[2E] Theory: Mummy + Science = Teleportation in Present

[wyrdhamster]

I presented to my partner idea of mummies in 2E, especially their Timelessness. I pointed to him that you start in, for example, 2019 in USA. In next story arc you move you concise to 1100’s Constantinople. And here we go to the Science thing…

Let’s assume that our mummy is simple engineer in 2019. So:

• He awokes in 1100s.
• He is engineer, remembering cars from streets in 2019.
• Mummy builds simple car in 1100s, using steel, bronze, steam engine, etc.
• Mummy get’s here car plans to his cult.
• Cult improves technology by 200 years.
• In 1300s we have mass produced cars.
• By 1500s we have planes.
• By 1700s we have Large Hadron Collider.
• By 2000s we have technological means for Teleportations.

Prove me I’m wrong…

[Florin]

I think it's a far leap to say inventing the car early somehow improves all kinds of technology by 200 years. You need a cost-efficient fuel and a certain quality of roads to get cars to a point where they are economically viable. Not to mention something like the assembly line to make it cheap enough and quickly enough for the masses. I would think of introducing technology into earlier time periods like suddenly gaining an more advanced tech in Civ. You might have the tech, but you probably can't use it effectively until you've researched a bunch of other techs. It might speed things up by a little, but introducing one technology is not going to cause a massive shift in all science research.

[FallenEco]

Yep, that is cause for that alternate timeline condition. Anchored to the cult no less.

[ArcaneArts]

I've still got the rest of chapter seven to read, but this assumes

A) Time jumping works completely perfectly to their whims,
B) Memory isn't constantly flying to the winds,
C) Other Forces aren't fucking around with you,
D) that the infrastructure to need to achieve the revolutionary items are easy to build instead of having the relatively steady pace of development we already had
E) [Leave E open for any other considerations you haven't considered here].

and at the end of all that, you have what Fallen Eco said.

[LordHeru]

I wouldn't say you are Wrong, as such things are quite possible in a home campaign, more that I would say the sequence of events would have to be highly manipulated in-character to have a chance to come true. Which would be fun, of course, not saying it would not. But it would also beg the question of certain behind the scenes plots and forces and manipulating agencies. It would also take into question the wavy nature of time for the mummies themselves.

The more common version I would think is that the Cult of the mummies in question would find themselves bearing higher tech levels than the society around them, while working to hide the fact that they are so advanced. "Look our vehicle goes a little faster and is safer than yours simply because our mechanics are better trained, they are not any more advanced" the representative says with a shifty eye."

[wyrdhamster]

Yep, that is cause for that alternate timeline condition. Anchored to the cult no less.

Where in MtC 2E is this Alternate Timeline Condition?

[Satchel]

Where in MtC 2E is this Alternate Timeline Condition?

Back of the book with the rest of the Conditions, referring back to the Storytelling chapter's discussion of temporal weirdness the Arisen encounter beyond experiencing life episodically and out of chronological order.

Essentially, if you're a mummy (or you've got a particular Merit), you can make a roll if you suspect that time is acting funny around you, and if it is and you roll an exceptional success on that roll (or you give up some Sekhem on a regular success), then you can take a Condition that allows you to exploit that temporal weirdness as long as you're in it.

You can make certain things guaranteed to happen in time loops, you can move carefully in accelerated time or speedily in decelerated time, and in this case, you can guarantee Sybaris on characters in alternate timelines by force of being more real than they are…

…which, like normal Sybaris, plagues the subject with existential dread and nigh-inescapable visions that are most expediently resolved by joining a Scorpion Cult.

[FallenEco]

It is discussed in the Timeless Tales chapter (preview 5), but like all the other conditions, it is listed in the Appendix, (listed as Alternate Current). It isn't exactly an exciting take but does have the added benefit of being easy to slip into a game if a player throws a curve ball with time shennaggins.

Bonus points for being able to switch between alternate timelines between Descents. So what would happen is there would be one temporal current where the cult produced advanced technology throughout the ages and the assumed default where it did not. The Arisen may be called to either timeline in no particular order.
This also provides a simple, usable answer to a question I saw in the Kickstarter thread; "I murdered a 300 year old vampire in 2012, then went back and murdered the same vampire in 1815, what now?" Now we have 2 histories, anchored on the vampire's death and you can visit either when called for, even if you end up murdering the vampire again in 1930. Which would add a third current.
Best part? You never have to return to the same current, so if you don't want to deal with all the potential rammifications, just don't return to that current, even changing the 'main' one if the rest of the players agree.

[wyrdhamster]

I would think of introducing technology into earlier time periods like suddenly gaining an more advanced tech in Civ. You might have the tech, but you probably can't use it effectively until you've researched a bunch of other techs. It might speed things up by a little, but introducing one technology is not going to cause a massive shift in all science research.

