Uplifted Roman Empire

[whartung]

I believe the first four tech levels after 0 are agrarian, that is most people make a living by operating farms, this doesn't change Roman society very much, slavery operates all the way to the beginning of the 20th century.

But all that is assuming that the Roman society doesn't collapse like it did before.

Even with the promise of accelerated TL growth, it's just a flat out long time for a society to last, and the TL changes promote rapid change, not just in the society, but outside of it.

I'm no historian, but societal collapse is pretty abrupt, all things considered. And all of the large societies have collapsed in some dramatic way at some point.

And then, simply, even if it did survive, would the society have the political will to drive these changes and move off in to the stars.

 

[Werner]

But all that is assuming that the Roman society doesn't collapse like it did before.

Even with the promise of accelerated TL growth, it's just a flat out long time for a society to last, and the TL changes promote rapid change, not just in the society, but outside of it.

I'm no historian, but societal collapse is pretty abrupt, all things considered. And all of the large societies have collapsed in some dramatic way at some point.

And then, simply, even if it did survive, would the society have the political will to drive these changes and move off in to the stars.

The Western Roman Empire lasted until the 5th century, the Eastern Roman Empire lasted until the 15th century, when it was conquered by Turks with cannons, it was also known as the Byzantine Empire. The Roman Empire split in two because of the difficulty in communicating over the width of the empire, a problem which gets solved by the telegraph and telephone at tech level 4.

 

[Krikkitone]

The tech levels 1 through 4 are pretty much the same from the farming perspective:

TECHNOLOGICAL LEVELS
Digit Description
1 = Bronze Age to Middle Ages
2 = circa 1400 to 1700
3 = circa 1700 to 1860
4 = circa 1860 to 1900

As far as the farmer was concerned farming was back breaking labor with the assistance of farm animals, most of the technological improvements were in the field of warfare. If you were raising chickens of planting crops, it didn't make much difference to you whether the soldiers of the time were swinging swords, firing muskets, rifles, or Gatling Guns, farming was pretty much the same and unmechanized, people mostly traveled on foot or on a horse, that didn't change much until tech level 5 was reached. In tech level 4 you had steam trains, but you still had to walk to the station to get on one, the invention of the telegraph and telephone did allow for faster communication, but you still had to stand behind you plow horse to till the fields. Farming was pretty safe up until 1900, and even at tech level 5 plenty of people still farmed the old fashioned way, horses and cars coexisted on the roads for a few decades in the early 20th century, at tech level 6 people started living in suburbs and started making use of the automobile to commute to work, better transportation allowed for the creation of larger more automated farms and thus fewer farmers. I think by the time tech level 6 is reached you start having upheavals, and the Romand did love road building.

I think you can have advancement in tech levels up to 5 without major disruptions in the way people earn a living, which was that of yeoman farming, the single family farm where people grow their own food, and use their surpluses in crop production to trade for stuff they cannot make themselves. In tech levels 1 through 4 the Roman peasant is going to be growing his own food, riding on a horse or walking on his own two feet, not much changes for him unless he is going to be doing military service.

There was a major agricultural revolution in 1400-1700 (TL 2-3) not any new machinery but new practices.

 

[Werner]

Here is a sample of Roman colonies:

Star Name	x (ly)	y (ly)	z (ly)	z (pc)	Spect Type	Lumin L/L⊙	Planet Orbit	Moon Orbit	World	UWP
Sol	14.67	17.93	14.67	5	G2 V	1	1		Mercury	F300664-E
							2		Venus	F8B0764-F
							3		Terra	A8679A4-F
								60	Luna	F200764-F
							4		Mars	F430864-F
							5		Asteroid Belt
							6		Jupiter	LG (70,000 km)
							7		Saturn	LG (60,000 km)
							8		Uranus	SG (30,000 km)
							8.5		Neptune	SG (30,000 km)
Proxima Centauri C	13.07	16.73	10.87	3	M5e V	0.00006				C520721-5
							1		Imhotep
									1 moon
							2		Rock Planet
									1 moon	LG (100,000 km)
							3		Asteroid Belt

