If you haven't seen Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, drop what you're doing and go watch it. It's a masterpiece of 21st-century sci-fi. The film is based on P.D. James' equally-good novel of the same name. The premise of the story is this: in the year 2027, the human race is afflicted by mass infertility. No human beings have been born for eighteen years, and civilization begins to crumble as mankind slowly withers away. A fascist government takes over in England and, as one of several measures used to keep society from falling apart, freely distributes a suicide pill to its citizens. The brand name of the pill? "Quietus." ("Quietus" also appears in the novel, as a ceremony where the government locks old and sick people into canoes and then sinks them off the coast.)
And even if you haven't seen the movie or read the book, doesn't "Quietus" just have a sinister ring to it?
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