:smack:
Tell me you knew what I really meant.
Hate to dissapoint you, but Hispanic comes in all colors and sizes. A person is Hispanic if he/she:
- Has Spanish or Portuguese as his/her primary language (Brazilians consider themselves Hispanic; geographically speaking, “Hispania” includes mainland Spain and mainland Portugal)
or, alternatively, - Can’t really speak either language any better than your average “foreigner” but chooses to label him/herself as Hispanic. These are usually viewed by the Sp/Po- speakers as “of Hispanic descent”, really.
Good choice. They’ll make excellent snacks for when we arrive 
Britain is not isolated.
Lower ocean levels, due to rapidly changing climates, leave a land bridge.
Maps maps maps maps maps!
That’s exactly what I was trying to say upthread–only expressed LOTS better. :mad:
If I’m along for the ride, I want someone to remember to bring paper. Just a couple of notebooks of plain old paper, and some pencils. The colony will be making all sorts of wonderous plans, and at some point someone is going to want to write it all down. Yeah, we can reinvent paper, but I bet the need to write, say a charter, is going to happen within the first few days.
I’d have the books all stored electronically, perhaps in doubles or triples. Assuming 25 discs per pound, you could fit 25700 MB = 17.5 GB of information per pound. If you use DVD-R instead of CD-R, you could fit 254.37 GB = 109.25 GB per pound. And if you really wanted to jump up and use HD-DVD, you could fit 25*15 GB = 375 GB per pound.
Since the OP didn’t specify how much warning time you’d have before having to leave in the time machine, there may or may not be enough time to convert a substantial number of documents to electronic.
5 years, as stated upthread a while ago.
So.
So what’s your plan for accessing these electronic documents in the past, without any infrastructure? :dubious: How far are you planning to go back?
I’m with whoever suggested putting important tech material on laminated paper. Also, remember the constraints for non-living matter are based on volume, not mass.
For a long term view of tech level recovery having electronic versions available would make sense. Even if limiting to taking back a smallish number of sturdy laptops (solar powered) to read the data and restricting access to a specific set of conditions being satisfied to limit wear and tear. I know there is some issues around data storeage degeneration though which might become an issue.
If data integrity could be ensured there would be the advantage that specific topics could be investigated in the archive to fast track avenues of research until such a time as the infrastructure was in place to make the information more widely available then the tech level could increase more rapidly as the information became freely available.
Plans could even be drawn up in advance to enhance the tech development. Ie when you discover the capability to do D read file 10 and it will allow you to jump ahead to doing E,F,G and H. In some instances the pay off for this forward investment could be huge. For example, Human Genome Mapping Project, Manhattan Project, Aeronautics for Spaceflight, location of minerals and oil deposits. Maps of progress of tectonic plate movements until present day.
It’s the potential that would attract this as part of the cargo to me. It might not work out but the potential would be far greater than another few lumps of iron stuck to the ends of bits off wood.
Somebody help me- I’m a fibres specialist, and I don’t know anything about computer manufacture- how long from get go do you think it would take to be able to make a computer from scratch? Does it require the complete infrastructure we’ve got now, or something less complex? Guesses?
I think the primary data storage method should still be books printed on plastic. Transportable, easy to use, harder to damage, much easier to reproduce, at least once you’re making paper.
You’re saving part of the human race, right? How absolutely necessary is remaking the 21st century immediately? I would see survival planning as more useful and interesting.
My friend said you want to take everyone who works at Williamsburg. Tinsmith, coppersmith, blacksmith, soapmakers, carpenters… The apprenticeship is seven years. I think.
My target would be Britain, circa 500BC.
I’d take one of these to use whilst I worked on building other forms of electricity generation, with a lifespan of 30years I should have time.
I’d rely on local natives for unskilled labour. Distant tribes would be raided for their young (pre-school age) children to increase population, to that end I would take a lot of educators.
I would take toughened, sealed computer terminals and lots of the proposed $100 windup laptops. The computer terminals would have as much of our current knowledge, literature and culture as possible.
As insurance against disaster, I’d take stonemasons to carve onto Stonehenge scientific and mathematical equations (also a copy of the rosetta stone and portraits of JFK, Winston Churchill and Elvis… because that would screw with future scholars and be quite amusing). I would also have the stone masons make 2001-style monoliths, again covered in useful information, and place those at great distances from the settlement and buried in sites known by our archaeologists to be secure until particular periods when they could be discovered by future generations.
