You run the Foundation of Game of Thrones (RAR!)

[LaCroix]

First thing - scrap all the katanas and give the people something good. Like western sabres - almost same style of fighting, but the they won't break/bend after the first hit on something solid.

If the island is volcanic, do we have Phosphorus deposits? I wonder if Volcanic Fire (tm) mortar grenades would bother the Others... And either way, they would certainly help against a massed infantry charge.

I mean, they got wildfire, so we should get on equal footing...

[Vendetta]

First thing - scrap all the katanas and give the people something good. Like western sabres - almost same style of fighting, but the they won't break/bend after the first hit on something solid.

I think you misspelled "bayonet" there. The OP puts the military tech level at effectively World War I, so other than officers maybe*, people should be issued with a bayonet for their rifle instead of any kind of sword.

* And really, why even then. We aren't coming from any kind of tradition where there's a connection between officers and swords, they can have a rifle like anyone else.

[Esquire]

Wouldn't that violate the grand old traditions of a Zorian RAR, though? Katanas are essential to the concept.

[Ahriman238]

I still think warplanes are on the wrong side of the cost/benefit analysis.

[LaCroix]

According to the OP, we already have bayonets...

Keeping a backup sidearm isn't the worst idea, after all, any opposing foe will use massed charges and melee combat. In the press of such a battle with everyone pushing and shoving and hacking, a rifle and bayonet user will find himself cramped, or might drop/lose his weapon. We are facing armies that field ten thousands, so it's quite possible that we might get ambushed or overrun.

A small machete/cutlass/mace will be very effective in such a situation, even against an armored opponent.

Remember - in WWI, soldiers usually carried a (usually home-made) dedicated melee weapon when storming trenches - it still made that much sense in close quarters. Only after trench warfare and charges were abolished, the bayonet became the sole remainder of close quarter fight armament.

[Simon_Jester]

First thing - scrap all the katanas and give the people something good. Like western sabres - almost same style of fighting, but the they won't break/bend after the first hit on something solid.

I think you misspelled "bayonet" there. The OP puts the military tech level at effectively World War I, so other than officers maybe*, people should be issued with a bayonet for their rifle instead of any kind of sword.

* And really, why even then. We aren't coming from any kind of tradition where there's a connection between officers and swords, they can have a rifle like anyone else.

There's actually a good reason to equip officers with a relatively low-powered weapon for self-defense purposes only. Normally, you don't want your officers firing at the enemy. That's what privates are for. You want officers (and to a lesser extent senior noncoms) spending their time coordinating the soldiers' fire, making sure they actually shoot at the enemy in an effective fashion, and keeping an eye out for targets of opportunity or impending threats.

They should be thinking about the whole battlefield, not just their own sight picture.

Ideally, the officer should never have to fire a weapon at all. In practice they may have to defend themselves, though.

Up until 1850 or so officers carried swords not just because of tradition, but as a self-defense weapon. Guns were not useful for defending yourself on a battlefield because of the way infantry tactics worked: if the enemy fires a volley of muskets at you, it makes exactly zero difference whether you have a gun or not, either way you're equally likely to get shot. But if combat turned into a hand-to-hand situation, as still happened at times... well, a sword is actually not a bad way to defend yourself in close combat. Pistols were also useful; in a situation where an officer had an urgent need to defend his own life, the enemy would usually be well within accurate pistol range.

After that time, the swords were phased out because officers seldom needed to defend themselves hand-to-hand. But aside from upgrading the officer's sidearm, it remained normal to avoid giving them the biggest, nastiest infantry weapon available. Because if anything, it became more important that the infantry officer concentrate on tactics and positioning, rather than getting distracted because he's too busy personally shooting the enemy.

If the most effective thing a 20th century infantry officer can do is pick up a rifle and fire it at the enemy, then either he is very incompetent or something has gone horribly wrong.

