And even if it was legal we would not recognize it, same way we did not recognize nazi Germany's actions as legal.
So, a really old cargo ship sails into harbor...
- Thread starter We Just Write
- Start date
- What if?
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Only one post 1807 Slaver was ever tried. He was hung until dead.
The thing is, Nazi Germany's actions weren't recognized as legal in their own time. Trying to retroactively invalidate legal precedent into the past leads nowhere that anyone wants to go.
The authorities have as long as they need to sort things out in this case.
As I understand there are ways to date the specific strains of viruses. The crew is going to have a rock solid and internally consistent story that any decent interrogator is going to admit displays only honest gaps.
They aren't going to fall into any obvious traps because they won't have the knowledge to fall for them even when not doing so would turn out to be harmful.
They're going to be incredible knowledgeable about authentic 19th century sailing to an extent that no criminal or modern sailor turned criminal could hope to be.
Basically, managing to be this authentic would be beyond the resources of anyone insane enough to try it.
There's also the fact that none of the rescued Africans, hundreds in total, have even the slightest knowledge of modern Africa while likely being a from a wide geographical area, possibly speaking authentic dialects that have changed drastically or gone extinct.
Edit : That doesn't mean anyone would actually believe they were time travelers but it would be hard to not be convinced that something strange is going on here.
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teslashark
One of the brother site’s janitors
- Location
- Somewhere
How about Cote d'Ivore or Ginuea citizens? They can patch up massive chunks of lost African history, which the modern world could in fact use.
Norseman
Entirely Wholesome
If by that you mean that dendrochronological dating will show that the timbers are from the early 19th century, but C14 dating will show that it is only 20-80 years old then yes that will be freaky. Likewise the fact that all of the iron on board lacks the radioactive isotopes modern metal has as a result of nuclear testing.
Assuming the tests are made that is, but I think eventually they would be.
Yes. Once more if the authorities go "Something really strange is going on," and then bring in scientists to date various physical artefacts then the results will be utterly weird.
Well, it depends somewhat. The story is so far out there that many interrogators would keep pushing them untill they found some inconsistency or other, or even if they didn't the higher ups would be very reluctant to hear this.
However yes, eventually they would start doing DNA tests, bring in linguists, try to do dental checks (and be amazed that none of the sailors and slaves have any signs whatsoever of modern dental care). The medical checkups would reveal that quite a few of them have a lot of mercury and arsenic in their blood (if they took 19th century medicine).
It is basically a question about how long it would take before they started doing tests of everything on board.
FaeGlade Plural
Semper Legens
- Location
- Land of Bureaucracy
- Pronouns
- Plural/They
As with all ISOT/time travel "What If's" the actual situation would take a backseat to the fact that, well, that weird physical phenomenon that caused it.
So in this case, people would quickly forget about the people on the ship. The real question becomes "how can a ship disappear, then reappear some 200 years later with not time having passed?".
Aside from the huge impact on physics, it's a really scary concept. I for one sure don't want to vanish with no warning! Can this happen to individual people? To cars, to planes, to houses? To cities or whole countries? Is it a one-off event or has this been going on for a long time? What possibly other horrors could lurk in the laws of space-time? And other people will ask similar questions, including religious ones.
Now at least in this case it's an event that could possibly be faked, and it's small enough to ignore it. With what ifs that displace whole countries, this would be really impossible and would probably fundamentally change human fears.
And yes, I realize that most What If?s in that vein ignore that question because it gets in the way of the actual question. But other than that, there's really not much else to say here
- The slaves will be freed of course
- Whether the sailors will be jailed depends on law minutia, and since something like this is utterly unprecedented there is no definitive outcome.
- Integrating any of those people into modern society will be a momentous challenge for a variety of reasons. Culture, technology, language and disease are amongst those reasons.
So in this case, people would quickly forget about the people on the ship. The real question becomes "how can a ship disappear, then reappear some 200 years later with not time having passed?".
Aside from the huge impact on physics, it's a really scary concept. I for one sure don't want to vanish with no warning! Can this happen to individual people? To cars, to planes, to houses? To cities or whole countries? Is it a one-off event or has this been going on for a long time? What possibly other horrors could lurk in the laws of space-time? And other people will ask similar questions, including religious ones.
Now at least in this case it's an event that could possibly be faked, and it's small enough to ignore it. With what ifs that displace whole countries, this would be really impossible and would probably fundamentally change human fears.
And yes, I realize that most What If?s in that vein ignore that question because it gets in the way of the actual question. But other than that, there's really not much else to say here
- The slaves will be freed of course
- Whether the sailors will be jailed depends on law minutia, and since something like this is utterly unprecedented there is no definitive outcome.
- Integrating any of those people into modern society will be a momentous challenge for a variety of reasons. Culture, technology, language and disease are amongst those reasons.
xa na xa
A.E.I.O.U. - Antarticae est imperare orbi universo
- Location
- σ Octantis
What @Serafina and @Norseman say.
Adding some stuff:
o All the disease stuff makes me eyeroll so hard. No, they won't die like War of World Martians, and no, they won't start some pandemic. Also using DNA is pretty useless for dating when much better techniques like dendrochronology are available.
o If it's public , it will be a massive media phenomenon, about time travel, and the fact that it is a slave ship will be a minor detail that will interest relatively few people. It will still be a lot of people that care about them, and follows what happens to them in the future.
o The slavers will be jailed. Conveniently, this will make them easily available as study objects.
o The slaves, after an adaptation period to learn about modern society (while being interviewed about 19th century African society), will be given the choice to return to the African country they come from or given asylum in the USA.
o Lots of historical papers will be written about direct knowledge from the past, plenty of PhDs and a few professorships.
o The ship after thorough examination, will be be put on display in a museum.
Adding some stuff:
o All the disease stuff makes me eyeroll so hard. No, they won't die like War of World Martians, and no, they won't start some pandemic. Also using DNA is pretty useless for dating when much better techniques like dendrochronology are available.
o If it's public , it will be a massive media phenomenon, about time travel, and the fact that it is a slave ship will be a minor detail that will interest relatively few people. It will still be a lot of people that care about them, and follows what happens to them in the future.
o The slavers will be jailed. Conveniently, this will make them easily available as study objects.
o The slaves, after an adaptation period to learn about modern society (while being interviewed about 19th century African society), will be given the choice to return to the African country they come from or given asylum in the USA.
o Lots of historical papers will be written about direct knowledge from the past, plenty of PhDs and a few professorships.
o The ship after thorough examination, will be be put on display in a museum.
Cthaeth
Have at thee, blaggard!
- Location
- Tir Na Nog
drugs will likely be blamed at first.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Point, but most drugs only last a few hours tops.
Norseman
Entirely Wholesome
Uh what? Even 1640s English wouldn't be harder to understand than many backwater dialects today, but 1840s English is so close to our own age that there shouldn't be any serious communications problems at all.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Language doesn't drift that quickly.
I am genuinely curious why it is you think this. No, really. Pls explain
Radek
Promethean
- Location
- A Cryptum, somewhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
No longer sure how large the diffirence really is - others seem convinced there won´t be issues on that front - but languages do change over time. So how much would some 130 years really matter? Much? Little? Something in between.
...Dude, A Christmas Carol came out in 1843. Go read that and tell me if it's incomprensible.
As an example look at the U.S. declaration of independence written 65 years before this ship disappeared https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/89/US-original-Declaration-1776.jpg The only major change is the use of that f like symbol (the name of which completely escapes me) sometimes in place of S.
*edit* Examples of the English language shifting over time
*edit* Examples of the English language shifting over time
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