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Chapter 239: How About Building a Jurassic Park?
🕑 Added 2025-02-22 09:51:19 +0000 UTCA few days later, Josh took a plane to the Navajo Indian Reservation.
After a full day of discussions, the elder Quechuan finally agreed to Josh's proposal. Once Josh officially secured Sulawesi, the tribe would move there. He also introduced Josh to other tribes still living on the reservation, hoping they would move together.
However, "relocating the entire tribe" wasn't entirely accurate. Although Josh's offer was generous, many Native Americans had a deep attachment to their homeland.
Despite the harsh conditions, some were unwilling to leave, especially the elderly, who couldn't survive the long journey or adapt to Sulawesi's climate.
The migration would therefore take place in three stages.
First, Aldo's uncle, Slam, the son of the tribal leader, would take a group of young and strong men to Sulawesi. Their job was to assess the environment and begin building a new home.
Once they confirmed everything was stable, they would move to the second stage—bringing the women and children over.
As for the elderly, most would remain on the reservation, along with some young people who also chose to stay. The Continental Group would provide them with basic support and housing.
In exchange, the development rights of the Navajo Reservation would be turned over to the Continental Group. For Native Americans, these lands were difficult to live on due to scarce resources.
But for certain American businesses, Indian reservations offered unique opportunities.
Because all reservations had state-level administrative status, they could make their own legal rules as long as they didn't violate the U.S. Constitution.
One important example was gambling.
In the early 20th century, most U.S. states banned gambling, except for two cities—Atlantic City and Las Vegas.
Atlantic City became a gambling center through a statewide referendum in New Jersey. (TL/N: A Referendum is a occasion when all the people of a country can vote on a particular political question)
Las Vegas, on the other hand, was built on an Indian reservation, making it exempt from state gambling laws.
By the 21st century, there were about 310 Indian reservations left in the U.S., and most of them had casinos that generated tens of billions of dollars annually.
Of course, there was only one Las Vegas.
And having the legal right to run casinos wasn't always a good thing.
Because reservations were allowed to operate gambling businesses, various corporations and criminal organizations took advantage of them for decades.
Larger reservations like the Navajo's fared better, but smaller tribes with fewer people often suffered greatly.
If a tribe wasn't strong enough, it could suddenly disappear, replaced by casinos and luxury hotels.
The situation only improved in the 21st century, when U.S. states began loosening restrictions on gambling.
Of course, now that the reservation was in the hands of the Continental Group, it wouldn’t be turned into a gambling hub. That was Josh's promise to the Navajo chiefs.
With the size of the Navajo reservation, it could easily become an entertainment city even bigger than Las Vegas.
But Josh was a man of his word. Though the casinos were highly profitable, they weren't tempting enough for him to break a promise.
With his dimensional trading system, was money even an issue?
As for what to do with the land... Josh suddenly had an idea. With so much open space, wouldn’t it be perfect for raising animals—especially dangerous ones?
Barren land? That could be fixed. In fact, barrenness had its advantages—there were no places to hide, so if anything went wrong, an aerial search would spot it immediately.
"What do you think about building a Jurassic Park here?" Josh asked Aldo as they rode their horses on a plateau and surveyed the land.
Wait, no, Jurassic wasn't right. Yuri's creatures were from the Cretaceous era.
Cretaceous Park, then?
Aldo looked completely confused.
A park? He knew what that was. But what was "Jurassic"?
After all, this was the 1940s—without the Jurassic Park movie, most people had never heard of the Jurassic or Cretaceous time periods unless they were highly educated or worked in archaeology.
Seeing Aldo's puzzled face, Vito smiled proudly.
Heh, you don't know what Jurassic means, do you? Well, I do.
Of course, before meeting Josh, he had no idea either. As an Italian immigrant with little formal education, his knowledge wasn't much better than Aldo's.
But after spending time with Josh, he had learned a lot.
"...You can think of it as a dinosaur amusement park," Josh said, his mouth twitching as he tried to explain.
Since arriving in this world, he had found that the person who understood him best was actually the American robot tycoon, Lawrence—a man he had only recently started trading with.
How frustrating.
"Oh, dinosaurs! That I understand—The Lost World! So you want to build a dinosaur theme park? Maybe put on dinosaur-themed shows? That's a great idea!" Aldo said excitedly.
By "The Lost World," he wasn't referring to the 1990s movie or even the original novel by Arthur Conan Doyle. Instead, he meant the 1925 silent film adaptation—the first-ever monster movie in history, which had taken the world by storm at the time.
