Basic Trope: Characters make use of a varied and deliberately anachronistic mix of technologies.
- Straight: Soldiers with AKA47s ride around on an antigravity sled with a catapult mounted on the back.
- Exaggerated: Cavemen discover fire... by seeing what happens when they shoot their laser pistols at dry shrubs. They tell others of the discovery by blowing their animal bone horns in morse code.
- Downplayed:
- An interstellar spaceship's computer looks very 1990s.
- An StG-44 is used by a modern army.
- Justified:
- Schizo tech allows for a civilization to fall back on and survive if technology above a certain level is disabled by an enemy power.
- A collision of cultures with different Technology Levels results in haphazard availability of advanced tech.
- After the End, the survivors lead a primitive existence, augmented by treasured relics of advanced technology.
- Lost Technology left over by a long-gone civilization is combined with modern-day technology.
- The setting is a Third World country with limited infrastructure, which isn't able to manufacture or import all the latest technology; they use whatever they can get their hands on or easily make themselves. Alternatively, it's a country where some technology is better suited to their needs than it might be in the First World.
- The setting is a community with Amish-type beliefs, which is cautious about accepting new technology for religious reasons.
- The existence of Functional Magic and/or Applied Phlebotinum has caused society to evolve in ways separate than real life, making certain inventions obsolete before they are even conceived (e.g. the development of Energy Weapons in a time before ballistic gunpowder firearms, or smartphones before telegrams).
- Due to the laws of physics, it's impossible to develop things as firearms so alternatives as for example spring-powered guns, which may or may not be better than simpler technologies, are used.
- The soldiers are War Reenactors on their way to the scene.
- Inverted:
- Everyone, everywhere has access to the same, very narrow level of technology across the board, from the most "primitive" backwater planet to the central galactic metropolis.
- (Enforced Inversion!) Everything used by the characters is Product Placement and thus real-world up to date at the time of production.
- Subverted: The "primitive" elements of the technology are actually very advanced counterparts—the swords are actually Laser Blades, for example.
- The "too advanced" elements such as samurai using matchlocks actually happened in the period portrayed.
- Double Subverted: But they function no differently from their genuinely primitive forebears, and still ought to be thoroughly outclassed by cutting-edge weaponry.
- Parodied:
- The deadly weapon that all Space Marines fear is... thrown rocks. They're treated as a credible threat when they supplement their laser guns with rocks of their own.
- The Show Within a Show is a Movie-Making Mess and the writers are forced to make do with anything they can get their hands on and all the Handwave editing they can shove in the script when the historically-accurate gear is lost, followed by the moviegoers bugging out at watching Samurai with AK-47s.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: The characters have a consistent level of technology in their gear, and they never encounter outside cultures that might be at a different level of development.
- Enforced: A character has a 1940s refrigerator and 1980s car but due to Product Placement has the full suite of the latest Apple electronics.
- Lampshaded: "Wait a minute... Where do I get this future tech?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Imagine we could develop bird-like machines that were able to fly around the world instead of having to resort to those short-range contraptions".
- Implied: In a high fantasy setting, messages are sent much faster than what should be possible for the setting, but we never see how.
- Deconstructed: High tech weapons without the defenses or communication technology causes many bloody wars because of the ease of fighting.
And Sir Tropealot took up the Internet-enabled parchment, and touched the words "Schizo Tech", and was straightaway whisked back to the main article.
