History Main / OnlyElectricSheepAreCheap

* ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' features this when Arthur Sinclair is trying to negotiate with cattle ranchers to use their land to grow much-needed crops -- they agreed only if their breeding stock remained untouched. It's a point only because [[spoiler:the Solanum virus is fatal to all life, but only cause humans to turn into zombies. For anything else, it's just fatal and results in their flesh becoming unsafe for human consumption]].

* ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'':
** In ''[[Anime/GhostInTheShell1995 Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]]'', Togusa asks Batou if his basset hound is a clone, remarking that the real thing (as though a clone is any less real) is expensive. (Batou also feeds his dog real food, but this is not presented as an issue of cost, but one of taste.) ''Ghost in the Shell'' is set in a world recovering from war, not (demonstrably) one with a thoroughly devastated environment, however, so the trope borders on cliche here. Of course, in a world where cybernetics and androids are so plentiful, it could be that some people keep robotic pets that don't have the living and training needs of a real live one.
** In the ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' series, the robotic Tachikomas regard all-natural motor oil as a real treat, much better than synthetic oil. Batou treating "his" Tachikoma differently from the rest, by regularly treating it to natural oil, is a catalyst for the robots developing individuality and self-awareness. [[spoiler:That and the anomalies caused by the oil corroding part of its circuit board]].
* In ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion 2.0'', this trope is played straight when the kids get shown a giant aquarium where specimens of pre-2nd impact sea life are preserved. Rei muses that they are the same as her and can't live outside this sheltered environment. Also, the fact that synthetic meat is the norm. The sheer dissonance between the kid's bewilderment at their first time seeing sea life, and Kaji and Misato's painful memories of the 2nd impact (Misato did not want to come because she would remember the event; Kaji wanted the kids to know what life was before 2nd impact), makes for a very dramatic moment as the viewer realizes this trope is in full effect. Slice of life ''and'' backstory exposition ''and'' character drama all rolled into one.
** At one point in the series, Misato thinks that buying the EVA pilots a steak dinner would bankrupt her. Realizing this, they take her to a fast-food place instead. This becomes FridgeLogic when one realizes that she works for the most important and powerful organization in the world, has precisely ''two'' superiors... yet four steaks would wipe her out. If steak is ''that'' rare, is there '''anyone''' who can afford it?

* In [[Music/{{Voltaire}} Aurelio Voltaire]]'s ''[[ComicBook/ChiChian Chi-Chian]]'' series, there is a story of a blind [[{{Sexbot}} pleasure-robot]]. Her eyes were stolen because they were made of the most valuable substance on the planet - pure wood.
* ''ComicBook/{{Fray}}''. It's difficult to be a Vampire Slayer in a future where there's a shortage of [[WoodenStake natural wood for stakes]].

** [[Film/JudgeDredd "Eat recycled food. It's good for the environment, and okay for you!"]]

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''

* In Mamoru Oshii's ''Film/{{Avalon|2001}}'', the wealthy (compared to the abject poverty of her fellow players) Ash feeds her dog quality food, as contrasted to the gruel that her peers survive on.

* ''Film/BladeRunner2049'': The protagonist acquires a carved wooden horse and is told he's rich because it's genuine wood.
* In ''Film/DemolitionMan'', society is entirely vegetarian. When they visit the 'scrap' society, he eagerly eats a hamburger. It's not beef... but at least it's not human. It's actually rat. He doesn't care and keeps on eating. He even says it's the best burger he's had in years. [[note]]Which is, admittedly, a LampshadeHanging on the fact it's the ''only'' burger he's had in years, having spent the last 30 of them in [[HumanPopsicle cryogenic stasis]].[[/note]] It bears mentioning that unlike most examples on this page, meat-eating isn't rare due to global disaster, it's a sign of how overly coddled and pacified human civilization has been rendered.
* In the distant galaxy of ''[[Film/KinDzaDza Kin-Dza-Dza]]'', one of the transplanted Earthlings discovers that the wooden matchsticks he's carrying in his pocket are actually the most valuable things in the system, as ''every last scrap of naturally-occurring organic or mineral material'' had long since been converted into one kind of fuel or another. Water is bought by the ''drop'', and food is made of '''plastic'''.

* An early example of this is in ''Film/SoylentGreen'', where one character is excited about having "hundred and fifty bucks a jar of strawberries."
* German sci-fi movie ''Film/{{Sturzflieger}}''. At the end, the protagonists grow rich when they discover a storeroom full of chicks.

* Inverted in ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'', where the drive of one of the main characters is to find a stash of Twinkies. After all, plants still grow after a zombie apocalypse, but with the Hostess kitchen shut down, snack cakes become an endangered species.

