History Main / OneManIndustrialRevolution

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[[caption-width-right:1000:It's good to be the technocrat]]

* [[GadgeteerGenius Archimedes]] may well have done this - for a certain, probably low value of mechanization given the reasons listed below - for the Roman empire, but then a soldier [[NiceJobBreakingItHero went and killed him]] because he was too busy [[ReluctantMadScientist working on a math problem]] to respond to the [[WatchingTroyBurn Roman army sacking the city]]. It could have been something to do with all of the giant death machines Archimedes had built for the Carthaginians, such as a crane for crushing Roman ships. The Greeks at the time had invented a rudimentary mechanical calculator. It probably wouldn't have made a great deal of difference due to the economics of the situation, but one cannot help but wondering WhatCouldHaveBeen...
** Some say the soldier in question was asking him [[DeathByIrony where he could find Archimedes because his boss wanted him alive.]]

* UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison came close in real life. His inventions (or inventions from his lab, anyway) gave birth to electric lighting, the recording industry, the cinema industry, and lots of incremental improvements in telegraphy, power generation, and other fields. He's often a villain in fiction nowadays because of his feud with Tesla, but how can you hate a real-life inventor who actually had a pipe organ in his laboratory?

* Richard Trevithick was perhaps the individual who in our reality is the greatest contender for this. By single-handedly pioneering high-pressure steam engines, at a time when respected existing steam inventors said that high-pressure steam was either impossible to harness or too dangerous to be worth doing so (early high-pressure engine boilers regularly blew up, with deaths not uncommon), Trevithick invented, built, tested and proved the worth of a new type of engine that got much more energy out of coal than ever before, and thence created the first vehicle to ever move under its own power generation, and the invention was then taken on to create trains, cross-ocean liners, and large-scale electrical power generation. Along with Faraday's electricity, it can be seen as the core invention that created the industrial world and then modern world we see today--but without Trevithick's high-pressure steam energy generation, electricity would never have been generated efficiently enough to change the world itself. High pressure steam is now seen as perhaps the most significant invention of all time.

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* Shef, in Creator/HarryHarrison's ''Literature/TheHammerAndTheCross'' has shades of this; while many of the inventions aren't his, he is the driving force behind the wave of new mechanisms and devices that sweep the world.
* This is very literally true about Emily in the ''Literature/SchooledInMagic'' books. She introduces the printing press, basic accounting methods, and steam power (just to name a few things) to the medieval world she finds herself in.
* Attempted in ''[[Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark Envoy from the Heavens]]'', where all attempts by human agents to subvert [[HumanAlien Osieran]] MedievalStasis end in failure. When Ivar tries to subtly reference early experiments with steam engines, people point out that they tend to explode, making them unsafe and, therefore, undesirable. The local horse equivalent is only used for pulling chariots. Ivar's suggestion of a saddle to ride the animal are met with horrified expressions. The locals would never put their weight on such noble animals. Political upheaval is out of the question, as TheEmpire is extremely stable and firm in its rule of the sole inhabited continent. The continent on the other side of the planet is uninhabited, but the local religious beliefs preclude attempts to explore oceans (they think the world is flat).

* ''Literature/ReleaseThatWitch'': Played very straight. Most of the scientific inventions come straight out of the main character Roland's head, including concrete, steam engines, hot air ballons, smokeless gunpowder, electric lighting, and more. And even concepts already discovered in the setting, like black powder or sulfiric acid creation, are only moved to industrial scale production thanks to Roland.
* In ''Literature/TheSpacehoundsOfIPC'', Creator/EEDocSmith has his hero recreate much of the technology of human civilization on Ganymede. He does get a leg up by way of having parts of a destroyed spaceship available, but first he needs power; to get power he needs a hydroelectric dam; to make the dam he needs tools and parts; to get the tools and parts he needs other tools... and so on.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "Final Appeal", the time traveler Dr. Theresa Givens discovered that advanced technology was banned in 2076 due to 80% of humanity being wiped out by nuclear weapons during the War of 2059. She then brought advanced technological devices from her own time, the 1990s, forward to 2076 in the hope of igniting a second Industrial Revolution. However, her efforts were unsuccessful as she was arrested, tried and convicted of breaking the anti-technology code.

* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'' setting, Dr. Darius Hellstromme is responsible for the vast majority of technical advancements from about 1870 to the 2100s - the steam-powered wagon, the transcontinental railroad tunnel from Denver to the West Coast, the zombie-brain-powered robots (he uses a similar technique to put his brain into a robot body after his original body dies), the nuclear bomb (in both [[FantasticNuke fantastic]] and regular forms), faster-than-light space travel, et cetera.

* Mordred on Astro-Knights Island in ''{{VideoGame/Poptropica}}''.

* Lucca in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', in fact; she lead to [[spoiler: Porre becoming a military superpower]] based on her technology in ''VideoGame/ChronoCross''.

* [[MadScientist Infel]] from ''VideoGame/ArTonelicoIIMelodyOfMetafalica'' is a one-woman ''{{Magitek}}'' Revolution. Nearly everything about current-age Reyvateils can be traced to her [[spoiler:including the [[TheVirus I.P.D. outbreak]]. She's the BigBad]].
* Jade Curtiss of ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'' developed [[spoiler:fomicry, a magical method of instant, nearly exact cloning that can work on objects as well as people.]] This invention changed the very landscape of the world of Auldrant, and Jade was just a kid!
* Emperor Valkorion [[spoiler: aka the ex-Sith Emperor, Vitiate,]] from ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic: Knights of the Fallen Empire'' supposedly did this to/for the people of Zakuul (albeit raising them from something more like modern technology to an insanely automated droid-based industry that surpasses anything else in the galaxy). It remains to be seen precisely ''how'' he did this, whether it was from things [[EmperorScientist he personally invented]] at [[TimeAbyss some point in his centuries-plus life]] or used some form of LostTechnology that he discovered in Wild Space. Beyond a few examples which are definitely the latter, the actual technology isn't actually that much more advanced. He's just using galactic standard technology in ways the other factions refuse to (the Republic would never allow the economy to be centralized to the degree required, and the Sith use slaves rather than droids for purely idiological reasons).

* In the world of ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'', much of the technological and industrial progress in the Empire can be attributed to the name "Edmund Roseburrow" -- a brilliant, if troubled RenaissanceMan who almost single-handedly invented the contemporary [[CallASmeerpARabbit whale]] oil-based industry, among other things. He later committed suicide when he saw how his discoveries were used by the Empire's aristocracy to subjugate the common people, rather than make the world a better place.
* ''Franchise/MegaMan'': No matter the timeline, Doctor Thomas Light/[[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork Tadashi Hikari]] is a technological genius who completely rewrites the global landscape with whatever he puts his mind to.

* The Franchise/DisneyFairies movies have Tinker Bell be this.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', Dr. Manhattan's ability to make rare elements from scratch is the reason his world has cancer-free cigarettes, efficient zeppelins and cheap electric cars.

* In ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'''s "Shards" arc, the half-elf, half-troll Two-Edge becomes this for the human warlord Grohmul Djun.

* An ComicBook/IronMan story had Tony Stark getting thrown back in time to the King Arthur era, much like ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court''. Unable to return to his own time, he sets up shop and becomes a blacksmith, while using his knowledge to create as much modern technologies as possible.

[[folder:FanFiction]]

* Flim and Flam in ''Fanfic/TheRiseOfDarthVulcan'' tried. However when it became apparent to their frustration that no one regarded their revolutionary inventions as anything more than novelties, they decided to get their own back by becoming [[SnakeOilSalesman con ponies]].
* Ahsoka Tano in ''Fanfic/HarryTano''. She brings a lot of incredibly advanced technology with her, but in the end she still needs the help of her magical friends to make the first steps towards the new industrial revolution.
* With the help of an entity that makes it technically a crossover, [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Saruman]] in ''FanFic/SarumanOfManyDevices'' overturns the sword and bow warfare of the Third Age with the application of rifle-armed Uruk Dragoons.
* Downplayed in ''Fanfic/{{Visiontale}}''. A small group of monsters is responsible for the scientific innovations, hard and soft, in the Underground. They have lived for centuries, so they have had the time to develop their ideas. Even so, they still need help from others to conduct research and turn their ideas into tangible results.