I write it as engineer by education and inculcator by trade: in few years - maybe not massive shift. But once your discovery is famous, your tech is slowly incorporated in other techs and discoveries. In decade, two, it's popular solution. Yes, I wrote about modern times - but then, Renaissance technology need only one century to fill whole Italy and then Europe with it. 11th century discovery should not take more than 100 years to propagate in Byzantine Empire from Constantinopole, 200 years in Europe and Asia Minor.

You need a cost-efficient fuel and a certain quality of roads to get cars to a point where they are economically viable.

Cult get's entrenched in Grand Palace Complex of Byzantium - and by 200 years you have quality roads in Empire.

Not to mention something like the assembly line to make it cheap enough and quickly enough for the masses.

If you can make car, with all the wheels, belts and gears - you can build simple assembly line. And more you build and practiced by those, you get better assembly lines. By 200 years you have those of at least World War 1 level tech.

[Satchel]

I write it as engineer by education and inculcator by trade: in few years - maybe not massive shift. But once your discovery is famous, your tech is slowly incorporated in other techs and discoveries. In decade, two, it's popular solution. Yes, I wrote about modern times - but then, Renaissance technology need only one century to fill whole Italy and then Europe with it. 11th century discovery should not take more than 100 years to propagate in Byzantine Empire from Constantinopole, 200 years in Europe and Asia Minor.

Three hundred years after the eleventh century the global population was estimated at less than half a billion people, which then got nearly a quarter of its headcount sheared off by the Black Plague. Most of the old Roman infrastructure had started to fall into disuse as the Empire fractured and the pieces couldn't maintain their grip. With all these obstacles to travel and communication, how quickly are you assuming discoveries are going to be disseminated without also sneaking the printing press in four hundred years early, modernizing medicine, and otherwise dragging a metric ton of extra stuff back with you alongside knowledge of how to construct an automotive?

Cult get's entrenched in Grand Palace Complex of Byzantium - and by 200 years you have quality roads in Empire.

I know enough about the words "Byzantine politics" to know that this is a laughably naïve approach to them.

[Paradim]

Might be quite a bit difficult to make the various pieces of what makes a modern car workable.... gaskets, belts, tires... without rubber, considering that wasn't brought to Europe until 1736 by Charles Marie de La Condamine.

[Exthalion]

This is very quickly going to turn into a “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” situation.

Because you are not just inventing the car. You are inventing oil drilling and refining to produce fuel. You are launching expeditions to discover rubber so that you can make effective seals for pistons. You are inventing new alloys that can take the heat, building new mines to meet the new demand, and inventing new mining and prospecting techniques to make those mines productive enough. You are not just building roads, you are creating a core of surveyors and civil engineers to build them, opening new quarries to provide the material, and perhaps tying into that oil drilling to invent asphalt. You will have to standardized units and propagate _extremely_ precise copies all over so that factories, mechanics, etc. can make interchangeable parts. You must create trade schools to train the engineers, mechanics, etc. necessary for all of this. (The lack of literacy will hurt you here). You have to build all those schools and factories. You will have to introduce entirely new disciplines of mathematics and chemistry concerned with concepts like logarithms to perform the necessary calculations for things like pressure in ignition chambers and the complex chain of chemical reactions that underly a lot of this. In the middle of all this you will have to invent new tools that are precise enough to perform the operations since idiosyncratic hand made hand tools are not going to cut it.

And, finally, you will have to pay for all of this. You will be fighting the local economic conditions, where most of the population must be agricultural laborers to feed themselves and the urbanites. So you will probably want to reform agriculture, creating massive economic disruptions from displayed farmers and/or a population boom. You will probably also want to introduce sanitation into cities, as for most of history their populations only stayed stable or grew because of immigration since disease killed more people than were born in them. Speaking of, you will want to improve medical knowledge significantly to avoid those plagues that periodically devastated the population (Justinian says hello). The commodity money everyone uses will be ill-equipped to handle the massive economic expansion all this would require.

Keep in mind that, in the midst of dragging a pre-medieval peasant economy through the industrial revolution, the nearby countries are going to be mighty interested in what you are doing and will probably be more than willing to steal your techniques and march in their armies to take your things. So you will probably have to take some time out of inventing automobiles to see about gunpowder; guns; explosives; modern tactics, strategy, logistics, and fortification; and diplomacy.


This is not to say this is impossible, it has been done at least once. It just took a very long time relative to how fast people seem to think they can accomplish all of this. Places like Russia that did this in a generation had already industrialized countries they could import equipment and experts from. It was also very bloody and a lot of people starved to death. China faced significant social unrest when it tried the same and a lot of people starved to death. Japan faced significant social unrest and a few coups/revolts depending on how you count things.

Consider: The real industrial revolution happened because plagues killed so many people that the cost of labor was sky-high and slow tech growth had revealed the usefulness of fuels like coal, discovered useful substances like rubber, and created useful alloys and devices. It was both possible and, finally, profitable to invest in buying and inventing labor-saving devices. In the Roman empire it was cheaper to have slaves carry things than donkeys, and large beasts of burden were usually only employed for really heavy loads it would be impractical to have slaves carry.