SD.Net goes Medieval

[CDiehl]

Second, I didn't elaborate my stance on cavallery right.. I ment US-Cavallery like in the post indian wars time. Mounted gunslingers. using bows on horses is awful hard, that cant be learned that fast. and we must try to stay clear from mounted archers and snipe them with rifles, their range is better than that of handguns.

Who knows how to ride a horse? Who knows how to control a horse in combat? Who knows how to make any sort of firearm with early-medieval methods, let alone a modern rifle? Who's going to make the ammo, again using early medieval methods? Who's going to gather up the ingredients for gunpowder and mix them correctly, once the bullets we brought along run out? Even if we manage to make gunpowder, medieval gunpowder wasn't that great compared to the modern stuff, made with accurate measurements of high-quality ingredients. Once the ammo runs out during the fight, how many of us can fight on horseback, or at all, when faced with people trying to kill us? None of us have nearly enough experience or training in melee combat, on foot or mounted, to match up with medieval soldiers. It's a cute image, us riding around medieval France wielding homemade Winchesters, but it's not going to happen?

[Larz]

To be frank, I think my odds of survival would be slightly greater if I turned to thieving, robbery, and wilderness survival than watching the inevitable travesty that would ensue as a bunch of 20th century geeks attempt to build a functioning medieval community. Just take what I need and avoid the whole social/diplomatic path altogether. Not very moral, no, but it would be a 'comfortable' way to live out the remaining 6-60 months of life I have before I find my end by disease or business end of sword.

[Shroom Man 777]

We'll be teleported with whatever we can carry on our person. I say we organize, some of us carry tools and shit, I bring along a huge kitbag full of MREs, my dad's M4 and MP5 and another kitbag full of ammo and shit, put a crapload of guns on my pocket, whatnot.

We also have a vault full of medicine, so we're probably safe on the disease part.

[LaCroix]

most blacsmiths are more than able to produce crude flint-firearms. they just didnt know them.

with help of a material scientist to help identifying carbon content and a chemist to make powder, we are well able to build pistls and even mortars and cannon (simple ones)

[Exmoor Cat]

Why bother? Greek fire.

[Rogue 9]

Frankly, if I had 24 hours' warning to prepare, I would do so by doing my level best to be banned before it came so I wouldn't have to go.

But more seriously, I'd bring crop seeds and all the farm implements I can carry. Preferably I'd try to buy non-hybrid seeds of some form so that there'd actually be viable seeds from the plants for the next year, if we're still around to worry about it by then. I have some knowledge of low-tech gardening (as in, take a hoe, chop up a chunk of field, work in manure as necessary, and you have a garden), but I doubt I could operate for long with the tools they have, because there's no fucking way I could bring enough modern tools. And there's not a snowball's chance in hell that the relatively few of us who can grow gardens could feed everyone on the board.

The biggest problem apart from being killed by our neighbors would be wheat and the other grains apart from maize. My family used to grow rye when we lived on the farm as a cover crop on unused fields, but I have practically no clue how to manage grains because we didn't actually harvest it for food; it was just there to keep the topsoil from eroding. I mean, I'm sure using a scythe wouldn't be too hard to figure out, but the planting methods will be a complete mystery to small gardeners; I know it is to me. Maize (which, being a North American plant, someone would have to bring) and the various green vegetables are nice, but bread would be a problem, and winter would kill us without the ability to put up long-term stores. Potatoes (a South American crop) are about the only thing I can think of that I know how to grow in one season that will keep in storage without either refrigeration or canning. I suppose maize might keep unshucked and stored that way, but I've never had occasion to try.

All in all, we'd be very lucky to just subsist, and most likely we would mostly die before the year was out. We certainly would not be able to influence anything, and would die out in short order.

[Exmoor Cat]

The main problem here is tackling it from the angle of attempting to cater for 4000 people by a few. Without the tech, we can't operate the larger economies of scale that can produce such harvests, but by breaking down to individual/small group holdings, there's a better chance of survival - if anything, look at how unprepared the Mayflower people were - yes they lost 50% of their people in th first year, but that was through sheer ignorance and poor planning, with our level of preparation and awareness, if not the actual experience, I reckon it can be done, as long as people realise they have to muck in as well.

Before the agricultural revolution, Americans used to mound farm liek the Indians did, Europeans operated on small patches. By adopting such methods at the outset, I think the food problem can be solved in the short term, with the expansion of fields and people specialising in landholding and farming acquiring experience and improvements as a gradualist process.

