History Main / UsedFuture

Shows on the other end of the SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty treat the future as a place where blue-collar workers make a living doing unglamorous jobs and where spaceships look dirty, dingy, and used, like heavy equipment that one might find at a lonely truck stop in the middle of the night right now. The ships are [[WhatAPieceOfJunk rusty junk heaps]] of mismatched spare parts [[{{MacGyvering}} seemingly held together with two pieces of string, chewing gum]], and the will of God. The ships are run on a shoestring by scrappy, hard-bitten characters with a MysteriousPast (or even a DarkAndTroubledPast) who live on the edge, the SF equivalent of the struggling FilmNoir private eye. This is the gritty Used Future, and it's home to {{Space Trucker}}s, renegades, a RagtagBunchOfMisfits, regular working stiffs, and anyone on the "cynical" end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism. Think of it as DieselPunk '''[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]'''

Sometimes, there will be ShinyLookingSpaceships alongside dingier ones; usually these new, [[AsceticAesthetic ascetic and shiny ships]] will belong to the [[TheEmpire Galactic Military]] or elite rulers which have access to constantly churning shipyards and the newest heights of technology while the heroes must survive on surplus gear and homegrown repairs. These shiny looking spaceships, however, can denote that the crew piloting these über-ships is formed of [[NewMeat completely green recruits]] with no real combat experience, often led by a [[TheNeidermeyer pompous noble]], while the battered ships are piloted by grizzled veterans who can fly circles around them.

The original ''Franchise/StarWars'' [[TropeCodifier popularised the concept]] (although arguably ''Film/MoonZeroTwo'' (1969), ''Film/SilentRunning'' (1972), and ''Film/DarkStar'' (1974) [[TropeMaker led the way]].) For budgetary reasons, typical science fiction offerings from the pre- ''Star Wars'' era often resorted to kitbashing to create sets for spaceships, space stations or planetary locations. This meant a lot of quarries, boiler rooms, and power plants acting as futuristic locations. Also, a lot of junked electronics were used to create random consoles and instrument panels. For contrast, the ''Star Wars '' prequels, set in a more civilized time, [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas are correspondingly shinier]]. (''Star Wars'' is a rare example on the "idealism" end of the above-mentioned scale.)

See Also: ScavengerWorld as well as TheDungAges for the JustForFun/FantasyCounterpart. Often the aesthetic of choice for SpaceOrks or SpacePirates.

See Also: ScavengerWorld as well as TheDungAges for the JustForFun/FantasyCounterpart.

* E. M. Forster wrote a science fiction short story called "The Machine Stops" (1909) about a future civilization that has grown dependent upon automation. (When the titular machine deteriorates and dies, so does the civilization.)

* The ''Literature/RevelationSpace'' universe from Creator/AlastairReynolds. The first ship described is about 3-4 kilometers long and has ''5 people'' running it. Vast swathes of it are described as "flooded with coolant... others were infested with rogue janitor-rats... patrolled by defense drogues which had gone berserk... filled with toxic gas, or vacuum, or too much high-rad." As the story goes on things go worse and worse, culminating in the ship evolving into a veritable [[spoiler:virus-mutated, alien-infused]] sentient EldritchStarship.

* Philip K. Dick's "Literature/DoAndroidsDreamOfElectricSheep" has "kipple" - the accumulation of society's junk and litter, which seems to grow spontaneously whenever you're not looking. The Earth of the story had been largely abandoned in favor of space colonies, leaving many empty and unmaintained sections of the city to rot and accumulate random garbage. Appropriate, as it's the book that ''{{Film/Bladerunner}}'' is based on.

* ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': Arthur is taken aback by the squalor of the Vogon ship, and notes that the much shinier Heart of Gold is more in line with what he expects of a space ship -- of course, the ''Heart of Gold'' is only clean because it's so new that it still has the protective film on.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', if taken as its own universe rather than pure parody, presents a very lived-in future where things do go wrong and break down. Particularly notable is the part of the opening sequence where two {{Zeerust}} rocket ships get into a fender-bender, and a third one smashes into a billboard at the end of the intro.

* ''VideoGame/{{HardspaceShipbreaker}}'' breathes this tropes: Everything from your spacesuit and equipment to your habitat module is outdated, dirty and breaking down. Of course the ships you are dismantling are, by definition, either obsolete or broken beyond repair.

** Although it should be noted that most of their earth was {{KillSat}}ed by their own government, to attempt to slow down their enemies and rob them of any spoils. Those places also tend not to be inhabited by the only remaining formal government's citizens.

