History Main / DecadeDissonance

** The contrast between Armadillo (the first town you visit) and Blackwater (the last) is mind-blowing. Armadillo is every town you ever saw in old Westerns - dirt roads, horses everywhere, cowboys walking along wooden steps. Blackwater? Cobblestone roads, dignified gentlemen and ladies in fine clothing, and ''cars with internal combustion engines'', while every other vehicle in the game is either horse or steam-powered.

** The contrast between Armadillo (the first town you visit) and Blackwater (the last) is mind-blowing. Armadillo is every town you ever saw in old Westerns - dirt roads, horses everywhere, cowboys walking along wooden steps. Blackwater? Cobblestone roads, dignified gentlemen and ladies in fine clothing, and ''cars''.

* The entire premise of ''VideoGame/ProjectEden'' for the UsefulNotes/{{P|layStation2}}S2 is descending from the utopia on the top floors of the city, miles down to the slum. This is an example in a single city. The opening FMV shows a young child on the top floor balcony at a party dropping his teddy bear and the fall is followed as the teddy falls through areas that are ever increasing with rust and tramps.

* Used deliberately in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', which is set during the TwilightOfTheWildWest - in 1911, to be exact. The final taming of the West and the death of the culture it supported are the game's primary themes.

* Used deliberately in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', which is set in TheWildWest - during TheEdwardianEra. The final taming of the West and the death of the culture it supported are the game's primary theme.
** The contrast between Armadillo (the first town you visit) and Blackwater (the last) is mind-blowing. Armadillo is every city you ever saw in old Westerns - dirt roads, horses everywhere, cowboys walking along wooden steps. Blackwater? Cobblestone roads, dignified gentlemen and ladies in fine clothing, and ''cars''.

* The ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' series suffers from this. In ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' the main city is clearly based on San Francisco with modern buildings and ordinary vehicles. Meanwhile in ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'' and ''VideoGame/SonicRiders'' there are extremely futuristic locales with flying cars, anti-gravity transporters, and buildings that'd look at home on [[Franchise/StarWars Coruscant]]. And there's even tribal villages too. Whether the series is supposed to be set in the twentieth, twenty-first, or twenty-second century is a matter for debate, given that building a city-sized space station wasn't an obstacle 50 years before the series' present. ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' has this trope within the same game: You have the location simply known as "City," which looks like a traditional Latin American town from the early 20th century, and then you have the bright, shiny CrystalSpiresAndTogas looking Metropolis.

Every country is different thanks to culture and geography, and no two cities in any one country are alike either. However some worlds can take this to extremes, making two side by side cities as different as night and day. The differences can be purely cosmetic or go all the way to lifestyle, architecture, and even technology. You can have a {{Utopia}} city made of CrystalSpiresAndTogas sitting smack dab next to a ghetto...sorry, "quaint hamlet" that [[MedievalStasis never left]] TheMiddleAges.

* The Mushroom Kingdom in the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' series. You've got towns and villages like Toad Town set firmly in the middle ages equivalent, then shiny futuristic cities like Mushroom City, Twilight City and various cities from the ''VideoGame/WarioLand'' and ''VideoGame/WarioWare'' series games with modern technology equivalents.
** And then Mario travels around the world in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'', where different countries have vastly different technological levels. [[BigApplesauce New Donk City]] in the Metro Kingdom has modern high-rise skyscrapers and Steam Gardens in the Wooded Kingdom has extremely advanced robots, but then you have Lake Lamode in the Lake Kingdom in which the inhabitants live around the ruins of a presumably earlier society and have only adapted minimally and Shiveria in the Snow Kingdom whose town infrastructure is mostly made of wood and they live by candlelight. That being said, it may be closer to a SchizoTech, as an inhabitant of the traditional-looking town of [[SouthOfTheBorder Tostarena]] talks to Mario about NFC technology, Shiveria's famous Bound Bowl Grand Prix is broadcast within the town on a humongous flat-screen TV, and space travel is so common that it's considered trivial all around the world.

* In ''LightNovel/KinosJourney'', cities are separated by great distances and form separate countries. Also, travel is dangerous and most people never leave their hometowns. Thus, there are vast differences in technology and culture between cities, which vary from medieval to futuristic in nature. This is made even stranger by the [[SchizoTech eclectic technology]].

* ''Manga/TwilightStarSuiAndNeri'' has the island city of Tetsunagi, which is a ''remarkable contrast'' to the far future Earth outside of it. Whereas most of the Earth's cities have sufficiently advanced in terms of technology and culture, Tetsunagi is resembling more of a Japanese city within The20thCentury to [[TurnOfTheMillennium the 21st Century]], where obsolete, ancient things like physical cash and coins is still ''used'' as the main form of monetary currency.

