkin}} players (Especially among Paladins who have strict code of ethos in 2nd edition that include "Opposing Evil" and "Protecting the Innocent"). Lawful Good players would often TakeAThirdOption [[note]]Taking the children to be raised by a good church or a knightly order, justifying it as "fighting evil" by good deeds, knowing that while it doesn't guarantee the kids will turn out good, they will have a chance to, and should they fall to evil another hero will be there to stop them, and they'll be condemned for things they did, not things they might've done.[[/note]] or at least offer a deeply reasoned argument for their choice. LawfulStupid players tended to slaughter them all simply because the rules say they are evil, while Munchkins did it for the XP.
** Incidentally, playing the survivor of one of the resolution to the Orc Baby Dilemma has been a popular back story for many player characters. Especially [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch good members of usually evil species raised by the heroes who fought their tribe]] or embittered survivors of their tribe's genocide.

* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'':
** This is a plot-point during the latter part of the game. [[spoiler:When the AlwaysChaoticEvil members of Jack's Crew threaten decide to go after the Red Sprite, the heroes realize that they're looking at this trope square in the face. Zelenin tries to TakeAThirdOption... which ends up turning them into [[SoullessShell walking zombies]] with the [[MindRape Hymn of the Lord]].]]
** [[spoiler:The Protagonist faces this again when a certain demon demands that he kill Jack's Crew for their crimes. The hero can either agree to kill them (even though they're already brain dead), let Zelenin kill all the demons with the Hymn, or just kill the one demon making the offer.]]
* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'':
** When the [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Krenim Temporal Warship]] is being designed, a lot of testing is being put into what could happen if they mess with something due to the fact that the Iconian War is going pearshaped. One idea was the idea of just going ahead and wiping out the Iconians from existence, something that ''players'' were afraid of actually doing. Turns out they thought of that option, but realized that it would change too much history for their liking.
** The following episode has everyone preparing to cross the MoralEventHorizon by going back in time and making sure the Iconians are killed off completely when their world is attacked. [[spoiler:The PlayerCharacter can hem and haw over this through the mission, but the Klingon captain Kagran decides he can't do it because the Iconians did nothing wrong except having lousy neighbors. Sela, however, is more than happy to try to cross the line, only to be stopped by Kagran and ultimate realize that, ''whoops'', by acting on this, you've just caused [[Film/StarTrek2009 Hobus]].]]

* The cast of ''Podcast/PlumbingTheDeathStar'' did an episode on the InUniverse CharacterAlignment ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', only to end up arguing about whether it's okay to commit genocide on populations of objectively evil people. Zammit and Adam both think the genocide itself is evil, but Jackson decides (in a ''Dungeons & Dragons'' world) he would go with a genocide and [[NoPlaceForMeThere then commit suicide]] once he's the only evil person left.