* Taylor Hebert in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13784802/1/Distance-Learning-for-Fun-and-Profit Distance Learning for Fun and Profit]]'' was a polymath capable of performing seventh dimension math in her head before her invention caused her to basically steal alien cable, specifically a distance learning program. From there, she worked out anti-gravity, a handheld MRI machine, a cheap room temperature superconductor, and a cloaking device small enough to fit in a phone. Not only is she not a parahuman of any sort, but only the last device is even inspired by parahumans (specifically a piece of Squealer's tinker tech). Taylor becomes so incredibly important to the United States of America that in less than a year, the president himself insists that her safety be given priority over his own should it ever come to that.

[[folder:Film]]

* A {{deconstruction}} is ''Literature/LadiesWhoseBrightEyes'', written in 1911. A mining engineer finds himself in the same position as Twain's hero, but finds he can change little.
* Creator/PoulAnderson [[{{Deconstruction}} showed the problems]] with this in his short story ''The Man Who Came Early'', in which an American soldier stationed in Iceland is sent back to the Viking Era after being hit by lightning. Luckily the Icelandic language has not changed much since then. All his attempts to change history fall flat on their face. When he tries to show the Vikings how to make compasses, he has no idea where to find or mine magnetic ores. When he tries to show them how to build more modern sailing vessels, the Vikings point out that such vessels are too cumbersome to dock anywhere where there is not a ready built harbor, an obvious rarity in that time period, and so on. The story's main point is that introducing future inventions, while possible, is immensely difficult, because most advances are useless without an equally advanced societal infrastructure to support them or outright impossible to make without them.
* Creator/KWJeter's ''Fiendish Schemes'' takes place about a decade after George Dower had sold all the inventions in his father's shop in ''Literature/InfernalDevices''. The result is a steampunk revolution where [[SpiderTank lighthouse crab walkers]] are a thing, geo-thermal steam power is available in every British home and fetishized mechanical body modification shows up in "ferric sex" clubs.

* The ''Literature/PrinceRoger'' series has {{Space Marine}}s crash on a planet chock full of alien barbarians. In order to make it across the planet to the spaceport, they ally with certain tribes and give them Roman Empire-era technology and tactics.
* ''Literature/{{Safehold}}:'' Nimue "Merlin" Alban brings modern technology ''back'' to the colonists, who are in a sort of involuntary SpaceAmish-ism.
** Among the locals, Baron Seamount is so this that at least one character argues ''against'' telling him about the technology stolen from them in part because he's already single-handedly progressing Safehold technology without access to the knowledge, thus furthering exactly the sort of inquisitive scientific mindset the protagonists want to encourage in Safeholdians generally. If everybody bringing technology back to Safehold is just duplicating stuff that was developed on Old Earth that's not going to encourage the desired mindset.
* Martin Padway in ''Literature/LestDarknessFall'' invents distilleries, the telegraph, the printing press, the telescope... He's a time traveller stuck in Italy just before Justinian's disastrous reconquest, so he tries to make the best of it.
* In "The Deadly Mission of Phineas Snodgrass", a {{deconstruction}} of ''Lest Darkness Fall'', a man goes back in time to the Roman Empire and brings them modern knowledge until a thousand years later the Earth is so overpopulated that the future sends someone ''else'' back in time [[TimePolice to kill him]] just as he arrives in Roman times. The last line in the story is "And darkness blessedly fell".
* Subverted in ''Literature/MostlyHarmless'': Arthur ''thought'' he could do this since he comes from a technologically advanced place (compared to the place he ends up at), but then he realizes he didn't know how any of that stuff actually worked. The one invention he ends up bringing to them is... [[SatiatingSandwich sandwiches]].
* J.F. Bone's novel ''Literature/TheMeddlers'': A man's starship runs out of fuel (wire made out of precious metals) and he lands on a primitive planet. He must teach the natives how to use technology so he can get enough fuel to get home.
* Creator/VernorVinge:
** Sherkaner Underhill takes technology from WWI-ish to present day singlehandedly in ''Literature/ADeepnessInTheSky''.
** ''Literature/AFireUponTheDeep'' reveals that every spaceship carries 'uplift' files, in case they get caught in the slow zones where higher end technology won't work, and they have to build lower-tech replacements to get back to the higher zones.
* In Creator/MichaelSwanwick's ''Literature/JackFaust'', German scholar Johannes Faust kickstarts a technological revolution that skyhooks Renaissance Europe into the early 20th century in the space of a century. Justifiable in this case, as the story is written more as a fable than a realist novel (at least, if the parts where Mephistopheles tells Faust how to create new technologies is anything to go on)

