This topic got mentioned in passing in another thread.
An alien space bat appears and tells you he’s sending you back in time. You’re not allowed to make any special preparations. You’re also not allowed to bring anything back with you except for a normal set of clothing and a couple days’ supply of food and water appropriate to the period you’re going to. So it’s basically come as you are.
The alien space bat will let you choose your arrival location so you can pick wherever you feel you’ll have the best chance to succeed.
Let’s assume he’s sending you back a hundred years to 1910. Where do you choose to go? And having arrived what’s your plan? What’s the first things you do? Do you try to acclimate and stay hidden? Do you go to a powerful figure and try to cash in on your knowledge of the future? What knowledge and skills that you have right now do you think would be useful in 1910? What knowledge do you have off the top of your head about the year 1910? How would you apply them?
Then, as an alternative, say he’s sending you back five hundred years to 1410. Same questions.
If I was sent to 1910 I’d choose to be sent somewhere in the United States and try to cash in on my amazingly accurate predictions. If I was being sent to 1410 I’d choose to be sent somewhere in Europe and try to cash in on my amazingly innovative invention ideas.
Like what? It would have to be something unusual. A lot of people could make an accurate something at something like a world series game or who was going to be elected in 1912. What specific “prediction” would you make that would convince people that you really knew what you were talking about? And who would you make the prediction to?
Same questions. Assuming I could finangle an audience with the King, I could tell him that a steam engine was a great idea. But if he asked me to build one, I’d only have a vague idea of how to do it.
“I guess I’ll need a bunch of steel, Your Highness…”
“It’s kind of like iron. But they do something to it to make it stronger. I think it involves carbon somehow…”
“No, I don’t really know how to make carbon… Actually, I’m going to need somebody to give me some iron too…”
“No, Your Highness, I didn’t come here to waste your time.”
“No, I really don’t want to see what the inside of your dungeons look like.”
Seriously, I can’t build a steam engine or a blast furnace or a printing press or a machine gun. I don’t know how to make paper or gunpowder or glass or soap. I couldn’t steer a sailing ship across the Atlantic or around Africa. I don’t know who was the Pope or the King of France in 1410. I wouldn’t even know how to do all the normal things that are part of a peasant’s daily routine. I’d be lucky if I could get a job as the village idiot.
This was pretty much the plot of a Larry Lieber story in a Marvel comic back in the 1960s – the wise-guy Time Traveler literally did end up as the king’s jester, since he wasn’t qualified to be anything else. You get the same sort of thing (without actual time travel) in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where the woman with the high-tech job gets stranded at the Primitive Reservation – she has no usable skills, but still manages to muddle through life.
My favorite Time Travelers are self-professed Capable People – Hank Morgan in Twain’s Connecticut Yankee and Martin Padway in L. Sprague de Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall. Padway is a bit more believable , in that he doesn’t actually know how to make paper, but he knows how to experiment and he knows the basics, so he eventually does work it out (although he never does manage to produce gunpowder). I suspect I’d be more along his lines.
As for the OP – I’d choose somewhere in the US, probably, no more than 150 years ago.
Why the hell would you want to make a big splashy prediction? And your advantage is not knowing one big prediction – if you have enough time to research it before you get sent back, you can take advantage of a long string of consistently correct predictions. If you bet on a long line of sports events, or you know the history of a few key stocks you can quietly take advantage of that knowledge to enrich yourself.
Take back gold or gems that you can trade, rather than wasting time trying to track down antique currency you can safely pass.
The fly in the ointment here, at least as far as being able to make predictions, is that you might affect the outcome of events, and this might cascade on you, changing more and more outcomes as time goes by. So you might be able to predict that Woodrow Wilson wins in 1912, something you might do could change events. Say your actions somehow cause the League of Nations to actually succeed. Does a world body like this evolve into something that prevents WW2? The effects would be huge - try to imagine a world with no baby boomers, and no Manhattan Project. Or you might see a picture of Thomas Dewey holding up a newspaper saying, “TRUMAN WINS!”.
The moral of the story is, study history and engineering NOW, 'cause you never know when that alien space bat might swoop down andtake you for a ride.
Writing fantasy and Sci Fi might be the only thing I could do if dropped 100 years ago. I would have a string of amazing but vague predictions come true. I would also know a lot of scams that are common knowledge today but should work pretty good 100 years ago. Hey, I’m just trying to survive here.
1910? I’d be royally screwed. No useful skills; little useful knowledge.
500 years ago is 1510, BTW, not 1410. And 1510 is a little too late for me to introduce the printing press. But there’s still the Scientific Method, Newton’s Laws of Motion, and much more.
Language would be a challenge in 1410 - I’d probably want to be dropped off in England somewhere, where I’d at least stand a chance at being understood, even if my accent sounded horribly barbaric to everyone. (Alternate would be maybe Cairo; I’d stand even less of a chance of being understood but at least I’d be obviously a foreigner trying to learn the language). I’d think that IF I could get a scholar to talk with me, my half-assed memories of college calculus would get me a fair distance in the 15th or even 16th centuries.
But that’s the difference between Alien Space Bat and Batman. Alien Space Bat doesn’t let you prepare.
