# Trope-a-Day: Used Future **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [November 12, 2024, 12:47pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/trope-a-day-used-future/2974 "2024-11-12T12:47:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![avatar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/avatar/32/2_2.png) [@avatar](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/avatar)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2024, 12:47pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/trope-a-day-used-future/2974/1 "2024-11-12T12:47:15Z")
_(As a side note, please permit me to apologize for the lack of new fic content over the last few days. I appear to have once again contracted some sort of death plague that is playing merry hell with my creativity, so I’m just sitting around crunching numbers, popping excedrin, and playing video games. Normal operation will be resumed as soon as I can operate normally.)_ **_[Used Future](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UsedFuture?ref=eldraeverse.com):_** Averted in the Empire – as you can probably tell by the way we hit up _[Crystal Spires and Togas](http://eldraeverse.com/2012/03/28/trope-a-day-crystal-spires-and-togas/), [Everything is an iPod in the Future](http://eldraeverse.com/2012/03/30/trope-a-day-everything-is-an-ipod-in-the-future/)_ and _[Raygun Gothic](http://eldraeverse.com/2012/03/29/trope-a-day-raygun-gothic/)_ on the way here, not to mention _[Scenery Porn](http://eldraeverse.com/2012/04/16/trope-a-day-scenery-porn/),_ the Empire sits _hard_ on the shiny side of the _[Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty](http://eldraeverse.com/2015/10/13/trope-a-day-sliding-scale-of-shiny-versus-gritty/)_.  Note: it’s not necessarily new; some of it’s just been lovingly maintained for millennia and polished every morning until it _gleams_.  Even more so with robotics and nanotechnology and post-scarcity energy supplies that fervently and with zeal ensure that all litter is picked up, all spills vanished, all nicks and dings repaired, and everything maintained in a state of appalling just-off-the-production-line perfection _at all times!_  Even the _garbage trucks_ are _gorgeous!_ The metaphorical appearance of the _actuality_ may best be compared to the perfect streets and shiny happy people seen mostly in architect’s impressions and Jehovah’s Witnesses pamphlets. How used everyone else’s future is tends to depend on location: see _[Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty](http://eldraeverse.com/2015/10/13/trope-a-day-sliding-scale-of-shiny-versus-gritty/)_ for this, and _Shiny Looking Spaceships_ for one way this trope plays out in practice. * * * This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at [https://eldraeverse.com/2016/01/28/trope-a-day-crystal-spires-and-togas-2](https://eldraeverse.com/2016/01/28/trope-a-day-crystal-spires-and-togas-2) ---
**Author:** ![avatar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/avatar/32/2_2.png) [@avatar](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/avatar)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2025, 1:44pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/trope-a-day-used-future/2974/2 "2025-04-24T13:44:48Z")
**Comments migrated from WordPress:** > [@jrdougan \ on 2016-01-28 23:42:11 wrote](#): > > Which video games? > > “The metaphorical appearance of the actuality may best be compared to the perfect streets and shiny happy people seen mostly in architect’s impressions and Jehovah’s Witnesses pamphlets.” > > Like [http://dapperday.com/inspiration-and-the-art](http://dapperday.com/inspiration-and-the-art) then? > > > [@Alistair Young \ on 2016-01-29 15:25:47 wrote](#): > > > > Yeah, that seems about right. > > > > (Disneyland is a good comparison in some other ways, with specific reference to the aggressive manicuring of the Disney parks with everything cleaned and polished to within an inch of its life. God may see each sparrow fall, but he’s got nothin’ on The Mouse tracking Dirt. Or possibly Singapore as William Gibson described it in “Disneyland with the Death Penalty”, without the stultifying conformity but with the neo-Gernsbackian smily-faced polish in full play. > > > > Of course, it’s not a bunch of hard-working maintenance workers in costume doing the job _there_ . It’s just one more piece of the automated ubiquitous infrastructure, seeing all and knowing all in the interest of ensuring that if a pet poops anywhere inside a city, a little robot - probably something like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JUCMlDNbGQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JUCMlDNbGQ) - will dash out from the nearest robot hotel, clean up the mess within seconds, polish the pavement to its wonted perfection, and bill the responsible sophont three millis for municipal poop-robo service.) > [@lly1205 \ on 2016-01-29 19:21:50 wrote](#): > > Best of luck recovering from the death plague!! ---
**Author:** ![avatar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/avatar/32/2_2.png) [@avatar](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/avatar)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2025, 1:44pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/trope-a-day-used-future/2974/3 "2025-04-24T13:44:48Z")
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**Author:** ![avatar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/avatar/32/2_2.png) [@avatar](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/avatar)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/trope-a-day-used-future/2974/4 "2026-01-27T16:40:33Z")
Saw this meme today: ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/eldraeverse/original/1X/c40aceb3c18118528bad70dd96a725f98d5aea84.jpeg) “We don’t build things to ‘weather’.”