SD.Net in The Sea Of Time

[Coyote]

I'm wondering about when the real Europeans come over in their sailing ships and find Hurons, Mohegan, Chippewa, etc armed with flintlocks. (And trying to build something called a "turbolaser".)

[Samuel]

I'm wondering about when the real Europeans come over in their sailing ships and find Hurons, Mohegan, Chippewa, etc armed with flintlocks. (And trying to build something called a "turbolaser".)

Fool- we will go across the ocean first! After all, don't we have access to enough technology to spread agriculture across the North American continent just by accident? Actually making an empire is probably a bad idea but does anyone know if there are any trade networks at that time and area we could hook into and exploit?

[Stormin]

Fool- we will go across the ocean first! After all, don't we have access to enough technology to spread agriculture across the North American continent just by accident? Actually making an empire is probably a bad idea but does anyone know if there are any trade networks at that time and area we could hook into and exploit?

If we start trading with the local tribes they will probably form an empire without needing our encouragement. Everything we give them will put them that much better than their neighbors and constantly winning incidental (and not so) border skirmishes will quickly amount to quite a chunk of territory.
Once they get their hands on agriculture, roads and metallurgy I doubt we could stop them from deciding to become the biggest guys on the continent. Would we want to stop them either? The fewer middlemen it takes for the resources we want to reach us the better.

[KrauserKrauser]

Honestly at the technological point we are entering at we could easily advance them well beyond Europe without knowing it. Things that are second nature to us like plowing fields with steel plows and if nothing the access we have to modern stains of GM crops will absolutely blow anything the rest of Europe has away.

Columbus will get to the Carribean to be met with people rolling in sugar and salt like it's nothing with the use of sugar beets and modern salt production. Hell they could probably buy Spain with the value of their resources.

[Coyote]

There were --eventually-- extensive trade networks in Pre-Columbian America, but it was all made up of inter-connected regional trade, no large, over-arching networks carrie dout by one group.

Bear in mind, we also have the general locations of things like Pennsylvania coal mines, should we choose to go that route. Something to do for future generations, though, might be to start making and keeping accurate records about the environment so that future generations can track changes.

Hmm... here's a thought... were there any major volcano or earthquake events that we should be warned about? Wasn't there some big massive volcano in Java or something that fucked up weather worldwide... or I may be thinking of 1200 CE, as opposed to 1200 BCE.

[Stormin]

I checked a map of coal deposits and there are some nearby, though it doesn't say if we would have to dig or blast to get to it. None of the locals would have had much use for the stuff so if we made it clear what we wanted and that we were willing to pay the enterprising natives would find a way to obtain it and get it to us.
A big problem might be how they obtain it. Conquering the people that lived in the area and working the captives to death as slave labor would offend the sensibilities of most of us but it might be hard to communicate WHY that is a bad thing.

[Academia Nut]

Possibly the simplest way to discourage slavery is to say that it offends the sensibilities of our gods or whatever. It would probably be hard to get across a lot of ideas without a common language so they would probably interpret a lot of our concepts as the will of gods/spirits/whatever anyway until we had more communicative links, at which point we can better inform them and say that any other ideas they had before were misunderstandings. We'll probably have to explain our very presence as the will of the gods anyway as the sudden displacement of the island with thousands of people and large buildings probably couldn't be adequately explained any other way before the advent of science fiction.

For irony, we could tell them that many of us worship Athe

[LadyTevar]

I checked a map of coal deposits and there are some nearby, though it doesn't say if we would have to dig or blast to get to it. None of the locals would have had much use for the stuff so if we made it clear what we wanted and that we were willing to pay the enterprising natives would find a way to obtain it and get it to us.
A big problem might be how they obtain it. Conquering the people that lived in the area and working the captives to death as slave labor would offend the sensibilities of most of us but it might be hard to communicate WHY that is a bad thing.

Find the start of the New River, where it flows north through NC and VA. When it hits WV, it's carved a 800+ft deep canyon thought the Appalachian mountains, which in the early 1900s was a source of easily mined coal. Of course, getting it OUT of the canyon needed railroads at the time....

[Coyote]

Hmmm... railroads.... we'd need rails, but a car without tires might... hmmm...

We may have to explain away a lot of things based on "the gods" (I mean, we'll have airplanes for cryin' out loud. ) due to the sophistication level we're working with, but that's okay. Once here on ol' SDN we designed an ideal religion (if one must have a religion, of course) and some sort of benevolent polytheistic pantheon of beings that espoused ethics, science, and logical conflict resolution would be ideal, so, well... here we are at the ground floor.

"Our gods say that one must be paid goods in exchange for labor given of free will, or it is... tainted.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

We should probably take into account how our modern disease would influence the natives. We don't have the resources or knowhow to vaccinate everybody, and even if we could, what could something as simple as the common cold or influenza do to someone with 3000 less years of disease resistance?

