On Sunday, October 1, 2017 at 4:06:15 PM UTC-5, 0something0 wrote:   
   > I am creating an SF universe where a natural event threw the entire Banks   
   Orbital back into the (European)medieval age. However, there are physical   
   records of advanced technology as well as people scattered throughout the   
   megastructure. How fast could    
   technology bound back to modern times?   
      
   Realistically...they probably _couldn't_, not without help from outside.     
      
   Though it partly depends on the precise details of the situation, what is   
   still left behind, what is still functioning at all.     
      
   The technology has to be still working in some aspects, or the orbital is   
   unlikely to remain habitable for long.  Ringworlds and Orbitals and Dyson   
   Spheres are not so much like gigantic planets as they are like gigantic   
   spacecraft, and they suffer some    
   of the same liabilities of a spacecraft when the vital systems start breaking   
   down.   
      
   A Ringworld (or at least _the_ Ringworld) could remain habitable for some time   
   after the vital systems failed, because much of it run on brute-force   
   approaches, and because of the sheer size of the system providing some margin   
   for error.   
      
   An Orbital is smaller, and thus has less margin.   
      
   Assuming habitability, if there is still an AI system or a library system with   
   teaching programs running somewhere, that might make a lot of difference.  If   
   the locals can still read the written language of their ancestors, and their   
   ancestors left    
   plenty of written hard copy books and information, that will help.  But there   
   will still be huge issues with lost 'soft knowledge' that nobody bothered to   
   record or even thought about.   
      
   The people scattered around, how high is their population density?  What   
   percentage of their time and energy is spent on subsistence?  Recreating a   
   technical society is going to require that there be enough spare resources to   
   justify spending time and    
   effort on the project.  If all hands are required to bring in the crop to   
   avoid starvation, nobody has the free time or attention to waste time trying   
   to repair the Old Tech.   
      
   But a big, big issue is resources.  That is, where do they get stone, metal,   
   wood, hydrocarbon compounds?  What do they use for power?   
      
   Sinking a mine on an Orbital seems like an iffy prospect.  There might be lots   
   of leftover metal and plastic and whatever from the Old Days, but what do they   
   use as an energy source to reprocess it?  Wood might be available to burn, and   
   build with, but    
   wood has limits.  Could you build a water-power complex out of wood?  Maybe,   
   but it's going to be inefficient and hard at best.   
      
   Further, to harvest wood efficiently, it really helps to have access to at   
   least some processed metal for axes, saws, etc.   
      
   Stone can be used for that, in a pinch...but how much stone is available on a   
   tech-crashed Orbital?  Again, they can't dig down indefinitely.   
      
   On a real planet, the biosystem is self-sustaining, and the resource base   
   nearly unlimited, at least in principle.  On an artificial hab like an Orbital   
   or a Ringworld, matters are distinctly otherwise.  Niven actually has Louis Wu   
   realize that as he    
   contemplates how the Ringworld could turn into a terrible trap at one point in   
   the first novel.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)