History Main / ColdSleepColdFuture

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E25TheNeutralZone The Neutral Zone]]", three late 20th century humans are revived in the middle of a showdown with the Romulans. Two of the three adapt fairly quickly to a future that is better than their past, but the third is a formerly wealthy financier who reacts badly to the loss of his money, prestige and power. The tie-in novel ''Debtor's Planet'' reveals that the financier did finally find a niche in Federation society: his mindset and skills make him the ''perfect'' choice as an ambassador to the Ferengi. In a later novel, ''Mere Mortals,'' he's Federation Secretary of Commerce. In the end, his future appears not to have been so cold after all.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace In "The Ark in Space]]", the Doctor and his companions arrive on the eponymous ark, where the future of humanity is 'cryogenically'[[note]]even the Doctor doesn't point out that the word is 'cryonically'[[/note]] frozen. It's mentioned that emotionality is not encouraged in this future society, which doesn't stop the characters from emoting wildly merely because they're [[BodyHorror being absorbed by Wiirn]].

* Yuri, the protagonist of ''Proxima'' by Creator/StephenBaxter, is put into stasis as a child, at a time of environmental catastrophe. He wakes up in a world which resents people of his parents' generation, blaming them and, by extension, him, for worsening global warming by their disastrous attempts to solve it. He's treated badly, and ends up being press-ganged into a half-baked colonisation effort on a barely habitable exoplanet. [[spoiler:Even the woman he ends up having a child with can barely stand him, through no fault of his own, and abandons him at the first opportunity.]]

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[[quoteright:349:[[Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/buck_rogers_cold_sleep_2.png]]]]

* ''Anime/BlueGender''. The humans are fighting an almost hopeless war against the Blue.
* ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'' [[spoiler:has Shinji nearly destroy the world, just to save Rei by the end of 2.22. Shinji is then lost inside Unit-01, and is retrieved 14 years later... to a seriously changed world. Not only does everyone hate him for what he did, but when he tries to change the world back by the end of the movie, he only makes things somehow even worse. Also, by the time Shinji re-appears, the planet is starting to turn into a giant monstrosity, complete with an anatomically correct eye centered at the epicenter of Near-Third Impact and a huge ravine with anatomically correct TEETH! Nothing whatsoever is what it used to be.]]

* In ''ComicBook/{{Transmetropolitan}}'', cryonically preserved humans are known as "Revivals" and have become their own caste of unwanted social misfits, revived more out of a begrudged sense of duty than any real desire to have yesterday's people cluttering up today's world. Revivals almost inevitably become depressed, insane and suicidal as a result of the social neglect they face from a future that doesn't care for them, as well as a frankly schizophrenic future (think all the vices of the internet, writ large by hipsters and vomited out into the street).
** This takes minutes: we follow one Revival who collapses from sensory overload as soon as she walks out onto the street. She gets better, though.
* Normally ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, frozen anywhere from twenty to fifty years thanks to ComicBookTime, is pretty well adjusted to the modern world. Now and again - mostly when he was newly introduced - he does angst about values shifting and morality becoming looser. Notably in [[http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/461981.html "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes"]] he was shocked by the world he's woken up in (and by what was on the TV) and ashamed that he wasn't there to fight for it.

* ''Film/DemolitionMan'' has this [[InvertedTrope almost backwards]], John reintroduces ''violence'' to the anger-neutered future so it can defend itself from a de-frosted sociopath.
** Which got this way in just ''thirty years''. Some of the main characters are ''older'' than this by a significant amount, and they don't see anything strange about it. In fact, we have characters referring to John Spartan as a "primitive" and a "neanderthal" for his less-than-PC attitudes, despite the fact that they were around then too.
*** TruthInTelevision, there are people who talk that way ''now'' about those with outdated values that were once common within their lifetimes.
*** And of course, John Spartan's methods were considered overly violent and neanderthalic even in the time period he was from. That's what got him frozen in the first place.
* ''Film/BlastFromThePast'' has a similar reversal, where the 50's valued Adam reintroduces honesty, chivalry, and (surprisingly) tolerance, albeit on a smaller scale than others on this list.
* ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'', Mike Judge's homage (and update) of Woody Allen's similar but far less pessimistic ''Sleeper'', may be the ultimate example of the CrapsackWorld subtrope. The hero actually spends most of the movie having to make everyone realize they're living in a Crapsack World.
* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] by ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', where Ripley awakens over 50 years into a future that isn't much different from the past she'd left behind, though there are still repercussions for her personal life....

