You travel back in time - how do you convince people that you're good and not evil?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was thinking about this scenario recently. Say you have a time machine, and you use it to go back to late 15th-century England. I use this time period as the example because it’s not too far back to be utterly dissimilar to the modern day, but it’s sufficiently long ago that life would still be different. It’s a good transitional period between the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.

Your time machine is big enough for you to take a car, with a full tank of gas. You also have: a flashlight; a fully-charged laptop; a modern-day weapon like an M-16 with a case of ammunition; one set of walkie-talkies; and several packs of batteries.

You start up the time machine, and after a few minutes of time travel, you appear in England in 1490. Let’s say you appear at the court of a high-born noble. At this point the War of the Roses is over, Henry VII is King, and the country is in relative peace. You arrive at the court of the noble, with your time machine and your modern items, dressed in modern clothing. You step out and are immediately surrounded by the nobleman and his servants. Let’s assume these are decently-educated and articulate people who are able to carry on a basic conversation despite the differences in the English dialects.

It seems to me that the first instinct that people would have back then, if faced with a time traveler from the future, would be to assume he is some kind of magician and therefore in league with the Devil or evil in some other way. But we’ll give the Englishmen the benefit of the doubt here and assume they don’t automatically stab you to death - they are frightened, but also curious, so they let you have your say and gather around to listen to your story.

What exactly do you tell them?

Do you tell them that in the future, mankind follows science and not just religion, and that you traveled back in time through the result of pure scientific innovation?

Or do you phrase it in religious terms (for their benefit,) saying that in the future, God has given mankind the ability to do wondrous things with technology, and that you are a representative of God’s kingdom on earth from the future?

I personally would go with the latter. People back then thought in terms of religion - that’s just how it was. I would be happy to speak to them in the language that they understood, if that would mean they would be less likely to suspect me of working black magic or using evil powers to travel back in time or to have the wondrous technology that I brought with me.

Say you are given an audience with the King. How do you address him? How will you demonstrate all the items for him - the laptop, the rifle, the car, walkie-talkies, etc?

What would you do in this situation? I know there are a lot of opportunities for sarcastic jokes here but I ask this question in seriousness.

2

None of the above, heretics at this time still got the pointy end of the stick [in a manner of speaking]

If you were not obviously ‘current catholic’ you were a heretic, especially claiming to be coming from god …

Your best bet to stay alive is go back in reproduced clothing of a middle class merchant, with enough portable trade goods to sell for currency [I would suggest melting down gold ingots and recasting them as slugs, but probably not diamonds as the cutting of gems was different at that time and what we see as perfection they would have found *odd* ]

If you could duplicate some of these, they would make decent trade goods Jewelry in Elizabethan England

I wouldn’t try to attract any attention to myself at all, screw the modern crap. Staying alive is much better. If anything, take back a SAS commando as a hulking bodyguard, it would be appropriate for a wealthy merchant to have a bodyguard.

3

The rifle; well simple ask Henry VII to bring out his second son, Henry the one who is going to the Church, when the lad shows up, well, ready aim and FIRE one 5.56 mm into his royal codpiece. That will save England from a lot of heartache for the next 50 years.

4

I don’t think I’d have a chance of convincing them I wasn’t a witch.

5

The first thing I’d do is pick a different date and go a little further back, into the reign of Richard II, who was far more relaxed about things like heresy. Henry VII was a tad paranoid and executed people a lot more.

6

I think your best bet is to pretend to be foreign. That would give you a cover story for a funny accent and a lot of strange behavior. If you want to mingle with the upper classes, though, you’d better really work on your Latin before you go. How long are you planning to stay? If your visit is only as long as your laptop batter I don’t think it’s much of a worry.

The car is a bad idea, as well. Where are you going to drive it? You’ll have exactly one tank of gas before it becomes useless. Oh, and don’t bring up science vs. religion, it won’t help. You’d better pretend to be Catholic, whatever you think privately, because you’re a little early for the Reformation and anything else is going to hamper your social movements.

