Hello Walter,
BCS wrote:
the story I want to puzzle out is that a group of a few thousand
people get dropped on a planet with an indestructible encyclopedic
reference, really good geological maps and their birthday suits. I've
wondered how long it would take to get into back into space. If they
can keep society together, I'd bet it would be under 100 years, it
might even be under a generation.
Most of them would promptly die. The reference will be missing all
kinds of woodcraft that is necessary to survive, but nobody found
worthwhile to record. (The Firefox series of books is an attempt to
record those old techniques before they were lost forever.)
No it does contain that knowledge. Assume, it has the totally recorded knowledge
of earth, wikipidia + googel books + gotenberg + dusty tomes in the back
of some monetary. The point is what if knowledge is not a limiting factor?
Most of the instructions in the encyclopedia will be useless, because
they'll require non-existent precursor technology. How to build those
precursors probably will not be recorded.
Then the people will have to have a very fast attitude adjustment, and
many will die in that process. Take a look at the sad history of
Jamestown.
What goods a story without some risk of life and limb? That and a social
aspect.
