History Main / OnlyFatalToAdults

->''"[W]hen [[TheVirus the Big Death]] hit, anybody above puberty died fast, and bad. So for everybody on the edge, when it happened, oh, well, it gave the idea of hitting puberty a lot more terror than the need to go find a tampon, you know what I'm saying?

-->--'''Theo''', '''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'', "The Long Road"

-->--'''Theo''', '''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'', "The Long Road"

* Franchise/TheDCU miniseries ''ComicBook/WorldWithoutGrownups'' 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 ComicBook/YoungJustice.

* This is most of the plot of Literature/TheFireUsTrilogy. 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, who survived only because post-menopausal women were the only adults that weren't affected by the virus.
** The story also deconstructs the trope: without adults to take care of them, many children end up dying from starvation, accidents, disease, or wild animals.

* In Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/HonorHarrington'', people can get a treatment that will double or triple their lifespans, but only while they're still young. There are three levels of effectiveness. First-generation Prolong can be performed as late as 25. Second-generation treatment is only effective into the early teens, but gains a century or so more; Third-generation, it is implied, will extend life even more effectively (it's very new, so the first people to get it haven't grown old yet), but requires genetic manipulation even before the recipient's birth.
** 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.

* A somewhat more indirect version explains the existence of Little Lamplight in ''VideoGame/Fallout3''. The kids were on a field trip when the bombs fell, the adults all died searching the wastes, and the Vault 87 dwellers wouldn't let the kids in [[spoiler: thereby sparing them from being turned into Super Mutants by Vault-Tec's evil experiments, but the kids don't know that.]] The kids' distaste for adults became tradition; any Lamplighter who turns 16 gets forced out and sent across the Wastes to "Big Town", which considering the state of the place [[spoiler: at least until the player shows up]] is effectively this trope.
** Reading some of those diary entries, it was hard not to see something a bit more sinister in the way those kids were treated.
** The design document for Vault 29 in the canceled ''[[VideoGame/FalloutVanBuren Van Buren]]'' plays with this trope -- families were selected for the Vault, but everyone older than 15 was either turned away or redirected to another Vault in the chaos. A sentient supercomputer was to raise the kids.

* In ''Webcomic/TalesOfTheQuestor'', an ancient elf king wished for eternal youth for his people. [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor He got it:]] Elves now die around age 20 ("Just old enough to make more elves") - which more or less caused the collapse of their society and left the survivors living as thieves and scavengers.
** Also, there have been references to "the Crimson Plague" or "the Scarlet Plague," which according to WordOfGod decimated the Racconan population on at least two occasions, killing the very old and very young--- the main reason that, despite being a long-lived race, the current population of Antillia has very few extremely old Racconans and very few families with multiple children...

* Inverted in the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' series - in addition to righteous people in general, all children under an unspecified age are CaughtUpInTheRapture. Presumably this would be [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by means of ChildrenAreInnocent.
** 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 the age at which a person becomes mature enough to be held responsible by God for his or her sins.

* The ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'' story that introduced Guy Gardner established that he was another potential candidate for inheriting Abin Sur's ring instead of Hal Jordan, with Jordan being shown a simulation of what might have happened if Guy Gardner succeeded Abin Sur as Green Lantern of Sector 2814 instead of Hal Jordan. Guy Gardner's career as Green Lantern ultimately comes to an end when he visits a planet inhabited by children who keep themselves occupied by building robots for warfare after the adult population was wiped out by a yellow plague. After Guy convinces the children to cease their battles and live a more peaceful existence, he returns to Earth to find that he has contracted the yellow plague and must choose someone to succeed him before the plague kills him, resulting in [[InSpiteOfANail Hal Jordan becoming a Green Lantern in this timeline anyway]].

* In one of the most recent events in ''VideoGame/DragonVale'', which had all of the adult wizards and witches [[TakenForGranite turned to stone]] thanks to unpredictable energy floating up from the Surface. Downplayed in that they're [[AndIMustScream still alive like this]]. At any rate, it's up to you and the young folk to find new dragons who can harness this energy to reverse the effects of the wayward forces.

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars: Days of Ruin''. The Creeper only infects people under the age of 20/21...[[spoiler:...At first.]]

** The design document for Vault 29 in the canceled ''[[VideoGame/FalloutVanBuren Van Buren]]'' plays in this trope---families were selected for the Vault, but everyone older than 15 was either turned away or redirected to another Vault in the chaos. A sentient supercomputer was to raise the kids.

* During a side-event in ''Videogame/TalesOfSymphonia'', Genis's [[PromotionToParent older sister Raine]] is discovered to have contracted an illness called the Ozette Flu, which Genis openly states is fatal if contracted in adulthood. This requires Genis and Mithos to [[FindTheCure climb to the top of a mountain to get a flower able to cure it.]]