Shows on the other end of the SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty treat the future as a place where blue-collar workers make a living doing unglamorous jobs and where spaceships look dirty, dingy, and used, like heavy equipment that one might find at a lonely truck stop in the middle of the night right now. The ships are [[WhatAPieceOfJunk rusty junk heaps]] of mismatched spare parts [[{{MacGyvering}} seemingly held together with two pieces of string, chewing gum]], and the will of God. The ships are run on a shoestring by hard-bitten characters with a MysteriousPast (or even a DarkAndTroubledPast who live on the edge, the SF equivalent of the struggling FilmNoir private eye. This is the gritty Used Future, and it's home to {{Space Trucker}}s, renegades, a RagtagBunchOfMisfits, regular working stiffs, and anyone on the "cynical" end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism. Think of it as DieselPunk '''[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]'''

Shows on the other end of the SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty treat the future as a place where blue-collar workers make a living doing unglamorous jobs and where spaceships look dirty, dingy, and used, like heavy equipment that one might find at a lonely truck stop in the middle of the night right now. The ships are rusty junk heaps of mismatched spare parts [[{{MacGyvering}} seemingly held together with two pieces of string, chewing gum]], and the will of God. The ships are run on a shoestring by hard-bitten characters with a MysteriousPast (or even a DarkAndTroubledPast who live on the edge, the SF equivalent of the struggling FilmNoir private eye. This is the gritty Used Future, and it's home to {{Space Trucker}}s, renegades, a RagtagBunchOfMisfits, regular working stiffs, and anyone on the "cynical" end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism. Think of it as DieselPunk '''[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]'''

Shows on the other end of the SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty treat the future as a place where blue-collar workers make a living doing unglamorous jobs and where spaceships look dirty, dingy, and used, like heavy equipment that one might find at a lonely truck stop in the middle of the night right now. The ships are rusty junk heaps of mismatched spare parts [[{{MacGyvering}} seemingly held together with two pieces of string, chewing gum]], and the will of God. The ships are run on a shoestring by hard-bitten characters with a MysteriousPast (or even a DarkAndTroubledPast who live on the edge, the SF equivalent of the struggling FilmNoir private eye. This is the gritty Used Future, and it's home to {{Space Trucker}}s, renegades, a RagtagGroupOfMisfits, regular working stiffs, and anyone on the "cynical" end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism. Think of it as DieselPunk '''[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]'''

Shows on the other end of the SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty treat the future as a place where blue-collar workers make a living doing unglamorous jobs and where spaceships look dirty, dingy, and used, like heavy equipment that one might find at a lonely truck stop in the middle of the night right now. The ships are old junk heaps run on a shoestring by hard-bitten characters on the edge, seemingly held together with two pieces of string, chewing gum, and the will of God — the SF equivalent of the struggling FilmNoir private eye, in other words. This is the Used Future, and it's home to {{Space Trucker}}s, renegades, regular working stiffs, and anyone on the "cynical" end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism. Think of it as DieselPunk '''[[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]'''

Sometimes, there will be ShinyLookingSpaceships alongside dingier ones; usually these new, [[AsceticAesthetic ascetic and shiny ships]] will belong to the [[TheEmpire Galactic Military]] which has access to constantly churning shipyards and the newest heights of technology while the heroes must survive on surplus gear and homegrown repairs. These shiny looking spaceships, however, can denote that the crew piloting these über-ships is formed of [[NewMeat completely green recruits]] with no real combat experience, often led by a [[TheNeidermeyer pompous noble]], while the battered ships are piloted by grizzled veterans who can fly circles around them.

** Most spaceships and other futuristic devices are covered with dings and scratches. The 'droid characters R2-D2 and C-3PO look scruffy even before they end up trekking across a desert (Threepio even has mismatched feet), Luke's landspeeder is missing the casing of one of its engines, while the ''Millennium Falcon'' looks like it's almost [[WhatAPieceOfJunk ready to fall apart]]. This extends to the sound design as well; apparently Creator/GeorgeLucas' instructions were that he wanted to hear every loose bolt in the ''Falcon'''s engines.

* Naturally, the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series' future is used, broken, jury-rigged back together, and then used some more. Particularly notable examples are the [[AllegedCar Highwayman]] of ''Fallout 2'', with its lack of hood or trunk cover (and don't even think about paint), the tragically damaged AI M.A.R.Go.T. (who states herself to be operating at 14% capacity), and the duct-tape-heavy skins of the Hunting Rifle in every last game.

* The ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'' series as of the second game takes place in a CrapsackWorld TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, where everything looks like it came from 1984.

** It gets worse by the time of ''Gears of War 3'' where humanity has lost all of its cities and all humans now exist as self-defending tribes. Everything has predictably become dirtier and more desperate. Less Used Future and more ScavengerWorld.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' games makes use of this. This is especially noticeable in Doom 3's 'Mars city' The well maintained sections look pretty rough, the seldom used sections are dilapidated, then the forces of hell turn up...

