Time Travel and Technology questions

[pentadragon]

The Time Period: November 27, 1095/ April 8, 2005
The Location: Vatican City
The Research:  I've done some basic research, but am having trouble finding sources to fit my needs. I've tried some Google searches like, "Modern tech in ancient world", "reverse engineering", but I am having difficulties thinking of a phrase that will get me the results

Comments

[aliskye]

I'd strongly suggest reading Lest Darkness Falls by L. Sprague De Camp which covers very similar ground to your story.

To answer your first question re: technology I'd have to think the answer would be pretty slow. Even given that a crowd that size has a goodly number of engineers, mechanics and clever people, they'd have to invent all kinds of tech and tools before they can get to modern tech.

[anonymous]

ルイス、ほんとうに東京に来れる？

[mad_maudlin]

Something to think about: reverse-engineering not only requires the materials, but the technology to process those materials correctly. Take firearms as an example: you won't be able to just walk into any medieval forge and create a duplicate of a modern handgun, because the quality of the metal won't be as high--load it with a modern bullet and it's more likely to explode in your hand than fire correctly. (This is disregarding the difficulty of producing the small moving parts like the trigger, firing pin, etc as well). Computers and cell phones? You wouldn't have access to the right material (rare-earth metals and special alloys) or the means of processing them. Reverse-engineering a gasoline car would be pointless without access to petroleum-based fuels, etc

re:technology question

[antongarou]

pretty slow. even modern day professionals won't necessarily have the knowledge to work without modern tools, not to mention that this is a definite example of "tools to make tools" problem.

[zydee]

2) Rome wouldn't have anywhere near the room for these people. I mean, technically there might have been enough empty land to do it, but I doubt there'd be near enough potable water or food; the surrounding countryside was farmland, not ready to sustain the influx of a nation's worth of people all at once. Rome's rulers would likely be sending these poor souls out to surrounding nations as fast as they could--Russia, maybe? I'd check medieval atlases to find out what population densities looked like at the time, and work back to where these people would find water and food. Likely you're looking at a diaspora. I'm also not sure the Church even could do much for the poor wretches that pop into existence. It's hard to see the impulse that created the Crusades as a majorly humanitarian one