SD.net gets its own island empire (RAR!)

[Zor]

An honest attempt to have one High RAR! Thread along these lines that does not end in everyone dead/enslaved in a year. As such, here it goes.

The entire population of SD.net that has posted more than ten times and has not been banned as of that point has been informed by Q that in twenty four hours they will be transported back in time and can transport one cubic meter worth of stuff with them. Fortunately, they are not going to be dumped into some pissant medieval village, but in a scenario which they actually have some power and are given some protection against slavery and death at the hands of the locals.

We are set to an island nation in 1450 called Atlantia which is on a volcanic the mid Atlantic Ridge about a thousand KM north of the equator. Atlantia is in the same size range of Hokkaido or Ireland with a few small islands surrounding it, being roughly triangular in shape pointing south. Near the coastline it is wet, hilly and green and as such very good farmland; towards the center it is dryer, more mountainous and is mineral rich. Atlantia has a population of about 750,000, most of which within 50km of the ocean with sixteen cities 15 of which the 20,000-30,000 people range and one big capital with 50,000. The primary crops include wheat, rice, olives, tomatoes and grapes with ranching further inland. All things considered are a bit ahead of the times in some fields (they are linked with the Roman Empire by a group of settlers which left the Empire around 300 CE to get away with Christianity and arrived in Atlantia, becoming stanch isolationists and having no effect on history outside their empire), they understand quarantine and hygiene’s importance, value woman rather highly (the result of a millennium of improvement on Rome’s rather liberal for the time’s opinion on the role of woman), and thanks to a few clever alchemists managed to devise gunpowder a few hundred years ago and about 50 years ago came up with alquebuses. There is a hereditary monarch (going by the moniker of Dux), but by various means (constitutions, civil wars, conflicts) he has gradually been reduced to a figurehead and the current Dux is nothing more than a hedonistic young man who voices a few speeches and acts as a rubber stamp to the real holders of power, the nobility.

This is where we come in. We are now the Senatorial Nobility of Atlantia. Most of us are local administrator nobles that rules over a small town and the surrounding fields with a villa that produces cash crops, responsible for local law (including having your own Vigiles force), raising taxes and being the patron to most of the people living in your area of control. Each of the supermods and Administrators is the local lord of a city, with basically the same responsibilities as the local lord, as well as maintaining a few cohorts of soldiers armed with alquebuses, cannon, gladius and pike. We also must attend senate once a year to vote on various issues affecting all of Atlantia.

Finally, we are all given three things. The first thing is a natural knowlage of the latin based Atlantian language. Second being an injection of nanites that will cures and protects against various diseases such as diabetes that require modern medicine so people like Nitram won’t die in a few months, although infection is still an issue and you can still get cancer if you smoke. The second of which is a special laptop maintained by repair nanites of modern standards that is solar powered and has a linkup to a network with SD.net forum on it to allow long range communications and as well as sci-fi debating.

What happens and what do you do?

Zor

(EDIT-Minor cleanup)

[lord Martiya]

Uhm... I speak a little Latin and I'm Italian, in a Roman colony I'll be the first who can speak with the local population. I think that I'll use this natural advantage to make money as translator at the service of the more powerful admin, and for the time that my advantage would be ceased I'll be able to use the things I transported with me: a McMillan TAC-50 with rounds and a kit to fabricate new rounds (I'll think that I'll must work hard to learn how sintetize the primer), and I will be able to kill the enemy of my lord in a spectacular manner. The rest will depend from my lord.

[Starglider]

This is going to be fairly boring unless you spring for marginally more advanced nanites that cure ageing and infectious diseases as well. We might well end up affecting world history in a major way, i.e. by preserving 21st century technical knowledge on masses of stone tablets that are found by 18th century explorers, but I doubt anything truly interesting is going to happen within a typical no-medical-care human lifespan.

So inject us with the good stuff damnit so we can transform this island into an engine of conquest that will bring about a global enlightenment on the back of a global empire

[lord Martiya]

It could be a good idea. If you were an admin, I would help you with my language skills... Hey, there's someone else who want conquer the world?