I guess my point is that a lot of us seem to assume we automatically have some superior knowledge over people in the past. But the reality is that as individuals we’re generally as ignorant as medieval peasants. We just happen to live in an advanced society that other people built.
Impromptu time travel stories usually get around this by having the protagonist conveniently be some guy whose hobby happend to be studying the developement of classical technology. Except on weekends, when he practiced fighting with the local historical combat re-enactment group.
But I was asking myself what I personally would actually do and, as I indicated above, I have very few ideas. (As Quartz wrote, even my knowledge of basic arithmetic is shakey.) So I started this thread to see if anyone else could come up with a plan for converting several decades worth of pop culture trivia into fame and fortune.
Alfred Bester wrote a few stories about time travel that reverse that assumption - his time travelers are generally hopelessly lost and helpless. The ones I’m thinking of were collected in VIRTUAL UNREALITIES, among other places.
If I’m heading back to 1910 I’d pick Southern California and do what I do now: teach. I know the curriculum for US History and English. Credentialling was a lot looser back then. A few bats, some land purchases, and maybe befriending some newly-arrived “Hollywood” types in a few years.
1410 is a whole 'nother thing. No place in Europe was “civilized” back then, and I don’t think I could be very useful to the Great Khan. Guess I’d just have the Space Bat drop me off on a remote island in Polynesia.
Bad idea, unless you’re guaranteed a ticket back to your own time before the “Spanish” Flu breaks it. (It probably actually originated in the US). For that matter, there’s also the danger of getting drafted into WW1 if you’re a male of military age and still around then - not all that great a danger, but still worth mentioning.
If you’re going to be living out your days in the past, I recommend trying to get someplace relatively isolated - at least, someplace that won’t have massive troop movements spreading flu when the time comes. I believe Argentina was fairly interesting at this time - sort of a Wild West thing.
Well, I’m not sure how I’d do it, but I’d try to make sure that people in authority heard my prediction of, say, the infamous fire that killed all the woman factory workers (I’ll admit I had to wikipedia the name of the company: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory). I’d talk about the great stock market crash of 1929 (but I’d have to wait twenty years!). I’d predict the events of WWI beginning with Ferdy’s assassination. That sort of thing. All it takes is one rich eccentric to believe in my power (I think I could be a pretty good actor) and then I could lay out the basic timeline of the United States for him for cash. “And in the '40s there is going to be a great World War… and the United States will unleash a weapon powerful enough to obliterate an entire city against Japan, targeting Nagasaki and Hiroshima.” My telling people these things will likely change the course of history but I’ve got to make use of what I’ve got. You said we couldn’t prepare otherwise I’d find which stocks would leave me a billionaire today and invest in them in the past.
“I guess I’ll need a bunch of steel, Your Highness…”
“It’s kind of like iron. But they do something to it to make it stronger. I think it involves carbon somehow…”
“No, I don’t really know how to make carbon… Actually, I’m going to need somebody to give me some iron too…”
“No, Your Highness, I didn’t come here to waste your time.”
“No, I really don’t want to see what the inside of your dungeons look like.”
Seriously, I can’t build a steam engine or a blast furnace or a printing press or a machine gun. I don’t know how to make paper or gunpowder or glass or soap. I couldn’t steer a sailing ship across the Atlantic or around Africa. I don’t know who was the Pope or the King of France in 1410. I wouldn’t even know how to do all the normal things that are part of a peasant’s daily routine. I’d be lucky if I could get a job as the village idiot.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I hear you. It’d be rough but I’m sure if I was stuck in the 1410s I could think of something. I’m sure my clothes would be fantastic enough (seriously, have you seen the suits and top hats and goggles I wear?) that people would think I’m someone important. I just hope that my awesome ideas of the future don’t get me burned at the stake.
Let’s see…would 1910 still be a good time to marry someone named Ford and buy stocks?
I think I’d have more luck in 1410 or 1510…I could at least set up trade as an herbalist/midwife. Not that I’m remotely qualified to be an OB today, but I do know the workings of fertility/pregnancy better than most of that time. Simply knowing to wash my hands would give me better than average patient outcomes, setting me up for acclaim and all the chickens I can eat.
(And before someone jumps in to claim I’ll have a higher than average chance of being burned at the stake in the 100 years to come, I’ll note that the midwife being burned as a witch trope is not all that historically accurate. Plus, I’m willing to swear on whatever holy books they’d like that I’m a devout whatever they’d like me to be.)
In 1910 I could probably look at the stock market and recognize promising companies, technologies and trends. I’m no expert of the time period, but I’m sure just reading the newspaper I’d clue in on lots of important things.
1410 would be tougher, but I can read and write which I think wasn’t all that common, so hopefully I could sweet talk myself into some rich person’s good graces. Maybe sleep my way in, too. My gaydar could come in handy. I’m sure I could contribute to science in lots of little ways and eventually in some big ways. I’m not a scientist myself, but I could work with the scientists of the day and point out everything wrong, as well as guiding scientists in the right directions. I already know what pisses the church off, so I could steer clear of too much heretical trouble.
I’m sure I could contribute to science in lots of little ways and eventually in some big ways. I’m not a scientist myself, but I could work with the scientists of the day and point out everything wrong, as well as guiding scientists in the right directions. I already know what pisses the church off, so I could steer clear of too much heretical trouble.