* In Creator/CyrilMKornbluth's story ''Literature/TheMarchingMorons'', the protagonist wakes up to find that the average intelligence of humanity has dropped to moron level (a cumulative effect of smarter people tending to have smaller families). The few smart people are run ragged keeping the world from collapsing completely. (The above-referenced movie ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' was a later use of the same concept.)
** But smarter doesn't necessarily mean better. Using the protagonist's knowledge of some guy named Hitler [[spoiler:the smart minority tricks the stupid majority (millions and millions of them) into genocide. Then they kill the guy who helped them. He was a bigot and all but still.]]
*** [[EvenEvilHasStandards Though they originally ask him]] if "his conscience didn't revolt" at the thought of his plan to [[spoiler:trick the Marching Morons into a one-way space voyage]] and in the end, his principal henchman [[spoiler:spoiler:commits suicide, leaving a note that stated he "couldn't live with my conscience."]]
* In Creator/StanislawLem's ''Literature/ReturnFromTheStars'', astronauts who have completed a century-long interstellar exploration mission return to an Earth where violence and risk-taking is so foreign to the population that the returning astronauts are regarded as nothing more than dangerous beasts.
* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/AWorldOutOfTime'', the protagonist is revived into an authoritarian world. He's expected to earn his new lease on life by piloting a sublight interstellar mission. If he fails to qualify, they'll erase his brain pattern from the body (of a condemned criminal, executed by brainwipe) he's using and try again with the next HumanPopsicle.
** Happens InUniverse in ''The Defenseless Dead''. A law is being debated to allow people in cryogenic suspension to be [[HumanResources harvested for their organs]]. In an attempt to forestall this, the doctors take the risk of reviving several people to plead their case, but when interviewed by the media [[ValuesDissonance they come across as paranoid and mentally disturbed]]. The protagonist thinks that's an [[ProperlyParanoid entirely reasonable reaction]] for someone who has woken up in a world populated by cannibalistic ghouls who want to harvest their body parts.
* Inverted in Dan Simmons' ''Literature/HyperionCantos'': when Martin Silenus comes out of cryo he has so much brain damage that the only words he can speak or write are the SevenDirtyWords. Also his entire family is dead and their accounts have been dissolved. He is good for nothing but digging trenches, so that's where they put him.
* Creator/HGWells' ''Literature/TheSleeperAwakes'' shows Cold Sleep ''producing'' a Cold Future, as the protagonist awakens to a dystopian world ruled by the trustees of [[CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit his own now-vast fortune]].
* In Joe Haldeman's ''Literature/TheForeverWar'', it's time dilation that causes the veterans of the first campaign of the interstellar war to arrive in a CrapsackWorld where crime is so prevalent that people hire bodyguards just to leave the house, and overpopulation is so bad that the government encourages homosexuality, and this is close enough that some of their relatives are still alive. After their second campaign centuries have passed, homosexuality is mandatory, people are grown in tubes, and they're considered barbaric atavisms. And following the third [[spoiler:Man has become a HiveMind of clones, allowing them to communicate with their enemies and realize that they had no reason to fight after all. Fortunately Man has established some "old style" colonies that the characters can live in.]]
* Philip Francis Nowlan's novella ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_2419_AD Armageddon 2419 A.D.,]]'' which was the basis for ''ComicStrip/BuckRogers''. Anthony Rogers is exposed to radioactive gas in a coal mine and remains in suspended animation for 492 years. When he wakes up he discovers that America has been invaded and conquered by the Han.
* The title character of Dani and Eytan Kollin's ''The Unincorporated Man'' wakes up in a future where people can buy shares in each other - and even people who aspire to become majority owners of themselves someday don't understand why he refuses to sell.

