10mo ago

Choose your items

252 comments

Ask for the gun and the bullets.
Before I'm sent back, shoot the time travel master (nerd!) in the head. Shoot their attendants, too (nerds! nerds!).
Grab all the other options, and load them in the time travel car. VERY IMPORTANT: the Moog will be playing the Knight Rider Theme until further notice.
Time travel back to the Vatican, Apostolic Palace. Driving the motorcycle up to The Pope, I do a jump that involves me turning upside-down OVER the Pope, during which I look down, shove the LSD down the Pope's throat, and then do an Akira-slide right in front of him.
In fluent Latin, I explain to the Pope that I am a messenger from God who has been sent to deliver a Mighty Revelation. For the next several hours I use all the other options I brought back to astound and amuse The Pope during the LSD trip. During this phase of the experience, the Moog will be playing selections from Pink Floyd, focusing on music from Dark Side and before. The key message of The Revelation is that I am an agent of God to be protected and revered.
After the Pope comes down, I scope out the Vatican's Cardinals. (The Moog will be playing Guile's Theme during this phase.) The spices are covertly swapped for hashish and opiates, which I use along with the Warheads candy to bring mini-Revelations to those Cardinals who seem friendly. Those Cardinals who seem hostile to me, are fed bits of the Uranium. I am declared a Cardinal. When the time is right, The Pope is also fed bits of Uranium.
After the Pope dies, a conclave is convened in the Sistine Chapel to select the next Pope. The Moog will be playing Objection from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001) during this phase. As a Cardinal, I attend, and will use the motorcycle to pop wheelies and do donuts until I am elected.
When I first appear on the Papal balcony, to be revered for the rest of my life as an infallible being whose words must be obeyed without hesitation, the Moog will be playing the instrumental version of We are Number One from Lazy Town, and I will be doing an appropriate dance.
- I had the same idea for the items.
  Pick gun and the bullets.
  But instead my plan was to shoot myself.
  
  My plan was to take the dab pens and the moog, assuming it could be used as a backup battery to the pens. And then just plan to hang myself when confronted with the inevitability of sobriety.
- That moog isn’t a fucking iTunes playlist, it’s a musical instrument that needs a real person to play it so your entire plan is completely shot.
  
  The moog is "magic - works without amp or outlet" so it is magic. (Given.)
  Therefore the moog is AI, since magic and AI are indistinguishable. (Lemma: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Clarke. The exact workings of contemporary "AI" neural networks are insufficiently understood, therefore indistinguishable from magic.)
  Because the moog is AI, I can talk to it like ChatGPT, I just have the wrong keyboard.
  Use the keyboard like this: first key is "A", second key is "B", etc. Type out some sentences until the AI figures out the pattern. I have plenty of time to do so, since I have a time machine.
  Use the keyboard to chat with the moog to tell it what I want it to play.
  Problem?
- I would read this comic book.
- This is the best comment I have seen on Lemmy. You are a genius.
- What about the other items? Bottle rockets off the papalcony for sure. Dab pen for office duties after I think.
  The laser pen would also be a mind blower during the high times.
- What a fucking ride. I had all the tracks on background play in pipepipe. Incredible.
- Just hope your time machine doesn't deposit you off during the Western Catholic Schism or else you'll have to repeat this multiple times with multiple popes.
  
  Or maybe this is how the Western Schism is avoided in the first place. The Lord works in mysterious ways...

I'll take the DeLorean and the castle

These are all terrible options.
- I think that's the point.
- The spices are pretty good - great, portable money source that won't get you killed for being a witch. Everything else sucks.
  
  Well ACTSHUALLY, depending on your definition of the middle ages, you wouldn’t be very likely to be killed for being a witch, since the witch hunt came into being after the Reneissance.
  That said, I would also take the spices. The amount of spices in that picture would probably set me up for life. Buy a nice place somewhere in Northern Italy and live out my days learning to play the moog, amusing my medieval friends.
- I choose the bottle rockets twice.
  
