History Main / CreativeSterility

* This is what causes the downfall of Rikako Oryo in ''Anime/PsychoPass''. Because her art is severely limited, the Enforcers are able to track her easy and Makishima gets tired of her and ends up sending the last of the VillainOfTheWeek to kill her.

[[folder:Franchises]]
* Zigzagged throughout the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' franchise, as sometimes the Transformers have a healthy creative culture, in other versions part of the reason they latch onto humanity so much is because humans have so much more of it.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' implies that Cybertron doesn't have much creativity, other than anything related to warfare. Throughout the series, the Autobots are shown enjoying such things as watching human TV or participating in sports, suggesting similar things just aren't found on Cybertron (especially since they've been locked in a ForeverWar for millions of years). ''VideoGame/TransformersDevastation'' outright states that much of Cybertron's culture has been lost over the countless eons of war.
** In the backstory of the ''Aligned'' universe (made up of ''VideoGame/TransformersWarForCybertron'' and ''VideoGame/TransformersFallOfCybertron'' as well as ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'' and its spin-offs), in the aftermath of the Rust Plague Alpha Trion observes that while Cybertron survived, the loss of its numerous colonies to the plague seemed to have drained all the creativity and life out of Cybertronians as a whole. The worst sign is how new Cybertronians don't even have '''names''',[[note]]When "born", a Cybertronian is fed information on Cybertron's culture by the supercomputer Vector Sigma, which allows them to choose a MeaningfulName that reflects their personality.[[/note]] implying that they had nothing that inspired them nor anything to aspire to.
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* ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory'': The creatures of Fantastica are creatures of stories and can't create new stories themselves.

** Copen views the Adepts as being this; he deems Asroc a "talentless hack" for using his septima to create machinery, whereas Copen creates this technology from the ground up, which, in his view, is a testament to humanity's achievement. He also views Ghauri's septima for performances as "artless, irreverent, and irresponsible". It should be noted that this is actually subverted as the Adepts are actually capable of creativity and technological innovation, and is simply more on Copen's inability to acknowledge their achievements due to his FantasticRacism.
** Speaking of which, [[MegaCorp the Sumeragi Group]] got hit with this. While they have the technological edge over other nations and being the only nation to possess the means to control Adepts via Glaives, they have fallen behind when it comes to tank designs, and to overcome this, had commissioned an overseas company (Eunos Inc.) to help come up with a next generation main battle tank that can really aid them.

* The idea is brought up in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' -- Andalites and Yeerks begin to fear humans once they realize that humans, while much less technologically advanced, made technological progress far faster than their more advanced counterparts. Ax, an Andalite, is astonished to learn that humans went from first powered flight to space flight in under a century. The Yeerks are also cited (admittedly, by [[UnreliableNarrator Andalites]]) as having stolen everything they have from other races, being capable of modification (Dracon beams kill more slowly and painfully than the shredder beams they're based on, for example) but not true creation. Since the Yoort (related to the Yeerks somehow) were at least partially responsible for the mind-reading devices that are the basis of their 'memory markets', this spreads further doubt on the Andalite's claims.