SD.Net in The Sea Of Time

[Coyote]

Our first priority will be securing food. All else comes after that.

We already know that to the north is nothing useful except maybe some seasonabl nuts and berries, and meat supplies. All the green growing things of interest will be further south. In the New World there's maize and beans and tomatoes, various squashes, stuff like that. Mixed with meats it'll be a spartan but decent diet. Hey, some of us probably need to lose a few pounds anyway, eh?

The ship crew will begin training while the stay-at-home work crews begin inventory & stocking of useful supplies, and begin initial tear-down of every other house to lessen fire spreading. Basically, a lot of people will have jobs running what is, essentially recycling. We'll also have to figure the amount of food on the island and begin an accurate census so we can figure calories per person vis-a-vis food available and see how much time we have before we're in deep poodoo.

Once we get a good (enough) crew on the Eagle I say we start going up and down the coastline towards Florida and see what we can see; spot tribes or possible free-growing wild fruits we can harvest. If these areas are close by, we may want to send scout parties/temporary work colonies there to harvest what we can get. There may even be camping supplies we can outfit these temporary colonies with.

If at least one car ferry came with the island, that right there is our primary heavy-haul freighter for bulk goods. We probably will only have fuel for a few trips, before it becomes a harbor fixture. Other small boats will be our fishing fleet.

In the book, they used the leaf springs from cars to make crossbow bows. I wonder how practical that would really be... but we can look into it, since guns will eventually run out of ammo. Tires can be cut up to make into sandals, too. And the metal from the cars can be handy even if there isn't a smelter; an engine hood would make an excellent winter sled for hauling goods across snowy plains, and that's without much modification beyond attaching a strap.

We'll also have domesticated dogs, probably, and cats, which can help keep vermin in check. We can also do waterfowl hunting with shotguns available, but I don't know if the migratory birds are going to be near us at this stage. Eventually, a trip to Asia will have to be done simply so we can get cool stuff like rice and bamboo, which can be grown in America's warmer climes. I forget where soy comes from, but we should find some of that, too.

The first year will be hard, but quite survivable if we are careful and get control of the hotheads quickly. It'll probably be a year or so before we can do a long-term trip to South America, and then maybe another year after that before we can really contemplate a trip across the Atlantic. We might be better off trying to hit the Azores first, or even Africa. If we get down far enough, we can bag some seals/sea lions, which will be easier than trying to grab a whale. The blubber, oil, meat and bone from such creatures (especially the exotic tusks) may be of sufficient fascination to trade with tribals.

Also, the South American tribes didn't have access to the big creatures like bison. They might be happy to part with foods and other items in exchange for simple things like bison hides and leather. I'm trying to think of things that we can turn into sustainable trade once we've exhausted our supplies of metal, glass, and other "exotics". We can consider tobacco if we want to go that route; there's also hemp and of course we know what happens when certain grains are allowed to ferment with sugars, so we can make a living off of that, too.

Nantucket used to be a major whaling place. They have to have a museaum about whaling there and diagrams about whaling ships and techniques. Eventually our descendants can go into that if they need, but just the diagrams of the sailing ships will allow us to make long-term plans to replicate large vessels capable of increasing our world-spanning footprint. And we'll eventually be able to replicate gunpowder for eventual use in cannons and muskets.

One of our biggest advantage swill just be knowing what is out there (and what isn't, ie: "here be dragons!") and knowing what we're doing when we set out somewhere. Some hardy souls willing to volunteer might be open to settling permanantly on the mainland with their Indian brides-- even in exotic locales like San Diego or Astoria... eventually.

[Academia Nut]

Oooh... while it would be nice to be told different, it looks like there isn't a lot of pasture land or cleared ground on the island. There is a bit of farmland, but the odds of finding breeding populations of horses, cattle, or sheep seem low. Cattle can probably be done without immediately, but horses and sheep are both immensely useful economically, especially horses as they greatly multiply the productivity of labour and can serve as valuable military animals.

As for training, a lot will probably start on the smaller boats, with the people with sailing experience forming a cadre so that promising people can be shown the ropes while rust is shaken off on short fishing trips or the like. Once they know what they're doing, they can train more and the most experienced groups can start working on how to get the Eagle going so they can start searching the world for useful flora and fauna. From the sounds of it though going to Europe would require less training than going to Mesoamerica, and forget about South America since the only place really worth visiting early on requires us to go around the most dangerous seas on the planet. Africa... maybe, but the thing is that Africa is the home of humanity so the pathogens there have had a long time to get used to us. Remember, we want to avoid places that could kill everyone on the ship or the island.

[LadyTevar]

In the book, they used the leaf springs from cars to make crossbow bows. I wonder how practical that would really be... but we can look into it, since guns will eventually run out of ammo. Tires can be cut up to make into sandals, too. And the metal from the cars can be handy even if there isn't a smelter; an engine hood would make an excellent winter sled for hauling goods across snowy plains, and that's without much modification beyond attaching a strap.

