Submitted 1 month ago by Kookie215@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Its the 12th century and you’ve had no time to prepare, after you’re done reading this post you are snapped. What do you do?
This is very A Connecticut Yankee in King Author’s Court
en.wikipedia.org/…/A_Connecticut_Yankee_in_King_A…
I hated that book. So pretentious.
Good thing I binge isekai anime
Anyone else a fan of Nate Bargatze?
There’s a former nunnery down the road. I suppose I’d try to join. Or maybe find a farmer who’s looking for someone to look after his kids because his third wife died in childbirth.
Assuming I’m snapped back to the same part of the earth, climate-wise that’s ideal in the US PNW coming out of spring. Plenty of berries and food to forage, and I’ll probably impress the natives with my watch and well made clothes. I can probably get the native tribes to metals, and gain acceptance with my magic hand tool that will briefly shine light at night for a few weeks. I don’t know offhand where copper would be, but I know gold is in the streams, and I know how to placer mine, so I can get some electricity going with that and magnetized rocks from lava flows.
I think first contact would be the key.
First off. Do I get to bring stuff with me? Like say the entire printed off contents of wikipedia.
also, I would like find one or two things that hadn’t quite been invented yet and ‘invent’ it.
also, Also, with a modicum of military power, I’d probably start a religion.
In what language? Modern English didn’t exist yet and neither did pretty much any modern language. Good luck trying to get the local nobles and priests to decipher the hundreds of codices you brought with you that are in some strange language that nobody has seen before
Wikipedia is for my benefit, so I can just read it.
Nobody else needs to even know I have it, necessarily.
Them not being able to read it might even be a boon.
The goal is to get a leg up on things, not start having nuclear reactors in the medieval era.
For example muskets had an iterative development as small incremental changes took place. Relatively small changes made modest improvements.
It would also be nice to know when eclipses are about to happen, for, ah, reasons.
I become a scribe or accountant, since I can write cursive, do math, and know some Latin.
There was a monastery within walking distance of my home at that time, so that’s where I’d head first.
Start a cult.
Everything I’ve seen for the last decade indicates it’s pretty easy and highly profitable.
and you have all the knowledge of what cults already took off like wildfire. Mormonism for example, that shit is gold.
You don’t even have to show the gold. Just say you saw it and it’s now in that tent over there. No you can’t go in. This is what was written on it though. Oh it’s in a language only I can read. Don’t worry, I’ll translate. Give me your wife.
I don’t know how to refine oil, but knowing that its refinable into diesel/gasoline is a pretty good start to looking for it. A head start on murdering some sperm whales for lighting industry seems easy enough to figure out. Partnering with metal smiths who might have a clue on making gun barrels, and pipe’s in general that could be used for advanced weaponry, would be an easy path to get governments to give me a ton of money for weapons research by just showing them some drawings. Doesn’t really matter if I ever figure out how to do it, just the vision of what is possible would make me richer than Musk. Richer if I can help enslave all of humanity to one empire.
Electricity is a pretty easy concept. Steam power driving magnets and copper. That rare earths make better magnets should be easy enough to search for them. Copper wires to deliver the electricity easy AF. Can help jump start progress to late 21st century for some things.
basically, I want to destroy white colonialism. we have a toxic culture that honestly doesn’t deserve to exist on a planet it wants to destroy.
I’m also curious to see how North America would turn out after 650 years have passed after I have achieved my goals.
Well I be naked, so would need to make/steal clothing very quickly
Well, staying in the same location? I’m in the US, so… I’d probably try to get writing invented. To my knowledge, besides some of the Central American empires, there’s no evidence or even claim of there having been any kind of writing or system for making information durable. I know there’s a lot of clay here, I’m pretty sure we could bake clay tablets to store down information. There’s also tule reeds here that were already being extensively used, and those could probably be made into a kind of paper as well. As to whether the people would accept that, I have no fucking idea at all; what we know of the California tribes suggests they were always semi-nomadic, but that’s all very well into the post-contact period and much of what we know was written down by the Spanish while being the biggest bastards they possibly could to the locals. I dunno how useful record-keeping would be to a nomadic people. It’s also entirely possible the people would be like “uh, yeah, we know how to write, dummy”, and it was just lost in the multiple waves of pandemics.
