Empress Theresa: Chapter Sixteen Analysis · 6:08pm May 3rd, 2023
This chapter opens with Theresa crying about the unfairness of the position that she’s in. Truthfully, she should be crying about how her own brashness and stupidity led to her being in the position that she’s in. She’s in a situation where no matter what she does, people will die. However, Theresa seems to fixate much more on how people will stop loving her no matter the outcome. We already know that she’s a callous, unfeeling, self-centered, myopic woman-child. We just never knew how much of one she could be before now.
We get this big speech about remorse for your actions. There are too many words there, and any editor would have it pared down to something along the lines of ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’ Something that most people learn by Theresa’s age (and the author clearly hasn’t) is that nothing is purely black or white. There is always a shade of grey in every decision or action taken. Even in something as simple as scheduling a rideshare. There’s always the chance that somebody needed that ride more than you did. Not a large chance, but it certainly exists somewhere. Theresa just fucked up the natural order of the planet by fiddling with its tectonic plates like a sliding panel puzzle and then messing up its weather patterns. Who’d have thought that treating the entire planet like your personal plaything was going to be a bad idea?
Late one night, Steve gets his wackiest idea yet. He tries to figure out what gasses can be used to retard the growth and speed of hurricanes, and where such gasses can be found. He finds out both. On a walk in the woods with Theresa, he shares his findings. The miracle gas they need? Xenon. Where to find it? The sun itself!
Going back to our Looney Tunes analogies, this is where Marvin the Martian would come up with that exact same plan to create super storms that would wipe out all life on Earth. Or something equally goofy.
Even goofier is the plan that is elaborated. A temperature measuring device (we usually call that a thermometer, but it’s not called that in the book) is used to measure the melting points on the sun’s surface. That’s right. It’s hovered close enough to the sun’s surface to measure the hottest points. These will be the ideal spots to extract xenon. I’m still not a scientist so I can’t tell how outlandish this plan really is. ‘Star Trek’ at least made an effort to have its science fiction sound believable. Then again, there were people with an actual interest in science working on that show.
One Royal Air Force ‘general’ (in the RAF, there is no such rank) has a request for Theresa. He asks that she bring back heaps of helium from the sun so that the military may craft a fleet of miniature dirigibles to spy on other countries. We already have that technology, and we don’t need an abundance of helium to make more. In fact, wouldn’t remote controlled drones be a much better option? Whatever. I’m not a military technician either.
Theresa uses HAL’s powers to mine xenon from the sun and have it crystallized on Earth. Terrific. Wow. What next? Those crystals get broken up and dispersed into the Earth’s atmosphere. I’m also not a doctor, but a minimal effort of research indicates that an excessive intake of xenon in the human body results in things like nausea, vomiting, dizziness, disorientation, impaired judgement, confusion, shortness of breath, and several other symptoms before a slow and painful death. If Theresa’s plan is to wipe out all life on the planet, she’s off to a damn good start.
Indeed so, since instead of choking the planet to death, she simply lowers the power of the hurricanes by making them tropical storms. Alright. More rain. More wind. And Theresa gets the military that helium. The only thing they say about that is that it becomes a ‘sad day for terrorists.’ What this means is never elaborated upon. Also what’s never elaborated is how all of a sudden all of Theresa’s atmospheric problems are permanently fixed. We’re just supposed to believe it because the author said so. As for Theresa herself? She’s just worried about how jealous people are of her power. Even though she was lamenting having that kind of power at the beginning of the chapter. She’s just that full of herself.
Let’s get even goofier here, people! The next plan is to put a telescope on the moon. You know, for the people on the moon who would have no use for a telescope, because there aren’t any there. Then she puts a rover into orbit around Mars. This can be done, but it’s much more practical to have the rover explore the surface of Mars instead. Finally, she pulls Europa, the fourth largest moon of Jupiter, out of its own orbit so that it can orbit Mars instead. Why? So it can be more closely observed. Couldn’t they just do that from the telescope on the moon?
Finally, the motherlode. Theresa uses her powers to draw in raw gold from the farthest reaches of space and concentrates it all into Fort Knox. This comes after we get a horrifically boring description of Fort Knox. With the abundance of gold in the world, its price cheapens and people begin using it to stabilize their economies worldwide. I’m not an economist, but from what I do know, putting more gold in the world might actually be a believable way to make economies more stable. It’s amazing. This is probably the first realistically good idea that Theresa has had.
Remember how Jan Struthers was unceremoniously reintroduced before? Theresa puts her in charge of managing the refinement and distribution of all this gold. How is Jan qualified for this job again? Who knows? Theresa becomes a billionaire from this entrepreneurial venture. I’m surprised people didn’t just mail her that kind of money. The chapter closes with Theresa wondering what her ex-boyfriend would think of her now. Seriously. How long has it been since then? Didn’t she marry Jack’s best friend? Aren’t they (supposedly) happy together? Doesn’t Theresa have a life outside of spiting the people she doesn’t like? Chances are that she’ll be ruminating about Jack for years to come. Why? She’s hollow and has nothing else better to do with her life besides think about the one bad thing that happened to her. Theresa’s supposed to be the next Jesus, but she’s quickly turning out to be more like your average lolcow. I know it’s obvious by now, but nobody should be like Theresa.
If there was any point to this chapter, it was just to show how amazing Theresa can be. From stopping hurricanes to putting a telescope where nobody will ever be able to use it, we’re just supposed to smile and clap, and brainlessly praise Theresa as much as the people in the book are doing. However, there doesn’t seem to be much fanfare for Theresa’s achievements after this. I’ve read ahead, and there’s no mention of Europa again. Nor do we ever find out what that telescope on the moon is for. But that gold? There’s actually followup on that. See you on Friday for the next chapter.
Sorry, recycling quotes is lazy. Let me just say I sent this book by a friend of mine who works in the financial sector, and safe to say the business with the gold infuriated him. Dumping more gold onto the global market could actually hurt economies if done badly.
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Funny enough, that point is talked about briefly in the next post
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I look forward to seeing it.