[zaarn]

>I'm not trying to spec "Ugh wanders out of the jungle, sees our pretty rock, and personally has a 20th century civilization up and running in 10 years" or anything crazy.

Quite coincidental, there is currently an Anime running named "Dr. Stone" which is quite exactly about that; jump starting human civilizatio from the stone age to modern day as fast as possible. Atleast in-story it's been a few months and they're currently building radios and have a waterwheel generator.

[jerf]

Yeah, it's on my list. My strategy is generally to wait until I can just mainline the entire season, so I tend not to watch the latest seasonals, but it's definitely on my list when the season is done.

In Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep", a very advanced civilization in the outer galaxy that can't reach where we are for $REASONS has as a persistent hobby speculation on the fastest way to bootstrap advanced civilizations, assuming essentially-perfect knowledge of physics instead of blundering around.