NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 781: News from Marc
Early in February, a piece of news broke out that caused an earthquake throughout the scientific and physics communities of the Bharatiya empire. A young genius attending the most elite university in the empire, Raya University, discovered an amazing form of energy, which he named electricity, as well as its interactions with different metals and non-metals.
Normally, headlines and articles about discoveries in theoretical physics and mathematics are not published since they are too esoteric, and the vast majority of the audience do not understand them. However, the discovery made by Anand Binoy, a young sophomore at Raya University, was so outstanding that the media companies were forced to write articles about him.
However, the news did not catch on with the public immediately; it was a gradual rise in popularity. After the invention was made public by the newspapers, people did not realize what it was or how it could be useful in their day-to-day lives. However, after an article was published by the chief editor of *Bharatham Daily*, the whole situation took a drastic turn.
A couple of days ago
When the chief editors of major newspaper companies were racking their brains about how to translate the serious scientific journal written by Anand Binoy into knowledge the general public could easily understand, Sushmita discovered shocking information written at the absolute end of the journal, as if the journal was an ad for a sketchy trading platform with the terms and conditions written in a very small font at a place where most people would ignore it.
"**** **** **** ****"
Sushmita Patel, the new chief editor of *Bharatham Daily*, angrily threw out the draft that she had spent a long time writing because the adventure about how he discovered electricity from lightning, as well as the concept he called resistance, was mentioned in the corner of the journal like it was some insignificant piece of information.
" Damn, these nerds! Don't they know that it is the adventurous story that the vast majority of the public wants to see? Is their head full of numbers and formulas and nothing else?"
" And this guy Anand is he an emotional idiot? Doesn't he know that if his invention plays a huge role in the future, he would gain more recognition, and his story could eventually become a piece of inspirational tale told to the younger generation in order to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit?"
" At that time, he could not only become famous throughout the empire but also earn a lot of money by giving out his intellectual property rights. But what is he doing now? Simply walking on top of thousands of Varaha like it is some waste paper!"
" Gaaahhhh!"
Sushmita's expression was bitter. She had already slumped back onto her chair while continuously massaging her right hand which was numb. For the previous draft, she had consumed a lot of brain cells by inviting a lot of physicists and mathematicians from universities and research institutes in order to help her translate the esoteric terms into what she could understand. After she could at least understand the words, she had to think very hard and long about how to put them together and how to make the article easy to understand while simultaneously being interesting enough to attract the eyeballs of the customers at first glance.
It was not like she was really angry at Anand Binoy, but it was just that she was too frustrated knowing that the long hours she had worked had gone down the drain. Fortunately, she cheered up quickly because translating a scientific journal into a news article was new territory, which was extremely challenging for her. But turning a story that was already dramatic into a news article with sensationalism was as easy as eating and drinking.
It is one of the reasons why, after Meera Nair, Arnav Sharma, and Kabir Mehta—the three executives of *Bharatham Daily* newspaper—were promoted to the executives of the Raya Media Group, she was selected to replace Meera Nair as the chief editor for her ability and instinct in picking out news articles, as well as presenting them in such a way that they would attract the most attention, and she didn't even have any competition.
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Vijay received two good news back to back.
Early in the morning, Marc Anthony came back from his six-month-long adventure and handed him a report on the suitable ports and natural harbours capable of not only docking large ships but also building early settlements.
Looking at the report, Vijay was very excited because, from what he read, Marc Anthony described the island of Australia as mostly green, apart from there being an arid desert climate in the western part of the island.
His eyes lit up. Europe had not managed to dig its claws into Australia in this era, so the desertification of Australia was not as extreme as it was in his previous life.
More than 35% of Australia in his previous life was a desert. Environmental changes were one reason, but the reason of colonization was just as valid as well.
In the current era, as far as he knew, the indigenous tribals should be doing controlled burns to prevent the desert from expanding, thereby maintaining grasslands and woodlands. Additionally, Vijay also knew that this was the era of the Little Ice Age, meaning that the temperatures were slightly more forgiving, making Australia wetter.
It was similar in his past life as well, but everything stopped and went to hell with the immigration of Europeans, who had no concept of living in harmony with nature and only had the thought of plundering anything and everything in their minds. With no regard for the health of the soil or the climate, they grazed the fresh fields to no end, completely taking away the soil's luxury of absorbing moisture, and leaving the lands barren. Furthermore, with the suppression of indigenous people, and the brutal massacre of their culture, civilization, and population, the practices that had been carried out for generations were suddenly cut off, letting nature take its due course and punish the actions of the insidious humans. Desertification only became more severe throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
"Can I start a few infrastructure projects not only to halt the desertification but also to reclaim the desert and turn it into forests?" His eyes immediately brightened. If even 10% of the desert could be reclaimed, that would mean millions of square kilometres of new habitable land. This was a great advantage to the Bharatiya people, no matter how you look at it. However, his excitement was cut short as he realized that if Australia turned green, then although the northern part of the empire would get more rain, the southern part of the empire would get less, as Australia would absorb more humidity and affect the monsoon of the southern part of the empire.
Thinking about it, his brows furrowed. Turning Australia green was a good thing, but reducing the southern part of the empire to a desert although it was an exaggeration was definitely not something he wanted. Even if turning Australia green had more benefits, he did not want to do anything rash.
In the end, the landmass of Australia was not the birthplace of the Bharatiyas after all. Subcontinent could never be measured by benefits alone.
"Forget it. Let's think about it some other day. For now, let us migrate some people over and at least claim the island continent first."
What Vijay was planning was no different from the precursor to terraforming, where changes were made to the surface of the planet to make it more habitable while controlling the adverse effects the change would have.
This was an advanced concept that Vijay could not expect anyone in this era to know. Hence, he could not rely on the people of this era to come up with the idea. They might come up with ways to make Australia greener, but definitely not in a way that would prevent adverse effects on other places that have the interests of the Bharatiya Empire. In this task, he would have to do it himself.
In reality, Vijay could always ignore it, like a lot of things he had ignored in order to let the people of this era take the initiative and stand on their own two feet. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Vijay to not only make his part of the world more habitable but also avoid the negative effects that would come along with it.
For example, if he really did go through with his plans, not only would the southern part of the empire be affected, but also the Middle East would get a lot drier. China and Mongolia would get less rain, and the monsoon in Argentina would be reduced. However not everything would be an adverse effect, as some outcomes could be highly beneficial to the Bharatiya Empire. Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan might see a lot more rain—even the rivers that used to flow in ancient times might be revived. The same would be seen in Eastern Africa, making it greener and more habitable. And all of this was only at the macro level, countless micro-level changes could also occur, which Vijay, no matter the era, had no way of calculating.
Overall, since the population of humans in the world in this era was not too large, the adverse effects would not affect too many people. And for the good effects, he could always take advantage of them. Coming back to the topic, since there was no knowledge about how the climate in one part of the world affected the climate in another part of the world, the unusual situation in climate could not be pointed back at him or his policies. Additionally, the change would take place gradually over several decades or even centuries. People might not even realize it. And even if people from the future realized that something was wrong, it would already be too late, and the affected regions would have become unrecognizable. What would they do? Would they dare to threaten the countries of Australia to destroy their forests? He didn't think so.
With all these complicated thoughts in his mind, Vijay finally set off to Kashyap Amar. He was going to meet the scientific genius that the Bharatiya Empire had produced.
P.S. Today was a busy day, forgive me if there is a slight drop in quality