View Full Version : Where to?
MooseIBe
10-23-2005, 11:09 AM
Okay, I've invented a time machine, yay for me, and you can go to one of the following periods of English history. Here's the catch .. you have to stay there forever. You can take one person and a small assortment of things appropriate to the period to help you survive .. ie for the later periods you can take gold or silver, for the earlier ones you can take an axe, a knife and some fishing equipment.
Please note that all dates for the different periods are from the BBC history site so if you have an issue with them, take it there ;)
I'm going for middle stone age. I'd prolly last all of three days, but it would be FUN.
Leesifer
10-23-2005, 11:21 AM
Okay, I've invented a time machine, yay for me, and you can go to one of the following periods of English history. Here's the catch .. you have to stay there forever. You can take one person and a small assortment of things appropriate to the period to help you survive .. ie for the later periods you can take gold or silver, for the earlier ones you can take an axe, a knife and some fishing equipment.
Please note that all dates for the different periods are from the BBC history site so if you have an issue with them, take it there ;)
I'm going for middle stone age. I'd prolly last all of three days, but it would be FUN.
I've voted for the Tudors. Haven't decided who I'd take yet or which things to take either - probably some soap. :D
MooseIBe
10-23-2005, 11:27 AM
LOL
Tudors would be interesting I suppose and certainly you'd survive far longer than i would. Actually this town was quite an important port in the Tudor period so I would imagine it was fairly prosperous. I could take some gold and set up a farm and live out the remainder of my life fairly comfortably.
Naw, I'm sticking with middle stone age though ;)
It looks like votes are private on this thread, so ... it was me voting for Bronze Age. I'd like to land up somewhere unpopulated to set myself up. There would be wood just about everywhere, and as long as I can make fire I could protect myself from animals. I'd set up a stockade or defend a cave before local tribes discovered me.
They wouldn't speak "English" of course.
It was that or 2 million years BC and see megatheriums and stuff.
It was that or 2 million years BC and see megatheriums and stuff.Not that megatheriums lived in Europe.
MooseIBe
10-23-2005, 01:54 PM
what IS a mega what not?
Part of the fun for me would be going back to encounter the native peoples at that time... I don't understand wanting to isolate myself from them! :)
It's all very well encountering the native peoples ... but I'd rather be safe before they have a chance to spear me at first sight ...
A megatherium is a giant sloth.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/Ia_sloth_reconstruction.gif
We're more likely to find the cave bear, cave lion, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and giant unicorn (elastotherium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasmotherium)).
MooseIBe
10-23-2005, 02:32 PM
Would they really be likely to spear you though? I mean you obviously wouldn't be food. I would have thought it would be more likely that they'd be afraid of you..
I was assuming there'd be a risk of attack because they'd be afraid. I imagine different tribes would occasionally fight over boundaries and resources, and a lone individual (or pair) might be seen as desperate and intent on stealing food or livestock. They wouldn't automatically attack, but I wouldn't assume being safe!
By the way, are we allowed to take an internet link back in your time machine?
MooseIBe
10-23-2005, 02:46 PM
No *looks firm on this*. You can take an axe, a fishing net, a sharp knife and a sheepskin jerkin.
That's going to be tough...
fragment
10-23-2005, 03:49 PM
Hard to pick, but I went for late stone age. Preferably during one of the warmer interglacial periods. Like JoeP, I'd like to see old megafauna, and being able to roam across barely inhabitated wilderness has a strong appeal. I'd pick earlier, but then I'd be hanging out with Neanderthals. Call me sub-speciesist if you like, but that doesn't appeal to me.
Can I have a crash course in tool fabrication, fire-making and foraging/hunting first though?
I have no sense of adventure... but you probably already knew that :wink:
godfry n. glad
10-23-2005, 06:48 PM
Iron age, definitely.
I'd read up on how to make explosives out of rudimentary and easily available materials, attempt to set myself up as some kind of rogue druid, and see if I could help in driving off the stinkin' Romans.
Ymir's blood
10-23-2005, 07:04 PM
It's not that I have no sense of adventure, but rather that I wouldn't care to live in a time where there was no modern medicine.
Which makes "I'm staying put" the most popular option!
I'm hanging out with Ymir's Blood & JoeP :yup:
godfry n. glad
10-23-2005, 10:32 PM
I wouldn't mind doing the Anglo-Norman period, either. So long as I could be in a position to watch Henry II of England do his stuff.... But that would mean I'd spend little time in Britain itself. He spent most of his time on the continent.
French was the court language in the mid-tenth century, wasn't it? Archaic French? Is there a middle-French? "National" vernacular came into it's own at the end of this period, didn't it? Chaucer and all that rot? Or is that later?
Just babbling.
I'd say that I'd like a learning period of a year or so before leaving on this no-return journey. Is that allowable?
pescifish
10-24-2005, 03:01 AM
None of those eras have indoor flushable plumbing and modern day menstrual products. Give me a hysterectomy, another Lasik surgery (uh and take away the retinal damage and disease while you are at it) and better survival skills. Then I'll let you plop me into any of those ages, in a pleasant valley with good water and soil and where there aren't any other people around. I'll tame wolves and bunnies for company.
