Meta:Plagues

Plagues are organisms created with express intent to wipe out a significant portion of a lineage. They were historically used to cull "Earth-clones" and remove lineages which were deemed implausible. They used to be a common phenomenon, but they have always had controversy surrounding them and their use has now been restricted to genuinely unfixable lineages which violate the laws of physics, such as impossible diets and unjustified giant cells.

Plagues also exist in the Beta timeline, where they have thus far only been used once to cull a lineage of implausible Earth-clones on majority vote. Plagues in the Beta timeline have not gained the prevalence or reputation they have in Alpha, as they are discussed and voted on by the team and stricter moderation practices from the beginning prevent implausible lineages from evolving in the first place.

List of Plagues
This is a list of plagues and their meta reasons for occurring, if the information is available. This list is currently incomplete due to there being no pre-existing list of plagues which occurred after Generation 105; it will be updated as additional plagues are found.

Sauceback Plague
The Sauceback Plague occurred in Generation 68. Details on how it came to be have been lost, but the reason it occurred is still known. It was created to solve the issue of there being entirely too many predatory saucebacks living together in the same habitats competing for the same food.

Plent Plague
The Plent Plague occurred in Generation 81. The meta reasons surrounding it have been lost, but its description seems to suggest it was to cull Plents in the area to make room for other lineages.

Shrew Plague
The Shrew Plague occurred in Generation 95 and was spread by the Death Soriparasite. It is the only plague to be caused by two species. Unlike with most plagues, much of the context surrounding the Shrew Plague has been preserved via the Wayback Machine.

The Shrew Plague was originally proposed by Ichthyostega, the creator of the shrew lineage, in the organism ideas thread on the original forum. Though another member, Bonosaber, is commonly associated with the Shrew Plague, it is unknown how much his species influenced the decision to have the plague; in fact, archived forum posts show he was actually initially in favor of it. There is speculation, but no confirmed information, that the Shrew Plague was at least partially created to prevent a descendant of the Lemupus from gaining sapience.

Plent Pox
The Plent Pox occurred in Generation 104. Its meta reason for occurring is unknown, but may be related to the then-recent gamma-ray burst extinction event and how caves had become overfilled with fauna just before it occurred.

Anti-Sticky Plague
The Anti-Sticky Plague occurred in Generation 105. Its meta reasons for occurring are unknown.

Plagues in the Beta Timeline
The Beta timeline has only had a single plague, the Cish Plague, which occurred at the end of Beta Week 2. As Beta is more focused on scientific plausibility, Earth clones are generally frowned upon; the Cish were not only Earth clones but had broken anatomy from misinterpretation, removed their ancestor's alien features in favor of replacing them with ordinary chordate features, and their descriptions constantly referred to how great they were. They were also dramatically smarter than their ancestors with no transition, despite evolving during a period roughly equivalent to the Cambrian explosion.

The idea of the Cish Plague was originally proposed by Disgustedorite, and it was discussed heavily by Beta's moderator team until all active staff agreed to hold a community vote. Even the creator of the Cish, FourEyesIsAFish, voted in favor of the plague. The plague itself and how the sole survivor was chosen were directly inspired by Alpha's Shrew Plague, down to the sole survivor surviving specifically because it lived in a river.