Uplifted Roman Empire

[Enoki]

Except there is no reason for a Scout ship to have a nuke.

I wasn't necessarily being literal here. I was giving examples. I'm sure a couple of beam lasers in a turret cutting down the Roman's enemies in a searing beam of heat would do the trick. Screaming over them in sonic flight just feet above their heads would work.

The whole thing here is one of being a good magician. You don't let the audience know how you did it, just leave them in awe of your greatness.

 

[Condottiere]

I think cannons are enough.

You might want to keep bronze casting a monopoly.

 

[Enoki]

Casting brass and bronze, along with iron were already extant technologies for Rome, and well before them. What wasn't known was the metallurgy of alloys, how to make steel in quantity, and doing quality control on castings.

For instance, just introducing better quenching techniques for heat treating metals--particularly iron and steel-- would go a long way to making better tools and weapons.

 

[Werner]

Casting brass and bronze, along with iron were already extant technologies for Rome, and well before them. What wasn't known was the metallurgy of alloys, how to make steel in quantity, and doing quality control on castings.

For instance, just introducing better quenching techniques for heat treating metals--particularly iron and steel-- would go a long way to making better tools and weapons.

It is an interesting setting whatever era of this Roman Empire your PCs happen to be in. The Time Traveller isn't important except for the fact that he gets this technological ball rolling, his motivations aren't important either, that is important is that the Roman Empire goes from TL1 to TL15 in 300 years, using the Common Era calendar the Roman's adopted from the Time Traveller these are the years 113 to 413 AD.

The Time Traveller wasn't a religious person so he didn't pass on Christianity but if the Romans asked him, he would tell them its origin, he also tells them he is from the future and says a different calendar is in use, but he emphasizes that the Solomani calendar is better suited for Terra as it has leap years and it more closely matches the orbital Period of this planet. So the Romans adopt the Solomani calendar and the metric system as it's useful for understanding the information in the Ship's library without doing unit conversions between metric and Roman customary units. The Time Traveller also tells them that he doesn't know whether the Roman Gods exist, but he stresses that tolerance for multiple and often contradictory belief systems is important for a smooth running Empire, and he tells them about religious conflicts from his future and how destructive they were and how they should be avoided with tollerance.

 

[Condottiere]

Didn't Caesar already not do that with the Julian calendar, since as Pontifex Maximus he knew the then current one was out of sync?

And it's not like the Romans didn't have a military industrial complex, it seems more of a case that their institutions weren't robust and flexible enough to adapt in a timely manner to a changing environment.

 

[Werner]

Didn't Caesar already not do that with the Julian calendar, since as Pontifex Maximus he knew the then current one was out of sync?

And it's not like the Romans didn't have a military industrial complex, it seems more of a case that their institutions weren't robust and flexible enough to adapt in a timely manner to a changing environment.

The Julian calendar is not as accurate as the Gregorian calendar, the Gregorian calendar does not have leap years on years not divisible by 400, for example the years 400, 800, 1200, 1600, and 2000 are all leap years, but the years 1300, 1400, 1500, 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not. The Gregorian calendar was not adopted until the 1700s I believe, so historically it was not applied to those earlier dates I mentioned, before they used the Julian calendar as for numbering their years, the Starship's Library files has historical events that are dated in the Julian, Gregorian/Solomani and Imperial calendars, events occurring elsewhere other than Terra are not of immediate concern to the Romans the library files do refer to events that occured before 113 AD on Terra that might be of interest to the Romans and they can do some archeology of their own to cross check on them to see if they are accurate for their world. The library files also has a list of Roman Emperors past Trajan, and also mentions the decline and fall of the Roman Empire which the current Roman Emperor might be interested in reading. He might also wish you know which one of his advisors he can trust and which ones might wish to overthrow him for example.

It is also good to know there the gold is, he might also wish to make some expeditions to Trinidad to obtain some easily recoverable crude oil, and might want to send expeditions into the Amazon rain forest to find some rubber trees.

 

[whulorigan]

The Gregorian calendar was not adopted until the 1700s I believe . . .