* ''Manga/TwilightStarSuiAndNeri'' has the island city of Tetsunagi, which is a ''remarkable contrast'' to the far future Earth outside of it. Whereas most of the Earth's cities have sufficiently advanced in terms of technology and culture, Tetsunagi is resembling more of a Japanese city within the 20th to 21st-century, where obsolete things like paper money is still ''used'' as the main form of monetary currency.

*** Grand Cathay is UsefulNotes/ImperialChina, but despite this their culture draws from multiple elements of Chinese history. This [[https://dragonsarmory.blogspot.com/2021/09/chinese-cultural-armor-references-in.html?m=1 article]] goes into further detail regarding the specific influences, but in short there are Jin Dynasty lamellar armors alongside Ming Dynasty brigandine armors and gunpowder such as shotguns and firework launchers. Their technological level is just as advanced as that of the Empire, but leans moreso towards {{Magitek}} as they lack the steam power that the Empire has access to. Case in point, while the Empire might rely on actual steam-powered Tanks and Mechanical Steeds, the Cathayans opt to use magical birds to power giant airships or have magically powered terracotta automatons and giant-sized sentinels.
** The other races vary; the [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarfs]] are mostly on par with the Empire, but some of their units - mainly primitive helicopters - are well beyond that level. This all makes sense considering how they were responsible for most of the Empire's technological advancements in the first place, but are slowly being outpaced technologically due to their staunch conservativsm and adherence to tradition. The [[RodentsOfUnusualSize Skaven]] have even more advanced technology including primitive machine guns, flamethrowers, motor vehicles, genetically-engineered super soldiers, chemical weapons, and even a [[TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndtimes transdimensional communicator]] and [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerII spacecraft]]]], [[MadScientist but it doesn't]] [[ReliablyUnreliableGuns work right very often]]. The minor human nations like Tilea, Estalia, Marienburg, Araby, and the Border Princes average out around the Empire's level with only the Amazons (being based off South American tribes but with access to some {{Magitek}} artifacts) and Albion (who at their most advanced are Iron Age Celts and at their least advanced are basically cavemen who can't even understand each other) being below that of Bretonnia. The rest of the factions are less technologically advanced to the point of making the Bretonnians look modern, but make up for it with [[FunctionalMagic magic]]. {{Magitek}}, and natural strength. Similarly, the Lizardmen of Lustria and the Southlands are supposedly ''stone-age'', but they have inherited a lot of Magitek technology from their long-gone Old One masters which leads to them having access to KillSat[=s=], DeflectorShield[=s=], and WaveMotionGun[=s=].

* The ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' universe, in which the Orcs and Tauren live in huts made from animal hides, while the Gnomes have fled their homes due to radiation poisoning from their ''nuclear reactor''. At least some of it seems to be by choice, however. The Tauren, for example, have access to gunpowder due to being part of the Horde but otherwise prefer to live closer to nature. Meanwhile the Goblins live in a industrial port city complete with highways and taxi cars, with Gallywix having his own golf course and pool. To say nothing of the Draenei with their CrystalSpiresAndTogas aesthetic, complete with actual spaceships (both Draenei races' home cities are spaceships) and WaveMotionGun[=s=].

* The Franchise/{{Kirby}} games generally stick to pastoral areas in a generally StandardFantasySetting. King Dedede, for instance, lives in a stone castle with a drawbridge over a moat. However, most games have at least one futuristic stage near the end, as well as another one where Kirby must travel into space to fight the final boss, and characters and groups can potentially cover any theme from any time period, from the [[VideoGame/KirbySqueakSquad Squeak Squad]], who take from Renaissance-era adventure stories, to Paint Roller, who embodies the TotallyRadical aesthetic of [[TheNineties the early 90s]].

