Cultivator Professor Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner is a professor of chemistry and pharmacy at the University of Jena. It was the age of enlightenment, and like the cultivators of old who sought to oppose the heavens, Döbereiner wished to do the same.
Son of a coachman, he was unable to attend formal schooling in Germany. He apprenticed at an apothecary, and widely read and attended lectures on science at the local university. His master at the apothecary admired his curiosity in the sciences and thus took him as an apprentice. There he trained to be a cultivator, specializing in chemistry.
In 1810, in recognition of his efforts, his master recommended him to the administration of the University of Jena, and thus he was able to become a professor. Due to the opportunity afforded by his master, he was also able to formally study chemistry in Strasbourg.
In 1829, he published a work reporting on the various trends in certain groups of elements. For some reason, the average atomic mass of lithium and potassium is like sodium. Referring to the modern periodic table, the atomic mass of lithium is 3, whilst the atomic mass of potassium is 19. The average of the elements is 11, the atomic mass of sodium. These elements are in Group 1 of the periodic table, which have 1 valence electron, or an electron on its outer shell that it would like to give away to become stable.
The same pattern was found with calcium, strontium, and barium. Calcium and Barium have an atomic mass of 20 and 56 respectively. The average would be 38, given the atomic mass of strontium. These atoms are in Group 2 of the periodic table, containing 2 valence electrons each.
Another example would be the atoms Sulphur, Selenium and Tellurium. Sulfur and Tellurium have an atomic mass of 16 and 52 respectively. The average would be 34, the atomic mass of Selenium. They are in Group 6. When the elements in Group 2 and Group 6 interact, a chemical reaction is formed, and electrons from Group 2 atoms are transferred to Group 6 atoms so that atoms of both groups will have their outer shells filled. Thus, they will achieve stability, like the Noble Gases of Group 8.
This is true for the Noble Gases of Group 1 and Group 7.
One day, after holding a class, he went to the post office and received a strange letter.
As the German manning the post office explained, “It came from South Elfrica. Döbereiner, do you have any relatives in South Elfrica?”
Professor Döbereiner scratched his head. His family had no ties to aristocrats of any sort, so it was hard to keep track of his family tree. Maybe there was a distant cousin who migrated there, who knows? He took the letter, paid the price for the postage and went back to his office.
Tearing open it, the letter and its contents were written in English. He frowned and momentarily thought of throwing it away. But the first line of the letter caught his eye.
Dear Döbereiner,
I love your work, ‘Versuch zu Gruppirung der elementaren Stoffe nach ihrer Analogie’, or translated to English ‘An attempt to group elementary substances according to their analogies’.
Döbereiner did not dismiss the letter. It seems it was sent by a fan. The man must be an Englishman who settled in South Elfrica. Since the man bothered to skip the language gap to try to read his report, he shouldn’t so easily dismiss it.
He went to the international department of his local university and looked for a German professor or student who knew English. Offering them a small fee, he requested for the letter to be translated. As Döbereiner went back to his office to ponder the letter’s contents, the English translator finished his translation and handed back the letter transcribed in German.
Dear Döbereiner,
I love your work, ‘An attempt to group elementary substances according to their analogies’. It does seem that the elements of Lithium, Sodium and Potassium are related. The same could be said about Calcium, Strontium and Barium. I wonder what the relationship between these atoms is. I have been reading Richard Laming’s work. Have you read it? The interesting thing was that he had an idea that an atom consists of a core of matter surrounded by subatomic particles that unit electric charges. What if the atoms that are grouped have similar subatomic particles? For example, if you take any atom from the group of Lithium, Sodium and Potassium and mix them with Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine, you will find that they will react no matter what. The same holds through for Calcium, Strontium and Barium with sulphur, selenium and tellurium.
Yours sincerely,
Andries Pretorius
‘Who the Scheiße is Andries Pretorius?’ Döbereiner thought to himself. Yet the second thought that came to mind was that perhaps he should peruse the works of English cultivators.
Döbereiner rushed back to the post office and queried the clerk, who handed him the letter, the source of the letter.
“Uhm. It was transferred over from the British, so it must be a British colony. But its name is the Natalia Republic, I suppose it’s a client state.”
“Since you did some research sir, do you know of a man called Andries Pretorius?”
“In my research, I found that he was the Prime Minister of the State. You must have relatives very far away to get a letter sent from South Elfrica.”