It was commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, but as this was after the Protestant Reformation, many other (primarily Protestant or Eastern Orthodox) countries did not adopt it until later, if at all. England (for example) did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar Reform until 1752 (at which time New Year's Day was also moved from March 25th to January 1st), and Eastern Orthodoxy still uses the Julian Calendar to this day. (This is why the Russian Revolution of November 1917 is called the "October Revolution", and also why Eastern Orthodox Christmas occurs in early January on our Western calendar).

 

[whartung]

It is also good to know there the gold is, he might also wish to make some expeditions to Trinidad to obtain some easily recoverable crude oil, and might want to send expeditions into the Amazon rain forest to find some rubber trees.

This is an interesting consideration.

Another issue is deep water navigation.

How many "trips" do you think that the Traveller would be able organize and partake in? What's a good time line for a trip like that? Three years? Five years? And how much usable life span would he have? 20 years? 30? Not even counting folks getting ticked off and just outright killing each other (for assorted reasons), but just this kind of activity is flat dangerous.

 

[Werner]

This is an interesting consideration.

Another issue is deep water navigation.

How many "trips" do you think that the Traveller would be able organize and partake in? What's a good time line for a trip like that? Three years? Five years? And how much usable life span would he have? 20 years? 30? Not even counting folks getting ticked off and just outright killing each other (for assorted reasons), but just this kind of activity is flat dangerous.

Using the scout/courier, he could fly to the Amazon rain forest and start looking for rubber trees immediately, but perhaps he ought to work on giving the Roman's an independent ability to travel there. The Roman's already know how to make wooden ships and sails, so they need more advanced sailboat designs and a means of navigating across the ocean as well. I'd say they will probably be ready to do that in about a year from the Time Traveller's arrival, so about the spring of 114 AD would be a good time to set sail.

The Time Traveller is not a skilled craftsman except in his trade of stealing things. Many of the files from the library can be translated into Latin, but perhaps it would be a better idea to teach Roman craftsmen Galanglic so they can read the files themselves and figure it out. In two to three years they could learn to make steel, and following diagrams manufacture firearms in about 3 years I think, or the year 116 AD, cannons are just larger versions of firearms, so the Emperor will have his men producing both cannon and muskets, and or rifles. Magnetic compasses should be in hand, and the Time Traveller can print out a map of the local sky from the Ship's astrogation program, correcting for the current year of course. Mechanical clocks would also be important and astrolobes. By 116 AD it will effectively be the 16th-18th centuries technologically. In 10 years expect the development of the steam engine, with the ability to make magnets for compasses also comes the ability to create electrical generators, and batteries, wires, telegraphs, and primitive radios. In 20 years a number of railroads will be built crisscrossing the Empire, I'm sure the Emperor, whoever he is, will be big on building those railroads.

By about 153 AD the first internal combustion engine will be built, by about 163 AD, Rome will fly its first airplanes, by about 193 AD the first Roman jets will take to the skies, by about 210 the first Roman satellites orbit the Earth, Roman astronauts walk on the Moon in 215 AD and plant the Imperial Eagle in the Moon's soil. By about 225 the first Roman nuclear bomb is detonated with a fusion bomb being tested by 230 AD.

The Roman's are in no big hurry with nuclear weapons as they have already conquered the parts of the globe they want to conquer with conventional weapons. The Roman's build their first nuclear fusion plant by 250 AD, they also have a colony on the Moon and Mars by this time. In 270 the build their first Jump Drive and explore the Alpha Centauri System colonizing Prometheus. (They kept the name from the Ship's charts having no reason to change it) the Roman's need to do 2 successive Jump-1s to make it to Alpha Centauri since they are only tech level 9 at this point. They reach TL10 by 300 AD, TL11 by 320 AD, TL12 by 340 AD, TL13 by 360 AD, TL14 by 380 AD, and finally TL15 by 400 AD at which point they caught up with the Third Imperium. The Roman's then get curious about the Time Drive, the Time Traveller is long dead by this time, the Roman's fiddle with it, and pay a visit to the OTU. Because of some trips the Time Traveller made at slower than light speed to nearby stars, the date when the Roman's visit the OTU is around 1201 Imperial. After some fiddling, they manage to open a stargate back to the OTU and they send some ships through. One thing they notice is there are more habitable planets in the OTU than in their own Universe. After exploring space for some time in their own Universe they noticed no sign of the first Imperium, and no sign of the Ancients, so it appears the Roman universe is more different from the OTU than originally thought. Since the OTU finds more habitable planets in the OTU, they send some ships through to colonize them. It appears that the Third Imperium has collapsed, the Roman's find no problem with this and just move right in to take its place. Lots of abandoned space stations with dead humans in them, the Roman's have no idea what caused this and the Time Traveller is dead at this time. So the Roman's just push through the gate and do what empires always do.