* The protagonist of Creator/RALafferty's ''Literature/{{Rainbird}}'' is this. So brilliant is he that at the end of his life he invents a time machine so he can give his younger self all his future inventions, allowing young!Rainbird to work on even more advanced technologies. [[spoiler:After trying this once too often, old!Rainbird freaks out young!Rainbird and causes him to give up inventing altogether, thus erasing all Rainbird's inventions from history.]]
* Ayla from the ''Literature/EarthsChildren'' book series single-handedly invents and introduces to prehistoric Europe an absurd number of things, including making fire with pyrite and stone, sewing needles, wound suturing, animal domestication, bras and sanitary napkins for women. We are also supposed to believe that she is the first person ever to realize that children are conceived as a result of sex.
* In [[Creator/DaveDuncan David Duncan's]] ''Literature/TheSeventhSword'' series an Earth engineer Wally Smith is transported into the body of a swordsman on a primitive world. He finds himself unable to speak of anything advanced -- the language lacks the appropriate words and the warrior's vocabulary is too limited and one-sided. When he does manage to explain something, the locals are wary of anything new. After meeting local "sorcerers", who already possess the secret knowledge of [[spoiler:writing, firearms and spyglasses]] and are ready to learn new things, Wally muses that if he is captured, "He would be thrown into the nearest torture chamber and laid on the rack, producing a secret a day for the sorcerers like a battery hen, a one-man industrial revolution." While undesirable, it does fit his goal of developing this world. Later he finds less painful ways to collaborate with them.
* In ''Literature/UltimaThule'', Tommy Paine deliberately and repeatedly invokes this trope among multiple worlds of the United Planets over a period of years. He's not just doing it for kicks, though.

* Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace in ''Literature/TheDifferenceEngine'', and most of the [[FollowTheLeader many "Victorians with computers"]] SteamPunk stories that came after it.

* Subverted in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' with Leonard of Quirm, who could create massive technological change had the Patrician not had him placed in a large, airy room for which he has the only key, where his failure to consider the consequences of his inventions can't do any harm. This is a man who created something for use in the mining industry "for when they want to move the mountains out of the way". Some of his designs do creep out, with the result Ankh-Morpork has a few ClockPunk devices like the ''Barbarian Invaders'' game, but not enough to revolutionise the Disc.

* Downplayed in the ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' fanfic ''Fanfic/{{Visiontale}}'', [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/8779618/chapters/20125687 posted on Archive of Our Own]]. A small group of monsters is responsible for the scientific innovations, hard and soft, in the Underground. They have lived for centuries, so they have had the time to develop their ideas. Even so, they still need help from others to conduct research and turn their ideas into tangible results.

* Dr. Vegapunk of ''Manga/OnePiece'' is the primary reason the OceanPunk setting has robots with [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]]. The technology he's created, most of which is heavily controlled by TheGovernment, is explicitly described as ''500 years'' ahead of the rest of the world. However, when we meet Vegapunk himself [[ItMakesSenseInContext (sorta)]], the doctor laments that his work is so advanced that virtually no one else is smart enough to replicate it, and crazy expensive to boot. That and having to do all the work by ''himself'' from scratch without being able to delegate anything is another hurdle, [[spoiler:[[LiteralSplitPersonality though he found a solution for ''that'', too]]]].

