You wake up tomorrow in the middle ages. What do you do?

Kevin Duffy

I used to be a young, fit, energetic man. but now I moan when getting out of an armchair. I don't know when the change happened, but it seems to have been overnight and I am not happy to have woken up in my middle-ages.

dpe

super_furry wrote: »

Get burned for being a witch.

This would be the most likely outcome.

Assuming I didn't get burned at the stake in the first ten minutes;

It would depend when and where in the middle ages I was dumped (its a pretty wide period in history). If I could convince the local chief cheese to give me an audience, then the best options aren't tricky things like steam engines, but ideas you can easily adapt like crop rotation and enclosure (although there's a three year payoff for that, so you'll need some quicker wins to impress the local baron), so wind and water mills for flour grinding would be an easy way to make an impression, and easily doable with local materials.

Then you can get more ambitious; I know the basic formula for gunpowder (75% potassium nitrate, 15% charcoal, 10% sulfur) and I know how to find/make all three. Cannon would be harder (with local tech you'd have to make them from bronze, they'd be absolutely massive, and they'd be as likely to blow you up as the enemy, but hey, that's what serfs are for, and they'd impress the hell out of everyone), and then the piece de resistance would be moveable type. Once you've had the idea, a basic printing press is pretty easy to make, and would kick off all kinds of other revolutions, even if it would probably get me burned at the stake. Again.

Guill

Stampede women and rape cattle.

CorkMan

Invent gear so i'd be the local drug dealer.

opinion guy

Nephinbeg wrote: »

(lovely drafty uncomfortable castles)

Invent insulation

Ricardo G

I'd bring back the wispa

oh wait

robman60

If I had just woken up, I'd throw my basin of urine out the window. :rolleyes:

irish_goat

Draw and sell maps of the world.

Join the Astronomer's guild and "discover" the rest of the solar system.

mikom

Nephinbeg wrote: »

You wake up tomorrow in the middle ages. What do you do?

Go "It's not Dark anymore"

biko

I wouldn't understand the old Irish spoken at the time and as soon as I've learned it I'd probably be burned as a sorcerer when I started telling people about the round earth etc...

who the fug

By a May Fare Farm in Middlsex

MagicSean

Guill wrote: »

How much time have you?

I don't know. The rules weren't made too clear in the op

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah invent indoor plumbing. Also find the nearest river mill, some copper and bam you have electricity.

Concrete shouldn't be too hard either

Sky King wrote: »

Then for the next thousand years everyone would say 'I have to go to the Seanbeag' every time they needed to get one out, which is especially interesting, given your sig.

WindSock wrote: »

Which would still get broken down in slang terms as the Johns or bog!

Ironic isn't it?

dr.bollocko

fcuk wenches; get money.

Wossack

Personally try and pinch as many of da vinci's ideas I can remember from assassins creed 2, all while trying to avoid being murdered randomly by the locals. It'd be an exciting couple of days anyway

TiGeR KiNgS wrote: »

Blast the King with piss

good call, that meme might still be funny and/or original in them times

LumpyGravy

Noopti wrote: »

Drink my own piss

Bear, is that you?

Tonyandthewhale

Same thing I do when I wake up every morning; fap.

petes

Gummy Panda wrote: »

Replace the chainsaw on where my hand stump is with a plate glove fake hand mechanism.

Groovy!

Haven't read passsed the first page of the thread but when I read the thread tiltle I thought of that and how long it would take before someone posted a reference!!!

FloatingVoter

Assuming I arrive with what I'm wearing now - go into the fashion trade. Invent the zipper, the wristwatch and introduce denim to the darkness.

I smoke 50 a day so finding South America quickly where I can discover tobacco would be on the to-do list.

No TV so I'd probably have to write some books. I'd say Shakespeare but I wasn't in school that day. The peasants would have to learn all about Harry Potter. In my version there are plenty of burnings. That'd keep them happy.

ohhh.... and I'd invent Guinness.

dpe

Noopti wrote: »

Drink my own piss

TiGeR KiNgS wrote: »

Blast the King with piss

You might want to hold on to all that piss. Useful for a ton of stuff, including making gunpowder.

Zillah

Antibiotics. I'm pretty sure I could make functional penicillin with some damp bread. When the nobility hear I can cure their various STDs I will be an international millionaire in a year. To get my foot in the door I'd approach the nearest royal court and do various things like show them my teeth (angelic by their standards), write out the prime numbers/pi (to show I am educated) and draw an accurate map of Europe (to wow them with my experience).

If that didn't work I suppose I could join a circus because I'm 6'5".

If I was unhappy with that my alternative plan would be to carve out a message in modern English on a bunch of rocks warning myself not to step into the time machine, and then bury them in places where the foundations of modern buildings would be dug. I suppose I could leave a few with some of the big European banks or orders of monks with instructions that they are to be unsealed in 2011.

Actually I prefer that last plan. What I would do if I went back in time would be to not go back in time.

bodhrandude

Set up yer ipod dock and play Aphex Twin to everyone, they would think you were the antichrist.

Wile E. Coyote

Zillah wrote: »

If I was unhappy with that my alternative plan would be to carve out a message in modern English on a bunch of rocks warning myself not to step into the time machine, and then bury them in places where the foundations of modern buildings would be dug. I suppose I could leave a few with some of the big European banks or orders of monks with instructions that they are to be unsealed in 2011.

Actually I prefer that last plan. What I would do if I went back in time would be to not go back in time.

Hmmmm.....this idea hurts my head. If you didn't go back in time to leave yourself those notes warning you to stay away from the time machine, then there's nothing to stop you from getting into the time machine the second time.....

Badgermonkey

I'd seek out a fair seamstress to weave me a porn tapestry depicting a halfling swiving a swine.

Needler

I'd probably live in the wild far away from civilisation or an uninhabited island to prevent being burned for witchcraft. After that I'd try and befriend some people who live fairly isolated and try to fit in. Woudln't tell them I came from the future just some far away place where they speak a different language then try to replicate as many inventions as possible and take all the credit for them

Sometimes I wonder if feckers like Edison were actually fellas from the future who replicated a bunch of inventions because they invented an unreal amount of stuff

Wolfe Tone

Build myself a machine gun

smokedeels

Look around, pause and deliver a Quantum Leap style "Oh Boy"

Queue theme music....

pickarooney

A guy called Nostradamus was plying his soothsayer's trade around these parts in the 1500s. I reckon I could challenge him and take my place in history, just as long as I could get past a few tricky conjugations.

Conor108

Vaguely remember a similar thread so I'll give the same answer. Everyone should print this, fold it up and keep it in their wallet at all times.

Corsendonk

Wouldn't I be the new Black Death? Spreading all my germs that the locals have no resistence to. The common cold now couldbe like Spanish Flu to the Middle Ages.

Doctor_Socks

Invent the 'friction match', I would then wow the locals by proceeding to remove my pants, place said friction match near my anus and produce fire!

Or else i'd get bored from not knowing the language, find the nearest field and fap to pass the time