[Sidewinder]

I speak Mandarin Chinese, so I might try to open a trade route to China, and maybe negotiate a formal alliance with the current dynasty.

[Simplicius]

That's a Senate of over 2000 people. I fear we would not be known for our efficient conduct of meetings.

If the islanders are isolationists, does that mean no established trade over the horizon? Are they outright hostile to the idea of exploration? Do they successfully breed livestock, or do they subsist on local fauna? If there is no trade, have any timber resources been depleted by this point? Are there rivers? What is the topography of the coastline?

Assuming the answer to each of these is in the best case, I would fill my cubic meter with some modern hand tools (the sort where sharp edges and heavy use recommend modern, high-quality metal), as many high-quality metal parts necessary for water mill machinery (I'm thinking sawmill, especially), and reference books and lines drawings. Any improvements I can bring to shipbuilding will be useful. If the islanders do raise and employ livestock, then there is probably a smithy (someone has to make the guns, at any rate). Working with him will not only get me metal fittings, but offers a chance to improve the island's forging, casting, and metallurgy if some other members offer their engineering and materials expertise. This will improve our tools and farming implements, our firearms, and make possible such larger building projects as we prefer.

As far as a plan for the future, I would vehemently oppose attempts at expansion - we are too small and too far away from the main landmasses to make conquest a worthwhile endeavour. Trade, perhaps - we will need additional resources at some point, but we should be careful how much of our expertise we sell. We should do all we can to keep an edge over rising competitors.

However, if we can keep that edge, I foresee a role as a waystation in trans-Atlantic communications, which could give us a hand in shaping the way the Europeans come to occupy the Americas, as well as bringing in new developments from abroad.

[Hawkwings]

Of course we would want to advance our tech level quickly, but what are our long term goals? Living peacefully? Getting filthy rich? World domination? We should coordinate to find what our goals are, and get some sort of unified government together.

My cubic meter of stuff... Definitely medical supplies that the nanites don't cover. Reference materials, preferably electronic, on as many topics as will be applicable. I'd also bring gear to locate things like metal deposits and perhaps oil, if we have any on the island.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I would deeply request a slight change to the opening Post.

Instead of yet another "EVERYONE of SD.net" I ask it be changed to "everyone with over 150 posts" this would cut down the population from almost 4000 to just about 1000 people as.. yess.. we have over 3000 people who either have under 100 or ZERO posts at all.

EDIT: good to see the changes that are alread made, ala medicle stuff and knowledge of Latin and such.

[Flagg]

I call president!

[Simplicius]

Of course we would want to advance our tech level quickly, but what are our long term goals? Living peacefully? Getting filthy rich? World domination? We should coordinate to find what our goals are, and get some sort of unified government together.

We are already the unified government.

I would presume our goals are standard - prosper as a society, while not getting absorbed by the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and British who will be coming across in the next couple hundred years.

World domination is right out. We do not have the population or resource base to accomplish it.

We may acquire some wealth, but again, we are small. Persisting should be our first long-term goal.

Our tech level will not advance terribly quickly, because we do not have the resources to advance it.

My cubic meter of stuff... Definitely medical supplies that the nanites don't cover. Reference materials, preferably electronic, on as many topics as will be applicable. I'd also bring gear to locate things like metal deposits and perhaps oil, if we have any on the island.

Searching for fossil fuels is a waste of time. We are on a volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic. The nearest land is two miles straight down, and it is geologically new. No oil or coal will be trapped below, and even if it was, we would not have the means to drill for it for centuries.

Bringing medical supplies is useful on its face, but we will not be able to carry enough to take care of us all, never mind the whole population of the island. We will lack the manufacturing base to make them in bulk for centuries - this is 1450, after all, and we will lag behind the Industrial Revolution unless our volcano is active enough to give us geothermal power to tap. Even then, it will be some time before our tech base allows us to accomplish this. Better to have an understanding of good sanitary and medical techniques which can be practiced with the materials on hand. This frees up space in your cubic meter.

