SD.Net in The Sea Of Time

[That NOS Guy]

People seem to forget the critical factor that Med. civilzation fucking collapses around 1250 BCE. Any step into that arena is going to be a hellstorm as the city-states in Greece and Asia Minor are simply gone at that time.

[Academia Nut]

The Greek Mediterranean civilizations are on the verge of collapse, but the Dorian invasions are still about a half century to a full century down the road, the Egyptians are at their height with Ramses II firmly on the throne, the Kassites have control over Babylonia and the Assyrians are on the rise. It's not until the Dorians invade and throw the trade routes for tin into chaos, which came primarily from western Europe back then, that the Mediterranean was thrown into chaos by the sharp decrease in the availability of bronze while at the same time iron became available. So the Bronze Age is just about to reach its violent end, but not quite yet, and our presence will likely change the course of events. Of course, the early introduction of iron and steel and the concept of the soldier over the warrior could quite probably accelerate the collapse, but the Dark Ages have yet to begin.

[That NOS Guy]

The Greek Mediterranean civilizations are on the verge of collapse, but the Dorian invasions are still about a half century to a full century down the road, the Egyptians are at their height with Ramses II firmly on the throne, the Kassites have control over Babylonia and the Assyrians are on the rise. It's not until the Dorians invade and throw the trade routes for tin into chaos, which came primarily from western Europe back then, that the Mediterranean was thrown into chaos by the sharp decrease in the availability of bronze while at the same time iron became available. So the Bronze Age is just about to reach its violent end, but not quite yet, and our presence will likely change the course of events. Of course, the early introduction of iron and steel and the concept of the soldier over the warrior could quite probably accelerate the collapse, but the Dark Ages have yet to begin.

Let's also remember that the Hittites are in a state of rapid collapse at that point, and Egypt will have it's back broken by the Sea Peoples. We're dealing with climate change at the time which means, among other things, famine. The collapses of 1250 aren't related to the mythical Dorian invasion, it's related to the fact that there's widespread crop failure.

[Academia Nut]

You're off by at least 50 years, the Bronze Age collapse started some time between the 1200 and 1150 BC. The historical Trojan War is still probably another generation off. Ramses II is still firmly and most definitely in power at this point. The collapse is just around the corner, but unless we accelerate it, it is still at least a generation away.

[That NOS Guy]

You're off by at least 50 years, the Bronze Age collapse started some time between the 1200 and 1150 BC. The historical Trojan War is still probably another generation off. Ramses II is still firmly and most definitely in power at this point. The collapse is just around the corner, but unless we accelerate it, it is still at least a generation away.

There is evidence that production of luxury goods (at least in Mycenian Greece) started to tail off by 1250 which indicates an economic crisis, and Ramses II who only died in 1237 BCE has engravings of his defeat of the sea peoples. Collapse had most certaintly begin around 1250 and only accelerated from there.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Regardless of precisely how dire the political and social situation is around the Mediterranean in that period, Gibraltar as an advanced trading post should be far enough from the center of the action to be able to weather the turbulence. Simply having access to sources of cork and olives would be incredibly useful. Long term, access to potential spouses and adopted children would be even more vital, and the Mediterranean is a likely primary source. The natives from the Americas and Africa would also be obvious choices, to maximize genetic diversity, but the pool of potential spouses and adoption candidates is likely to be smaller.

In the short term, Nantucket and its immediate environs should provide decent food supplies. The existing farms, small orchards and cranberry bogs would provide an excellent starting point for basic agriculture, and given the circumstances nobody is likely to miss the island's two golf courses if they are converted into carefully fenced-in fields, just like assorted lawns and back yards. Even with plentiful compost, the lack of herbicides and pesticides will push yields down, but they should be adequate. The island's existing small flock of sheep could potentially grow by leaps and bounds in the space of a few years, securing a sustainable supply of wool and, eventually, mutton. There are even a few dozen hives of bees, so if someone can get the hang of beekeeping, we have reliable pollinators, honey, and beeswax. In the interim fishing , hunting and foraging should stretch the existing food supplies drastically.

Conventional fishing, even where it amounts to no more than someone with a dinghy, a cooler and a rod and reel fishing in the harbor, should provide a large portion of the necessary food. Carefully strained seawater and driftwood fires on the beach might be enough to supply the necessary salt for preservation of excess fish harvests. Nantucket is also famous for scallops, yielding many thousands of bushels annually, so clearly scallopping would become a major food source, plus a source for calcium carbonate for industry. Even beached whales might be put under the heading of fishing.