What about the future, Moose? That would be the real adventure, wouldn't it?
Did anyone read Timeline by Michael Crichton?
MooseIBe
10-24-2005, 11:49 AM
Surely there were Neanderthals in the late stone age too? I'd have to check but I think they were kicking around till about ten thousand years ago.
fragment
10-24-2005, 12:28 PM
Surely there were Neanderthals in the late stone age too? I'd have to check but I think they were kicking around till about ten thousand years ago.Probably, but there would have been anatomically modern (cro-magnon) humans around too. IIRC the cave paintings in southern France date from this period and are usually considered to have been done by cro-magnons. Earlier, it would have been only Neanderthals.
Of course, Neanderthals get a bad rap from us, they're usually depicted as thick and brutish, when they probably weren't. They survived and prospered for a long time during ice age conditions. I just think they'd be harder to make friends with than cro-magnons. The visual difference could be problematic for one thing, and it's believed that they had higher pitched voices than us. While they weren't thick, they may not have been our intellectual equals either. I suspect any of us going to hang out with a Neanderthal group would be considered some kind of weird mutant, and we'd probably take quite some time to get used to them as well, supposing we could.
MooseIBe
10-24-2005, 12:53 PM
It can't have been JUST neanderthals before cro-magnon man because cro magnons didn't arise from neanderthals ;). I think it would have been cool to meet them anyway. Of course they might try to kill and eat me but .. what a way to go!
Leesifer
10-25-2005, 12:01 AM
Well, so far, most people just have no sense of adventure. :bored:
Crumb
10-25-2005, 12:10 AM
I have a sense of adventure. I would be completely willing to visit any of these periods for extended lengths of time, but there ain't no way in hell I am going to stay there. :nope: But there were no options for that so I took the last one.
Leesifer
10-25-2005, 12:13 AM
Fair enough. I chose the Tudor times but, thinking about it, would probably end up being beheaded for treason if I had to stay there.
livius drusus
10-25-2005, 12:51 AM
Do I even have to tell y'all what I picked? Warm baths, good food and a nice, long wall to keep out the dudes with wode on their asses and a collective anger management problem: the Roman age it is. I'll take along a plump bag of denarii, a handy dagger and a ring making my citizenship clear to all would-be slavers.
Sauron
10-25-2005, 02:02 AM
No *looks firm on this*. You can take an axe, a fishing net, a sharp knife and a sheepskin jerkin.
I assume anyone wearing glasses or contacts would have to leave them behind.
Oops. :blindfold
Sauron
10-25-2005, 02:05 AM
Do I even have to tell y'all what I picked?
Q'in dynasty in China?
Romanovs in Russia?
Reign of Amenhotep?
Golden Age of Baghdad?
Industrial Revolution?
Try as I might, I've never been able to figure out which period of history you admire, liv. Help me out here. :tongueincheek: :giggle:
livius drusus
10-25-2005, 02:08 AM
:caesar2:
godfry n. glad
10-25-2005, 04:11 AM
No *looks firm on this*. You can take an axe, a fishing net, a sharp knife and a sheepskin jerkin.
I assume anyone wearing glasses or contacts would have to leave them behind.
Oops. :blindfold
Yep.. That'd be me...old, partially-blind, greybeard wizard. I'd need a nymphet to guide me around and keep me warm at night.
MooseIBe
10-25-2005, 11:44 AM
Do I even have to tell y'all what I picked? Warm baths, good food and a nice, long wall to keep out the dudes with wode on their asses and a collective anger management problem: the Roman age it is. I'll take along a plump bag of denarii, a handy dagger and a ring making my citizenship clear to all would-be slavers.
I've always found the Romans to be a bit, well BORING, I'm afraid :(. Maybe because they are so much in evidence around here .. you can't move without tripping over Roman forts or museums or walls (did I mention that last year when Antti was here we decided to go for a stroll through some woods and came upon what was, according to the sign, the well-preserved ruins of a Roman bath house? You could see the gaps for windows and the holes at the bottom where I presume the water ran out and everything. There was an unexcavated fort just across the way from it and I was itching to go back with a teaspoon and a pack of sandwiches but the stern notice said that unauthorised excavation was illegal - spoil sports).
godfry n. glad
10-25-2005, 05:34 PM
Do I even have to tell y'all what I picked? Warm baths, good food and a nice, long wall to keep out the dudes with wode on their asses and a collective anger management problem: the Roman age it is. I'll take along a plump bag of denarii, a handy dagger and a ring making my citizenship clear to all would-be slavers.
I've always found the Romans to be a bit, well BORING, I'm afraid :(.
Ha! I'm not the only one! These people go to great lengths to bring fresh water to their settlements because they've fouled their nest whereever they settle. Profligate, pretentious and perverted.
Dingfod
10-25-2005, 05:46 PM
I've always found the Romans to be a bit, well BORING, I'm afraid :(. Ha! I'm not the only one!One word: orgies. Not boring.
MooseIBe
10-25-2005, 05:50 PM
Yeah but other people had orgies ;). The Romans were just pretentious about it!
Down with the Romans!
Oh wait ..
godfry n. glad
10-25-2005, 06:04 PM
What have the Romans ever done for us?
~Life of Brian
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