Tortures such as waterboarding, fire roasting, leech pits, electric shock torture, boiling water pouring, and forced drug injections were commonplace in the prisoner-of-war camps. Even because of the "spiritual practice" craze that has swept the world in recent years, and the subsequent rise of "Tibetan Buddhism" and black magic, there are horror stories in Australia about prisoners of war being skinned alive and their bones dismembered to make human skin books and human bone magic tools, which were then sold to certain small circles of people for huge profits!

　Even though the Australian military and government have tried to cover up this, news of torture continues to emerge from these prisoner-of-war camps.

　Then, in general, where there is oppression, there is resistance.

　Since the Australian prisoner-of-war camps were so miserable, the Javanese, Malays, Chinese, Dayaks, Papuans and other ethnic groups in the Southeast Asian prisoner-of-war camps naturally had a strong spirit of resistance, and from time to time they would stage a prisoner-of-war camp riot or a large-scale prison escape.

　Therefore, the Australian army wondered whether they could introduce "Furu" into the prisoner-of-war camps to make these prisoners more docile and easier to control, just like cattle and sheep waiting to be slaughtered on the pasture. As long as there is grass to eat, they will not think of resisting or escaping until the moment before being slaughtered and eaten.

　The officers in the rear might still be thinking about how to utilize the labor of the prisoners of war, but the guards in the prisoner-of-war camps wished that all the prisoners would turn into wooden figures.

　After all, when the prisoners of war escape and riot, the guards are really in danger of their lives!

　Finally, various mental hospitals in Australia are also very interested in the alien jellyfish "Furu" that absorbs mental energy.

　Among all mentally ill patients, an average of 10% to 20% suffer from mania, schizophrenia, and antisocial personality disorder. Like mad beasts, they spend their days torturing those around them, screaming and cursing, and even suddenly launching violent attacks on medical staff and other patients, causing significant trouble for hospitals and posing a threat to the safety of medical staff.

　——Most doctors and nurses working in mental hospitals have experienced being scratched or bitten by crazy patients.

　Just like those employees working in cat cafes in the 21st century, it is almost impossible to find one who has never been scratched by a cat.

　Therefore, these doctors and nurses really hope that all the manic mental patients can lie down and be as quiet as plants.

　Of course, unlike the "Southeast Asian native monkey prisoners" who were considered "not worth dying" in the eyes of white Australians, patients who can be admitted to mental hospitals for treatment in Australia generally have to be at least middle-class with a certain status, and they cannot be used as guinea pigs for experiments.

　Therefore, some conservative doctors and scientists believe that since the alien jellyfish "Furu", which absorbs spiritual power, has only been obtained for a few days, it is still impossible to determine whether it will cause harm to human health or leave serious sequelae. It is best not to immediately put this alien jellyfish into clinical treatment. Instead, more experiments and comparisons are needed to ensure its safety.

　But another group of radicals argues that since medieval European doctors were able to widely use leeches to suck blood from patients, they regarded it as a "normal bloodletting therapy" and believed that regular bloodletting was beneficial to maintaining health, which allowed this seemingly disgusting therapy to continue for thousands of years.

　So why can't Furu be regarded as a "medical animal" similar to leeches, which regularly absorbs the thoughts of mental patients?

　There doesn't seem to be any essential difference between leeches sucking blood and alien jellyfish sucking mental energy, right?

　If bloodletting therapy is effective, then the therapy of absorbing mental energy should also be effective.

　Anyway, there are no good treatments for mental illness these days, and most existing treatments are no safer than furaru.

　Remember, until the early 20th century, mental illness was still attributed to "demon possession" or "moral corruption."

　It was not until Freud founded the psychoanalytic school and began to attribute mental illness to subconscious conflicts that it gradually began to take on a scientific flavor.

　But even Freud only proposed a theory about the pathogenic mechanism, but could not come up with an effective treatment plan - he himself could not cure schizophrenia, and could only rely on talking to soothe some people's moods, which seemed to be ineffective.