Döbereiner was not the only cultivator who received the letter. Jan, cross-referencing the various scientific journals procured at Port Natal with the help of hired translators, was able to understand the contents. Secondary School Chemistry was leaps ahead of current society’s Chemistry, so he could see the connections that men cannot. He connected them, linking the works of those who could be merged to create a breakthrough. Letters like these were sent to all the cultivators, which ended with the name Andries Pretorius.
Why use the name Andries Pretorius instead of his name? Well, it was a campaign to win the hearts and minds of the intelligentsia of the various European states. The Natalia Republic is unrecognised, so by using Pretorius' name he could sow the Republic’s name in the minds of many.
Unfortunately, the cultivator scientists thought differently. With further research digging about Pretorius’ background, they discovered that he was a simple farmer. That led them to think, how did this farmer become a cultivator? Is he secretly a grandmaster? Is he looking for disciples? They kept digging and networking amongst the people that the letters directed them to. And as Jan predicted, breakthroughs were made.
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The Boer watched the passing caravans and sighed. It was a shitty job. Sit in the hot sun. Luckily, his superiors kindly allocated him a spot under a tree. Still, it was boring. He was an insurance agent, and he got a commission for every sale he got. Unfortunately, every merchant he talked to rejected his offer.
It was sent up to the chain and he expected to get fired. But a new assignment came in. He was to collaborate with a couple of Zulus coming over on this day. First, he didn’t want to do so. There was only him, and multiple Zulus were coming. He was afraid of them not collaborating and giving him trouble.
But if the current situation goes on, he ain’t making money. And he got to go back to farming. Grumbling about the lack of increased income in the urban areas, he finally spotted the Zulus.
It was an entire Impi! And they were charging down the hill! He readied his firearm but realized it was pointless since every one of them held firearms by their side.
One of them came up to him, asking in Elfrikaans, “Are you the… insurance agent?”
The Boer nodded blankly.
The elf stretched his hand out and the Boer shook on it.
“Alright, here’s the plan. We’ll be attacking the next uninsured caravan. Once we’re done, those merchants will come fleeing in your direction, that’s when you do your job. Understand.”
Never in his life did he expect to take orders from a Zulu, but considering how heavily outnumbered he was, he could only meekly nod.
And then the whole Zulu Impi stormed off, leaving him in dust. He looked at their foot that was bare and confirmed once again that they were the fearsome Zulu. Crazy bastards who could outrun any of them.
So, he sat back at his booth and grumbled about the Elfrican sun, whilst sitting around the tree. To occupy his time, he counted the number of caravans passing through. One, two, three. Most of them were English, few were Boer. All of them are uninsured.
He tried to remember the scant instruction he was provided with.
“Call out to the caravan and harass them, asking if they want to buy insurance,” His superior ordered. Whilst he enthusiastically did that at first, being rejected all the time made him mope about.
A couple of minutes later, an empty caravan came from the other direction. The Boer became perplexed. Most caravans stocked goods at Pietermaritzburg and dumped them at Potchefstroom. They’ll then resupply at Potchefstroom, usually ivory and animal skins before coming back to Pietermaritzburg to dump them.
The English merchant wore a fine suit and looked at the booth. A big sign on top read, ‘ZULU INSURANCE’ in English. The merchant rushed towards him. The closer the merchant got, the more the Boer noticed the various scrapes the merchant had on his bodice. His clothes were dirtied and he seemed immensely furious.
Seething in rage, he yelled at the Boer, “Why wasn’t I warned about the damn savage Zulu! I thought this route was safe.”
The insurance agent took a deep breath and said what he rehearsed.
“It is mostly safe. But the Zulus do attack from time to time. Here at South Elfrica Insurance, we offer insurance to help you hedge your goods from the Zulu.”
The Boer passed the policy to the potential policyholder. The potential policyholder baulked at the coverage of 50%.
“Why is the coverage so low? This is fucking bullshit!” The English merchant crumpled up the paper.
The Boer began clearing his throat. It seemed he has a potential customer.
“Just for you sir, I can modify the coverage to 80%. The company allows us to modify it to suit our customers' needs. However, do note that premiums will be higher. I’m sorry I got you the entry-level policy. Here is the 100% coverage policy.”
The Boer handed the policy that covers goods. Dubbed as Life Insurance for Goods, it covered the full cost up to 100%.
