Worthless Yellow Rocks: Difference between revisions

* Heavily averted in ''[[Cowboys and Aliens (film)|Cowboys and Aliens]]'' where the main reason the aliens came to earth was to mine it out for Gold.

* Taken to horrifying conclusions in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]].'' If you drink from one of the many beautiful chalices of life, created with gold, diamonds, and other precious metals, [[Death by Materialism|your age is sped up to the point of death.]] The only true chalice that will grant you immortality is {{spoiler|made of wood or clay, because that's all a carpenter like Jesus would have used.}}

* Played with in the original ''[[Dawn of the Dead]]''. When Roger and Peter find a bank in the mall, they stare at a cashbox full of mixed bills, then stare and smile at another cashbox full of wrapped $100 bills. Roger says, "You never know..." before they both fill their pockets with cash. {{spoiler|When the biker gang breaks into the mall, they loot the bank as well.}}

* The "disaster situation" applies in the novel ''[[Robinson Crusoe]]'': In chapter five, Robinson is stranded on a desert island with no other human being. He needs every tool he can get, things like razors, scissors, knives, and forks are precious, but then he writes: ''I found about Thirty six Pounds value in Money, some European Coin, some Brazil, some Pieces of Eight, some Gold, some Silver. I smil'd to my self at the Sight of this Money, O Drug Said I aloud, what art thou good for, Thou art not worth to me, no not the taking off of the Ground, one of those Knives is worth all this Heap, I have no Manner of use for thee, e'en remain where thou art, and go to the Bottom as a Creature whose Life is not worth saving. However, upon Second Thoughts, I took it away,'' Robinson knows the value, but those treasures are really only worthless yellow rocks if there is not a society to give them value.

* In ''[[The Diamond Age]]'', the most valuable items are [[Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap|things that are handmade]], due to [[Matter Replicator|ready access to nanotechnology]]. Diamond (and anything else that's made of carbon) is basically worthless.

* One of [[Keith Laumer]]'s stories had diplomat [[Retief]] make a deal with an alien who could provide amphibious construction workers. The alien said his people were skilled craftsmen, who had to bring along the materials they knew and loved: gold, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and granite. Retief okayed the gold and jewels, but said to hold the granite, and the alien was pleased at his generosity, "accepting the stuff we got a surplus of, and foregoing the rare and expensive granite."

* ''[[The 13 Clocks]]'' featured a woman who was cursed to cry jewels - once word spread about her, people came from far and wide to tell her sad stories and make her cry. Unfortunately, over time she [[Incredibly Lame Pun|flooded]] the economy with jewels and her town collapsed once cobblestones became more valuable than jewelry.

* Gold is as common as dirt on the planet Voga in ''[[Doctor Who]]''. Unfortunately, this makes the Vogans a target for both greedy human prospectors and Cybermen who hope to eliminate a source of weapons against them (gold dust is to Cybermen as silver is to werewolves).

** In "Planet of the Dead", the Doctor has one of the people he's stranded with retrieve a giant yellow crystal suspended in some mundane looking clamps. He then discards the crystal, because the anti-gravity clamps are what he needed.

* In one episode of ''[[Lost in Space]]'', treasure hunters come looking for the treasure of a man from a planet where gold and gems were extraordinarily common. The treasure chests contain objects of aluminum and tin - to a man who had handled gem encrusted gold objects every day of his life, they ''were'' treasure.