History Main / CrapsackOnlyByComparison

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': In the {{grimdark}} grimdarkness of the grim, dark future, there is only grimdarkness! Er, war. Except that the Imperium of Man (and to a lesser extent, some of the other factions) must have a vast agricultural/industrial base to support their colossal war machine, and some of the licensed novels show the places that aren't right on the front lines (especially the ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novels). Presumably, it's possible to live a pleasantly uneventful life among the trillions on agri-worlds and forge worlds that doesn't involve being eaten by tyranids, chopped up by orks, enslaved by dark eldar, annihilated by necrons, executed for heresy by the Inquisition, having your soul ripped apart by Chaos, and so on and so forth. But it doesn't make a good story, and certainly doesn't work for a tabletop wargame.
** In one of the Eisenhorn novels, Eisenhorn makes his escape... on a first-class luxury train operating on a route that has been in service for ''nearly 1000 years'', crossing the equivalent of the Rocky Mountains for several days. Of course, stuff eventually blows up, but for a few days you have the characters simply enjoying a wonderful time on a massive luxury train. Unsaid is that even after stuff blowing up, this train is going to keep operating thereafter as well (probably with a few new cars, however).
** Even forge and agri-worlds aren't exempt from this; in general, forgeworlds are cramped and terminally polluted and the [[CargoCult Adeptus]] [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul Mechanicus]] is not exactly concerned with the well being of its workers. Agri-worlds are supposedly better off, but even they will be subject to the occasional Chaos incursion/Tyranid invasion/[[EarthShatteringKaboom Exterminatus]].
** It should be noted that most of the worlds in the Imperium are what is known as Civilian Worlds, which are mostly on par with present-day Earth in terms of living conditions, but since they're not GRIMDARK they're rarely mentioned unless they're being attacked.
** Worth noting is that even the nice planets in the Imperium have laws where things like questioning the government and failing to follow the state religion are at least theoretically punishable by death, the SecretPolice have unlimited authority to torture and kill whoever they deem necessary on the rare occasions one shows up, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking hours are long and pay bad for the vast majority of citizens]]. Just because you're not actively being burned alive at a specific point in your life doesn't mean you're not in "the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable" (as GW's official marketing blurb would have it).
** The Realm of Ultramar is a good example of this. Compared to the rest of the Imperium, it's technologically advanced, well-ordered, peaceful and the population is both loyal and proud of this reputation. It's repeatedly stated that Ultramar is held up as the exemplar for all human worlds to emulate. But to ''us'', it's still a fascistic dictatorship where any questioning of Imperial authority (either in general or the transhuman super-soldiers running it) and attempts at, say, freedom of religion or expression are ''universally'' put down. When you deal with the aftermath of an AI rebellion, loss of most FTL capabilities, allies turning on each other due to necessity and having to exterminate monsters and people who are unwillingly possessed by literal daemons who act as infohazards to survive and everything falling apart under a rebellion orchestrated by the same infohazard just as things were getting back on track; even the best places are nightmares out of survival necessity and simple ignorance (not helped by the occasional power hungry moron either).
** In ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', the source of most of the ''mundane'' crapsackiness on any given world is attributed to the Imperial Tithe, a tax of resources extracted from every world, whether it's ore mined, goods manufactured, military regiments raised, or something more unusual. The worlds that suffer the most under Imperial rule are those with particularly high tithes to pay, which forces them to abuse their workforces to meet quotas and avoid the wrath of agencies such as the Adeptus Arbites and Inquisition. One particular AntiVillain introduced in ''Ascension'' is the idealistic governor of a peaceful, prosperous world who is [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal driven to sedition]] after the Adminstratum suddenly levies a higher tithe than his people can comfortably provide.
** The Tau have a tendency for using concentration camps, forced sterilizations, mind control and orbital bombardment to bring people into the fold of "the Greater Good". In any other setting, they would be considered the bad guys; [[MemeticMutation IN THE GRIM DARKNESS]] [[CrapsackWorld OF THE FAR FUTURE]], [[NaiveNewcomer THEY ARE TOO OPTIMISTIC AND TRUSTING]].

* In ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'', this is a major theme [[spoiler:of the "Tower" ending included with the Phantom Liberty expansion. If V ends the storyline by cooperating with the NUSA and surrenders Songbird to them, they gain access to an experimental procedure for their Relic infection. Unlike what happens if you work with Arasaka or assault Mikoshi, this cure actually ''works'' at saving V from their terminal condition. Unfortunately, it also renders V incapable of using combat cyberware, [[CareerEndingInjury effectively killing off their Edgerunner career]] and making them no more powerful than the average Joe on the street. This, combined with a two-year coma that made them distant from most of their friends and allies, has V incredibly distraught, potentially even wondering if getting cured was worth it at all. However, while the ending clearly illustrates how NothingIsTheSameAnymore, it also establishes that most of V's misery is simply borne from them being used to such a different life. They may not have the abilities or reputation they once did, but that just makes them another face in the crowd of people trying to get by in Night City, and they still have their whole life ahead of them and enough opportunities and connections to make a fresh start, painful though it may be.]]

Needless to say, this is TruthInTelevision. In the modern world, it can be easy to forget that access electricity, plentiful food, clean drinking water, effective medical care, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the internet]], and innumerable other things simply weren't as widely available as they are today if they existed at all. And ''still'' are not widely available in many parts of the world. What the contemporary population saw as luxuries or opulence might be easily available in today's world[[labelnote:Example]] Hundreds of years ago, spices and dyes used to be more valuable than gold. Nowadays you can find dozens of different spices at the local grocery store, and even the cheapest clothing can be dyed with colors like violet and indigo that were literally worth a king's ransom.[[/labelnote]] if they're not looked down on as primitive or barbaric[[labelnote:Example]]Medical care used to be [[MeatgrinderSurgery very unpleasant]], especially before the advent of modern anesthesia[[/labelnote]]. In light of this, [[Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease any real-life examples are simply redundant.]]