** Even ''Literature/TheRollingStones'', 1952

** This trope is also used to contrast [[TheEmpire the Galactic Empire]] and [[TheAlliance the Rebel Alliance]]. Imperial equipment is immaculate and their design utilitarian, favoring sharp geometric shapes, from their capital ships' interiors to their [[WeHaveReserves disposable]] [[MookMobile TIE Fighters]]. The Rebels meanwhile start the Galactic Civil War with whatever (frequently obsolete and cast-off) wargear they can scrounge together, and some of their ships look like they're held together with space duct tape and [[BackgroundMagicField the Force]]. Even when they're reinforced with professionally-made ships, like the X-Wing fighters or the Mon Calamari star cruisers, their older stuff sees use out of necessity, emphasizing that they're still a RagtagBunchOfMisfits no matter how large the Rebellion grows.

** The Y-Wing fighter-bomber notably bridges the design aesthetics of the prequel and original trilogies. When the ship first appears in ''Film/ANewHope'', all the Y-Wings that participate in the [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/6/67/Ywings_trenchrun.png Death Star trench run]] are stripped down to their bare fuselages, exposing the cabling and wires. But ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' reveals the originally, the Y-Wings [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/4/45/BTL-B_Y-wing_BF2.png looked sleek and fully-armored]], with an entirely different ship profile. It's just that the Y-Wing's design flaws resulted in a constant need for maintenance, and by the time of the Rebellion decades after the ship's introduction, Rebel technicians got fed up with removing the armor to get at the cooling system and stopped bothering to put it back on.

** This trope is also used to contrast [[TheEmpire the Galctic Empire]] and [[TheAlliance the Rebel Alliance]]. Imperial equipment is immaculate and their design utilitarian, favoring sharp geometric shapes, from their capital ships' interiors to their [[WeHaveReserves disposable]] [[MookMobile TIE Fighters]]. The Rebels meanwhile start the Galactic Civil War with whatever (frequently obsolete and cast-off) wargear they can scrounge together, and some of their ships look like they're held together with space duct tape and [[BackgroundMagicField the Force]]. Even when they're reinforced with professionally-made ships, like the X-Wing fighters or the Mon Calamari star cruisers, their older stuff sees use out of necessity, emphasizing that they're still a RagtagBunchOfMisfits no matter how large the Rebellion grows.

* While technically not the future, the Space Shuttles were still very high tech and futuristic looking vehicles during their lifetimes. Despite this however the Space Shuttles apparently [[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39872790/ns/technology_and_science-space/ got quite dirty and banged up.]] And a credit to NASA's engineers as well. Most equipment built ''now'' wouldn't survive half of what those babies can. [[FunnyAneurysmMoment Two of them didn't.]] Reportedly some expert warned NASA that the chances of a shuttle being destroyed in flight were 1 in 50 [[note]] This "some expert" was none other than [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman Richard Feynman]], while NASA engineers estimated the potential failure rate of the Space Shuttle at 1 in 200, and ExecutiveMeddling from [[ObstructiveBureaucrat NASA administrators]] led to a publicized failure rate estimate of 1 in 100,000.[[/note]]. There were 135 flights, and 2 shuttles destroyed with all crew lost. In light of that second failure, earlier Shuttle flights were looked at again and reassessed for risk. It was estimated that early flights should have failed about 1 in 10 times, and the likelihood of staving off failure until Challenger was just 6%!

* ''[[VideoGame/ChzoMythos 7 Days a Skeptic]]'' has the Mephistopheles where the technology is outfitted with obsolete technology from the 23rd and a half century.

* ''[[VideoGameChzoMythos 7 Days a Skeptic]]'' has the Mephistopheles where the technology is outfitted with obsolete technology from the 23rd and a half century.

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* ''Script/AHDotComTheSeries'', thanks to the ship being a battered old ex-battleship kept running by a fraction of its proper crew.
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** The prequel trilogy turns the aesthetic around, since it takes place over the last generation of the Republic, amid the seats of planetary or galactic power, resulting in far cleaner and tidier sets and ShinyLookingSpaceships. But when the action shifts to locations like Tatooine or the seedy underbelly of Coruscant, things get noticeably grungier.

* Most of ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' games consists of tracking through [[SceneryGorn partially ruined]] technology of all kinds of aesthetics, with rusty crashed spaceships and half-ruined bases mixed with wilderness. Then again, the technology levels range from OrganicTechnology to {{Magitek}}.

[[caption-width-right:300: The ''Bebop''; she's certainly seen better days.]]

* The ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' setting has advanced technology that includes teleportation devices, spaceships and sapient robots, but as [[EverythingTryingToKillYou the ecosystem of every planet seems hell bent in devouring everything in sight]] and there is no stable government anywhere, only {{Mega Corp}}s, rebel groups and bandits constantly fighting over every ressource or for domination, everything seems prematurely worn out in this chaotic mess of a setting.