How to keep my colonists primitive?
The story will take place near a galaxy filled with space faring civilizations. In this galaxy, a small group of scientists realize that their side is on the losing side of a war that will probably lead to their species's extinction. In an act of desperation they abduct 1000 beings (perhaps more) from a stone-age level species and make a colony in a nearby dwarf galaxy. The scientists have knowledge of faster than light travel and genetic engineering. With the genetic engineering the scientists blend their DNA with the primitives which upgrades the primitives from a Neanderthal level to a homosapien level of intelligence. In short the advanced beings want the genetic and cultural legacy to live on and prepare for a future conquest of the main galaxy.
The advanced being scientists die out when they reach old age of 100 years. In that time the colonists are conditioned to view the advanced ones as gods.
Question
After 5000 years the colony is visited by an explorer from the greater galaxy and finds that the colony has reached the industrial age, but can't return to a space level civilization. What condition, or material lack, would keep a society stuck at the industrial age?
I originally considered that the planet would lack fissionable materials and thus the atomic age couldn't begin.
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1 answer
Absolutely nothing
That is, more accurately, that nothing has stifled their progress, and their civilization is right where it naturally would be. Well, natrually other than the fact that they were uplifted.
Think of this: Ancient Egypt was more than 5,000 years ago, and your advanced aliens/gods have been away for that amount of time. Even getting 1000 individuals up to Ancient Egypt levels would take a lot of effort.
Better yet, you could say the uplifters attempted to get a decent civilization going, and succeeded - but it later failed somehow - Some natural disaster strikes and wipes out the advanced civilization bits, dropping them back to the stone age where they have to build everything from the ground up.
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