The island is host to a massive population of white-tail deer, in excess of 2,500, cottontail rabbits are plentiful, and a small outlying island, that presumably would be transported along with the main island, is home to a large colony of gray seals, at least a thousand and possibly two or three times that. Add to that assorted fowl. Best case, several hundred deer and a like number of seals could likely be harvested annually without damaging the population.

Foraging would be the third option, and that's where knowing which berries to eat and which not to touch would be really useful. The simplest option is to forage for cattails, obviously harmless berries, stinging nettles, daisies, dandelions, and even clover. Roasted dandelion root can even stand in for ersatz coffee, sort of caffeine-free ersatz^2 coffee. Another vitally important thing for foragers would be to keep both eyes peeled for any plants or animals that could be exploited as another sustainable resource. Stinging nettles have the additional useful quality that their stalks can be retted (deliberately rotted) like flax and the resulting fibers processed into a coarse, linen-like fabric.

[CaptainChewbacca]

If there's a library on Nantucket, it will have a few books on edible plants that will prove invaluable. Though I mentioned in the fic thread, it bears repeating here that I am a geologist/hydrologist with experience specifically installing wells, locating and maintaining aquifers, and securing water supplies. I have very little mechanical/engineering experience, but if Kodiak (my brother, the engineer) can help me out he and I should be able to direct and manage the various water-works projects that will be popping up.

[LadyTevar]

I keep talking to Academia Nut and he keeps pointing out all the skills I've learned via the SCA.

Like how to cook food people will actually eat over an open fire.
Or how to measure, cut, and hand-sew a simple dress or tunic in under 5hrs. (With Trim!)
Or how to Card and Spin wool.
Or how to make very strong cord using a lucet (a forked stick, basically)
Or basic basket weaving
Or easy candle-making (Pringles tubes make great pillar candles!)
Or basic Public Announcements. (Oyez, Oyez, LISTEN UP!)
Or how to entertain children for hours by helping them entertain themselves. (Those that can, have; those that can't, babysit)


I'm amazed by how much ACNut pointed out I knew. The problem is, I have only BASIC knowledge -- I'm a apprentice or journeyman, but never a master of anything I've tried so far. In short, I know a lot more about living "medievally" than many others on this board, and I could make a good contribution teaching the basics to others. Give me access to the local crafts-stores and the local Fabric stores and a few willing hands, I could start a industry in garments alone.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I also learned how to card wool and spin yarn, as well as making rope in Scouts, along with a number of similar skills.

Candle-making isn't hard, its getting the right kind of rendered fat to MAKE the candles.

[The Spartan]

Candle-making isn't hard, its getting the right kind of rendered fat to MAKE the candles.

What kind would you need? Conceivably, we'd be able to pick up a few animals that we could raise for meat, leather and harvest some of their fat for the candles. Alternatively, we could have hunting parties that take time to hunt down animals that would provide meat and the fat you need or keep them in mind as targets of opportunity.

[TimothyC]

If there's a library on Nantucket, it will have a few books on edible plants that will prove invaluable. Though I mentioned in the fic thread, it bears repeating here that I am a geologist/hydrologist with experience specifically installing wells, locating and maintaining aquifers, and securing water supplies. I have very little mechanical/engineering experience, but if Kodiak (my brother, the engineer) can help me out he and I should be able to direct and manage the various water-works projects that will be popping up.

We've also got at least two Civil Engineers on the board, so for civic works projects we're not in bad shape at all.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Candle-making isn't hard, its getting the right kind of rendered fat to MAKE the candles.

What kind would you need? Conceivably, we'd be able to pick up a few animals that we could raise for meat, leather and harvest some of their fat for the candles. Alternatively, we could have hunting parties that take time to hunt down animals that would provide meat and the fat you need or keep them in mind as targets of opportunity.

There are beehives on the island, in the charge of the island's various hobby beekeepers, so if someone manages to handle the bees, we'll have a modest supply of beeswax. Beeswax may be too valuable for candles, though.

Bayberries also yield a wax suitable for candlemaking, but, again, probably not enough to meet demand.

Another option is using digester gas / biogas to power street lights, as was historically done, or gasify wood to do the same. The presence of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and possibly sulfur dioxide in those gases makes them a suicidal choice for indoor lighting, though the Victorians made do with it.

