History Main / SyntheticPlague

* In ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'', the US population is decimated by the N'Orleans Flu, a disease apparently created by some bright kids in a garage just to see if they could. Later, after the Muslims all unite to invade Boston (don't ask) and are driven off, there's a prisoner exchange in which both sides expose their prisoners to engineered plagues before turning them over. The Victorians wisely quarantine their returned prisoners, and the death count is controlled, while the Arabic population is reduced by ''millions''.

* "Website/TaerelSetting": The kin'toni (vampire) virus that started the fall of Taerel's civilization in 3E 3000 was made in a lab by the Xerea Empire as a super soldier project that went wrong, and lead to a vampire apocalypse.

* The main antagonist of ''VideoGame/TraumaCenter'' leads a cult which believes that modern medicine leads humanity to lead unnatural lives. They operate by spreading GUILT, a pathogen engineered to kill their patient. The sequels also deal with artificial pathogens with differing origins and intent of creation.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series, there were some accusations that the US government created and spread the New Plague, not [[DirtyCommunists Chinese agents]] as was officially claimed. Whilst that is an unproven theory, a canonical example of a SyntheticPlague in the series is the Forced Evolutionary Virus, or FEV. Originally, this was intended to be a BeneficialDisease; created under the title "Pan-Immunity Virion Project (PIVP)", it was intended to be an inoculation against the New Plague and against bio-warfare attacks. However, when the government discovered the virus' MutagenicGoo properties, they scrapped that project, redubbed it FEV, and tried to militarize it in the form of a SuperSerum. All they achieved was creating the savage, dangerously uncontrollable Super Mutants, and a myriad of other [[BodyHorror horrors]]. Samples of the virus were later recovered by the [[GovernmentConspiracy Enclave]] from the ruins of the Mariposa Military Base in California. These samples were used to create weaponized variants of the FEV that could be spread into the jet stream (in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'') or in the water (in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'') to kill off all lifeforms with genetic damage accumulated from exposure to radiation and other toxins as a result of the Great War, with the only survivors being "pure" humans such as Enclave citizens or the few Vault Dwellers still in functional Vaults.

* During the Assassination Island arc of ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'', [[spoiler:eleven of the students are infected by a potentially fatal virus with varying symptoms -- some are still on their feet, while others are vomiting blood, and Terasaka was able to hide his symptoms for ''hours''. This was subverted when it was revealed that Gastro, Grip and Smog withheld using the plague in favor of a relatively harmless stomach flu that will eventually wear off because they only had to make the students ''think'' that they would die, and they didn't want the stigma of killing middle-school kids on their reputation, even if it meant defying Takaoka, their psychopathic employer.]]
* The 'Monkey Business' virus from the ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' episode "[[Recap/CowboyBebopSession4GatewayShuffle Gateway Shuffle]]". Fortunately, our intrepid heroes make sure that the only victims are [[HoistByHisOwnPetard the eco-terrorists who planned to unleash it in the first place]].

* This is the sub-plot in ''Anime/HighlanderTheSearchForVengeance'', where Marcus has released a virus over New York to wipe out all of people who haven't conformed to his ancient Roman ideals. The virus only had an 80% kill rate but by the end of the movie he's managed to make a 100% version.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Queen, [[RedBaron the Plague]] of the Animal Kingdom Pirates, derives his nom de plume from his ability to craft artificial diseases and viruses fashioned in bullets he calls "Excitement Bullets"[[note]]Plague Rounds in the English translation[[/note]] which infect the victims with highly contagious viruses. He has shown two: Mummy (which causes the target to burn with fever and dry up like a mummy) and Ice Demon (which turns the afflicted in a cold-exuding {{oni}}-like creature which can infect others through bite like a zombie).

** ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': There have been many instances in the comic where hostile factions resorted to biological warfare by spreading lab-manufactured diseases among enemy populations. The worst one was probably the Chaos Bug, a HatePlague designed by leftover factions of East Meg One that started an epidemic in Mega City One resulting in the death of about 85% of the population.

* In ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHeadDoAmerica'', there's the X-5 Unit, a top-secret man-made virus powerful enough to wipe out five states in five days. Dallas Grimes stolen the unit and uses Beavis and Butt-Head as unwitting mules to carry the unit holding it to Washington D.C. on the promise of being able to have sex with her. Making this worse is the casing has a flaw that if struck wrong, it could shatter and release the virus instantly.

* The HatePlague in ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' (and its sequel ''Film/TwentyEightWeeksLater'') was caused by researchers looking for a way to calm down angry people. It flew the other way -- [[ZombieApocalypse horribly]].
* One of the key elements of ''Film/TheCassandraCrossing'' is a plague virus which the US military has engineered to be a biological weapon and then secretly and illegally parked in neutral Switzerland.

