History Main / SpaceAgeStasis

* ''Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries'': In ''3001'', the final sequel to his ''2001'', a 3001-version-of-TV presenter opines that a person from the year 2000 would have a much easier time of adjusting were he to be suddenly plopped into the year 3000 than a year 1000 man would adjusting to 2000, since the 3000 level of tech is relatively similar to the 2000 time, compared to the 1000-2000 difference. [[ChekhovsGun Not long after that]] Frank Poole, Dave Bowman's crewmember from the ''Odyssey'', is discovered [[HumanPopsicle frozen floating in space]] and is brought back to life.

** ''Literature/TheRoadNotTaken'':: The faster-than-light engine does that to societies that discover it; once they perfect it, they end up channeling most of their energies into expanding across interstellar space with whatever other technologies they have. The most advanced of those [[InsufficientlyAdvancedAlien tries to invade 21st century Earth with musketeers, solid-shot cannons, and gunpowder-cask gravity bombs]]. It was a short invasion.

** Since Disney rebooted the franchise, this has quietly been {{averted|Trope}}. On ''Series/TheMandalorian'', for example, the main character's helmet appears to contain an embedded rangefinder (so that he can target his Whistling Birds weapon), compared to Boba Fett's clunky and manually–operated rangefinder from only thirty or so years previous. The Whistling Birds are an example as well if they are, as they appear to be, a wrist–fired, MoreDakka version of Boba's kneepad dart–launcher. Then again, the Republic-era ''Razor Crest'' still performs at the level of "modern" starships thanks to little more than attentive mechanical care.

* ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'': The technology of the Yautja is never seen to advance, even when their appearances are hundreds of years apart. The Expanded Universe justifies this by explaining that a long time ago the Predators' society became all about the hunt, and they lost all interest in intellectual pursuits. There is a sometimes-canon and sometimes-not explanation that their tech is stolen from an older race that attempted to occupy their planet. They can replicate and adapt it, but lack the understanding of its base principles to improve on it. An easier explanation is that the only Predators we see are hunters who explicitly show "sportsmanlike" behavior, including killing only armed opponents and sparing, for example, pregnant women. It follows that the crazy-superior tech they are using is what they consider fair. Their tech may be better, but what is "fair" to use on the humans hasn't changed in hundreds of years. Much the same way some humans often still use bows to hunt deer rather than carpet-bombing them from the stratosphere. This is hinted to be so in the current comics to be this, as it's about a clan of Predators who don't follow the hunter's code of honor.

This is presumably done either because the writer included the most advanced tech they could think of in the first installment and [[TheSingularity thus has no where else to go]], or because significantly changing the tech level would mean changing the way the stories would have to work.

** Cleanly averted by humanity, however, which continually innovates throughout the franchise to improve their odds of survival.
** Also averted by post-Schism Covenant remnants, with the background material stating that the Elites in particular have been actively working to improve their technology, and succeeding surprisingly well; it helps that some of them have been open to learning from humanity.

** Enterprise and TOS starfleet ships are said to have a speed of Warp 5 while TNG era ships are seen capable of Warp 9.97%. There are also some design standards that change, more noticeably that the ships are more streamlined in after the Enterprise-D (said to compensate for a problem with travel at high warp speeds that was discovered at the tail end TNG) and more war focused (following the Borg attacks in TNG and the Dominion War in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'') ramped it into overdrive.[[note]]At the beginning of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', a ship that was exclusively designed to be a weapons ship was still an oddity in Starfleet and they preferred to not call it a War Ship. At the end, the Defiant class has been mass produced that Sisko has little trouble getting a new one after the first one was destroyed and the Prometheus class is such a leap in war tech that the Romulans steal it so they can figure out how it works.[[/note]] Conversely, Star Fleet still operates the Excelsior Class, first introduce in the TOS movie era, but many people tend to justify it that real navy ships are designed to last for long periods of time and the Excelsior was surprisingly resilient in its capabilities (some FanWank even compare it to the real life [[CoolPlane A-10 Warthog]] which is surprisingly hard to kill on the battlefield and even harder to kill in the military's budgeting[[note]]Consider how it's at the tail end of its expected life span when first built and is expected to last twice as long as that original estimate FROM THIS POINT IN ITS LIFE.[[/note]]). Also, the use of a mothball fleet might have brought some back to fill in with ship shortages from the Borg and Domminion war.

* Invoked in ''Literature/RedRising'', where technological development in the setting's ColonizedSolarSytem has stalled, and nearly all of the major factions are using ships that are hundreds of years old. The second and third book provide two reasons for this stagnation. On the one hand, designing and building new technology is indicated to be extremely expensive, with the cost of a [[UsefulNotes/TypesOfNavalShips capital ship]] being equivalent to the combined gross yearly output of at least twenty cities. On the other hand, the ruling class have deliberately stiffled inovation in order to maintain their control over human civilization. The aversion of the trope becomes a plot point in the SequelSeries, where the civilization of the gas giants has managed to develop new spacecraft and technology that surpass the capabilities of existing technology.

* ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'': The tech in ''Film/AlienResurrection'' seems startlingly similar to the first movie when you consider that they are set 258 years apart. The only apparent advance in space-travel technology is that the ships appear sleeker and cleaner than the original hulk ''Nostromo'', but clear advances are shown in [[CloningBlues cloning technology]], robotics (compare the RidiculouslyHumanRobot Call to the [[UncannyValley less convincing]] Ash), and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking best of all]], whisky can be transported in convenient cubes then restored to liquid form via laser.

* ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'': The modern Taiidan navy's ships are [[CosmeticallyDifferentFactions on par]] with Kushan ships reverse-engineered from a 4,000-year old Taiidani ColonyShip. Specifically, the [[SpaceFighters strikecraft]] that the Kushan are initially able to build are functionally identical to Taiidani strikecraft, though the frames and weaponry of larger ships have to be reverse-engineered from captured Taiidani ships or purchased from the [[HigherTechSpecies Bentusi]], who have maintained their technological superiority over the rest of the galaxy for even longer.

** {{Averted}} with the Armadhans: as [[PlanetOfHats their culture and economy revolve entirely around]] PrivateMilitaryContractors, their battle droid designs evolve quite fast so that they can be hired by outside parties. In fact Neopard, the most often seen Armadhan, is noted to be a cheapskate who keeps old battle droids in service well after they are obsolete, and yet between his original appearance and his return he has almost completely replaced his inventory, with the one exception being {{Justified}} because said battle droid has an extremely advanced artificial intelligence and he considers him more a person than a tool.

* ''Literature/EndersGame'': In the three-thousand year gap between the first book and ''Literature/SpeakerForTheDead'', the only real advance seems to be that near-light space travel and the SubspaceAnsible, reverse-engineered alien technologies once reserved solely for the military, are now economical enough for civilian use. Some of this is {{justified}} by the best and brightest spending centuries in relativistic spaceflight, but that [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale doesn't account for all of it]]. Later books in the series involve another jump forward in (meta)physics and technology, again inspired by a chat with aliens and this time spearheaded by the protagonists.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' game setting is another sci-fi example of this trope: thanks to the Imperium of Man's CargoCult approach to maintaining technology and its leaders' unshakable belief that the StatusQuoIsGod, or rather that God is Status Quo, human technology and culture have remained largely unchanged for the past ten thousand years. The worlds of the Imperium are not all in close contact, so they can vary all the way from ray-guns-and-flying-cars futuristic to wood-and-stone primitives as the story demands.

* ''Literature/OutOfTheDark'': The majority of the Galactic Hegemony races are herbivores and advance very slowly, while omnivores and carnivores advance faster, but not nearly as fast as humanity. Their visit visit is just in time to witness the [[UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar Battle of Agincourt]], which shocks them to the point where they start fearing humanity's savagery. The dominant herbivores give the carnivorous Shongairi permission to colonize Earth, and it takes them a few centuries to prepare. By the time their fleet arrives to Earth in the early 21st century, they're shocked to find the current state of affairs instead of the Industrial Revolution. This also affects their ground tech, which was primarily designed to subjugate primitive races and proves to be vulnerable to our modern equipment (or even Soviet tanks from thirty-forty years ago). Their space tech is a lot more advanced, though, and they have no problem dropping rocks on cities or military bases. In the second novel, this is expanded upon, including revealing the incredible level of redundancy in all their tech (which is rated to work reliably for centuries), which is rooted in extreme risk avoidance. They have a PostScarcityEconomy, which reduces the need to advance, and the dominant herbivores further see no need to rock the boat. Also, life-extension treatments mean that their lifespans aren't as limited as human ones, which further works to stagnate their culture. It's also revealed that their computing technology is only incrementally better than human, even though they've been in space for hundreds of thousands of years. They have miniature quantum computers, but not even a hint of even rudimentary AI.

This is presumably done either because the writer included the most advanced tech he/she could think of in the first installment and [[TheSingularity thus has no where else to go]], or because significantly changing the tech level would mean changing the way the stories would have to work.

%%Its not an example then* Averted in ''Film/AIArtificialIntelligence'', where at the end [[spoiler:after millennia, the robots have evolved into the dominant lifeform on the planet, subsequently abandoned the planet when the environment collapsed, and sent a team of paleontologists back much later who the main character encounters.]]