Reference materials should be stored in a form that will last for longer than 100 years, as we will not be able to capitalize on most of the advanced knowledge we bring. Wooden shipbuilding is an exception, as we will encounter the European powers by sea, and we will stand or fall by the quality of our ships.

We have a three hundred year lead in hull design and construction techniques and ship rigging, and we can use that lead immediately, because wooden ships are built by hand, without a substantial industrial base. If the islanders are shipbuilders already - which it is reasonable to suppose they would be - then all we have to do is expand on their skills. With wood, hemp for coradge, and cotton for sailcloth, we can build ships superior to anything out of Europe or Asia. Our couriers, packets, hell even our fishermen could outsail anything on the ocean with or against the wind. We won't need to worry about building huge ships of the line because of that, and we can fetch materials from the Americas, trade with Asia and Europe, and protect ourselves for a good long time. We can become a 'Switzerland of the Seas' until the 18th or 19th century, at which point our small population and limited energy base puts us behind. At that point, our best option would be to petition for inclusion in the British Empire, as a valuable outpost and builders of the finest ships in the world. Then, with access to the technologies of the Industrial Revolution, we can start to put our knowledge from the future to work and watch as human tech development accelerates at an absurd rate. But that will not happen without wooden shipbuilding.

[Zor]

If the islanders are isolationists, does that mean no established trade over the horizon? Are they outright hostile to the idea of exploration? Do they successfully breed livestock, or do they subsist on local fauna? If there is no trade, have any timber resources been depleted by this point? Are there rivers? What is the topography of the coastline?

No, they don't trade with the outside although they do have commerce between cities via ship. They have sucsessfully raised cattle, pigs, donkeys, chickens and all major domestic european livestock as well as horses. Their are a few small rivers and lakes and the coastline is mostly flat with beaches, although their are a few cliffs, but these are not that big.

Zor

[Mr Bean]

40* Long 33* Lat is basically where Zor is depositing us. In the Sargasso Sea(Plenty of Seaweed to harvest around there apparently)


Our best method following Simplicius's example would to become the "super-dutch"

IE build our ships, land in the new world and get ports set up, with friendly trade relations with the NA's there. Get ports build in existing modern safe harbors, and get talking with the French/Spanish/Brits as soon as possible.


How settled were Iceland, Newfoundland and what was to become Morocco at this point? And for that matter, Cuba and Brazil. We might have the option to become a lesser Great Britain if we get a foothold on some of these areas.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Im throwing in my vote with Simps as well. It sounds a damned more organized then most of the Plans that arize during these types of "RAR"'s

The idea of planning not for a few years, or a few decades, but planning on a long term goal of several hundred years appeals to me. With knoledge of future events we could stand to make a killing and position ourselves wel las a highly important trading and banking nation.

Also, one pet project of mine... I'd like to see what could be done to immunize the Americans from the diseses of Europe. There are untold amounts of wealth in terms of Native culture and language and history that has yet to be destroyed.

Ah yes, Im reminded of another question.. How "Liberal" are our Populace, as Im sure Me, Ein, and the other members of GALE would like to set up a Gay-HQ as soon as possible,

[Zor]

Ah yes, Im reminded of another question.. How "Liberal" are our Populace, as Im sure Me, Ein, and the other members of GALE would like to set up a Gay-HQ as soon as possible,

They consider homosexuality an asthetic preference, don't mind it so long as it does not involve rape and things along that line and in general don't to think about it that much in cultural terms.

Zor

[Crossroads Inc.]

40* Long 33* Lat is basically where Zor is depositing us. In the Sargasso Sea(Plenty of Seaweed to harvest around there apparently)

Someone who has "Google Earth" should take snap shot of the exact location so we can plan out trade routes and research what the weather and trade winds are like there..

