Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
by derefr on Sunday January 04, 2009 @05:12PM
(#419608)
As to the "man-at-arms thing": if you could bring with you to the past a suitcase or so of initial supplies, what would be the best investment in the long term to become a unopposable warlord (or just an arms dealer with a technological monopoly?) Just "a bunch of guns" wouldn't help once you had given them away, and even specifications wouldn't help because no one could engineer to the required tolerances at the time. I'd think the best investment would be body armor, walkee-talkie radios, and surveillance equipment, personally.
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Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
by Darmani on Sunday January 04, 2009 @09:02PM
(#419853)
The big question is how to stop worrying about the need to personally fetch water and make clothes, and how to start worrying about implementing your overall plans. That is, how to get enough production going where you wouldn't be screwed when the solar cells powering your electronics (you didn't seriously consider bringing batteries, did you?) wear out.
My basic plan would be: Convince a small village I'm God and chose them to build my kingdom, improve their farming and sanitation enough to produce some labor surpluses, and then work my way up the tech tree.
The basic sketch of that would involve fireworks, a single assault rifle, and a low-power device storing lots of specifications.
Re:Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?
by DanielBMarkham on Monday January 05, 2009 @05:47AM
(#420259)
If I wanted to fight (or assist) in a limited war, I'd go for a solar-powered backpack, night-vision goggles and radios (x5), water purification, gold (for money), antibiotics, and a taser.
The trick, as a sibling commenter pointed out, is that you could easily spend 99% of your time getting water, finding food, learning to communicate, etc. You have to find a way to move beyond that point -- and that's a non-trivial barrier.
It'd be much better as a team of seven or so.