　It's similar to a priest who gives confession to people.

　The treatments for mental illness at the time were actually transformed from religious rituals of exorcism, and looked more like torture - first the oldest hydrotherapy, which involved immersing patients in ice water or shocking them with high-pressure water jets, and then the more modern rotation therapy, which involved tying patients to a rotating chair and spinning them until they fainted.

　Although the above "traditional treatment methods" are very painful, as long as the mentally ill patient is strong enough and has a tough life, he or she can still withstand it.

　But the problem is that with the "progress" of the times, in the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the emergence of various new technologies and the wild imaginations of various crazy doctors, many more outrageous tortures, no, even more deadly "psychiatric treatments", were also used on the poor mental patients.

　For example, malaria fever therapy, which involves inoculating patients with malaria parasites to induce a high fever, is said to be effective in treating dementia, but has a mortality rate of up to 15%.

　Next is insulin shock therapy, which specifically involves injecting an overdose of insulin into a mentally ill patient to induce a coma, claiming it can "reset the brain." In reality, it causes brain damage to the patient and may even trigger epilepsy.

　Next up was the practice of having the mentally ill sit in the electric chair, also known as electroconvulsive therapy. The fracture rate among patients during this "treatment" was as high as 40%!

　As for the most notorious lobotomy, 50,000 people had their frontal lobes removed, causing them to suffer from dementia or emotional indifference.

　But even so, compared to the aforementioned "treating (torturing) methods for the mentally ill" that were more metaphysical than scientific, even the "surgical removal of the frontal lobe" that created idiots was considered a high-level method for treating mental illness—at least it could actually calm the madman down.

　Therefore, mental hospitals in the early and mid-twentieth century were more like asylums than places for treatment. For example, the mortality rate at the New York State Mental Hospital was as high as 30%. Doctors and nurses commonly gave patients drugs (mainly opium) to calm the manic lunatics.

　It wasn't until the 1950s that the truly effective antipsychotic drug chlorpromazine and the antidepressant imipramine were invented. Even then, only about 30% of mentally ill patients were able to return to society; the rest were either imprisoned for life, tortured to death, or committed suicide.

　What's even more terrifying is that once someone develops a mental illness, according to the laws at the time, they will automatically lose their human rights, their marriage will be automatically invalidated, and their property will be taken over by a guardian. Therefore, political persecution during the Cold War often involved throwing political opponents and dissidents into mental hospitals, and then following the "normal treatment process" to take a lot of drugs, sit in the electric chair for a while, and then undergo waterboarding and lobotomy, etc., and the person would basically be useless.

　Andropov of the Soviet Union liked to weaponize mental illness diagnosis. In order to attack his political opponents, he forced millions of people who were "diagnosed as mentally ill" into mental hospitals. Until the mid-1980s, about 800,000 of these poor people who were "diagnosed as mentally ill" were still alive.

　But after Gorbachev came to power, this map-maker released all those "mentally ill" people. As a result, when these 800,000 poor Soviet people came out of the mental hospital, they found that they had lost their homes, their property, and were socially dead...

　Do you think these 800,000 "former mental patients" will continue to love the Soviet Union, or will they be eager to perish along with the country?

　The Soviet Union used mental hospitals as prisons for political prisoners, while the United States turned them into bases for the eunuch party. During the Cold War, 30 states in the United States implemented compulsory sterilization laws for the mentally ill. Any man suffering from mental illness would be castrated directly after being admitted to the hospital!

　According to incomplete statistics, by 1979 when "Emperor Carter" abolished the regulation, the United States had castrated at least 60,000 male lunatics!

　In short, the mental hospitals in the United States and the Soviet Union were more inhumane than each other at this time.

　Compared with the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, the degree of anthropomorphism in Australia's current mental hospitals is probably very worrying.

　Therefore, most doctors in Australian psychiatric hospitals and experts from the Academy of Sciences don't think using furaulamine to treat mental patients is inhumane. Regardless of the hidden dangers of alien jellyfish, it's definitely more reliable than infecting mental patients with malaria or putting them in the electric chair, right?!

