History Main / SterilityPlague

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

* In ''MobileSuitGundamSEED'', Third-generation Coordinators (like Lacus Clyne) suffer from this, due to their modified genes and the human body being unable to handle the changes correctly. During both it and ''GundamSEEDDestiny'', there has been no cure to this infliction and many Coordinators (such as Patrick Zala) refuse to entertain the idea of mating with Naturals.

* In ''GulliversTravels'', the Houyhnhnms decide the best way of wiping out the Yahoos is to castrate them all. They got the inspiration for this from Gulliver's description of how horses are treated in England (male horses were castrated to break their spirits and control the population.)

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

A sub trope of {{Depopulation Bomb}}. Compare {{Gendercide}}. Likely to result in a ChildlessDystopia.

[[AC:{{Anime and Manga}}]]

[[AC:{{Fan Fiction}}]]

* In ''TheBible'', this happens to both a pharaoh and a minor king named Abimilech, because both had brought Sarah (a married woman) into their harems after her husband grabbed the IdiotBall out of fear for his own safety. Before either of these men can defile her, God makes them sick and their other wives and concubines sterile, until they figure out that Sarah doesn't belong to them.

** In the BadFuture portrayed in the ''SG-1'' episode "2010", the Aschen plan to surreptitiously conquer Earth involves one of these, distributed under cover of advanced medical tech. As shown in the later episode "2001", this is their ''modus operandi''.

* In ''{{Lost}}'', women who conceive on the island cannot give birth there. Those who try all die. It turns out that the island's electromagnetism sets off an immune response that attacks the fetus, killing both mother and child.

[[AC:{{Video Games}}]]
* ''{{Mass Effect}}'': The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]] were hit by the the "Genophage", designed by the salarians during the Krogan Rebellions. The krogan evolved on Tuchanka, an [[DeathWorld extremely lethal planet]] where only massive fertility and hardy physiology made it possible for them to survive, and once they moved off Tuchanka, their numbers, lifespan, and birthrates were so explosive that they needed countless colony worlds to handle their expanding population -- including worlds controlled by other sapient species. The genophage reduced krogan birthrates to less than one successful live birth per thousand pregnancies -- which, to put things in perspective, would have ideally given them a growth rate still equivalent to a post-industrial society. It went a bit too far and reduced the krogan to a dying species on a slow decline to extinction and gave most of them (including a party member, [[SociopathicHero Wrex]]) a NietzscheWannabe streak that tends to make them criminals. Their society would easily survive, except they're too fatalistic to try and rebuild.

*** Also [[spoiler:the krogan were starting to adapt, so the salarians, namely your party member Mordin, updated the genophage.]]

[[AC:{{Real Life}}]]

* In one episode of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' there's a group of colonists who had too few people to successfully build a colony, so instead of sex the went the cloning route. Now due to [[{{CloneDegeneration}} replective fading]] they can't do that any more, so they steal DNA from people on the ''Enterprise''. The resolution if that they marry their cousins from {{Oireland}} InSpace.

* In RealLife some insecticides work this way, making the insects that ingest it sterile.
* In RealLife, this is the reason why the pesticide DDT was banned. While harmless to humans, it ended up accumulating throughout the foodweb until it reached ospreys in high concentrations. While it didn't strictly make them sterile, it did cause female ospreys to lay eggs with very weak and brittle shells, and when the ospreys sat to incubate their eggs, they would crush them and destroy their young. This led to them because severely endangered as their population plummeted, but the ban on DDT resolved the problem and their numbers are starting to increase again.

** In another episode a world where they're going sterile, and steal the kids from the ''Enterprise'' to be their next generation (no pun intended).

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

* ''{{Mass Effect}}'': The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]] were hit by the the "Genophage", designed by the salarians during the Krogan Rebellions. The krogan evolved on Tuchanka, an [[DeathWorld extremely lethal planet]] where only massive fertility and hardy physiology made it possible for them to survive, and once they moved off Tuchanka, their numbers, lifespan, and birthrates were so explosive that they needed countless colony worlds to handle their expanding population -- including worlds controlled by other sapient species. The genophage reduced krogan birthrates to less than one successful live birth per thousand pregnancies -- which, to put things in perspective, would have ideally given them a growth rate still equivalent to a post-industrial society. It went a bit too far and reduced the krogan to a dying species on a slow decline to extinction and gave most of them (including a party member, [[HeroicSociopath Wrex]]) a NietzscheWannabe streak that tends to make them criminals. Their society would easily survive, except they're too fatalistic to try and rebuild.