 

[Condottiere]

Longevity can be guaranteed with anagathics.

Security:

 

[Werner]

Longevity can be guaranteed with anagathics.

Security:

And what does jump roping robots have to do with what we're talking about?

 

[Condottiere]

I thought it was pretty obvious.

You're going to need a Praetorian Guard for physical security; the problem with Roman Praetorian Guards is that they are bribable, and greedy, having backstabbed any number of their heads of states.

 

[whulorigan]

I thought it was pretty obvious.

You're going to need a Praetorian Guard for physical security; the problem with Roman Praetorian Guards is that they are bribable, and greedy, having backstabbed any number of their heads of states.

No offense intended, but I think your definition of obvious is different than the rest of us.

 

[Werner]

No offense intended, but I think your definition of obvious is different than the rest of us.

Past a certain point, it doesn't matter whether the Romans kill him or not, it's the technology and the changes that brings which will be important. I'm thinking multigenerational, much like the upcoming Foundation series on Apple TV. The Time Traveller is not intended to be the protagonist, he is simply an agent of change, if the Romans kill him for some reason, they have to figure out all that technology by themselves, without his technical expertise in retreving the files from the Ship's computer and printing them out, I think he is more valuable to them alive than dead, as much as they might like to feed him to the lions sometimes or run him through with a sword.

I'm going to do a setting a bit later with a technologically advanced Interstellar Roman Empire some time in the 5th century AD. In our history the Roman Empire lasted until the 5th century after all, better communication and travel should obliviate the necessity of splitting the Roman Empire into eastern and western halves and its Capital should continue to be Rome instead of Constantinople. The line of Roman Emperors after Trajan will be different that the original timeline due to the butterfly effect. I'm thinking that Hadrian might not succeed his father Trajan as Emperor when he dies, since the line of Emperors after him leads to Romes eventual decline and fall, he might choose to designate a successor who isn't his offspring, Hadrian won't be happy about that.

 

[BackworldTraveller]

The basic premise here seems to be that the Roman Sociology remains unchanged despite the changes in technology. Yet one of the the basic proofs of history is that the technology change forces the fundamentals to change. 100 years of rapid technological advance will change the society fundamentally. You won't end up with anything you recognise as Modern, but it wouldn't be Roman either. After all, they have absorbed China for a start!

 

[Condottiere]

Ironically, technological transfer and intellectual property theft is now reversed.

If the affairs of the Roman Empire require direction, and the Time Traveller isn't planning more than kickstarting the Industrial Revolution, you'll want to institutionalize it like in Foundation.

So I guess, this is where the Illuminati get their start.

 

[whartung]

Past a certain point, it doesn't matter whether the Romans kill him or not, it's the technology and the changes that brings which will be important. I'm thinking multigenerational, much like the upcoming Foundation series on Apple TV. The Time Traveller is not intended to be the protagonist, he is simply an agent of change, if the Romans kill him for some reason, they have to figure out all that technology by themselves, without his technical expertise in retreving the files from the Ship's computer and printing them out, I think he is more valuable to them alive than dead, as much as they might like to feed him to the lions sometimes or run him through with a sword.

It's an interesting issue. Because not only do you need to have the technical information for everything, you need to have the fundamental science knowledge to back it up.

That is, you need not just a "Haynes Jump Drive Manual", but you better have some books on arithmetic, algebra, calculus, differential equations, physics, chemistry, etc.

