History Main / SuperPrototype

** Enterprise is the subject of a number of rumors about having an UpToElevan top speed due to her large number of reactors with 50 knots being a typical top speed. These are generally untrue with Enterprise achieving a 35 knot maximum speed like most other carriers, however the 8 reactors allows Enterprise to generate steam more quickly than her successors allowing for faster acceleration and less competition for steam between the catapults, electrical generators and engines.

** This trope is prevalent in ''Magic'' on a more "meta" level: The designers are constantly trying to make more balanced versions of older, overpowered cards. [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=600 Black Lotus]], the original [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=633 Moxen]], and the original [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202536 dual lands]] are among the game's many Super Prototypes.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has some really powerful prototype stuff. Example: MPLX Novasurge, a unique plasma pistol which greatly increases damage and the critical multiplier at the cost of doubled power usage and weight. It was developed by a "Section: A61" shortly before the Great War broke out. The prototype survived the war by being beamed aboard Mothership Zeta approx. 200 years before the Lone Wanderer found it in the ship's cargo hold.. Or the MP-47/A power armor prototype with a built-in medical dispenser and an onboard AI. And the Capital Wasteland's sole set of T-51b power armor(not counting the indestructible Winterized version from ''Operation: Anchorage'').

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has some really powerful prototype stuff. Example: MPLX Novasurge, a unique plasma pistol which greatly increases damage and the critical multiplier at the cost of doubled power usage and weight. It was developed by a "Section: A61" shortly before the Great War broke out. The prototype survived the war by being beamed aboard Mothership Zeta approx. 200 years before the Lone Wanderer found it in the ship's cargo hold.. Or the MP-47/A power armor prototype with a built-in medical dispenser and an onboard AI.

* On ''{{Chuck}}'', Chuck is the first successfull Intersect and remains the only prototype due to repeated sabotage of the project. However, when they finally decide to create more Intersect agents, they turn out to be way too inflexible in their thinking and tend to overreact in combat situations.

* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' does strange things with this trope. Units 00, 01, and 02 are referred to as the prototype unit, test unit, and production unit, respectively, but they're functionally identical in operation. ''EndOfEvangelion'' features "mass produced Evas" that are superior in basically every way, but aren't really a refinement of the original Evas so much as the same underlying technology taken in a different direction.

May be the result of a BlackBox; the "super" parts of the prototype are [[NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup unreplicable.]] A specific instance of OlderIsBetter: the prototype came first, so it is better than all that came after it. The {{Opposite Trope|s}} is the FlawedPrototype. A closely related trope is the AceCustom. See also BiggerStick.

* Amazingly inverted in ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations''. When you face down Dr. Eggman's Egg Dragoon in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', he tells you that this version is the prototype version and that the finished model would be much stronger. Come ''Generations'', he's right - while the finished model doesn't use the machine cannon that the prototype did, the finished model is sleeker, faster and utilizes its ice function a lot more than its prototype did.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has some really powerful prototype stuff. Example: MPLX Novasurge, a unique plasma pistol which greatly increases damage and the critical multiplier at the cost of doubled power usage and weight. It was developed by a "Section A61" shortly before the Great War broke out. The prototype survived the war by being beamed aboard Mothership Zeta approx. 200 years before the Lone Wanderer found it in the ship's cargo hold.. Or the MP-47/A power armor prototype with a built-in medical dispenser and an onboard AI.
** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' shows that at least one prototype model of eyebots had a TV-screen, and not just a built-in radio. ED-E, however, is ''not'' quite this trope, despite being a prototype and much more powerful than its mass-produced cousins: it was the prototype to a series of combat-adapted eyebots that were scrapped in favour of Hellfire power armor, with the common eyebot being its predecessor rather than its successor.
** There's also the Tesla-Beaton Prototype, a unique Tesla cannon, and a prototype Laser Rifle with a green laser. The Q-35 Matter Modulator is a SuperPrototype and also has some backstory to {{Retcon}} why the FO3 plasma rifle is so different from the original plasma rifle (dubbed the "Plasma Caster" in FONV): The plasma caster was too expensive, had an awkward form factor, and required too much training to be proficient in, so a military project was started to adapt it to a more familiar pistol-grip rifle form factor, and lower the cost.