I would begin by asking, “what’s the point?”
If the answer is just to keep humanity going for a little while, I think the expedition is doomed from the get go.
If, OTOH, the answer is, “to give the temporal explorers a chance to develope a society millienia advanced than the one sending them back, so that they can actually bridge the planetary gap come the supernova,” then we have a reason to go.
If that be the case, we will have several important ideas to take into consideration.
1.) Assuming the non-intervention of temporal movement (i.e. they can’t go back, make people suddenly smarter, and accellerate the “future history”), then they will have to stay hidden and isolated from the doomed population. Being 12-15 thousand years advance in technology should make this an acheivable goal.
2.) If it is their ultimate goal to be able to journey off of the planet, they will need absolutely as much information as we can send back with them. Right now, pound for pound, the best way to store data can only be read electronically. Send back as much info on DVD’s / ipods, multiple copies, with laptops. All of this is to be stored in nearly indestructible containers. In addition, paper copies (laminated), of information regarding the building of small scale generators will need to go as well (along with a library of general survival knowledge). Since electronics is the best way to store, access, transmit information (old and new), you will need to include computer programmers, as well. Lastly, there can be no such thing as copyright protection. Any knowledge that can be found (and could be useful) is included.
3.) Medicine will need to be brought, along with the knowledge to generate more, and some rudimentary tools. (Microscopes, etc.)
4.) Guns are not neceassrily a bad idea - if they’re flintlock. Black powder is not that difficult to make, has been made since early historical times, and can be used for a variety of tasks. So long as the technology to remake the bullets (lead smealting is relatively easy) is around, the guns can continue to be useful long after the original supply of ammo is used up.
5.) I like the idea of more females to males, but not necessarily 3:1, and not necessarily all (or even many) impregnated. (Maybe 2:1, with small groups of ~12 designated as “extended families.”) I also like the idea of diversity. Selecting 2000 of the world’s best and brightest will give you a good chance of selecting 2000 people who can see past race. Also, with such a small population, the races will be so intermingled after a couple of generations, they will be their own race, anyway.
5b.) I would try to select people who were atheists / agnostics, if possible. The goal of the colony would need to be the “religion.”
6.) All explorers will undergo survival training. This will be the hardest part. Not selecting the people, but keeping this training secret for five years, while the rest of humanity prepares to meet their maker(s). If news of a time machine leaks out, there will be hysteria and security issues as people either try to get on, or destroy the time machine (possibly due to religious reasons).
7.) Location, location, location: I would most likely pick somewhere in North America, where the rockies meet the plains. Possibly the ocean side, but I’m not 100% on that idea. Maybe to start, (good fishing, farming, mining, low-technology “natives”). However, our colony will need to move to stay undetected by the “advanced” societies that show up ~ 1800 ce.
8.) Stages for colonial advancement: survival; achieve technological equality (to “modern times”; technological advancement; space travel. The survival stage should only take, honestly, a decade or so. Either the colony survives and prosepers based on the knowledge and training, or it dies. With a solid knowledge base, acheiving technological equality should happen within a centrury, I would hazzard. The main killers early on, would be disease and malnutrition. These could be combatted with a supply of medicine and vitamin / calorie suppliments.
I can go on (this is fun!), but i have to get back to reality.
Actually, this could be kinda neat. Maybe get together and try to write up something?
I agree with the advanced society jumpstart thing.
But, knowing the region a little bit (and I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “the ocean side”), I’d recommend checking carefully before chosing the Rockies. Much of this region is semi-arid - dry dry dry. Parts of Montana might be better, but they have a shorter growing season. Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico - almost desert in many places, and the western slope of the Rockies is even worse (rainshadow between two major ranges). There are fertile valleys and many wonderful places around here, but I wouldn’t want to live here even 500 years ago.
Lot of rock, tho.
Sure. As long as you check my profile for where to email. 
No one else read Julian May’s excellent The Many-Coloured Land?