[Stormin]

Hmmm... railroads.... we'd need rails, but a car without tires might... hmmm...

I think a proper steel railroad might be pretty close to impossible for quite some time, we will have a lot to do before that scale of steel production becomes possible and reaches the top of the list of things to do. Proper roads and horse cart technology would probably serve us well enough.

We might have to take a trip across the ocean to pick up horses, if there are some on the island I doubt there will be enough for a viable long-term population. In fact we should work out a shopping list of things to pick up in as few trips as possible. I don't think we want to risk catching whatever nasty diseases that would be over there that we are helpless against and one bad storm will sink the Eagle.

[Academia Nut]

We will cause problems with disease, although thankfully modern vaccinations and medicine means that no one will be carrying the really nasty products of the Eurasian bioweapons program called 'urbanization and domestication'. Still, the flu alone could probably do a number on any locals, and almost inevitably will once contact is made. It won't be pretty. We're probably best to blame it on the 'gods' but say that there are rituals to appease them like washing and quarantine. Still, we very well might end up wiping out a large proportion of the indigenous population just by our mere presence. If we do sail to Eurasia or Africa we might do a bit of the same simply because the diseases we carry are so much more refined for infecting human populations, but since they would still have poxes and plagues kicking around we would have to worry about our own safety as well.

[Darth Wong]

I don't see why we would want to invent a new mysticism to spread to the natives. That would do as much harm as good. It would make more sense to simply teach them (if they are amenable to learning, which they might be once they see what we can do) about science and humanism. Teach them not as religions, but in the same manner as a religion, ie- by showing how much better they make our lives.

Let's face it, the only reason religion took hold in the first place was its promise to improve peoples' lives. People believed that they could improve their crops by sacrificing to the fertility gods, they believed they could win battles by sacrificing to gods of war, etc. We have some kick-ass advantages and we got them by following science, not gods. A lot of them would probably convert on that basis alone; religion was nowhere near as sophisticated back then. Remember that when we think of religion, we're thinking of a single religion which has gripped an entire continent for two fucking millennia; that's a long time to build up cultural capital, intellectual defenses against encroachment, corrupt the language itself to serve the purposes of religion, etc. Why would we assume that local religions in the Americas should be so heavily entrenched? Historically, plenty of tribes were perfectly willing to change beliefs when given the right persuasion.

If we can get them to follow the scientific method, it could be entirely possible that the natives could be building modern technology and pretty much running roughshod over the rest of the world by 500 BC or earlier. The Europeans' first exposure to the American natives might very well be the (terrifying) sight of a steel-hulled battleship in the Mediterranean. That may seem outlandish or fantastic, but if we can get them to let us educate some of their young, they'd be well on their way. Plus, they would have a leg up because of our books pointing the way, unlike real scientists who still needed centuries to figure out very basic things because they didn't have all that pre-knowledge to work with.

Bottom line: we have knowledge of incredibly advanced things relative to their society, and that includes philosophy, not just science and engineering. Why should we try to give them advanced science and engineering, but not our advanced modern empirical humanist philosophy? Attempting to bundle modern science and engineering into some sort of home-made religion is a fool's errand. I can't imagine any conceivable reason to do it other than the idiotic notion that western society's dependence upon organized supernatural religion is a universal trait of human beings and cannot be avoided.

[Stormin]

Yeah, I was thinking of that whole religion thing as lying for the sake of lying. Something like that could blow up in our faces easily and the natives are not stupid so I expect slip-ups would be caught sooner or later.

[Academia Nut]

Well, that's what I said by in early encounters we'll probably have to inevitably communicate to them in supernatural terms simply because the language barrier would get in the way. Once we can actually have a meaningful conversation, its best to explain the truth, but if our mere presence is causing a pandemic, it might be best to impress upon them that if they want the disease to stop they need to follow a few rituals to appease the angry spirits. Again, once we can explain things better, actually tell them the truth and how to deal with things and brush off anything we said earlier about the supernatural as miscommunication or a 'lies to children' sort of thing.

[Darth Wong]

Well, that's what I said by in early encounters we'll probably have to inevitably communicate to them in supernatural terms simply because the language barrier would get in the way. Once we can actually have a meaningful conversation, its best to explain the truth, but if our mere presence is causing a pandemic, it might be best to impress upon them that if they want the disease to stop they need to follow a few rituals to appease the angry spirits. Again, once we can explain things better, actually tell them the truth and how to deal with things and brush off anything we said earlier about the supernatural as miscommunication or a 'lies to children' sort of thing.

