If you were sent back to the roman era and could only bring a backpack of goods. What would you bring?
A book with pictures detailing all the processes required to make paper, and the schematics for a printing press. I know better than to presume my knowledge of electricity will be of any use, I know better than to think that I understand math better than ancient mathematicians, and I know better than to try to convince them that tiny little creatures are what cause illness. What I can do is jump-start humanity’s ascent to modern technology by improving literacy a few centuries early
Dont forget ink recipe. A new type of ink had to be invented for the printing press. Soot, turpentine, and walnut oil should do it.
And you give away the press for free, but the ink will cost a fortune!
And you shall be known as Lexmarkius.
Epsonius son of Heuletio Paquardius.
Seize the means of printing, Epsonius! educate the masses!
frantically writing and drawing
I want two books: How to Invent Everything and How to Rebuild Everything in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm. I’m good from there.
The reason I bring picture books is because I know that I’m gonna die within a week, and anyone more than a few hundred years old would never be able to read English after I’m gone. But if Ptolemy gets his hands on a printing press? Buddy we’re exploring the galaxy by Y2K
Current geological mineral distribution map. A dozen ball screws, some linear rods, bearings, grease. A dozen staters of various sizes, and a few hundred thousand diodes, maybe millions. Then as much enameled copper wire and magnet steel as I could carry. Then a e-paper tablet with a long list of patent documents, along with text books from Primary school clear to graduate level physics, chemistry, and math.
Then I would lug a vintage mini lathe over my shoulder for the few steps I have to take because you didn’t specify how far I have to walk.
I should be able to make the industrial revolution from there.
…welcome to 1500 years in the future…now!
I would also make room for some seed packets - potato, tomato, chili, etc.
I want some good food while I prestart the industrial revolution.
I’m either gonna bring a bunch of ‘For Dummies’ books to speed up development and get executed or make a fortune selling meth and get executed
Lol … Roman Empire collapses 300 years before it’s time because of a meth crisis.
Why not sell psychedelics and change history?
Turning Ceaser and his forces into tweakers won’t change history?
they probably would have conquered the New World too.
They would have conquered the New World … in their minds!!!
Then by the late Middle Ages we would have had the Holy Roman Pharmaceutical Corporation.
Psychedelics were pretty common back then. However, they were mostly used in religious ceremonies.
The hilarious thing about the meth idea is that they’d run out and be centuries behind on having any clue as to how to get more.
Unless those “For Dummies” books have expanded their catalogue since I’ve last looked.
And a copy of the army improvised weapons manuals.
Jump start military tech by 1000 years or so right quick
Six weights of charcoal, one of brimstone, and one of saltpetre. Done, you already advanced military tech by 800 years.
If I’m going to be transported to the European peninsula too, besides time travelling, I’d want at least:
- my laptop. Download everything from multiple Wikipedias, including the Italian one for good measure. (Why Italian? Largest Wikipedia in a Romance language that I’m proficient with.)
- some charger for the above. I don’t even mind if manual.
- Latin vocabulary printed book. I can speak some but I’m not proficient in the language.
- Some silver and gold. Money back in Roman times was still based on the value of the coins. And money never hurts.
- Clothes carefully prepared to not look Roman, but typical enough from the times. The idea is to pass as a cultured barbarian from a tribe that is too far away from Rome to bother.
You’re going to need medicine. Penicillin for sure.
Penicillin might be a good idea, but once you set up some simple electricity production, you can generate bleach (electrolyse brine, then input the chlorine back into solution; discard the hydrogen). Being able to bleach your water is huge.
Unless you accidentally get wood splinter and die of gangrene.
Power has yet to be invented. Once your laptop dies it becomes uselesss. Batteries deteriorate over time and without the latest security patches you’ll definitely get infected sooner rather than later.
Power has yet to be invented. Once your laptop dies it becomes uselesss.
That’s why I mentioned a charger in the following line.
