Bizarre Baby Boom: Difference between revisions
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It's [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|the not so distant future]]. Some bizarre event (perhaps a [[Apocalypse How|Global Catastrophe]]) rains down from the heavens to strike an unsuspecting Earth. [[After the End|It passes]], leaving the shattered fragments of humanity that remain to rebuild their lives, thankful that it is all over.
But ''is'' it over?
Some time later, about
Or perhaps... their powers are a lot more subtle in nature. Perhaps the only power they were granted was the ability to see extradimensional Space-Vampires or to pilot a [[Humongous Mecha]] of mysterious origin, and now those children are the only ones who can stand between humanity and an otherworldly threat which has cropped up and is now seeking to bring about [[The End of the World
Perhaps...the children ''themselves'' are the threat which seeks to bring about [[The End of the World
If all of the children are good, you can expect them to be recruited as soldiers or pilots by a shadowy [[Government Conspiracy|government agency]] which seeks to protect humanity. (At least, that's what they'll ''claim'' to be doing. There's no guarantee that they won't actually try to [[Tyke Bomb|use the children]] in their ''own'' plot to bring about [[The End of the World
If some of the children are good and some are evil, expect them to be [[Child Soldiers|pitted against each other]] at some point. The good children may be recruited by [[The Government]] and placed in a military institution or [[Wizarding School]] where they'll be trained on how to use their powers. Expect the evil children to be recruited by a psycho [[Cult]] Leader, who plans to use them in his plan to, you guessed it, bring about [[The End of the World
If ''all'' of the children are evil, expect them all to be on the same side and to be [[Creepy Child|damn creepy]]. More often than not, they'll have wicked powers and much higher intelligence than normal humans, meaning that most conventional forms of fighting will have no effect on them. In most cases it will require nothing less than a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to take them out.
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* ''[[Gilgamesh]]'' features super-powered children born from embryos exposed to [[Applied Phlebotinum]].
* ''[[S-Cry-ed]]'' takes place in a future rocked by a geographical uprising, which has left 1% of the newborn children with the ability to manipulate matter at will and create "Alters", strange creatures that do their bidding. The number rises as the series progresses, evidently a side effect of continued tampering with the power of the other side, which started the whole mess.
* ''[[
* ''[[Please Save My Earth]]'' features the reincarnation of a group of alien scientists after they all die when their civilization ends, and focuses on their lives as typical Japanese teenagers.
* ''[[Gundam]]'''s Universal Century [[Alternate Universe|timeline]] has the Newtypes, humans who developed [[Psychic Powers]] as humanity started to live in space colonies instead of the Earth's surface.
* The Diclonius of ''[[Elfen Lied]]'', which can intentionally infect normal humans so their children will inherit the mutation.
* Although drugs were involved, all the powerful psychics in ''[[
* The "Whispered" of ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]'' possess a psychic connection with an undefined future, which "whispers" the secrets of "[[Applied Phlebotinum|Black Technology]]" directly into their minds. From time to time that connection can be established between individual Whispered. ''Every'' Whispered was born on December 24, 1981 (1984 in the anime) between 11:50 and 11:53 PM Greenwich Mean Time.
* Children from ''[[Toward the Terra]]'', born naturally on Nazca are all Type Blue and {{spoiler|grow incredibly fast.}} They all share the same slightly sociopathic mentality, which connected with their actions doesn't score them many points with the other Mu.
* ''[[Alive the Final Evolution]]'' invokes this trope, but doesn't actually use
==
* ''[[Rising Stars]]'' by [[J.
* The original explanation for [[Mutants]] (the "Children of the Atom") in ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' was as a side-effect of [[I Love Nuclear Power|atomic bomb testing]].
* The premise of ''[[The Umbrella Academy]]'': The same year "Tusslin' Tom" Gurney knocked out the space-squid from Rigel X-9 with a flying atomic elbow "...forty three extraordinary children were born to mostly single women, who had shown no signs of pregnancy, in seemingly random locations around the world." A wealthy entrepreneur tracked down and adopted seven of these children to raised them as a superhero team.
