Only Fatal to Adults: Difference between revisions
Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8.6
(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.OnlyFatalToAdults 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.OnlyFatalToAdults, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
(Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8.6) |
||
(10 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
So the [[Depopulation Bomb]] has dropped, usually in the form of a highly selective virus or bacteria that is only fatal for adults, leaving the kids to inherit the world. Frequently seen in [[After the End]] fictions,
Another important distinction is whether the [[Depopulation Bomb]] is only a concern that one time, or if it will begin to affect the kids when they grow up.
Line 6:
Due to the difficulty in convincingly presenting a hypothetical weapon with such specific depopulation capabilities (especially if in the second form, where the bomb seems able to detect a set of legal and social traditions that are only very loosely connected to biological changes), a popular form of this is to have a non-discriminating apocalypse wipe out mankind in general, then re-populate the planet, say, sixteen years later, with a bunch of infants who were locked away in a survival shelter at the time.
If the Depopulation Bomb is
This will pretty much always lead to a [[Teenage Wasteland]]. Compare [[Gendercide]]. Also see [[Infant Immortality]].
{{examples
==
* [[The DCU]] miniseries ''[[World Without Grownups]]'' had all the adults spontaneously disappear from the face of the earth. Robin, Superboy, and Impulse had to get everything together if humanity was to be saved, leading directly to their formation of [[Young Justice (
** Natually, the [[Diniverse|DCAU]] provided its own spin in the ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "Kid Stuff", where Mordred banishes all the adults from Earth, and Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern have to get turned into preteens to go back and stop him.
* In the Pre-Crisis Earth-1 Superman continuity, Superman's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, died after contracting a virus that only affected adults. Superman was still Superboy at the time, so the virus did not affect him. Several years later, Lois Lane and Lana Lang contract the same virus and almost die before the now adult Superman realizes that the virus entered his body as well, and his body created anti-bodies to counteract it.
* "Kids Rule OK", a strip in 70's British comic Action. The vast majority of adults die, leaving only rampaging gangs of kids that start to beat seven kinds of crap out of each other. Until the comic fell foul of Moral Guardians and they all make peace after being given a [https://web.archive.org/web/20100316190540/http://www.sevenpennynightmare.co.uk/stories/strips/kids.htm Stern Talking To].
* One ''[[
== Fan Fiction ==
* This kind of thing seems to happen once a week in the universe of premier [[Mary Sue]] [[
* ''[[
* In ''[[Day of the Barney Trilogy
Line 33:
== Literature ==
* In the novel ''[[Worlds Apart]]'' by [[Joe Haldeman]], Earth has been devastated by the second type. He ties the disease to when the body reduces production of human growth hormone. So there are some adults around because they suffer from acromegaly, a disease where adults produce too much human growth hormone.
* This was the premise for ''[[
* In ''[[The Subtle Knife]]'', the second book of the ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' trilogy, there's a world in which there are soul-eating 'spectres' that only target adults. At one point the heroes are in a city only occupied by children, although it turns out that most of the adults left, rather than being caught by the spectres, and will return once the spectres move on.
* The plot of the [[Blake and Mortimer]] book ''[[The Voronov Plot]]'' revolved around a virus recovered by a KGB scientist from a crashed Soviet satellite which was only lethal to adults. The scientist, Dr. Voronov, a Stalin admirer, planned to use the virus to overthrow the Soviet Union and conquer the West. Late in the book, he starts using the virus in a [[Moral Event Horizon|particularly despicable fashion]]: {{spoiler|he acquires a network of contacts in the West all with small children who are injected with the virus. Afterwards, the parents send the infected children near key political figures who under their orders, innocently ask them if they can kiss them on the cheek. Not suspecting an innocent child, they accept... Only to die a few hours later.}}
* The children's book ''[[The Girl Who Owned a City]]''. The set 'death age' here was twelve, and most of the adults knew about it before they died.
* This is most of the plot of [[The Fire-us Trilogy]]. A band of young children are living on their own, but eventually find a group of religious zealots who go so far as to name themselves after various religious passages.
** {{spoiler|In fact, it turns out that the zealots are responsible for the virus, so as to more easily find the Second Coming.}}
** The kids also find a group of elderly women in a retirement home, that survived only because post-menopausal women were the only adults that weren't affected by the virus.
