History Main / SpaceAmish

* The people in ''The Green Beautiful'' (French: La Belle Verte) are an advanced race capable of instantaneous space travel who live in rural happy communities on their home planet.

* ''Anime/LastExile'' is set on a world with an approximate 18th-19th century level of technology. There are occasional glitches and suspicions of SchizoTech, like using steam-powered guns (which are, reasonably, much worse than [[IncrediblyLamePun gunpowdered]] ones), fashions ranging from Baroque to 1930s styles, or the anti-gravity engines used in their planes/blimps. Which appear to be powered by antimatter. ''That washes ashore''. As it turns out, there are reasons for this: [[labelnote:Spoiler - click to reveal]]Ship-to-ship combat is judged by a Guild that maintains ships several tech levels higher than the rest of the planet - using laser cannon, no less - and provide most of the anachronistic technology used in the series. It later turns out that the ''entire planet'' is an artifact, an hourglass-shaped construct where they live on the inside; the sun and stars are fake, and in the middle of the connecting throat (the "Grand Stream") lies the kilometer-sized ship that was used to create it, the titular Exile. Whether it was the original intention or the result of their later civil war, the Guild exists to monitor and maintain the planet (they've been doing a bad job, lately) and, notably, keep the rest of the inhabitants' tech level down. Since said Guild is destroyed in the final episode, things should get interesting in the future.[[/labelnote]]

* CultColony: The rejection of technology may be based in a religious ideal, in which case, this trope may overlap with a CultColony.

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A {{subtrope}} of SpaceRomans, Space Amish are another FantasyCounterpartCulture [[RecycledInSpace ...in space.]] Like their namesakes, the Amish (found mainly in the midwestern United States and parts of the Canadian prairies) and the closely-related Mennonites, who voluntarily eschew most forms of modern technological conveniences, Space Amish are an offshoot of a technologically advanced race who have rejected most forms of advanced tech in favor of an agricultural life.

[[quoteright:296:[[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/800px-Amish_Homeworld_2483.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:296:No machines are permitted on the Amish Homeworld.]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' has [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3200/fc03150.htm Techno Amish]] who use machinery and operating systems up to Windows XP. Redefining "the simple life" to survive on a planet where airlocks are required.

* Also from Weber there's the Literature/{{Safehold}} universe, where the star-going empire of humanity was attacked by a race of AbsoluteXenophobe aliens, and was doomed, but managed to hide one colony ship from the aliens. The original mission plan was for the colony to stay low-tech for a few hundred years to avoid detection by the aliens, but it turned out the people put in charge of the colony were megalomaniac Luddites and started a religion in an attempt to keep the colony low-tech forever {as well as making themselves into "Archangels").

* ''Literature/TheLastColony'' has Space Mennonites mixed in with the rest of the Roanoke colonists. This is for a good reason, as the colonists find out that they will have to go without their usual technology as long as they live there.
** Though they have no problem using some machinery, most notably internal combustion tractors, it's just electronics that they object to and the entire colony is forced to go without.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'', having a big map of highly varied (but often classic-SF-influenced) worlds, inevitably invokes this trope from time to time. Fir example, Scipio, on the Solomani Rim, was settled by a faction of Terran humans who believe that ever going into space was a mistake, and who deliberately restrict their technology to pre-space flight levels.

* The ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' universe features the periphery government of the Outworlds Alliance. It's composed almost entirely of agrarian worlds with pre-industrial technology, save for a few cities each - with the exception of Home, an Amish ''planet'' that pretty much only allows tech for space travel - and they're quite happy that way. Curiously, they also field the most fearsome aerospace fighter pilots known to mankind, who are really the only things keeping unpleasant conquerors and pirates from setting foot on vulnerable Alliance worlds.
** To make things even stranger, they [[FireForgedFriends eventually merge with a Clan]], one of the setting's resident, highly technologically advanced, ProudWarriorRaceGuy factions. It works out surprisingly well, since the Clan in question is the Snow Ravens, who disdain land-based military forces in favor of overwhelming air and space superiority and thus respect the OA's ASF pilots while ignoring the planets aside from a few small holdings they establish.

** ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]]'': "Errand of Mercy" Features an alien society that thrived for eons without technological advancement. ''Although'', [[spoiler:they really don't need to use technology. They are, after all SufficientlyAdvancedAliens.]]

** ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]'': "Up the Long Ladder", "Devil's Due", "Journey's End", TheMovie ''Insurrection''
** ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'': "Paradise" included the series' trademark DarkerAndEdgier take on the trope when two officers returning from a mission beam down to investigate an old automated distress call and end up forbidden to use any of their technology to try and return home by the colony's leader, which operates like this. [[spoiler: She's eventually revealed to have sabotage all technology to keep everyone there.]]

* This is a fair description of the Rim worlds on ''Series/{{Firefly}}'', though most aren't this way by choice. There was also a colony of religious fanatics, who shunned technology.