The story followed a group of scientists who discovered living dinosaurs on a remote island. They captured one and brought it back to town, only to have it escape and wreak havoc.
Sound familiar? That’s right—King Kong’s plot was heavily inspired by this film.
But Aldo clearly hadn't grasped the true meaning of Josh's words.
Noticing Josh and Vito's strange looks, he hesitated.
"Uh... did I say something wrong?" Aldo asked awkwardly.
"Of course you did. When I say ‘dinosaur park,’ I mean a park with real, living dinosaurs—not some song and dance performance!” Josh sighed and rubbed his forehead in exasperation.
"My God, are you serious? Dinosaurs are supposed to be extinct! Or are you saying you found a place where they still exist, like in The Lost World?" Aldo's eyes widened in shock.
“No... This is technology… Alright, fine, you’re not wrong. We did find such a place. Otherwise, what do you think the Beast Transformation Serum was made from?” Josh originally wanted to deny it and claim it was just advanced science, but after thinking it over, the whole ‘dinosaur cloning’ explanation wasn’t actually that convincing.
Not to mention, while Josh did possess cloning technology—Yuri had perfected it to an astonishing degree—revealing it at this point would bring immense trouble to both him and the Continental Group.
So why not just say they discovered a place where dinosaurs still lived?
For example, with thousands of islands in Java, he could simply pick one, release a few dinosaurs there, then "capture" them and transport them to the United States.
Once the job was done, he could just burn the island to the ground or even conduct a ‘nuclear test’—erasing all evidence.
Simple.
"Wait, so you're saying that the genes in the Beast Transformation Serum are not from Komodo dragons, but from dinosaurs?" Aldo asked, his shock deepening.
"Of course. But if you want a real Komodo dragon serum, I have that too." Josh shrugged.
"Uh... no thanks. The current serum works just fine." Aldo took a deep breath, imagining the whole world flocking to see live dinosaurs.
What was Las Vegas compared to this?
As for Disney... well, Disneyland didn't even exist yet. There weren’t any real theme parks at this point—unless you counted Howard Stark’s Stark Expo.
And just like that, with a few casual words, Josh laid the foundation for what would one day become the world-famous Navajo Jurassic Park.
Of course, Josh's activities on the Indian reservation did not go unnoticed by the U.S. government. Soon the FBI caught wind of his activities and passed the information on to J. Edgar Hoover... and then to President Truman.
After all, Josh’s operations in Navajo territory weren’t small—relocating tens of thousands of people wasn’t something even the CIA could cover up.
Native American affairs were a sensitive topic among the U.S. elite because they were a dark chapter in the country's history.
So Truman took a personal interest in the situation, and soon Josh got a call from the White House.
Not that he ever intended to keep it a secret.
Why would he?
For the U.S. leadership, Native Americans were a long-standing problem. And now, Josh was solving that problem for them—he was doing them a favor.
This was a major contribution.
Sure enough, all Josh had to do was mention the Netherlands, Java, and the Native Americans.
And just like that, Truman gave him the green light, even promising limited military support if needed.
After all, every part of Josh’s plan—helping the Dutch government, stabilizing Java, relocating the Native Americans—was beneficial to the U.S.
On top of that, Josh’s involvement gave the U.S. a legitimate reason to extend its influence into the Strait of Malacca—something they had wanted for a long time.
The U.S. government had always coveted control of Malacca, but direct intervention had been difficult due to their alliances with Britain and the Netherlands.
Now that the Dutch themselves had invited Josh, Truman couldn't be happier. Of course he would support him.
And so, in April of that year, with Truman's approval, the Dutch government's urgency, and the Javanese people completely unaware of what was happening, Josh traveled to Amsterdam.
There he was officially given the title of Governor of Sulawesi and made a hereditary count of the Netherlands by Queen Wilhelmina, giving him full military and political control over the region.
Immediately after bestowing Josh with this title, Queen Wilhelmina abdicated, passing the throne to her daughter, Queen Juliana.
Perfect.
Titles granted by a previous monarch could not be revoked by the new one.
With that, Josh had removed his last potential obstacle.
And so, just days after his formal appointment, several brand-new Austrian frigates and the luxury liner Margaret set sail for Asia under the Dutch flag.
Of course, Prinz Eugen—a ship of great symbolic significance to the Austrian navy—would not be used for escort duty.
Not that Josh was superstitious. Definitely not.