* In Mikhail Akhmanov's ''Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark'' series, this is pretty much the history of the [[HumanAliens Faata]]. Their original civilization (as glimpsed by their HalfHumanHybrid offspring in his GeneticMemory) was not very different from human. However, an unknown cataclysm known as an Eclypse results in [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt total collapse]] of their civilization. When they finally manage to rebuild, they send spaceships (possibly GenerationShips) on sublight journeys to other stars on exploratory missions. However, the ship-bound Faata return decades (or centuries) later to find that the planet-bound Faata suffered the Second Eclipse and have been reduced to savages that barely survive. Disgusted, they resolve to remake the Faata society in such a way as to ensure the unending prosperity of their race and prevent the Third Eclipse. They use [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke genetic engineering]] to create a caste-based society with the smartest at the top, gifted with longevity and perfect health. The other castes (mostly made up of their savage brethren) would be considered non-sentient servants and remade to serve specific tasks. These would include soldiers, pilots, workers, etc. Most females were turned into breeders who are kept in a perpetually-vegetative state, "producing" new Faata as needed. A later discovery of a mind-reading biological computer would restrict the higher caste to only those with PsychicPowers. All alien races were to be conquered and adapted to serve the Faata.
** After the four devastating wars with humanity (they attacked first, by the way), the Faata expended so many resources (in terms of materiel and personnel), that their culture was thrown in disarray and collapsed. In essence, their expansionist ways result in the exact outcome they desperately wanted to avoid. On the other hand, humanity ended up with new colonies and a vastly higher technology level than before the first encounter with the Faata.
* Happens to the protagonist of Creator/FrederikPohl's novel ''The World at the End of Time''. After the failed attempt to find what's happening on the planet Nebo, he and his wife are put on suspended animation to be thawed out 400 years later in a very different -and [[CrapsackWorld far more hostile]]- world than that they knew.
* Creator/StephenBaxter:
** Yuri, the protagonist of ''Proxima'' is put into stasis as a child, at a time of environmental catastrophe. He wakes up in a world which resents people of his parents' generation, blaming them and, by extension, him, for worsening global warming by their disastrous attempts to solve it. He's treated badly, and ends up being press-ganged into a half-baked colonisation effort on a barely habitable exoplanet. [[spoiler:Even the woman he ends up having a child with can barely stand him, through no fault of his own, and abandons him at the first opportunity.]]
** In ''Literature/ManifoldSpace'', the PortalNetwork works at the speed of light; traveling to Alpha Centauri takes 4 objective years there and 4 years back, even though the subjective time is instant. Except for the very first time that Madeleine Meacher went through the portal and exploited the CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit, the Earth gets progressively worse. The second journey isn't too bad, though the resource wars are getting more intense. The third time, a new ice age is upon the world and global industrial and civilization has collapsed, including the [[LostTechnology technological base]]. Later, Earth is [[spoiler:all but abandoned saved for a few feudal kingdoms as humans from the Asteroid Belt work to restore the planet from Earth orbit]]. In her final journey, [[spoiler:Mankind has been pushed back to one last bastion at Mercury, fleeing from an alien invasion.]]
* In the ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries'', inhabitants of Yellowstone (the hub of human civilization) sometimes put themselves into cryo-vaults to await the future for a variety of reasons ([[CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit compound interest]], boredom, etc). At some point, the [[TheVirus Melding Plague]] - a [[GreyGoo nano-technological virus]] - arrives at Yellowstone, destroying or corrupting most advanced technology that made the nigh-{{Utopia}} possible. The [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas gleaming self-evolving spires of Chasm City]] went corrupt, entombing hapless inhabitants in their walls, and the ring of space stations orbiting the planet was largely destroyed. Now all but a tiny minority of the ultra-rich (and ultra lucky) live in the highest sections of Chasm City, while the rest of the population live in squalor in the decaying remains below. It gets better eventually, but then the [[PrecursorKillers Inhibitors show up]].
** The {{prequel}} novel ''Chasm City'' starts off with a chilling message to all SleeperStarship travelers entering the Yellowstone system after the Melding Plague destroyed most of their civilization; because there is no SubspaceAnsible technology, travelers were setting out for what they thought was the shining center of civilization only to arrive >10 years later at a dilapidated and deadly world.
* The astronaut protagonist of ''[[Creator/JanuszZajdel Cylinder van Troffa]]'' returns right in the middle of [[{{Dystopia}} The Split]] - humanity has already divided into [[ChildlessDystopia earthlings]] and [[PoliceState lunarians]]. He visits both and is appalled by both.
* ''Literature/SholanAlliance'': Thanks to an alien stasis cube, Rezac and Zashou get treated to a mix of this trope and a 1500 year version of RipVanWinkle.
* ''Literature/TheLostFleet'': Captain John Geary spends a hundred years drifting through space in an EscapePod, in cryosleep, after his ship is shot out from under him in the opening engagement of a war between TheAlliance and [[OneNationUnderCopyright The Syndicate Worlds]]. When he's revived, he finds the war is still raging, a bloody and seemingly endless stalemate in which half-trained sailors in jerry-built ships are thrown at each other in wasteful head-on charges, and the ever-worsening toll in blood and treasure is causing unrest in the civilian population and even the military. Oh, and just to set the tin lid on it all, the Syndics have successfully lured the majority of the Alliance fleet into an ambush and Geary is now [[LoopholeAbuse technically]] the most senior officer in what's left of it. [[spoiler:Luckily, Geary turns out to be a really good fleet commander, and by the end of the first arc his future and his nation's are both looking rather warmer.]]
* ''Bridesicle'', a short story by Will [=McIntosh=]. A woman killed in a car accident has her body preserved in suspended animation, only to be woken up in a 'dating centre' because her only help of getting revived is if a man wealthy enough to afford the expensive operation chooses her from among tens of thousands of preserved women as his wife. The kind of people who would seek a HumanPopsicle wife are, needless to say, either pathetic or creepy.
* Dannie Plachta's ''Revival Meeting'' has a cryogenic patient being awakened. A visitor to his room explains that a stock market crash wiped out the patient's finances but that he himself has paid for the process. It then transpires that the patient is [[spoiler:about to become an involuntary donor for a heart transplant]].