In RealLife, a prototype is simply the first unit of a model to be built, usually made in order to do real-world tests of the design and correct any flaws before mass production begins. As such, you want your test unit to be as similar to your production unit as possible, so prototypes are frequently indistinguishable from standard models. [[note]]Additionally, in RealLife prototypes of armoured vehicles (and this would apply to armour-clad Gundams and such as well) are typically made from "soft" (non-armour grade) steel to simplify building and modification, so their life on the battlefield would've been rather short[[/note]] However, a real-world concept that more closely resembles the super prototype is the experimental unit, which is intended to test out new technology without ever being meant for mass production at all. As cost-effectiveness is less important, experimental units frequently ''do'' have superior performance to eventual mass production models.

Military test pilots refer to this as "pushing the envelope" - the upper edge is height, the left edge is speed. Visualize this as the kind of envelope you mail somebody and you realize that particular area is [[IncrediblyLamePun where the postage gets canceled]]. This distinction is rarely made in fiction, however. [[note]]As an aside, often times in electronics, companies will ship out the most powerful unit first to show what the next gen is capable of. All subsequent models are usually lesser versions of that first release (which are usually production units that failed and are either ran at lower performance or have parts chopped off), though occasionally when technology improves, they might make a revision to the design to make it even better.[[/note]]

* In ''SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', any prototype starts out one experience level ahead of a normal unit. This means that, with a Command Center and [[HollywoodCyborg Bioenhancement Center]], a prototype is Elite right off the rack, though this is explained as being due to the soldiers being more experienced, rather than technological superiority.

* The Spartan-[=IIs=] of ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' serve as this to the later Spartan-[=IIIs=]. The [=IIs=] tended to be larger, stronger, and just more naturally talented overall, due being subject to a much more stringent selection criteria. On top of all that, their [[PoweredArmor MJOLNIR armor]] was far better than the [=III=]'s SPI armor. On the other hand, the [=IIs=] were also much more costly to produce and equip, and the process of augmenting them had a much higher failure rate than with the [=IIIs=], making them much fewer in numbers and much less expendable than the [=IIIs=]. This can be most clearly seen in ''VideoGame/HaloReach'', where Jorge, the BigGuy of the team, is the only Spartan-II, towering above his squadmates and effortlessly carrying a giant machine gun that the others would be greatly slowed down by.
** Averted by the Spartan-I project, which did not have the success that the later programs did. It was not even originally called the Spartan Program, merely Project Orion. Dr. Halsey renamed it the Spartan I's because their augmentation experiments were still useful and she wanted to keep everyone optimistic that the program was leading somewhere.
** Further realized by the Spartan IV program, which consisted of adult volunteers with prior military training while both the II and III incarnation were first drafted as ''children'' and [[TheSpartanWay trained for years specifically to be the perfect soldiers]]. The Mjolnir Amor was a passable mass produced version and the augmentation procedures had less casualty rates, but due to being enacted on adults rather than children at the onset of puberty they do not have anything close to the same level of physical power. Lastly, again because they are adults some had rather flippant personalities instead of the more professional demeanor of the previous incarnations.
** There's also the [[http://www.halopedia.org/HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL_Mark_I_Prototype_Armor_Defense_System HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL Mark I]] PoweredArmor, which was this to the [[http://www.halopedia.org/HRUNTING/YGGDRASIL_Mark_IX_Armor_Defense_System Mark IX "Mantis"]] MiniMecha. Whereas the Mark I had flight, rockets, chainguns, mines, a bubble shield, and ''a nuclear self-destruct system'', the Mantis only has a chaingun, a rocket launcher, and standard DeflectorShields (still, it's a force to be reckoned with).