Batteries deteriorate over time
Sure, that is a concern. For a few years later; the idea is to at least have at hand some knowledge to translate into Latin and put into useful applications.
Also, remember that electricity can be produced with a bar of copper, a bar of iron, and some acid. Such as vinegar or even citrus.
and without the latest security patches you’ll definitely get infected sooner rather than later.
Yeah, because Mark Anthony will totally send me files like cleopatrahotpix.jpg.exe [/sarcasm]
Take a solar charger, problem solved
No need to worry, those security patches would be millennia ahead of any contemporaneous trojans.
without the latest security patches you’ll definitely get infected sooner rather than later
By what?
Trojan Horse virus
Yeah you gotta watch out for those ancient roman black hats. Or togas.
Tunicae? “Per Hercle, tunicae nigrae sunt diri - computatrum meum inuaserunt! Merda!” doesn’t sound too bad.
I find it uncanny just how close this reply is to an idle thought I’ve had for many years.
Gray’s Sports Almanac 1950-2000.
Just wait 1950 years and you’ll be rich
Buy bitcoin in 100AD…
There’s a legend that the Roman Emperor Tiberius executed the inventor of flexible glass.
After the inventor swore that he was the only man alive who knew the manufacturing technique, Tiberius had the man beheaded. He feared that the glass would devalue gold and silver, since the material might be more valuable.
So y’all better watch out with any plastic…
That guy was definitely a time traveler.
If we lived in a world where plastic didnt exist, and some body brought it in. The closest approximation of articulating clear plastic would be flexible glass.
Old Roman artifacts so I can confuse them with how rusted and dirty they are, great conversation starter.
Truly chaotic neutral
A (tape) camera to document how I obliterate the roman empire by spreading pathogens that have yet to evolve but I have developed immunity for.
And something like a time capsule to burry the camera in.
Keep in mind that there were of plenty of pathogens back then that you aren’t immune to now. A good example is smallpox
Well I didn’t expect to survive anyways
Managing expectations 👌🏼
Dont want to be that guy, but the platic softeners inside the tape will most likely evalporate, causing the tape to break up und cruble to dust as soon as you try to play it. The magnetic orientation of the bits will also degarde. Manufacturers give an expected shelf life of 30 years for any magnetic storage medium.
Yeah I was aware of the bits that’s why I said tape. I know there’s some kind of tape they use for long term data storage so that’s why I said tape. There has to be some way to store it that long…
Were working on a medium that uses diamonds.
I don’t think you would survive either. People wasn’t stupid back then and you’d probably quickly get fridged for being a walking curse.
Do I look like i mind get fridged?
Sorry, what’s a “tape camera”? A film camera?
Say hello to my little friend!*
^(*COVID-19)
Modern cannabis seeds, because if I’m going to be in Ancient Times I still don’t want to smoke schwag.
Holy shit man!
— Julius Caesar
Not a bad idea, but also, you could definitely still make hash out of schwag.
Bringing the seeds would be easier though.
And since you mentioned seeds, let’s go ahead and also bring seeds of modern potatoes, tomatoes, definitely chilis like proper habaneros. Salads, perhaps. Definitely modern brewing yeasts! Bananas, maybe? Tobacco, definitely.
There’s even yeast strains which produce opiates instead of alcohol (purposefully made with gmo ofc), but I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on those.
Also, medication. Lots of modern medication.
But a backpack full is a lot. So, seeds, electronics (full Wikipedia and other such information), solar charger, tons of meds. A few good blades, a gun, and several reliable methods of making fire. Several good modern bowstrings. Gunpowder, if there’s room. (Making bullets isn’t too hard and modern smokeless powder would be preferable to basic black powder.)
Can you imagine what kind of work Carl Sagan could have done if he had access to modern one hit shit?
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
A towel. Maybe some peanuts.
A hoopy frood right here.
20 identical ereaders packed with every book I can fit, solar panels, and batteries.
