The year is 2052. Human life on earth will soon end due to runaway climate change, acidic oceans, fresh water shortage, and a biological feedback loop which has been definitively confirmed by the world's top scientists. The truth of their findings, however, have been a tightly guarded secret by governments around the world.
World leaders debated their options endlessly at secret Bilderberg meetings, knowing their people would look to them for answers once the information spread. Billions of people seeking direction and vision.
What would you do?
It can't be reversed. It can't be stopped. Billions of people are going to die.
What can you do?
What's the humane thing to do?
The leaders and philosophers struggled to find an appropriate moral action. If they could prevent the suffering of billions, shouldn't they do it? Should they do something, even if they can't ultimately save lives?
Eventually, they devised a scheme to quickly, quietly, and painlessly end those lives, thus saving them from future misery. Their challenge was to accomplish something terrible, on a grand scale, while keeping it secret. They decided to create perfectly safe injections the majority of the population takes every year without question. Vaccines of all kinds for every ailment imaginable. The science of their safety having been settled long ago, everyone would be primed and ready for the moment when the leaders collectively decide to distribute that fateful, merciful dose.
Using a microcapsule technology developed in secret for decades, those in the know would not only be able to track exactly how many citizens are tagged and ready, they also have the ultimate kill switch. When activated, the capsules release their nano-robotic-toxins into the bloodstream, which travel to the brain and swiftly, quietly, and painlessly shutdown the nervous system.
No more pain. No more life.
Evolution moves on without us.
Except, of course, for those elite power brokers who can now implement their strategy for limited human survival. Like Dr Strangelove, but merciful and benevolent.