  That's the most reasonable choice imo, you could probably earn a fair bit of money with those.
- Motorcycle isn't abad choice. You get an alternator and a battery out if the deal. You can rig up a simple water turbine to charge it easily enough. You also get a bunch of steel, rubber/plastics, some wire, tubes, and a couple of pretty good lightbulbs (possibly even an LED one depending on the headlight/taillight). Taking the magic Moog as the 2nd option seems like the best idea considering it's magic.
  
  Sure, but they’re terrible options because of how dumb people used to be. Like, you’d probably have to keep it secret or get called a witch or something.
  Something I think would be more useful would be seeds for crops, specifically resistant to plant diseases that would have been devastating back then. Like, take some potatoes that are resistant to whatever caused the Irish famine. That wouldn’t be as likely to get you burned at the stake for being in service to the devil
- I'll exchange all that for:
  Good knife and a sharpening stone
  Flint for making fire
  Compass
  Axe
  Several years of training in self defense and living off the land. (Or else they should send a Navy seal)
  Edit: Ah it's a shit post, I always get those wrong 😁

I mean, is it permanent or do I have a plan for getting back to now? If it's permanent, the gun and bullets because fuuuuck that. I'm not living in medieval times as a woman. Even if pretty much all of history wasn't a horror show for women, I have like, zero useful skills and I'm pretty sure I'd only understand about half of what people were saying because Old and Middle English were a total suckfest (and that's if I didn't end up somewhere they spoke fucking French or some shit).
If I'm just there for tourism, none of it. I'm not trying to get burned for witchcraft while I'm sightseeing.
- The language thing is a good point. Am I in 1000CE North America? Because I can fumble my way through French, but absolutely cannot speak Siouan.
- I'd only understand about half of what people were saying because Old and Middle English were a total suckfest
  So kind of like modern England

Almost all of these will get you drowned for witchcraft
- Nah. Medieval folks understood the idea of mechanical engineering and complex music instruments, take the spices and the keyboard and instead some dude will just stab you for them.
- At least you can shoot the head Inquisitor before they decide to take you away.
- Not if you can burn them with the 5W laser first
- I thought witchcraft trials were a much later period kind of thing, no? Like a pilgrim-era, maybe even post-renaissance kind of thing.

Spices. Twice. You can keep the rest.
For most of the middle ages lords kept their spices in a strongbox and locked it away with their gold and jewels because some of the spices were literally worth their weight in gold.
The big problem is that you couldn't just rock up to the local lord and ask him if he wanted to buy your spices. First, he probably wouldn't be able to afford them all. Second, depending on the time period merchant's guilds (like the Grocers in London) controlled who could trade spices. Third, you'd raise a lot of questions not speaking the language and carrying enormous wealth - a good way to get robbed and/or locked up
That being said, if managed carefully those spices could be sold piecemeal to avoid arousing suspicion of any of the established merchants, then that money could go towards buying a house in and shop in town and establishing a permanent business. That is probably the best outcome you could ask for.
- The moment I saw the spice rack I knew I could just find the most useful/valuable spices and get as much of those as possible.
  Everything else runs out pretty much instantly or isn't useful ever.

Definitely the Moog. I'm not into music, but it's an unlimited source of electricity; just open the case and find the power rails.
- Good luck opening it without a screwdriver.
  
  There's a good book from a former Smithsonian curator called One Good turn that talks about the ancient history of the screwdriver and the screw.
  If you went back in time far enough that the people around you didn't know about the screwdriver and the screw, Even a rudimentary knowledge of It's existence would possibly on its own break the timeline.
  
  I could easily reinvent the screwdriver. What i could use the electricity for however...
  
  They had hand drills back then. Just drill out the screws.

No thanks. I'll just stay in my own time and keep all my stuff.