* The HatePlague in ''Film/DeadAir2009'' is revealed by the terrorist who unleashed it to have been created by the U.S. Government, originally for use as a DepopulationBomb against enemy cities in the Middle East.
* In ''Film/Derailed2002'', Galina's ill-gotten gain is three vials of SP-43, an ultra-virulent strain of smallpox, cultured in fluorescent green serum that contains several other pathogens.
* In ''Film/IAmLegend'', the infection that wiped out most humans was the result of a supposed cure for cancer that ended up going horribly wrong.

* The scientists in ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'' aren't ''trying'' to create a synthetic plague, they're trying to create a cure for Alzheimer's. Unfortunately for them, not only does the ALZ-113 [[UpliftedAnimal give sentience and super-intelligence to apes]], it's also fatal to humans... and it's an airborne virus. NiceJobBreakingItHero. The ViralMarketing website [[http://www.simianflu.com Simian Flu]] implies that only one-tenth of the population survived. ''Film/DawnOfThePlanetOfTheApes'' reveals that only small pockets of humans survived -- those with a natural immunity to the plague. [[spoiler:''Film/WarForThePlanetOfTheApes'' reveals that it's mutating to affect the remaining population: it robs them of the ability to speak. The Colonel claims it also [[DevolutionDevice robs humans of their intelligence]], but as seen on the film's YMMV page, there's room for debate on that.]]

* The hemophage virus in ''Film/Ultraviolet2006'' was engineered, and the scientist responsible goes on to take over the world using the infected as a bogeyman.
* ''Film/TheViralFactor'' revolves around a prototype virus being smuggled into Malaysia and being developed in a top-secret lab by a terrorist mastermind, who intends to spread it worldwide. And the hero, Jon, who had [[YourDaysAreNumbered a few weeks left to live]] because of a bullet in his brain, must prevent the virus' release before his inevitable death in a few weeks.
* In the film version of ''Film/VForVendetta'', the St. Mary's Virus was a major factor in Norsefire's rise to power. Blamed on religious extremists, it's later revealed that [[spoiler:the government developed it through experiments conducted on prisoners at the Lark Hill detention facility, and chose to [[FalseFlagOperation attack their own people]] to create an environment of fear that would cause the people to give the government more power]].

* In ''Literature/BloodMusic'', artificial lymphocytes convert the entire biomass of North America into versions of themselves.
* The premise of the book ''Literature/TheBreedsOfMan'' has a cure for AIDS becoming a fresh plague in its own right, a SterilityPlague which affects more people than AIDS ever did. ([[NiceJobBreakingItHero Nice Job Breaking It, Scientists]].)

* In ''Literature/GiftFromThePrincessWhoBroughtSleep'', the main villain Margarita Blankenheim [[spoiler:creates an airborne toxin out of the titular poison, Gift, which works exactly like a plague.]]

* Humanity's downfall in the backstory of ''Literature/JanitorsOfThePostapocalypse'' came through one of these, killing half of the population and rendering the other half into {{Technically Living Zombie}}s known as 'feral humans'. The reason ''why'' someone made something like that is unstated, but their [[UpliftedAnimal uplifted descendants]] tend to think pre-plague humans were [[InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves just like that]], just that combative and ready to kill each other. Late in the first book we learn [[spoiler:that there had been a FirstContactFauxPas that resulted in a human representative being in a coma, and humans engineered a virus to get her functioning again which only half worked and then escaped. The next book treats the feral plague as just a disease the Krakau accidentally brought to Earth instead]].

* In Creator/FrankHerbert's ''The White Plague'', an American biologist is driven to madness by the death of his wife and children by an IRA bomb during a visit to Ireland. He returns to American and creates a plague that [[{{Gendercide}} kills only women]] (it's spread by men acting as unwitting carriers). He releases it in Ireland as revenge, but it quickly spreads around the world.

* ''Literature/TheStand'': The "super-flu" which [[DepopulationBomb kills 99% of the world population]] nearly overnight was the result of military weapons experiments in the United States and was released when a lab accident caused it to be spread throughout the military base it was being stored. Later in the book, the demonic Randall Flagg reveals that other man-made viruses such as ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill super-Ebola]]'' are in the works to kill the remaining members of the "good" side of humanity. It gets worse (morally speaking) -- not only did the U.S. accidentally get itself horribly infected, when the military officers in charge of the base where the accident happened decide that there's no putting the cat back in the bag, they order operatives in Europe and Asia to purposefully release the plague over there, under the "if we go down, we're taking you all with us" theory. They note that the operatives think the containers they're supposed to open contain radioactive particles for use in testing the ability of satellites to track them, or something. In ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', however, Flagg actually takes credit for the plague himself, though he's silent on the details -- he was probably the one responsible for the "accident", but he may or may not have had anything to do with its creation.[[note]]It should be noted that Flagg has no problem accepting credit for deeds, items, and events that are not actually his design. At one point, when talking about his many names, he muses that he's been called Maerlyn (All-World's version of Merlin), but "who cares, because I was never ''that'' one, though I never denied it either."[[/note]]