Void ChickenIve been watching the last season of outlander and its got me thinking about what time travel would actually be like
and I wrote a guide
the streets are mud and the mud is not mud. it is a melange of mud and animal feces and human feces because people throw their literal shit into the streets and their shit has hookworm larvae in it
you are getting hookworm. it's in the mud and the mud is everywhere and the larvae only need to find literally any of your skin
you're getting pinworms. everyone has them and no one is washing their hands so they're on everyone and everything all the time especially the food
you are getting lice immediately. everyone has lice. there is no escape from the lice
do not eat the meat. it has been at room temp since the animal was alive and also the animal had parasites
don't drink the water. the water has cholera. don't drink the milk. the milk is unpasteurized and came from a cow that also has parasites
you will be offered ale. the ale was brewed in conditions that would make a gas station bathroom look like an operating room. drink it anyway because the water is worse
the pork has trichinosis. they are not cooking to internal temperature because thermometers don't exist. it's worms. everything is worms. the past was just made of worms
your gut has lived its entire life in a refrigerated paradise. it is a sheltered indoor cat that has just been dropped in the woods. it will not survive
your body was built with high fructose corn syrup and microplastics. you are a corn syrup and plastic golem trying to run on turnips and oats. you will crash
in conclusion, if you travel back in time your best bet is to retreat to the mountains and become a hermit and throw rocks at anyone who comes near you
Crazypedia won't Comply@Taweret hey, this advice is still reevant today!
aburka 🫣
Court Cantrell does not comply@Taweret This dovetails with what I've always thought I'd need to do if I suddenly found myself in the past (especially in Europe). GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HUMANS.
Isaac Ji Kuo@Taweret I'll grow my own fig trees and only eat figs I pick myself.
Worked for Augustus, didn't it?
I, CLAUDIUS (1976) - Episode 05 - Poison is Queen -
CyThat only applies if you travel back in time, and then try to live in a Roman/Assyrian style city. And even Rome had the aqueducts. People in 500 A.D. weren't reenacting Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The one thing you would PROBABLY notice is that everywhere was very sparsely populated and spread out, without a lot of migration going on. People basically died in the place they were born. Making transmission of disease quite difficult.
And mostly they overcooked the pork. That's what fire was invented for: killing parasites. Just because some people in the past implemented it in ignorance, because the Christians came throug and murdered all the local medicine women, doesn't mean we're living in some kind of goddamn paradise today. You know what people didn't have to deal with before this modern era? Mercury poisoning.
We're at the point we might see the eradication of all life on earth within our lifetimes, so don't talk to me about how grateful I should be that I live in such advanced modern times.
And mostly they overcooked the pork. That's what fire was invented for: killing parasites. Just because some people in the past implemented it in ignorance, because the Christians came throug and murdered all the local medicine women, doesn't mean we're living in some kind of goddamn paradise today. You know what people didn't have to deal with before this modern era? Mercury poisoning.
We're at the point we might see the eradication of all life on earth within our lifetimes, so don't talk to me about how grateful I should be that I live in such advanced modern times.
mivox is exhausted 
@cy So, I’m genuinely curious. Do you intentionally look for people posting silly things for fun just so you can shit on them?
Or do you assume everyone is Deadly Serious about everything they post, and you are just trying to help them become better Deadly Serious Commentators Of Reality?
What compels you to behave like this toward a total stranger?
armadillosoftI mean "silly" things about how we'd all get parasites and die because we're made of plastic so we better not try and rock the boat because we're one bad day away from the uncivilized barbarism of poop-wallowing savages? I think I'm granted at least one snarky reply, if not two.
Maybe I just don't "get it."
Maybe I just don't "get it."
Also no one here's a total stranger. I'm a friend-of-a-friend-with-bad-taste-in-friends at worst.
CC: @[email protected]
CC: @[email protected]
@cy I think the mention of time travel right in the CW is kinda the giveaway that we’re not dealing in dire seriousness and rigorous factual discourse here… Nobody said “we’re one day away” from any of that, or “don’t rock the boat or else,” nor implied anyone should feel grateful or guilty or anything like that.