[Thanas]

This is going to fail hilariously. None of the people here have any idea on how to navigate medieval relationships. Without that, the best you can hope for is controlling your island and that is about it. The numbers and economy are not enough to control the rest of Westeros and especially not against any sort of popular Guerilla campaign.

[Simon_Jester]

Ah.

Yeah, to be honest I was thinking more in terms of "what should this island-state do?" and not "I personally have been sent to run this island-state." Thus, I can imagine the island-state having people who know better than I how to "navigate medieval relationships," at least well enough to take useful advantage of their own advantages as a bargaining position.

Now, I definitely agree that the islanders lack the means to somehow form an empire ruling Westeros. I'd never even imagined that. What I had imagined was that, with a small but (by local standards) insanely well armed military that has a lot of capabilities the locals can't match, the islanders would be able to tip the balance of power in Westeros, secure their own safety, and try to limit the catastrophic destruction caused in Westeros by the civil wars, the coming winter, and the rise of the Others.

[Vendetta]

This is going to fail hilariously. None of the people here have any idea on how to navigate medieval relationships. Without that, the best you can hope for is controlling your island and that is about it. The numbers and economy are not enough to control the rest of Westeros and especially not against any sort of popular Guerilla campaign.

Posts about magical death sticks aside, controlling Westeros isn't a necessary objective.

Assuming that the goals of the project are those of the original Foundation, what's necessary instead is ensuring that the outcome is a more civilised Westeros and minimal social damage from the long winter, the white walkers, and the civil war.

The best way to achieve that is to minimise the damage the White Walkers can do by equipping the people most likely to face them with weapons they can easily use and which will be effective against them, and then aligning with Daenerys who is the best chance of producing a stable and, relative to everyone else, progressive government of Westeros after the civil war, especially if we are providing technical specialist knowledge which can be used in advancing the state of the people thereof as well as advanced military assistance.

The OP states that the resources of the island includes diplomats, traders, and historians, all the knowledge we don't have about how their world operates is held by specialists at our disposal. What we bring to the situation is that we can replace the psychohistory of Foundation with actual foreknowledge of the war of five kings and the coming of the white walkers.

[The Romulan Republic]

I would like to give humanitarian aid in the form of 20th. Century medicine and food, allow immigration to Foundation for those who are oppressed, and pledge the support of a company of infantry with modern weapons to defend the wall. No modern weaponry will be given to the feudal assholes.

[Zor]

This is going to fail hilariously. None of the people here have any idea on how to navigate medieval relationships. Without that, the best you can hope for is controlling your island and that is about it. The numbers and economy are not enough to control the rest of Westeros and especially not against any sort of popular Guerilla campaign.

You can shift the balance of power in Westeros through trade any way you want without firing a shot beyond self defense or if the closest thing an actual weapon that you sell are machine ground stamped steel steak knives.

Zor

[Darth Tanner]

To really have an impact your going to have to issue out firearms to either mercenaries on your payroll or to a puppet lord. The instant you do that you lose your monopoly on their use and seeing as you only have 240 men under arms even if we rounded up the entire police force we are screwed, our own mercenary company is going to turn on us the second we finish training them which end of the firearm the bullets come out of.

Only thing of use we can do is just give the Nights watch food and guns which will then inevitably get distributed back to the various lords and Iron throne killing our strategic advantage.

[The Romulan Republic]

Why not recruit more of our people? We have 80,000 people in the beginning. If only one percent of those become soldiers, we'll be fielding 800 men.

[FaxModem1]

What would it take for us to start contracting out and building improvements for the Seven Kingdoms, I can imagine building aquaducts, along with supplying new medicine techniques, in return for coin, labor or alliance? I imagine starting with the Starks would be best if we wanted someone solid and honorable, or the Tyrells, if we wanted someone with plenty of coin and at least puts lip-service on being good and chivalrous.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Starks are an obvious choice if you're going to ally with one of the factions. They're in an area which needs to be well-defended (the north).

Would the Starks respond well to me sending troops to the wall, or would they see it as me interfering and take offence?

