Never mind how.
The powers that be in England get one (1) chance at time travel, limited to going back to 1776 or not at all. Would they go back with modern weapons and triumph over the American revolution? Or would they try to get King George to understand why he needed to stop being such a dink?
Doc Brown and the Royal Crown
Band name.
Why would they do either? Is there any reason to think that the UK would be a happier place today if the American colonies had not gained their independence when they did?
Um…? Isn’t that, essentially, the question I asked in the OP?
I thought this was going to be about soda pop. I came here to vote for Cel-Ray Tonic. RC tastes like store-brand cola.
Me too. But my vote is for Dr. Brown’s Diet Black Cherry.
My mistake. I read your OP as offering modern Brits the alternatives of:
(a) going back in time and using modern technology to beat the living snot out of the uppity colonials, so preserving the integrity of the most glorious empire the world has ever known; or
(b) going back in time and beating the British government of the day about the head and neck with broken bottles until they accept the entirely reasonable demands of the colonials regarding taxation, representation and such, so preserving the integrity of the most glorious empire the world has ever known.
I think that you’re way oversimplifying the ramifications of your question, especially option 1.
Assuming that the British were in fact able to subdue the colonies with superior future tech, what happens with the rest of their future tech? Are they going to use it to accelerate the Industrial Age? Moreover, what happens 40 years from now when the weapons start to filter down to the colonies? I mean even a technological edge is no assurance that you’ll hold onto colonies forever; see Africa and India and whatever. Not to mention the massive transformation of society that this would require; a modern military needs a bureaucracy that won’t be conceived until like a hundred years from now. Where would they get the fuel required to keep their technological advantage? Where would they get the training and engineers required to keep it up?
I’m sure you could cheat some additionals into option 1 like the UK magically conjuring a bunch of oil rigs and coal mines and such but then it stretches the assumptions such that the question it was designed to answer was meaningless. It’d be like asking ‘if the citizens of Omaha, Nebraska had the power to rewrite reality would Little Timmy have retroactively passed his test or would his teacher with similar powers have countered Little Timmy’s cheating, cancelling the effect?’
Sounds like a porn made by Quentin Tarantino.
Well, they’d choose a TARDIS over a Delorean for sure.