If it's candles you want, apparently deer tallow is supposed to be good for tallow candles (and not so tasty for eating), and the folks who are into kitchen chemistry should be able to use the available library resources and the collected knowledge of the group to figure out how to process otherwise unused fats --deer tallow and seal blubber -- into stearin and oil. Stearin makes high quality candles, and if the oil separated out works at all like lard oil, it will produce light as good as that of whale oil, and suitable for oil lamps.

[CaptainChewbacca]

We've also got at least two Civil Engineers on the board, so for civic works projects we're not in bad shape at all.

I'm not worried about engineering expertise. I'm worried about the fact that we've got 20th/21st century engineering knowhow with a limited amount of unskilled and semiskilled labor and a vanishingly small supply of heavy equipment.

Do we even have tools to equip all the men in the labor camps? Or are people going to be cutting down trees with fire?

[LadyTevar]

I was looking at the beeswax myself, as well as recycling whatever candles can be found in empty houses. Something like the huge 3-wick pillar candles leave a LOT of leftover wax that can be melted and reused. It is diminishing returns, but with the added beeswax that could make a difference.

Tallow candles are far more sooty and in some cases stinky. However, if you can find Great Mullein growing wild, the dead flower stalks (often 10cm or more in height) can be soaked in tallow to make a torch, while the fibrous leaves can be used for candle wicks.

Edit: Fuck, nm... it's a European transplant.
I see the damned things EVERYWHERE, and a herbalist friend told me all the uses for it... cough syrup, fish poison, candles, wart removing...
So unless we brought a few back with us on the island, we won't have it.

[CaptainChewbacca]

What're the chances someone on Nantucket used it for a decorative flower somewhere?

[Patrick Ogaard]

We've also got at least two Civil Engineers on the board, so for civic works projects we're not in bad shape at all.

I'm not worried about engineering expertise. I'm worried about the fact that we've got 20th/21st century engineering knowhow with a limited amount of unskilled and semiskilled labor and a vanishingly small supply of heavy equipment.

Do we even have tools to equip all the men in the labor camps? Or are people going to be cutting down trees with fire?

As long as you keep the labor groups small, there should be no problems. The island has a tool rental business http://www.rustysoutodoorpower.com, along with a tree care business, gardening/lawn care businesses, some landscapers and pool builders, someone who sells and presumably produces firewood, septic tank maintainers/installers, and the contents of likely a few hundred tool sheds. What we need, though, is for someone to get good at blacksmithing

Even if the ferries don't go along for the ride, vessels like the Shearwater of http://www.nantucketsealcruises.com could haul personnel and cargo for years. Combine the 47' catamaran with the six-passenger Taxi-Cat of http://www.tobeyleskeinc.com and you're ready for the conquest of Martha's Vineyard. Sort of. Failing that, copy the whaleboat from http://www.nantucketcommunitysailing.or ... whale_boat and the wooden dory made as a shop project by students of Nantucket High School. There's also a sailboat design firm on the island, and several places that provide repair services for outboard motors and dinghies, and the resources of a lumberyard or two.

The big thing, in the medium term, is to use the available resources to fabricate a sustainable technology base. Basic blacksmithing would be a good skill to redevelop. Someone -- Darth Wong, most likely -- would have to develop a basic brass drawing system to allow the production of cartridges. Chemical manufacturing will also have to be a priority, since the supplies of vital acids will eventually run out, and sulfuric, nitric and phosphoric acids are going to be vital to sustain the technology base, and we will certainly need chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, rubber, waterproof and mold-resistant glues, etc. Also, guns don't work without propellants and primers, and there's a sharply limited existing supply.

On the trade goods front, cranberries preserved in vodka seem like a good idea, and straight vodka is another, but combs might be the real kicker, since they're a classic trade item and could be fabricated from locally available raw materials. We'd need a fabrication system for comb blanks, a second for cutting the teeth into the combs, and then the teeth and the surface of the comb would have to be finely finished to be free of burrs and snags. Dozens of different comb designs, with dozens or even hundreds of each comb design, fabricated from wood, antler, whalebone, etc. could fit into a decent-sized wooden box. The combs could even have large, flat blank areas for local artisans to customize our products. Similarly, decorative beads and disks fabricated from seashell and threaded on string, basically classic wampum, should be easily mass-fabricated. Primitive glass could also be a decent trade good, even if our initial capabilities are limited to something like making up batches of colored glass and processing the stuff into beads and decorative "gemstones" by means of a small rock tumbler directly powered by an improvised windmill, or someone using a rotary cutting tool like a Dremel to decoratively slice and dice.