* Somewhat similar: ''Series/DoctorWho'' and his companions arrive on "The Ark in Space" where the future of humanity is 'cryogenically' [[note]]even The Doctor doesn't point out that the word is 'cryonically'[[/note]] frozen. It's mentioned that emotionality is not encouraged in this future society, which doesn't stop the characters from emoting wildly merely because they're being absorbed by [[BodyHorror Wiirn]].

** In "The Neutral Zone", three late 20th century humans are revived in the middle of a showdown with the Romulans. Two of the three adapt fairly quickly to a future that is better than their past, but the third was a wealthy financier who reacts badly to the loss of his money, prestige and power.
*** The tie-in novel ''Debtor's Planet'' reveals that the financier did finally find a niche in Federation society: his mindset and skills make him the ''perfect'' choice as an ambassador to the Ferengi. In a later novel, ''Mere Mortals,'' he's Federation Secretary of Commerce. In the end, his future appears not to have been so cold after all.
** In "Relics", Scotty was found in stasis after his ship crashed 75 years ago. Scotty is initially amazed about all the advancements in technology, and tries to show that his engineering expertise is still useful in the 24th century. But eventually, he gets depressed that many engineering issues he was proud to have handled during the 23rd century have been long resolved, and he feels he has no place in the 24th century. Geordi, however, helps Scotty see that there's always a place for engineers like him.

