In sci-fi proper that is also a plot point of Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation. The giant galactic empire collapses and all the scholars are holed up on a planet to preserve knowledge. They then go out to other planets and give technology, but everyone is so ignorant that it seems like magic and the scholars kind of roll with it.
In a similar vein is A Canticle for Liebowitz which is about an order of Monks whose goal is to preserve all technology and information after an apocalypse scenario. I think it may have been the inspiration for the Brotherhood of Steel.
It moves through time and shows how ignorance of technology can mix too easily with religious power.
What I really loved about Foundation was the sheer timescale of it. Too much Science Fiction is only on a scale of an individual doing something, and maybe it will follow a few individuals over the course of a few decades or even a couple of centuries and you’re left to fill in the blanks, meanwhile Foundation is on a timescale of tens of thousands of years
In sci-fi proper that is also a plot point of Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation. The giant galactic empire collapses and all the scholars are holed up on a planet to preserve knowledge. They then go out to other planets and give technology, but everyone is so ignorant that it seems like magic and the scholars kind of roll with it.
In a similar vein is A Canticle for Liebowitz which is about an order of Monks whose goal is to preserve all technology and information after an apocalypse scenario. I think it may have been the inspiration for the Brotherhood of Steel.
It moves through time and shows how ignorance of technology can mix too easily with religious power.
What I really loved about Foundation was the sheer timescale of it. Too much Science Fiction is only on a scale of an individual doing something, and maybe it will follow a few individuals over the course of a few decades or even a couple of centuries and you’re left to fill in the blanks, meanwhile Foundation is on a timescale of tens of thousands of years