* ''VideoGame/{{ELEX}}'' takes place on a world similar to present day Earth called Magalan. However, an asteroid struck the planet and caused the old nations to collapse. Said asteroid brought with it the element Elex which can be used to power advanced technology or give people special, magical powers when consumed. The part of the world you explore is divided between four factions and they all have a very different aesthetic and tech-level. The Albs and Clerics of Calaan are both high-tech factions with troops equipped with PoweredArmor and wielding[[PlasmaCannon plasma weapons]] and have mechs in their armies. The Outlaws are a ''Film/MadMax'' inspired faction and have modern day weapons and equipment. Then you have the Berserkers who are a group of warriors who have renounced modern technology, embraced a medieval life-style and purify Elex into Mana to wield magic and restore life to nature on one side.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' has Esthar. The rest of the world is slightly behind the real world in most respects, with cars, machinery and television, but Esthar (besides ''looking'' very futuristic is much more technologically advanced, with floating public transit, advanced spaceflight, and the ability to cloak the whole city from the rest of the world... which helps explain why this technology never spread.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Within the Walls, technology appears to be stuck around the late-Medieval/early-Renaissance era. [[spoiler: It's later revealed that this due to the government suppressing the development of new technology in order to maintain the status quo.]] Even later, [[spoiler: it's revealed that humanity is not in fact extinct outside the walls, and that the outside world has advanced to early-20th century levels of technology and society.]]

* ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' is a bit of a confused setting in this regard. The producers made a mighty effort to make the art, style, technology and costuming designs evoke a "Pre-{{Zeerust}}" feel much like that of ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]]'' while being "modern" and TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture enough for contemporary audiences (while not breaking the Pre-Zeerust feel). Whether this tightrope act succeeds or not depends mostly on the viewers' tastes.
* ''Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury'' is also a bit confused. In the pilot, New Chicago and other major cities were protected by domes, and a ''Film/MadMax'' atmosphere reigned outside them. That seems to have been dropped later in the series.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' fantasy setting has this big time with Bretonnia (read Medieval England and France in a fantasy setting) and TheEmpire (the Habsburgian Holy Roman Empire in a fantasy setting). Bretonnia is typical Medieval fantasy fodder with a feudal system, knights, archers, etc. The Empire, on the other hand, has mostly 16th-17th century technology with armies consisting of pike-and-shot formations with plentiful muskets and cannons to complement their polearms and swords. They even have smatterings of early Industrial Revolution tech with SteamPunk thrown in for good measure. This can make for some interesting battles in the series.
** Bretonnia's status as an independent state in the face of an expansionist technological superpower is {{justified|Trope}} for a number of reasons. First, the most mundane: there's a giant mountain range on the border between the two nations that makes moving armies between them difficult. Second, magic granted by the local goddess, the Lady of the Lake, gives Bretonnian knights some level of resistance to bullets (modeled as a 6+ ward save on the tabletop, i.e. attacks have a 1/6 chance of being negated without doing any damage); it doesn't prevent them from getting slaughtered the many times they try to charge an artillery line, but it does help. Third, the Bretonnians have managed to domesticate the Pegasi which live in the mountains of Bretonnia and recruit Pegasus Knights in such numbers that the country effectively has an organised and powerful air force -- in the Empire, meanwhile, Pegasi are exceedingly rare and really just a neat pet for the nobility. Fourth, the Empire's armies are constantly busy with other threats (or [[WeAreStrugglingTogether fighting each other]]), being right next to Norsca, the Orcish Badlands, the Chaos Wastes, and the continent's biggest concentrations of Beastmen, meaning they have little power to throw at Bretonnia. Finally, the absolute lack of technology and infrastructure in [[TheDungAges Bretonnia]] means that even ''if'' the Empire managed to successfully conquer them, they'd have monstrous logistical and economic problems -- for a real world analogy, think the issues that faced West Germany when it was reunified with the much less economically prosperous East Germany [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheColdWar after being split for nearly 50 years]].

*** Kislev initially started out as an amalgam between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia, but in their modern incarnation (as introduced in ''The Old World'' revival and ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerIII'') they now incorporate elements from the UsefulNotes/KievanRus in their soldiers. Despite drawing inspiration from a later culture, they are situated in the middle in terms of technological advancement between that of the Empire and Bretonnia, with their most advanced technology being a {{BFG}} on a magical ice sled pulled by actual bears. Their technological situation can be partially justified by their geographic situation, given that they are sandwiched between the Empire's eastern border and the Chaos Wastes being essentially the Old World's buffer/shield against the Chaos invasions and their land is mostly barren tundra and steppe ill-suited for industrial development. Not unlike historical Eastern Europe, which took much longer to industrialize compared to the rest of Europe, Kislev winds up being behind the Empire but is willing to take on as much technological advancements from the Empire that their limited industrial complex can support in order to survive, in particular gunpowder weapons.
** The other races vary; the [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarfs]] are mostly on par with the Empire, but some of their units - mainly primitive helicopters - are well beyond that level. The [[RodentsOfUnusualSize Skaven]] have even more advanced technology including primitive machine guns, flamethrowers, motor vehicles, genetically-engineered super soldiers, chemical weapons, and even a [[TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndtimes transdimensional communicator]] and [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerII spacecraft]]]], [[MadScientist but it doesn't]] [[ReliablyUnreliableGuns work right very often]]. The minor human nations like Tilea, Estalia, Marienburg, Araby, and the Border Princes average out around the Empire's level with only the Amazons (being based off South American tribes but with access to some {{Magitek}} artifacts) and Albion (who at their most advanced are Iron Age Celts and at their least advanced are basically cavemen who can't even understand each other) being below that of Bretonnia. The rest of the factions are less technologically advanced to the point of making the Bretonnians look modern, but make up for it with [[FunctionalMagic magic]]. {{Magitek}}, and natural strength. Similarly, the Lizardmen of Lustria and the Southlands are supposedly ''stone-age'', but they have inherited a lot of Magitek technology from their long-gone Old One masters which leads to them having access to KillSat[=s=], DeflectorShield[=s=], and WaveMotionGun[=s=].