　Those mild patients who are just a little depressed and occasionally see a psychologist are fine and don't need alien jellyfish to help.

　As for other seriously ill patients who suffer from hallucinations, schizophrenia, and need hospitalization or even be tied up with chains, the possibility of cure is less than 20% according to current medical technology conditions. In addition, many families of mentally ill patients simply cannot afford the cost of long-term hospitalization.

　In this case, why not let alien jellyfish give it a try? Maybe they can cure these seriously ill patients?

　Even if the alien jellyfish can only make them depressed and can't restore these mentally ill people to normal, even if that's the case, "literary idiots" are still more reassuring than "violent lunatics" and less likely to harm society, right?

　As long as we use the thoughts of mentally ill patients to feed "Furu", the alien jellyfish will get food, the mentally ill patients will get peace of mind, and the medical staff will get safety and relief - no matter how you look at it, it's a good thing that kills three birds with one stone, so why not do it?

　After reviewing both the pros and cons, Prime Minister McMahon pondered for a moment before finally making the final decision:

　The alien jellyfish named "Furu" is about to be put into use, and it needs to be used vigorously.

　Reproduction! This will not only benefit prisons, prisoner-of-war camps, and mental hospitals, but it will also give Australia a new economic growth point in the current recession! And a new bargaining chip for trading with other powerful countries!

　In his view, the world today has moved from the era of nuclear weapons and the space race to the era of extraordinary power competition.

　If the H-therapy of the "Tantric Master" (the complete healing technique in pink magic) can cure all common diseases of the human body; then the spiritual siphoning of "Furu" has the hope of curing various mental diseases of humans.

　Due to its small population, remote location, and distance from civilization, Australia had previously played a bystander role in international competitions. But this time, thanks to God's blessing, Australia was the first to obtain six "Furu" cubs...

　In this case, why doesn't Australia, which has seized the initiative by luck, use this unique advantage to join this extraordinary competition, compete with the United States and the Soviet Union, and boost the confidence of the Australian people?

　Prime Minister McMahon had considered the safety of this alien jellyfish, but the report submitted to him was very optimistic.

　Experts believe that the flying alien jellyfish "Furu" can basically be regarded as a harmless and beneficial creature.

　Because, besides draining people's mental strength, making them mentally dull and their moods (numbness), their greatest attack is their "stink spray"—they can spray a stream of foul liquid that makes people stink. At best, they are similar to skunks.

　Moreover, people can easily wash off these odors with water, alcohol or vinegar.

　Compared to the venomous snakes (taipans, brown snakes and tiger snakes) and poisonous spiders that are everywhere in Australia, this alien jellyfish that only uses stench as a non-lethal weapon is really too safe. Its danger factor is probably even lower than that of cats and dogs.

　Furthermore, the Furu is known to reproduce remarkably well. According to Tom, the first contactee, this alien jellyfish gives birth every two years, with a capacity of two to eight litters. Therefore, if we patiently wait a few years and allow the six Furu pups left in Australia to reproduce, their numbers will grow large enough to be commercially viable. The rabbit plague that swept Australia back then was initially caused by a single immigrant family bringing in a few dozen rabbits from England.

　In short, after confirming that "Furu" was effective and easy to breed, Prime Minister McMahon decided to vigorously promote its breeding.

　Then, Australia, which is also one of the five Anglo-Saxon countries and has long been deeply infiltrated by the United States, actually does not have many secrets in front of the United States.

　So, shortly after Prime Minister McMahon made the decision to vigorously develop the "alien jellyfish farming industry" in Australia, US intelligence agencies also obtained relevant information, and eventually even passed it to the Director of the Strategic Deception Bureau, Fieri, who exclaimed: "How could this be? The Australians are too bold and too confident! After the rabbit and cat plagues, are Australia going to have a jellyfish plague again?"