* In ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'', human society has been suspicious of technology since the [[RobotWar Butlerian Jihad]] over 10,000 years before the [[Literature/{{Dune}} first book.]] However, after [[Literature/GodEmperorOfDune Leto II's death]] and the [[Literature/HereticsOfDune breakup of the empire]], many [[Literature/ChapterhouseDune scattered colonies]] advance rapidly.
* Used as a central plot point in Creator/VernorVinge's ''Literature/MaroonedInRealtime'', set in the distant future. A group of survivors have missed TheSingularity and are stuck with only a handful of very advanced robots and tools that they cannot rebuild, effectively making further advances impossible.
* In Creator/PhilipKDick's short story ''Pay for the Printer'', humans have stopped building or researching anything and instead choose to rely on alien replicators to make copies of items they already possess.
* In the three-thousand year gap between ''Literature/EndersGame'' and ''Literature/SpeakerForTheDead'', the only real advance seems to be that near-light space travel and the SubspaceAnsible, reverse-engineered alien technologies once reserved solely for the military, are now economical enough for civilian use. Some of this is {{justified}} by the best and brightest spending centuries in relativistic spaceflight, but that [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale doesn't account for all of it]]. Later books in the series involve another jump forward in (meta)physics and technology, again inspired by a chat with aliens and this time spearheaded by the protagonists.
* In ''Literature/{{Voidskipper}}'' spacefaring civilization has long since mastered every single aspect of science. There ISN'T any new tech left to invent.
* Downplayed in the ''Literature/AlexBenedict'' series. ''Firebird'' states that humanity has mastered higher physics and, though there are occasional advances (somebody develops a somewhat faster FTL drive, for example), for the most part there's not much in the way of new tech being developed anymore.
* In Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''3001'', the final sequel to his ''2001'', a 3001-version-of-TV presenter opines that a person from the year 2000 would have a much easier time of adjusting were he to be suddenly plopped into the year 3000 than a year 1000 man would adjusting to 2000, since the 3000 level of tech is relatively similar to the 2000 time, compared to the 1000-2000 difference. [[ChekhovsGun Not long after that]] Frank Poole, Dave Bowman's crewmember from the ''Odyssey'', is discovered [[HumanPopsicle frozen floating in space]] and is brought back to life.
* Definitely averted in the Literature/NoonUniverse: in the ''Literature/FarRainbow'', an entire planet's population dies because there was only one starship that could evacuate people and they loaded the children on it; by the time of ''Literature/TheKidFromHell'' (still within the same century), anyone can pretty much grow their own semi-organic starships from eggs in their backyard.
* Such a stasis is also arguably the main theme and plot point of another Yulia Latynina novel: ''Inhuman'', which is set in the {{dystopia}}n interstellar Empire of Humans where, according to one of the characters, no technological advances were made for the last several centuries. [[spoiler: The, uh, antagonists (both sides involved are villains by most measures), effectively an alien conspiracy masquerading as a government conspiracy, want to remedy this.]]
* The Lizards in Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' novels have been technologically stagnant for nearly 50,000 years, as have been the other alien species they conquered and subjugated in that time. Their leaders are quite surprised when, in the mere 800 years between their first reconnaissance flights over Earth in the 12th century and the arrival of their invasion fleet in 1942, that [[HumansAdvanceSwiftly the human race has gone from knights on horseback to tanks, airplanes, and radar]], and continues to develop during the invasion. In the historical blink of an eye-turret, the humans develop rocketry and start building space stations.
** It's also stated in the books that their slow technological development is at least in part on purpose. When something new is invented, they don't release it to the public until it's had all its potential flaws ironed out and is rendered perfectly safe, and even then it's introduced into their society over the course of decades or centuries, so they can study its impact on society. They consider humans, who do neither of these things, to be insanely reckless.
** In the final book, one hundred years later the Lizards are only just beginning to consider what the difference in advancement might mean to their future when the first Earth FTL ship arrives in orbit of their homeworld. The Lizards didn't think faster-than-light travel was possible and haven't thought about it, or even considered it, in their 50,000 year history.
* Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/OutOfTheDark'' series has the Galactic Hegemony be similar, but not nearly to the same extent, to the Race in the ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' example. The majority of the Hegemony races are herbivores and advance very slowly, while omnivores and carnivores advance faster, but not nearly as fast as humanity. Their visit visit is just in time to witness the [[UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar Battle of Agincourt]], which shocks them to the point where they start fearing humanity's savagery. The dominant herbivores give the carnivorous Shongairi permission to colonize Earth, and it takes them a few centuries to prepare. By the time their fleet arrives to Earth in the early 21st century, they're shocked to find the current state of affairs instead of the Industrial Revolution. This also affects their ground tech, which was primarily designed to subjugate primitive races and proves to be vulnerable to our modern equipment (or even Soviet tanks from 30-40 years ago). Their space tech is a lot more advanced, though, and they have no problem dropping rocks on cities or military bases. In the second novel, this is expanded upon, including revealing the incredible level of redundancy in all their tech (which is rated to work reliably for centuries), which is rooted in extreme risk avoidance. They have a PostScarcityEconomy, which reduces the need to advance, and the dominant herbivores further see no need to rock the boat. Also, life-extension treatments mean that their lifespans aren't as limited as human ones, which further works to stagnate their culture. It's also revealed that their computing technology is only incrementally better than human, even though they've been in space for hundreds of thousands of years. They have miniature quantum computers, but not even a hint of even rudimentary AI.
* An important plot point in Dan Simmons ''Literature/{{Hyperion}}'' Cantos is the fact that the Hegemony of Man is culturally and technologically stagnant, albeit with AI-given toys, while the Ouster "barbarians" have continued to progress.
* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''[[Literature/KnownSpace Kzinti]]'' histories. The Kzin aren't terribly intelligent to begin with, and gained the great majority of their technology by rising up against their Jotok masters and offing most of them, and in a universe without FTL technology, it takes a long time for things to propagate over several hundred light-years of empire. Imperial standardization as well as simple physics kept the Kzin at a very, very, painfully minuscule level of advancement. Not to mention the earliest generations of the Kzin uprising embraced genetic engineering for traits useful for bronze age warriors, including favoring strength and bravery over intelligence. Especially as Kzin women were reduced to non-sapience. The Kzin even have a priest-like caste called the Conservers Of The Ancient Past, whose job is to prevent unneeded change. After losing the first couple wars with humanity, however, they become much more motivated to advance, even acquiring hyperdrive shortly after Earth does.
