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<blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 3951316" data-attributes="member: 19675">No, all it would take is for there to be significant barriers between people with the neccessary skills and the resources required for them to excercise their skills.&nbsp; Those barriers could be natural ones like an impassable mountain range (consider Nome, Alaska), or created like ELE-induced problems like the meteoric impact igniting the veins of coal in the local mine.For example, suppose one of the people I know who is an actual blacksmith in Texas is on a trip to Aruba when the ELE occurs.&nbsp; Where he is, he has no idea where he can find the resources required to rebuild a smithy from scratch and get up to speed.&nbsp; Can he make educated guesses?&nbsp; Sure- but its going to be a lot harder than if he were at home.&nbsp; And if Guy X ordered his metals from across the country rather than acquiring them locally, he's going to have problems anywhere.And if we're talking foundries...like most modern mechanics, those guys work with prefabricated parts.&nbsp; If the place were wrecked, they'd be unable to start over.&nbsp; Few people have all the knowledge needed to build a dynamo or internal combustion engine from scratch.&nbsp; By which I mean finding, mining, &amp; working ores into usable alloys to make all those tools that are in turn used to make cams, bearings, gears, axles, wires, and so forth.Heck, if you look at a map of mineral deposits in a given country, you'd see that such complex machines are only possible with international commerce- almost no place on Earth has all of the raw materials that go into a refined product such as even an early internal combustion engine.Besides, as I've pointed out, there will be pockets of tech still around- its just that nobody will have whole package.&nbsp; Thus there will be inequities, causing people to want to repair &amp; replace the old tech they've lost.That is what is going to drive people into cooperating to rebuild trade routes &amp; thus, higher civilizations than mere subsistence level communities.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dannyalcatraz, post: 3951316, member: 19675"] No, all it would take is for there to be significant barriers between people with the neccessary skills and the resources required for them to excercise their skills. Those barriers could be natural ones like an impassable mountain range (consider Nome, Alaska), or created like ELE-induced problems like the meteoric impact igniting the veins of coal in the local mine. For example, suppose one of the people I know who is an actual blacksmith in Texas is on a trip to Aruba when the ELE occurs. Where he is, he has no idea where he can find the resources required to rebuild a smithy from scratch and get up to speed. Can he make educated guesses? Sure- but its going to be a lot harder than if he were at home. And if Guy X ordered his metals from across the country rather than acquiring them locally, he's going to have problems anywhere. And if we're talking foundries...like most modern mechanics, those guys work with prefabricated parts. If the place were wrecked, they'd be unable to start over. Few people have[I] all [/I]the knowledge needed to build a dynamo or internal combustion engine from scratch. By which I mean finding, mining, & working ores into usable alloys to make all those tools that are in turn used to make cams, bearings, gears, axles, wires, and so forth. Heck, if you look at a map of mineral deposits in a given country, you'd see that such complex machines are only possible with international commerce- almost no place on Earth has all of the raw materials that go into a refined product such as even an early internal combustion engine. Besides, as I've pointed out, there will be pockets of tech still around- its just that nobody will have whole package. Thus there will be inequities, causing people to want to repair & replace the old tech they've lost. That is what is going to drive people into cooperating to rebuild trade routes & thus, higher civilizations than mere subsistence level communities. [/QUOTE]

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