Alternate History ISOT The Doctor ...

[ChrisNuttall]

Ok, not quite.

Basically, I’ve been asked to submit an ISOT/iskari story to a collection and I’m trying to do something a little different. The basic idea is that a relatively young GP – someone in their mid-20s, with a couple of years or so under their belt – takes a wrong turning and finds themselves in the past. They don’t have any major technical knowledge, certainly nothing like Martin Padway or Emily of Schooled in Magic, but they do have a fairly complete background in modern medicine and some experience of working in ambulances, where they have to stabilise the patient before he can be transported to hospital.

Anyway, they wind up in the past (we’ll handwave the language problem for the moment) and make their credencials known to the locals. I haven’t decided where and when yet – Elizabeth’s Britain, Pompey’s Rome (could she save the life of Julia Ceaser, perhaps heading off the Roman Civil War?) – but wherever she goes, she’ll know a lot more about medicine than the locals (assuming she doesn’t get burnt as a witch).

Thoughts?

Chris

 

[perfectgeneral]

Well Chris, this is a great opportunity to improve your first aid training and medical awareness. Doctors make great advances when lots of people are really ill or injured. Your setting could be a war or public health hot spot. Elizabeth's Britain is about ready to accept scientific method. The invisible college headed for the Royal Society. One woman working disputed miracles is more likely to be the outcome without accumulating and disseminating tested and confirmed knowledge.

 

[Sixgun McGurk]

A young woman without any connections or relatives is going to have a hard time ending up as anything but a prostitute even in Victorian times, let alone Elizabethan. She would be raped when the local bravos saw her unprotected status and could very likely be enslaved by the first citizen that saw her in Pompey's Rome. There was no place in Rome for the foreigner without protection. The individual did not exist as an exalted ideal back then. Everything of importance about a person was defined by where they came from and who their family was allied to, so some super talent would get you nowhere unless you found a sponsor almost instantly.