* This is a common method humans use to eliminate harmful organisms in their environment such as mosquitoes and viruses. Scientists tasked with wiping out a short-lived life form often focus on disabling is means of reproduction. They find way of infecting, poisoning or destroying stagnant water to stop mosquitoes from breeding, and the only known means of effectively killing viruses is to interfere in their reproductive cycle (i.e. interferon medicines).

-->'''Alyx Vance:''' Did Dr. Kleiner just tell everyone to...get busy?

* In one episode of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' there's a group of colonists who had too few people to successfully build a colony, so instead of sex the went the cloning route. Now due to [[{{Technobabble}} replective fading]] they can't do that any more, so they steal DNA from people on the ''Enterprise''. The resolution if that they marry their cousins from {{Oireland}} InSpace.

A sub trope of {{Depopulation Bomb}}. Compare {{Gendercide}}.

* {{Fafner}}: The Festum did this to Japan, prompting the Alvis project which gave rise to artificial reproduction, and, by the same token, genetically engineered supersoldiers (i.e. our heroes) born to fight the Festum. The plague is cured somehow by the final episode as a SomeoneToRememberHimBy, thereby ensuring the future glory of the mighty Japanese people and their superior way of life.
* {{Vandread}}: The heroes come across a planet in the second season which had this done to them by Earth. Needless to say, they cure it.
* {{Macross}}: The Zentrati have totally abandoned sexual reproduction and segregated their race into male and female tribes. Luckily, humans come along to [[RedemptionEqualsSex teach them the ways of love]].

* An ECComics story (based on a prose short story, I am pretty sure) has female sterility happen as a result of cosmic radiation--after enough years that even the last born child is a senior citizen, they finally develop a time travel gate with the catch that they can only set it up once, and it will be immobile. And travel to the future renders one amnesiac. So the future people set up their gate/trap in New York City in the 1950s; lots of people there to grab. But everyone who comes through the gate is male! [[spoiler: Turns out they've set their time gate up in the men's room at Grand Central Station, a place no woman would voluntarily enter.]]

* There is a Stargate fanfic, called "Bless the Children" which has SG-1 meet a race of aliens with a fertility problem, and an unusual solution, the consequences of which drives the plot of the story. It's written by MaureenT and can be found on fanfiction.net.

* ChildrenOfMen - This trope forms the basic premise of the movie.

* In [[GulliversTravels Gulliver's Travels]], the Houyhnhnms decide the best way of wiping out the Yahoos is to castrate them all. They got the inspiration for this from Gulliver's description of how horses are treated in England (male horses were castrated to break their spirits and control the population.)
* Declining fertility rates due to chemical pollution is a central theme in both the film and book versions of TheHandmaidsTale.
* The novel 'Children of Men' by P.D.James, as noted with the film adaptation, is an archetype of this trope.

* In one episode of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' there's a group of colonists who had too few people to successfully build a colony, so instead of sex the went the cloning route. Now due to [[{{Technobabble}} replective fading]] they can't do that any more, so they steal DNA from people on the ''Enterprise''. The resolution if that they marry their cousins from OireLand InSpace.

* {{Mass Effect}} - The [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy krogan]] were hit by the the "Genophage", designed by the salarians during the Krogan Rebellions. The krogan evolved on Tuchanka, an [[DeathWorld extremely lethal planet]] where only massive fertility and hardy physiology made it possible for them to survive, and once they moved off Tuchanka, their numbers, lifespan, and birthrates were so explosive that they needed countless colony worlds to handle their expanding population -- including worlds controlled by other sapient species. The genophage reduced krogan birthrates to less than one successful live birth per thousand pregnancies -- which, to put things in perspective, would have ideally given them a growth rate still equivalent to a post-industrial society. It went a bit too far and reduced the krogan to a dying species on a slow decline to extinction and gave most of them (including a party member, [[HeroicSociopath Wrex]]) a NietzscheWannabe streak that tends to make them criminals. Their society would easily survive, except they're too fatalistic to try and rebuild.

