Basic Trope Description: Space colonists on a Sleeper Starship finally arrive on their new home planet - to find out that Faster-Than-Light Travel has been invented in the meantime and their planet has been settled by someone else.
- Straight: Sleeper Starship Dreamblazer finally arrives on their new home planet Erehwon, but the planet is already settled by another group of colonists who used the now-invented FTL travel to get there. When they arrive, they are countered by the armed forces of the Star Republic of New Troperia.
- Exaggerated: Also every neighboring planet is already settled by someone else who used FTL travel, and they, like the whole plus several neighboring galaxies, are all ruled by the Star Empire of New Troperia now.
- Downplayed:
- When the Dreamblazer arrives on Erehwon, they find already one single human city there that was founded by another group of colonists, and the planet offers enough place to be shared.
- The Dreamblazer arrives in the same moment as an unrelated Faster-Than-Light colony ship.
- Justified: The invention of FTL travel made settling new planets far easier than ever before, and the Dreamblazer was straight-out forgotten.
- Inverted: Descendants of refugees who fled from Earth after a nuclear war arrive on Earth to recolonize it and are shocked to find it still inhabited by humans.
- Subverted: The Dreamblazer colonists find seemingly human cities on Erewhon upon arrival. But their inhabitants are the local Human Aliens.
- Double Subverted: Nevertheless, they live together with earlier-arrived humans for quite a long time now.
- Averted: Erehwon is still empty when the Dreamblazer arrives.
- Parodied: The arriving Dreamblazer colonists walk through the midst of a New Troperian city and behave like if the buildings would be strange rock formations. They also treat the New Troperians like if they would be aliens, what upsets them.
- Zig-zagged: When finally arriving in the orbit of Erehwon, the Dreamblazer's ship cameras see city structures on the surface. But when the first colonists land on Erehwon's surface, they find only some rocks. Those turn out to be the homes of someone, but the inhabitants are only some non-dangerous, non-sapient Human Aliens, who always lived on Erehwon. The colonists travel on, only for some to get captured by humans - but their kidnappers are Space Pirates, who where coincidentally close. With the expedition group reunited, they find a human city that was already there before they came.
- Invoked: The colonization company sent some employees ahead as soon as FTL travel was possible to afford for them. They already start terraforming and build a first city for the colonists on Erehwon.
- Exploited: The Dreamblazer colonists are easy to impress with the modern technology and are turned into slaves by the people of New Troperia.
- Defied: The colonization company deletes Erewhon from all star maps besides their own before the journey starts, so nobody else can find and colonize the planet.
- Lampshaded: "And of course, some idiots had to come here before us."
- Discussed: "And here we are, Erehwon is finally straight ahead." "And hopefully still empty."
- Conversed: "Others are already there? Oh, that will be nasty."
- Deconstructed:
- In a universe full of Space Pirates, possibly hostile Human Aliens and other menaces, the new colonists aren't trusted by those already there due to their strange behavior. The Star Republic of New Troperia goes This Means War!.
- Many of the Dreamblazer colonists end up captured by New Troperian slave traders due to their naivete towards the present-day universe.
- Reconstructed: The Star Republic of New Troperia's government listens to the new colonists, calms them down and gives them a habitable, not-yet settled sizable piece of land on Erehwon to call their own. They also respect their independence, assist the colonists in getting used to the world of nowadays and start trade relations. A bright future is ahead for both of them in the end.
- Implied: In a sci-fi universe with every planet usually holding one nation, there are two on the planet Erehwon: the Star Republic of New Troperia and the Republic of Erehwon.
- Played for Laughs: The encounters between Dreamblazer colonists and New Troperians pretty much show how much the new colonists are Fish out of Temporal Water now. They try wacky stuff with technology they don't know and their outdated cultural norms lead to some quite funny encounters.
- Played for Drama: There is no other planet left around to settle for the Dreamblazer colonists. They have nowhere to go, and the government of New Troperia cannot be convinced that they are really peaceful. Also, the people of New Troperia don't trust the newbies and would rather want them to go back to where they came from.
- Played for Horror: The space colonists from the Dreamblazer find an empty city - where some also human colonists from before got eaten by a local Eldritch Abomination.
Oh no, seems like someone is here for already some time! What shall we do now? We could of course just get back to Lightspeed Leapfrog...