So… yeah it does seem you did not “get it.” Because that is all a LOT of extra baggage you brought to the party.
@Taweret real candidate for unhinged out of context toot of the year 😋
Andy L.
RS, Author, Novelist, ProsaistFinally, someone who gets there is nothing nostalgic or golden about the past, especially if you time travel back before 1800. It smells, you smell, the smelly gross world is trying to kill you. You. Are. Food. You will be sick. Even if you have money, your servants are trying to kill you because nobody knows sanitation and everybody believes disease is a curse, god's will, or a miasma. Don't forget being bled by leaches was a thing…
Your little guide should be required reading for anyone writing a historically correct time travel story to prod them into providing the proper gritty verisimilitude.
I boosted. Other authors should boost the original post thread, too. Well done indeed.
#writingCommunity #writesOfMastodon #timetravelAuthors #author #writer #timetravel
Anna.Saultron_schreibt@sfwrtr @Taweret I expect that to be partly the case for the western civilizations especially bigger cities. But since we are talking about time travel which is absolutely fictional as it seems. I would think that some sort of vaccines could exist for "professional time travelers" or a sort of at least partial immunity could happen on a genetic level so to the fact we are mostly descendents of the survivors.
Something I wouldn't assume with aliens though.
Something I wouldn't assume with aliens though.
some sort of vaccines could exist for "professional time travelers"
I think Connie Willis used that approach in her time travel novel, but some things you can't immunize against, like worms and lice, and some bacterial diseases, for instance. But you could take a medkit with deworming medicine, antibiotics, etc. Still dangerous, and easily pilfered, if it doesn't get you branded a witch.
I think handwaving (what I call lamp shading) to make a "clean" story is one way to deal with this. However, the best stories are where the protagonists have thought out everything minutely, but fail nonetheless and have to deal. Such things put our humanity on display.
Worse, there were common diseases that we aren't affected by anymore. When you come back, if you aren't quarantined… Well, starting a small pox pandemic as a returning time traveler would be a very ironic story, wouldn't it?
cc: @Taweret
NaraMoore ⛩️👻八尺様👻⛩️ at Fedi@sfwrtr @AnnaSaultron_schreibt @Taweret
Maybe it's hand waving, but with my Protags being ghosts or spirits, they have temporary immunity.
There was a branch to the story where Bijou was in Dickonian London, and the air quality was mentioned. Otherwise, any human time area has been post-WW I.
@NaraMoore
Not trying to throw any shade. I'm an SF author with a tendency to over analyze things. Lampshading and hand waving are important techniques as they highlight, in this case, that the dangers are known and the protagonists are taking measures that are simply unimportant to detail. One of my favorite techniques that I employed in my Mars novel is experts. I keep the details hazy and let the experts say something analogous to, "I'm an auto mechanic. Do you really want me to get technical?" Could work with time travel…
Not trying to throw any shade. I'm an SF author with a tendency to over analyze things. Lampshading and hand waving are important techniques as they highlight, in this case, that the dangers are known and the protagonists are taking measures that are simply unimportant to detail. One of my favorite techniques that I employed in my Mars novel is experts. I keep the details hazy and let the experts say something analogous to, "I'm an auto mechanic. Do you really want me to get technical?" Could work with time travel…
@sfwrtr @NaraMoore what I'm constantly thinking about is how micro plastic has to be figured in for a roughly 300 years ahead human society. There are already rocks made out of plastic forming and some sort of bacteria and fungus already eating that stuff today.
So who knows what the future will be.
And I absolutely agree without vague and hand waving explanations Fantasy and SciFi wouldn't work the slightest.😅
And I absolutely agree without "vague and hand waving explanations" Fantasy and SciFi wouldn't work the slightest.😅
Absolutely. The Fi in SciFi is fiction, and fantasy is, well, fiction. In degrees none of it is real, unlike mainstream where the world we live in is verifiable by the reader. But, at least, these days, we as F&SF authors get to use FTL for free and hand wave something else!!! 😋
Cc: @NaraMoore
Julie Bihn