Basic Trope: A setting that takes place in the future where the spaceships, robots, and everything else look as though they have gone through wear and tear over the years.
- Straight: Alice and Bob's spaceship is dirty, with paint chipping off and burn marks from repeated reentry. Their robot, meanwhile, needs some waxing.
- Exaggerated: Their spaceship has obvious cracks and dents up and down the hull that have not been repaired, making it look as though it will break apart during flight. Meanwhile, they still have yet to rebuild the broken robot slumped against the wall.
- Downplayed: Their ship is a little dirty but otherwise, looks to be in tip-top shape.
- Justified:
- They have been a part of a rebellion for years now and have not had the time or money to repair the ship or their robot.
- Things wear and tear and people are tight on cash in the future just as they are in the present.
- They can maintain and repair spaceships—the problem is making new ones, since they're either too expensive for the crew or the technology was fully lost.
- Inverted: Ascetic Aesthetic, Crystal Spires and Togas
- Subverted: The setting takes place in a future that has just developed space travel so the ships look pretty new.
- Alice and Bob are two fleeing earthers with a beat up looking ship. Charlie takes one look at it and asks if they are trying to impersonate a derelict or just don't know how to use it. Once he is at the controls he uses the ship's laser array to clean and repair itself to look almost brand new and remove the markings. They blend in far better afterwards.
- Double Subverted: The ships develop wear and tear over the course of the story and look less shiny by the end.
- Parodied: Their ship never starts, their robots break apart as they walk around, and the whole planet looks filthy. In the future, nothing works well and everyone grumbles about it.
- Zig Zagged:
- The setting is dirty and every ship and robot looks used but there are new advances in technology, giving the population new stuff. Then war breaks out and everything starts getting busted up again, only for people start taking better care of what they have because they need to keep their weapons and ships in working order.
- The brand-new spaceships in the setting are pretty clean, but also glum-looking, grey chunks of stainless steel. To make them more pleasant to work and live in, as well as more unique, the first objective of any new ship owner is to do some interior decoration inside and put some Nose Art on the outside. For this reason, a ship that was inhabited for a long time both has more wear-and-tear and is more cozy and has a lot more personality to it than a brand-new one.
- Averted: The ship and robots don't look all that old or beat up.
- Enforced: The writers want the future to look as though people have actually lived in it for a while.
- Lampshaded: "It's the year 3245. You'd think we would've learned to take better care of our stuff by now."
- Fuck! Even in the future, nothing works!"
- Invoked: In the future, ships that look beat-up is a mark of pride, showing the crew has traveled far and have been through a lot.
- Exploited: The future is controlled by a tyrant who actually hates technology so he has halted any sort of scientific advancement and is now allowing everything to break down over time.
- Defied: They could let their ship and robot go to waste but they make sure to take special care of what they have.
- Discussed: They argue over the state of their ship.
- Conversed:"I like this series for its realism. All the ships look like they've been used for a while.""Yeah, I guess that's more realistic but I kinda prefer shiny spaceships. They look cooler."
- Implied: Bob comes to the present from the future via Time Travel. We never see his timeline but since his gear looks as though it has been in use for a long time, chances are, everything else in his future looks the same way.
- Deconstructed: They know their ship is old and don't want it looking bad so they clean it up and give it some repairs.
- Reconstructed: As it turns out, ship cleaning and repairs are really expensive and it's hard to maintain the general wear and tear so they just let it go.
- Played For Laughs: There is a Running Gag about their ship always having problems.
- Played For Drama: They're the last of the rebellion. Their broken ship is all they have left and serves as a symbol of their dark past and hopeless future.
Go back to Used Future