* Creator/PhilipKDick
** ''Literature/DoAndroidsDreamOfElectricSheep'', the novella upon which ''Film/BladeRunner'' was based, goes into this trope in more detail than the film. Real animal pets are considered the ultimate status symbol, and new editions of a blue book are published listing each species's going rate. Many species are thought to be extinct. The main character owns an electric sheep but conceals the fact that is artificial. At the end of the book, [[spoiler:he discovers a toad, thought to be extinct, and thus priceless, but it turns out to be artificial as well.]]
** In his short story "Breakfast at Twilight", an American family accidentally time-travel to WorldWarThree where they're accosted by a squad of malnourished American soldiers who have a ThisCannotBe reaction to their refrigerator stocked with milk, eggs, butter, and meat. They plunder the contents and hide them in their transport before ThePoliticalOfficer arrives.

* An interesting non-sci-fi example appears in Erich Maria Remarque's famous novel ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront''. One of the soldiers in the story is overjoyed when he discovers ''an actual cherry tree in bloom'' during a march across the countryside to a new position. Since he (and the others) have spent entire weeks on the western front of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, this is hardly surprising - the frontline being [[{{CorpseLand}} a lifeless war-torn muddy wasteland]] and all. [[TruthInTelevision And the less said about the rations given to soldiers in the latter parts of the war, the better...]]

* Neal Stephenson's ''Literature/TheDiamondAge'', in which one of the phyles bases its entire economy on providing luxurious hand-made goods for the Neo-Victorian elite, while everything else is produced in matter compilers. The TitleDrop is that diamond is now one of the cheapest materials you can have (because, being the absolute simplest pattern of the most common solid atom - a lattice of carbon - it's the easiest thing your matter compiler can make) but ''glass'' is a luxury good. The idea here is that the goods themselves are not important, but hand-made goods are valuable because they prove that you have enough power to compel another human being to take time out of their limited existence to make things for you when you could have just gone to the nearest matter compiler and got the equivalent product with a snap of your fingers.
* Inverted in ''[[Literature/{{Emberverse}} Dies the Fire]]'' by Creator/SMStirling, when the protagonists have a long gripe session about all the delicious junk food they miss, now they've been reduced to growing food naturally.
* A variant happens in ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' when a Fremen representative spits on the table during their first meeting with House Atreides. One of the protagonists gets angry and tries to draw a weapon to repay the "slight", but Duke Leto stops him - the act was a gesture of respect, as water is incredibly scarce on Arrakis.
** Leto's horrified to learn of the many demeaning customs his rivals the Harkonnens instituted during their rule of Arrakis based on ''[[ConspicuousConsumption wasting water]]''; upon entering the palace, guests ceremonially splash water on the floor for servants to mop up with towels, who then sell the squeezings to the poor. They planted date palms everywhere, then put up ''DeflectorShields'' to keep peasants from eating the dates.
--->'''Yueh''': One date palm requires forty liters of water a day. A man requires but eight liters. A palm, then, equals five men.
*** Some of Leto's first rulings upon taking residence are to have the palms removed and for free water rations to be available to anyone who calls on the holding during mealtimes. It's a pragmatic move on his part as well as humanitarian, as it ensures that the people of Arrakis support his rule.

* In ''Literature/{{Honorverse}}'' this is played on a more meta scale -- food is, for the most part, neither scarce nor artificial, but the peculiarities of the hundreds of different biospheres, their interplay with the human-brought species, not to mentions various genetic tweaks made to them so they may prosper in their new homes, make sure that some commodities will pretty much ''always'' remain rare and coveted. For example, the genuine Terran whiskey is considered a rare and expensive treat even on Manticore (which is [[PortalNetwork one jump]] and three days away from the Earth), and while celery is widespread and largely consistent over the many inhabited worlds, only a Sphinxian one contains the "[[PsychicPowers telepathy vitamin]]" coveted by the native sentient species. The 'cats actually have the other, native source of that, but the celery is just much ''tastier''.

* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'', spinach now has to be grown in absolutely sterile environments and is only available to the rich. This happened after human counter-intelligence agencies successfully "convinced" the [[MechanicalLifeforms Meklar]] that spinach was absolutely essential to human metabolism. The Meklar devoted large amounts of resources to develop a species-crossing retrovirus lethal to spinach and to deploy bomber fleets all across human space. Devastating losses in those fleets and the utter failure of the plan shocked the Meklar into a peace treaty, though.
* In Creator/HarryHarrison's ''Literature/MakeRoomMakeRoom'' (which ''Film/SoylentGreen'' is based on) even soy-based faux steak is expensive and worth practically rioting over.