** In "Timeless", ''Voyager'' was destroyed when the ship's experimental slipstream drive malfunctioned mid-flight, sending the ship crash-landing on an ice planet, killing everybody aboard. Fifteen years later, the two sole survivors, Harry and Chakotay, who were aboard the ''Delta Flyer'', have tracked down ''Voyager''. When they re-activate the Doctor, who was deactivated hours before the accident, he's shocked to find the ship has been destroyed, and that the two survivors, especially Harry, have deep-seated SurvivorGuilt, convincing him to work with them [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong to prevent the accident from happening]].
** "Living Witness" has a backup copy of [[ProjectedMan the Doctor]] rebooted in the far future on a world with racial tensions about to pop off, and where his crewmates have all been given a HistoricalVillainUpgrade, and the ruling government is using it as an excuse to crack down on minorities who historically sided with the "evil" ''Voyager''. The Doctor's efforts to set the record straight and avoid being tried as a war criminal nearly start a civil war. Happily, the DistantFinale shows that this turned out to be their world's difficult first steps towards healing and reconciliation.
* In the ''Series/MetalHurlantChronicles'' episode "Cold Hard Facts" someone is thawed out in the 24th century by the Hurlant. Unfortunately he has no memory of who he was, and all he does is draw, which the government considers "useless" and they execute him to harvest his organs. [[spoiler:The final scene implies he was Walt Disney.]]
* ''Series/AlteredCarbon''. Everyone who gets resleeved suffers from this, and it's not helped by the fact that you wake up in a completely different body. Even the protagonist Takeshi Kovacs who is used to being resleeved and has specific training to cope with it seriously contemplates [[DrivenToSuicide real death]] or just [[TheNothingAfterDeath going back into cold sleep]].

* In Music/{{Queen|Band}}'s song '' '39''. A careful listener may discern that it is a song about time dilation and its effects on explorers ("The Volunteers") in a particular instance.

* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA1sA5MD8J0 Space is Dark]]'' by Bill Roper is about the crew of a sleeper ship who arrived at another planet after a thousand year trip, only to find that FasterThanLightTravel had been discovered [[LightspeedLeapfrog shortly after they left and the planet had been colonized for several centuries]]. They're forced to retire due to their status as anachronisms from another time, the song ends as the narrator and his wife (the last two alive) prepare to commit suicide.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' has Robaute Guiliman reawakening from his stasis field by Yvraine. he realizes that Imperium turned into [[Main/{{Dystopia}} corrupt theocracy where individual liberty is non-existent and everything including technology, society regressed]], but he fight for its ideals anyway.

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2''. While not necessarily involving cold sleep (more a form of time travel) it still fits most of this trope. Earth has been the victim of an AlienInvasion directly [[NiceJobBreakingItHero caused by you]] in ''Videogame/HalfLife1''; urban locations are only sanctuaries from feral alien attacks, and those who live in the [[AirstripOne numbered cities]] are routinely beaten by the Civil Protection or rounded up and turned into stalkers and otherwise experimented on by The Combine, "our benefactors".
* Chell in ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' spends anywhere from 20 to 300 years in an artificial coma to wake to ... the same crapsack world she was in before. Only now the enrichment centre is slowly falling apart, and seeing as Portal shares the same universe as ''Half-Life'', the outside world may still be controlled by an alien empire known as the Combine, which owns a fair chunk of the Multiverse.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', the hero Link is placed into an enchanted sleep for seven years, to allow him to safely reach adulthood and deal with the problem of Ganondorf. When he wakes, he finds that the country of Hyrule has been overrun by the BigBad and his hordes of evil. The real King's been murdered, the Princess is missing, and he's got to make everything right again. Subverted somewhat in that once he does fix all the problems, [[spoiler:he gets sent back in time so he can live out his childhood properly.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' has this as the main story's premise. Though whether or not the protagonist is public about his/her former life is up to the player.
** Downplayed with [[HardboiledDetective Nick Valentine]]. He's a synth through and through, but his neural patterns were based off a real pre-war cop, meaning he has the memories to match. So when the Institute trashed him, he woke up in a pile of debris two hundred years after his supposed death to a nightmarish, irradiated version of Boston - an experience topped only by the TomatoInTheMirror revelation that followed shortly after.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Aang was warned of the impending doom, but he didn't think it would get so bad. While Aang is frozen, the Fire Nation wipes out his people (the Air Nomads) and conquers most of the world. Fire Nation culture changes to be brutal, nationalistic, prejudiced and joyless, but Aang plans to change that when he defeats the Fire Lord.
** When he first comes out, Aang also experiences a bit of this problem with his friends Katara and Sokka. All Aang wants to do is play--but the Water Tribe children have lived in a war their whole life, and are more used to hunting and working than goofing off like kids are expected to in Aang's time. Nonetheless, a taste of light-hearted fun was something Katara needed in a bad situation like the War.
* ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'': One instance, at least. Leela is very cynical about the Moon, which almost kills Fry's wide-eyed enthusiasm about visiting the place. She warms up by the end of the episode, though. By contrast, Bender retains his DeadpanSnarker attitude for the remainder of the series, but then, he's a {{Jerkass}}.
** In fact, Bender was attempting to commit suicide when Fry met him, and it's only an electrical jolt to the head that changes his programming.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In "Timeless", ''Voyager'' was destroyed when the ship's experimental slipstream drive malfunctioned mid-flight, sending the ship crash-landing on an ice planet, killing everybody aboard. Fifteen years later, the two sole survivors, Harry and Chakotay, who were aboard the ''Delta Flyer'', have tracked down ''Voyager''. When they re-activate the Doctor, who was deactivated hours before the accident, he's shocked to find the ship has been destroyed, and that the two survivors, especially Harry, have deep-seated SurvivorGuilt, convincing him to work with them [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong to prevent the accident from happening]].