* The faster-than-light engine does that to societies that discover it in the backstory of Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Herbig-Haro'' (later expanded on in ''The Road Not Taken''); once they perfect it, they end up channeling most of their energies into expanding across interstellar space with whatever other technologies they have. The most advanced of those [[InsufficientlyAdvancedAlien tries to invade 21st century Earth with musketeers, solid-shot cannons, and gunpowder-cask gravity bombs]]. It was a short invasion.
* Averted in the ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series, where the war and the weapons tech progresses from interstellar to intergalactic to ''interdimensional''. It's the TropeNamer for LensmanArmsRace for a ''reason''.
* Played with in the ''Literature/SkylarkSeries'' by the same. Several civilizations are trapped in stasis due to lack of specific high-end resources, sometimes for hundreds of generations. A few others think they're in this, usually bar an individual or small group suspecting more may be possible. Contact with the main characters usually shatters this stasis, be it forcing them to innovate to fight against our heroes or being given access to the heroes' knowledge and resources in exchange for their own.
* Creator/DavidBrin's ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series explicitly plants the Galactic civilization in the middle of this trope. After hundreds of millions of years, their opinion is that everything that can be discovered has already been discovered. What makes [[HumansAreSpecial humans special]] is their drive to continue discovery.
* Partly played straight in Creator/AndreyLivadny's ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' setting that spans about 1500 years of human space exploration. While there are technological advancements, there are also centuries where nothing appears to change much from the time before. This is surprising, considering that some novels are focused on radical new technologies and their effect on society and warfare. And the argument about "everything has already been discovered" doesn't apply as a number of {{Precursor}} races and ruins have been found whose level of technology vastly surpasses that of the humans (i.e. there ''is'' room for a lot of improvement). Basically, you can pick up a book set in 2607 and one set in 3867 and see a good number of the same pieces of technology with little in terms of improvement.
* In ''Literature/TheCourseOfEmpire'' and ''Literature/TheCrucibleOfEmpire'', the Jao have almost no new technology. However, this is mostly because they were a race of SlaveMooks that revolted ages in the past and their masters had not seen fit to engineer imagination into them. In fact, one of the aspects of their relation with their new human vassals is that HumansAdvanceSwiftly and can therefore provide assistance in that department.
* Literature/TheCulture first appear with [[DeusEstMachina god-like AIs]], CasualInterstellarTravel, robot drones [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot that count as people]], vast space habitats and all the comforts of being {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s and aren't substantially different eight hundred years later. But then, they've basically reached the pinnacle of technological advancement possible given the constraints of universal physics. The only way to get past these constraints is to AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence, but the Culture, unlike many other advanced species, is not in any hurry to do so on a species-wide scale, as it believes that would involve unacceptable amounts of coercion. Still, many individuals in the Culture, bored of immortality, undergo this individually as a form of SeenItAllSuicide.
* Creator/GregEgan's ''Literature/{{Orthogonal}}'' trilogy features a small-scale, justified, and very unusual example that lasts about three years and [[ItMakesSenseInContext Makes Much More Sense In Context]]. In ''The Arrows of Time'', when the inhabitants of the ''Peerless'' [[spoiler: construct a messaging system that allows them to send messages back in time]], it results in the inability of ''anyone'' to come up with ''any'' new technological or scientific advances. This is pretty significant when you consider that up to this point, they have progressed from technology based on clockwork and combustion engines (or the equivalent thereof) to photonics (read: electronics) and nearly-[[PerpetualMotionMachine Perpetual Motion Machines]] that are powered directly by light -- all within six generations of the launch. Expand the note for the spoileriffic and VERY lengthy explanation given InUniverse. [[labelnote:spoileriffic note]]In this universe, time travel is relatively easy, because acceleration in space changes the direction through which you travel through time. Accelerate a ''lot'', and you'll go sideways; accelerate even more, and you'll go backwards. Continue accelerating and you'll eventually come full circle and be traveling "normally" again. But since the universe is a closed loop and time travel is just a matter of course, obviously everything has to be mutually consistent. [[StableTimeLoop Stable Time Loops]] are really no big deal -- but a StableTimeLoop containing an ontological paradox (at least, one more complex than a basic exchange of obvious or useless information), while not patently impossible, is astronomically unlikely, for the same reason that [[MonkeysOnATypewriter dumping a truckload of pebbles onto the ground is astronomically unlikely to produce the complete works of Shakespeare in Braille]]. Basically, anything that is created entirely inside of such a loop is an example of ordered complexity arising from chaos. It's ''physically possible'', it's just unbelievably improbable. Likewise, if a StableTimeLoop involved, say, a physicist receiving a message from herself in the future that explained a revelation about the curvature of spacetime, it would mean that no one had actually come up with the idea; the completed thesis simply coalesced out of the chaotic interactions of matter and energy and forces in the universe. So, since there's no reliable way to ensure that any new discoveries ''wouldn't'' be sent back in time with the messaging system (or rather, it's ''extremely improbable'' that people would ''not'' find a way to send those messages -- notice a pattern?), thus creating an ontological paradox and a StableTimeLoop, the simplest way for the universe to keep itself internally consistent is to render innovation impossible as long as the system exists.[[/labelnote]]
* {{Justified}} in ''Literature/ChildhoodsEnd'': the Overlords have reached the pinnacle of science and technology possible under the laws of physics, and are seriously considering species-wide suicide out of sheer ''boredom'' before [[spoiler: being contacted by [[EnergyBeing the Overmind]], which asks them to shepherd other species as they AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence, something which the Overlords are incapable of for reasons which are never explained]]. They agree to do it because a) it gives them something to do, and b) they're hoping they'll eventually figure out the trick for themselves.
