One question these two comments bring to mind is just how forgiving is the environment in which they are hiding? Are the surroundings generous with foodstuffs or stingy? Is it a wicked struggle or are they living in a typical Stargate SG-1, southern Canada, temperate woodland with fruit trees, game, etc? If the environment is forgiving, then I hold to all my previous offerings, if it's LV-426, then... maybe not.
Tell me how they would produce these. I'll have to take a look at making metal parts, such as those in an engine. But the fine work involved in a clock? Making a spring? There aren't any manufacturing facilities.
How does all this technology survive 70 years without degrading into uselessness? Chips? I don't see it. Spectrometer: maybe early on before it dies. Some of your other ideas make sense though, miniaturization would have made a few more tools available at first that I might not have considered.
I really appreciate all these answers. It's giving me a lot of insight into each side of the vision of this society.
I think some of this is from the fact that in science fiction there are actually quite a few stories that gloss over the fragile nature of high technology and have tech survive long spans of time into the far future without thought to eventual degradation of plastics, the particularly accelerated corrosion that occurs when two different metals are in contact with one another, especially if they are handling electric current, the fact that even the best rechargeable batteries can only be made to hold a charge so many times, etc. In Anne McCaffrey's extremely popular Pern books, there comes a point in the story cycle where someone does find the ship that originally brought humans to Pern. The computers on board still work, never mind the fact that enough time has gone by that the ship has been geologically covered over and the arrival to Pern is mere legend and myth. In the Marky Mark version of Planet of the Apes, when Marky Mark finds the remains of the space station on which he served crashed into the desert, the internals still functioned, had power, though time enough had gone by for evolution to produce what you see in the film. Even at the accelerated rate in which the apes evolved, still, gimme' a break.
They may not have antibiotics but it's not unreasonable to assume they'd have a comprehensive knowledge of which plants work for which diseases, assuming their computer pads could tell that kind of stuff when they were working, and your tribe weren't so short-sighted as to not record it. Regarding their farming, there's a fun theory that the Amazon rainforest is essentially the remnants of a giant orchard - that may or may not be true, but it seems a good way of farming undetectably. Other tech: you can make rudimentary hot air balloons like the Nazca... well, like the Nazca probably didn't, but could have done. You can get a volt of electric power from copper, iron and a clay jar (see the Baghdad Battery) - I can't honestly see what you could use that for but you probably have a better imagination than me. Hero developed a low-power steam motor - it won't power a vehicle but it could open and close a door. The technology would be available to develop some pretty powerful siege weaponry, since that's largely wood and animal sinew. If they've got a river, a waterwheel could power a mill. I imagine they'd also develop a strong oral tradition - writing knowledge down would be labour-intensive, so they'd likely end up passing some down this way. The same's true for their stories - they might devote time to recording them, but they'll probably just tell them to each other, generation to generation.
This is a planet they've never been on before. All of their knowledge is from Earth. The plants and animals all differ. They can't go flying, too dangerous they'd be discovered. But they do make river rafts from animal skins and fat and the kids ride the rapids. Thanks for the links.
I find the different assumptions fascinating. Without being too cliché revealing things I'm going to have to address this for the readers sake. So instead of dorky dialogue, "it's not like in the movies, the stuff breaks", I'm thinking I'll have some of the rusted remnants of things, maybe have some different stuff with salvaged parts.
Ah, I was assuming their computers could do scanning/analysis type stuff rather than just being information stores. Tricorders as opposed to Kindles. In context it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could have taken such a thing from the ship, though of course that's at the author's discretion. How did they find out what plants are safe to eat and what ones aren't? Trial and error would likely have led to some pretty harrowing stuff before they established a decent food supply. That sounds like something that'd leave cultural scars that could be interesting to explore.
That largely depends on the knowledge that the people who originally landed possess, how much relevant material they can salvage from the ship(s), and how advanced their technologies are; are they so advanced that nuclear reactors are like 3rd grade sciences. So if you have a class of military or engineers in your original group, they perhaps have wireless communication systems, electrical generators and/or other electrical sources (nuclear reactors, windmills, hydroelectric, or perhaps perpetual or some other form electrical conduction unknown to us), perhaps radar if they want to be aware of the enemy presence. If they have an advanced ship, then they should be able to salvage enough to make those, unless of course the ship(s) is beyond recovery. But really, it depends on how advanced and knowledgeable these people in your story are. Perhaps they are so advanced that 2 or 3 generations, with the right amount of equipment and tools, might be equivalent to 100 generations of our own.
What do they manufacture all those things out of, @Red Herring? Say they have an engineering book with all the specs for a nuclear reactor? How would they build it? What material would they use? How would they manufacture something like wire or reprocess uranium and make fuel rods?
Perhaps they don't need Ur, perhaps they have a source for nuclear fission that is far larger than Ur and more long lasting, and no need for reprocessing. Perhaps they have such a nuclear reactor in the ship, which was used a means for propulsion and/or electricity. Maybe I've misunderstand, how much are they salvaging from the ship? If they are salvaging nothing more than metal and tools, along with their knowledge, then I'd imagine they'd be hard pressed to make anything, at least from my limited knowledge. If that is the case, perhaps electrical generators, and short range communication and radar.
I'm not trying to give them reasons to have technology. The story does not go in that direction. The knowledge makes them modern people, but the lack of anything but a few tools and having to stay hidden means a couple generations later, they are hunter gatherers. The problem I'm having is people who are reading the story are saying, no, they would have this and they would have that. I'm going for realism and I want to address the issue if other readers are going to find the same lack of credibility in the scenario.
I'm guessing the main story lies in their 'inevitable' discovery and confrontation with the guys who really run this planet? If so, it sounds intriguing as hell. Good luck @GingerCoffee.
In case you're still looking for comments, a sundial has many disadvantages. You can't measure small increments of time. The sundial also can't be used for more than ~1 month because the path the sun takes across the sky varies since earth is not a perfect sphere.
That's very easily overcome with design. http://www.wsanford.com/~wsanford/exo/sundials/equatorial_sundials.html But to tell you the truth, I can't see why you think these people would need a clock at all?
You would need it for things like global positioning because you don't have satellites. Clocks and time are used in surveying as well, and you need the small increments of time that a sundial can't give you. I'm not sure if all this is needed, but I'm throwing it out there in case you ever need it.
Timekeeping would be important for chemistry, medicine, and a lot of scientific, even low-tech scientific, efforts. I suspect that canning food, firing pottery in a kiln, heating metal for metal working, making soap, a lot of things, would have a higher success rate with some method of keeping time. And sundials wouldn't be any use after dark. And a society that has to hide might want the option to do a lot of things under a level of cover that might impede sunlight. Edited to add: Of course, most of those don't require a *clock*, but a method of timing. Water clocks, an hourglass, a spring-powered timer, etc., would do the job for many of them.
Timing of processes, good point @ChickenFreak. Wasn't it only on water that clocks became necessary for navigation, @AJC?
Not necessarily. When you're required to know the longitude, you need a clock. Therefore, a clock can be just as useful on land.