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== Film ==
* Perhaps the first screen media example: 1960's ''[[
** Thailand also made a movie version, 1994's ''Blackbirds at Bangpleng'', which uses the same device, but has the children as less [[
* [[David Cronenberg]]'s ''[[Scanners]]'' is about a wave o' babies ([[Wave of Babies|not literally]]) with [[Body Horror]]-tastic psychic powers. Revok, one of the children of the original boom, is plotting to start a second one, and then create an army of evil scanners and [[Take Over the World]]. And he probably ''could'' do it. [[Left Hanging|Maybe he does.]]
** By the way, [[Word of God|Cronenberg says]] that [[Sequelitis|the sequels]] [[Canon
* ''[[Minority Report]]'' has the addicts of [[Fantastic Drug|Neuroin]] giving birth to the Precogs, [[Seers|who can see the future]] - specially murders.
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== Literature ==
* It only affected a small group but in ''The Girl With The Silver Eyes'' by Willo Davis Roberts, a group of women that tried an experimental fertility drug gave birth to children with silver eyes that had [[Psychic Powers]]. Their powers grew stronger if they worked together and a pair could [[Suggestion|push]] another remotely.
* ''[[
* Wyndham's earlier story ''[[The Chrysalids]]'' is something of the sort from the viewpoint of the children as their telepathic powers emerge.
* In a similar example, Wilmar Shiras's fixup novel ''Children of the Atom'' (first part published 1948; whole novel, 1953) is based on the notion that after an accidental release of [[I Love Nuclear Power|radiation]] at a nuclear power plant, several dozen female employees give birth to [[Mutants]] that are absolutely normal in every way except that all of them have IQs of over 300.
** ...and are they [[Evil Genius|evil]]?
*** The implication was that they're all quite conventional
* In Garth Nix's novel ''[[
** Those who survived the Change got them too; there are multiple characters (one during the main story and at least one more in flashback) shown to have Change Talents who were definitely born before it.
* Arthur C. Clarke's ''[[
* In Greg Bear's ''Darwin's Radio'' (and sequel), the human race undergoes a disease called "Herod's Flu" because it spontaneously aborts
** Except that the whole concept of "non-coding" introns has now had to be re-examined as [[Science Marches On]].
* [[Wild Cards]]; though it's not limited to children, those born carrying the Wild Card virus far outnumber the original overt infectees (especially since most of the original group drew the Black Queen and died).
* The [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]/[[Star Trek:
** Another [[
* Henry Kuttner's 1953 novel ''Mutant'' has the "baldies," bald telepathic humans who were born after a nuclear war and subsequent fallout. Wonder if Stan Lee read it?
** It was a common trope at the time, that one book was just following the already well-established mutant trend of postwar Atomic Age sci-fi. Stan picked it up by osmosis from a large number of sources, particularly "Children of the Atom", seen above.
** Kuttner also has a story called "Absalom" where more and more smarter and smarter children are born every generation. There is a problem with the older generations being envious and afraid.
* The Salman Rushdie novel ''Midnight's Children'' has 1001 Indian children with low-level superpowers. The connecting thread between them all is that they were all born at midnight on the day India gained its independence.
* In ''[[
* In [[Octavia Butler]]'s ''Earthseed'' books, a drug designed to cure mental degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's winds up giving the kids [[The Empath|"hyper-empathy syndrome"]] which causes them to hallucinate feeling the pain of others.
* Several of F. Paul Wilson's stories or novels feature folk who were born soon after an influx of 'Otherness' into our world. Some are grotesque [[Body Horror]] mutants, while others are only minimally deformed, but possess an inborn attraction to the Otherness that makes them potential sleeper agents for it.