All you need for a crossbow is a piece of spring steel that can be molded into the right shape. It can be attached with sinew to a wooded stock, and the trigger can be a simple locked wheel that holds the bowstring taut until release. I've seen them made, I've played with them in the SCA. I do NOT know how to make the innards for it.


And that is our main problem, I think. We have *seen* things done. We *know* it can be done, or have seen articles/pictures, or have read how it's done. We've never actually DONE these things ourselves... and that's a big problem right there.

Now... if I go to Mike Wong and say "Hey, this is what I saw of a SCA-legal Crossbow, this is how the wheel-lock looked and how it was kept from firing before the trigger was pulled." Could he, as an engineer, come up with the innards to make the wheel spin properly when it needs to, just from wood and sinew?

[darthdavid]

In the book, they used the leaf springs from cars to make crossbow bows. I wonder how practical that would really be... but we can look into it, since guns will eventually run out of ammo. Tires can be cut up to make into sandals, too. And the metal from the cars can be handy even if there isn't a smelter; an engine hood would make an excellent winter sled for hauling goods across snowy plains, and that's without much modification beyond attaching a strap.

All you need for a crossbow is a piece of spring steel that can be molded into the right shape. It can be attached with sinew to a wooded stock, and the trigger can be a simple locked wheel that holds the bowstring taut until release. I've seen them made, I've played with them in the SCA. I do NOT know how to make the innards for it.


And that is our main problem, I think. We have *seen* things done. We *know* it can be done, or have seen articles/pictures, or have read how it's done. We've never actually DONE these things ourselves... and that's a big problem right there.

Now... if I go to Mike Wong and say "Hey, this is what I saw of a SCA-legal Crossbow, this is how the wheel-lock looked and how it was kept from firing before the trigger was pulled." Could he, as an engineer, come up with the innards to make the wheel spin properly when it needs to, just from wood and sinew?

Actually it's quite simple. You just make a wheel with two wedges cut out on opposite sides. The trigger is just a lever with a peg on the end that sits in one notch and the string goes into the other notch. Lever is moved, peg pops out, wheel spins, bolt goes woosh. Obviously a bit more complicated to actually make the thing but on the most basic level it's not very complicated at all. Unless we luck out and someone on the island has crossbow plans/a working crossbow for us to look at there's gonna be a fair bit of trial and error getting the notches ideally positioned/shaped and making everything sturdy enough but it should be eminently doable.

[Coyote]

That's where we have the advantage-- we start out knowing what a crossbow is, and what we're trying to do, and can skip years of preliminaries and work to get it right in a few months-- even incorporate advanced design features like a buttstock, etc.

And the firearms we'll have will last a long time; but we should prepare for replacements by tooling up percussion-cap rifles (or breechloaders, if we can). But ideally something that will be sustainable. In 1250 BC, arming an allied tribe with crossbows is like giving tanks to Napoleon.

Our biggest obstacle may be organizing tribes to do work for compensation, which has been touched on already. I don't know if that is too much for them to wrap their minds around at the hunter-gatherer stage. But if we can, we can start out with 8-hour workdays with breaks, and two-day weekends, holidays for... solstice, maybe, and the notion that if someone gets hurt while working for us, it is our responsibility to care for them.

I suppose we'd teach them English? We'd pick up their language to an extent, but if we're running schools, English will probably be the common language.

[KrauserKrauser]

Well taking the Native tribes from New Guenia that are still being found as a loose comparison, it only takes 1-2 generations to get them up to speed from tribal hunter gathering, so I think if we can show them the upsides, they will make the choices that are most beneficial to them.

[Academia Nut]

Well, I didn't say it was impossible, we just have to strongly show them that we can offer them a better life if they do things our way. The trick is with our low population, that's not easy even with our technological tricks. Especially early on when we could really use the extra labour. That said, once we're a stable community that isn't risking starving to death, we could surely convince some people of the benefits of working with us, its just until we're showing a large net production in food the natives won't see why they should give up the free time and traditions of their hunter-gatherer lifestyle for the various hardships of agriculture. At least the local ones, the Mesoamericans will get it right quick when we show them improved agriculture, its just getting to those guys that's a bitch.

Also, for those who haven't noticed, I have started writing a fic on this topic.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well taking the Native tribes from New Guenia that are still being found as a loose comparison, it only takes 1-2 generations to get them up to speed from tribal hunter gathering, so I think if we can show them the upsides, they will make the choices that are most beneficial to them.

Skeletal analysis of hunter-gatherer tribes and agriculturalists from the same time periods and broad geographic areas suggest that the hunter-gatherers were actually healthier than the agriculturalists at that level of technology. The forces that drove agriculture are therefore not very well understood.