I think probably something that -might- be achievable is figuring out glass. I’m mostly sure that if the native Americans had glass, we would have seen some sign of it in the archeological record by now. I’m sure some smarty pants is going to come along and tell me “you can’t just throw sand in a kiln and make glass, you need a special kind of sand blah blah blah and here’s 99 reasons why that won’t work”. Yeah, you’re probably right, but I don’t know any better, so I’d still definitely try. I also remember reading that clear glass was a thing figured out near Venice when they started adding grass ash or some shit to the sand, so I’d definitely experiment with that, too. Glass is just dead useful -and- pretty, so I’m fairly confident I’d get some acceptance that way.
I would say metal smithing, but the only metal deposits nearby that I know of are mercury and gold. You can’t make nails and tools out of mercury and gold.
Also, maybe water wheels? To my knowledge, we have no record of native Americans using water wheels for work (I.e. grinding corn or acorns into flour). I think if I managed to put a basic water wheel together, I’d be pretty popular.
there’s no evidence or even claim of there having been any kind of writing or system for making information durable
sigh it’s called oral history and it was working just fine before the settlers showed up
Yes, 100%, I don’t at all want to give the idea that no history was ever remembered, and I don’t want to sound like I’m shitting on oral history either. I just… really wish someone had written some stuff down. There’s so much that’s lost to time because of the pandemics that swept the post contact world and all of colonization that followed.
Depends what clothes I’m wearing when it happens.
If I’m wearing anything that could remotely be seen as fancy back then (which I mean a lot of modern clothes could pass off as), since I’m near the ocean, I’d immediately run into the water not seeing anyone, and then pretend I’m a royal foreigner who ended up shipwrecked. Since I usually wear a watch, have a tungsten (Wolfram) crystal wedding band as well, that would help me in passing off as royalty as well. This is assuming the people helping me aren’t brigands. There’s things we do and know of that we take for granted that could be used to pass off as someone upper class too, like reading.
Then next steps would be to get to an aristocrats home, and eventually I’d imagine somewhere where I could work with scholars so they can teach me the language and we can work on translation so we can understand each other. Would have to be extremely careful of smallpox during all this of course.
Once we could, that’s when I’d finally whip out my phone to trusted scholars and pull up my survival books, books on plumbing, etc specifically, and to explain that this is a special metal and glass book that can hold many books that’s common in the land I’m from, and that I can teach them how to build them. But that we’d need to build plumbing because I’d like a shower by then.
There’s a book with almost the exact same premise.
Destiny’s Crucible.
It’s fairly good, can be a bit slow though. (I’m 7 books in)
I really enjoyed that series (don’t remember which book I stopped on). I think the slowness of it gave a sense of finding a home along with the main character.
There’s also Lest Darkness Fall which is pretty good.
The Ring of Fire series which is about this concept was such an amazing read. Unfortunately the infinite branching plotlines became way more than I could handle.
I don’t have the knowledge to survive in the 12 century so either some Native Americans find me and are kind enough to teach me to survive
Or I just die.
Uhh anyone know where to get estrogen injections in the 14th century?
I bet there is a crunchy mom that can tell you what plant to eat, but there’s like a 70/30 chance its gonna kill you instead.