Spices x 2. They'd probably be hard to unload without getting robbed, but then you could buy a nice farm.
Everything else would be useless after a short time at best and get you burned as a witch at worst.
- acording to this guide you woudn't be burned for witchcraft, but you would be robbed as an easy target
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  this guide
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

Easy one.
The gun and the bullets to shoot myself.
- Do you even need the time travel part?
- Or to used as a template/example for how to build a gun.

I'll take the uranium. It doesn't matter what I blow up with it, the butterfly effect will mean the rest of the world is changed forever. Because fuck you, you should've asked before sending people to the medieval era.
- How would you blow it up? Do you have the technical knowledge to actually do anything with it?
  
  I would hit it really hard with a sledgehammer. It worked for Mr Burns' father
- Ruin all that precious pre-1945 steel.

The synth and 10 jars of saffron. I'll learn to play music like a bard and be fucking rich selling little bits of spices while I travel (and eventually be murdered as a witch).
- Aha! I knew someone else would go with the saffron gambit. Especially if you get to specify that it's really packed in there.
  
  I would probably mix in some whole nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves with the saffron as it was generally more popular in England at the time and the variety would probably mean more of my wares purchased by at each stop to save me needing to travel further. Travel being so gods awful at the time mitigating the risks a little bit would be worth it I think.

What astonishes me most is that at least half of you are probably highly paid engineers that are debating this on company time instead of using your brainpower for actual problems.
I like it!
Also I choose spices for instant riches and laser for burning out the eyes of my enemy to solidify my identity as a magician. After that we can finally focus on growing weed and mushrooms because y'all know 5 tanks ain't gonn last long.
- Being unproductive is a form of radical resistance that transcends simply materially impacting your employer and their unrealistic expectations on your labor and extends into destabilizing the fundamental narratives burned into your brain by society about what makes you a valuable human and what the basic pursuit of happiness really entails.
  
  I couldn't agree more. However I do think the revolution would be more accessible with some punctuation now and then.
- Kinda surprised there aren't a lot of people choosing the castle. Could probably donate that to the royal family for enough cash to get reasonably started and probably get awarded some kind of title or at least a court position with a generous salary.

Can I trade one fifth of the acid tab for one bullet?
If so, I'll take the loaded gun and the 4/5 tab of acid.
It'll be be the best 8 hours of the rest of my life.
- Monkeys paw finger curls up as you miss.
  
  My dude missing a point blank shot. That's some XCOM-bullshit accuracy!
  
  At least I'll still be a little high lol.

A shame it's only to the medieval times. Had it been to 2000 years ago I'd choose the gun and the bullets. To kill Saul of Tarsus. This would prevent Christianity to exist (and Islam by extension).
- Better maul Saul
- I think the choice here is the gun or the bullets, not together. So you'd have to run him over with a bike or light a bunch of rockets in his bum.
  Sorry - I see you can pick two items. So you'd have to light a bunch of rockets in his bum and then run him over with a bike.
- Well, it would have still existed, just been pretty distant from what it is today.
  More "everything is permissible" (1 Cor 10:23) and less "God will destroy both stomach and food" (1 Cor 6:13).
- Trying to live in the "raised by wolves" timeline?

The Delorean is on the sheet, so it's available, and I'm taking it.
I'll take the castle too, since being landed gentry is one of the best ways to survive back then.

10 jars of spices and the motorcycle. Selected properly and in big enough jars, I could become a very rich man selling those spices.
The bike I'd have an artisan painstakingly disassemble while documenting it for recreation.
It's bound to have a battery, lights, alternator, and some semiconductors. Use them to bootstrap electronics.
The engine could be retrofitted to run off alcohol, or use it with steam. Don't know how possible that is.
The springs would make for killer crossbows. Tire rubber, too.
Really, the motorbike is a mountain of treasure.
- Gasoline to alcohol is not hard to do. Just the air/alcohol ratio.