* Not a clear-cut example, but the Solarian League in ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' books hasn't advanced much in the past century or so, as they believe that having the most ships than anyone else means they can use [[WeHaveReserves sheer numbers]] to crush any "barbarian" star nation. To be fair, this was mostly true until the outbreak of hostilities between the Star Kingdom (later Empire) of Manticore and the (People's) Republic of Haven. The two big wars fought by the two star nations have resulted in their military tech being far in advance that of the Solarian fleet. While the numbers are still vastly skewed in the Solarian direction, several decidedly [[CurbStompBattle one-sided battles]] between the Solarians and the Manticorans show that numbers hardly matter anymore. The Second Battle of Manticore, when the League's Eleventh Fleet invaded the Manticore System, involved a battle with roughly equal numbers of superdreadnoughts on both sides (427 [=SDs=] vs 40 Manticoran, 150 Grayson, and 250 Havenite [=SDs=]). The significantly more advanced tech of the three allied star nations resulted in only roughly 4000 dead on their side vs. 1.2 ''million'' dead Solarians and 1.4 ''million'' captured. Several other smaller star nations (the above-mentioned Protectorate of Grayson, the Andermani Ampire, the Republic of Erewhon, and the [[spoiler:Mesan Alignment]]) have tech similar to that of the Manticorans and the Havenites.
** This also applies to tactics, which are also driven by technology. For example, while Solarian warships have missiles, they prefer to get in range of their powerful laser batteries, where their superior SD numbers can allow them to batter down the enemy [[DeflectorShields sidewalls]] and obliterate the enemy with coordinated laser barrages. In fact, they treat missiles as more of a nuisance, with most of their ships still using obsolete autocannons for [[PointDefenseless point-defense]]. Most of the other mentioned star nations have gotten quite experienced in missile-based combat, the typical strategies revolving around launching and defending against {{Macross Missile Massacre}}s, which usually means that older Solarian [=SDs=] get torn to shreds far outside their laser range. The Manticorans, the Havenites, and the Graysons also utilize [[SpaceFighter Light Attack Craft]] (or [=LACs=]) as strike wings against smaller units. Manticoran [=LACs=], in particular, mount a capital ship-grade laser system. When both sides have [=LACs=] their role is missile defense, as a Manticoran [=LAC=] has as much missile defense as a Solarian Light Cruiser.
** The key development the Solarians never realized the implications of is the Laser head. Although it's been around for 60-70 years, the Solarian fleet was designed and built before the laser head, and the SLN has never fought a war using laser heads. Laser heads greatly increased the damage a missile could do while making the delivery easier. The Haven Sector powers started their conflict when Laser heads were new and adjusted their designs and tactics to use the new warheads. The increased deadliness caused the Haven Sector powers to also spend effort on increasing the range and salvo size of these more deadly weapons. As a result the average Solarian Super Dreadnoughts is now smaller than the last generation of Haven sector Dreadnoughts and has less missile capacity as well as less counter-missiles.
* Downplayed but still noticeable in ''Literature/TheLostFleet'' series: Captain John Geary has spent about a century as a HumanPopsicle, and while some mention is made of innovations like better holographic avatar technology when holding fleet conferences (which Geary ruefully notes is something of a double-edged sword) and a means to send low-bandwidth text messages between ships during FTL travel, the changes seem to have been mostly incremental. The one exception is [[PortalNetwork the hypernet gates]]... [[spoiler: Which weren't a human innovation in the first place.]] Justified in that the entire intervening time was spent in a terrible war of attrition, with resources being stretched past the breaking point just to keep fighting.
* Downplayed as well in ''Literature/TheMachineriesOfEmpire'', when Jedao asks to be briefed on advancements in military technology so that he can catch up after several decades of being dormant. He notes with some annoyance that only a few minor things have changed.
* Played with in ''[[Literature/TheHanSoloAdventures Han Solo and the Lost Legacy]]'', the fabled lost treasure of a 25,000 year old galactic warlord turns out to be [[WorthlessTreasureTwist obsolete]], an alloy that was used as hull plating before durasteel was invented and crystals employed in the very earliest {{Subspace Ansible}}s. However the battle droids guarding the treasure are easily a match for modern weaponry.
* [[ScaryDogmaticAliens The Yuuzhan Vong]] suffer from this in the ''Literature/NewJediOrder''; they've been largely stagnant for millennia owing to the fact that their scientific caste, the shapers, value rote memorization of "protocols" over new research - stretching an existing protocol to new situations is acceptable, if somewhat dodgy, but inventing new ones will almost certainly get you executed as a heretic. The Vong's OrganicTechnology therefore only gets upgraded when their gods see fit to bestow new protocols [[spoiler: which is actually the doing of a secret sect of heretical shapers who've been tasked to invent said "divine revelations"]]. It's eventually revealed that the Vong lost most of their ability to innovate when [[spoiler: the GeniusLoci of their original homeworld, the source of the original protocols, cut them off]].
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', where the characters can jump million or ''billions'' of years ahead or behind, and any difference will be no more than aesthetic -- as can be expected for a series where technology runs more on RuleOfFunny than anything else. For example:
** The climax of ''Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse'' takes place ''literally'' at the end of time, but if technology is any more advanced than in the present, the reader is not notified;
** Later played with in the same volume, when [[SeenItAll Ford]] deduces from a spaceship's antiquated design that they must be about two million years in the past. But to [[TheEveryman Arthur]], it's just what spaceships are supposed to look like.
** ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything'' mentions that twenty billion years ago[[note]]Twenty British billions, equivalent to twenty American ''trillions''[[/note]], "brushed concrete and stainless steel" were considered cutting-edge.
** On the flip side, the Infinite Improbability Drive and Bistromathics are two revolutions in transportation invented very close to each other, so technology ''can'' progress if the plot allows it.
** The text directly blames the ready availability of time travel for this. Companies see selling in the past as no different than selling in another country, and at this point the timeline is such a mass of paradoxes everyone gave up keeping track.
* Mostly averted in Peter F. Hamilton's ''Literature/VoidTrilogy'' in that while the heredity of the technology involved is very clear and almost all of it was directly discussed or hinted at in the ''Literature/CommonwealthSaga'', the "direct" predecessor (set around 1500 years earlier, but due to immortality tech, containing most of the same characters), it has all vastly improved, and an individual in the future can be more powerful than a starship from the earlier stories. In some cases there are even significant improvements within the story itself. In others, while the technology hasn't progressed as far as others, this usually appears to be related to a fundamental limit of the technology in question, such as hyperspace travel.
* When the gang get back to Earth in the first ''Literature/RedDwarf'' novel, not much has changed in three million years. The only new technology is Rimmer's solid body and time machine. Things even seem to have stepped backwards somewhat as there's only one mention of the ColonizedSolarSystem from the start of the book. It's justified when they realize they're in a LotusEaterMachine.