[Kwizard]

Marginally closer to Europe, but basically smack in the middle of the northern Atlantic.

[Lonestar]

We are in for some harsh Winters.

[Darth Mordius]

That's pretty close to the Azores. We'll be playing with Portugal right from the beginning.

[Simplicius]

If we are to be a seafaring country, we will have to change the minds of the natives.

Being near the Azores, I suppose we can expect prevailing winds out of the W and NW during the winter, and E and NE during the summer. However, we might catch calms since we are within the Sargasso Sea, as noted. There are probably better places for seafarers to be located, but we have an advantage - we can run against the wind with well-developed fore-and-aft sails, whereas the square-rigged explorers were basically driven before it.

We will also need to bring with us charts and navigational instruments, especially chronometers. We can get a couple centuries' jump on navigation as well.

I am not certain we can rise to a Great-Britain-like status, with far-flung colonies and the like, because we are weak in population. England and Wales had about two and a quarter million people at this time, for comparison, and that was after the 14th-C. plague. We lack the energy base to grow and sustain a population rapidly.

[lord Martiya]

Magister Simplicius, you have found an help in communication with the natives: me.

[Crossroads Inc.]

that actually puts us rather close to the Canary Islands... When we're those colonized, because they would make a great outpost.

[Starglider]

Of course we would want to advance our tech level quickly, but what are our long term goals?

We personally are not going to have any real 'long term' goals without the life extension. The average age of the people going back is probably late 20s. The average lifespan in 1450 (disregarding infant mortality) is going to be 50 at best. At that tech level and with complete isolation, no established education system, no industrialisation, no social tolerance for or experience with rapid change... 25 years isn't long enough to accomplish all that much. We can try and convince our children to carry on with our plan, but whether they stick to it is another question. You'd have to imbue it with a religious level of significance (the Foundation must stick to the Simplicus plan!) for it to work.

[Coriolis]

Don't forget we have 24 hours to prep. I'd spend most of my time printing out documents pertaining to our situation to fit into that 1m cube. Most likely material relating to ship building, advanced metallurgy, and agricultural innovations. Seeing as we'll end up as nobles, token goods aren't that important.

[Simplicius]

Magister Simplicius, you have found an help in communication with the natives: me.

Actually, we have all been given fluent understanding of the native language by act of thread.

We personally are not going to have any real 'long term' goals without the life extension. The average age of the people going back is probably late 20s. The average lifespan in 1450 (disregarding infant mortality) is going to be 50 at best. At that tech level and with complete isolation, no established education system, no industrialisation, no social tolerance for or experience with rapid change... 25 years isn't long enough to accomplish all that much. We can try and convince our children to carry on with our plan, but whether they stick to it is another question. You'd have to imbue it with a religious level of significance (the Foundation must stick to the Simplicus plan!) for it to work.

This is true, and one thing the OP did not stipulate is whether our positions as nobles are hereditary or elected. If they're elected, then any long-term planning is more or less moot; at least with our own children occupying the positions, we have the opportunity to raise them into their roles, and so on.

However, any of our big long-term plans would not pay off for hundreds of years after our deaths either way. What we can do is bequeath valuable information for future reference, perhaps in a sort of Library of Atlantia, and we can give the country the means to safeguard that library rather than see it snatched by one of the rising European powers, and be reduced to a conquest - or worse, a slave-trading post - at the same time. After that, we cross our fingers and hope our descendants can make the smart choices.

[CmdrWilkens]

With an established population of 3/4 million plus the potential agriculturl boom we could bring about by introducing more modern (I'm thinking early Industrial Revolution-era) farming would lead to a natural poulation increase combine with some efforts at basic sanitation (which as Roman descendants they likely would already have) and medicine. Honestly wihtin our lifetime it could be possible to increase population 10% or so possibly even more if we could effect even a 2-3% increase in births and a 2-3% decrese in deaths all of which should b easily possible. It may not be a population base for conquest but certainly we could acheive what the Dutch did only a century or so earlier.