* An interesting variation: In [[Larry Niven]]'s ''[[A World Out Of Time]]'', only pre-adolescents can use the immortality treatment and cease aging, while those who pass puberty become immune to the treatment and age and die normally. Rediscovering an immortality treatment usable by adults and breaking the status quo of the immortal children's hegemony forms a large part of the book's second half.
* In David Weber's ''[[
** Availability of Prolong is the single biggest quality of life difference between various worlds. For instance, it becomes a plot point that the Kingdom of Manticore is welcomed in an area they annex simply because Prolong had not previously been available there, save to the very rich, but the Manticoran public health system guarantees it to all.
* The post-apocalyptic young adult novel series ''[[Countdown]]'' began with the release of a deadly virus that somehow turned everyone but young adults into black goo.
* Inverted in the ''[[Left Behind]]'' series - in addition to righteous people in general, all children under an unspecified age are [[Caught Up in
** Except that any denomination that believes in the original sin sees babies as inherently sinful.
*** Except that many denominations that believe in original sin also believe in the Age of Accountability, which denotes that age at which a person becomes mature enough to be held responsible by God for his or her sins.
* The premise of the book series ''[[Gone (novel)]]''. All people over the age of 15 disappear one day, and continue to disappear throughout the book, i.e once one turns 15, they vanish. {{spoiler|At the end of the first book, Sam and Caine figure out how to avoid disappearing. They later tell the other kids, giving them a choice of staying in the FAYZ or "stepping out" when they turn 15.}}
*
* In the novel ''Idlewild'' by Nick Sagan (Carl Sagan's son) {{spoiler|a group of teens live in a virtual boarding school. It turns out that every human on Earth was wiped out by a disease. The kids were genetically engineered to be immune to the disease, and just before the end of civilization were placed in vaults and connected to a virtual world to be raised. Through the course of their virtual lives they are educated and trained in professions that will help them rebuild society. They were aware that the boarding school that they attended was virtual, but didn't know that the rest of their lives were also virtual. Needless to say it comes as a shock that everywhere they've ever been and everyone that they've ever known, their families and friends (except the few that attend their school), are all simulations.}}
* In [[Lord of the Flies]] the plane crash in the beginning kills all of the adults on board leaving the children to fend for themselves.
* In Chris Adrian's book ''The Children's Hospital,'' all the adults {{spoiler|except Ishmael}} die of the strange dust disease; {{spoiler|protagonist Jemma is the last to die, and dies as Ishmael leads the now-awake children out of the hospital and onto the new world.}}
* The ''Reapers'' trilogy by Andrew Butcher relies on this trope: everyone over 18 dies of the mysterious Sickness, leaving the protagonists to fend for themselves. It turns out {{spoiler|it was a bunch of alien invaders who want to take Earth's children as slaves.}}
* Donaya Haymond's [[Legends of Laconia|Waking Echoes]] has The Famine Fever, which is Only Fatal To Adults And Children, sparing the adolescents alone. {{spoiler|This is because [[A Wizard Did It|the Creator God of the dimension did it]] as a Biblical-style scourge. The adults could be judged by their deeds and the children were innocent, but the youths required further testing.}}
* The [[Gentleman Bastard Sequence]] series has Black Whisper, a plague that typically gives anyone who hasn't entered puberty a case of the sniffles and everyone who's entered or completed it a case of screaming death. An outbreak in one particular district is what makes protagonist Locke Lamora an orphan at a young age.
* Lauren Destefano's in-the-works series The Chemical Garden deals with genetically modified persons. The women all die at age twenty, and the men all die at age twenty-five.
* The Young Adult novel ''Starters'', by Lissa Price, is set in a post-war [[Dystopia]] where only the very old and the very young survive. The young can temporarily 'rent out' their bodies so the elderly can enjoy a virtual youth.
Line 60:
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Star Trek:
** The ''[[Star Trek
* The TV series ''[[Jeremiah (TV series)|Jeremiah]]'' took place fifteen years after a plague wiped out the current population of adults.
* The Kiwi teen soap ''[[
** Still, there was that heartwrenching intro...
*** "Authorities are appealing for calm throughout the evacuation process..."
* The ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' episode "Childhood's End" (unrelated to the [[Arthur C. Clarke]] novel) involved a village where everyone committed ritual suicide after reaching a certain age, because they thought it was required to protect them from the Wraith. In truth, the Ancients set up an EMP field that incapacitated any technology straying into it and if the population grows too large, they will leave the field and get culled. Hence the suicides.