* Micheal Grant's ''[[Gone (novel)]]'' had a portion of the population (all children, because the book starts the moment that all adults and people over fourteen 'poof') develop psychic powers {{spoiler|thus far because a meteorite hit the nearby nuclear plant 13 years prior, scattering radioactive fallout. Now discovered to have been the arrival of an evil alien, which needed the powers of one of the children to free itself and create a new body.}}
* ''Central Passage'' by Lawrence Schoonover had the American government trying to rebuild after a brief nuclear war, and worried about the potential threat of some oddly mutated children, including the main character's son. A postscript reveals {{spoiler|that the mutants eventually took over. They call non-mutant humans "helots" -- the term the Spartans used for the slaves on whom they periodically declared war as an excuse to murder them.}}
* In ''Ethan of Athos'' (in the [[Vorkosigan Saga]] universe), telepath Terrence Cee {{spoiler|has inserted the telepathy gene into every one of the female genetic samples sent to the exclusively male-populated planet Athos for their reproductive machines, intending to cause one of these. Unusually, protagonist Ethan eventually decides this is a good idea for everyone involved and rolls with it.}}
** Ethan's logic is impeccable and has a moral basis. {{spoiler|with genetic samples having already found their way into the hands of imperialist and generally nasty powers, and Terrence as proof that telepaths are possible, it's only a matter of time before cloned and indoctrinated telepath minorities become government tools. The only way to counter this danger to human freedom is with a race with a free telepath majority.}}
* In ''Shade'', by PC Cast, 16 years before the start of the story there was the Shift, and all children born after the Shift can see ghosts (while the minority who could see ghosts pre-Shift have lost that ability). Ghosts also seem to have changed, becoming purple in color and sometimes going insane and causing sickness in all post-Shift children. {{spoiler|The protagonist was the very first person born before the Shift, and she ends up meeting the very ''last'' person born before the Shift. Both the First and the Last have special powers.}}
== Live-Action TV ==
* In ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', there is a variant: Sam {{spoiler|and a bunch of children from his generation were given Demon blood by [[Big Bad]] Azazel when they were six months old. This gave them a variety of creepy psychic powers when they reached the age of 22--and were intended to be members of Azazel's army in an ill-defined plan. Turns out Sam is supposed to be the vessel for Satan himself, and Azazel's a master of the [[Xanatos Gambit]] for having run his plan without a hitch (even his death really didn't put a dent in it).}}
* In ''[[Fringe]]'', some children (including {{spoiler|Olivia}}) were given a drug (made by {{spoiler|Massive Dynamics}}) back in the early 80s. It was meant to enhance their minds. It worked a little too well in some cases, but it also had some unpleasant side effects on several subjects.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In Arthaus's 3E ''[[Ravenloft]]'' products, calibans are supernaturally-mutated humans, altered in the womb by exposure to magic, curses, or the malignant influence of hags. Metagame-wise, they take the place of half-orcs as potential PCs, orcs being unknown in Ravenloft.
* Inverted in ''[[Dungeons
* Unexplained Genetic Expression (UGE) was the Technobabble term concocted by scientists of the [[Shadowrun]] Verse, to try to explain why babies all over the world were suddenly being born as elves and dwarves. That lasted until dragons started showing up in the skies again.
== Videogames ==
* The superhero MMORPG ''[[City of Heroes]]'' features an NPC named Fusionette who is one of the ''Nuclear 90'', a group of 90 children who were born in the same year who have superpowers involving nuclear fusion. So far she is the only one of The Ninety to show up in the game. Most or all player characters are also suggested to be the result of a different
* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', biotics (people who can [[Mind Over Matter|manipulate gravity]]) are the result of in-utero exposure to [[Minovsky Physics|Element Zero]]. A couple of spills resulted in most of the early human biotics being concentrated in a few major cities. Eventually, [[Government Conspiracy|Cerberus]] stops relying on accidents to [[Tyke Bomb|create super soldiers]]. Plus Element Zero only works in a small percentage - a majority of the people will go through life with no abnormality at all, and most of the rest end up with brain tumors.
* X-COM: Apocalypse introduces genetic hybrids of humans and the sectoids of the first game. They're some of the best soldiers you can recruit in the game, because of their high level of psi stats and lack of real drawbacks. They have no sinister motives, since the aliens that intended to exploit them were wiped out almost a century earlier, but are still discriminated against by the people and government of Mega-Primus.
* In ''[[UFO: After Blank|UFO: Aftershock]]'', there are human children who are born with unique abilities, such as psychic powers or the ability to adapt to robotic implants. These children are instantly rejected, giving rise to the Psionic and Cyborg tribes.
== Webcomics ==
* ''[[
* In the backstory of ''[[
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