rdfs:comment
| - In many near-future dystopian science fiction settings, prices on some items, particularly natural things created by natural processes as opposed to created in laboratories via synthetic processes, are quite high. This is particularly the case if the setting is specifically shown to be one of severe environmental degradation, where agriculture is difficult or natural agricultural products unsafe, or where most natural-born animals are extinct. People just take it for granted that certain things are not to be had for regular folks, or that if they are, they're grown in batches in laboratories, or in the case of animals, they may be machines designed to look like the real thing.
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abstract
| - In many near-future dystopian science fiction settings, prices on some items, particularly natural things created by natural processes as opposed to created in laboratories via synthetic processes, are quite high. This is particularly the case if the setting is specifically shown to be one of severe environmental degradation, where agriculture is difficult or natural agricultural products unsafe, or where most natural-born animals are extinct. People just take it for granted that certain things are not to be had for regular folks, or that if they are, they're grown in batches in laboratories, or in the case of animals, they may be machines designed to look like the real thing. Can be written off as Artistic License Biology, if it's not justified by pollution or disease having reduced the remaining real organisms' fertility. Making more of themselves is something that living things tend to be pretty good at, after all. This trope typically occurs when one character encounters an object, usually food or an animal, and questions the owner about it. They may ask "Is this real?" to which the owner of a synthetic item/cloned animal replies "Of course not." Or if the character is meant to be fabulously wealthy, or only the best will do, and the item is natural it could be "Of course." See also Future Food Is Artificial, Commonplace Rare, Black Market Produce. A counterpart is Worthless Yellow Rocks; both can exist in the same work. Examples of Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap include:
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