* Well, UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla ''is'' widely credited as the inventor of most of the electrical systems in use today. The guy pioneered AC and perfected its use in the USA, then went on to develop things like radio, remote control, fluorescent lightbulbs and the wireless transmission of electrical power (which we're only ''now'' implementing into consumer products). Also, VTOL aircraft and a DeathRay... maybe.

* A {{deconstruction}} is ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies_Whose_Bright_Eyes Ladies Whose Bright Eyes]]'', written in 1911. A mining engineer finds himself in the same position as Twain's hero, but finds he can change little.

* Creator/KWJeter's ''Fiendish Schemes'' takes place about a decade after George Dower had sold all the inventions in his father's shop in ''Infernal Devices''. The result is a steampunk revolution where [[SpiderTank lighthouse crab walkers]] are a thing, geo-thermal steam power is available in every British home and fetishized mechanical body modification shows up in "ferric sex" clubs.

* In Creator/MichaelSwanwick's ''Jack Faust'', German scholar Johannes Faust kickstarts a technological revolution that skyhooks Renaissance Europe into the early 20th century in the space of a century. Justifiable in this case, as the story is written more as a fable than a realist novel (at least, if the parts where Mephistopheles tells Faust how to create new technologies is anything to go on)

* While not a ''one'' person Industrial Revolution, the core cast of ''Literature/{{Everworld}}'' manages to plant the seeds for technology, starting in ''Enter the Enchanted'', where April shows Merlin how to perform a blood transfusion, but more significantly in ''Discover the Destroyer'', where Jalil and David manage to get a ''lot'' of gold for showing the fairies how to construct a telegraph. It all comes to a head in the last two books where the technology has spread so drastically that there is now electricity and cable cars. It goes even ''further'' when, after battles, April instructs the elves in safety from germs and bacteria, as well as other things. Christopher was of the belief that April's contribution brought the study of medicine in Everworld forward by about five hundred years practically overnight.
** Not to mention trading the formula for gunpowder (out of a high school chemistry book) to some aliens in exchange for a [[AbsurdlySharpBlade little upgrade]] to their pocketknife.

* In [[Creator/DaveDuncan David Duncan's]] ''The Seventh Sword'' series an Earth engineer Wally Smith is transported into the body of a swordsman on a primitive world. He finds himself unable to speak of anything advanced -- the language lacks the appropriate words and the warrior's vocabulary is too limited and one-sided. When he does manage to explain something, the locals are wary of anything new. After meeting local "sorcerers", who already possess the secret knowledge of [[spoiler:writing, firearms and spyglasses]] and are ready to learn new things, Wally muses that if he is captured, "He would be thrown into the nearest torture chamber and laid on the rack, producing a secret a day for the sorcerers like a battery hen, a one-man industrial revolution." While undesirable, it does fit his goal of developing this world. Later he finds less painful ways to collaborate with them.

* In ''The Spacehounds of I.P.C.'', Creator/EEDocSmith has his hero recreate much of the technology of human civilization on Ganymede. He does get a leg up by way of having parts of a destroyed spaceship available, but first he needs power; to get power he needs a hydroelectric dam; to make the dam he needs tools and parts; to get the tools and parts he needs other tools... and so on.

* Creator/LeoFrankowski's ''The Cross Time Engineer'' series. However the protagonist gets a good deal of covert assistance from a future time-traveling relative.

* A major theme in ''Fanfic/DungeonKeeperAmi''. Justified. Ami has access to all the knowledge of the modern world, in addition to several kinds of {{magic}} and a horde of minions to impliment said Industrial Revolution. A fair ammount of innovation is her own, as well, she is highly intelligent after all. This is what founds and feeds her reputation of cunning and genius.

