Imagine you could take an Aircraft Carrier back to Roman times?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Cement. Bring cement mixers and the tools to make it. For your home base I would recommend 40 foot high walls 5 feet thick and artillery emplacements.

I believe most processing equipment will fit on a ship (including a small refinery, ore processor and weapon machine shop).

Power shouldn’t be an issue. The carrier has a nuke reactor, just use it for the next 100 years until you get set for a land nuke reactor.

Aircraft. Helicopters and at least 1 long range survey plane that can do bush landings. Several smaller ships and again, the factories to make everything you bring including the blue prints for larger buildings and machinery.

22

Keep 'em coming guys. I’ll post my questions shortly.

I guess my original question, with hinsight, should have been, could 5,000 people (with the supplies I gave the qualification for) kick start an instant industrial age in 300AD?

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One minor question: If the entire Roman army is wiped out, and a huge new civilization begins in the Rhine Valley, how is all that going to alter the present?

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I’d probably choose an older ship. A tall ship would avoid the fuel problem altogether, and a huge nineteenth century sailing ship would still mightily impress the heck out of the Romans.

The 21st century world has lost the skills needed for terrestrial exploration. Although the Rhine in roman times wouldn’t need exploring, going there would require the self-sufficiencies that characterised the ships of European colonisation in the New World.

So, I’d be relying on a mixture of technologies from the last two or three hundred years, and a mixture of mostly practical stuff with a bit of “get the locals to worship us as gods” thrown in. Solar cells would be very important, and long-lasting LED-based lighting. On the other hand, you’d definitely need a blacksmith. Bicycles, two way radios, rechargeable batteries, small sailing boats, stun guns, megaphones, clocks, brewing equipment and decent yeasts, tinderboxes, binoculars, a laptop with an English-Latin babelfish program and voice-to-text-to-voice software (What means this god of the barbarians, “I burning your dog?”), low-tech farming equipment, seeds, sheep, goats, and cattle, horses and wagons, windmill generators to assist the solar cells, exotic talking parrots, 3D holograms of various Roman gods which could be given out to key people, mirror sunglasses, handheld laser pointers…

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One minor question: If the entire Roman army is wiped out, and a huge new civilization begins in the Rhine Valley, how is all that going to alter the present?

Well, either you get ZOIT!ed, or nothing happens, because the romans didn’t actually exist in the hypothetical situation.

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In trying to decide what you’ll need to bring you might want to brush up on this interesting thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64275&highlight=restart+civilization

It’s premise is slightly different in that, while people and knowledge could be transported back, no actual physical supplies could be.

There’s a lot of good speculation in it, which might be useful because you’re not going to be able to keep any of youir transported machines (cars, tanks, and certainly not an aircraft carrier) running for very long.

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You’ll need to establish steel, oil, and power sources; everything else stems from that. With those, you can make the industrial plants to refine other things. A large nuclear reactor would be the easiest short to medium term solution. Batteries would be standard lead/acid, lead and sulphur deposits are easy to come by. Without drilling rigs, the easiest source of oil would be from shale. Not very productive or efficient, but easy to gather. With steel, you can develop low-tech steam boilers for power and stronger gun barrels. If you get enough power to refine aluminium, you can start developing gliders with useful payloads.

Until you’ve secured brass and chemical deposits for cartidges, it may be logistically easier to move to musket technology. You’ll want some plants and domesticated animals, but realise they might not be as robust as their ancestors. Bring a lot of historical text books that give the origins for chemicals and drugs.

I reckon it’ll take 100 years tops to create a self sustaining community.

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One person with no equipment whatsoever could probably kick-start an instant industrial age. If he survived. The same qualification applies to 5000 people on an aircraft carrier.

The thing is, you don’t want to start a war with the Roman Empire. The Empire is big, and it would take a lot to conquer. Before then, your supplies (most notably fuel) are going to run out. One tank wouldn’t be enough to take out a city, either, even assuming that you do have plenty of fuel and ammo. Any humans from Cro-Magnon times on up can build and conceal a tiger-trap, and the Romans could easily build one deep enough to trap a tank.

Meanwhile, guerilla tactics aren’t new, and your modern soldiers probably aren’t going to know how to fight against the Romans. Sure, they could be trained in Roman tactics, and you could even devise specialized “modern” tactics for use against the Romans. But most of what your soldiers know already will be moot.

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Heck, it’s going to take a mighty big wad of energy to send something as big as an aircraft carrier back in time; it might be more practical to bring the Romans here, or choose something impressive, but more compact - A 1920s style death ray, for example.

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Eric Flint has written a series of books with a similar scenario (although only going back to the 1600s, not Roman times). A West Virginia town and its surroundings are sent back in time to central Germany. The first in the series is 1632. It is kind of interesting to theorize on mixing new and old technology.