Just testing out the Tables here. I got a bunch more, but there are limits on table size, so I am just seeing how they appear for the time being and will debug them later. As you can see I am going 3D with the charts. I used a random system generator with random names, some of the rows are misaligned and I will fix that later.
The Roman's don't want to offend any of the gods Mercury, Venus, Diana, and Mars but giving their associated celestial bodies Substandard Spaceports, also each rock world listed above has a temple to the god it was named after, there is a temple to Diana on the Moon for instance, they don't understand why Venus has such a horrible planet, but they built a temple to her on the planet's surface under a dome at great expense anyway.

 

[Davik]

Live a normal life

Even were the traveller to stay healthy and live a normal life (say, to 80), I think he would be amazed how stymied progress really was even after 60 years. Leaps would be made, but, slower than they perhaps might enjoy.

Were I that time traveller, I'd use my 80 years a few weeks at a time, skipping ahead a decade or two between each... to provide longterm guidance.

 

[Werner]

Were I that time traveller, I'd use my 80 years a few weeks at a time, skipping ahead a decade or two between each... to provide longterm guidance.

The Roman's might have a few surprises for you after a multi-decade absence. I assume, you'd be using the Scout ship's maneuver drive to fly around in circles at near the speed of light for time dialation, this time dialation only applies to the Roman's universe, not to the OTU, as that is in synch with the passage of time in the Scout ship, or the starship's chronometer. So let's assume the time traveler steals the Starship in 1103 imperial and arrives in the Roman timeline in 113 AD.

The Starship can accelerate for 6 months in total, if it uses a full fuel tank of hydrogen jump fuel plus power plant fuel, of those 6 months, it can use 3 months to accelerate reaching a velocity of 145,152 km/sec or about 48.3% of the speed of light and another 3 months to slow down again, it would take 9.1 years to reach Alpha Centauri in this universe and 9.1 years, after refueling at Proxima Centauri c, to return. Assume the ship is equipped with 4 low berths, the time Traveller gets in one for the trip to Alpha centauri and the trip back. 18.2 years pass in both the Roman Universe and the OTU, there is not much time dialation at 48.3% of the speed of light, so the time Traveller uses the low berth to avoid aging, so he arrives back in Rome in the year 131 AD, and meanwhile in the OTU its 1121. He can do this 5 more times, I suppose he will have to jump to the OTU for maintenance after that first trip. Perhaps 18 years later they won't be looking for that stolen time ship as much.

 

[rzg6f]

I seem to remember a sci fi novel along these lines that I read a long, long time ago and can't remember the title.

Basically, it was the "Grandfather" theme where aliens abducted an entire legion (the Ninth?) to use as low-tech mercenaries because of some interstellar law forbidding uneven tech levels while meddling in the affairs of planets and worlds.

So drop ships would bring down the legion to do their thing throughout the novel's galaxy.

Can't remember much more than that, though.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[rzg6f]

THAT WAS IT!!!!!

yea, and Hammer's Slammers was in head too as I was thinking about it but I didn't know why - David Drake, same author, duh!

 

[kilemall]

Time to drop that CA TV commercial in, to give a look at what a 2th century Roman Empire might look like.....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO87vtK7kQY

 

[bookwyrm]

as far as what training a low technology society up to a higher technology looks like in a short period of time, the Safehold Series by David Weber does this very well.

it isn't time travel, but there are some similarities between the story and this thread, at least as far as how do you get a group of people to listen to you first, and then believe you, and then to follow your directions to a better future of survival against the odds, especially since the rest of the world thinks the new technology is evil and needs to be eradicated.

from what I can tell, one nation goes from a world tech of 2 to around 4 in about 16-20 years. of course the rest of the world is playing catch up while the helper from the future is keeping the nation being helped a few technological steps ahead for the win.

not sure if any of you are interested, but I am really waiting impatiently for the next book in the series.