[Exmoor Cat]

Hand-operated planting tools are buildable as long as there's plenty of wood and a carpenter available. For example, there is a bow-operated scatterer that remained in use here in the UK for centuries, as well as seed drills

[Big Phil]

I've seen several people here (myself included) ask why anybody thinks we'd all cooperate, and several others suggesting that we'd obviously cooperate or else we'd die. So here's the question - who's in charge?

Do we use the hierarchy of this board? If so, we're fucked, as Mike is a nuclear engineer (lots of use for those in 750 AD) and the mods/supermods don't include (to my knowledge) any survivalists or folks with skills applicable 1250 years ago. I don't know any of you other than through this board, so what the in the fuck makes you think I'd agree to let you tell me what to do?

Like I said earlier, I'm getting the fuck away from all of you as quickly as possible, with as much supplies as possible, and going somewhere where I might have a chance, like Moorish Spain or Italy, where I might be able to communicate and/or (possibly) blend in.

[Lonestar]

The main problem here is tackling it from the angle of attempting to cater for 4000 people by a few. Without the tech, we can't operate the larger economies of scale that can produce such harvests, but by breaking down to individual/small group holdings, there's a better chance of survival - if anything, look at how unprepared the Mayflower people were - yes they lost 50% of their people in th first year, but that was through sheer ignorance and poor planning, with our level of preparation and awareness, if not the actual experience, I reckon it can be done, as long as people realise they have to muck in as well.

I think you may want to re-investigate that number.


EDIT: Upon viewing of wiki, it seems I was incorrect.

[TheFeniX]

I've got basic carpentering skills. Basically, I could build you a structure (using store bought wood, never tried making my own) that you wouldn't need to worry about falling on your head.

As for weapons, you would need to select a standard to use and setup a people to get what's needed to maintain them. If we can't talk to each other before hand, then we're kind of screwed. But if we can, we'd need to select a rifle and sidearm. I'm not sure if we'd even need a sidearm though, but it's easier to pack a bunch of pistols in a bag than rifles.

For the sidearm, I'd recommend a revolver (this would probably be the only instance). Fewer moving parts and greater reliability for years of use. I'd recommend something like a .357 Magnum. Easy to fire, great accuracy, with good range and power.

For a rifle, something with a larger caliber might be nice, but you'd probably want to stick with something simple like a bolt action. Still has a great refire rate, but less moving parts. Shotguns would be "iffy."

A few people would need to stock up on standard ammo, but reloading would be a neccesity. I've got a reload kit with dies for .38 special and .357. Getting other setups for different calibers would not be hard. Basically, get people to stock up on primers (lots), extra casings (you can reuse them, but not indefinately), and an ass-load of gunpowder.
I'm sure there's enough people here with credit cards to limit them out.

I'm not sure exactly how many firearms one person could buy before red flags are raised, but you could hit up a few different gun shops and get sucked back in time before anyone did anything about it.

This is just for defense. I have no idea how we'd determine the power structure in this town. I may trust people like Wong in areas regarding physics calcs, but how do I know the people in charge of this forum can run a town effectively? Am I supposed to take them at their word? I don't even know these people and I've been lurking here for a couple of years.

Why do they get to live up in the castle and run this place? They might very well be qualified, but I don't know that. Resentment is going to build up fast. So, if I've got my reservations, what about there other 2000 some-odd members? People may have bought into the "born into nobility" load back then, but 4000 21st Century people aren't going to play that game. We'd probably have to fight just to keep this rabble in one piece, even without dealing with invaders, disease, and famine.

[Shroom Man 777]

We get really fucked. As in really really really fucking fucked.

It'd be better to set this thing to Old Testament times, hell, even Roman times!

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Second, I didn't elaborate my stance on cavallery right.. I ment US-Cavallery like in the post indian wars time. Mounted gunslingers. using bows on horses is awful hard, that cant be learned that fast. and we must try to stay clear from mounted archers and snipe them with rifles, their range is better than that of handguns.

Who knows how to ride a horse? Who knows how to control a horse in combat?

Not a skill any of us have. We could bring back an US Army Cavalry manual, which teaches that sort of thing and have whoever already knows how to ride a horse learn it, and then teach it to the rest of us, but learning to ride horses is a long-term thing that will have to come after we've instituted a reign of terror to whip everyone who didn't die of disease into shape.