[The Spartan]

Skeletal analysis of hunter-gatherer tribes and agriculturalists from the same time periods and broad geographic areas suggest that the hunter-gatherers were actually healthier than the agriculturalists at that level of technology. The forces that drove agriculture are therefore not very well understood.

Assuming that's accurate, could it be the availability of leisure time that drove the change? Perhaps coupled with increasing populations that are staying closer together and thus making it harder to maintain that lifestyle in that particular area?

Sure agriculturalists have to work hard, but they still have periods during the year where they have more leisure time and only have to maintain the crops rather than go through the planting and harvesting, etc., don't they? On the other hand, hunter/gatherers have to spend most of their time looking for food and moving from place to place. The moving around may have also contributed to that, now that I type that. Who wants to constantly be on the move looking for new food sources when you can settle in one place and grow your food. (Crop failures notwithstanding...)

[Darth Wong]

Now... if I go to Mike Wong and say "Hey, this is what I saw of a SCA-legal Crossbow, this is how the wheel-lock looked and how it was kept from firing before the trigger was pulled." Could he, as an engineer, come up with the innards to make the wheel spin properly when it needs to, just from wood and sinew?

A crossbow is an extraordinarily simple device compared to most modern mechanisms. Compared to devices that have hundreds of moving parts, a crossbow is absurdly simplistic. As far as I can tell, it has only a handful of moving parts: a ratchet/crank mechanism for pulling back the string, a latch to hold it in place, and a trigger to move the latch. The simpler ones would be foot-drawn and would not even have the ratchet/crank. Machining tolerances could be extremely loose compared to most modern machinery.

The real trick to engineering is not to draw up the device. That part is actually really easy. It's figuring out exactly what your performance specifications will be, what materials you have to work with, what methods you wish to use, and how to optimize it for cost, reliability, and ease of maintenance. You want to make sure the people will be able to make it with the materials available, you want to make sure it won't be too difficult to build with the techniques available, and you want to make sure it won't break in the field or be difficult to fix if it does.

[Samuel]

Well taking the Native tribes from New Guenia that are still being found as a loose comparison, it only takes 1-2 generations to get them up to speed from tribal hunter gathering, so I think if we can show them the upsides, they will make the choices that are most beneficial to them.

Skeletal analysis of hunter-gatherer tribes and agriculturalists from the same time periods and broad geographic areas suggest that the hunter-gatherers were actually healthier than the agriculturalists at that level of technology. The forces that drove agriculture are therefore not very well understood.

I'm thinking that they had no choice- they had too many people and it was that or starve. Once they switched over they had higher population densities and could take out the competition. Of course, with our help we can make the transition easier (higher quality crops, metal plows, etc).

Think of it as a case of peak deer

[Darth Wong]

On crossbows: I suppose I should point out that even a small island like Nantucket probably has at least one sporting-goods store where we would probably find a variety of crossbows, plain bows, and compound bows. All of their designs could be copied instead of trying to re-invent the wheel, although we might want to design something simpler which can be made using materials accessible to the natives. Even if they had no such store, I consider it inevitable that at least some of the houses would contain examples of such weapons.

It's somewhat fascinating to think of things we consider extremely simple, but which are still thousands of years away in terms of human technological development in 1250BC. Modern people have a hard time even imagining an era when mankind had not yet invented the nail. Even ordinary carpenter's glue is an incredible technological wonder by the standards of that era. I think the Egyptians were using some shitty glue made from fish oil at the time, which took months to cure. Hell, it'll be another thousand years before the Romans invent the red brick, or concrete. It'll be a couple of millennia before someone invents the number zero.

[Bounty]

Even ordinary carpenter's glue is an incredible technological wonder by the standards of that era

Glue's a bit older than that. Otzi's equipment was glued, for instance, and he's from 3300BC. I'm not sure about the quality or curing time, but it was established enough to be used on everyday equipment.

[LadyTevar]

Somewhere there's a recipe for clue from the hooves of horses, cow, and deer. I understand it's a long, messy, stinky project, but it gets decent glue.

Darthdavid, Mike, you are right, the wheellock for the crossbow bolt is much simpler than we think. A free-moving wheel with a backwards v-nock to hold the string and to rest the bolt upon, and a smaller nock about the 7'o-clock position for the trigger to catch. As you said, the pull of the crossbar will be the real sticking point.

Concrete will take time. Brick in the Biblical sense was mud and straw, so that might be feasible as building materials ... until I remembered that we're in a wetter climate, so mud would melt. *sigh*

[Crayz9000]

Concrete will take time. Brick in the Biblical sense was mud and straw, so that might be feasible as building materials ... until I remembered that we're in a wetter climate, so mud would melt. *sigh*

Well, this being a heavily forested North America, we have abundant amounts of timber and pine tar to work with. Log cabins are going to be easy (if labor-intensive) to build; the roofs can be sealed with the pine tar.