 

[Enoki]

I seriously doubt that a civilization could easily jump centuries in just a few decades technologically. Let's look at smelting metal.

In the medieval era say, circa 1500, smelting technology was producing maybe tens of pounds of material of indifferent quality per batch using bog iron or bloom iron processes in handmade furnaces.
To get to say 1600 you need to up not just smelting but mining ability to produce hundreds of pounds of material.
To get to 1900 you need the smelting and mining ability to produce thousands of pounds of material per batch.
Each of these requires an exponential increase in not just the smelting process but in production of the various raw materials necessary to make the final product. You also have to make an exponential increase in the quality of product at the same time.

For example, just going from charcoal to coke as a heat source and flux for iron smelting requires changing from tree cutting to coal mining and then building a coke furnace to make that product.

Next, you need a large source of iron and coal to produce your final product. That means setting up near both so that transportation is minimized. If transport of these materials is necessary it's best if a waterway is available to move them by ship. That's the most efficient. If where you're at doesn't have that, you need to move to where it is available.

It's easier to push technology ahead on a small scale locally, but that doesn't buy you a new advanced civilization, rather just a small enclave in a less advanced world.

 

[kilemall]

I seriously doubt that a civilization could easily jump centuries in just a few decades technologically. Let's look at smelting metal.

Two recent examples of TL increase by decades-



https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/b06904/japan’s-industrial-revolution.html


https://www.stlouisfed.org/publicat...ety-to-industrial-powerhouse-in-just-35-years


On the latter one, let's stay away from the politics and just note that it has happened.


Now then this is happening on a balkanized world with other nation-states that are spurs to competition and providing examples and expertise transfer of working tech and systems, certainly easier then the OP's manipulated Roman scenario. But it CAN be done.


One factor that is clear in both examples- the nations' old way of doing thing HAS to change, if nothing else to clear away possibly obstructionist people interested in maintaining the status quo.

 

[Enoki]

Two recent examples of TL increase by decades-

https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/b06904/japan’s-industrial-revolution.html

Here, there's an important difference. That is, the Japanese imported the technology until they could replicate it locally. They also imported a lot of the machinery and other tooling to allow local production. They also imported technicians and engineers to design and build much of early on.
For the uplift scenario, our time traveler would have to bring technology with him in quantity from the future for the same thing to happen.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publicat...ety-to-industrial-powerhouse-in-just-35-years

Same thing. China imported much of the technology and then replicated it locally at a slower pace.

Now then this is happening on a balkanized world with other nation-states that are spurs to competition and providing examples and expertise transfer of working tech and systems, certainly easier then the OP's manipulated Roman scenario. But it CAN be done.


One factor that is clear in both examples- the nations' old way of doing thing HAS to change, if nothing else to clear away possibly obstructionist people interested in maintaining the status quo.

In our scenario, everything is locally produced. That is going to slow the pace considerably and is particularly dependent on how fast you can teach the skills and make the technology.

This is why I suggested transplanting Romans to America. You have the Mississippian culture and related late Stone Age tribes that are on the verge of metal working already there. Large population.
The Romans and our time traveler integrate this civilization into Roman culture, or a blend while pushing technological and societal advancement out.

The Cahokia civilization peaked around 1000 to 1100, so they'd be ripe for integration a few centuries earlier.

With the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi river basin you connect this civilization to the Central American ones and create a truly vast empire across much of the American continents. They have 1500 years to create the necessary technology and society to push out to the stars. That's more than enough time to do it.

The big problem would be keeping the whole politically and socially cohesive for that long. That's possible if they remain isolated from the rest of the world as they advance as they'd become a single society if carefully managed, much like Egypt managed with their relative isolation.

 

[Condottiere]

Someone mentioned that the Japanese mercantile class, was very much prepared for capitalism, and presumably because it was always in the background, had an understanding with the political elite in order to industrialize the country and establish large corporations.