* In Cyril Kornbluth's story ''Literature/TheMarchingMorons'', the protagonist wakes up to find that the average intelligence of humanity has dropped to moron level (a cumulative effect of smarter people tending to have smaller families). The few smart people are run ragged keeping the world from collapsing completely. (The above-referenced movie ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' was a later use of the same concept.)

** But smarter doesn't necessarily mean better. Using the protagonist's knowledge of some guy named Hitler [[spoiler: the smart minority tricks the stupid majority (millions and millions of them) into genocide. Then they kill the guy who helped them. He was a bigot and all but still.]]
*** [[EvenEvilHasStandards Though they originally ask him]] if "his conscience didn't revolt" at the thought of his plan to [[spoiler: trick the Marching Morons into a one-way space voyage]] and in the end, his principal henchman [[spoiler: commits suicide, leaving a note that stated he "couldn't live with my conscience."]]

* In Joe Haldeman's ''Literature/TheForeverWar'', it's time dilation that causes the veterans of the first campaign of the interstellar war to arrive in a CrapsackWorld where crime is so prevalent that people hire bodyguards just to leave the house, and overpopulation is so bad that the government encourages homosexuality, and this is close enough that some of their relatives are still alive. After their second campaign centuries have passed, homosexuality is mandatory, people are grown in tubes, and they're considered barbaric atavisms. And following the third [[spoiler: Man has become a HiveMind of clones, allowing them to communicate with their enemies and realize that they had no reason to fight after all. Fortunately Man has established some "old style" colonies that the characters can live in.]]
* Philip Francis Nowlan's novella ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_2419_AD Armageddon 2419 A.D.]]'', which was the basis for ''ComicStrip/BuckRogers''. Anthony Rogers is exposed to radioactive gas in a coal mine and remains in suspended animation for 492 years. When he wakes up he discovers that America has been invaded and conquered by the Han.

** Yuri, the protagonist of ''Proxima'' is put into stasis as a child, at a time of environmental catastrophe. He wakes up in a world which resents people of his parents' generation, blaming them and, by extension, him, for worsening global warming by their disastrous attempts to solve it. He's treated badly, and ends up being press-ganged into a half-baked colonisation effort on a barely habitable exoplanet. [[spoiler: Even the woman he ends up having a child with can barely stand him, through no fault of his own, and abandons him at the first opportunity.]]
** In ''Literature/ManifoldSpace'', the PortalNetwork works at the speed of light; traveling to Alpha Centauri takes 4 objective years there and 4 years back, even though the subjective time is instant. Except for the very first time that Madeleine Meacher went through the portal and exploited the CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit, the Earth gets progressively worse. The second journey isn't too bad, though the resource wars are getting more intense. The third time, a new ice age is upon the world and global industrial and civilization has collapsed, including the [[LostTechnology technological base]]. Later, Earth is [[spoiler: all but abandoned saved for a few feudal kingdoms as humans from the Asteroid Belt work to restore the planet from Earth orbit]]. In her final journey, [[spoiler: Mankind has been pushed back to one last bastion at Mercury, fleeing from an alien invasion.]]

