Finally, Consequences (RB Vs. Empress Theresa, Chapter 15) · 5:03pm May 4th, 2021
Previously, on Empress Theresa:
Theresa whined to Parliament for half an hour.
And now:
This chapter begins with a question: what happened to President Martin?
The answer is given in the paragraph after the paragraph after the question is asked: not a lot. He's doing okay. That's the entirety of that line of thought.
We resume the actual plot with the Prime Minister needing to speak with Theresa. It's urgent. Turns out, we needed winter after all; the water level around the world is rising. It's already risen a sixteenth of an inch, and they expect it to rise two or three feet in a year. This is caused by thermal expansion, as opposed to the ice sheets melting. I guess they haven't gotten the memo yet.
Theresa bemoans that she thought she was done with these problems. Well, maybe you should have thought a little harder before you tried to perform surgery with a sledgehammer.
Point is, the world's gonna be underwater in a few years (sounds familiar, don't it?).
This problem is described as 'annoying', by the way. Just wanted to get that out there.
Theresa solves this crisis by launching one-mile cubes of water into outer space. I'm sure that won't have any adverse effects on the coastlines, or to any underwater ecosystems.
Afterwards, Theresa and Steve go on a road trip around the British Isles, mostly keeping to smaller towns and a few tourist spots here and there.
It's constantly raining there because of Theresa's stunt at the pole, and—wait, it's constantly raining? All over the world? Do you know how much flooding that would cause?
No, I guess not. Oh well, back to business.
It's constantly raining (business as usual for England, really), so to combat this, they get a set of fireman's helmets, what with the brim and such. Theresa gets one with a New York shield on it to honour the 220 firefighters who died on 9/11. Nice sentiment, although actually 343 firefighters died at the WTC. Why can't I escape 9/11 in these books? What are the odds?
The locals ooh and aah at their choice of headware, and within a week everyone is wearing them. Or, rather, $10 knockoffs; Theresa feels the need to mention that their 'genuine' helmets cost over $500. Way to be humble, Theresa.
After two weeks of this they get sick of England and move on to Italy. After a week of this, they then go back to the Parker estate. I'm glad you can keep inviting yourself back there, by the way.
It's brought up that constant rainfall might be a bad idea (because of fungus, not flooding (though they cite the rainfall as a quarter-inch every 24 hours (though that's still a lot for some places))), so they give the board that controls the water columns in the arctic to Mr. Blair, who sets up a committee to determine how much rainfall is necessary.
Theresa and Steve then go to visit southern Germany. They visit Neuschwanstein castle, the one that inspired the one at Disneyland. Then, they drift slowly northwards, eventually hitting up Oktoberfest. The day after, they get summoned by Mr. Blair again.
We're introduced to a meteorologist, Dr. Harold. Dr. Harold offers an explanation as to how HAL stopped the wind: by adding dark matter to it to increase the air's viscosity. I'm pretty sure this makes no sense, but whatever. Also, Steve had apparently already figured this out, somehow, but Theresa neglected to tell us about it. Funny, that.
I don't know how much of this may be original, or how much was added in revisions, but it certainly does seem like these chapters exist solely to smooth over all the issues with previous ones, doesn't it? Here's a handy tip for you folks: if your plot has more holes than a colander, perhaps you should change the plot instead of trying to patch up the gaps.
Anyway, Dr. Harold informs them that the wind is returning. This poses a problem, because Theresa's changing of the Earth's axis means returning winds will cause hurricanes, as if the winds created by doing such a thing wouldn't have destroyed everything already. Blair tells them they must change the axis back. Theresa complains about having to solve another problem. Then it's brought up that doing this will kill half a billion people in Asia through famine. Theresa wonders why God is doing this to her. The chapter ends with the public learning of this new impending crisis.
See you next time, folks.
Little pro tip for you, Theresa: don't f
with complex systems unless you know how they work.
"I already brought the wind back, now they want winter, too? This sucks so much, ugh!"
Wait, they can just hand off the reality control switches to other people? I thought only Theresa knew how to operate them.
"Ugh, they want me to change the earth's axis back, too? God!"
So glad I'm not a perfect person, life is just so hard for them. :V