History Main / LowCultureHighTech

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'': The Predators are an ancient alien race that have advanced technology like [[EnergyWeapon plasmacasters]], [[InvisibilityCloak cloaking devices]] and [[AbsurdlySharpBlade advanced metallurgy for melee weapons]]. However, their society seems to be extremely primitive, almost [[NobleSavage tribal]] in nature, with no visible culture beyond [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy hunting and warfare]].

** Other sources claim that they ''did'' make their own technology originally, but they've become so culturally fixated on hunting over cultural or technological development that they've become stagnant and have made no meaningful improvements for thousands of years -- the weapons they were using before human civilization arose are the same ones they're using roughly contemporary with the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' films.
** Yet another interpretation backed up by other works is that their technology ''is'' still advancing and that they ''do'' have more advanced tech back on their own worlds, but while on hunts they don't use anything beyond what we've seen because it's not considered "sporting" to use against humans or other lower-tech species.

* ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'': Not at all uncommon due to the [[OneStatToRuleThemAll general universality of science over all other stats]], including culture. This is especially true in ''VI'' - scientific technologies and cultural civics have their own [[TechTree trees of development]], and betting on the former is usually more profitable, as the vast majority of military units become available through science, which allows you to quickly defeat those civilizations that [[InvertedTrope invert this trope]] and focus on culture instead. In particularly neglected cases, a certain civilization may know the nuances of robotics and nanotechnology while preparing for interstellar flights but have no idea about, say, nationalism or even the institutions of UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment.

** The Marauders are entirely housed in massive, complex space habitats, often in stable orbit of black holes. However their society is split into small tribes which frequently feud and raid one another for supplies when they're not raiding empires that can't defend themselves. The "dwamak" personality in particular comes off as a race of shrieking buffoons, with the First Contact team questioning if they're actually a sapient species or not.

* ''{{VideoGame/Warframe}}'' has the [[AbusivePrescursors Orokin]] - they had achieved the greatest technological level that humanity ever reached in practically all fields, to the point that the original 'Prime' variants of weapons and Warframes are [[SuperPrototype significantly stronger]] than their modern recreations - they also basically ran an extremely classist feudal society where the nobility held all power and hoarded all technology for themselves and used it for hedonistic reasons like extending their lifetime indefinetly or creating entire slave clone races to serve them. They were also extremely suspicious and wary of machines capable of working on their own, opting to use hordes of previously mentioned inbred slave clones for automation or [[AndIMustScream digitizing the brains of humans to turn them into AI assistants as punishment]]. The higher ranks of the Orokin nobility are almost universally depicted as sociopaths that have completely divorced themselves from things like human empathy or even pragmatical governance. The one time they did try creating autonomous drones in order to colonize other solar systems (because they were slowly but surely destroying the Origin system), their fears ended up being correct and the drones rose up in rebellion against their creators...but only because they gained sentience and realized that their creators would ''[[SelfFulfillingProphecy also ruin other worlds]]'' if left unchecked. Despite all their advanced technology, they had regressed humanity to a culturally more barbaric and selfish era, and the consequences of their actions still affect the system in the present. [[AssholeVictim Their destruction is mourned by almost nobody]].

* ''ComicBook/TheWarlordDC'': Some of the civilisations of Skartaris have access to advanced Atlantean technology, but no understanding of how it actually works.