''The Dispossessed'' has a subtitle: "An Ambiguous Utopia"; [=LeGuin=] takes pains to portray the problems of an anarcho-syndicalist system in practice,[[note]][=LeGuin=] herself was an anarcho-syndicalist[[/note]] and Shevek frequently has his doubts about his own society.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons''. George Jetson is always complaining about how hard his job is, even though he's living in an idealised ZeeRust future and his hard work consists of pushing a button. Mind you that might have something to do with the way [[PointyHairedBoss Mr. Spacely]] is constantly on his back[[note]]that, or the carpal tunnel syndrome from all that button-pushing[[/note]].

--->'''EMH:''' EMH2: Get me the thrombic modulator.

* Several of the main cast members in VisualNovel/SharinNoKuni live under extremely harsh legal restrictions which they have mostly come by undeservedly, and the main character was put through a [[TrainingFromHell nightmarish training program]] in order to become qualified to oversee and rehabilitate such individuals. However, the legal system of the setting, which is explicitly intended to ''prevent'' crimes and socially destructive behavior, rather than conferring fair and proportionate punishments on the guilty, is stated to result in much lower crime rates than our own, and such restrictions are implied to be very rare compared to imprisonment in Japan, which already has low crimes rates by real-world standards, such that a town which is considered to have an unusual concentration of social unrest has a grand total of three residents living under restrictions.

* ''VideoGame/Destiny2'': The Awoken people got their start as the crew and cargo of a human colony ship sucked into a pocket dimension, transforming them into blue-skinned, ageless TranshumanAliens at the cost of near-complete LossOfIdentity. Nonetheless, on the new world of Distributary, they built a CrystalSpiresAndTogas utopia almost from scratch. Then a demagogue, the Diasyrm, began claiming that when the colonists first entered the pocket universe, they could have been transformed into transcendent godlike beings, free of pain or want, but that the Queen of the Awoken (the first to awaken on Distributary) had made a deliberate choice to incarnate everyone as humans, murdering their potential and condemning them to an eternity of the struggle and suffering inherent to being human. Which, again, they had just built a utopia as. This new philosophy triggered a civil war. (The Diasyrm was completely right about the godhood thing, but accused the wrong person — who ''agreed'', but believed transcendent godhood was a trap that could only lead to stagnation.)

* ''VideoGame/Destiny2'': The Awoken people got their start as the crew and cargo of a human colony ship sucked into a pocket dimension, transforming them into blue-skinned, ageless TranshumanAliens at the cost of near-complete LossOfIdentity. Nonetheless, on the new world of Distributary, they built a CrystalSpiresAndTogas utopia almost from scratch. Then a demagogue, the Diasyrm, began claiming that when the colonists first entered the pocket universe, they could have been transformed into transcendent godlike beings, free of pain or want, but that the Queen of the Awoken (the first to awaken on Distributary) had made a deliberate choice to incarnate everyone as humans, murdering their potential and condemning them to an eternity of the struggle and suffering inherent to being human. Which, again, they had just built a utopia as. This new philosophy triggered a civil war. (The Diasyrm was completely right about the godhood thing, but accused the wrong person — who held the exact same views, but believed transcendent godhood could only lead to stagnation.)

* Covenant, the setting of Creator/{{Greg Egan}}'s short story "Oceanic", is a pretty clear example of this trope. The narrative goes to great lengths to set it up as a BadFuture, but all of its flaws (religious fundamentalism, charlatans taking advantage of the uneducated, ''etc.'') are also present on Earth right now. That said, its population is descended from a society that used advanced technology to make themselves immortal, and the fact that most of the people follow a new religion instead of one that actually exists in real life implies that society collapsed at one point and they had to discover science all over again, so it's a bit more understandable that the narrator has a less-than-positive opinion of his own time, especially since [[spoiler:his mother dies halfway through the story from an exotic disease]], which could never have happened in a society whose knowledge of medicine is so advanced that no one ever dies.

* VideoGame/StarTrekOnline is this compared to hard canon, especially compared to [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG.]] It's almost half a century later, the Federation is at war with the Klingons and [[PlayerCharacter newly commissioned officers are being fast-tracked to their own full commands because of losses incurred,]] Romulus and Remus have been destroyed, the New Romulan Empire is largely trying to make a new home for its people but is wrought with internal conflict, the Borg are making a new incursion, most of this has been set up by [[Series/StarTrekVoyager Species 8472]] infiltrators, the Iconians are researching how best to break the various species when they come back and are hinted at manipulating Species 8472 into manipulating the conflicts into existence to soften everyone up... it's much bleaker than even [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]] at the height of the Dominion War. It's still Franchise/StarTrek, though, so most civilizations, certainly Federation members, are still post-scarcity and despite the various conflicts going on, it's paradise compared to any actual CrapsackWorld.

[[caption-width-right:319:You know if you scroll down a little, it's really not too bad.[[note]] Sourced from[[http://radoxist.deviantart.com/art/Worth-enough-73247873 DeviantArt.]][[/note]]]]

This world is actually quite okay, at least by standards that can be expected by the audience. However, it is very much a matter of [[FromACertainPointOfView perspective]] whether a certain world is a CrapsackWorld or a {{Utopia}}. And thus, sometimes a character or cast of characters are faced with a world that is awful ''for them'' without being particularly bad in itself.