　The rabbits who arrived here found themselves in paradise: the climate was pleasant, the ground was covered with delicious green grass, and there were no enemies around. The soil was also loose, making it very easy to dig holes and build nests.

　Now, just half a century later, the rabbits' range of activities had spread to the entire Australian continent, and the population increased exponentially - by 1926, the number of rabbits in Australia had grown to a record 100 billion!

　At the time, the entire Australian population was less than 10 million. Even if farmers spent their days off riding and hunting, or even if a certain emperor, known as the "Rabbit Terminator," hunted 300 rabbits a day, they still couldn't kill all the rabbits.

　The rabbit infestation has caused enormous losses to Australia's agriculture and livestock industries. First, the rabbits have devoured vast tracts of pasture, depriving cattle and sheep of their food. Second, the infestation has dug numerous burrows under farmland, some up to a meter and a half deep. Not only do humans and animals frequently become trapped in these burrows, but they also render agricultural machinery inoperable. As a result, many Australian farms have been forced to abandon their operations due to the rabbits.

　So, the Australians had to wage war against the rabbits, and they tried everything from traditional hunting and blocking holes to spraying gas and poisoning carrots. They tried everything, but the results were poor. Given the rabbits' ability to give birth to multiple litters a year, if the rabbit population wasn't reduced to a critically low level immediately, the rabbits previously eliminated would return in just six months, or even two or three months.

　The more frustrating problem is that rabbits are mobile. Even if you manage to completely clear out the rabbits in an area, after just a few months, rabbits from other places will come over and quickly occupy the empty Feng Shui treasure land, and then give birth to large numbers of pups!

　So, this is basically an endless war between humans and rabbits!

　Desperate Australians, seemingly inspired by the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall in the UK, decided to build a super fence across the Australian continent to block the rabbits' path and prevent them from spreading to the most fertile agricultural areas.

　In this way, the first great wall in human history designed to defend against animals rather than against enemy troops began construction in Australia.

　Then, after seven years of construction, three anti-rabbit walls with a total length of 3000 kilometers were completed one after another. The scale of the project can be called a world wonder.

　While the 3000-kilometer Great Wall was completed, the Australians seemingly overlooked a problem: rabbits can not only run and jump, but they can also dig holes! Furthermore, with Australia's sparse population at the time, there simply wasn't enough manpower to maintain the 3000-kilometer Great Wall.

　In this way, after experiencing several floods and strong winds, and having a lot of holes made by rabbits, the Great Wall of Australia was soon scarred and became useless.

　——Just like China’s ancient Great Wall could not stop the invasion of the Hu people from the south, Australia’s modern Great Wall cannot withstand the burrows of rabbits.

　Seeing that the Great Wall had been breached by rabbits, the desperate Australians decided to "fight barbarians with barbarians", no, "fight beasts with beasts"!

　Specifically, they introduced the rabbit's natural enemy, the fox, to Australia.

　At first, the foxes did kill some rabbits, but soon the clever foxes discovered that the slow-moving marsupials native to Australia were much easier to catch than the swift-moving rabbits. So, the foxes abandoned the rabbits and began hunting marsupials and birds unique to Australia. To prevent these precious native species from becoming extinct, Australians had to go back and kill the foxes.

　Just like that, before the Australian rabbit plague subsided, the Australian fox plague broke out again.

　So much so that when people talk about Australia, they often make fun of Australians for not being able to even control their rabbits.

　But in fact, in addition to the rabbit and fox plagues, Australia was also suffering from a cat plague - almost at the same time as the rabbits were breeding explosively, cats that wandered from immigrant ships into the Australian wild were also surprised to find that they actually occupied the top of the food chain in Australia!

　Don't be fooled by their small size and the cute, adorable meows they make when begging for cat food. In reality, wild cats are ruthless hunters, bred by nature. Furthermore, cats can be quite ferocious. They don't just attack prey to satisfy their hunger; they also attack innocent small animals to practice their hunting skills or simply for fun.