Synopsis: future types unhappy with alien confederacy can take a time gate back to the Pliocene Mediterranean (6 million years ago), at the rate of several groups of 8 a day. Some people take all sorts of sensible stuff, some take silly crap or next to nothing. Given its a colony, departees tend to specialise in things like soap making, forging, weaving and the like to make themselves useful to their peers. They are given training, a big booze-up, and off they go.
(To May’s credit, there is discussion about how the land has dropped in the past few mil, so the time gate is on a platform, but as with most time travel stories she doesn’t talk about how the time gate lines up with the past earth, in circumstances where the earth, the solar system, and the galaxy have all moved a fairly enormous distance in between, and so the time travellers shold all end up in deep space sucking the void, but anyway.)
My thought was while you could always do with plenty of miners, you wouldn’t want too many zymurgists, or else everyone would end up dead or drunk.
In any event, if you have the technology to send people back in time, why bother to take needles and axes when you can bring solar-powered Iron Man armour?
Why? If we are discussing ethnic stereotypes, I’d personally want all Japanese (a race of people who have a demonstrated capacity of dedicated industrious cohesion) or Scandanavians (good child-rearers).
I just found this message board…and I must say I like what I see!
My thoughts on this is that many of you are pursuing a wrong path. It seems you are trying to preserve culture/genetics/something. I think this is irrelevant.
As someone mentioned…what is your goal? The goal, as someone mentioned, should be to construct an advanced technology capable of leaving the Earth and preserving humanity after the sun. This is HUGE as you cannot stay in the solar system but must go inter-stellar.
So, one must go back in time and create this ‘future society’. First you must create the kernal of this society/culture in the prehistoric past and second, you must make that society/culture survive. This means they must embrace the pursuit of the goal long after the original people sent back are dead. Thousands of years after they are dead.
The number of people are not as important. Homo Sapiens existed in the past so you don’t need that many people. 100 or so should do it. The people of the society will come from the past, not the present.
A way that comes to mind is religion. The 100 or so people could set themselves up as God’s messengers. God has deemed the world to die to xxxxxx years. To escape the destruction, man must prove himself worthy by developing technology to preserve himself. God, in his wisdom, he has sent 100 or so human messengers to convey his wisdom.
Or, heck, they could even tell the truth, but it might be safer to go with the religion.
The inital people sent back should carry as much technology/knowledge as possible and begin by introducing agriculture, ranching, medicine, metal working, mining etc. to attract people to the society and uplift it as much as sustainably possible.
They should spend effort in hammering in the ‘religion’ or the truth that will sustain this society to meet the goal. Technological progress is valued immensely.
It should be possible.
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Create a society as advanced as possible with as much technology that can be sustained.
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Instill the drive to meet the goal…through religion/creating a class of people dedicated to following that goal through time etc.
The result will not be American or even recognizable to people of the here and now. However, it has a chance of reaching the goal.
Thems my thoughts, FWIW.
Great board!!
You could go all female with a sperm bank supply, which is how I though the first intersteller colonization ship would be, perhaps with one guy to drive the ship that is 
But I guess you would need a power supply also.
Lexfire welcome!
Great points, in my opinion. I think that I started off on the wrong path as you point out, just trying to save a chunk of humanity (as if we were heading off to another planet), but now I agree that there’ll be plenty of humans available in the past. Starting a religion, might want to bring back some theologists or sociologists or something, I’m fairly sure I couldn’t set up a followable religion.
If we’re going to turn this into a best-selling novel to star Tom Hanks in the screenplay, a goal of some kind is essential. Time paradox shouldn’t play a big part in the book, IMHO, because that’s been done to death.
Tom Hanks? Nawww… lemmeesee…have to think on this one.
If you write a book and make millions, you owe me a steak dinner and a beer!
If you want to use this as a base of a novel, you need some conflict…
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Someone/group of the inital people have a different agenda, like humanity should go extinct or wants to create a utopia of their vision at odds with the goal. Maybe someone wants personal power.
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Instead of in the group, there are other group(s) from other time machines doing the same - OR - they go back in time and find out someone had already done it but started years before (and it’s not working or they were doing something like above)
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After a successful start, a native group rebels denouncing God’s messengers.
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Instead of a novel in one time period, one could do like ‘The Years of Rice and Salt’ and follow this society ‘forward’ in time.
Damn, I wish I could write my way out of a wet paper bag…