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If you could be teleported to a centuries past time and place for a week with no guarantee for your safety, would you do it?
- Thread starter DragoonKain
- Start date
Dark Star
Member
I wouldn’t want to time travel right into the middle of a town square in some highly populated area. The barbaric people would start throwing spears at me unless I came through the portal dressed exactly like them. Likewise, I’d need to be magically given the gift of speaking whatever language fluently. The race/skin color thing is a huge barrier though.
I’d like to see ancient people do ancient stuff, but I’d have to do it from afar like another user ITT said. Just chill in a secluded area not too far away from people and just observe them with a telescope. I guess I could do the same thing with dinosaurs if I went full stealth mode and lived like a sloth in a tree.
The food situation would be horrible any way you go about this though. You’d need to be sent back with old money or at least some fishing/hunting gear.
I’d like to see ancient people do ancient stuff, but I’d have to do it from afar like another user ITT said. Just chill in a secluded area not too far away from people and just observe them with a telescope. I guess I could do the same thing with dinosaurs if I went full stealth mode and lived like a sloth in a tree.
The food situation would be horrible any way you go about this though. You’d need to be sent back with old money or at least some fishing/hunting gear.
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NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Some exaggerations in here, on both sides.
No, you wouldn’t become the new Jesus by talking science and progress. I mean, did Jesus become famous for innovating agriculture or technology? That’d be the fastest way to get stoned as a wytch or get in the eye of the law in most past eras.
And no, you probably wouldn’t die of infection either, because people in the past ate less and worse than us, were generally less healthy than us in many ways, and still the human race survived. Just be careful with drinking water, avoid major wounds, don’t go to Europe during a plague outbreak, and you’d probably survive.
Provided you can communicate with the people and don’t do anything blasphemous, you could do it. And even if you can’t express yourself in the local language, you could play dumb for a week and make it. Many past civilizations were kind to the idiots. Sure, some people would make fun of you, but others would give you some food and shelter. Everyone’s favorite bad guys, aka the Church, may turn out surprisingly hospitable, as many poor and handicapped people were well treated by monks. If you can do some work, probably any society would find some use in you and not kill you on the spot, but be prepared to only do very hard physical work for a week, from dawn to dusk.
If you’re confident with your Latin, you could speak with basically any big scientist and scholar of the past, if that’s your interest.
The biggest problem would be, don’t expect to achieve anything major in any era prior to, at best, the middle 19th century, maybe the early 20th. The language and culture would be too different to get you access to anywhere really relevant from a cultural point of view, except religious buildings and any place accessible to the public. You couldn’t fake your way into royal palaces or places like the Library of Alexandria.
As much as I’d like to see ancient Rome or the Middle Ages or pretty much any place in the distant past, just going to the middle-late 1800s and witness a sorta modern world without cars would be amazing. Not sure if the air would be so clean, though: go to any big city and the smell could probably kill you, lol.
No, you wouldn’t become the new Jesus by talking science and progress. I mean, did Jesus become famous for innovating agriculture or technology? That’d be the fastest way to get stoned as a wytch or get in the eye of the law in most past eras.
And no, you probably wouldn’t die of infection either, because people in the past ate less and worse than us, were generally less healthy than us in many ways, and still the human race survived. Just be careful with drinking water, avoid major wounds, don’t go to Europe during a plague outbreak, and you’d probably survive.
Provided you can communicate with the people and don’t do anything blasphemous, you could do it. And even if you can’t express yourself in the local language, you could play dumb for a week and make it. Many past civilizations were kind to the idiots. Sure, some people would make fun of you, but others would give you some food and shelter. Everyone’s favorite bad guys, aka the Church, may turn out surprisingly hospitable, as many poor and handicapped people were well treated by monks. If you can do some work, probably any society would find some use in you and not kill you on the spot, but be prepared to only do very hard physical work for a week, from dawn to dusk.
If you’re confident with your Latin, you could speak with basically any big scientist and scholar of the past, if that’s your interest.
The biggest problem would be, don’t expect to achieve anything major in any era prior to, at best, the middle 19th century, maybe the early 20th. The language and culture would be too different to get you access to anywhere really relevant from a cultural point of view, except religious buildings and any place accessible to the public. You couldn’t fake your way into royal palaces or places like the Library of Alexandria.
