Here you are. It's saturday morning. You have just woken up and got out of bed. A little bit sore from yesterday's training or -lets be honest- hungover from yesterday's binge drinking, you go downstairs to pour yourself a nice cuppa joe and start your morning ritual which includes polishing your favourite pointy stabby chop chop thingamyswordlikestuff...

Everything is all fine and dandy, when suddenly you hear a high pitched screeching noise coming from outside your house. You drop your favourite pointy stabby chop chop thingamyswordlikestuff and rush towards your kitchen window just in time to see a strange and rather old yet futuristic looking car crash into your freshly painted garage door.

This is pissing you off considerably. You take a look at you favourite pointy stabby chop chop thingamyswordlikestuff and decide you'd better not. Instead you realize someone might be hurt and like a good citizen you decide to grab your phone. You are still pretty pissed off though. But also a bit concerned. A bit. Bloody paint cost you an arm and leg. And now some bloody arm and leg will cost you your paint. Damnit.

As you rush outside you see a weird and bewildered looking man stumble out of the vehicle. When you lock eyes with him you stop dead in your tracks.. the phone drops out of your hand... you know this man... you know this car...

That's friggin Doc! And that's the friggin Delorean!

Doc runs up to you in his familiar manner. Like a crazy person. Seemingly unaffected by the incident he grabs you by the shoulders, gives you his weird eye and says: "Quick! There is no time to explain, you have to come with me to your time of choice in the history of arms and armour for this saturday! It is absolutely necessary that we go there so that you may observe and learn about that time, and above all have a blast doing so! The future depends on it! So hurry up, take off that pink bathrobe and put on something warm, it could be cold were we're heading. And while you are at it, think about who you want take back for Sunday, so that you may ask and show him anything you want. It is the only way we can save the world damnit! Don't you understand?!? Now get a move on, we have precious little time! By the way I have been able to modify the Delorean, so we are now able to jump in both time and place. Shoot! You questions need answering immediately, your deepest desires need to be fulfilled now and your awesome weekend experience has to start at this very moment!!!

;)

Would you go for the day?
Where/when would you go?
What would you do/see/ask?
Why?
Who would you take back for the next day?
What woukd you do/show/ask?
Why?

:)

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Pepsi or Coca-Cola?
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If you are talking about the irrelevance and stupidity of this topic, I would have to partially agree. But hey, I like asking weird questions from time to time. It is a fun way to get to know how people think. It depends on a willingness to play though.

But I answered your question Glen, how about answering mine:

Driver's seat or shotgun?

Right now I'd be most interested in two time-periods and places.

I'd like to see the transition from late bronze age to iron age europe and learn about how the people lived, how they dressed and learn about their religious practices. I'd be interested to know how tribal they were, if they even thought of themselves as a tribe or people separate from another, and so forth. I'd love to learn about the cultural practices and how they made things. Basically to know once and for all how celtic-y the early "celts" were.

At such a transitional time, I could imagine a lot of interesting things going on.

Second, I'd go to England around 700-900 so I could tell everyone I know the answer to how they gripped their viking swords!

(I'd check out a lot more than that too, but to learn how they used all their weapons, axe spear shield and sword, would be first on my list.) Oh I guess I have to learn how they make scabbards so I can brag to Matthew Bunker and Harry Marinakis :)

I wouldn't care to see a king or royalty or anything. They'd probably draft me. I'd like to meet and train with some fairly skilled soldiers.

I only want to stay a month otherwise I guess I would have to put down roots and be a laboring farming peasant instead of a laboring ranching american with relatively high quality of life. And the interwebs. And the ability to learn about many many cultures and weapons, however superficially.

Then again, show me a pretty shieldmaiden and I'll probably forget anything! Gee hope my wife doesn't see this!

So that's for starters. Migration era would be third. I guess I could be a lot more specific if you want Rim, but that is a start.

Well, firstly lets get that nasty reality, or realities, out of the way:

A) Time paradoxes and the dangers of changing history.

B) Not being able to understand the language.

C) Standing out like a sore thumb and ending up burned at the stake for witchcraft or heresy in the Medieval period in Europe.

D) Real danger of being killed in a fight or battle, and even more so if one assumed that any modern acquired fighting skills would be up to the standards of the time.


So this fantasy could also be split into two different mindsets:

A) Those going with a spirit of adventure and willing and eager to risk their lives.

B) Those going for more scholarly ambitions but preferring to be a " safe observer ", questing for knowledge.


In a fantasy context where we have the time travel machine, might as well also have a " Universal translator ", an individual force field and an invisibility cloak and so have Star trek levels of technology ...... :p :lol:

In other words, if I could actually do it would I have the courage to do so without the above capabilities and safeguards, probably not ! I'm not that courageous or foolish !