* In the world of ''ComicBook/BuckGodotZapgunForHire'', species who make it into space tend to slow down their development.

* In Creator/MarvelComics, advanced beings such as the Celestials have been around since before the Earth was formed but stories that take place thousands of years ago show them more or less using the same technology. ComicBook/{{Galactus}} is an even bigger example since he is older than the universe itself but still rides around on the same moon-sized ship. A possible justification for this is that the Celestials and Galactus are advanced to the point of no longer needing improvements.
* As mentioned below, the ''Franchise/StarWars'' comics series often take place hundreds, if not, thousands of years in the past but the technology still seems to be relatively the same. For instance, fans can easily look at certain ships and make out their future equivalents.
** Averted in certain ''ComicBook/TalesOfTheJedi'' volumes, especially ''The Golden Age of the Sith'' and ''The Fall of the Sith Empire''. Things are given a much rougher, more primitive design--for instance, lightsabers are ornately carved and actually plug into the belt when not in use, and instead of a dashboard full of buttons and lights, a starship's hyperdrive control is a spinning dial around a crystal centerpiece. However, ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', set not long afterwards, discards this presumably for the sake of the graphics being easy to render.

* The ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise. The tech in ''Film/AlienResurrection'' seems startlingly similar to the first movie when you consider that they are set 258 years apart. The only apparent advance in space-travel technology is that the ships appear sleeker and cleaner than the original hulk ''Nostromo'', but clear advances are shown in [[CloningBlues cloning technology]], robotics (compare the RidiculouslyHumanRobot Call to the [[UncannyValley less convincing]] Ash), and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking best of all]], whisky can be transported in convenient cubes then restored to liquid form via laser.