Who knows how to make any sort of firearm with early-medieval methods, let alone a modern rifle?

As someone said, the metallurgy of the time would be up to creating crude single-shot black powder arms. What you would need to do is introduce the concept of making a high-carbon steel . . . something easily achievable with medieval technology, since the Indians and Sri Lankans were doing it as far back as 380 BC, and the Muslims picked it up around 900 AD.

Who's going to make the ammo, again using early medieval methods?

Don't need medieval methods. Black powder isn't hard to make. All you need is the correct proportions of easily-obtained starting materials, and someone who likes living life on the edge. You can even make it into a granulated form that won't seperate like the early stuff did.

And there's two solutions to the problem of ammunition. One is to buy a .22 and bring back 10,000 rounds of ammunition, since a thousand rounds of .22LR will fit into a box roughly the same dimensions as a medium-sized brick, and you could easily fit ten of those into the bottom of a good-sized backpack and still have room for survival guides, phrasebooks, and other assorted usefuls. And, so long is it's kept in a cool, dry place, the ammunition will keep for a very, very long time. Decades, at least. Mind you, .22 is a little puny against men with armor, but it will put an unarmored bandit on the edge of starvation out of this life quickly, as well as small game. And 10,000 rounds will last one or two lifetimes, since in frontier times, someone who shot a couple thousand rounds in a lifetime was a high-volume shooter.

The other solution is to bring back so-called cowboy guns. I could fit several hundred rounds of finished ammunition, some spare empty cases, several thousand primers, some hundreds of bullets, a bullet mould, a pound or two of smokeless powder and a basic handloading kit (requiring the use of only a hammer) into a good-sized backpack. And the cartridge I load for (.45 Colt) started out life as a black-powder cartridge, and I can get the same sort of BLAM out of both smokeless and black-powder from this cartridge, so going back to black powder wouldn't hurt me. (Not to mention lead, tin, and antimony were all well-known to medieval people. Antimony was used in medicine, tin was used in bronze, and the Romans used to use lead in damned near everything. so if you could melt nine parts lead to three-quarters part antimony to one-quarter part tin, you'd have a very hard lead bullet.)

Who's going to gather up the ingredients for gunpowder and mix them correctly, once the bullets we brought along run out? Even if we manage to make gunpowder, medieval gunpowder wasn't that great compared to the modern stuff, made with accurate measurements of high-quality ingredients.

The base materials for black-powder aren't hard to come by. And we know what it takes to make it into the useful granular form. Mind you, black-powder would be next to useless in most modern firearms, since it generates very low pressures (less than 20,000 PSI . . . compare this to the 55,000 PSI generated by smokeless powder in an AR-15.) You get between 750 to 1000 fps out of a revolver, and between 1000 to 1300 fps out of a rifle with black-powder, but these are driving .38 to .45 caliber lead slugs.

[Exmoor Cat]

Suitably Geeky survialist agenda

First of all, name it Grantville.....................

4000 is a manageable figure to run an election (having been involved in several union ones), even on basic levels.

Would need a central leader, who can then pick a specialist team around him/her.

I'm in favour of a structure of several settlements, not a singular big one, for reasons of food and disease.

[Rogue 9]

The best organization would probably be breaking up into small but close together enclaves and simply having the Mess be in charge of organizing for common defense should it come to that. People would start to resent having more government than that, at least until we'd been together long enough for it to become apparent to people who is actually best qualified to lead. I should hope we don't have a large criminal element among us, which would make such a hands-off approach more problematic.

[Exmoor Cat]

You would need more than common defence as stuff like medical and education/skills will have some level of centralisation at such a low inhabitance. Winter food storage would need to be considered.

There will be differences, especially in terms of internal trade, especially if there is a bulk of the population who don't have a skill to learn/produce to sell. It's the economy, stupid

[Coyote]

I can bring a fuckload of guns in a duffle bag, and ammo too. That done, I recommend everyone using their wealth from their liquidated assets to buy crossbows and an assload of arrows. And books-- not just farming and medieval chemistry, but geography books that highlight where local resources may be buried that we can "discover" after being guided there by our old friend, Rand McNally.

