If you were sent back to the roman era and could only bring a backpack of goods. What would you bring?
Either 1, a bunch of textbooks and encyclopedias. Or 2, a tablet/computer with said texts downloaded, a battery pack for said tablet/computer, and a few fold out solar panels or maybe one of those hand crank things. If I still have space I’d bring a soldering iron, a bunch of tips for it, flux and a bunch of different solders. Maybe a few spare parts for the laptop.
Tablet with tons of downloaded info + solar panels is my answer too. If you were wise about how you used the info you could be a demigod. Just knowing the process of how to refine aluminum could make you the wealthiest person on the planet.
Sent back in time, but at the same place as I am now?
How large is the time travel device, does it fit into a backpack?
Now I want to rewatch Primer.
Every time I rewatch Primer, I go in thinking, “This is going to be the time I fully understand this movie!” Then, half way through, I’m thinking “What was so complicated about this? This isn’t bad at all.” Then I get to the last 20 minutes and I remember.
Then I go watch a ‘Primer Explained’ video that’s almost as long as the movie itself, am satisfied for a while, and then some time in the future the cycle repeats itself.
Are you sure you didn’t enter the machine yourself?
A ton of medicine and tampons, a Latin dictionary, my thermos bottle, some valuables to sell, etc.
Portable power supply
Portable dvd player
Portable display
Bluetooth speakers
A copy of Morbius on dvd
it’s morbin’ time!
A gun and plenty of ammo. Don’t need anything else to be Caesar.
You might like a new game i just saw the trailer for called Kingmaker.
Speaking of Caesar, I think you vastly overestimate how useful a gun is against a bunch of determined guys with knives.
Et tu, Brute?
I didn’t say which gun. I think the right submachine gun would do fine.
Submachine guns eat ammo very quickly. You’ll maybe survive one fight or two, depending on your proficiency - and then you’re that barbarian with the death stick whose death stick isn’t working anymore, but has made a people who are famous for holding deep grudges for years and coming up with very creative punishments for their defeated foes extremely angry.
Also, it’s not like Romans don’t have ranged weapons. They were experts at using the sling, which can kill you at the same distance as a firearm. They had bows and crossbows, throwing spears, etc. You are not prepared for any of this.
You’re not really thinking this through. You started from the premise that this will fail and are only presenting thoughts that support that premise.
The gun gets you whatever you want, including armor and whatever else. Kill one person, hopefully Caesar, and do it in front of as many people as possible. Then your demands start and must be met ASAP.
There are plenty of possible paths to success just as there are to failure and neither is guaranteed.
Not that easy. Sure you could kill ceaser, but you can’t kill everyone who might take offense. you can be killed in you sleep. you can be killed by a mob as eventually someone gets through.
Dude isn’t planning on sleeping for the 15 years of life expectancy left.
A man’s gotta sleep
Spices, all knowledge I can carry as microfiche tapes, magnifying glass, a domesticated strain of penicillin, and seeds of modern crops.
I will be able to talk to at least some of their merchants for, ahem, reasons. From then on I have at least some chance of survival.
Analine purple will improve the colors of European flags (rather than sea-snail purple which is more expensive than gold.)
Remember that old reddit post where someone asked “what if a battalion of marines were suddenly zapped back to the roman era with all their gear and stuff, what would happen?” and somebody answered with a full on novel they titled “Rome, Sweet Rome” and some time later some Hollywood dude bought the rights to it?
It was a short story, and the film adaptation has been in development hell for over a decade.
Well that’s disappointing
I remember at the time someone warned the writer that this would be the most likely outcome. Most of the things Hollywood buys the rights to don’t get made into movies.
Oddly enough, the ending of the latest Indiana Jones movie has something along these lines happen, if you can sit through the boring middle part of the movie. Not a great movie, but the ending was bonkers (in a good way). “You forgot about continental drift!” LOL
An English-Latin phrasebook, a survival manual explaining how to recognize plants, grow food, handle livestock, set traps, and make simple shelter, e-reader loaded with modern books and a usb solar panel, a multitool, sewing kit, a small dagger, cerium/magnesium flint, first-aid kit, antibiotics, water treatment (Sodium Dichloro-S-Triazinetrione), preservative and neutralizer (sodium metabisulfite), salt, potassium chloride, peanut butter.
But I’d probably be quickly ambushed and killed nonetheless, or hauled off to the slave markets.
Can I order these goods from our time travling agent? Maybe a pocket electron microscope, a bunch of capsule corp products, sanitation pills, maybe the bugout bag of some rich future CEO near the end of capitalism
Antibiotics. All of the antibiotics. Textbooks, dictionary, precious metals, etc.
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Do I have to go? They didn’t even have A/C back then :/
Do you know how air conditioning works? Bring a picture book describing the ideal gas law, and you can jump start the invention of air conditioners
For rich people there were passive air cooling systems available. And if you were truly wealthy you could have blocks of ice shipped to you
https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/how-ancient-romans-kept-their-cool/
For rich people there were passive air cooling systems available
Bro for rich people there were active air cooling systems.
Unless you’re talking about something like a guy fanning you with a big frond, then i don’t think that’s true. If you have a specific example please cite it.
I’m talking about a guy fanning you with a big frond.
“Turn on the air conditioner” just took a different meaning
History books
