Starting Over

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A cheap knock-off of this thread.

OK, here’s the scenario:

You are to assemble a hypothetical team of 51 experts (you and 50 others). This team can consist of any ratio of men to women you please and each expert, while likely knowledgeable in many areas, has one particular specialty that you can decide on. Assume that any given expert is basically the equivalent of the best in his field in our current society. You can double (or triple, or quadruple, etc) up on specialties if you’d like. You’re free to choose the average age, religious beliefs (if any), customs, etc of your starting team. Your role in the team is merely managerial.

Once you’ve assembled your team, each member will be equipped with one simple outfit of any reasonable material you’d like (burlap, cotton, wool, etc) and a week’s rations. The team is then to be somehow transported to a planet that is geographically identical to our Earth (there is a “Europe,” “Asia” and “North America” complete with a “Florida” and “California,” etc) except that it has not been touched by humans until now.

What’s the general composition of your team (you can be as specific or general as you’d like)? Where on the Earth2 do you choose to drop them? What is your plan for the first weeks, months, years and decades? Remember, they have only a week’s rations, the clothes on their backs and no tools, weapons, reference materials or other supplies of any kind.

These specialists won’t magically impart their knowledge on their children, so that might be a huge problem.

How well will your team, armed only with their modern knowledge, fare? How long until society has reached the point where it is( technologically) comparable to ours?

Go!

2

They’re dressed in Kevlar.

They’re dropped near the equator in a rainforest. I suspect that would be in the equivalent of South America, but there’s some pretty strong evidence that human activity created or worsened the Sahara Desert, so maybe the pristine Earth doesn’t have a desert. Basically, somewhere with a lot of rainfall and no discernable winter. And within walking distance of a mountain range. And somewhere nearby, a handy supply of flint.

I suppose my first expert would be a geologist or minerologist, who could identify useful minerals, and know where to find them (assuming the planets are alike up to and including where mineral deposits are). Several… botanists maybe, who could identify edible plants and other plants that could be made into… other stuff like cloth and rope, etc. Someone who knows ancient methods of paper and ink making. A blacksmith or two. A medic. Canoe maker. A mechanical engineer. A potter.

Rethinking – at least two of every specialty, in case someone gets sick or eaten or falls off a cliff.

And then laborers/breeders. In general I’d look for people who competed in the decathalon, your basic fairly strong, fairly flexible, fairly enduring athletes. And everybody should be really slutty, so everyone will fuck anything that moves, especially each other. I don’t know if 51 people is enough to make a viable breeding population, though. Oh hell, we can but try…

First priority – food gathering. Then getting a fire going. Then comes tool making. probably by chipping stones at first, but getting a working forge as soon as possible to make stuff like spear points and hammers. I’m assuming a climate so mild that we won’t need to be particularly worried about shelter building, and oh yeah, there should be a handy nearby unoccupied cave anyway.

Next priorities – power generation. Probably windmills and water wheels. Then paper and ink making, so we can start a library and save the knowledge of the original pioneers for our kids.

Oh yes, discipline. I think I’ll probably have to beat a couple of rebellious people to death to establish my supremacy. Best to plan early for this – so the original pioneers should have a couple of folks with bad attitudes and weak constitutions, to be sacrificed as examples for the others. Democracy is going to have to wait for a later time when the civilization isn’t so fragile.

I dunno, it would be centuries until getting up to speed to compare to our Earth society.

3

If my goal is to get back to Earth level technology, there isn’t any combination of people I can pick that can ensure that. With no reference books, no tools, no drawings, there is just no way that all of that info can be remembered or transmitted to new generations.

If my goal is to leap-frog the early civilizations, I think we can do something here.

I’ve have to do some research, but I’d need to find a location where copper, tin and iron were in easy to reach locations (near the surface). Probably someplace where a good sized river meets the ocean, for maximum food availablilty. I’m thinking maybe along the Mediteranian coast. The Nile delta might be good.

1/3 men
2/3 women
10-20% of the women already pregnant when they leave.

At least 2 of each, possibly more.
fishermen -
boat builders
hunters
miners
blacksmith
animal husbandry
non-mechanized farming/agronomy
paleo-botanist - need to be able to identify the forebearers of modern food crops
medical specialist - nurses/doctors
weaver
potter
carpenter
engineers/historians specializing in early machines - mills, forges, farm equipment, looms, kilns, wagons
Then I’d go looking for people that are members of the native people of what ever area I pick. See if I can find anyone that still has tribal information on how to survive in that location. This one might be the major deciding point as to a location. If I can find a tribe in say New Zealand that still has knowledge of local plants/animals/seasons/farming, that would be a HUGE advantage.

If the team manages to survive, I’m guessing that there is maybe 3-4 generation limit on transmitting non-used knowledge. There might be someone who can build a car, but if we haven’t developed to the point of having the materials in 60-80 years, the knowledge will be gone. So I wouldn’t even try to bring that along. I think the best we can hope for it to leap-frog the early stages of civilization, for example figuring out agriculture, and let the rest of it develop as it will.

4

Tastes of Chocolate, on Earth2 there are no humans or near-humans except for the team you take with you.

5

One fisherman, an engineer, a genie, and 47 super models. Maybe an extra fisherman and 46 models, its negotiable.

Don’t judge, I’m 17.

6

51 Batmans. They’ll know what to do.

7

This presupposes that you are Batman.

8

49 Batmans, 1 Robin, and 1 very tired Batgirl.

9

I didn’t know you were a woman.

10

Nah, I’m a Robin, don’t want all the Batman baggage.

Speaking of which. get rid of a couple Batmans and add a couple of Alfreds for valet service.

11

I think I’ve seen that movie on tube8.

12

Regardless of climate, shelters are a higher priority than “power generation.” For one thing, food stores need to be protected from animals.

Probably easier to start with clay tablets instead of paper-making. We’ll want a brick industry anyway.

13

I wouldn’t pick a jungle. I’d pick something drier and more amenable to cultivation, perhaps a higher-altitude parkland biome near the equator.

Why parkland? It’s what we’re best adapted to. Long grass with scattered trees and rivers? That’s what we build as an ideal environment anyways, so why add the additional trouble of setting up in a more difficult environment? We’ll have enough trouble finding food, building shelter, and fending off the carnivores as it is.

We could always go down to the jungle on expeditions if we need to go there for resources.