* ''Literature/TheLostFleet'': Captain John Geary spends a hundred years drifting through space in an EscapePod, in cryosleep, after his ship is shot out from under him in the opening engagement of a war between TheAlliance and [[OneNationUnderCopyright The Syndicate Worlds]]. When he's revived, he finds the war is still raging, a bloody and seemingly endless stalemate in which half-trained sailors in jerry-built ships are thrown at each other in wasteful head-on charges, and the ever-worsening toll in blood and treasure is causing unrest in the civilian population and even the military. Oh, and just to set the tin lid on it all, the Syndics have successfully lured the majority of the Alliance fleet into an ambush and Geary is now [[LoopholeAbuse technically]] the most senior officer in what's left of it. [[spoiler: Luckily, Geary turns out to be a really good fleet commander, and by the end of the first arc his future and his nation's are both looking rather warmer.]]

* In the ''Series/MetalHurlantChronicles'' episode "Cold Hard Facts" someone is thawed out in the 24th century by the Hurlant. Unfortunately he has no memory of who he was, and all he does is draw, which the government considers "useless" and they execute him to harvest his organs. [[spoiler: The final scene implies he was Walt Disney.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Aang was warned of the impending doom, but he didn't think it would get so bad. While Aang is frozen the Fire Nation wipes out his people (the Air Nomads) and conquers most of the world. Fire Nation culture changes to be brutal, nationalistic, prejudiced and joyless, but Aang plans to change that when he defeats the Fire Lord.

* Multiple different aspects of this are seen in ''Literature/{{Cryoburn}}''. Yani was dying of old age before he was frozen, but could only afford to pay to be frozen for a hundred years or until a cure for old age was found, whichever came first, so a century later he was thawed out, and dumped on the street: old and broke. Others are more fortunate: being revived when a cure was found for what was killing them, and still having money. They tend to isolate themselves in enclaves of people from their own time, so they can live among people who get the same jokes, and with whom they have other things in common. Meanwhile the planet is effectively ruled by the corporations that own the cryo-storage facilities - because they can vote on behalf of the frozen people in their care, who outnumber the living.

[[SlidingScaleLongName Depending on]] [[SlidingScaleOfEndings the tone of the story]], the former popsicle might convince his new associates to lighten up a bit, or he might be dragged down by his bleak situation.

* In Music/{{Queen}}'s song '' '39''. A careful listener may discern that it is a song about time dilation and its effects on explorers ("The Volunteers") in a particular instance.

* Edmund Cooper's ''The Tenth Planet'' has a starship captain wake up after 5,000 years to find himself on the last spit of human civilization: a colony on the eponymous planet, called Minerva, where nearly every aspect of living is strictly controlled by the government.
* In Cyril Kornbluth's story ''The Marching Morons'', the protagonist wakes up to find that the average intelligence of humanity has dropped to moron level (a cumulative effect of smarter people tending to have smaller families). The few smart people are run ragged keeping the world from collapsing completely. (The above-referenced movie ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' was a later use of the same concept.)

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', the hero Link is placed into an enchanted sleep for seven years, to allow him to safely reach adulthood and deal with the problem of Ganondorf. When he wakes, he finds that the country of Hyrule has been overrun by the BigBad and his hordes of evil. The real King's been murdered, the Princess is missing, and he's got to make everything right again. Subverted somewhat in that once he does fix all the problems, [[spoiler:he gets sent back in time so he can live out his childhood properly.]] Of course, then he ends up Groundhogging his way through ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'' and reliving the end of the world over and over and over and over and over and...

