History Main / StrandedWithEdison

* In ''{{Destroyermen}}'', the crew of two US naval destroyers just happens to have some engineers who have worked in oil fields so that they can drill new oil wells for fuel. Other experts are in abundance (pilots that can design planes), to the point that know-how isn't usually a problem, just materials and facilities. Only once or twice does someone mention they don't actually know how to make something they need, but it's sort of shrugged off with "We'll figure something out."

* In the PrinceRoger series the Bronze Barbarians do have the basic knowledge required to teach their allies how to manufacture moderately advanced guns. Semi-justified in that the characters are all military personnel who were selected in part for having potentially useful skills outside the standard ones required for their post and that while they know the theory they often have to rely on native expertise for the actual details. Additionally several of them have skills that are never actually needed (for example one is a reformed car-jacker and another knows how to knit).
* The ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series involves a Mysterious Event teleporting a self-sufficient town from West Virginia into 17th century Germany. The town has a library and a school, so plenty of books, a coal power plant with fairly large stocks of fuel from the parts of the nearby coal mine that came with them, and oil wells. With advanced knowledge, they are able to make down-leveled for the 21st century, but up-level for 17th gear.

* Discussed, but averted, in ''H2G2/MostlyHarmless'': when Arthur Dent is stranded on a planet with an Iron Age culture, he initially thinks he can bring them civilisation, before realising that he doesn't actually know how to make anything. Except sandwiches...

* Done in ''AxisOfTime'', where there are hundreds (if not thousands) of "uptimers" (i.e. people from the 21st century) ending up in the middle of WorldWarTwo. A number of them have hobbies that help in designing weapons and machines advanced for the time (but primitive for the uptimers). In fact, the uptimers are ''not'' able to replicate their own level of technology but merely upgrade what the 'temps already have with something from a few decades down the line. Instead of giving them a version of their own assault rifle that fires ceramic rounds and uses advanced electronic scopes linked with the HUD on the helmet, they instead make a version of the AK-47 fitted with an underslung grenade launcher. It also helps that they have computers aboard the ships with useful information in the cache (i.e. whatever people were downloading from the 'Net at the time of the Transition). Many people also get their hands on flexible tablets, but those cannot be replicated.

* Averted, hard, in the flash-fiction story ''Rome Sweet Rome''. A modern-day regiment of U.S. Marines are suddenly time-warped to ancient Rome. While initially having a huge military advantage against the Romans at first, due to their advanced technology, the marines quickly realize that without modern infrastructure they will be rendered helpless inside a few weeks (as their tanks run out of gas and as their guns run out of bullets), forcing them to consider negotiating with the Romans.

Occasionally a related trope appears, in which "stranded with Edison" means that the time travellers find a local wiseman to work with, who alone would understand their ideas. That period's Edison, so to say. See also GivingRadioToTheRomans.

** The main reason they didn't expand out further at the time was due to their very isolationist tenancies, caused by the threat of outside culture leading to internal schisms. Interestingly, when they did remove the policy of isolation, only to find the world in the midst of the industrial revolution, they again had absolutely no trouble getting caught up.

* Portuguese sailors and traders who got stranded in Japan by a stroke of bad luck in the early 1500s brought primitive firearms with them. In less than a generation, the Japanese used their traditional skills in metalworking to mass produce and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanegashima_%28Japanese_matchlock%29 to improve]] the primitive matchlock musket, to the point of [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome making it impervious to rain and fire with reasonable accuracy in the dark]]. While two European empires fought with armies of roughly 20 000 men each at Rocroi in 1643, Japan could project over the sea to Korea 160 000 men, out of which over 40 000 trained musketmen, even 50 years before. Makes one wonder why weren't the Japanese the guys to sail the seas to Europe to conquer it back then.