Personally I’m taking a big fucking hammer and the banner of the fighting man I’M COMING FOR YOU WILLIAM YOU FUCKING BASTARD GET FUCKING READY
- Wtf whatever I did I'm sorry
  
  Legend has it that when Tolkien referred to ‘the war’ he meant the battle of Hastings in 1066.

You could sell the spices for a lot of money.
- Everything else would get you burned as a witch.
- This would be my plan. I'd take the casio watch because fuck yeah. Otherwise I'm taking a spice rack full of Saffron and becoming a lord.

Are the DeLorean and the Castle also options? If so, I choose those.
If not, motorcycle and spices. The spices will get me some good money to live off of, and the motorcycle can be stripped to make a rudimentary electricity generator. What I would use it for, idk, but I'd have it.
- How are you going to fuel it?
  
  With fruit and waste, thx to Mr. Fusion
  
  Wind or water wheel most likely, just need some kind of turbine. I'd probably toy around with ethanol based fuels to try and keep the ICE going, but I certainly wouldn't count on it
  
  You don't need to fuel a castle, silly!

The fact that the Moog is inherently able to make sounds without power, but no other electrical ones get that is what really leans me to that. I know a Casio f-91W will last a long time, but the laser pointer and dab pen won't.
I am personally leaning towards the motorcycle and Moog. The motorcycle could be (poorly) fueled with distilled grain alcohol. Not fit for human consumption, but it could make it work. Eventually something will break on both, and you can't fix it. But you can be a form of traveling bard.
Plus if you keep the Moog, you can put it into a place that is safe, then have your later kin give it to some scientists in the 1800's. "Hey Maxwell, here's a literal magic device. See how it works. Figure out how it does this and what it can and can't do."
- If the moog has infinite power you could build a really big capacitor and hook it up to it to make enough power to do other interesting things...

Motorcycle + the watch but just for the looks, that will make sure that I look cool on the paintings.
If anybody doubts I came from the future, I just had to point the alien chariot with two wheels.
People thinking about security, im bringing 1500 years of diseases with me. I will be fine
- Good luck with the black death
- Motorcycle + Watch. Gang, although what I would do is ride the motorcycle to the middle of nowhere, take it apart and use it to build shit. You got mirrors, battery, alternator, wheels, chain, gears, rubber... A big chunk of modern materials you can use to make life easier.

The spices and the laser pointer? You can just pretend to be a spice trader and when needed, blind people to escape.
The dab pen and magic keyboard were tempting, but De. Wesker made a good point ab out witchcraft.
Motorcycle might be cool because you can melt it down or disassemble it once you run out of fuel.
Another important question is Medieval times where?
- Another important question is Medieval times where?
  That's why you pick the motorcycle.
  
  Still makes a big difference. China? Bottle rockets are just like ok, you have some bottle rockets. India? Spices are just okay, you have some spices. India might appreciate the keyboard more than Europeans, like “nice, a versatile harmonium!” vs “OMG Satan” like you might get in Europe. North America and you might be able to convince a tribe that you’re a shaman with Super Mushrooms using the LSD.
  The motorcycle had better be a dirt bike or it’s not going to be of much use except maybe in China or where there were vestiges of Roman roads.
  
  Medieval times aren't exactly known for their paved roads.
- Motorcycle can run off distilled alcohol if you're crafty.
- I think no one around here realizes how fucking insane a 5 W laser pointer is, it's not blinding people level, it's more like, don't shine it at anything white or you might blind yourself level.
  For reference the highest laser security classification starts at 0.5 W.
  Maybe I'm exaggerating here but 5 W is definitely a lot.
  So yeah, I'm down with the laser pointer.
  
