Scaevola’s Triumph
Scaevola's Triumph is the third in the Gaius Claudius Scaevola trilogy. From a party that was abducted by an alien, three Romans, find themselves separated from the others and taken to the planet Ulse, and to a civilization vastly ahead of their own, but who also seem to be losing a war. They must first learn to live in this society, and to do this, one has to accept that, thanks to the relativistic time dilation, seeing her husband again is impossible; one has to live with the fact that he is outnumbered two to one by women who do not believe in the Roman habit of the man ruling the house; and one has to work out how to keep the group from self-destructing. All three have to work out how to be accepted by beings who consider them to be hopelessly primitive and barbaric, but Scaevola has a bigger problem. He alone can save the Ulsians from being exterminated, but he has problems. Apart from becoming accepted by the Ulsians, the Ulsians on reaching maturity have an item embedded in their brains that allows them to do things by thought, including opening doors and this has never been done for the humans. Accordingly, Scaevola's first problem is how to get out the front door of his apartment, and if any of them do, their next problem is how to pay for what they want. When Scaevola does enter Ulsian society, eventually he must bring all his experience to ensure that Ulse survives. With the exception of signaling through time and the inertial field, the science is valid. What a Roman could bring to an advanced military is also valid.