But the overall survival questions-- clean water, feeding 4000 people and then where to put their poop-- as well as the problems of communication with the locals, well, I dunno. If we can band together in the village and stave off attacks from local barons, maybe skilled villagers will come to us. And bring their daughters. Our enlightened, not-so-despoting ways may entice them, who knows?

Otherwise, my alternate plan is to take my shootin' irons and some books, a crossbow or two, and stuff 'em in a pack and start the long careful slog to Jerusalem, where I may be able to communicate in Hebrew with some of the Rabbis there-- in writing, at least, if the accent proves insurmountable. And Faqa, Death, and Ace may well come along, adding numbers. Raid farms on the way for food, maybe the occassional cow, chickens or goat... steal some long cloaks to conceal our odd appearance and just stumble along the road like another peasant, preferably avoiding contact, until reaching a place where we could communicate...

[Exmoor Cat]

Coyote - the poo question was already dealt with - fertiliser.

[Big Phil]

So here's the question - who's in charge?

I'd have to assume the military guys. One of them is in charge, the rest of them act as his enforcers to maintain order. A dictatorship would probably be the best kind of government you all could have.

And if I don't intend to live in a dictatorship? What if a democracy is chosen but I think the leaders are dumbshits? I know I'm not the only one who isn't inclined to hang out with the other board members - several others have already said they'd leave and go somewhere else.

You are wildly underestimating the problems of organization and getting a large group of individuals to work together for mutual survival. Think Lord of the Flies on a larger scale - it won't be long before structure and order breaks down - and you haven't even considered the problem of several hundred desperate, horny virgins and immature teenagers and less than a dozen females. Either everybody goes gay, the group kidnaps several hundred local females, or there will be problems.

See why I'm leaving?

[Big Phil]

Otherwise, my alternate plan is to take my shootin' irons and some books, a crossbow or two, and stuff 'em in a pack and start the long careful slog to Jerusalem, where I may be able to communicate in Hebrew with some of the Rabbis there-- in writing, at least, if the accent proves insurmountable.

By 750 AD the Jews had largely been dispersed. Jerusalem has a Jewish population, but they're certainly not in charge. That, and there are several large mountain ranges and water bodies between southern France and Palestine. Just something to consider.

[Exmoor Cat]

Talking of seas, would proximity be good or bad? I'm thinknig trade and fishing v invasions and malaria.

[Tolya]

Without internet, how would we communicate with each other?

[Shroom Man 777]

LOL. Is that a joke? Because if it isn't, then the OP specifies all members teleporting into one village city.

EDIT:

You know what happens? I think I'll end up going nuts and murdering a whole lot of folks with the machineguns I'm bringing before another guy murders me and the whole lot of you go mad and murder each other. I think we'd all go insane.

What would you do in this situation? It's not like Survivor, no cameras, no vaccines, no food, no contests for prizes, it'll go to shit in a while and with four thousand other smelly sucky assholes crammed in one village, some of us with personality issues, others being confident dicks, others being spineless dorks, the whole lot of us with friends and families back in the present age, all trapped in Bizzaro World, what do you think would happen?

I'd curl up into a ball and cry for my mommy. Family folks like Wong and Nitram will miss their kids and wives and crack up. We'll be a society full of nervous breakdowns and neurosises. Damn right it'll be like Lord of the Flies. We're all gonna fuck up and die if no one takes charge the second we're in here, if no one formulates an instantaneous game plan and shit.

Now, if we had some more time to organize. The four thousand of us meet and prepare for our inevitable time-travel adventure. The four thousand of us meet up in the place where we'll teleport to in the past, the four thousand of us - under the tutelage of The Mess members - endure a grueling training regiment to root out those who can and can't survive and shit (I hope I flunk and get sent home), learn the local lingo, whatnot. And then we get teleported to the past, then maybe we might have a chance.

Otherwise, we're fucked.

[Exmoor Cat]

Defintely need some Latin speakers, I doubt anyone can speak Occitan any more?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

So here's the question - who's in charge?

I'd have to assume the military guys. One of them is in charge, the rest of them act as his enforcers to maintain order. A dictatorship would probably be the best kind of government you all could have.

Yes, it'd most likely be an ruthless dictatorship centered around the Mess, with a constabulary being composed of Mess members appointed as officers over those who already have fighting and drill experience. And it'd have to be ruthless since, in composition, it would be pretty similar to a 19th century mining town in the American Old West. Which is to say, the very first thing the ruling junta would build would be gallows. In the center of town.