But as fun fantasy mind trip I think I would want to have a time travel drone do a reconnaissance of the period to get the data base for the language and customs. When actually traveling to the period, probably around the time of the First Crusade maybe ? I would want to be attired and believable as a minor noble and one of the first things to do would be to make a friend of a powerful local noble by bringing a nice Albion or A & A sword as a gift.

Good to also travel with a few precious stones, some gold, silver and copper coinage of the period. ( Discreetly carry, and hope to not have to use a .45 automatic + 100 rounds of ammo ..... ;) :p ).

Get every disease inoculations for every possible disease one could think of that exists today ..... lots of antibiotics for the almost inevitable case of the Medieval runs / food poisoning !

Well, I can't seem to get away from " over-thinking " the practical side of time travel ..... :eek: :wtf:

So, in conclusion: I'd be going with the means to communicate, use the pesonna of a minor noble and scholar with some wealth. Find a reasonably compatible noble to court favour with some gifts to try to sincerely befriend.

Hire a few body guards and travel to points of interest and try to find lost knowledge from earlier periods that might still exist.

Oh, a time travel mission to the Great Library of Alexandria before it was burned down and copy/photograph all of it's contents of lost Ancient history from the early Egyptians, to Roman and Greeks.

Actually, the best thing would be a really well organized set of missions to many places and times in history by a special group of time travellers. ( Like Stargate SG1, but with time travel instead of Star Gates .... :lol: ).


Less seriously, one could just do Historical period week tourist trips more for fun and visit some of the early fight masters and view or participate in their training ...... participating might be a little rough if one is an out of shape 21 century person but I could see a special forces trained type person being able to physically do it,

J. Nicolaysen brought up a great point with the vikings and gripping their swords, but I'd be even more curious as to finally finding out if they really didn't commonly use hand protection in battle.

Jean, you did a nice coverage of the more "realistic" aspects, but I think worrying about paradoxes is irrelevant - you can't change the past, because everything you'd do while travelled back would already have happened. Who knows, perhaps time travellers were actually responsible for some of the most important events in history, travelling back with the intention of changing an event but actually causing it to happen.

For some of those practical problems it might help if we could travel back repeatedly for only a few hours at a time.

RC drones with good cameras could potentially capture immeasurably valuable combat footage without putting the traveller in too much danger.

Good subject for some light entertainment etc.

For me I would want to go to two places in history.

1314; Battle of Bannockburn.
Why? It's an iconic battle and one of the few that the Scots won.
What would I bring back? I would love to have a camera so I could take pictures and put paid to the conspiracy theories that a force of Templar Knights turned up close the end and swayed the battle in the Scots favour.

1746; Battle of Culloden.
Why? I am very intrigued as to how the British Army used their bayonets? Did they use the drill of stabbing to their right, thereby impaling the Jacobite attacking their right-hand comrade or not?
What would I bring back? Photos of the Jacobites to find out what they actually wore and to determine if the painting of the battle by David Morier was accurate or not.
...and a bayonet and musket
...and James Wolfe's autograph [the chap who went on to be a Major General]

That's all for now...

I'd probably spend my time placing hidden cameras in fencing schools and quietly observing judicial duels to see what we got right and wrong in our modern reproduction of historical fencing.

Then I'd see about observing the Battles of Crecy and Agincourt and see exactly how they played out.

Finally, carefully take samples of the Black Death to find out exactly what it was.

So I guess find the "highlights" of the Late Medieval Era.

Well, as you posted the car with the Mr. Fusion that can fly, I would way back and see if Atlantis really existed.

Then I would want to see the sword techniques actually used so I could come back and say what works the same as others have said.

That's a tough one, but as much as I love history I'd probably go for prehistory - maybe 50k years ago? Maybe more. I like the idea of seeing what the world looks like without any significant human alteration. Nature holds some of the most beautiful things on this earth in my opinion, far beyond most of that which the human mind contrives. I would love to see a world of unbridled nature. It would be like visiting a new planet.

There are quite a few weird and wonderful periods in our planet's lifespan, long before humans (and long before the dinosaurs) that I'd love to see.

Then again, maybe I'd just go find the secret of wootz or get Ulfberht's autograph - on a sword of course!

I'll bypass the Delorean thing and just assume that I can go where and when I wish -

If I was going back to stay somewhere, perhaps Italy around 110 AD and live through the empire's Golden Age. Maybe take something back there with me - a big cartload of spices, silks, etc. so I can sell them and then live an enjoyable life of gentile debauchery.

Or maybe I could go for for a visit to Tuscany around 700 BC, and find out what the Etruscans were all about. Or Tiryns around 1300 BC to find out about those Achaeans.

Or maybe I should go to the Alexandrian Library around 200 AD and copy a bunch of ancient Greek plays and philosophical works that have been lost over the ages, and bring them back to Now.

Or go back about 350,000 years and hang out with a Homo Heidelbergensis woman. Some of them were surprisingly good looking.

Or I could go to Solingen around 1450 and get some really nice swords.