* The disease from Ochazuke Nori's "Infection on Flight 999." It starts with a high fever, intense pain, and blueness in the face. In anyone over ten, this is followed shortly by the head swelling up and exploding. For those under ten, it's highly unpleasant, but at least not immediately fatal. (The symptoms are nasty, and we don't find out what happens to kids long-term.) The ending raises concerns about it rendering humanity extinct.

** Naturally, the Franchise/{{DCAU}} provided its own spin in the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' 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 ''Comicbook/{{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 antibodies to counteract it.
* "Kids Rule OK", a strip in '70s British comic ComicBook/{{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 [[http://www.sevenpennynightmare.co.uk/stories/strips/kids.htm Stern Talking To.]]
* One ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'' mini-arc features John Constantine's niece being enlisted to travel to an island where a group of [[UndeadChild Vampire Children]] all under the age of 13 who attack any adults that come near the island but don't harm other children.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' had a planet that was an exact duplicate of Earth (amazing!) in the episode "Miri", on which the only survivors of a mysterious plague were a band of savage children. Their childhoods lasted centuries, but they were doomed to die at the onset of puberty. It eventually is revealed to be the result of a flawed life-prolongation project that got loose -- ageing was indeed slowed (hence the centuries-long childhood of the survivors), but something went wrong after puberty causing madness and death.
* The ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Terra Nova" has the crew going to humanity's first colony outside our solar system to determine why contact was lost several decades earlier. It was discovered that a radioactive asteroid hit the planet and all the adults died from the radiation. The children developed an immunity to it and survived by living in nearby caves.
* The TV series ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'' took place fifteen years after a plague wiped out anyone over puberty. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that the plague was a synthetic bio-weapon which was designed this way as a "mercy weapon," to kill anyone in the targeted area old enough to fight back, but "sparing" the children whose parents you just killed. It got out of control and destroyed the world.]]
* The Kiwi teen soap ''Series/TheTribe'' has this as its backstory: a mysterious virus kills basically everyone over 18 or 21 and the kids and teens are left to fend for themselves. The show was half teen soap and half CozyCatastrophe, and [[FamilyFriendlyFirearms there were even lasers with stun settings]]. All it was missing was that ''Literature/AClockworkOrange'' element of graphic, violent, badassness to make it [[DarkerAndEdgier realistic and gritty]], but it tried.

* Inverted in ''Series/StarTrekPicard'', [[spoiler:the Borg and the Changelings have altered the transporters so that a part of Picard’s Borg-altered DNA is implanted into everyone who goes through them. As they use a certain part of the brain that stops growing at age 25, the elder people going through them wouldn’t be affected, but the younger ensigns and the like would, being assimilated once a signal is sent]].

* PlayedWith on ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice:'' five powerful magic users cast a spell that makes every adult on the planet disappear. However, halfway through the episode, it's revealed that they actually split the world across two dimensions--from the adults' perspective, every ''[[ChildlessDystopia child]]'' in the world under 18 just vanished. Meanwhile [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Captain Marvel]], who can switch from a kid to an adult, shifts between worlds when he transforms, coordinating the effort to fuse the worlds back into one. Notably, 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 [[BigBadEnsemble the Light's]] interference.

* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Quickening" features a planet where everybody is struck with plague that is present from birth but usually only kicks off in adult age, killing the victim. When Bashir cannot cure the plague, he procures a ''prenatal'' vaccine (every baby whose mother received the vaccine during pregnancy will be plague-free).

So the DepopulationBomb 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 AfterTheEnd fictions, Only Fatal to Adults has two variations: In the first, death strikes at the onset of puberty, killing only the sexually mature. In the second, the highly selective agent of the Depopulation Bomb kills in the late teens or in early adulthood, killing only the socially mature.

** Natually, the Franchise/{{DCAU}} provided its own spin in the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'' 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 ''Comicbook/{{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 antibodies to counteract it.
* "Kids Rule OK", a strip in 70's British comic ComicBook/{{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 [[http://www.sevenpennynightmare.co.uk/stories/strips/kids.htm Stern Talking To.]]
* One ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'' mini-arc features John Constantine's niece being enlisted to travel to an island where a group of [[UndeadChild Vampire Children]] all under the age of 13 who attack any adults that come near the island, but don't harm other children.

* This kind of thing seems to happen once a week in the universe of premier ''FanFic/MarissaPicard'', where Stephen Ratliff uses this kind of stuff to justify regularly allowing his Kids Crew protagonists to have command of starships, starbases, entire systems, etc.... One story in particular had a group of hijackers use a sleeping gas that only affected adults for no apparent reason beyond this.