** Since Disney rebooted the franchise, this has quietly been [[AvertedTrope averted]]. On ''Series/TheMandalorian'', for example, the main character's helmet appears to contain an embedded rangefinder (so that he can target his Whistling Birds weapon), compared to Boba Fett's clunky and manually–operated rangefinder from only 30 or so years previous. The Whistling Birds are an example as well if they are, as they appear to be, a wrist–fired, MoreDakka version of Boba's kneepad dart–launcher. Then again, the Republic-era ''Razor Crest'' still performs at the level of "modern" starships thanks to little more than attentive mechanical care.
*** Whatever the [[BigBad Big Bads]] use to polish the decks of their starships, [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/2/20/Hux_on_the_bridge.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20160403043326 it's getting better]].
* The technology of the Franchise/{{Predator}}s is never seen to advance, even when their appearances are hundreds of years apart. The Expanded Universe justifies this by explaining that a long time ago the Predators' society became all about the hunt, and they lost all interest in intellectual pursuits. There is a sometimes-canon and sometimes-not explanation that their tech is stolen from an older race that attempted to occupy their planet. They can replicate and adapt it, but lack the understanding of its base principles to improve on it. An easier explanation is that the only Predators we see are hunters who explicitly show "sportsmanlike" behavior, including killing only armed opponents and sparing, for example, pregnant women. It follows that the crazy-superior tech they are using is what they consider fair. Their tech may be better, but what is "fair" to use on the humans hasn't changed in hundreds of years. Much the same way some humans often still use bows to hunt deer rather than carpet-bombing them from the stratosphere. This is hinted to be so in the current comics to be this, as it's about a clan of Predators who don't follow the hunter's code of honor.

* Implied for the colonists in ''[[Film/Passengers2016 Passengers]]''. It takes a literal lifetime for the ship to go from Earth to the new planet, and the people aboard will be in biological suspension until a few months before arrival. By the time they wake up, the technology they are using and will probably use for the rest of their lives will be decades behind that used on Earth. This was further hinted in the original script, which had the deck officer reveal that he had been ferrying people that way and back for 600 years.

* The ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' franchise. The tech in ''Film/AlienResurrection'' seems startlingly similar to the first movie when you consider that they are set 258 years apart.
** The only apparent advance in space-travel technology is that the ships appear sleeker and cleaner than the original hulk ''Nostromo'', but clear advances are shown in [[CloningBlues cloning technology]], robotics (compare the RidiculouslyHumanRobot Call to the [[UncannyValley less convincing]] Ash), and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking best of all]], whisky can be transported in convenient cubes then restored to liquid form via laser.

** Enterprise and TOS starfleet ships are said to have a speed of Warp 5 while TNG era ships are seen capable of Warp 9.97%. There are also some design standards that change, more noticiably that the ships are more streamlined in after the Enterprise-D (said to compensate for a problem with travel at high warp speeds that was discovered at the tail end TNG) and more war focused (following the Borg attacks in TNG and the Dominion War in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'') ramped it into overdrive.[[note]]At the beginning of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', a ship that was exclusively designed to be a weapons ship was still an oddity in Starfleet and they preferred to not call it a War Ship. At the end, the Defiant class has been mass produced that Sisko has little trouble getting a new one after the first one was destroyed and the Prometheus class is such a leap in war tech that the Romulans steal it so they can figure out how it works.[[/note]] Conversely, Star Fleet still operates the Excelsior Class, first introduce in the TOS movie era, but many people tend to justify it that real navy ships are designed to last for long periods of time and the Excelsior was surprisingly resilient in its capabilities (some FanWank even compare it to the real life [[CoolPlane A-10 Warthog]] which is surprisingly hard to kill on the battlefield and even harder to kill in the military's budgeting[[note]]Consider how it's at the tail end of its expected life span when first built and is expected to last twice as long as that original estimate FROM THIS POINT IN ITS LIFE.[[/note]]). Also, the use of a mothball fleet might have brought some back to fill in with ship shortages from the Borg and Domminion war.