* Jules Verne's ''Mysterious Island'' pretty much totally encapsulates this trope. In the book, a group of 5 civil war era people, headed by an incredibly knowledgeable engineer, manage to re-create at a small level, most aspects of 1860s technology while trapped on a deserted island, with (almost) no outside help, over the course of 4 years. By the end of the book, they even manage to have a telegraph set up on the island.

* Mark Twain's ''AConnecticutYankeeInKingArthursCourt'' (1889). After time traveling back to the 6th century, the title Yankee uses his knowledge of manufacturing to build hidden factories that produce modern (1880's) tools and weapons, thus industrializing King Arthur's kingdom.

* The SixteenThirtyTwo series involves a Mysterious Event teleporting a self-sufficient town from West Virginia into 17th century Germany. The town has a library and a school, so plenty of books, and a natural gas power plant with fairly large stocks of fuel, and oil wells. With advanced knowledge, they are able to make down-leveled for the 21st century, but up-level for 17th gear.

Occasionally a subtrope appears, in which "stranded with Edison" means that the time traveller finds a local wiseman to work with, who alone would understand the traveller's ideas. That period's Edison, so to say. See also GivingRadioToTheRomans.

See also GivingRadioToTheRomans.

* In the CiaphasCain novel "Death or Glory" their makeshift convoy/militia (made up from the rescued survivors/slaves from a town looted by orks) has just enough specialists to survive (a tracker to help them find water and supply dumps, a vet to serve as an impromtu doctor a technopriest to keep their vehicles running and enough former police, gang members and PDF troops to form a militia and a former not-so-Obstructive Bureaucrat to manage their supplies).
* Discussed, but averted, in ''H2G2/MostlyHarmless'': when Arthur Dent is stranded on a planet with an Iron Age culture, he intitally thinks he can bring them civilisation, before realising that he doesn't actually know how to make anything. Except sandwiches...

* Averted, hard, in the flash-fiction story Rome Sweet Rome. A modern-day regiment of U.S. Marines are suddenly time-warped to ancient Rome. While initially having a huge military advantage against the Romans at first, due to their advanced technology, the marines quickly realize that without modern infrastructure they will be rendered helpless inside a few weeks (as their tanks run out of gas and as their guns run out of bullets), forcing them to consider negotiating with the Romans.

Any group of people displaced from their own world and into another (that of an AlternateHistory, an alien civilization, or simply TrappedInThePast) will have people (or, stretching belief, even a single person) that just so happen to have the knowhow to not only fairly accurately recreate their society's general level of technology, but to begin the march of innovation with little to no pause.

* Implied at the end of the movie ''TheTimeMachine'' (the 1960 original, not the remake). When Wells leaves after telling his friend Filby about his adventures, he takes two books from his vast library. Filby asks the housekeeper (and the audience), "If you were going to start civilization over again, which two books would you choose?"

* Discussed, but averted, in ''[[HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Mostly Harmless]]'': when Arthur Dent is stranded on a planet with an Iron Age culture, he intitally thinks he can bring them civilisation, before realising that he doesn't actually know how to make anything. Except sandwiches...

* Inferred at the end of the movie ''TheTimeMachine'' (the 1960 original, not the remake). When Wells leaves after telling his friend Filby about his adventures, he takes two books from his vast library. Filby asks the housekeeper (and the audience), "If you were going to start civilization over again, which two books would you choose?"

Any group of people displaced from their own world and into another (that of an AlternateHistory, an alien civilization, or simply the past) will have people (or, stretching belief, even a single person) that just so happen to have the knowhow to not only fairly accurately recreate their society's general level of technology, but to begin the march of innovation with little to no pause.

* Averted, hard, in the flash-fiction story Rome Sweet Rome. A modern-day regiment of U.S. Marines are suddenly time-warped to ancient Rome. While initially having a huge military advantage against the Romans at first, due to their advanced technology, the marines quickly realize that without modern infrastructure they will be rendered helpless inside a few weeks (as their tanks run out of gas and as their guns run out of bullets), forcing them to consider negotiating with the Romans.

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