* Meta-example: Sci fi writers and readers. A surprising amount is not so much about creating a different world but about technology [[JustifiedTrope as a justification]] for the recreation of a pre-modern world. In sci-fi, though we have lots of TechnologyPorn, that tech often creates a society with [[FeudalFuture hierarchies]], [[TheClan tribes]], [[SpaceCossacks frontiers]], [[SpaceBattle great wars]], and CloakAndDagger between powers of [[BalanceOfPower comparable size]]. It is as if readers have a psychology that was bred to deal with a wilder world, and in the modern world they are like a well-fed lion pacing around in its cage ominously and wishing it was back in the Savanna.

** ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'': In "Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryS2E02NewEden New Eden", Lieutenant Owosekun is sent on the mission to the LostColony of Terralysium, given her background growing up in a Luddite collective on Earth.

* The human family in ''WesternAnimation/TheHerculoids.'' [[ExpandedUniverse According to]] ''Comicbook/FutureQuest,'' they're refugees from a RobotWar who wanted to start a new life away from the technologies that caused it.

* The human family in ''WesternAnimation/TheHerculoids.''

* Meta-example: Sci fi writers and readers. A surprising amount is not so much about creating a different world but about technology [[JustifiedTrope as a justification]] for the recreation of a pre-modern world. In sci-fi, though we have lots of TechPorn, that tech often creates a society with [[FeudalFuture hierarchies]], [[TheClan tribes]], [[SpaceCossacks frontiers]], [[SpaceBattle great wars]], and CloakAndDagger between powers of [[BalanceOfPower comparable size]]. It is as if readers have a psychology that was bred to deal with a wilder world, and in the modern world they are like a well-fed lion pacing around in it's cage ominously and wishing it was back in the Savanna.

* The planet [[Literature/MajipoorSeries Majipoor]] in [[Creator/RobertSilverberg Robert Silverberg's]] novels is [[MetalPoorPlanet very poor in metals]]. Its inhabitants do remember their ancestors came from the stars, they do know of other worlds, even travellers from other stars appear occasionally, but in general there's no outside contacts. All advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic (and some is even called that) and most of it is involves PsychicPowers. Save for vibroblades, electronic books and engines maintaining atmosphere atop the Castle Mount (normally exposed to space vacuum) the tech is more or less medieval. And despite all Majipoors troubles and hostilities, there's been no homicide for millennia, at least by the start of ''Lord Valentine's Castle''.

** In the NightsDawn trilogy, Norfolk is one of the more pastoral planets, with legal limits on technological imports. Although it's not ''entirely'' backwards, as a power grid and transportation network do exist.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', the titular characters once stumble upon a world populated by Amish-looking CatFolk who are about to initiate their annual "[[ThePurge Festival]]".

* In the ChaosWalking series, the trope is attempted but failed by the first settlers. They get rid of most of their technology but absolutely fail the peaceful part.

* The human family in ''TheHerculoids.''

** To make things even stranger, they [[FireForgedFriends eventually merge with a Clan]], one of the setting's resident, highly technologically advanced, ProudWarriorRaceGuy factions.

* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''A World Out Of Time'', the far-future immortal Boys spend the antarctic summer living as nomadic Stone Age hunters, but return to their high-tech cities during the unending darkness of the polar winter.

* The [[ArtificialHuman Synthetic Human Alliance]] of ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' are explicitly compared to the Old Earth Amish, as they were originally multifunctional bodyguards, nannies and [[Main/Sexbot sexbots]] who found a loophole in their programming: if fleeing from their masters was in the interest of their master's (more specifically, their offspring's) safety, they should do so. After founding the SHA, they created a ludd utopia, with importance placed on communities, hard but fair work, a rejection of vanity and [[FreeLoveFuture pleasure]]. They are surprisingly hi tech, needed to maintain the synthetic half of their population, but have a purely utilitarian view on technology, with 'skillsets' being temporarily lent whenever necessary. They're widely regarded as an example of how a nearbaseline ludd society can work perfectly well by modosophonts and transapients alike.

* Chozo settlements from ''{{Metroid}}'' (or at least what's left) are (were) built to be as close to the environment around them as possible, and as a result look a ''lot'' further down the tech level scale than you would expect. The Chozo, remember, built Samus's incredible PoweredArmor, as well as the machines that recharge it, and were able to alter her DNA during her childhood. They're Space Amish By Choice.

** In ''Metroid Prime'', [[ScrapbookStory lore scans]] make it clear that the Tallon IV Chozo settlement, at least, did abandon most of their technology to get closer to nature. It ''worked'', too, as they became SufficientlyAdvancedAliens before being yanked back to the planet when the Phazon meteor impacted. Of course, this is still relative; a few of the rooms and corridors of the Chozo Ruins are very technological indeed.

* The [[ArtificialHuman Synthetic Human Alliance]] of OrionsArm are explicitly compared to the Old Earth Amish, as they were originally multifunctional bodyguards, nannies and [[Main/Sexbot sexbots]] who found a loophole in their programming: if fleeing from their masters was in the interest of their master's (more specifically, their offspring's) safety, they should do so. After founding the SHA, they created a ludd utopia, with importance placed on communities, hard but fair work, a rejection of vanity and [[FreeLoveFuture pleasure]]. They are surprisingly hi tech, needed to maintain the synthetic half of their population, but have a purely utilitarian view on technology, with 'skillsets' being temporarily lent whenever necessary. They're widely regarded as an example of how a nearbaseline ludd society can work perfectly well by modosophonts and transapients alike.