* In Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/HonorHarrington'', people can get a treatment that will double or triple their lifespans, but only while they're still young. There are three levels of effectiveness. First generation Prolong can be performed as late as 25. Second generation treatment is only effective into the early teens, but gains a century or so more; Third generation, it is implied, will extend life even more effectively (it's very new, so the first people to get it haven't grown old yet), but requires genetic manipulation even before the recipient's birth.

*** 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.

* In the novel ''Literature/{{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.]]

* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Quickening" features a planet where everybody is struck with plague that is present from birth, but usually only kicks off in adult age, killing the victim. When Bashir cannot cure the plague, he procures a ''prenatal'' vaccine (every baby whose mother received the vaccine during pregnancy will be plague-free).
* The ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Terra Nova" has the crew going to humanity's first colony out side our solar system to determine why contact was lost several decades earlier. It was discovered that a radioactive asteroid hit the planet and all the adults died from the radiation. The children developed an immunity to it and survived by living in nearby caves.

* The ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' episode "Childhood's End" (unrelated to the Creator/ArthurCClarke 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.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' centered around a LostColony 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.

* 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.

* In ''Webcomic/TalesOfTheQuestor'', an ancient elf king wished for eternal youth for his people. [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor He got it:]] Elves now die around age 20 ("Just old enough to make more elves") - which more or less caused the collapse of their society and left the surviors living as thieves and scavengers.
** Also, there have been references to "the Crimson Plague" or "the Scarlet Plague," which according to WordOfGod decimated the Racconan population on at least two occasions, killing the very old and very young--- the main reason that, despite being a long-lived race, the current population of Antillia has very few extremely old Racconans, and very few families with multiple children....

* PlayedWith on ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice:'' five powerful magic users cast a spell that makes every adult on the planet disappear. However, halfway through the episode it's revealed that they actually split the world across two dimensions--from the adults' perspective, every ''[[ChildlessDystopia child]]'' in the world under 18 just vanished. Meanwhile [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Captain Marvel]], who can switch from a kid to an adult, shifts between worlds when he transforms, coordinating the effort to fuse the worlds back into one. Notably, 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 [[BigBadEnsemble the Light's]] interference.

* Many common childhood illnesses can be quite serious if caught as adults, and could lead to ''severe'' complications for the fetus if caught while pregnant.
** The ''Varicella zoster'' virus (aka Chicken pox), while mostly harmless to children, can be fatal if contracted in adulthood, which is why before a vaccine was available, parents would often try to get their children infected while they were still young so they could develop immunity, and those opposed to vaccination still do. Since there are still minor risks in childhood (approximately the same risks one would have from a case of the flu, plus the obvious danger of passing on the virus to a non-immune adult), the development of the vaccine has been quite welcome. And if that's not enough, even if you get it as a child it can turn up again when you're adult in the much more uncomfortable form of Herpes Zoster (shingles).

** Huntington's chorea is also terrifying with a dose of ParanoiaFuel thrown in. It's fatal in 100% of cases, generally between ages 40 and 50. It's also a dominant genetic disorder, so when you see your parent wasting away from it, you know there's a 50% chance that that'll be you in 25 years, and the same probability applies to each of your siblings. So, do you get tested and know for sure whether you have the gene, or remain ignorant until you're in your 40's and the symptoms either do or don't appear? If you do test positive, do you have children anyway or resign yourself to dying childless in order to avoid passing on the gene?

* In 1620, 70 men and women, along with 32 children, boarded the ''Mayflower'', leaving England for Virginia. They ended up in Massachusetts where, woefully unprepared for the upcoming winter, the adults came down with various illnesses like pneumonia. By the end of the winter, only 20 among the adults were still left alive. Miraculously, though, nearly all the children survived, though nearly all of them had lost one or both of their parents.

* According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, the people killed in the 1918 influenza pandemic were mostly otherwise healthy young adults. This was due to a phenomenon known as a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm Cytokine Storm,]] where the body's immune system is sent into overdrive. The very young and old were relatively unaffected, due to their less robust immune systems, which reduced the damage that could be done.

** The design document for Vault 29 in the canceled Van Buren plays in this trope---families were selected for the Vault, but everyone older than 15 was either turned away or redirected to another Vault in the chaos. A sentient supercomputer was to raise the kids.

* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Quickening" features a planet where everybody is struck with plague that is present from birth, but usually only kicks off in adult age, killing the victim. This is then turned UpToEleven when Bashir cannot cure the plague, but procures a ''prenatal'' vaccine (every baby whose mother received the vaccine during pregnancy will be plague-free).

* 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 antibodies to counteract it.

While this is great escapist fiction for young adults, for parents it's an AdultFear.