* In ''[[Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy The Naked God]]'', one character proudly shows off his 20th-century lava lamp, now a priceless and beautiful antique instead of a tacky room decoration.
* ''Literature/{{Neuromancer}}'' has a scene where Molly chastises Case for not eating his steak;
-->Jesus, gimme that. You know what this costs? They gotta raise a whole animal for years and then they kill it. This isn't vat stuff.
* In ''{{Literature/Quozl}}'' by Creator/AlanDeanFoster, the titular aliens live aboard a [[GenerationShips Generation Ship]], and as such value wood considerably. It's not rare on the planets they have colonized, but space travel takes decades and growing trees in such an environment is impractical. They have elaborate public wooden sculptures, but the most wood an individual Quozl is likely to own is a small ring.
* In ''Literature/TheRoar'', due to the Animal Plague and the poor being forced into the northern parts of the world [[spoiler:while the richest people in the world live in mansions in forests]] natural-grown food such as strawberries and even artificially produced meat were considered food only for the rich in the North.
** Not to mention [[spoiler:the animal plague never happened. It was made by the government and the rich to scare everybody behind The Wall so they could have the forests and wildlife all to themselves.]]
* In ''Literature/TheSagaOfRecluce'' books Mag'i of Cyador/Scion of Cyador by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., an indication that the Empire is in decline is the increasing rarity of coffee.

* In ''Literature/TheShipWho'' synthesizer technology is advanced enough to create most things people need or want. Meat and plants grown outside of hydroponics are common enough on planets that produce them but a sign of great luxury in space. An expensive restaurant in ''The City Who Fought'', a station far away from any habitable worlds, boasts not just real meat but wooden furniture.
** One of the missions that Nancia considers taking is transporting a bull bison to a zoo on another world that has cow bison. The hassle of moving the big animal without harming him is considerable, but these are very rare animals.

* Played with in several ''Franchise/StarWars'' [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] novels:
** In the ''X-Wing'' novels, the heroes visit the home of Biggs' father on [[SingleBiomePlanet Tatooine]]. He's a very wealthy moisture farmer and shows this by having a study with imported hardwood and sculptures with ''running water''.

* Creator/ElizabethMoon's space opera series ''Literature/VattasWar''. With humanity scattered across space, the puppy Jim the stowaway finds is a mysterious novelty to most of the crew, though Jim, coming from a backwater world that relies on animal labor, knows what it is. Real food can be had but won't keep for long trips in space so it is a special treat supplemented by nutrition bars and [=MREs=]. When the main character's ship takes on refugees from other ships after a war breaks out, a snotty-ass captain makes a big deal about his personal stock of expensive raspberries being divvied out as rations.
** Oh, and the aforementioned dog (a Jack Russell?) ends up filling Jim's college fund when they arrive on a world where the local fauna has a tendency to kill dogs, making them rare and expensive. So they sell its sperm (in the same vein as selling racehorse sperm).
* In the [[Literature/VorkosiganSaga Vorkosigan universe]], this applies to some planets but not others. The heroine of the first two novels is from Beta Colony, a high tech but barely habitable desert planet, who winds up on Barrayar, which has a breathable atmosphere, lots of running water, and trees all over the place, but is also socially and politically and to some extent technologically backwards on account of [[LostColony having been cut off from contact with the rest of the galaxy for a few centuries]] (only ending a couple of generations before the action of the books). She has to remind herself that on ''this'' planet things like wooden buildings and furniture mean poverty, not wealth.

* In Lloyd Biggle, Jr.'s short story, "Wings of Song", an eccentric collector in the far future stumbles across a priceless antique violin, made of actual wood. He's never even seen any before, as apparently Earth is a completely barren wasteland due to war.
* ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' featured this when Arthur Sinclair was trying to negotiate with cattle ranchers to use their land to grow much-needed crops - they agreed only if their breeding stock remained untouched.
--> '''Arthur Sinclair''': "Tender, juicy steaks - can you imagine a better symbol for our artificial pre-war standard of living?"
** It's a point only because [[spoiler:the Solanum virus is fatal to all life, but only cause humans to turn into zombies. For anything else, it's just fatal and results in their flesh becoming unsafe for human consumption.]]

* The environment is fine in ''Series/BabylonFive'', but space travel is still expensive and the eponymous space station is too far from Earth to ship much food out. They've got a positively huge hydroponic farm, but it only grows "essential foods" and is geared towards providing a nutritionally complete diet, rather than a tasty and varied one... though said diet seems to include oranges and nectarines, and Takashima managed to sneak in a few coffee plants under the radar (later taken over by Ivanova).

