A mad scientist has sent you back in time 200 years. What do you do?

1. The sun’s core.

I don’t want to live in that time, thank you.

Put me in Europe. I will lead the feminist movement.

1. uhhh, London.
2. I’m Dr. Who’s assistant, so it’s all good. He provides everything.
3. My goals? To time travel forever.
4. Noo, they didn’t even have normal cars.
5. Yup! I don’t want to get the world in trouble.

Go Dr. Who!

Assassinate Edgar Allen Poe at birth and publish his works but in my name.

I ‘d rather be dead, since i would be killed pretty soon anyways.

Pay Adolf Hitler’s ancestors a very brief visit….

Two days ago on a somewhat similar question, I said I would want to be Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra and not destroy Jane’s saucier letters. Now I think I’ll be Jane Austen and write some more damned novels before dying.

If I were the person physically and chronologically I am now?

I’d go to New York or London (where I’d be safe) and become an abolitionist writer. I’d probably find work as a governess to support myself in the meantime, though. And the first place I’d go is the Society of Friends (The Quakers). Would I tell anyone I was from the future? Probably not. I feel that just my presence back then would pretty much “squash the butterfly”, as it were, so I’d have no compunction in being a do-gooder.

Upon reading the question (sans the details), my initial response was “Invest heavily in Dupont, Colgate, and Citibank.” But that was under the assumption that I’d at some point be returned to my own time….

so i don’t get it , is @shilolo going to kill Hilter’s ancestors?

@airowDee
well apparently.
but hey, would be interesting to see how it plays out. hitler might be replaced by someone less insane and germany might actually win the war.

and being a nazi would not be something bad?

I would head west, become a miner/logger, and start staking claims in what is now northern california to get in on the ground floor of the timber and mineral rights. if it’s 1809 i’d have to become a mexican citizen, but that’s alright. i’d also work on my relationship with the us so they don’t screw me over when they gain control of the territory. or i’d start acquiring property along future railroad sites. then i’d sit back and let the money roll in for me and future generations of my family. i wouldn’t tell anyone i’m from the future because they’d just think i was crazy. there’s obviously no way in getting back to the future (unless someone from the more future future (i.e. 2050) comes back to the past and is able to bring me back to my present (or his past), then i would convince him i’m from his past or the current future by telling him things that only someone from my future would know about his past). as far as altering future events, i wouldn’t see a problem with it. as far as anyone knows nothing future of the present has occurred so the only future that exists is the one that we in 1809 would be creating in the present. of course, that depends on your perception of time.

It was no fun being black in the past, I think I’lll pass

If I had to go anywhere in 1809, I think I’d prefer to be teleported into a functional time machine.

I’d probably end up in england or the U.S. and become some kind of merchant and sail the 7 seas and see the entire world. I’d probably do that now except I have family and university and all that holdin Me’s back matey.

Is thers any ‘good’ place for a middle-aged woman with no relatives?? maybe I’d ask to go to a tropical island full of friendly natives. I’d have to learn to like fish. Maybe a bigger tropical island with some mammals on it.

I’d probably want to be either in England or The US and use my knowledge of future technology (and my medical knowledge) to save the right people and come to a position of influence and help shape a medical system that actually focuses on helping people instead of corporations and make myself insanely rich in the process. Also I’d “invent” certain things that exist now and patent every single one of them.. thereby ensuring not only the future of all my future offspring and theirs… but also writing my name into the history books. Also i’d find @shilolo in Germany and buy him a beer so he can tell me all about his adventures with the Hitler clan.

Eww… im indian so i’d be taken over by the british and i dont think i’d be welcome elsewhere in the 1800s. X__X
i fail.
I’d just stick to America and try and live

@RAWRxRandy so culture-fail? Dude…. you could totally make a living scamming tourists and “frontier’s men”. Watch that Mel Gibson movie “Maverick”, specifically the part where his Native American buddy is scamming the Russian guy. You’d make a killing! (so to speak…)

I would find the mad scientist’s closest relative, and kill them, preventing me from being sent into the past.

1. I’d also pick London or some part of the British Empire. Certainly not Czarist Russia or anywhere near the Balkans. Though perhaps Prague of Vienna might have been nice back then too.

2. Well, assuming I’m in some English-speaking country, I’d probably survive. They’d certainly think I speak with a funny accent, but then again, most people think that about other regional accents anyway. I think I’d survive. Making money would probably be fairly easy for a 20th-century man. The average knowledge of my contemporaries beats that of minds as great as Newton in earlier years. My grandfather, considered a sage in his village, only finished primary school, and could barely spell. My father, one of the most educated people in town, had nothing more than a BA, whereas most people nowadays go around with MAs and PhDs and still can’t get a job. I think I’d probably even make a career as a chemist with what little I can remember from school. Or become a magician or a prophet.

3. I think I’d like to know as much as possible about that era. Assuming I wouldn’t really get to pick, I’d try and end up in a better place. Eg I’d probably just pick “London” at such short notice, but might discover that the Far West would be a more interesting and challenging place to visit, or that Australia was now the new land of opportunity, or that political conditions in Europe meant there was a better life somewhere else (Indonesia, South Africa, Ceylon). I’d probably figure it out there and then.

4. Bit hard to convince anyone, though I’ve got a big mouth and would probably tell them. And end up in a cell as a result.

5. I wouldn’t actively try to change history, as I can’t remember any significant even right after 1809 that I could affect. But I might try and make the world a better place. Not sure. I might try to abolish slavery earlier, or move technology forward faster, or go find Alexander Fleming and give him some mouldy bread (or am I a century too early for that? yup, I think that was just before WWII). Well, I could give someone else the mouldy bread.

Dartmoor Prison opens to house French prisoners of war
...Might be a FUN way to spend a few days?
Sweden declares independence, constitutional monarchy established
...This might be a REAL party, and those Swedish girls
1st US steamboat to a make an ocean voyage leaves NY for Philly
...Being first might be something to tell the grand kids?
Royal Opera House in London opens
....I think the FAT LADY is singing for this question

I would go hug Abe Lincoln. He would be 9 months old.

1. What location do you choose?
Hawaii

2. How do you meet your immediate needs (e.g. food, shelter, communication, etc.)?
Hunting, fishing, and eating coconut.

3. What are your long term goals (e.g. occupation, lifestyle, etc.)?
Finding a way to make beer and a good hammock.

4. Do you tell anyone that you are from the future? If so, how do you convince them? Yes. My lighter and my iphone. (don’t have an iphone.. but for this scenario… my iphone)

5. Do you try to alter future events or try not to step on any butterflies?
I leave the butterflies alone.

@NaturalMineralWater on my list of things to do before I die is scale a palm tree and chop down a coconut with a machetti. :)

Meet Carl Friedrich Gauss, tell him about Einstein and black holes and time machines and ask him to keep quiet.