RIck

31

A few comments:
-If we have sufficient time hanging around in the present to prepare, a lot of very useful pre-work can be done… ie, designing and working all of the kinks out of the most efficient black-powder-firing rifle ever, with special attention paid to easy of maintenance without access to very many tools. Instead of bringing back a wide variety of tanks, trucks, bicycles, helicopters, etc., a whole line of vehicles can be custom designed and built (remember, time and expense are no barrier) which share as many spare parts and maintenance items as possible. It’s going to be a lot easier to maintain a fleet of modernish vehicles if at least they use the same type of oil, the same size of ball bearing, etc.

-I expect that it’s possible to inoculate any time traveller against the prevailing diseases of 300 B.C., although doing the opposite might be nigh impossible. Will time travellers kick off the black plague?

-Modern domesticated plants and animals are far different from, and in many ways superior to, their ancient counterparts. Bring plenty of them.

-Your best bet, politically, is to pick a reasonably benevolent leader of the time and ally with him. Ideally, bring along a beautiful and charming young woman who’s willing to marry him, put up with 3rd century crap for a while, and slowly lead him by the nose towards modern liberal thought. Having the heirs to the throne of that kingdom raised by you in your schools won’t hurt your mid- to long- term prospects.

-Another interesting question is to what extent to you want to freely release information. Initially, at least, you might want to share some basic information about egineering, agriculture, hygiene, etc., with everyone who asks, establishing yourself as a benevolent presence, and raising the standard of life for everyone. But save enough of a high tech edge, or even a (by our standards) medium tech edge, that no one will be able to challenge you for dominance for quite some time.

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If I may be so bold, could I ressurect this thread to make a suggestion?

Instead of taking back a Nimitz-class carrier, you might want to take a Maritime Prepositioning Ships, of the U.S. Navy?

Basically, we have these ships loaded with combat vehicles, munitions, and other misc. military equipment, and pre-positioned at a few spots worldwide. The idea being that we can quickly move the already loaded MPS’ to supply a Marine Corps force in combat, and not have to ship or airlift the equipment from the continental U.S., which could take weeks or months.

Just to give you an idea of what these ships carry…

Of course, the MPS’ are conventionally fueled…but if you have access to a time machine, I’d imagine that you could afford to have the good ship LCpl Roy Wheat refitted with a nuclear reactor. (Maybe from the Lenin or the Savannah)

33

I figure Jupiter would probably wipe you out with a couple dozen well placed thunderbolts.

Maybe Neptune would sink the aircraft carrier

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Odinoneeye reminded me of a story I read once a long long time ago where someone from the past was brought into the future and many strange happenings ensued. Basically the premise of the story was that whatever people believed is true and the beliefs of that bygone era were having some strange repercussions in the modern day world, since the person from the past was there and still believed what he alwas believed… I wish I could remember some of the specifics, but it was a couple decades ago or more when I read it…

As for wiping out the Romans and setting up a post-industrial society, not too hard… Nasty and cruel but war is never “nice”… Take back a handful of chemical and biological warefare specialists… Use a few unmanned air vehicles to release the toxins… Have your bio guys pose as physicians (After being properly innoculated) to spread the disease to people who weren’t infected right away… Build your refineries at your leisure…

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Mooney252 makes an excellent point. You’d better bring a really kick-ass medical staff because the second your crew interacts with the locals, you’ll be giving eachother diseases. Expect your crew and the locals to be decimated at the very least by the rampant plagues your arrival will unleash. Expect the locals to be somewhat touchy about this.

Plus, you’d have to get your crew acclimated to food and living conditions that are far less sanitary than what they are accustomed to. You can’t spend all of your time in your little bubble. Gotta go out and play with the locals at some time, which means experiencing their food (no refrigeration, no preservatives, very few spices, prepared with dirty hands), their houses (stinking of excrement and other bodily fluids and infested with vermin), their religion (complete with animal sacrifices), and more!

Hope you brought along a corps of language scholars. We have an excellent grasp on Latin grammar, but don’t know for sure how it was pronounced. It’ll take some doing before reliable communications can be established. Better start teaching Latin basics to all of your troops. And be warned, it’s not an easy language.

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I Think this is pretty close to what I’d do, (and therfore the best thing) :stuck_out_tongue: But I think I would play the God angle up even more. Find a few suitible villages and perform a few “miracles” mainly blowing stuff up and curing diseases. Then simply reward them with some GMO food’s and ask for a percentage of their crops. As for my crew I would try to pick some tall people of different races, all fairly good looking and in good shape.I would try to avoid any of the natives seeing one of us with classes, out of shape, bald etc. so as to better set us up as God like beings. And as a just in case, I’d bring 1 modern bomber with 2 nukes and some conventianal bombs, paint it black and refere to it as the angle of death incase Rome messes with me, simply rain fire out of the sky.

37

Damn Romans! :mad:

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Make sure to bring along a couple of jet-packs, and a Van de Graff generator or two. Those always seem to impress primitives.

39

Take one back to Greek times, then sink it: Atlantis!

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Phew!

Thanks for straightening that out right from the start!

I mean, you wouldn’t want people to post responses thinking that you were actually going to do this.

You know, because then maybe they’d be liable if you took their advice and screwed up history or somethin’ …