Copyright � 2026 by Shane
Tourtellotte
I have been open, forthright, and maybe sometimes heavy-handed in laying out what risks you face in your time travels. They stretch from the hazards of creating paradoxes to the threat of violence to putting yourself on the wrong side of social customs. What I haven’t yet covered extensively is what could come of getting entangled with duly constituted legal authority, or, in short, the law.
Many of the times and places you visit won’t have police per se, and if they do, it may well be organized in much different ways than those familiar to you. They will still have law enforcement of some kind, often flowing directly down from the ruler of the country you’re visiting, perhaps being closer to military authority than civilian. That doesn’t remove the risk of getting crosswise with the law; it just makes it harder for you to recognize when that might be about to happen.
One of the last things you want is to get arrested and detained, distant from home in time as well as space, and almost certainly with nobody in reach to help you. Getting out of such confrontations unscathed is of primary importance. The specifics of each situation are something you’ll need to study beforehand, but overall principles will give you a place to start.
Firstly, you need to know your place within the social hierarchy. You aren’t technically within that hierarchy, not like most residents, but you’ll still be taken as having a place within it, as any other foreigner would. Your social level will be judged and assumed based on how you dress and speak, the circles within which you move, the wealth you’re presumed to have, your sex, your age, your race, and many other converging factors. I’ve touched on several of these things before, but this is where they receive the acid test.
Higher social and economic rank is usually a buffer against the attentions of the law, but not always. If there’s been some street brawl, lower-rank people will likely be presumed at fault before the refined and genteel. Contrarily, if you’ve managed to get loose-lipped and said something that could be construed as sedition or even treason, the higher-up you look, the worse it’s likely to be for you. The dregs of society might get off with an admonitory beating, but those who look like they could put their words into effective action will have the very close attention of the authorities -- the ones being threatened, after all.
More intrinsic, less fakeable traits have their own effects. If you aren’t part of the local ethnic majority, your exposure is mostly greater. This can be finessed if you’re something quite exotic to the society of the time, and look wealthy enough to pass as a high-ranking visitor from afar. A lower-end merchant might be generally more anonymous, but seeming a rich one would let you squeeze out of scrapes with the law better.
Youth will probably be treated more harshly than age. A high public duty of the law is the suppression of violence1, and youthful vigor (and stupidity) is more conducive to being violent in public. Law enforcers won’t so easily believe that gray-haired fellow started such a row. For similar reasons, women will generally be more leniently judged than men. In most times and places, women won’t be thought of as instigators of serious violence. If you were the instigator2, have a very good cover story ready. You might even do well to let the other person get in one good punch, so you have a bruise to show the authorities.
If you are involved in an altercation, do remember that you are at a natural disadvantage when the time comes to apportion blame. The witnesses on hand don’t know you, but they may know your adversary and be inclined to back his claims. Indeed, they may well be friends of his -- and this may have emboldened him to pick that fight with you. I would have tried harder than usual to avoid that scrap, even at the cost of some dignity, but if the town watch has already arrived, that ship has sailed.
Speaking of sacrificing your dignity, that’s probably a good move when dealing with the officers of the law. You don’t have much to back a “Do you know who I am?” play except your appearance and your bluffing ability. Not only are they unlikely to back down, you could goad their own pride in their authority, causing them to inflict it upon you.
Instead of trying to overbear their authority, try appealing to it. If you may have transgressed some local law you didn’t know about, admit as much. Tell them you’re new to these parts -- a story with the practical advantage of being true -- and ask what you should have done or not done. If they’re breaking up a fight, express gratitude that someone responsible has come along to set things right. Stroke their authority rather than striking at it, and you may get much better results.
This may require absorbing some injury to your pride. So what? Wounded pride is preferable to spending an indefinite period in jail and risking the greater punishments that might follow. If it leaves you a figure of ridicule in the society you’ve been keeping, that’s temporary. You’re going home at some point, and never need to deal with those people again. If it’s bad enough, you can leave immediately. You have a unique ability to walk away. Let it comfort you3.
Footnotes:
That’s why I’m making a basic assumption right now that some kind of violent contretemps is bringing you to the law’s attention. If you’re committing frauds or breaking and entering, you’re on your own.
Which I don’t recommend for anybody. Self-defense is another matter.
It occurs to me that much of the advice of those last three paragraphs is applicable to present-day interactions. Feel free to try it out. I cannot speak to its current usefulness, as my home-time life is thankfully too boring for it … so far.
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