[Darth Tanner]

With a population of only 80,000 40,000 are out immediately from being female (unless you intend to conscript women) of the remainder your left with around 22,400 who are aged 16-55 if they match UK demographics of the time to fulfil all your primary economic functions. Considering how small the population is maintaining the tech level as well as feeding everyone is going to be a major task let alone diverting any significant population to the military. Even if you double the figure to 44,800 eligible adults with the weirdly untimely views on female equality resulting in an even split of male female soldiers it doesn't get much better.

Can we even sustain our own level of technology on the given population? We simply don't have the manpower to be producing a lot of high quality tools as well as feeding ourselves and playing global politics.

Posts about magical death sticks aside, controlling Westeros isn't a necessary objective.

I believe the OP wants us to end up in control of the world as well as giving it technology. Otherwise we can simply give the maesters everything we know and sit back and watch.

[The Romulan Republic]

Our people may be amenable to female soldiers based on what the OP says about their views, and necessity can justify some significant social changes.

[Darth Tanner]

Even with modern cultural views on equality only 15% of the US military is female... quite a lot of the rest of the world either have no female members or significantly lower than that.

The Starks are an obvious choice if you're going to ally with one of the factions.

At this point the Iron Throne still rules... siding directly with any lord will start a civil war much sooner than on the original time line.

We could try to put the Dragons back on the throne though? There were a lot of houses that were only recently defeated in the civil war. That would mean putting Viserys on the throne which could be a very bad thing unless we arrange an accident for him.

[Vendetta]

I believe the OP wants us to end up in control of the world as well as giving it technology. Otherwise we can simply give the maesters everything we know and sit back and watch.

The OP casts us as the Foundation, which wasn't about _ruling_ about influencing and directing those who did.

If we start really early and go all Special Circumstances we can wait for Jaime Lannister to drink himself insensible, disappear him for a few hours and give him a swift vasectomy, basically preventing the entire civil war by removing its principal causes.

[madd0ct0r]

Couldn't we just give him mumps or some sterility pox?

[Vendetta]

Probably, but harder to target and ensure effectiveness. Vasectomies are actually a pretty quick operation, people have them in the course of an afternoon in private practises.

[Thanas]

Can we even sustain our own level of technology on the given population? We simply don't have the manpower to be producing a lot of high quality tools as well as feeding ourselves and playing global politics.

No, we can't. Rome couldn't sustain her technology except in a few cities when their population base shrank. We start of with a much higher level of technology and a much lower population which does equal about one good-sized Roman city. Great. Maybe we can keep water running.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm.

I'm not saying you are wrong about this, but I would like to ask a few questions.

Rome lost technology, but my impression is that much of that technology hinged on the availability of mass labor (skilled, unskilled, or both).

If there are not enough stonemasons to maintain aqueducts, the aqueducts become 'lost,' dry up, and collapse. Even if there are still perfectly capable stonemasons about, it doesn't matter if there aren't enough of them, backed by a state organization that will mobilize them to maintain the structure. It might well be that if you somehow rounded up the needed masons they would be able to build a pretty good aqueduct all over again in a reasonable amount of time... IF there was sufficient organization.

If there is a massive grain mill, but no place to ship massive amounts of bread to, and no political structure that makes transporting grain over long distances safe, the grain mill becomes 'lost.' But this may represent a shift from large to small-scale enterprises, without necessarily involving the loss of any particular technique of "this is how you build a mill."

So clearly, that imposes limits on the population base that can support the 'technology' of a great empire: physical infrastructure designed to service an imperial capital with a population of a million will be neglected and decay if the capital's population shrinks far enough.

But I'm not sure we can say all technologies decay with similar ease. Given that information on how to (for example) make steel industrially is already present, and that facilities for doing so are present, and that there's an ongoing option to import raw materials and export steel... how many people have to be living on that island in order to make sure the steel mill doesn't shut down and get forgotten?

