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Medieval society - most QOL impact a single reborn future person can achieve

Discussion in 'Fanfic Discussion' started by James, May 1, 2023.

  1. James

    James Unspeakable

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    So, I’m playing with an idea for HP/GoT reborn crossover, and let’s assume:

    - HP (auror level) has full access to magic

    What would be the best way to improve lives of people? I’ve had few ideas, but I can’t tell which actually makes sense, and trying to research any possible impact steers greatly into procrastination strategy, so, crowd sourcing.

    some ideas I’ve had:

    - starting a wizarding order (teaching select people some form of HP magic, assuming some asoiaf magic is basically indication of having magic)
    - going to maesters, learning the shit out of what’s available, and try to improve stuff via “future has stuff, how could I recreate scientific improvements based on vague knowledge of what exists and how to use it”
    - join the small council and influence (politically/magically) king to do shit
    - straight up become a king and just force people to do stuff

    or some mix?

    i’m not fully decided where on the “life must be comfortable and fun” - “improve other peoples lives” he’s at this point of the story, so the amount of work included sort of might tip the scales.
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2023
  2. TheWiseTomato

    TheWiseTomato Prestigious Tomato ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Seize control of the reigning monarch and begin to target systemic disadvantages like food security and state sponsored banditry.
     
  3. DrSarcasm

    DrSarcasm Headmaster

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    Food would be one of the biggest things. Medieval society is always on the edge of famine and in Westeros it's even more so, what with their years-long winters. Your character probably won't know how to pull off an agricultural revolution via technology and modern farming methods like in A Farmer's Tale, but engorgio and some disease-curing/harvest-boosting methods would be a major boon. Nothing would get the people on your side more than access to large amounts of cheap food. You may not end up as King, but you'd definitely be a contender for a power behind the throne like Tywin.
     
  4. James

    James Unspeakable

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    Seize control as in "imperio without making yourself known" or "now I'm the Hand, Robert"?

    That's what I thought, though it's not really systematic, though of course, it would work paired with some "Wizarding order" ideas.

    A Farmer's Tale - the ASoIaF fanfic? I might read that then.
     
  5. Skeletaure

    Skeletaure Magical Core Enthusiast ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Most improvements you can make would not require direct use of magic to achieve, but to achieve a position of power such that you could implement these reforms, you would need to use magic.

    - Persuade people to frequently wash their hands.

    - Build sewers to dispose of waste water safely.

    - Build aqueducts to ensure clean water supply.

    - Introduce farmers to the concept of (organic) fertiliser.
     
  6. James

    James Unspeakable

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    @Skeletaure Those were my thoughts as well, but wouldn't 2/3 require MAJOR infrastructure projects? As in, ten to twenty years, and shit ton of gold.
     
  7. TheWiseTomato

    TheWiseTomato Prestigious Tomato ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Depends how open the person is about magic, and how hands on they are in construction.

    Probably more Confundus and manipulation of circumstance than full on Imperio.
     
  8. arkkitehti

    arkkitehti High Inquisitor

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    I'd think very carefully what kind of unintended consequences some large scale sudden magical solutions would have. Say you magically create enough food to feed everyone? Great, now you have something like 80 % of your population out of job, unable to buy shoes for their children. Maybe you solve a few of the most pressing medical problems? Now you have to deal with a truly epic population boom, with your dependency ratio going trough the roof with all those extra children who survive infancy. Of course these kinds of problems would make for a more interesting story than a simple magical uplift.

    My go to solution would be building institutions. Start with education, and when you have educated enough workforce start to branch out to judicial institutions and hospitals. Using magic to fund those wouldn't screw over the entire economy, and the change would be slow and gradual enough that you wouldn't have an instant revolution on your hands, especially as you could have all those institutions staffed by people from all social classes.

    Any real change that doesn't result in the society tearing itself apart will take at least a generation, more likely multiple generations.
     
  9. Arthellion

    Arthellion Lord of the Banned ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Crop Rotations. Only Crop Rotations.
     
