Once you understand the underlying physical principles, I imagine things like lasers are much easier to construct than you might guess. Vernor Vinge touches on this in "A Fire Upon the Deep (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812515285)" (actually, he explores the theme a little in almost all his novels). They have to come up with some major technological advantage to give peopple who don't have much tech yet. They figure out how to build radios using only iron age tech, and given the nature of the creatures they're giving the tech to (group minds composed of 3-8 individuals who's brains are in direct communication via a sort of biological modem) the tech advantage is huge. One individual can suddenly be in many different places at once.
In his novel "Marooned in Realtime (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0765308843)" he specifically refers to members of a high tech civilization engaging in 'survival games' where they cast off most of their technology and try to use ancient tech means to survive.
Depending on your particular creative process, you may or may not want to read these prior examples of the theme. :-)
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Once you understand the underlying physical principles, I imagine things like lasers are much easier to construct than you might guess. Vernor Vinge touches on this in "A Fire Upon the Deep (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812515285)" (actually, he explores the theme a little in almost all his novels). They have to come up with some major technological advantage to give peopple who don't have much tech yet. They figure out how to build radios using only iron age tech, and given the nature of the creatures they're giving the tech to (group minds composed of 3-8 individuals who's brains are in direct communication via a sort of biological modem) the tech advantage is huge. One individual can suddenly be in many different places at once.
In his novel "Marooned in Realtime (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0765308843)" he specifically refers to members of a high tech civilization engaging in 'survival games' where they cast off most of their technology and try to use ancient tech means to survive.
Depending on your particular creative process, you may or may not want to read these prior examples of the theme. :-)