We can do all right today as participants in technology because we have others to fill the gap. I don't need to know nanometer microchip design and manufacturing to post to this web forum, even though, today, it's a fundamental requirement to do so.

So, there's going to be 5 years of just base study to educate folks up, on potentially a lot of heretical topics. When you present the periodic table and they discover that neither earth, fire, water, nor aether are on it, there's going to be some discussions with wise and learned men who are potentially disagreeable.

Simply, you're going to need more than the tech manuals and a copy of wikipedia on the computer. There's a lot of assumptions in those manuals that are not documented.

And, of course what you won't have any of is just raw experience. There's book learning, there's physical examples, but then there's real world knowledge and experience.

A trained novice knows what to do. An experienced person knows also what not to do, and how to fix things when even the right thing to do goes wrong.

 

[Enoki]

This would help with things metal and how to make them, but it isn't the be-all, end-all on the subject. And, it represents the tip of a gigantic iceberg.

These sorts of handbooks would be useful, but they aren't going to be instructional and would have to be translated. Worse, just to use one you have to find a way to make the measuring instruments and such necessary to do it. Something as simple as making an accurate and calibrated ruler becomes a serious chore here. You need standardized weights and measures that are repeatable and accurate to do all kinds of stuff.

 

[Werner]

This would help with things metal and how to make them, but it isn't the be-all, end-all on the subject. And, it represents the tip of a gigantic iceberg.

These sorts of handbooks would be useful, but they aren't going to be instructional and would have to be translated. Worse, just to use one you have to find a way to make the measuring instruments and such necessary to do it. Something as simple as making an accurate and calibrated ruler becomes a serious chore here. You need standardized weights and measures that are repeatable and accurate to do all kinds of stuff.

If the time Traveller knows how tall he is in meters, he can reverse engineer a meter stick, but I don't think that will be necessary. The ship's computer can hold a lot of informations, probably thousands of times the content of the Library of Alexadria at its height, it probably has science articles and textbooks, and the scientific method and all of those things. Whatever gaps of knowledge there is the Roman's can fill if they know the scientific method and how to do experiments.

I've posited the idea that the Roman's could break into the OTU during the New Era when the Third Imperium has collapsed due to the Virus outbreak. The Roman's might have some advantages here, their own homegrown electronics might not be compatible with the Virus, so it might not be able to infect the Roman computers as their would run off of a different machine code and software programming languages based on classical Latin.

 

[Enoki]

If the time Traveller knows how tall he is in meters, he can reverse engineer a meter stick, but I don't think that will be necessary. The ship's computer can hold a lot of informations, probably thousands of times the content of the Library of Alexadria at its height, it probably has science articles and textbooks, and the scientific method and all of those things. Whatever gaps of knowledge there is the Roman's can fill if they know the scientific method and how to do experiments.

I've posited the idea that the Roman's could break into the OTU during the New Era when the Third Imperium has collapsed due to the Virus outbreak. The Roman's might have some advantages here, their own homegrown electronics might not be compatible with the Virus, so it might not be able to infect the Roman computers as their would run off of a different machine code and software programming languages based on classical Latin.

It's absolutely necessary. You need accurate means to measure weights, lengths, pressure, etc., that are standard and repeatable or you can't make like 90% of the stuff you need to make to have this uplift happen.

Something as simple as a nut and bolt need accurate diameters on their hole and shaft respectively and the threads have to match. Electronics, even simple electricity, requires this. You have to know that the voltage, amperage, and resistance of a simple circuit are accurately measured. The size and composition of something as basic as a wire determines its ampacity. What you are using as insulation determines how much voltage can be used before it leaks through the insulation.

Making helical or involute gears, not to mention bearings and cams require accurate instruments and measuring devices to ensure they will work.

Making basic plastics requires invention of not just the chemical industry and producing means to make large quantities of various chemicals but getting a petroleum industry operating as two basic requirements.

Jerry Pournelle's series Janissaries outlines some of this, but he doesn't go into nearly enough detail and he got many of his technological timelines wrong.

Information alone won't make this happen. You have to turn that knowledge into working systems and components that can produce results.