The Time Portal

[DominusNovus]

The Scientific Gurus out there build a time portal to send people back in time to any point and place in history. Once you step through the portal, there is no going back. We'll assume the many worlds theory is the right one, to avoid all the messiness. You are chosen to be the leader of one of the groups. The groups have around a dozen or so people, of varying specialties, all have been taught the basics of the language of wherever you're going. Before going through, you are vaccinated against anything you stand a risk of catching once you've gone (assume that you're not carrying anything that the locals don't have either).
Along with the group, the following can be sent through the portal:
-survival equipment
-enough gold (ingots) to buy anything you'd need
-weapons (hand guns, hunting rifles, knives)
-laptop computer, with as much information as you could possibly need, and whatever power source would be best (solar panels, portable generator, crapload of batteries, whatever) to keep it running.
-any other small items you might find useful
(if you think that you've got a better list, feel free to replace mine, but keep it to something around that ammount)

Some things to consider: Finding a power source (anything combustable really) for that computer and the libraries of information within. Maybe getting some pack animals to carry some of this junk.

So, where and when do you guys go? I'm going for second century Roman Empire, see what I can do there.

[Archangel Michael]

I think I might go back into time to about the height of the Roman Empire (117 AD), and work from there.

[DominusNovus]

We should team up together Mikey. Two dozen heads are better than one dozen.

[DuQuense]

I'M going to ass-u-me a group of 20 [one score] plus me,
I'd start in Greece, and get the assistance of the Greek Gov't. I want 20 ex-Soldiers, career Senior NCO's from the Greek Specail Forces. who have just graduated from college, I want a four of History Majors,[ 2 history of war, 2 greece and surrounding area] a couple of Mathmatic majors & a couple Philosophy majors. Four engineers [2 Mech, 1 civil, 1 chem,] three master carpeters, [2 building, 1 Cabinetry] a Architeict, and four Doctors [2 generalists, 1 surgeon, & 1 public health].

I'd load my Mules up with Books and toy models, of ships [clipper, schooneer ect] Printing press, loams, spinning wheels, all excact to scale. along with some maps, and surveying equipment. Along with a fancy jeweled Globe as a Present. I'd equip my team with 2nd century BC Uniforms [except for the kelvar and Steel mesh inside the padding].

The Portal would place Us on a hill over looking the arabian sea and Alexander's Camp where Alex is Sick & Dieing. [just after he got sick, but not quite hopeless to cure]. Using Modern medicine I cure Him, Give him the Globe. Explain we are a exploring party, passing thru, and ask for his patronage in setting up a school. :)

[DominusNovus]

I'M going to ass-u-me a group of 20 [one score] plus me,
I'd start in Greece, and get the assistance of the Greek Gov't. I want 20 ex-Soldiers, career Senior NCO's from the Greek Specail Forces. who have just graduated from college, I want a four of History Majors,[ 2 history of war, 2 greece and surrounding area] a couple of Mathmatic majors & a couple Philosophy majors. Four engineers [2 Mech, 1 civil, 1 chem,] three master carpeters, [2 building, 1 Cabinetry] a Architeict, and four Doctors [2 generalists, 1 surgeon, & 1 public health].

I'd load my Mules up with Books and toy models, of ships [clipper, schooneer ect] Printing press, loams, spinning wheels, all excact to scale. along with some maps, and surveying equipment. Along with a fancy jeweled Globe as a Present. I'd equip my team with 2nd century BC Uniforms [except for the kelvar and Steel mesh inside the padding].

The Portal would place Us on a hill over looking the arabian sea and Alexander's Camp where Alex is Sick & Dieing. [just after he got sick, but not quite hopeless to cure]. Using Modern medicine I cure Him, Give him the Globe. Explain we are a exploring party, passing thru, and ask for his patronage in setting up a school. :)

And those Romans to the west would make really good allies? :crossing fingers:
:D

[zoomar]

May faves:

(1) August 12, 1500 the central plaza of Tenochtitlan. My group would work like the dickens to get the Aztecs ready for the arrival of the Spaniards in 20 years. We'd teach them a variety of technological skills, statecraft and geographic knowledge to consolidate their empire, adapt a useful phonetic script for Nahuatl, and use our status as gods or demi-gods to moderate the emphasis of human sacrifice in Mexican culture and warfare - perhaps even create a form of Christianity for suitable for the local culture. I'd also bring some cattle and horses to get them started on effective animal husbandry and cavalry. Boy, would Cortez be in for a big surprise when he steps off the boat! 10 years later we'll be invading Spain ourselves and the world won't be the same!

(2) AD33. Jerusalem. We'd convince Pilate to ignore the rabble and not execute some itinerate pracher/healer from Nazareth - and provide his movement Imperial support and protection. Just to see how God will try to arrange his own sacrifice next or if He'd just finally give up on us altogether (ducks and prepares for lightning bolt).