  That's a good point. If it's strong enough to start a fire, that's serious power. The only issue is running out of battery power.
- Dallas, TX
  https://www.medievaltimes.com/

I'm not a physicist, but I'm pretty sure 64kg of 80% enriched uranium is more than the critical mass.
Tbh, maybe that's fine. Take possession of uranium, instantly teleport back to mediaeval Europe - preferably into the middle of a major court - uranium goes prompt critical and irradiates most of the nobility. They are already a bunch of inbreds, what's a bit more genetic damage?
- Criticality is more about the shape than the total mass

Obviously two of the literally magical free energy synthesizers.
- Imagine the synthphonies that could be composed!
  
  I'd hit em with Veridis Quo

I'd probably take the motorcycle at least and see if I can convert it to run on wood gas.
- Or alcohol. tw200 would be good on medieval paths.
- Oh that's pretty clever actually...

I would go with 5 watt laser pointer. I would roleplay as a wizard.
- There is a book called Off To Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer that is basically this and it's hysterical.
- How would you play wizard with a laser pointer (with no way to recharge when the battery ran out)?
  
  Like miracles I would do it in a few times only during my lifetime. The rest would be just me roleplaying/bullshitting my way to becoming a noble. Maybe along the way create a crude battery.

Spices and the motorbike. Strip the motorbike and sell the spices for enough money to get someone to reproduce the motorbike.
- I like the logic here, but you still need to find some gasoline
  
  I know how to distill alcohol, that should work well enough.

Acid and the moog, hold the time travel. I'm already traveling tonight baybaay!
- I had to scroll back up to verify what the moog was. I think I'm going to try to hang out with this guy. I won't realize we can't play the moog until we are hours in.

It's not on there. I want a small tablet with a solar recharger. It will be loaded with all of the texts I can find about math and engineering and science.

Dab pen won't last half a tank without need for recharging.

The Moog and the LSD. You're fucked no matter how you look at it but at least you can have a removedin time until they burn you for being a witch.
- That was my choice too. Sounds hella fun, and the locals won't care that I suck because they don't understand modern music composition, and I won't give a fuck either because I'm high off my tits!

You absolute fools, shameless buffoons, the Watch and the 5 watt laser pointer are the only perfect combination.
With this combination could have created the greatest army to rule the seas, commercial ships, spices and war, bring anyone do their knees with a single flash of this ray.
Put fear in to the souls of millions with this futuristic weapon and burn ships at a distance.
Illuminate the night sky as only gods can do. Become the alpha and omega, master of time and light, seas and commerce. Render the Dutch and Britain absolutely to shreds and raise a civilization based on Aegean culture from the Mediterranean with laws and different approach to puritanism and culture to power earlier, with science and mathematics for everyone.
Fuck, well live a different present, here's why:
Wristwatch :
Solar Navigation: By knowing the exact time during the day, navigators could use the position of the sun in conjunction with an astrolabe (a device already in use during the Middle Ages for astronomical measurements) to determine their latitude. The watch would help in timing the sun's zenith (its highest point in the sky), which occurs at local noon, allowing for a more accurate reading.
Star-based Navigation: At night, timekeeping would be essential for using the stars to navigate. The position of certain stars and constellations relative to the horizon changes predictably throughout the night. Knowing the exact time would allow navigators to calculate their latitude based on the altitude of known stars above the horizon.
Dead Reckoning: This is a method to estimate one's current position based on a previously determined position, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time, along with course directions. A precise timepiece would have significantly improved the accuracy of dead reckoning calculations by allowing sailors to keep track of time more accurately during their journey.
Longitude Problem: Although determining longitude (east-west position) remained a significant challenge until the development of the marine chronometer in the 18th century, a precise timekeeping device in the Middle Ages could have theoretically been the first step towards solving this problem. If navigators had a way to keep track of time accurately during their voyages, they could compare the local noon (when the sun is highest in the sky) to the time at a known location (like Greenwich, England). The difference in time would allow them to calculate how far east or west they had traveled.
Tide Predictions: Accurate timekeeping would aid in predicting tides, which was crucial for coastal navigation. Knowing the time of high and low tides could prevent ships from running aground and help in planning more efficient voyages.
The laser pointer:
Burn Materials: It can easily burn through various materials like paper, plastic, and wood with direct and sustained contact. It can also etch patterns or marks on surfaces
Visibility: The beam of a 5-watt laser can be extremely bright and visible, even over long distances.
- This whole post assumes you can derive some pretty advanced trigonometry from scratch.
  