* Partly justified in ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' due to the 300-year dark age following the collapse of the [[TheFederation Systems Commonwealth]]. Much of the technology was lost, although some worlds are shown to retain at least some of it. There are groups with more advanced tech, though, such as the [[ProudScholarRaceGuy Perseids]].

** The Eldar, as well as being quasi-immortal, have been trapped in a decadent, decaying culture [[AfterTheEnd since The Fall]]; expending their very limited resources on simply maintaining their existence in a universe where EverythingIsTryingToKillYou.

* ''ComicBook/GreenLanterns'' has one of the most ''insane'' versions of this imaginable. Almost all of the first seven Green Lanterns are from species still around and entirely recognisable in the modern day over four ''billion'' years ago.

** Two of the most notable real technological advances between Kirk's and Picard's eras are replicators and holodecks. It says a lot about the franchise that later works frequently try to [[RetCon retcon]] Kirk's era into having them. On-screen, the closest the original series ever came to depicting replicators on Kirk's ''Enterprise'' was the food synthesizers; and it was repeatedly made clear that being able to actually make useful objects out of [=energy/thin air=] was almost the defining characteristic of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens. In fairness, [[Recap/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeriesS2E3ThePracticalJoker one episode]] of the [[WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries Animated Series]] (produced before ''TNG)'' actually ''did'' depict Kirk's ''Enterprise'' with something comparable to a holodeck, long before ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]]'' [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E1EncounterAtFarpoint introduced it explicitly as a new invention;]] then [[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E5OnceUponATime an episode]] of ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' established that holodecks had existed since Janeway was a child; and ''then'' an [[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS01E05Unexpected early episode]] of ''[[Series/StarTrekEnterprise Enterprise]]'' exposed Archer's crew to some aliens with holodecks, who then gave it to the ''Klingons'' all those years before Kirk was even born (not that we ''ever'' saw Kirk-era Klingons use it).

* The Nemesites in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' are a multi-million year old civilization, and they apparently went this route ''[[SpaceAmish by choice.]]'' Notably, it's not that they don't ''have'' more advanced tech than we commonly see them using — when they pull out the big stuff, they verge into SufficientlyAdvancedAliens status — but traditionally, they feel that if they remove all challenges from daily life, they risk turning into decadent vegetables. Voluptua claims many civilizations have destroyed themselves this way, and the successful ones are the ones who find some happy medium they're comfortable living with day-to-day (though they don't all pick the ''same'' self-imposed limits).

** Since Disney rebooted the franchise, this has quietly been [[AvertedTrope averted]]. On ''Series/TheMandalorian'', for example, the main character's helmet appears to contain an embedded rangefinder (so that he can target his Whistling Birds weapon), compared to Boba Fett's clunky and manually–operated rangefinder from only 30 or so years previous. The Whistling Birds are an example as well if they are, as they appear to be, a wrist–fired, MoreDakka version of Boba's kneepad dart–launcher. Then again, the Republic-era ''Razor Crest'' is still badly underestimated by many, despite performing at the level of "modern" starships thanks to little more than attentive mechanical care.

** Since Disney rebooted the franchise, this has quietly been [[AvertedTrope averted]]. On ''Series/TheMandalorian'', for example, the main character's helmet appears to contain an embedded rangefinder (so that he can target his Whistling Birds weapon), compared to Boba Fett's clunky and manually–operated rangefinder from only 30 or so years previous. The Whistling Birds are an example as well if they are, as they appear to be, a wrist–fired, MoreDakka version of Boba's kneepad dart–launcher.

* ''Franchise/StarWars''. Technology is largely the same between the prequel and original trilogies, with the only visible changes being minor advances in prosthetics and holograms. Then again, the entire film series only covers about 50-60 years, and military technology does appear to have advanced modestly during that time (in some cases, it regressed--the absence of battle droids in Episodes IV-VI, for example). The ''Star Wars'' universe may have reached a technological plateau, possibly caused by the near-continuous warfare hindering any pure scientific research. In the ExpandedUniverse, blasters, hyperdrive, lightsabers, deflector shields, and space battleships exist for tens of thousands of years. Any time "new technology" is discovered, it's only for the film, novel, or comic, then forgotten. They actually seem to be in something of a slow decline, just because they're running out of {{Precursor}} artifacts and never learned to make more, or they may have nowhere to go technologically. Most of the advances we've seen are in superweapons able to destroy planets or even stars. Once the Empire falls, no one has either the desire or dictatorial authority to build such devices again (thankfully).