7

Tell this Noble that you are the Devil, & you have a deal for him.

Build on that.

8

Kill 'em. Kill 'em all. Liberate the peasants. Teach them to read and write. Teach them to bathe. Teach them basic hygiene and good dental habits. Teach 'em that priests have it wrong; its okay to have sex. With whomever you might choose. Obliterate jealousy. Introduce free love and nickel beer. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

9

I would think that wearing a rosary and being very familiar with the whole Catholic shtick would help. I doubt that they’d think a witch could recite a paternoster. But I would hightail it for the countryside at the first opportunity. Court politics are too twisty for me to handle.

10

It’s a shitty situation for sure, and you’d better hope that you have a return ticket to the future not long after you arrive. I mean, what would you think if someone showed up today with a story about being from the future? At best you’d probably think they were nuts… at worst you’d ring up the local authorities. I don’t think people would behave much differently in the 15th century; given the fact that they would likely have far less exposure to experiences outside of their own, I’d say follow Dr. Drake’s advice.

I really must admit that I never have understood the romance of time travel. If it ever worked, it seems impossibly complicated and not worth whatever benefit you might suspect it would bring about.

11

I wouldn’t think they were nuts if they brought evidence. I wonder, in the 15th century, who among them would have the presence of mind to see that the items brought back were of far superior technology. Sure, it’d look like magic, but if given a chance, you could explain all the mechanics of how a car works, talk a little about chemistry, and even show some basic math calculations and maybe a tour of PhotoShop on the laptop, that someone might actually believe you.

But, in the end, whether or not there would be those in power that would believe you, it seems like things could turn sour, real fast.

Also, would this laptop have an encyclopedia installed? Preferably one that outlines in detail medieval England and beyond?

ETA: They’d also be blown away by satellite images of the earth, and accurate maps of the world, if you preloaded some jpegs. Hmmm… what’s that weird looking land-mass to the west?

12

Bring a stash of antibiotics, prednisone, and Tylenol 3. Cure a lot of sick people (especially noblemen) and claim the Lord works through you. Might work…

13

Seeds? For genetically-engineered supercrops?

14

There was a thread not too long ago about what to do in the event of accidental transportation to circa 1008 AD;

The consensus was keep your gob shut or act like Johnny Foreigner.

I think the ‘burn the witch’ threat might not be so severe however, most witches were burnt (or hanged) not for simple sorcery (the supernatural was pretty much accepted back then), but for maleficium; using of said sorcery to harm. Prove you’ve got no harmful intentions and you might be OK.

15

I wouldn’t know about the “witch” vs “evil witch” thing, but I don’t think the distinction would have made much of a difference. Once they decided you were a witch, all your hysterical neighbors would come running to the courts with stories about how you’d cursed their goats or whatever. This was a time period (at least in some parts of Europe) when just having a pet cat could get you killed.

16

And Richard II was murdered in prison at 33, while Henry VII died in bed at 52. I think there’s a lesson there.

17

Do I have to go back that far? Because my grandma was one hot babe in about 1912.

18

I’m not sure the “Pretend to be Catholic” thing would work unless you spent a lot of time studying to prepare. From what I remember from that area, religion was a much larger part of a persons life, especially noblemen. So you have to really know what the hell you’re talking about. And unless I’m mistaken haven’t there been a few reforms since then? So what you know about modern catholisism won’t match what their “present day” catholisism teaches.

I agree that the laptop and car are of limited use. Better if you could bring back one of those portable storage units with a shitload of printouts for subjects like machining, current history, maps, nautical charts, mineral deposits…stuff like that. Something that would make you a valuable asset so you could appeal to their greed.

19

Right, but Catholicism was also a lot less uniform back then, and in a place where pretty much everybody is Catholic, your Catholicism is pretty much going to be assumed. So it’s not likely you’re going to be grilled on theological niceties, and if you make minor mistakes in practice, people are likely just going to assume you’re either not particularly devout or ignorant.

20

does that mean you’ll have to keep sending yourself back in case you’ll never be?