[LadyTevar]

Thankfully we'll have housing, from what's left on Nantucket itself. That won't be a problem.

The fights over who gets what house on the other hand.......

[Academia Nut]

About the housing, I looked it up and Nantucket has a little over 3000 houses on the island. Even if we demolish half of them, that's two or three people to a house, with plenty of room to pick what you want. Plus remember that Nantucket has a permanent population of 10,000 but during the summer it goes up to 50,000, so it wouldn't surprise me if the inns alone could hold most of us. We won't have to build new structures on the island for a long time, so most of our log houses will be on Martha's Vinyard or the mainland.

[Crayz9000]

That's pretty much exactly what I assumed we were all talking about when Tevar mentioned building materials.

[LadyTevar]

I mentioned it because Mike mentioned concrete and red brick


Anyway... who can cook on Wood Fires in this bunch? I'm not very good at it, although I can come up with simple filling stews and such. When you've cooked feast in the SCA, it teaches you to be very careful about sanitation and how to stretch a meal to feed 300 people. I know that Rogue9 bakes bread in massive batches for feasts his SCA group holds. Damn good bread from what I hear

But we will need cooks.. and to feed everyone we'd need what the SCA calls an "AllDay Sideboard", where food is set out for people to help themselves, and items change as the day moves to evening. Tha's going to be a lot of people doing KP duties, fixing the food, while one person is HeadCook.

[darthdavid]

Camp cooking is about as far as my wood fire skills go but I'm a pretty good cook in a regular kitchen so I imagine with a bit of time and effort I could pull my fair share of KP duty .

I think the most important thing in this scenario, past initial survival, will be keeping organized and having a clear plan to follow wrt bootstrapping our technology. With such a small population base and limited resources there's only so far we'll be able to get within our lifetimes so we'll really need to focus our efforts to get maximal results both for us and for the generations to follow.

[LadyTevar]

If you think KP duty will be bad, just wait until we set up the Nursery Rotation...

[Crayz9000]

Regarding wood fires... we'll have to make do with roasting stuff over the fire on a spit at first, and we can use the Hawaiian trick of burying the food in foil and leaves beneath a layer of rocks and then igniting a roaring fire to heat the rocks up. However, longer term, we will want to set up kilns to cook wood and turn it into charcoal for ease of use. That part should be pretty simple, as a kiln is basically a conical beehive made of stacked rocks (mud will work for mortar, too).

[Academia Nut]

Just a thought, but one interesting thing to think about would be some of the cultural ones, particularly from such a close mingling of a wide variety of people from around the world. Especially considering how bored a lot of us would be, even if we're working long days. One thing to consider would be the revival of work songs, especially amongst the population set to the tasks of cutting down wood and other mundane, make work. I can totally see new music springing up ala the prison work songs of African-Americans. Then again, we might just figure out acoustic and a capella versions of current popular music.

Of course, if we got there were some Russians who could teach us the Volga Boatmen's Song and others to keep the classics alive, that would be pretty epic too.

One also imagines what we would look like to others around the world considering our multiculturalism. Of course, that might be secondary to our seemingly magical technology, but still, might be an extra bit of weirdness for Bronze Age cultures.

[Coyote]

Regarding wood fires... we'll have to make do with roasting stuff over the fire on a spit at first, and we can use the Hawaiian trick of burying the food in foil and leaves beneath a layer of rocks and then igniting a roaring fire to heat the rocks up. However, longer term, we will want to set up kilns to cook wood and turn it into charcoal for ease of use. That part should be pretty simple, as a kiln is basically a conical beehive made of stacked rocks (mud will work for mortar, too).

Everything tastes better smoked.

The natives can teach us a lot of the basics, all we do is add some refinement for taste and sanitation as needed. We're all worried about learning to live off the land when there's a tribe of experts a few miles away, and we know the theories to taking their basic skills and refining them. Plus, teaching a few things like, as mentioned Hawaiian Luau style cooking.

[Darth Wong]

The easiest way to cook for large numbers of people is to boil soup in a huge pot. Unlike foil-wrapping, this does not use up any materials per meal (apart from the wood). There's bound to be some huge pots somewhere on the island. Just build a frame, suspect the giant pot over a large wood fire, and then just keep feeding and stoking the fire until the soup is done.

Soup also allows us to make fairly tasty meals with vegetables and a little bit of meat, as opposed to using up large amounts of meat for every meal. Smoked and cured meat and vegetables can be good for wintering, but it should really be avoided when we have fresh ingredients to draw upon, because it makes the food extremely carcinogenic. Soup, on the other hand, keeps all of that smoke from actually getting into the food. Carcinogens didn't bother the natives since their lifespan was only about 35 to 40 anyway, but we've gotten used to the idea that a person should actually go on living even after his hair starts turning grey.