[Patrick Ogaard]

What're the chances someone on Nantucket used it for a decorative flower somewhere?

The stuff is supposed to be a common, naturalized and nearly ineradicable weed in the Northeast and elsewhere, so there's almost no question but that there's going to be some available.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Also, guns don't work without propellants and primers, and there's a sharply limited existing supply.

For primers and percussion caps, you need potassium chlorate (or potassium perchlorate,) plus either mercury fulminate (or lead styphnate which is harder to synthesize than the fulminate, but has the advantage of not needing mercury,) plus charcoal and sulfur. You need the essential industrial acids to do this. It's much easier to make 4F or 5F (extremely small-grained) black powder for flintlocks. We'll probably keep designs around for percussion-cap and metallic cartridge weapons, but when our blacksmiths start producing guns, they will likely be flintlocks designed with eventual percussion-cap conversion in mind; unless we can get the production of the requisite chemicals going on even a cottage industry scale.

[Patrick Ogaard]

The island's high school does offer chemistry and honors chemistry courses, so there has to be a chemistry lab of modest size. Combine that with sulfuric acid from worn out starter batteries, assorted household/commercial chemical products, bone ash, and whatever mercury can be scrounged, and we should have something to work with. There's also a field station from UMass Boston on the island, with a assorted bits like centrifuges and decent microscopes, and whatever the various medical practices and the hospital may have. There's also a distillery and a small beer brewery, possibly adding more options.

Sulfur can be obtained from Iceland (which should have no humans on it in 1250 BC), or by trade from the Mediterranean, and cinnabar is a reasonably common pigment that happens to be the main ore of mercury. Captain Chewbacca might have leads on other suitable locations and deposits, but there's always Almaden, about 400-odd kilometers north of Gibraltar, the largest known source of cinnabar.

Whether we go with gunpowder or smokeless, or both, cartridges with integral primers would probably be a good idea. It means fewer fiddly bits to get lost or dropped in action, always a hazard with flintlocks or caplocks. The crudest possible option would be to incorporate a pre-installed percussion cap and disposable nipple in the base of an extended cartridge case, effectively an oversized primer. Of course, then we need someone who can get a cottage industry brass drawing operation going, and I see a certain Canadian engineer looking good for that.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The island's high school does offer chemistry and honors chemistry courses, so there has to be a chemistry lab of modest size. Combine that with sulfuric acid from worn out starter batteries, assorted household/commercial chemical products, bone ash, and whatever mercury can be scrounged, and we should have something to work with. There's also a field station from UMass Boston on the island, with a assorted bits like centrifuges and decent microscopes, and whatever the various medical practices and the hospital may have. There's also a distillery and a small beer brewery, possibly adding more options.

Sulfur can be obtained from Iceland (which should have no humans on it in 1250 BC), or by trade from the Mediterranean, and cinnabar is a reasonably common pigment that happens to be the main ore of mercury. Captain Chewbacca might have leads on other suitable locations and deposits, but there's always Almaden, about 400-odd kilometers north of Gibraltar, the largest known source of cinnabar.

Whether we go with gunpowder or smokeless, or both, cartridges with integral primers would probably be a good idea. It means fewer fiddly bits to get lost or dropped in action, always a hazard with flintlocks or caplocks. The crudest possible option would be to incorporate a pre-installed percussion cap and disposable nipple in the base of an extended cartridge case, effectively an oversized primer. Of course, then we need someone who can get a cottage industry brass drawing operation going, and I see a certain Canadian engineer looking good for that.

If we can get the chemistry going, then yes, no there's no point pussyfooting around with flintlocks, or even percussion-cap; except for use as trade items to especially well-liked allies. A modern (Boxer) primer is a fairly simple affair. Just a brass cup, a bit of priming compound, and a little pointy brass star which forms the anvil that the gun's hammer crushes the cup of fulminate against. You can get rid of the pointy brass star by punching a sharp point into the base of the primer pocket of the cartridge case, and then drilling three small holes. This will give you the Berdan priming system.

If we were hard-up for brass, you could simply cast a lead bullet with a really long skirt, fill it with powder, and cap it off with a cardboard disc containing a pellet of priming compound . . . making a crude form of caseless ammunition. This was the sort of cartridge used in the Volcanic lever-action pistol from the American Civil War.