  10. James

    James Unspeakable

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    yeah, and I don’t want Harry to devote his life to uplift either, but I figure - the Harry as he is, would have enough goodness in him, even after the life he lead, reborn, that once his immediate problems are taken care of, he would try to do stuff for people.

    I could take the route of something backfiring horribly, but I would like this story to be a bit less tragic.
     
  11. DrSarcasm

    DrSarcasm Headmaster

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    I've had a Harry Potter/Game of Thrones thought experiment running through my head for a while before this thread was posted. I'll never get around to writing it, but I figure I should share some of the highlights. Bear with me, this is basically a couple months of notes for an off again-on again idea.

    The story would have begun with a character (not Harry Potter or any particular wizard, nor an SI) ending up in Westeros, with a basic awareness of the setting. He doesn't particularly want to get caught up in the whole Game of Thrones shenanigans so he goes about making himself independent.

    Step one was using a combination of the fanon Point Me finder spell (you cast Point Me, saying the name of the person/place/thing you are trying to find afterward like the Summoning Charm, then your wand ends up pointing in the direction of the object) and the Summoning Charm to find and retrieve lost artifacts. The lost crown of Aegon the Conqueror, Brightroar, the remains of nobles, things lost at sea, those sort of things. Then he'd offer them to their owners in exchange for a reward.

    What is returned and to whom depends on what point in the timeline the story was set in. The one I settled on as the driving point for the plot was the return of Brightroar to Tywin Lannister. Tywin had promised enough gold to raise an army in canon, here all the MC wants is a ship built to his specifications. He settles down in Lannisport for a number of months in a private workshop. Lots of bangs and colored smoke pours out of it day and night as he experiments. Tons of craftsman come and go to work on his project, which doesn't make sense to anyone. The ship is too big, too oddly proportioned. It will never sail and even if it did, it would be too ponderous for anything other than float.

    Eventually the MC has finished his project: He has made a flying "pirate" ship. It's nowhere near as nice as a proper ship of the line, but much like the Burrow, magic helps keep it together. With no Statute of Secrecy to worry about, he is free to travel the world as he sees fit.

    One of the side plots involved getting a dragon skull for the figurehead (maybe Balerion's?). Possibly acquired during Robert's Rebellion, since the Baratheon king wouldn't want anything to do with them. He'd talk to it as a sort of thinking out loud thing, but eventually the skull gradually gets its own intelligence, partially from wizarding magic (like the quirks of Hogwarts) and partially from dragons being inherently magical in this setting. Its intelligence and personality are much the same as when it was alive, seeing the MC as its rider, the crew as its servants, the ship its body and its contents its hoard (for what little of a hoard the ASoIaF dragons have). Some of the things involve being fed cattle (nobody knows where the body ends up) and breathing fire at attackers at some point.

    The MC mainly travels the world. He's got a crew of servants, soldiers, and most importantly merchants. Being able to cross any land or sea barrier, move faster than any ship, avoid being attacked by any pirates, and having a near-infinite hold capacity make getting their goods on his ship a very attractive prospect. Some members of his crew include an apprentice Maester who is documenting his travels, guardsmen who have been healed of their wounds being fiercely loyal, a number of cooks whose jobs it is to study and document the various recipes they come across, and at least one house elf (who spontaneously generated due to the amount of magic, a minor plot point across the story). Possibly also Tyrion as an administrator--not because he's a fan favorite, but because he's an untapped resource for most of the original story.

    One of the biggest sales the MC offers in terms of luxuries are magical portraits, a hobby of his. Less so people and more locations. Portraits of the Eyrie and Winterfell, whaler ships battling a leviathan, the Dothraki Hhrde running across the grass sea...things that he gets to see and very few get to witness. He keeps a museum of them on the ship, with a low enough price of admission (and free days) that most commoners who wish to view the gallery can. He isn't doing that for the money, but for pride. People can commission copies of some of his portraits, others of which he hands out as gifts.

