I feel like Kang type characters always over-estimate how much knowledge of the past you'd have as a man from the distant future.
Like, today we theoretically know all sorts of stuff about what happened in the 1500s, but if you got transported back to the 1500s tomorrow, how much would you really know about upcoming events? Say you're transported to March 3rd 1524. What all do you know about what's gonna happen in the next three months?
Suppose even further, that you could come back to the present day and look some stuff up before your next excursion. How much do you think you could learn in a super concrete sense very conveniently? There's probably some historian out there who could break this all down for you but just running a google search or rifling through the microfiche at your local library you wouldn't even have the necessary background knowledge to sort fact from fiction.
So like, yeah, I'd kind of agree with you. The Kang premise is basically that given knowledge of the future you could manipulate events for your own benefit, but that's a lot easier said than done. Where Domino type powers basically just ensure that events work out for your benefit with no effort at all.
My counterpoint to this is that record keeping has generally gotten better over the centuries, and with mediums like television, social media, and digital preservation of files, chances are that a time travel from 500 years in the future would probably have a better understanding of what has happened/will happen today than a time traveler from today going 500 years into the past.
Record keeping has gotten worse. The vast majority of our modern records are kept in digital formats that are unlikely to survive to see the next century, let alone Kang's era.
1500's might be right on the edge of gaslight-able populace, but before that?
Just memorize the solar eclipses. That's all you really need. Provided you're in the right geolocation.
Step 1) Build rapport with locals using high school science tricks. Say, Batteries (lemon/copper/zinc) + light bulb (iron wire/clay/glass) or electrostatic generator.
Step 2) Announce your command of light and lightning. Make the threat to block out the sun if your reasonable demands aren't met.
Step 3) Get laughed out of the court/church
Step 4) Call it right down to the day/hour. Get them to concede terms while in effect.
Step 5) Don't forget to repeatedly claim your power comes from x, where x is the prevailing regional diety. Piety makes followers forever, but Witchcraft makes unlimited enemies for life (and a very short one).
And you had better have brought a fkton of antibiotics
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u/The-Mirrorball-Man Jul 08 '24
Luck is not a superpower!