(3) AD 600-ish Central Arabia. Butt in on Mohammad's conversations with God and the Archangel Gabriel and convince him to convert to Chistianity rather than start his own religion.

[tom]

Late 19th Century (that will give us .22 ammunition for the guns). Should be able to get someone like the president to understand where we came from (Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Well's Time Machine are both in the near future, so the meme of time travel should be easy to communicate). Shouldn't be *too* uncomfortable while we are raising the tech level, and we will save time learning the language.

[DominusNovus]

(2) AD33. Jerusalem. We'd convince Pilate to ignore the rabble and not execute some itinerate pracher/healer from Nazareth - and provide his movement Imperial support and protection. Just to see how God will try to arrange his own sacrifice next or if He'd just finally give up on us altogether (ducks and prepares for lightning bolt).

I've always wondered what God would do if someone tried to save Jesus... Assuming, of course, that Jesus was the Son of God.

[zoomar]

"I've always wondered what God would do if someone tried to save Jesus... Assuming, of course, that Jesus was the Son of God. "


Me too. It's apparent paradoxes like this which make me a Christian. You have to work at it if you really take it seriously.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

This is one of the things I think about when I have nothing better to do. February 28, 1938 and arriving at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, USA. This way, I'm poised right at the point of nuclear energy, solid-state electronics, rocketry, and I'm well into the internal combustion engine era. I don't have to do any work creating a tech base or organizing a government, or any of that other hard stuff. I just have to give the information to the proper authorities, meet with folks like FDR and Jack Northrup and Winston Churchill and Einstein, and then relax in a palatial estate.

[NHBL]

I'd load up my computer with some stock market reports, and a huge mass of history texts and technological data.
The team will include a variety of engineers to translate the computer data into hard reality. It will also include a financial expert and an expert on the laws of the time. The stock market teports allows us to become fabulously wealthy--as do the patents filed as we begin raising the tech level.
By 1900, there is enough wealth to begin the real project--making the US military scarey enough that no one wants to risk offending the Americans.
In 1906, East Coast Ironworks presents the navy with a gift of two brand new battleships--23,000 tons or so, armed with 8 14" guns, all or nothing armor, and turbine propulsion. The presentation is timed to pre-date HMS dreadnought by a month or so. This gift gets us more of an in with the US government, so as to hopefully influence policy. The idea is to keep the US out of the big European mess by making both sides see the US as a BIG sleeping bear, and to bring the world's technology up without the enviromental disaster that we created. Perhaps the Nazi and Soviet disasters can be prevented. The increased influence will hopefully lead to more cointracts, as well as an opportunity to influence social legislation.
When the European war breaks out--and I doubt that it can be prevented--use the influence I've built with the US government to try and get a true neutral policy. Also, the company's newest secret project gets handed to the army--landships.
By 1920 or so, the USA should be in a position where it can deal with anything the rest of the world throws at it, while not making the same mistakes with its technology. There will be other mistakes, I'm sure, but hopefully there will be enough prosperity to get such things as universal medical care into place, and some sort of League of Nations.
Incidently, I'd see if I can do anything to encourage mass transit to prevail.

[DominusNovus]

There will be other mistakes, I'm sure, but hopefully there will be enough prosperity to get such things as universal medical care into place, and some sort of League of Nations.
Incidently, I'd see if I can do anything to encourage mass transit to prevail.
While I'm not a fan of universal healthcare, I could see that happening. I don't see mass transit prevailing though. Americans love the freedom of mobility that cars provide.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

While I'm not a fan of universal healthcare, I could see that happening. I don't see mass transit prevailing though. Americans love the freedom of mobility that cars provide.

You stole the words right out of my mouth. The Universal Healthcare policy could be enacted to placate the more socialist-leaning political groups in place of an old-age 'social security' program.

[Faeelin]

1797. Team up with Hoche in Ireland, and build a European Republic on the ashes of the enemies of the Republic! Guns of the Franks, anyone?

Maybe pre-roman Britain, to help them modernize.

Or how about America in 1783?

[NHBL]

Americans are going to be adicted to their cars, but perhaps, by working to build the technology at that time, high speed rail could take some of the burden of gas burners off of the enviroment. If the train from Boston to New York takes only 2 hours station to station, and drops you off right downtown, who would want to drive or fly?
I certainly can't see mass transit replaceing cars, but supplementing them in the more crowded parts of the country.
Perhaps East Coast Ironworks or a subsidiary develops a reasonably economical battery for local cars, or uses its influence to encourage the governmnet to set fuel efficiency standards for cars early on. I do not wnat to repeat our ecological mess!