“We can take monthly or annual payments. Or better yet a lump sum. It will help hedge your goods against a potential Zulu attack. We cover all attacks along the route between Potchefstroom and Pietermaritzburg. If you stray too deep into elven territory, I’m very sorry sir, but we’ll not be covering that.”
“Is it insuring on a single trip only? Because I will be procuring more goods at Potchefstroom. Does it also cover that?”
“I’m afraid not sir. You will have to buy another policy in Potchefstroom. How, just for you sir, we got VIP insurance called merchant insurance. We will cover any losses made along this route. It’s lifetime business insurance. We accept payments monthly as long as your company is still in business.”
The Boer produced the company policy for the merchant. And this time, the merchant baulked at the absurd premium.
“This premium is insane! I wonder who would pay this kind of price!”
“We do have some people who pay for it,” The Boer lied, looking away from the merchant.
“Tell you what, I’ll head back to Pietermaritzburg. Your company has an office there right?” The merchant clarified, and the Boer nodded. The merchant continued, “Great, I’ll talk with them there instead of the hot sun out here.”
And the merchant left, and still, the Boer was unable to sell any policies.
Because of this scheme, Jan hashed out with the Zulu, they got to keep any of the goods stolen as long as he told them the caravans to attack, and many complaints were sent to the local Commandoes along the route. There were numerous requests to have them deal with the Zulu raiders. Yet, these complaints only came from English merchants, whilst the Boer merchants never had their caravans attacked. Most strange.
Is he practising discrimination? Yes. But most of these English merchants were foreigners, and even if they made money, they won’t reinvest them into the local Boer towns, they will send them back to their home in England. That is why, letting English merchants dominate the local economy is bad for business, and he needed to implement protectionist measures to give Boer merchants a chance.
After all, they didn’t even have the opportunity to do business since the English merchants filled every need. But with the sudden unexplainable shortages, Boer merchants rose to fill the gap. And their caravans were unmolested. Many of them purchase insurance from the only game in town, South Elfrica Insurance, after seeing how the numerous Zulu raids devastate English merchants.
Soon enough, English merchants also procured insurance from his company after seeing how the Boer merchants were gaining market share. Unlike the insurance at Port Natal, it seemed to influence the number of attacks they faced from the Zulu. Jan was willing to eat a loss attacking insured English caravans from time to time. He needs to slowly dislodge the dominance of English merchants in the local markets to allow Boer merchants to fill the gap.
Now, there were Xhosa and Zulu merchants. But they were a small minority. Most Zulu merchants didn’t bother purchasing his insurance, because if there was any trouble, they would rather fight them off. It took him 5 seconds to think about whether he should dispatch men to attack their caravans before shaking his head. The Elfrican tribes won’t be cooperative in this, and he didn’t want to risk his men’s lives harassing these caravans to get them to buy his insurance.
But the Free Market! Let companies decide and the economy will be well! And let English merchants control the economy here in South Elfrica. Absolutely not. If they had their way, South Elfrica will forever be an agrarian economy, only exporting raw materials to European powers.
The Free Market will not invest in factories here in South Elfrica. It was inherently unprofitable. An unskilled labour pool paired with the poor infrastructure made any business not want to invest in the region. It is possible for Cape Colony but try to sell the idea of investing in the Natalia Republic.
At least the Cape Colony had British garrisons, but here in Natalia, to these businessmen's minds, it was like the Wild West. Every man had to carry around guns. Hostile savages were right across the border. To give an analogy, it would be convincing a Western MNC to invest in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. No need to even bother explaining, they will immediately dismiss you.
As the government, he needed to pave the way. He needed infrastructure so that goods can be transported. He needed a lot of immigrants to help build the infrastructure or work in farms and fields so that they won’t be so reliant on the British. Then they can climb the value chain and focus on industrialization once agriculture is industrialized. With spare manpower, they can send them to the factories to produce.
If he could assimilate the elves into the local economy, that would give him the head start, and he wouldn’t need to burn funds to attract immigrants from Pietermaritzburg. But they didn’t want to give up their old ways of life. The only way he could think of was to do exactly what the colonisers did, dispossess them of their land and force them into labour for sustenance. But even if he wanted to do that, he needed a lot more men to fight against thousands of elves. The best he could do was to convince the various elven Chiefs to participate in his modernisation efforts.