    The main focus of the story would have been exploring the areas beyond Westeros. The far reaches of Essos, Sothyros, the Sunset Sea, etc. Some other random points:
    - The ship has several gates along the side in place of cannonports that open up like this ship, not sure what they're called. One of them was a lion's mouth that literally opened up from a carving into a gaping hole with a tongue as a drawplank. One was on the front of the ship and opened up underneath the figurehead. There were several at different levels, leading to an internal bazaar for trading or to the museum as needed.
    - The ship may have developed into a flying fleet, with pleasure ships taking people across the sky, individual merchant ships to break off of the main fleet, with the original ship remaining as the flagship and main hub. Inspiration was taken from the Castle Wulfenbach from Girl Genius.
    - There may have developed a wizarding academy at some point. Most likely location was Harrenhall. That thing has been passed around enough that I figured the MC had a chance at being in control of it at some point or another. I wasn't sure if fixing it up with about a year's worth or reparos would get him put on a Targaryen shitlist or not by removing a monument to their power. I also wasn't sure how to deal with how he'd avoid having to swear fealty to the crown.
    - Something else I was playing with but wasn't sure I wanted to commit to was giving a bunch of Gubraithian fire logs to the Night's Watch, one for the hearth of every one of their castles. Gubraithian fire is supposed to be really hard to make and I wanted the MC to be kind of average.
    - Possibly playing into a Santa Claus myth, or something tying to midwinter. Like a log that will burn for an entire winter--specifically a winter's length--with some sort of signal that winter is halfway over. Delivering toys, free meals to the populace whenever he lands, etc.
     
  12. Spanks

    Spanks Chief Warlock

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    I had an idea for a little slice of life with Harry living in King’s Landing running his own little potions shop and providing healing to the peasants of Flea Bottom. Just could never decide the best era to set it in. The Dance? Aerys II? Or King Robert? Maybe he’d even show the Alchemist Guild some proper alchemy (in this version Harry has his traveling library with him of course!)

    There’s a story on Spacebattles updating right now that I’m liking where the entire British Wizarding World got transported to Westeros like 5 years before Robert’s Rebellion. Story starts off during Tywin’s sacking of King’s Landing, which is where the Ministry found itself located, and wizards just absolutely demolishing the Lannister army because some drunk Aurors decided to get involved. Like they were throwing buildings at them.
     
  13. MonkeyEpoxy

    MonkeyEpoxy The Cursed Child DLP Supporter

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    Depends on how involved you want to be in the direct leadership. A confundus charm would be nice, since the monarch would, probably, be very susceptible to your 'suggestions.' If you wish to Assume Direct Control, then the imperius curse would be fantastic.

    Sauce bro
     
    Last edited: May 2, 2023
  14. Spanks

    Spanks Chief Warlock

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  15. Skeletaure

    Skeletaure Magical Core Enthusiast ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    It's impressive how a story whose entire premise is "wizards dunk on Muggles" manages to be Mugglewank of the highest order.
     
  16. James

    James Unspeakable

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    Hah, there is some crossover with what I'm thinking about, and House Elves not being born, but sort of happening in a magical residences is also my semi-headcanon!

    You could have him near the end of Aerys, where Aerys' patronage of alchemist guild for potential KL burning conflicts with Harry's teaching of the Alchemists (or taking over, potentially…) for some bits of plot.

    Yeah, stories like these fuel my dreaming of writing this crossover (or the other one, where some end of the earth survivors transport to Westeros, tentatively named "The Takeover") . Honestly.
     
  17. arkkitehti

    arkkitehti High Inquisitor

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    Is there any reason to believe crop rotation isn't in use in Westeros already? It's not like it's some modern high tech innovation, even if the chemistry behind why it works was only understood in relatively modern times.
     
  18. TheWiseTomato

    TheWiseTomato Prestigious Tomato ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Highly likely it exists, only likely more complex due to the seasonal cycles and how they must be able to farm during winter (outside the North).
     
  19. Arthellion

    Arthellion Lord of the Banned ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    Just leaning into the memes. You must cultivate, my brother.
     
  20. Spanks

    Spanks Chief Warlock

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    In that case, you need a fucking canal built across the Neck.
     
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