Rome, Sweet Rome: Could a Single Marine Unit Destroy the Roman Empire?

Popular Mechanics ^ | October 31, 2011 | Alyson Sheppard

[Defiant]

True. The marines know about that, and they won’t be short of allies against Rome.

[PzLdr]

What if Ogatai Khan didn’t die in the winter of 1241, and Sabotai and the Princes continued the conquest of Europe?

[Sherman Logan]

Cortez - Mexico - Aztecs. Pizarro - Peru - Incas.

But in both cases the Spanish took advantage of bitter divisions among the natives to make their conquest, helped greatly by massive epidemics that disorganized the native empires.

Even with their stone age tech, it is highly unlikely the Spaniards could have conquered either Mexico or Peru if these empires had been united and healthy.

[mdmathis6]

There is another guy Weber who wrote a similar story(He wrote the Honor series) about some English knights plucked off a sinking ship from the 8th century who were used for the same purpose. Overtime, the adaptability of the English knights allowed them to turn the tables on their captors and take over the ship and start a rebellion of sorts against the ruling galactic consortium.

[dr_lew]

Yes. This was the “What If?” segment. The Waterloo skit featured the interior of B-52 where they flip a few switches and pronounce the battle won.

My favorite was “What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?” I was amused by Garret Morris as an Air Force General commenting that, “... she would be extreeeeemly vulnerable to anti aircraft fire.”

[Sherman Logan]

Righto. If they’re actually stuck there, which makes more sense: trying to conquer a massive empire, which IMO would be utterly impossible. Or accepting positions of wealth and power within that empire.

[JimC214]

You might like Poul Andersons “The Man Who Came Early”. The story is presented in the first person, related by a Saga-Age Icelander named Ospak Ulfsson. During a violent thunderstorm, an unexplained phenomenon transports the titular 20th-century American GI back in time to Ospak’s homestead. The American, who becomes known as Gerald “Samsson”, is an engineering student drafted to serve at Keflavik during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It's from around 1956 and the story is sort of a reverse A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

[garjog]

Any of you guys see The Eagle? Wonderful film about recapturing the eagle standard stolen by Scottish tribes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx4bnwvGmKM

[PzLdr]

There’s another one [by I believe Weber also] about Romans captured at Carrhae sold to aliens from outer space who use them as mercs for low tech wars, revive them from all but the most serious wounds, and keep them alive until the present when the romans escape back to Earth. And it gets interesting from there.

[BenKenobi]

Wow, I learned something about a period of history that I absolutely love. He did an amazing amount in just 6 short years and was just 22. Gosh. What could have been, indeed.

[Sherman Logan]

I believe that’s the same one as post 16.

[eeman]

There is an old novella from the 1930s called Lest Darkness Fall that is probably one of the first alternative Roman history science fiction stories. If you're interested in this thread, you would probably be interested in this story. This involves only one individual mysteriously transported back in time. The protagonist of "Lest Darkness Fall" finds himself in Italy during late antiquity after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Justinian (Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire) is trying to reconquer and reestablish the Western Roman Empire and the protagonist gets himself involved with the Lombards fighting against the Byzantines. I always thought that this story would make a great movie. However, the time setting would probably have to be changed since few people are familiar with the history after the fall of the Roman Empire. Most of what people know about the Roman Empire is from "Gladiator."

[BenKenobi]

I would love it if that’s the ending, where they are summoned to the imperial court to meet with Octavian himself, and they accept.

Wouldn’t that be a heck of an ending.

[Sherman Logan]

Only problem is that I think a modern America would find it very difficult to live in the Roman Empire.

The casual brutality, slavery, etc. of the time is quite appalling.

[MrEdd]

Point not addressed. Some modern flues are descended from the flue virus of 1918. There is also the bubonic plague http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2792352/posts and any number of bioweapon possibilities.

How ruthless a campaign do we want?

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

They wouldn’t have modern filtration methods so solids would quickly clog the fuel injectors.

:)

[UnwashedPeasant]

The Marines would have no motive to fight the Romans. They would have a motive to join the Romans and wipe out the Arabs.

[UnwashedPeasant]

Good point. Each side would have different germs and anti-bodies.

My bet is that the Romans would have the immunity advantage, since it is their turf and they did not live in modern sanitation.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

A few dozen Spanish with muskets and swords defeated 5 0r 20 million Aztecs,

Not exactly. The Aztec client states rebelled and attacked along with the Spanish in an attempt to throw off the Aztec oppression. And there were a lot more of them then there were of the Aztecs.

Of course, later they found out the Spanish were not much better. That is usually the way it goes.

[WoofDog123]

just thinking about the disease/medical angle is interesting. Are soldiers vaccinated against smallpox now? Plus all the other ways of dying of illness that we no longer take for granted but were a normal element of human life forever, up until very recently.

a solar-recharge capability for communications would certainly open some interesting possiblities for the romans once they co-opted the survivors (hopefully).

If they lost, but managed to somehow preclude augustus marrying tiberius’ mother it might have saved his children, as well as germanicus. That single issue (tiberius and his mother) was a major negative in how the roman empire developed. You could argue that germanicus being removed from the rhine left that territory to be allowed to be lost.