* This is apparently the background story for ''[[
* Japanese TV series ''[[Bokura No Yuuki]]'', is a ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'' reminiscent story of the latter case, where a microbe kills anyone 20 and older. They fortunately came up with convincing enough sounding [[Applied Phlebotinum]] to justify it.
* The world of ''2030 CE'' is plagued with Progressive Aging Syndrome, a disease that causes rapid aging and eventually death by a person's 30th Birthday.
* An episode of ''[[Andromeda]]'' centered around a [[Lost Colony]] of Commonwealth children, who, due to years Voltarium exposure would cause them to die by adulthood. It's not so much only fatal to adults so much as 20 years of radiation exposure with no radiation treatments kills you.
Line 76:
* The Carbon Plague in ''Cybergeneration'' uses this trope. At first, everyone who catches it dies. First kids start surviving it, then adults do. Some of the kids that survive it come out a [[Stock Super Powers|little different.]] It's much less of a [[Depopulation Bomb]] than other instances of the trope. The death toll is around 5% of the world's population. Possibly a subversion: fear over the Carbon Plague allows the U.S. [[Mega Corps]] to found the [[One Nation Under Copyright|Incorporated States of America]] and children are now demonized and feared with less political power or autonomy than before. Of course, the ability to [[Shapeshifter Weapon|turn your arms into guns]] might be a relevant tradeoff there.
* In [[Tabletop RPG]] ''[[Bliss Stage]]'', the Bliss only affects humans who are eighteen years or older. This means that everyone under eighteen is safe, but only until their eighteenth birthday...
* The Dark Eldar in ''[[Warhammer
* The Vitusdance in [[Engel]] killed off every adult in the world. And it happened more than once. No wonder that centuries from now Earth has managed to rebuild itself into a feudal level society.
* Non-plague example: In the domain of Odaire in [[Ravenloft]], the living puppet Maligno murdered all the adults except his creator, leaving the children to fend for themselves.
* The Plague in [https://web.archive.org/web/20150512144419/http://www.indarkalleys.com/!KidWorld/index.htm KidWorld] only kills adults or, failing that, renders them blind. Everyone in the world still carries it though, so the eyesight of a teenager will get progressively worse as he/she grows up until it is lost altogether.
== Videogames ==
* At the beginning of ''[[Super Mario Bros.|Yoshi's Story]]''. Baby Bowser transforms Yoshi's Island into a figure book, and all the Yoshis become zombie-like (not dangerous, just zoned out and miserable). The only ones that weren't affected were a couple of Yoshi eggs that later hatched and took on Baby Bowser.
* Inverted in ''[[Advance Wars]]: Days of Ruin''. The Creeper only infects people under the age of 20/21...{{spoiler|...At first.}}
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', Kefka's death ray has claimed everyone over 18 in Mobliz. There is no evidence that any children died with them.
** Not really explained either. Seems the kids only made it by chance, really...
*** Actually this is Nightmare [[Fridge Brilliance]]. Think about it...he intentionally killed all the adults in front of the children, and left them alive to grieve. He did it to make children cry.
** Any question of Kefka's motives boil down to: [[Laughing Mad|1) He's nuts]] or [[For the Evulz|2) he felt like it.]]
*** Wasn't there mention of the parents dying to save the kids?
Line 101:
== Web Originals ==
* ''[[Lost Boys of the Cascades]]'' is a web-published story about children struggling to survive after a pandemic killed all the adults.
== Western Animation ==
* A [[Lighter and Softer]] variation happens in ''[[Lloyd in Space]]'', where a space cloud merely paralyses adults rather than kills them, while kids and teens are unaffected.
* [[Played With]] on ''[[Young Justice (
** It actually takes idealistic ''and'' cynical approaches to such an event. The kids' dimension is portrayed as fairly stable, with the older kids looking after the younger ones and waiting patiently for the heroes to save the day. The adults' dimension suffers widespread rioting and panic, though some of this was made worse by [[Big Bad Ensemble|the Light's]] interference.
Line 121:
[[Category:Youngsters]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:
|