Similar has been a setting element in other fictional works as well. Best example I can think of is ComStar, from the BattleTech universe [1]. Originally the Te

Similar has been a setting element in other fictional works as well. Best example I can think of is ComStar, from the BattleTech universe [1]. Originally the Terran Hegemony's comms department, and later a neutral corporation, it morphed a mystic religious order. For good or for ill, it managed to preserve the interstellar comms network and various pieces of advanced tech, despite some several hundred years of intermittent war. It's not like the idea of a mystic or monastic order taking over education and knowledge preservation duties after the fall of a civilization is a fiction unto itself, either. This is exactly what happened in Europe between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Enlightenment. 1. http://www.sarna.net/wiki/ComStar http://www.sarna.net/wiki/ComStar