No. If we can overcome the language barrier well enough to teach them some kind of mysticism, then we can overcome it well enough to say "Do this and you will feel better", without inventing a lot of made-up supernatural bullshit. In point of fact, your attempt to invent a religion requires that we actually know their language better than if we just tell them "Do this, it will work, we have great power."

PS. Tribal religions tend to be based on the authority of wise elders. We could simply tell them that our elders were very wise and taught us how to build these fantastic things, so they should just trust us. That is much simpler and has far fewer potential pitfalls than manufacturing some sort of religion for them and then trying to claw it back later.

[Academia Nut]

I never actually said to establish a religion other than a cheeky 'worship Athe' (atheism) thing that was derived from a joke, just that if anyone keeps persisting in 'Why?' other than 'We say so' then 'Because the spirits say so' is probably a good way of putting it, because if we try to explain 'Because it prevents invisible animals from getting into your body and making you sick' then its likely to get interpretted as spirits anyway. Also, it sounds a lot better before full communication that we shift the blame for all the shit suddenly going in these people's lives like the disappearance of their cousin on the island or why half their family just keeled over from horrible disease than if we try and explain things in full and make it sound like we brought all of this on them, which we technically would have but its not our fault bacteria and viruses in our bodies can escape and infect others.

But on second thought, you're right and we're more likely to run into troubles over religion on any theoretical trips to Eurasia where polytheism was really getting rooted along with a lot of the nasty shit of early civilization like human sacrifice and slavery, while in the Americas "wisdom of the elders" will probably work a lot better, especially when it starts showing results. I was probably transferring the nastiness of the Eurasians onto the Americans too much. Mostly it just seems like I was trying to say that 'No take slaves, anger mighty gods' is a hell of a lot easier to get across a language and thought pattern barrier than several hundred years of modernist thought, philosophy and struggle if we ever found ourselves in a situation where erst-while allies try and thank us for providing them with metal farming tools with some bound and gagged women they raided from the village across the river. It gets the point across and if they think that we're going to get a thunderbolt up the ass for accepting their gift, its less likely to insult and get us into a situation where we can't help anybody improve their lot in life because we pissed people off and they refuse to listen to us. And when people want to learn about the 'gods' that have made us so mighty we can explain that what we were really talking about were things like the scientific method, engineering, personal liberty, democracy, and the like. My point got a little distorted, but is it a bit clearer what I was trying to say? I was just saying 'blame any confusing actions on the supernatural until we can elaborate otherwise' but I think some other posters took that and ran with it from a short term patch into something more long term.

[Coyote]

Naw, teaching a new religion was my fault; I figured it would be easier (and more "palatable") to them as a means of just handwaving the fantastic technology past any resistances. But I think DW is right; a lot of the assumption is just inertia from 2000 years of Western civilization being ramrodded in that direction.

This is 1250 BCE or some such-- even the Hebrews at this point are still mostly Polytheistic types; the Exodus won't happen until (approximately) 1258; Ramesses-II makes a peace deal with the Hittites somewhere between 1259 and 1263 or so; it's around the theorized period of the Trojan war. So things like Christianity, Constantine, the Church, the Crusades.... none of it has happened yet. It is a blank slate, and 2000 years of Christian dominance and bullshit are still almost 1,000 in the future.

[Samuel]

scientific method, engineering, personal liberty, democracy, and the like.

Democracy is the prefered system of government for hunter gather tribes. That won't be a problem. Personal liberty is only a problem when applied to people who are from different groups... which I imagine would be a bigger problem- if we want anything major done we are going to have to deal with multiple tribes and get them to work together.

[Academia Nut]

Okay, switch that to modern democracy which while shares includes consensus making amongst people, it includes universal suffrage and more importantly the concept of rule of law, which will probably be the biggest one for the locals to wrap their heads around as control was enforced by strength of arms, personal charisma, community pressure, or other such personal, tangible, and most of all inconstant means, not seemingly intangible 'laws'.

Presuming we don't all kill each other in anarchistic rioting, those who actually see our full numbers might quickly appreciate why we don't care mind playing nice with other tribes. I don't think any individual tribe would be as large or as concentrated as we would be by like an order of magnitude, and no where near as diverse. We would just need to explain that our tolerance makes us strong and let that idea percolate for a while.

[Crayz9000]

Just for laughs, I'd propose we name any new country Atlantis. I'm sure you could all see the reasons why it would be hilarious

[PeZook]

Before we get to building empires and uplifting the locals, we'll need security and food. Let's figure out how to provide those two twings:

1. Security

If people from the mainland come over to steal our shit, they're going to do it the way they always have: gather a warband and try to sneak in. Some tribes put more emphasis on gathering scalps, other much less, but I'd guess they'll want our boomsticks the most. Still, any incursion carries the risk of death - and our numbers are very, very limited.