Although . . . what might be worthwhile to pursue would be the manufacture of air rifles; as these wouldn't require the use of explosives. The kind we're used to could easily harvest small game, and they could be scaled up to injure or kill people-sized targets (albeit at fairly short ranges.)

[LadyTevar]

On the trade goods front, cranberries preserved in vodka seem like a good idea, and straight vodka is another, but combs might be the real kicker, since they're a classic trade item and could be fabricated from locally available raw materials. We'd need a fabrication system for comb blanks, a second for cutting the teeth into the combs, and then the teeth and the surface of the comb would have to be finely finished to be free of burrs and snags. Dozens of different comb designs, with dozens or even hundreds of each comb design, fabricated from wood, antler, whalebone, etc. could fit into a decent-sized wooden box. The combs could even have large, flat blank areas for local artisans to customize our products. Similarly, decorative beads and disks fabricated from seashell and threaded on string, basically classic wampum, should be easily mass-fabricated. Primitive glass could also be a decent trade good, even if our initial capabilities are limited to something like making up batches of colored glass and processing the stuff into beads and decorative "gemstones" by means of a small rock tumbler directly powered by an improvised windmill, or someone using a rotary cutting tool like a Dremel to decoratively slice and dice.

*Facepalm*
And yes, yet ANOTHER skill I am familiar with; bead-making. The local craft store should have either no-bake or low-bake clay that we can start with, and I know the technique for making the clay beads with internal decorations (like Xmas candy with the little trees and things in the center of them). Glass beads are harder, since we'd have to find a way to get the fire hot enough to melt it.

"Gemstones" can be tumbled just by putting them and coarse sand in a can with a crank attached to it. It's a bit tedious, so it's a great 'punishment' for unruly kids. With all the empty buildings (houses, stores, churches) there's going to be a lot of colored glass that can be recycled this way. And just THINK of what small pieces of Mirrored Glass would be worth!

[Academia Nut]

For clay, there is natural clay on the islands nearby (Martha's Vineyard has an entire cliff made from clay) so there should be plenty to work with. We're still about two thousand years off from the glazing process from being developed yet, so just with primitive ash glazes we can have pottery that no one else on the planet can make. Of course, that pales in comparison to what any civilization worth trading for will pay for a drinking glass. Think about it: flawless, clear glass without bubbles or defects (unless it is obviously intentional decoration) of delicate proportions. Surely a drinking vessel only a king could afford! And we would no doubt have easily within the range of a hundred thousand glass drinking vessels on the island.

Also... while it might not seem like much, we also have an incredible wealth of strange and fantastical stories to tell people that would go a long way towards developing goodwill with people once we could communicate with them. Think about it, a lot of science fiction would make great camp fire fodder, even if we would wouldn't be able to get everything across. Incidentally, a camp fire scene with people from the past listening to the tale of the 'War between the star' is eventually going into the fiction I'm writing.

[Formless]

You know, as cool as it would be to see Star Wars take its rightful place among the world's mythologies, there are a lot of stories from real life that would sound just as fantastic to primitive ears. When you tell them that men will some day set foot on the moon, you not only conjure the "wow" factor, but everything you say actually happened.

[Academia Nut]

The trick isn't telling them the story, the trick is getting them to believe you. Lots of mythologies have stories about people or gods going to the moon, so saying that our people went to the moon will probably get a 'Wow, really?' reaction of anyone with a good story, but not quite the reaction we want. Of course, showing up in a boat larger than anything they've ever seen with more metal they've ever seen and fantastic weapons and exotic tradegoods they're more likely to think we came from the moon.

Also, we're likely to have a weird set of mythology within a generation. Some strange blend of modern world religions tempered by a heavy liberal and atheist bent, science fiction and fantasy, and probably some sort of bitterness at our situation since whatever happened is clearly outside of our understanding, plus additions from the mythologies and religions of those we bring in from the outside. I wouldn't be surprised if a hundred years later there are tales of Jesus Prime Skywalker, Son of the God Emperor Ra, duelling with Darth Cthulhu upon the Bridge of Khazad-dum... which sounds like it needs to have a picture made and then captioned: "Mythology - I think something was lost in translation"

[Formless]

Also, we're likely to have a weird set of mythology within a generation. Some strange blend of modern world religions tempered by a heavy liberal and atheist bent, science fiction and fantasy,

One of these words is not like the others, one of these words just doesn't belong...