Thread If you got sent back in time 500 years, how could you change things?

im not changing the conditions until you find something favorable.

Death toll:

@my little brony : dead of cholera
@Mustard Dispenser : scalped by indians

find something favorable about the situation?

ok well, let's assume it's spring and I show up in the early morning in some alley that way I don't have to worry about freezing to death in november

At this point survival is the game. To survive I need water, food, and shelter from the elements. Three days to find water, three weeks to find food but I'd rather not use that allotted time especially since the cholera will have an easier time fucking me up if I'm dehydrated and starving. But it can wait, the first thing I need to find it some rags. Some kind of clothing. Hopefully I appeared in an area of london that could be considered middle class for the time. Not in the slums where I might get raped and murdered (possibly even in that order) but also not in a wealthy area where I'll be immediately arrested for vagrancy.

So let's find some clothes hanging out to dry. Some kind of pants, a shirt, and enough extra rags to wrap around my feet. We don't want to be creating open wounds on our feet in a place like this because, again, cholera. Now I need water that isn't a horse and people shit smoothie so it's either steal it from someone with clean water - might be hard to find - or get it in another form. I'd start stealing from fruit vendors but I honestly don't know what fruits existed in 16th century england and how much water they contained. I'm thinking that no matter what I do I'm going to have to take it from someone else. Since we all agree go big or go home, I'll look around for a sharp object. Perhaps steal a knife from a butcher.

Then break into a nice but not well guarded home and take the people hostage. After some difficulty in trying to communicate I'd inform them that they will be safe as long as I get food, clean water, clothes, and some money. In addition to taking some valuables I'll look through their library for anything useful. A map of london, perhaps. Maybe see if they have some better weapons than whatever sharp stick I managed to use.

Now that I've solved the short term survival issue it's time to figure out long term survival. Plus how to use my knowledge of the future to alter the world because why not, right? So let's get two birds stoned at once. While I know enough of the basics of newtonian physics to get by I won't be able to do anything notable enough in a short amount of time. Notable enough to provide me with a living, at least. I think the only way to do so in a reasonable manner is to have the support of the academics. Find a scientist or physician, do my best to explain the things I know and find ways to prove them. Hopefully ingratiate myself with them enough that I can make a living and over time contribute to the knowledge of the world.

So basically, steal shit until I can figure out whether I should travel to Cambridge or Oxford.
 
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yeah I'd be pretty unable to anything as a woman, and my figure would make binding myself and trying to pose as a man pretty unlikely. can't use my knowledge of the future to save me because witchcraft. so I'll skip this trip thanks :lol:
 
unless you were just hankering to get into prostitution, then you're all set
if I was hankering for prostitution, I'd do it in modern times when I could use reliable prophylactics and STI screening was common and easily accessible for myself and the population I'd be servicing, and when I wouldn't be killed or put in a mental asylum if I were caught
 
I assumed this entire trip was involuntary. If you get to choose whether or not to go then there would be time to prepare which changes the equation significantly.
 
Not only cholera, but we'd all die from the fact that ain't no way our digestive systems would be able to handle a lot of the food from back then. We'd spend our first 2 weeks shitting.

And then cholera, from all the water we'd have to drink to avoid diuretic dehydration.
 
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that goes for all of you. english in the 1500s would have sounded very different than it does today, communication would have been difficult. without any clothes you'll be treated as a crazy person at worst and at best another one of the many beggars

no money, no knowledge of the area, no way to get access to resources without stealing them and most of us would not be able to pull that off for long before getting caught

you'd either die on the street or in a jail cell but most likely it'll be cholera because london was marinating in its own shit
Eh... Nudity wasn't quite as big a taboo. Language barrier would be bugger, but saying you were foreign would alleviate a lot of it.
Also, Rome would likely be better than London at that point in time. Another 100-150 years and London or Paris would work.

Give Newton calculus as a kid and watch what happens
 
Eh... Nudity wasn't quite as big a taboo. Language barrier would be bugger, but saying you were foreign would alleviate a lot of it.
Also, Rome would likely be better than London at that point in time. Another 100-150 years and London or Paris would work.

Give Newton calculus as a kid and watch what happens

nudity may not have been as big a taboo but a naked man in the streets speaking gibberish?

I don't remember enough calculus to explain it to someone that has never learned it
 
pretty much any point in history before at least 1960 would be terrible for a woman to time travel to
Prehistory was supposedly matriarchal :iono:
if I was hankering for prostitution, I'd do it in modern times when I could use reliable prophylactics and STI screening was common and easily accessible for myself and the population I'd be servicing, and when I wouldn't be killed or put in a mental asylum if I were caught
Could implement those and completely redefine sex
 
nudity may not have been as big a taboo but a naked man in the streets speaking gibberish?

I don't remember enough calculus to explain it to someone that has never learned it
From everything I have ever read about Newton, you could likely give him a textbook and let him follow the mathematical language and graphs.