** In space, showers are sonic; Captain Sheridan raves about the fact that his quarters have a water-based shower, which was not the case on the warship he commanded previously.

* A deleted scene in ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' mentions that the meat locker is the most heavily guarded area on a spaceship because the last remaining steaks, burger, fritters, etc, in the universe are there. Later in the series, we see the fleet is reduced to eating algae-derived food, and fruit and cigars are valuable black market commodities.
* In the [[Recap/BlackMirrorFifteenMillionMerits second episode]] of ''Series/BlackMirror'', '''all''' physical items are a sign of opulence. The everyday man can only purchase digital goods for his virtual avatar and the food is all grown in a lab. When the main character manages to become a famous TV star he splashes out and buys a real wooden penguin.
* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. In "Bounty", Blake encounters Sarkoff, a FanOfThePast who has decorated his home with rare Earth artifacts including a tray of butterflies, now implied to be extinct (Blake later forces Sarkoff to come with him by threatening to smash the tray).
-->'''Sarkoff:''' Beautiful, aren't they. Earth insects of the order Lepidoptera.\\

** A downplayed version in "Callisto Soul". As Jet Black isn't interested in the algae-soy hybrid meal, he tries to order a couple of rib-eye steaks using a 2-for-1 coupon, only to be told the coupon doesn't apply to "real meat". In "Blue Crow Waltz", even a Syndicate capo complains about not being able to get real beef.
** Because only the rich could afford to take their pets with them during the HomeworldEvacuation, dogs are worth between 20 to 30 million woolongs. When Jet tries to give Ein to his daughter as a pet, his ex-wife puts her foot down as they can't afford to pay the tax. In fact their rarity actually makes it difficult to sell them on the black market.

* Kaylee eating a strawberry in the ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' pilot. It was [[EroticEating orgasmic]].
** Later Jayne buys a bushel of apples and everybody reacts to this as an amazing treat and question his motives. Simon mentions that the food on a spaceship is considerably worse than planetside, but he ''is'' a Core-worlder, and isn't used to how Rim worlds don't have quality food. The apples remind Mal and Zoe of a rather nasty war story; during the Unification War, a favored tactic of Alliance soldiers was to leave fresh fruit lying around -- with pressure-triggered ''grenades'' hidden inside.
--->'''Zoe:''' Cap'n said wait, but they were so hungry... Don't make much noise, just little pops and there's three guys that kinda just... end at the rib cage.

* There's a worldwide drought in ''Series/TheSilentSea'' and the older characters speak with nostalgia about the joy of rain and swimming pools. Water is rationed and TheCaptain takes on the mission to get a higher water classification for his sick daughter.

* In past editions of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' which include the Elemental Plane of Air in their cosmology, ''dirt'' is considered a valuable commodity on that plane, as it's made up of gas-filled space. Anyone who wants to build a floating castle must either import some dirt to build it on or (more cheaply) use magic to solidify a cloud for a foundation.
* ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'' takes place after a hurried evacuation of Earth and colonization of the rest of the solar system. Naturally grown food, especially meat, is expensive due to the shortage of inhabitable space, but culture vats and [[MatterReplicator nanofabricators]] can produce substitutes that snobs ''insist'' they can detect - but it's compared to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_wine_tasting modern-day wines.]] Now organic bodies, those are expensive because they take three years to grow and there's a lot of demand from the billions of {{Virtual Ghost}}s in storage, while most Synthmorphs can be printed out in a matter of hours.
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Mystara}}'' D&D supplement "The Shadow Elves", the subterranean elf city's grandest and most-admired public avenue is lined by a dozen or so small trees, grown from precious cuttings brought down from the legendary surface and provided for with fertilizer and artificial lights. Elven tourists come hundreds of miles through twisted tunnels and caverns just to see them.

** Taken to the point that a RunningGag was to mention things like [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Imitation Cheese Substitute.]]

* ''All'' material goods are scarce in ''TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion'' since the Underworld is a quasi-real interstitial state of being that was never meant to host a civilization or a significant population. Most of what there is are either fading memories of real items and buildings or goods fabricated by [[AndIMustScream soulforging]] Wraiths into HumanResources. A ''very'' small number of living things and "natural" resources exist that cannot be explained by one of these two phenomena, all of which are staggeringly rare and valuable. For instance, the Deathlords of Stygia have a small number of apparently-living horses in their personal guard - no one knows where they came from, but Stygian policy is that their survival is more valuable than that of their riders.

* ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}''. The city of Rapture, being entirely underwater, does not contain enough farmland for growing nonessential crops or raising cattle, so real beef and tobacco aren't available except through Fontaine's smuggling operation. Somehow, Rapture's scientists have managed to synthesize both from what they do have on hand, which seems to be mainly sea life, and it's implied that customers generally don't mind.
** One of the splicers complains about the quality of a steak she's found, though given the setting it's probably rotten by that point.
* In the Video Game tie-in to the ''Film/BladeRunner'' movie, the player character Ray has an artificial dog named Maggie you can play with, and the crime Ray was initially investigating involves the slaughter of several real animals including a rare tiger. [[spoiler:Then it gets complicated: the shop owner was selling fakes but fudging records and tests so they were considered 'true' (and more expensive) animals]]
** It's noted in the game and novel that animal life is held in higher regard than humans -- considering Crystal's reaction is nearly identical to walking in on a murder of a child.
** There is also a point in the game where [=McCoy=] mentions that cheese is a black market item, whose illegal distribution evidently comes with jail time.
* Since the sun will turn anyone without proper protection into stone in ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga 2,'' this makes any plants you find quite valuable.

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' takes place on a planet being {{Terraform}}ed, so organics are worth considerably more than [[WorthlessYellowRocks gold or diamonds]].
** Sam once remarks that if interstellar travel weren't so expensive he could become very rich [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1300/fv01252.htm trading trash between Jean and his primitive homeworld]].

** "Edgewise, that desk is the greatest desk in the Academy. It's made of real wood."

* RealLife plays this completely straight with synthetic gemstones, which are completely identical to the natural stone chemically and have the same optics. One can buy several pounds of artificially created sapphires, emeralds, or rubies for the price of a single carat of the natural stuff, even though the natural one will actually be cloudier and less brilliant than the synthetics. And yes, this ''includes'' diamonds, which is why those used for industrial applications are almost exclusively synthetic while those used for jewelry are mostly natural and expensive due to shrewd marketing by De Beers, who control some 90% of the market.

** The original reason the Catholic Church specifically does not consider seafood to be "meat" was so that poor people would have something to eat on "meatless" Fridays and during Lent.

* There's a worldwide drought in ''Film/TheSilentSea'' and the older characters speak with nostalgia about the joy of rain and swimming pools. Water is rationed and TheCaptain takes on the mission to get a higher water classification for his sick daughter.

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. While at the messdeck, Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres have to eat yeast-based protein as the meat vats and hydroponics garden are still being repaired. Later Captain Janeway invites Chakotay for a formal dinner at the officer's wardroom and they have beef and vegetables from the ship's stores, though the taste is a bit off from the irradiation used to preserve it for space travel. Janeway is surprised when she attends a luxurious banquet on an alien space station and finds their alien hosts are serving up fresh meat.

** In the sequel ''Film/BladeRunner2049'', the protagonist acquires a carved wooden horse and is told he's rich because it's genuine wood.

* ''Film/TheMatrix'' has elements of this, and ''all'' the food that isn't gruel is virtual. This is why, in ''Reloaded'', some Zionites give Neo bread as a sign of admiration. It's the equivalent of giving him [[MessianicArchetype gold, frankincense, and myrrh]].

* In Mamoru Oshii's ''Film/{{Avalon}}'', the wealthy (compared to the abject poverty of her fellow players) Ash feeds her dog quality food, as contrasted to the gruel that her peers survive on.

** A downplayed version in "Callisto Soul". As Jet Black isn't interested in the algae-soy hybrid meal, he tries to order a couple of rib-eye steaks using a 2-for-1 coupon, only to be told the coupon doesn't apply to "real meat".

* In [[Music/{{Voltaire}} Aurelio Voltaire]]'s ''[[ComicBook/ChiChian Chi-Chian]]'' series, there is a story of a blind [[{{Sexbot}} pleasure-robot]]. Her eyes were stolen because they were made of the most valuable substance on the planet - pure wood. Yes, '''wood'''. [[MindScrew It's Chi-Chian]]. [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs Just go with it]].

* And the reason ''why'' soda is so cheap in the US, along with candies and other sweets, is because of the invention of high-fructose corn syrup as a substitute for cane sugar that can be produced economically using the vast (and heavily subsidized) corn crop of the American breadbasket. In the US, cane sugar is a rarity found only in organic and other specialty foods and drinks, thanks to competition from high-fructose corn syrup, a relative lack of places in the US where sugar can be grown[[note]]The lower Mississippi Valley, the Gulf Coast, Florida, and Hawaii[[/note]], and import tariffs designed to protect American sugar and corn syrup producers.
* Thanks to the invention of butter-flavored oil as an alternative to the real thing, the most expensive component of a bucket of movie-theater popcorn is, in fact, the paper bucket. Using actual butter would jack up the price considerably.