And the rest of the volume with gold.
I would do the same, except instead of gold I would pack as much Fentanyl as possible. (Not like the cops will find you after you time hop anyway).
I could then, heavily dilute the Fentanyl and sell it and earn way more gold. You could also poison your enemies with pure Fentanyl and no one would understand what sort of poison it is.
With all that money you could probably buy a small castle, a loyal guard, hire the smartest people around and have them start creating weapons, medicines and mechanization from the 21st century before you even die.
The other reason Fentanyl is superior than gold is that if people see gold they will just steal it. If they see bricks of Fentanyl, they probably won’t steal it. They might try and see what it is… and likely kill themselves in the process… which would likely dissuade any other thieves associated with them.
That’s incredibly big brain, although highly immoral. But thems are slavers you’re going to swindle so it’s all good I guess.
Not too different from the British strategy in the Opium Wars. They got Hong Kong and lots of tea this way.
Portable power supply
Portable dvd player
Portable display
Bluetooth speakers
A copy of Morbius on dvd
it’s morbin’ time!
The recipe for making soap A general practitioner’s medical book A dummies guide to Latin A compass Water bottle with filter A taser Instructions on how to make a battery Instructions on how to make gun powder The rise and fall of the Roman Empire books
I would take a smartphone with all of wikipedia stored locally on it, and a USB solar panel or two.
IIRC there are these really durable laptops with solar pannels built into the lid that are made specifically to bring internet to people in third world countries. They’re naturally rather underpowered but you could still put a high capacity SSD in one and it’d be less likely to break than a smartphone.
A laptop with the essential human knowledge, big enough abtteries to power it, and a portable solar generator to charge its batteries.
Oh, and probably a bunch of gold to hire mercenaries and engineers.
those are all quite intelligent things to want to have with you in such a scenario, but I think you are overestimating how much can fit into a backpack.
Excuse you, but I’ll be carrying this backpack.
https://odditymall.com/includes/content/giant-jansport-backpack-thumb.jpg
Honestly aside from. The gold in confident you could fit it all in a normal sized pack. Bigger pack just means more gold
okay well I am intimately familiar with solar panels and generators and batteries and the only backpack all that’s going to fit in is that comically unrealistically huge red one that “shard” posted below. But being able to lift & carry all that (generator and batteries are no joke heavy) good luck
You can buy small foldable solar panels, and it’s a laptop so it’s not like the battery is big or heavy. I’m not sure why you’d need anything massive for a device that sips power, just take a normal laptop instead of a high end gaming one and it’ll draw like 30W.
I’m not talking about the laptop battery. You need a lithium ion battery system and a power inverter for your solar panels. That’s heavy stuff.
So how do small foldable solar panels that charge phones and the like work? Because I presume if they can charge a phone they can charge a laptop, given they aren’t really different.
I’ve never tried those, but I can’t imagine they’d be very effective. Do you know anyone who’s ever tried those?
I totally agree! Although I think modern medication would be more useful than gold - pure quantities of modern meds weigh next to nothing. If you save enough lives of the rulers and their families they’ll give you all the wealth and resources you need. They’ll consider stealing the medication from you but they won’t know which medications should be used for which illnesses, until they torture you I guess. I can’t really think of a way of making sure they “be nice” rather than forcing you to give them everything you have. They weren’t afraid of doing the unspeakable in pursuit of power back then.
The reason I chose gold is because you can make more of it in that era (e.g. thru banking, trading, pilaging) while modern medicine (assuming you mean with all the synthetic chemicals) would be easily exhaustible, not to mention they can expire.
On the other hand, since you’d be carrying modern knowledge, you’d be able to setup some make-shift facilities, applying modern concept to what you can get. And you can achieve quite a lot that way. An example would be sterilization. You can also go a long way combining natural material.
Takes all human knowledge back in time
Starts pillaging villages
Imagine having mustard gas on Roman conquest 😎