Better odds than having my body change back, sooooo …
I could probably discover electricity, depending on where I landed. Jewelers of the time could make wire, copper was common, and magnets (lodestones) had been discovered. Realistically though I’d be a dumb giant (ie, speak no known languages of the time and statistically I’d have like a foot on the “tall” people of the era). I’d probably try to find some party trick that looked like magic to people of the era then hope that people would welcome and try to integrate me rather than burning me as a witch. Then I’d probably die in a week or two anyway to some disease lol
Coating wires to make windings may prove tricky tho
The party trick thing reminded me of a book series called Magic 2.0 that I read a while back . This guy figures out that the universe is a simulation and basically hacks the code; now he can jump through time as he pleases. He goes back to the Middle Ages and brings plastic wrap with him and calls it clear paper, which convinces everyone that he’s a wizard. It was a fun read but got dumb around the 3rd-ish book.
I would basically become a Jewish witch and either build a small community of people or die of some ancient plague, either way I wouldn’t be thriving but I might just survive.
I’m building a boat to go find the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria to sink them real good. Then nuke China and Ruzzia at their palaces. Same to every “kingdom”. That’s what they all deserve. Complete erasure from history. Instead people would just know that there used to be an asshole who wanted everyone to work and give him all the money.
I would make an IT startup.
I guess I could make a name as a mathematician, though that’d depend where the fuck I’m snapped to.
I’d like to warn the Incas to not trust anyone with white skin, kill them all on sight and NEVER let any of them get within 100km of Potosi, but I don’t think I’d be anywhere near the Andes either way.
I’d cry, curse god’s name even more than I do currently, and then probably die from boredom.
1375? Bro that’s the. Middle ages. Fucking kill me.
Try to use some type of boiling water technique to invent drinkable sanitary drinking water that doesn’t get me drunk (might not be necessary in some parts of Asia)
Most parts of the world that is not North America: try to convince some wealthy persons and bar owners to sponsor me to getting a bunch of bread molds and rats/mice, possibly even pigs, to conduct antibiotics and vaccine research, otherwise I might die from random sources…
Not sure if I could reasonably do those given my limited biology knowledge, but I guess they are worth trying. Besides that I’d just try to be less blunt/offensive so I don’t get sent to jail and try to live my best life I guess
You’d have to work pretty hard to get drunk on small beer.
Slowly and with plenty of witnesses invent the toilet. But like out of wood pieces like a barrel or ship. Rain barrel on the roof for water. Start suggesting more contained sewage.
Should be just enough to not get dead for heresy or something but live comfortably and help a shitty situation.
They had sewage and toilets since Roman times. It wasn’t affordable to many (and you couldn’t make it affordable) but they definitely knew how to make it.
I’d go live in a cabin in the forest, again.
Well, first I’d have to learn Old English, I think. Hell, even Middle English isn’t understandable.
Hopefully I could get up to speed before they locked me up, or worse.
Middle English is understandable. It’s tricky and there are lots of unexpected differences but you’d get used to it. This is right at the edge of Early Modern English and the Great Vowel Shift.
I dunno, I’ve listened to some Middle English on a History of English podcast, and could follow along only slightly. I’m sure I could come up to speed quickly, since it at least has the French influence already (if I remember right).
I’m not familiar with the great vowel shift, is that a result of the Norman invasion in 1066, adding French into Old English? (That’s the sequence, right? It’s been a while since I read about it).
1375? Die from malaria, I guess? Be eaten by an alligator? Or oh no, hasten the demise of the Tocobaga with my exotic biology? Either they would kill me or get me sick, or vice versa. Also, fall on my ass when my house disappeared.
I would follow the river to the bay, I guess, and see if I could find anyone, or anything I might be able to eat.
I’d use my knowledge of history, politics, psychology and science to become an influential advisor to powerful lords and help them conquer the world in exchange for living in luxury.
so all those genocides weren’t enough, you want a repeat with you at the helm?
Yes.
I’d write the harry potter series from memory. And all the star treks.
This seems like a good idea, but you would have to make a lot of changes to make it relevant to the times. I think it could work
AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Probably not the answer you thought, but succeed by knowing there are wild animals that could easily kill me. It’s either I die by that, or wait until the lack of my blood thinners kills me, sl I’d definitely take the quicker death than the slower one.