* In ''HalfLife 2'', the combine have set up some sort of device which makes humans unable to reproduce. In the expansions this has been deactivated, leading to Dr. Kleiner to suggest that repopulation can begin.

* The [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampires]] of the ''LegacyOfKain'' series were inflicted this (along with [[ImmortalProcreationClause immortality]] and blood-thirst) by their archenemies, the Hylden, when they banished them. The problem is, the Pillars of Nosgoth, which represent the balance of the world and serve as a seal to imprison the Hylden, chose their guardians among newborn Vampires. When the Vampires ceased to give birth, the Pillars started to chose humans: [[CrapsackWorld it dit not end well at all]].

* In RealLife, this is the reason why the pesticide DDT was banned. While harmless to humans, it ended up accumulating throughout the foodweb until it reached ospreys in high concentrations. While it didn't strictly make them sterile, it did cause female ospreys to lay eggs with very weak and brittle shells, and when the ospreys sat to incubate their eggs, they would crush them and destroy their young. This led to them because severely endangered as their population plummeted, but the ban on DDT resolved the problem and their numbers are starting to increase again

* ''{{Lost}}'' Women who conceive on the island cannot give birth there. Those who try all die. It turns out that the island's electromagnetism sets off an immune response that attacks the fetus, killing both mother and child.

A sub trope of {{Depopulation Bomb}}.

* {{Stargate}} - The Asgard suffer from the fact that they have totally abandoned sexual reproduction in favor of cloning.
** Also in the StargateVerse: in the BadFuture portrayed in the ''SG-1'' episode "2010", the Aschen plan to surreptitiously conquer Earth involves one of these.
** There's a couple of episodes of ''{{StargateSG1}}'' - the episodes "2010" and "2001" which show the Aschen - a race of aliens whose modus operandi is to act like benevolent people, giving less advanced races like the people of Earth a lot of advanced technology, including a medicine that greatly prolongs human life. However the medicine also causes infertility in a large percentage of the population, with the Aschen eventually taking over once the population has dropped low enough for it to be easy for them to do so.

For one reason or another, people can't give birth anymore. This is often but not always due to a plague inflicted upon a species due to a {{DepopulationBomb}} dropped on them by their enemies, hence the name. However, this can just as easily be caused by a natural plague, biological changes in a species which might prevent sex, or a cultural phenomena causing people to be terrified of het sex (or at least pregnancy). Most horrifyingly, perhaps your enemies just decided to come along castrate all your males.

If your civilization for one reason or another has decided to completely abandon sexual reproduction (possibly in favor or artificial means) expect this to become a major issue soon after the story starts. In fact, unless sexual reproduction can be rediscovered by your race, expect disastrous if not nightmarish consequences. This is probably a little homophobic (especially if you have only abandoned het sex) and a lot allegorical.

Lastly, you can expect any {{KnightErrant}} or civilization-redeeming {{Messiah}} figure who comes along to cure the Sterility Plague in the space of a single episode or two-hour feature film. The forces of good make fertility a point of focus, often impregnating virgins, men, and the infertile, so you shouldn't be surprised when they pull double duty by curing a plague and bringing pregnancy to the downtrodden masses.

* {{Fafner}} - the Festum did this to Japan prompting the Alvis project which gave rise to artificial reproduction, and, by the same token, genetically engineered supersoldiers (i.e. our heroes) born to fight the Festum. The plague is cured somehow by the final episode as a SomeoneToRememberHimBy, thereby ensuring the future glory of the mighty Japanese people and their superior way of life.
* {{Vandread}} - The heroes come across a planet in the second season which had this done to them by Earth. Needless to say, they cure it.
* {{Macross}} - the Zentrati have totally abandoned sexual reproduction and segregated their race into male and female tribes. Luckily, humans come along to [[RedemptionEqualsSex teach them the ways of love]].

* {{ChildrenOfMen}} - This trope forms the basic premise of the movie.

A sub trope of [[Depopulation Bomb]].