However, they are not used to locks, doors, heavy walls, lockers, padlocks et al. Their first incursion is bound to fail to reach their objectives, even if we never know they were here, and I don't think they'll try again for some time.

The first step will of course be implementation of procedures: posting guards at the docks, locking up the tools, installing protection and early warning systems. This can be done with local resources, and probably should be one of the first priorities after we've established order - since natives would probably come to the island to fish, sooner or later, so first contact may not be initiated by us.

We can use a number of approaches to grant ourselves security in addition to these measures: first, secrecy - don't show off our awesome stuff. Meet with the natives openly, but claim initially to be just another tribe. This may be undoable if they land on the island without being spotted (likely) and observe us for a while.

The second is a show of "look what we can do to you - don't fuck with us". Sadly, this will require fighting and killing, most probably. If this approach is to work, the locals need to be shown that if they anger us sufficiently, we can destroy their settlement with easy and there's nothing they can do to stop us.

Sadly, force means casualties and making enemies, so this is probably not the best approach. Though if any of our people get kidnapped (another common custom...), we must do that anyway, IMHO (if the kidnappers refuse to release them).

Another approach is to get to politicking. Convince them fast that cooperation > fighting us and the tribal elders will stop any crazy young warriors from trying to gain glory by attacking us. This will require extensive trade, but extensive trade will only be possible after we've learned their language well enough, or at least their sign language (which may not have existed at that time...). So I guess we're stuck with physical security for a while.

2. Food

The big one. We need 2000 calories per day per person,a and Nantucket doesn't have the gigantic supermarkets of modern cities. Relying on scavenged food to survive the winter is a fool's hope.

Where can we get food? We'd need an adequate supply of protein, carbs and fats. We have no real livestock numbers to eat livestock, and it will be too late to start an agriculture by the time we learn it.

This leaves fishing and trade. Fortunately, we have a harbor full of boats ; Can we expect fishing boats to be there? If not, we can convert some of the bigger yachts in the marina into impromptu fishing boats. Training the crews to sail will be a problem, though. The basics can taught in a few days, but they'll need practice to go beyond the horizon.

Fish are a cool food source, since they can be preserved well by smoking and/or drying, and the guts can be used to feed dogs.

We should also build plenty of latrines and dig wells right fromt the start. Plumbing won't work, after all, and 4000 people make a lot of crap every day

What about our government? How should it look to be the most effective?

[Tritio]

Democracy is the prefered system of government for hunter gather tribes.

Could you elaborate on that? I have the impression that hunter gather tribes tend to follow their elders or their spiritual leader (priest/shaman/etc) if they have a primitive religion. I would think such tribes would tend to look to people who are strong or who can provide food or safety to the tribe for leadership. In which case having a democracy (which would imply elections and votes and such) would seem rather foreign to such people.

[PeZook]

Could you elaborate on that? I have the impression that hunter gather tribes tend to follow their elders or their spiritual leader (priest/shaman/etc) if they have a primitive religion. I would think such tribes would tend to look to people who are strong or who can provide food or safety to the tribe for leadership. In which case having a democracy (which would imply elections and votes and such) would seem rather foreign to such people.

Generally speaking, indian tribes tended to chose chiefs who were strong and charismatic, but the chiefs didn't hold total power. They had a council of elders who made decisions and held some judicial power, and chiefs could be changed if the community willed to do so in a process that was kind of similar to our modern elections, enabled by small sizes of each community. The chief would conduct diplomacy, solve disputes etc.

[Alferd Packer]

What about our government? How should it look to be the most effective?

Like I said earlier, I feel that the first government is going to be a oligarchic dictatorship elected by popular acclaim. After, say, a week or so, people are going to start get scared. Others are going to get sick. Some are guaranteed to be hurt. The first group that says, "We have a plan to get us all through the winter!" is going to be catapulted into power, precisely because people are hurt, sick, cold, and hungry. Let someone else make the decisions, most people will be happily thinking. Democratic ideals aren't going to put food on the table, so to speak.

Now, after labor has been divided and we're no longer running the risk of starving or freezing to death(I'm thinking the first summer after we've started large-scale agriculture), it'll be a much different story. The conditions of want and privation that allowed the original dictatorship to assume power will be gone. Our modern sensibilities will no longer be choked back by fear. Like-minded groups with political axes to grind are going to form, and we'll probably have people drafting and presenting constitutions for ratification by the public. If the dictatorship is run by sensible people (and I suspect it will be), they'll preside over a constitutional convention, allowing a permanent framework of government to be established.

I'm guessing this government will be a democratic republic of a fairly liberal slant. I'm also guessing that the first elections held will see a lot of the former dictatorship remain in government, though some people may be voted out just so the people can prove to themselves that the new system is working.