* The Whispered in ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' have the potential of becoming this due to their main purpose of creating Black Technology, which is far more advanced than present tech. According to Gauron, Amalgam always seeks out Whispered and tests them for their scientific prowess, which can be as low as making a new rocket or high as devices that can convert one's willpower into a physcial force.
* In ''LightNovel/{{Maoyu}}'', in her guise as the Crimson Scholar, Maou is proving to be this to the Southern Kingdoms. In her case its slightly more realistic as she is moving gradually first with a Green Revolution in agriculture before moving on to the Guttenburg Press. Other characters also contribute such as the seeds of Liberalism and Alternate Currency.

* Dr. Vegapunk of ''Manga/OnePiece'' is the primary reason the OceanPunk setting has robots with [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]]. The technology he's created, most of which is heavily controlled by TheGovernment, is explicitly described as ''500 years'' ahead of the rest of the world. However, when we meet Vegapunk himself [[ItMakesSenseInContext (sorta)]], the doctor laments that his work is so advanced that virtually no one else is smart enough to replicate it, and crazy expensive to boot.

* ''Manga/DrStone'' has its protagonists wake up several millenia after [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the entire human race was turned into stone]] − needless to say, all the machines and facilities have long crumbled by then. One of those protagonists, [[ImprobablyHighIQ Senku]], is a walking encyclopedia and a scientific genius. He ends up in a primitive human village and introduces certain modern mechanics, food, and systems to their civilization much earlier than they would have done it themselves, to the point the villagers first call it "sorcery". Senku and co. are opposed to Tsukasa, a super strong guy who intends to rebuild a society [[EvilLuddite freed of the evils of technology]] and thus sees Senku as his main enemy.

* Dr. Vegapunk of ''Manga/OnePiece'' is the primary reason the OceanPunk setting has robots with [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]]. The technology he's created, most of which is heavily controlled by TheGovernment, is explicitly described as ''500 years'' ahead of the rest of the world.

* Subverted in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' with Leonard of Quirm, who could create massive technological change had the Patrician not had him placed in a large, airy room for which he has the only key, where his failure to consider the consequences of his inventions can't do any harm. This is a man who created [[ILoveNuclearPower something]] for use in the mining industry "for when they want to move the mountains out of the way". Some of his designs do creep out, with the result Ankh-Morpork has a few ClockPunk devices like the ''Barbarian Invaders'' game, but not enough to revolutionise the Disc.

** In ''Fanfic/GreyjoyAllaBreve'', Theon Greyjoy receives not only the memories of a modern man familiar with the books, but a mental connection to Wiki/TheOtherWiki and thus detailed knowledge of everything from gunpowder to photography, to medicine, Bessemer process and flight.

* In General, many TrappedInAnotherWorld mangas have the main character become this, and depending on the story it is either the main focus of the plot (ie: ''Literature/ReleaseThatWitch'') or being completely by accident (ie: ''LightNovel/TheEminenceInShadow''). This is usually due to them being sent to a fantasy-like setting that has technology no more advance than the middle age, and said main character just creating items or using techniques common from today's age.

* In LightNovel/{{Maoyu}}, in her guise as the Crimson Scholar, Maou is proving to be this to the Southern Kingdoms. In her case its slightly more realistic as she is moving gradually first with a Green Revolution in agriculture before moving on to the Guttenburg Press. Other characters also contribute such as the seeds of Liberalism and Alternate Currency.
* ''Manga/DrStone'' has its protagonists wake up several millenia after [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the entire human race was turned into stone]] − needless to say, all the machines and facilities have long crumbled by then. One of those protagonists, [[ImprobablyHighIQ Senku]], is a walking encyclopedia and a scientific genius. He ends up in a primitive human village and introduces certain modern mechanics, food, and systems to their civilization much earlier than they would have done it themselves, to the point the villagers first call it "sorcery". Senku and co. are opposed to Tsukasa, a super strong guy who intends to rebuild a society [[EvilLuddite freed of the evils of technology]] and thus sees Senku as his main enemy.
* The Whispered in ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' have the potential of becoming this due to their main purpose of creating Black Technology, which is far more advanced than present tech. According to Gauron, Amalgam always seeks out Whispered and tests them for their scientific prowess, which can be as low as making a new rocket or high as devices that can convert one's willpower into a physcial force.