  TL;DR: To navigate using an astrolabe and a watch, measure the sun's altitude at local noon with the astrolabe. Adjust for the sun's declination from an almanac. Your latitude is roughly the corrected sun altitude. For longitude, compare local noon to the reference time on your watch; every hour difference equals 15 degrees of longitude. This method involves basic trigonometry for calculating angles and positions but is quite approximate and not highly accurate for longitude.
  This allows to navigate beyond the horizon from the coast so you can travel overseas and beyond where other people has been on a ship without following the coast.
  
  I mean they did have decently good mathematicians abord the ships who were already great mappers. An accurate time peice would help with accuracy... But nautical maps were nautical maps. More accurate ones are great but they did already have serviceable ones.
  What's wild about the cultural concept of your average maps of the period in a more general sense is they were often more conceptually philosophic and religious tools meant to illustrate a "you are here" for the soul. Geographic accuracy was at best a secondary consideration.
  
  But it is me going back right? So as long as I revise before the trip, it should be fine.

I'm gonna take the warheads and the LSD and blow some random farmer's mind.
"He's freaking out!"

BRO THAT WATCH IS IMMORTAL I BOUGHT IT BACK IN 2014 AND I STILL USE IT LMAO
- While I definitely recognize the enthusiasm for the model... I would count it as not particularly useful in a medieval context unless you are a ship captain drawing maps. You need multiple people with synchronized time to make them useful for military ir social application.
  
  Now I'm wondering how did we ever manage to kill each other before timezones?

Do I get to return to my normal time? If so then dab pen and warheads for sho. Imma just get blitzed and snack and watch those crazy knights go at it for a bit.

Dab pen and spice jars.
That's basically enough to start a religion in medieval times. Spices to finance a nice temple, and dabs to create a religious experience forc prophets who testify to the power of the faith.
- But they had marijuana in medieval Europe
  
  Shotgun dabs into their mouths and they'll literally think you're Jesus.

Fuck all that shit I am bringing Dishwashers and Bicycles and starting a global feminist uprising.
(the bicycles are both for transportation and for powering the dishwashers)
- That's pretty brilliant.
- I'd probably do a combo clothes washing machine & dryer over the dish washer since that chore takes way longer to do manually.
  
  Yup, right up to the victorian period wash day was just that... A dawn to past dusk slog where you spent a lot if time up to your elbows in water and sometimes caustics.
  Medieval dishes were a much easier chore. Rince with water and place in sun to UV sterilize when able.
  
  good point

I'll have the Delorean and assuming it comes shielded the 64 kgs of enriched uranium please.

That tab of lsd. Somehow get to the king, tell him I've found a way to talk to God, give him the tab, and let the rest happen.
- They had psychedelics in medieval times. Mushrooms, ergot, etc.
  
  And LSD comes from a fungus that grows on wheat, which is ergot. But the thing is that distilling that psychedelic compound from ergot produces a substance more powerful by an order of magnitude.
  Even better, imagine giving that king some DMT! That'll fuck his shit right up. He gonna see angels in their biblical form 'n' shit!
- Pretty sure this has already happened at least a few times already lol
- It's not enough!

Tab of acid. Having a local nobleman burned as a witch might be useful
- That's probably the least valuable one since there are natural hallucinogens all over the place that were already in use.
  
  Yes but LSD can be absorbed through the skin, so you wouldn't have to go through all the trouble of convincing someone to eat poison

5x bullets for the gun, but that is a 1911 chambered for .45 ACP, and those are .22 LRs. I mean, you could try, but it wouldn’t work very well.
- Those might be .38 specials, but your point stands.

