Unstuck in the High Castle: your one chance to change history

Sundry Chitchat
1

04%20PM

Also known as 11/22/63 redux.

Without warning, you’re transported back in time to a different period in history. Let’s say you’re taken back to medieval times. Armed only with your intellect and knowledge to this point, what aspects of modern life would you be able to recreate?

For technology, I don’t think I could do so much as recreate a toaster.

The aspect need not be only technological. Think too of social and political transformations you could inspire. What if it was a different period in history?

Could you keep the Magna Carter charter from being annulled the first time?

Could you stop the Black Plague? At least transform medical treatment enough to save countless lives?

Armed only with your intellect and knowledge to this point, could you do anything to end slavery sooner?

Or if you could go back in time to 2016, is there anything you could personally have done to change the results of the American presidential election? (please avoid any suggestion of violence as a strategy)

Funny and serious replies welcome. I’m thinking primarily of changes that would be paradigm shifts, but smaller changes are also fun to imagine.

2

I was thinking of some lol obvious medical stuff like, “Stop draining the patient’s blood Dr. Stupid,” and introducing citrus into sailors’ diets much earlier but then who would believe you? And if you just insisted and it worked, what would the church think? Solving solvable problems pre-Enlightenment could have gotten ya boy killed.

3

This is where I keep getting tripped up. Even for things I am an expert in, what impact would I be able to have that didn’t lead to someone killing me and/or suppressing everything anyway?

1 Like
5

Off topic, but I once read The Man In The High Castle and good lord, what a dumpster fire that was. Love Phillip K Dick, but sometimes he beefed it.

2 Likes
6

Have you seen the show?

1 Like
7

No. Just saying, if you like the show, don’t seek out the book, it’s garbage.

1 Like
8

I would bet Leicester City to win the Premier League, bet a few superfectas, and hope that would give me enough money to start running a PAC targeted squarely at MI, PA, and WI.

1 Like
9

Now this guy has thought this through.

How do you get the money you’ll wager?

10

Yeah my first thought was to pinpoint the first best time to convince doctors to wash their hands. Doctors spread so much infection in hospitals in the old days that countless lives could have been saved over a long period of time.

But I agree I am not sure you could convince people of it at the time.

2 Likes
11

I would do the same as chuckle, except in addition to running that PAC, I’d hire an Ocean’s 11 team to find where Anthony Weiner’s laptop was and destroy it so the FBI doesn’t investigate it and Comey doesn’t write that letter

3 Likes
12

Points for anyone who can successfully get the Buffalo Bills sold to Donald Trump.

4 Likes
13

I still believe witnessing Trump try to manage a sports team would be the greatest entertainment of a decade

14

Also, what is the easiest way to stop The Apprentice from happening?

15

I mean a $1 Super Hi 5 bet in the Kentucky Derby paid $5,794.50

Bet that one for a hundred, and I have more than enough for my next bet.

1 Like
16

My understanding of accounting would be game breaking… but I’m not sure that would translate to power.

17

LOL in what way? What time periods?

18

Any of them pre 1800 really. But especially pre 1400. You know what made the Medici bank the Medici bank? Double entry bookkeeping.

Combine that with an understanding of finance and the history of finance…

1 Like
19

What would you do that would break the game?

20

Trade goods from place to place, mostly currencies once I got off the ground. Language would be the big barrier with me only speaking modern English.

21

I’m pretty sure I’d be burned as a witch.

2 Likes