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== Live Action TV ==
* The image for this trope is of Starfleet Headquarters from ''[[Star Trek]]''. During the early run of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', the Federation, Starfleet, and Earth were viewed as ultimate achievements of humanity growing up, the embodiment of perfect people, and paradise, respectively. As the show ran on and its spinoff ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'' ran on, the Federation met and was attacked twice by the Borg, involved in a war with their closest allies, the Klingons, had several citizens break away to form a splinter group called the Maquis who waged a Guerrilla War against the Cardassians, made first contact with an empire called the Dominion and went to war with, leading to millions, if not billions of casualties, an Admiral who tried to lead a coup against the Federation, and the Breen bombing San Francisco. By the end of it all, with Starfleet on a war footing, several moral compasses gone from black and white to gray, Picard's offhand comment seems especially poignant.
{{quote|'''Picard''': "Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers?"}}
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'': Codex books, manuals and tie-in novels—especially ones dealing with the Imperium of Man—often refer to the (poorly named) "Dark Age of Technology", which was a time of great technological stride and prosperity that preceded the "Horus Heresy" and rise of Chaos.
* [[White Wolf]] ''loves'' this trope ([[Tropes Are Not Good|and not always doing it in a believable way]]):
** ''[[Exalted]]'': The First Age, when the Exalts actually were building a world that catered to humankind's needs. Then the Usurpation happened. Then the Great Contagion happened.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Exposition]]
[[Category:Before the Dark Times{{PAGENAME}}]]
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