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nothip.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:It ''has'' been [[GoodIsOldFashioned a long time]] since [[CoolPeopleRebelAgainstAuthority defending the establishment was cool]], hasn't it?]]

** Yuri, the protagonist of ''Proxima'' is put into stasis as a child, at a time of environmental catastrophe. He wakes up in a world which resents people of his parents' generation, blaming them and, by extension, him, for worsening global warming by their disastrous attempts to solve it. He’s treated badly, and ends up being press-ganged into a half-baked colonisation effort on a barely habitable exoplanet. [[spoiler: Even the woman he ends up having a child with can barely stand him, through no fault of his own, and abandons him at the first opportunity.]]

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "The Neutral Zone", three late 20th century humans are revived in the middle of a showdown with the Romulans. Two of the three adapt fairly quickly to a future that is better than their past, but the third was a wealthy financier who reacts badly to the loss of his money, prestige and power.
** The tie-in novel ''Debtor's Planet'' reveals that the financier did finally find a niche in Federation society: his mindset and skills make him the ''perfect'' choice as an ambassador to the Ferengi. In a later novel, ''Mere Mortals,'' he's Federation Secretary of Commerce. In the end, his future appears not to have been so cold after all.

*** Various earlier drafts for the show and the pilot show a much more dystopian future. These various aspects were dropped as the series continued, and the world of ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'' has about the same amount of pros and cons as modern-day living, albeit with a lot more convenient technology and [[WorldOfWeirdness general weirdness.]]

To put it simply, it's a FishOutOfTemporalWater story without the [[HilarityEnsues hilarity ensuing]]. For a better explanation, when a cryonics patient wakes up, the future is a {{Dystopia}} where most everyone tends to be dour, pessimistic, cynical, or any resulting combination thereof. The GoodOldWays have been forgotten. Even the group's designated humorous guy tends to either be a DeadpanSnarker or a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed {{homage}} to somebody like George Carlin or Bill Hicks. The formerly frozen character may or may not fit in (mostly [[FishOutOfWater the latter]] happens).

To put it simply, its a FishOutOfTemporalWater story without the [[HilarityEnsues hilarity ensuing]]. For a better explanation, when a cryonics patient wakes up, the future is a {{Dystopia}} where most everyone tends to be dour, pessimistic, cynical, or any resulting combination thereof. The GoodOldWays have been forgotten. Even the group's designated humorous guy tends to either be a DeadpanSnarker or a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed {{homage}} to somebody like George Carlin or Bill Hicks. The formerly frozen character may or may not fit in (mostly [[FishOutOfWater the latter]] happens).

To put it simply, its a FishOutOfWater story without the [[HilarityEnsues hilarity ensuing]]. For a better explanation, when a cryonics patient wakes up, the future is a {{Dystopia}} where most everyone tends to be dour, pessimistic, cynical, or any resulting combination thereof. The GoodOldWays have been forgotten. Even the group's designated humorous guy tends to either be a DeadpanSnarker or a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed {{homage}} to somebody like George Carlin or Bill Hicks. The formerly frozen character may or may not fit in (mostly [[FishOutOfWater the latter]] happens).

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' has Robaute Guiliman reawakening from his stasis field by Yvraine. he realizes that Imperium turned into [[Dystopia corrupt theocracy where individual liberty is non-existent and everything including technology, society regressed]], but he fight for its ideals anyway.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' has Robaute Guiliman reawakening from his stasis field by Yvraine. he realizes that Imperium went, but he fight for its ideals anyway.

** [[ComicBook/UltimateMarvel Ultimate Captain America]], a different character then the classic, also went through the refreezing. He associates better with his few surviving friends and is very stuck in the past. When he learned that Hank Pym assaulting his miniaturized wife with bug spray and mind-controlled ants was merely the latest attack in a years-long abusive relationship, he storms off, smacks Hank around until he goes giant, and then and only then kicks Hank's sixty-foot tall (naked!) rear end.