* The ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' universe, in which the Orcs and Tauren live in huts made from animal hides, while the gnomes have fled their homes due to radiation poisoning from their ''nuclear reactor''. At least some of it seems to be by choice, however. The Tauren, for example, have access to gunpowder but otherwise prefer to live closer to nature. Meanwhile the Goblins live in a industrial port city, with Gallwywix having his own golf course and pool.
** VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} is actually a major aversion: Until recently, many of those diverse cultures used to be isolated from one another. With the rapid exchange of knowledge and technology, many races managed to catch up with their modern brethern while those that did not have suffered massive cultural upheaval.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' fantasy setting has this big time with Bretonnia (read Medieval France in a fantasy setting) and TheEmpire (the Habsburgian Holy Roman Empire in a fantasy setting). Bretonnia is typical Medieval fantasy fodder with a feudal system, knights, archers, etc. The Empire, on the other hand, has mostly 16th-17th century technology with armies consisting of pike-and-shot formations with plentiful muskets and cannons to complement their polearms and swords. They even have smatterings of early Industrial Revolution tech with SteamPunk thrown in for good measure. This can make for some interesting battles in the series.

** The other races vary; the [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarfs]] are mostly on par with the Empire, but some of their units - mainly primitive helicopters - are well beyond that level. The [[RodentsOfUnusualSize Skaven]] have even more advanced technology including primitive machine guns, flamethrowers, motor vehicles, genetically-engineered super soldiers, and chemical weapons, [[MadScientist but it doesn't]] [[ReliablyUnreliableGuns work right very often]]. The minor human nations like Kislev, Tilea, Estalia, Marienburg, Araby, and the Border Princes average out around the Empire's level. The rest of the factions are less technologically advanced to the point of making the Bretonnians look modern, but make up for it with [[FunctionalMagic magic]] and natural strength. The Lizardmen of the southern continent are practically ''stone-age'', but being Lizardmen, they don't really need good weapons to kick your ass.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Within the Walls, technology appears to be stuck around the late-Medieval/early-Renaissance era. [[spoiler: It's later revealed that this due to the government surpressing the development of new technology in order to maintain the status quo.]] Even later, [[spoiler: it's revealed that humanity is not in fact extinct outside the walls, and that the outside world has advanced to early-20th century levels of technology and society.]]

* The entire premise of ''VideoGame/ProjectEden'' for the UsefulNotes/{{P|layStation2}}S2 is descending from the utopia on the top floors of the city, miles down to the slum. This is an example in a single city. The opening FMV shows a young child on the top floor balcony at a party dropping his teddybear and the fall is followed as the teddy falls through areas that are ever increasing with rust and tramps.

** And then Mario travels around the world in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'', where different countries have vastly different technological levels. [[BigApplesauce New Donk City]] in the Metro Kingdom has modern highrise skyscrapers and Steam Gardens in the Wooded Kingdom has extremely advanced robots, but then you have Lake Lamode in the Lake Kingdom in which the inhabitants live around the ruins of a presumably earlier society and have only adapted minimally and Shiveria in the Snow Kingdom whose town infrastructure is mostly made of wood and they live by candlelight. That being said, it may be closer to a SchizoTech, as an inhabitant of the traditional-looking town of [[SouthOfTheBorder Tostarena]] talks to Mario about NFC technology, Shiveria's famous Bound Bowl Grand Prix is broadcast within the town on a humongous flat-screen TV, and space travel is so common that it's considered trivial all around the world.

* On ''Website/{{Neopets}}'', lands with medieval, modern, Victorian and even stone age societes exist on the same planet and even freely interact.