Bay 12 Games Forum
Finally... => General Discussion => Topic started by: Scoops Novel on November 03, 2021, 10:58:51 am
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Assume a master thief. They have insider information, and all thier equipment.
Whatever they steal, must be stolen when properly guarded.
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the future
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Presumably a primordial hypnotoad, who could then be convinced to bring all other valuable things to the thief.
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Value is always a subjective thing, but presumably an object of critical religious importance from a time when it was created. E.g. 'fresh' Dead Sea Scrolls. Of course, proving provenance is an issue as well as altering the timeline.
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Historically? Land :D
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Thief goes back in time to steal something, but when they get there, its already stolen!
[Dramatic Sting]
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Probably something important that's about to be destroyed or lost in some fashion prior to being stolen. There's a lot of objects of historical significance that have been destroyed or been lost over the years, lots of big disasters that destroyed libraries, cities ransacked, relics melted down for materials and so on. Any such item would be of great value in the modern day if you could prove it was real.
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Heh. Since you don't disrupt the historical continuinity too much by making it dissappear, especially if you time it well, you can even show up in the modern day like yup I found this item we thought lost. Basically any halfway plausible lie about finding it in your attic or some place private would do too. How could somebody disprove it? Fuuuck you need to artificially age it though, I mean it doesn't have to be artificial aging but that's a though nut, I guess you could correct errors though.
It's nitpicky on the word valuable too... Very clever. Not sure you would be able to make monetary gains with historical artifacts.
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A country? Replacing or adding a document showing you're the most "legitimate" heir to a country when you return might be useful, although that's sort of the opposite of stealing. Land rights to a valuable mineral claim would also work.
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That big computer thing and all related blueprints and schematics that they built during WW2 that was used to decode messages from the enigma machine.
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Library books from Alexandria
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Steal baby Hitler - you could probably sell him for a lot.
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I wonder if documents and such would be taken seriously, especially if non-artificial aging is not an alternative (because by leaving your stolen object in the past hoping to retrieve it in the "present" there is a risk someone else gets to it first). If you showed up the Ark of the Covenant, who would be willing to buy it, and for what price, when it is seemingly just a replica? And documents showing you're a rightful heir of something also have the problem of . There are already plenty of folks claiming to be the true roman emperor, tsar, or king of France (and those categories are also overlapping), but modern states don't take them seriously, because why would them? You would have to find a state , and whose government is also welcoming of putting some rando in a position just because of some old document.
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Wikipedia-List of missing treasures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_treasures)
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and whose government is also welcoming of putting some rando in a position just because of some old document.
What if a moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me?
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If we talk about value in terms of monetary reward, am I the only one who feel like stealing a breeding pair of an extinct animal would be the most profitable? I mean, rich assholes would pay a ridiculous amount of money to snort rhino horns. They'd cream themselves over dodo steaks. You also don't have to worry about proving the provenance when they can see for themselves that it is a dodo. Also, "properly guarded" dodos are just wild dodos.
If we talk about in term of cultural value or utility, I'd say that 'stealing' any artefacts which didn't survive to the modern day like, say, some theoretical book that would give us enough context to decipher the Sindhu Valley writings, or just you simply 'stealing' the idea by just going there and pantomiming at people until you learned their language, would be one of the most valuable things you can steal from the past.
It turns out that a true master thief can just avoid doing hard work.
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You kinda' bring up a good point with the book thing: Go on a spree and kidnap every holy figure in history, as well as any original transcripts of holy texts and/or their originators. Go down in time travel history as the THIEF OF ALL GODS. It'd be a hella' metal moniker, yo'.
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What if we went all the way back to the beginning of time and steal the Earth from God while he was still making it?
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Steal the skeleton of the first creature to walk on land.
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Some equivalent of the Rosetta stone for a lost language, is my gut-reaction.
Oh! Steal a native storyteller (wouldn't be the first time) who can reveal an older version of some of the stories. You won't get everything from one person, but it might go a long way to un-erasing some culture. Which continent? Surprise me.
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Some of those bananas the artificial flavoring is based off of from before the blight that wiped them out. That would be a hugely profitable venture for them.
Other examples of lost/destroyed crops/livestock would be equally valuable.
Definitely what Hops said about extinct species too.
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I thought that that bannana was the Gros Michel, which still totally exists I thought? Just isn't as largely cultivated anymore because Panama disease become too widespread and wiped out a lot of the commercial plantations so they switched to modern Bananas on a large scale, but it's still grown in places where Panama disease didn't manage to spread too.
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Confirmed i happen to read up on this mere weeks ago.
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Steal the first Panama disease cell, before it multiplies.
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The universe.
For less than 1.0x10-32 seconds.
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the most valuable thing a modern thief could steal in the past is the past itself!
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That's what I said!! To capture a first-hand report of the past would be priceless.
Although footage has no trustworthiness anymore now that any footage can be trivially faked. :(
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You just have to leave it in the past so it can be found and carbon printed in the future
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Just be sure to fill the place you've hidden it with traps to keep someone that isn't you from stealing it.
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Naaah I thought about this: traps mean there is something to be got. Digging isn't perfect either with magnet scanners, erosion, construction sites etc....
BUT
You should be able to find great documentation about churches, when they were built, when the roof was remade, if they burned in WW2 etc. Small things could be hidden in the woodworks of church roofs, nobody os going up there unless they're renovating the roof in which case you move the stuff a bit forwards in time.
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Jesus.
Imagine having Your Lord and Savior bound up in your basement.
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He'd be out within three days...
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He'd be out within three days...
LOL.
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I much doubt the big churches would accept the body of historical Jesus (in non-bread form), isn't there a whole thing with him supposedly
disintegrating ascending into the heavens, leaving no remains?
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Well, yeah, because that's us up there with the tractor beam pulling off a heist of biblical proportions!
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One day we'll find out that Christianity is based on a 30th century applied physics student prank.
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So, I'll turn up in the first century Middle-East, and enquire around a bit. "I say, do you know where this Messiah is? Messiah. Mess-i-ah! Does loads of good things, preaches compassion, the occasional miracle, you know, that kind of thing... There was something about a wedding, turned water into wine. Yes, into wine. I know it's usually drink loads of wine then produce water... Look, I'm really just looking for him, and all I've got is some stories about him. Yes, I'll tell you some later, maybe it'll jog your memory. You'll be in a taverna later? Which one? Oh, ok then, I'll track you down. Just ask for Mark? Yeah, I'll be buying the drinks. No, I can't stretch to supper for you and your mates, that's the last thing I'll do...."
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Que three dozen guys messiah-pretenders, half of which fit those miracles and have a follower named Mark. First century Judea didn't really have a shortage of the kind.
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Superintendent Chalmers voice:
NOOOOVEEEEEL?! (https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/xrnfxx/more_than_100_old_books_manuscripts_and_documents/)
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Damn it Novel's gone rogue, so much for planning a heist that we all could participate in.