[DominusNovus]

Americans are going to be adicted to their cars, but perhaps, by working to build the technology at that time, high speed rail could take some of the burden of gas burners off of the enviroment. If the train from Boston to New York takes only 2 hours station to station, and drops you off right downtown, who would want to drive or fly?
I certainly can't see mass transit replaceing cars, but supplementing them in the more crowded parts of the country.
Perhaps East Coast Ironworks or a subsidiary develops a reasonably economical battery for local cars, or uses its influence to encourage the governmnet to set fuel efficiency standards for cars early on. I do not wnat to repeat our ecological mess!
Oh, come on, the ecological mess ain't that bad. But I'm not gonna get into an arguement about it here.

[NHBL]

OK--the amount of ecological damage that our technolgy has done to Earth is debatable, and I'm not going to argue about it either. (But I'm still going to try and avoid breathing the air in Los Angeles--or even Boston.
Regardless of the amount of damage, some changes in the 20's and 30's could make it even less.

[DominusNovus]

But I'm still going to try and avoid breathing the air in Los Angeles--or even Boston.
Don't even get me started on Boston right now. Its actually warmer in Anarctica (which, admitedly, is in summer right now), Greenland, Iceland, and Moscow right now. All 4 have highs above freezing. We're somewhere around 1 Ferenheit.

[Grey Wolf]

"master carpeters"

lol, all them nice rugs you need to make !

Grey Wolf

[Straha]

I recall reading today in my local paper that mars during the day was warmer than central-western new york... I'm hoping this isn't the frist year in a start of a new ice age.... :eek: :(

[tom]

Popular thread bump.

[edvader]

Well,I'd go back to 1937 hopefully landing near a certain Naval Air Station on may the 6th waiting to see the Hindenburg and try to warn the people there at the station to wase the ship off. Don't know if that would do. BUT i would like to go first to NEW York in 1939 to see the World's Fair. After that who knows?

[Chris Oakley]

Pearl Harbor,late 1940,and convince Admiral Kimmel to let me help set up some surface-to-air missile batteries along Battleship Row.

[Straha]

I'd try to go sideways with the time portal

[Chris Oakley]

Sideways?Do tell.

[Leo Caesius]

Well,I'd go back to 1937 hopefully landing near a certain Naval Air Station on may the 6th waiting to see the Hindenburg and try to warn the people there at the station to wase the ship off. Don't know if that would do. BUT i would like to go first to NEW York in 1939 to see the World's Fair. After that who knows?
http://www.vintagearte.com/images/productImagesMore/0000-0944l.jpg
The German reads: Two Days to North America! (Creepy, huh? And no, this is not a wartime poster).

I have another poster here of the joint American Airlines - Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei venture, which features the Hindenburg floating lazily above a deep blue sea, swastikas on its rudders, on its way to Lakehurst, NJ (my grandmother and her family were at the airstrip on that day, which was right across from their home at the time). To this day, the weather in Southern New Jersey is still given from Lakehurst, a relic (I believe) of its days as Blimp Capital of the Eastern Seaboard.

[edvader]

Leo! THAT is what I CALL a GREAT photo. Downlodable? BTW have you or anyone else read Friz Leiber's CATCH THAT ZEPPELIN? Thank you very much.

[Grimm Reaper]

I'm on the way to Roman Britain just as the last legions were preparing to elect Magnus Maximus(or some such) as emperor and leave with him for a date in Rome. Within fifty years my annointed heir and/or son, Artorius Reaperus Rexus should be reconstituting the Western Empire.

[Leo Caesius]

Leo! THAT is what I CALL a GREAT photo. Downlodable? BTW have you or anyone else read Friz Leiber's CATCH THAT ZEPPELIN? Thank you very much.
You can find more at www.vintagearte.com (http://www.vintagearte.com); they have a really great selection of such posters. This particular photo was under their Transportation: Dirigible/Balloons (http://www.vintagearte.com/store/store_Main.cfm?action=categories&categoryID=302&level1=2&level2=1&level3=302&level4=0&menutab=1) Section.

I haven't read the book, but I'm a fan of Fritz Leiber, so perhaps I will check it out.

[TheLoneAmigo]

Why are you all going back so far? I'm a big fan of going back only a little way so I can keep modern medical science and standard of living.
I'm gonna head back to 1999 and make a killing on the stock market, then donate a load of money to the Democratic party. Then, it's off to Afghanistan to donate some serious "aid" to the Northern Alliance in exchange for some "favors" related to an oil pipeline. Our wealth mine of oil will then let us head to the Middle East, where Iranian democrats will be receiving some more "aid". On the way, we'll also be getting President Gore to take threats from Al Quaeda seriously. With any luck, Osama bin Laden will be quietly captured by the new Afghani government.

Or at least that's the plan.

[marl_d]

why '99 and not earlier in the decade? like '91 or '92 clinton is going to get himself elected unless someone helps GHW Bush, have clinton go after Osama after they hit the WTC in '93, then you could build a fortune from the stock from the begining

[Fiji]

Pearl Harbor,late 1940,and convince Admiral Kimmel to let me help set up some surface-to-air missile batteries along Battleship Row.
SAMs against propellor driven planes?
not a good idea