[Thanas]

But I'm not sure we can say all technologies decay with similar ease. Given that information on how to (for example) make steel industrially is already present, and that facilities for doing so are present, and that there's an ongoing option to import raw materials and export steel... how many people have to be living on that island in order to make sure the steel mill doesn't shut down and get forgotten?

Rome also did not lose the knowledge of how to build and maintain aqueducts. Frontinus for example specifies how to maintain aqueducts, if only in a general manner - and the Romans were still able to build huge construction like the Hagia Sophia - or great building projects in Constantinople - even after the empire had fallen and general city population in the remaining empire had shrunk by as much as 95% in some cases. Technological knowledge is not the problem.

No, what the real trouble here is is economic availability. As in, can society feed and pay people dedicated solely to tasks which do not generate immediate survival returns? Most farmers today are easily able to feed up to 80 people on the work of one farmer alone. This is not the case in medieval and much less in ancient times. There, you had at best a surplus of 20% and most commonly only of 5%. Which means, as soon as a part of your crop fails, you are in danger of starving. This is the primary reason technology collapsed - because when you need to feed a specialist like a mosaic maker, who has to dedicate his entire life just to become barely competent at his job - then you need to have a great agrarian economy like Rome had, where shortages could be compensated due to the empire-wide economy and hugely efficient (and large) farming estates. You take that away and the entire thing falls apart.

Look at the real life examples when the beginnings of mathematics and science were studied again. This was in the great cities of Italy, who first of all had a massive influx of formerly Byzantine scholars after 1453 (and before as well). They also were wealthy enough due to their monopoly on certain luxury products that they could afford to largely import their food elsewhere or at least make up for shortages. Look at how England geared the resources of their entire Island and colonies to support one huge metropolis - which then also became the envy of the world.

Thus, to keep technology viable, you need to be able to support a specialist population on the basis of your agriculture. You need to be able to do so reliably for centuries. This is the greatest achievement of the Romans and the reasons why any experiment of "LOL just get modern technology into medieval times" will fail. Because medieval societies do not produce the surplus necessary to have such knowledge. Unless you talk about either extremely wealthy city-states like Florence and Venice, or large empires blessed with plenty of good land (France). Though even in their cases their technologies remained limited due to the economic limits.

And it is not just enough to have technology. You also need to create a culture around it that accepts it and views it as a positive, a blessing from the gods or from the ruler etc. This means you need to have a culture in the first place. Arts, entertainment, history, philosophy - these are all necessary to create the means by which knowledge is shared and enjoyed. Without art, you won't get a shiny new dome built. Art is hugely important, probably even more important than most technologies. (there is nothing as infuriating as the ungrateful engineers or natural scientists of today who think the whole painting collection in the Louvre could be lost and that art matters nothing - these people are the definition of the ungrateful idiot, but I digress.) Technology and the arts are not separate, they are symbiotic.

A population of 80.000 is not enough to get that going, not with such small surplus, not with the rest of westeros being uninterested and their surplus pledged to petty Lords. There is a reason why there is not a city population of 1 mil after the fall of Rome and it got nothing to do with people becoming uninterested in technology or any of the other reasons being brought forth in public history books. First, feed people. Break the inefficient feudal system. Get an international economy going. All of those things are far more important than technology like steel mills.

[Zor]

No, what the real trouble here is is economic availability. As in, can society feed and pay people dedicated solely to tasks which do not generate immediate survival returns? Most farmers today are easily able to feed up to 80 people on the work of one farmer alone. This is not the case in medieval and much less in ancient times. There, you had at best a surplus of 20% and most commonly only of 5%. Which means, as soon as a part of your crop fails, you are in danger of starving. This is the primary reason technology collapsed - because when you need to feed a specialist like a mosaic maker, who has to dedicate his entire life just to become barely competent at his job - then you need to have a great agrarian economy like Rome had, where shortages could be compensated due to the empire-wide economy and hugely efficient (and large) farming estates. You take that away and the entire thing falls apart.

The Foundation is not limited to medieval/roman agricultural methods, agricultural technology and range of crops.

Zor