Does spice melange count as one of the spices?
- As it's written!
- It is the only spice that counts.
  The spice must flow.

The watch and the gun. If Ash can figure out how to manufacture shotgun shells in medieval times so can I. I'll also introduce the clock early and be praised for my genius
- Shotgun ammo is really, really more basic than handgun ammo. The latter have higher tolerance requirements, the ammo requires fine machining and metallurgy not available in medieval times. Even reloading, you only get so many reloads out of a case before stresses start to cause failures in the casing. And ammo failures in handgun ammo can have catastrophic consequences.
  Whereas a shotgun is a fancy musket. Shells are comparatively simple, and the requirements for the casing are a simple base that could be made by a competent brass-smith and some stiffened, waxed cotton.
  In both cases, you're going to be fucked finding or making primers. While you could eventually work out making black powder - again, sufficient for a shotgun but in no way workable in any modern pistol - primer explosive needs more complex chemistry than you'll be able to work out. Primers and their placement are precision components.
  You would be far better ignoring the handgun and bullets, and just build blunderbusses and canon. Those just need a good blacksmith and figuring out how to make black powder.
  
  Exactly, also, anyone taking the gun and the bullets has obviously never used a handgun. Your chances of doing any damage is pretty low without a ton of range time, which takes bullets. Hand guns aren't accurate at any kind of range so you'd make some loud noises and that's about it. If you did manage to actually hit anyone, an Archer would kill you from way beyond your effective range and just take the gun and any remaining bullets.
  The gun is the absolutely least useful thing on that list after the bullets.

Probably the spices and uranium.
Spices have always been valuable, and I'd "curse" the nobility with the yellow cake and anyone else who bothered me.
Maybe they'd execute me horribly for witchcraft, or maybe I could retire and live a more peaceful life than my current one.

5 Watt laser pointer and etch dicks onto every wooden surface I see
- For the second item you could bring the synth, and use its magical limitless energy to recharge the laser for more dick doodles.

Warheads would probably kill someone from back then

Spices and the bic/rockets. Spices for trading and light to light alone is going to help barter and survive but the rockets for defence
- Thing with the spices is that medieval spices were much more varied than the few commonly available today - many are now out of fashion (cubebs, long pepper, though that is gaining traction, grains of paradise etc.).
  I suspect the reason many have dropped out of use is down to suppliers not really wanting to bother and the similarities in flavour profile mean the the common ones are good/close enough.
  The medieval cook would, however, be fascinated by the containers - screw top and air tight. If you could work out a way of making those...

These options suck. I want a history text book
- It's not going to be detailed enough to help you.
- "How to invent everything" by Ryan North is pretty much purpose built for this scenario. I just finished it, recommend

The rockets and the gun. I can use the rockets to prove I have useful knowledge while using the gun to prove that my stuff is mechanisms not magic (by taking it apart). I'll then set about teaching them how to make gunpowder (charcoal, sulphur, saltpeter) and once I'm truly established we can move on to basic firearms.
- You might want to work on making quality steel first. Gunpowder will be on its way from China already, so the time will be better spent on some critical materials.
  Since you will need funding for other major projects, like smokeless powder, you might be better served by outfitting a few armies with better armor and swords first. (Take advantage of incremental science improvements, basically.)
  Even with your vast experience with magic technologies, it's still going to take a fortune to develop the basics. A small research center is going to cost you at least a few hundred cows, a couple thousand chickens, and a few dozen horses, after all.
  (You will need steel for mining operations to get enough raw materials to do anything, actually.)
  
  And also a degree in metallurgy.

.
- Because no one would just steal them from the unarmed weird looking stranger
- Casio Watch is going to be too advanced to figure out for back then. The motorcycle is the better one - Kickstarting the industrial revolution many centuries sooner would do wonders

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