As much as I’d like to see ancient Rome or the Middle Ages or pretty much any place in the distant past, just going to the middle-late 1800s and witness a sorta modern world without cars would be amazing. Not sure if the air would be so clean, though: go to any big city and the smell could probably kill you, lol.
Darkmakaimura
Member
Edit: my phone sucks. This wasn't meant for this thread sorry.
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Would you be able to bring stuff with you from the present? If so, it wouldn't be too hard to bring something that would be of immense value in any given time period - and no I don't believe people would just accuse you of withcraft and burn you at the stake unless you chose a specifically bad place in a specifically bad time. Most people of the past were used to traders bringing in exotic goods or materials and most of those traders were only revered.
I would choose Angkor at the end of Jayavarman VII's reign simply because I think it would be so awe inspiring.
I would choose Angkor at the end of Jayavarman VII's reign simply because I think it would be so awe inspiring.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
No, the past generally sucked ass for most people. The current is starting to suck quite a bit too, but most of us are still much better off than the average person was a few centuries ago.
Rayven_king
Member
Im black, this century is just fine 
EverydayBeast
thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Transport me to the civil war era and free the slaves sooner.
chromhound
Member
i'm black so no... lol
Heimdall_Xtreme
Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
Absolutely. I'd want to try to meet Jesus so I'd aim for Jerusalem like 20AD. Can I bring my phone? It has audio translation software. Dunno if it does Aramaic or whatever though. I'd probably need to consult with some specialists before I go. Maybe learn to ride a horse or something
In fact technically you could not use the translator, because current technology depends on the internet and that time it would not work, nor would there even be power outlets.
Camera and Video you can take it.
Dr. Claus
Vincit qui se vincit
I have been to LA and Portland during the mentally ill riots. I am more than OK with spending a week in a more civilized time with people that have three times the brain cells.
Skyfox
Member
Offline translation apps still exist but to be honest, even if you could transmit a signal through the time travel device, old languages and handwritten text are still not handled well even if I had internet.
I'd probably have to take a course in the written languages though there's no guarantee of the literacy of those I'd meet!
Bring a few emergency chargers or a solar battery (I already own one that can charge all my gadgets).
Heimdall_Xtreme
Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
In fact, that's interesting... even the language that we currently speak would be very different in other times, for example, my language is Spanish... And seeing the literature of Miguel de Cervantes or the singing of my Cid of that time , despite being the same language, the composition is different and it would not be well understood.
RJMacready73
Simps for Amouranth
tbf you could easily go waaaay back to Ancient Rome, Babylon or Memphis etc, they'd be top of my list but i would go as a vagrant/beggar and all round simpleton as you mentioned as people should generally avoid talking to you and give you a by ball allowing you simply go for a dander and take in the sights, yes you probably wont get access inside some of the temples and great buildings but man to behold the Pyramids as they where originally built would be something else, i've seen them first hand and words cannot describe how utterly insane they are to walk around and go inside off and this is them 4500yrs old ffs, what must they have looked like brand new, same with all of the other old world ruins that have survived till now, i've walked the Parthenon & Library of Celsus along with much of Rome and they are simply incredible in their ruined states, for me a simple dander around them at the height of their splender would more than suffice
Elysion
Banned
I’d be in the streets of Sarajevo on June 28th 1914, on the lookout for a shifty looking dude with a gun. Once I see him pulling out his pistol, I tackle him and grab the weapon, before reporting him to the local authorities.
The world that greets me when I return back to my time:
The world that greets me when I return back to my time:
Ememee
Member
You should read “Behold The Man”.
I, like most people, would wanna see what this Jesus feller was all about. But if prompted with said hypothetical situation, I honestly wouldn’t have the balls to do it. Unless I was already near the end of my life like someone already pointed out.
KrakenIPA
Member
My bro says that he would go back and talk shit to Jesus, 2022 style. If Jesus came back to him with some heat, then he would know Jesus was a real dude from the past. I don't know if this holds up. My bro is a bit of a Rick+Morty fan, so I don't know if this question suits him well.
Apocryphon
Member
I'd go back to 1920 or so and murk Hitler, Himmler, and as many of the other holocaust perpetrators as I can in a week.
RJMacready73
Simps for Amouranth
All you mofos going back to see Jesus be like...
IWasInSeinfeld
Member
No.
Maiden Voyage
Gold™ Member
All you mofos going back to see Jesus be like...
German Hops
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
You'll be dead within 18 hours.
