It is the year 1400 and you have controll of 500 infantry, and a carrier...

[Vesayen]

You go back in time to the year 1400 with a rather large aircraft carrier, which has a full compliment of planes(think something on the scale of the USS Lincoln-largest ship in the U.S. fleet) with 500 fully decked out marines on board. You have 2 heavy duty artilery pieces and enough ammo/fuel/food/spare parts/supplies to run for one year before you need any new items......

How do you conquer the world?

[Zero]

Pretend I am god and my armies are angels. It works well in stargate sg1....

[lightblue]

Go to the Med. Take a helicopter into Rome and land on St Peters Square. Delcare yourself the Archangel Michael, and relieve the Pope of his throne.

Now take his place, and demand fealty from all nations. If they don't obey, drop one inflammatory bomb on their major city. They will then. Keep it up till you rule Europe, then do the same to the Islamic world whilat getting some cronies to do whatever the Spaniards did in the Americas. I suppose you could now take on the nations in the Asian sub-continent and China. And presto World conquered.

If you assume that you'd be able to implement modern techniques for oil refinery and the like in the conquered bits, it might be even easier.

[General Ludd]

What's with all these dumb hypothetical situations of yours? I don't want to travel back in time and conquer the world, damn it.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Osweld
What's with all these dumb hypothetical situations of yours? I don't want to travel back in time and conquer the world, damn it.

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

No?

Then don't post in these kinds of threads if you don't like them or we'll be forced to call for a Waambulance. Sheesh, some people...

[Datajack Franit]

I would

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Osweld
What's with all these dumb hypothetical situations of yours? I don't want to travel back in time and conquer the world, damn it.

So im a megalomaniac-sue me

[Kingof the Apes]

Originally posted by lightblue
Go to the Med. Take a helicopter into Rome and land on St Peters Square. Delcare yourself the Archangel Michael, and relieve the Pope of his throne.

That would work better if you had neon lights, a toy lightsaber, and a toga.


If I wanted to take over the world, (and I had nop conciense or morals) I would just cropdust major countries and cities with chemical weapons. Of course, if I wanted to keep people around to do my bidding, I would probably go along the line of lightblue's strategy.

[St Leo]

This is what they call an ISOT scenario in soc.history.what-if

[CyberGnu]

ISOT?

And to pour some cold water on some of the theories: Before developing oil refining etc etc you would have to pull the world through a revolution in metallurgy... Are you up to date on your hot air furnce design?

Likewise with chemical weapons - organic chemistry is still 400 years away, and you would have to make everything from scratch... I'm a trained chemist, and I don't think I could do much with raw naphta and urine...

All in all, I think I'd prefer to live a comfortable life as corporate scum than be a ruler in world without indoor plumbing...

[ranskaldan]

I think this would work a lot better if I started in Asia. After all, they had more people, while Europe's technological edge had barely begun.

On the other hand, this shouldn't be TOO hard. Why not try a much tougher scenario? Forget the carrier, you have just 500 marines with enough ammo to conquer a large city easily (but no more). (Let's say, a city the size of Baghdad, Constantinople, Venice, or Hangzhou.) Your marines are also quite knowledgeable about all forms of land, sea, and air weaponry. How would you conquer the world?

[JohnT]

Precisely, CyberGnu. :applause:

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
All in all, I think I'd prefer to live a comfortable life as corporate scum than be a ruler in world without indoor plumbing...

of course, you can take blueprints for indoor plumbing back with you, and guard it as a close secret

[JohnT]

Btw, I don't think it could be done; not with a mere 500 people and 1 carrier group it's not. Best you could likely do is prevent the development of the European Atlantic presence but, more likely, you'll just become a raider going from city to city demanding tribute - that is, until the gas runs out (in which case I recommend being in America). Even the weapons will have a shelf life, most of them not lasting longer than 10 years.

And only 500 people? For the entire planet?

[Datajack Franit]

America?? In year 1400?? Do you want all your precious native american slaves to die of imported-diseases?