Its the 14th century and you’ve had no time to prepare, after you’re done reading this post you are snapped. What do you do?
probably die
The chances of that do seem to be high.
I would be among Native Americans in what is now the Seattle area. To them I would be a gibbering idiot who didn’t even know their language, and they would probably kill me.
Well, I’m in Australia so I would try and communicate with the indigenous population and teach them how to defend themselves against the upcoming colonist invasion and take advantage of what they have to offer, starting with forcing a signed treaty.
American here: governments have never cared about signed treaties with natives. But your heart’s in the right place.
Thanks. I think they do ok in New Zealand though with the Maori.
Probably die of gangrene after stubbing my toe or something else stupid. Prior to modern medicine, diseases and things we think of as mild were often deadly.
First off. Do I get to bring stuff with me? Like say the entire printed off contents of wikipedia.
also, I would like find one or two things that hadn’t quite been invented yet and ‘invent’ it.
also, Also, with a modicum of military power, I’d probably start a religion.
This assumes I have time to learn the local dialect
In what language? Modern English didn’t exist yet and neither did pretty much any modern language. Good luck trying to get the local nobles and priests to decipher the hundreds of codices you brought with you that are in some strange language that nobody has seen before
Wikipedia is for my benefit, so I can just read it.
Nobody else needs to even know I have it, necessarily.
Them not being able to read it might even be a boon.
The goal is to get a leg up on things, not start having nuclear reactors in the medieval era.
For example muskets had an iterative development as small incremental changes took place. Relatively small changes made modest improvements.
It would also be nice to know when eclipses are about to happen, for, ah, reasons.
I’d go live in a cabin in the forest, again.
Clearly I am OVERprepared for this with my VAST knowledge of Doctor Who. And nothing else.
I don’t have the knowledge to survive in the 12 century so either some Native Americans find me and are kind enough to teach me to survive
Or I just die.
Many years ago when I thought about this, I realised I wouldn’t be able to put much of my modern knowledge and skills to use. I decided I’d learn to make basic matches by distilling urine into phosphate, which wasn’t invented until the 19th century, but I’ve forgotten the process. Collect lots of urine and boil it? Also, if you make white phosphate it can cause horrific toothache and they have to remove your jaw… So, I’m hoping another commentor will suggest a safer skill I can brush up to be ready for travel.
i believe toothache would be the least of your problems, chronic exposure to white phosphorous will give you fossy jaw which… just straight up kills the jaw and makes it fall off, at least they don’t have to go out of their way to remove it! yay…
find the nearest sword and belly flop on its pointy side
I could probably discover electricity, depending on where I landed. Jewelers of the time could make wire, copper was common, and magnets (lodestones) had been discovered. Realistically though I’d be a dumb giant (ie, speak no known languages of the time and statistically I’d have like a foot on the “tall” people of the era). I’d probably try to find some party trick that looked like magic to people of the era then hope that people would welcome and try to integrate me rather than burning me as a witch. Then I’d probably die in a week or two anyway to some disease lol
The party trick thing reminded me of a book series called Magic 2.0 that I read a while back . This guy figures out that the universe is a simulation and basically hacks the code; now he can jump through time as he pleases. He goes back to the Middle Ages and brings plastic wrap with him and calls it clear paper, which convinces everyone that he’s a wizard. It was a fun read but got dumb around the 3rd-ish book.
Coating wires to make windings may prove tricky tho
Uhh anyone know where to get estrogen injections in the 14th century?
I bet there is a crunchy mom that can tell you what plant to eat, but there’s like a 70/30 chance its gonna kill you instead.
Better odds than having my body change back, sooooo …
England is in the midst of the Hundred Years war with France and considering I’m ~193cm and the average height of a man in England in the 14th century is about 171cm… looks like in getting my arse drafted and shipped off to France, to act as some kind of intimidating presence. That is until I have to swing a sword, which my body, that’s used to sitting in an office looking over excel spreadsheets, absolutely can’t do, so I get bum rushed/hit in the face with an arrow and die.
That’s the most likely scenario.
Worst case scenario, considering I don’t speak middle English or Latin, I’m treated as an enemy and locked up in a dungeon somewhere.
I don’t think there is realistically a best case scenario
I’d just like to interject that while traveling was rare in medieval times, it did happen. People usually didn’t get thrown in jail for it, even if they didn’t speak the local language.
Regular people didn’t really speak Latin beyond a few bits of prayer. The lingua franca was a mix of various coastal languages (think of the belter patois in the expanse), but even that was only known to traders.
You’d have a tough time for sure, but wouldn’t necessarily get in trouble.
afaik travel wasn’t even particularly rare, it was just rare that you’d travel very far. Certainly in england it was expected that you’d travel to london or whatever for legal reasons at least like once or twice in your life, and of course merchants existed.
but also a really significant travel no one tends to mention is going on a pilgrimage to jerusalem! to my knowledge most people managed to do it once, and that’s a massive journey to undertake without modern vehicles!
thankfully since religion was so important back then, pilgrims were afforded quite significant privileges like guaranteed free food and housing and iirc travel from anyone, to the point that pretending to be a pilgrim was quite a severe crime.
I’d use my knowledge of history, politics, psychology and science to become an influential advisor to powerful lords and help them conquer the world in exchange for living in luxury.
so all those genocides weren’t enough, you want a repeat with you at the helm?
Yes.
I claw my way out of a few feet of soil, and walk about thirty minutes to where the local Olhone maintained a ceremonial shellmound from 800 BCE until the arrival of the Spanish in the 1700s. By all accounts the Olhone were chill hunter-gatherers, so my best bet would probably be to befriend and join them.
They’d be more knowledgeable than me about everything in the local environment, so I don’t think I’d have much knowledge that would be of use to them. (They seem to have known of other nearby groups that practiced agriculture, but saw no need for it themselves.) I might eventually consider traveling north or south along the coast, but many other groups in western North America practiced warfare and/or slavery (unlike the Olhone), so I’d probably be best off staying put.
