SABIS the SURVIVOR

Chapter 1: Plan For Survival

Chapter 1: Plan For Survival

"Heroes are not what this world needs," the speaker at the bright red, white, and green podium announced:

"What this world needs are solutions. Today I have the pleasure and privilege of bringing you a man who has the solution to all of our problems: War over water rights, lack of a renewable energy source, pestilence of our animals, shortages of arable land caused by erosion, fire and urbanization, and disease caused by flooding and seasonal changes. I bring you a man who has found a solution to combining the application of our Earth's Spatial Orientation with nuclear physics and thermodynamics. I bring you Professor Forani Ternate."

With average height and build, Professor Forani Ternate, PhD in Geophysics, Astrophysics, and Chemistry had to distinguish himself from the green-felted carpet that he walked on by sporting a melange of orange and yellow. His sharkskin blazer covering a button-down white linen Armani shirt camouflaged the fluttering of his heart and perspiration that soaked his back. Chinos and black calf-skin boots completed his ensemble. He had memorized his speech because reading a prepared manuscript ran him the risk of switching syllables due to dyslexia. He stood in front of the podium, looked straight ahead at the audience, then craned his neck back forty-five degrees to where the sun's strong rays reflected off of his Trouva wrap-around sunglasses, bounced off of his Laser-groomed hairless face, down to his pale-blue Brazilian magnesite belt buckle, and onto the carpeted stage. It appeared as if he had been enveloped in a kaleidoscopic beam of light.

Stepping forward one small step, he leapt into his oration:

"Dear gathered family, friends, colleagues, members of the media and the rest of the human race, thank you for this honour of addressing you in this time of need and thank you to Karl Kohl for that brave introduction. Welcome to Vatican City, welcome to TLI, and welcome to our brave new world."

He turned to Karl who was seated to his left behind a long white table, alongside other scientists who were there in support of Forani's body of work and proposal.

"Karl, you have revolutionized the world with your inventions─graphite fertilizer, tree bark batteries, and reusable medications. You and I are colleagues as well as joint members of the human race. From now on, please call me Forani."

Karl smiled and nodded his head in approval.

Forani continued to address the throngs of people and those around the world watching on the TLI network.

"I have devoted my life to the study of global warming and its effects on the Earth's changing weather patterns, agricultural and economic indicators, and geopolitical forces. Building on the work of Einstein, Oppenheimer, Guttieri, and Robertson, I have also calculated the energy required to effect a permanent change in the two superpowers that control our weather ꟷ the sun's distance from the earth and the earth's tilt and orientation with respect to the sun."

With his left hand he pointed at one of his assistants who pressed a button that caused the retractable roof to close. As the lights dimmed in the New Colosseum, eighty thousand people in attendance and hundreds of millions of viewers around the world were shown a virtual reality simulation of Forani's plan to shift the earth's orientation with respect to the sun.

Forani continued as if he were lecturing a Geophysics class:

"Tilting the earth and changing its orbit is possible. By combining the power of gravity and nuclear fission, we can move our planet into a longer and more agriculturally-favourable solar orbit. Using two superconductor-derived magnets to contain two suborbital thermonuclear blasts, we can move the moon further away from earth. This will pull the earth out of its current orbital trajectory and change its orientation to the sun."