Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
With its rise around the Mediterranean Sea giving way to a rich and centuries-long legacy that remains with us to this day, the Greco-Roman world stood tall as a bastion of science, art, law, and high culture until its tragic decline following the sacking of Rome in 410 A.D. But for all the contributions that have still been left to us--from Aristotle's philosophy to Roman influence within the Anglo-American legal tradition--the world that exists now, in the one-and-a-half millennia since the end of Classical Civilization, has become something they'd find utterly unrecognizable.
That their lot would find it impossible to immediately make heads or tails of our world is quite evident, but let's say that one curious ROB goes further than that by resurrecting, say, a hundred-thousand ancient Romans and Greeks from random dates that range roughly from the fifth century B.C. to the fifth century A.D. Depending on whether they're Greek or Roman, they're each placed in one of two closed-off twin islands in the Ionian Sea, complete with familiar infrastructure and all the provisions they'd ever need so that they won't be forced to forage for themselves and start confrontations that could escalate into something much more ugly if left unchecked. The ROB also leaves each household a conspicuous note that explains their current situation to them all in precise detail, as well as plenty of user-friendly resources on the state of the world nowadays as well as exactly how it got there. This would encompass everything from modern appliances with meticulous instructions on how to use them, to all sorts of books and documentaries on over a thousand years of history that has ensued between the period they were sent from and the present day. So, having received the aid of a curious ROB so that they're not left to their own devices in a setting that they'd likely never wrap their heads around by themselves, how would these resurrected Greeks and Romans--isolated as they may be at first--fare in the modern world?
Leaving our mind-boggling technology aside for a moment, I imagine they'd find us contemporary people very "pampered" and "weak" thanks to how dependent we've become on all our advancements and supply lines to sustain us (even though they'd quickly see the appeal of things like modern medicine, I'm sure). However, I can imagine that they'd also be bemused at how we've put men on the Moon and created bombs that can incinerate whole cities in a heartbeat, but still remain baffled by the recipe for creating ancient Roman concrete. They'd also disapprove of our social norms and contemporary culture, with our historically recent mentality of change and progress for its own sake probably unnerving societies as traditional and time-tested as theirs. On the flip side, the scale and destructive potential of modern conflicts--though tempered by conventions they'd likely find foreign and perhaps too generous to the enemy--would probably astonish them, with the World Wars blowing anything in their frame of reference out of the water in terms of sheer death toll and showcasing the dark side of what modernity has brought into being. How they'd react to myriad and far-reaching geopolitical changes, considering all the cultures and states that have risen and fallen during the past millennium or two, seems like something more difficult to gauge in one fell swoop--though how Britannia and Gallia eventually went on to forge some of the greatest empires the world has ever seen would come as a surprise, not to mention the fact that the most powerful nation to have ever walked the earth sits on a continent whose existence they never knew about in the first place!
Anyways, that's all I have for now. Hopefully, we can keep the conversation going beyond just some initial musings of mine when it comes to how two interlocked, long-dead peoples would react to their distant descendants and the lives they lead in 2020 (or thereabouts).
Thank you in advance,
Zyobot
That their lot would find it impossible to immediately make heads or tails of our world is quite evident, but let's say that one curious ROB goes further than that by resurrecting, say, a hundred-thousand ancient Romans and Greeks from random dates that range roughly from the fifth century B.C. to the fifth century A.D. Depending on whether they're Greek or Roman, they're each placed in one of two closed-off twin islands in the Ionian Sea, complete with familiar infrastructure and all the provisions they'd ever need so that they won't be forced to forage for themselves and start confrontations that could escalate into something much more ugly if left unchecked. The ROB also leaves each household a conspicuous note that explains their current situation to them all in precise detail, as well as plenty of user-friendly resources on the state of the world nowadays as well as exactly how it got there. This would encompass everything from modern appliances with meticulous instructions on how to use them, to all sorts of books and documentaries on over a thousand years of history that has ensued between the period they were sent from and the present day. So, having received the aid of a curious ROB so that they're not left to their own devices in a setting that they'd likely never wrap their heads around by themselves, how would these resurrected Greeks and Romans--isolated as they may be at first--fare in the modern world?
Leaving our mind-boggling technology aside for a moment, I imagine they'd find us contemporary people very "pampered" and "weak" thanks to how dependent we've become on all our advancements and supply lines to sustain us (even though they'd quickly see the appeal of things like modern medicine, I'm sure). However, I can imagine that they'd also be bemused at how we've put men on the Moon and created bombs that can incinerate whole cities in a heartbeat, but still remain baffled by the recipe for creating ancient Roman concrete. They'd also disapprove of our social norms and contemporary culture, with our historically recent mentality of change and progress for its own sake probably unnerving societies as traditional and time-tested as theirs. On the flip side, the scale and destructive potential of modern conflicts--though tempered by conventions they'd likely find foreign and perhaps too generous to the enemy--would probably astonish them, with the World Wars blowing anything in their frame of reference out of the water in terms of sheer death toll and showcasing the dark side of what modernity has brought into being. How they'd react to myriad and far-reaching geopolitical changes, considering all the cultures and states that have risen and fallen during the past millennium or two, seems like something more difficult to gauge in one fell swoop--though how Britannia and Gallia eventually went on to forge some of the greatest empires the world has ever seen would come as a surprise, not to mention the fact that the most powerful nation to have ever walked the earth sits on a continent whose existence they never knew about in the first place!
Anyways, that's all I have for now. Hopefully, we can keep the conversation going beyond just some initial musings of mine when it comes to how two interlocked, long-dead peoples would react to their distant descendants and the lives they lead in 2020 (or thereabouts).
Thank you in advance,
Zyobot