　Therefore, when feral cats began to proliferate in Australia, native species suffered a devastating blow. A century later, the feral cat population across Australia had grown to 600 million. At first glance, this number of feral cats may seem insignificant compared to 100 billion rabbits. However, unlike herbivorous rabbits, cats are carnivores and expert hunters. These 600 million feral cats kill approximately 3.1 million birds, 6.5 million reptiles, and a large number of mammals each year, leading to the extinction of at least 22 native animal species!

　What is even more counterintuitive is that when the cat plague was rampant in Australia, the Australian continent was also suffering from a rat plague at the same time!

　Australia was originally a land without rats. After the British colonists brought rats there, the Australian environment was suitable for rats to reproduce. When there was enough food, a pair of rats could produce 500 offspring in a quarter. So they quickly multiplied into a huge population. Every few years, a rat plague would break out. The rat population would explode to a billion in a short period of time, making Australian farmers very worried.

　They are suffering terribly.

　When the rat plague was at its worst in Australia, even the fish caught by fishermen in New South Wales had rat remains in their stomachs, resulting in heavy losses for the fishermen: because not many people were willing to eat fish with dead rats in their stomachs.

　Wait a minute, aren't cats and rats natural enemies? How come cats and rats are so prevalent in Australia?

　Because in this strange place of Australia, wild cats and mice live in different habitats: wild cats mostly live in remote wilderness, while mice are concentrated in human settlements and make a living by stealing granaries. The living areas of the two do not overlap, so wild cats naturally will not catch mice from far away.

　What's more, even if mice and wild cats live in the same area, in Australia, wild cats prefer to hunt local birds, lizards, etc. that are easy to catch, rather than mice that are agile, hidden, and difficult to catch - cats also like to bully the weak and fear the strong!

　In this way, cats and mice, which were originally natural enemies, achieved the miracle of peaceful coexistence in Australia.

　So, in other places, cats usually catch mice. Only in Australia do humans have to work hard to catch cats and mice at the same time.

　Despite these two-pronged efforts, Australians have been unable to eradicate rats or control the feral cat population: the Australian government has announced a plan to reduce the feral cat population by 200 million. But Australian hunters can barely catch rabbits, so how can they afford to hunt down so many more agile feral cats?

　Relying on hunters wasn't enough, and poisoning and trapping weren't always effective. Wild cats, as clever as they were, quickly learned the rules of survival in the wild and could discern traps and poisonous foods. The result was a protracted war between humans and cats in Australia, just like the war between humans and rabbits.

　In the end, it took the Australian government five years to eliminate 20 feral cats, which was not even enough to keep up with the reproduction rate of feral cats!

　What is even more incredible is that in addition to rabbits, foxes, cats and mice, even camels, known as the "ships of the desert", which are valuable livestock regarded as necessary partners by Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, can become rampant pests after arriving in Australia!

　- In the mid-nineteenth century, around the same time that Thomas Austin introduced rabbits to Australia, other European colonists introduced camels from India, Afghanistan and other places as a means of transportation to Australia in order to explore the arid desert areas of the Australian interior.

　Camels, with their drought resistance and strong load-carrying capacity, once became the mainstay of transport in Australia's deserts. Just as in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, camel caravans and camel riders appeared in the Australian inland deserts in the second half of the 19th century.

　In those barren lands where horse-drawn carriages cannot reach, you can see camels and camel drivers working diligently and willingly.

　But by the beginning of the 20th century, with the development of railways and roads and the popularization of cars, camels were gradually eliminated from the Australian desert.

　Most of the camels were slaughtered, but some camel owners were reluctant to kill them and chose to abandon them in the wild.

　If it were Asia or Africa, releasing a few camels into the wild would not cause any problems, but this is the magical Australia - so, because Australia lacks natural enemies of camels and has strong adaptability to the desert environment, wild camels began to reproduce rapidly in Australia.

　After all, Australia's largest carnivore is the dingo, a descendant of the Chinese native dogs abandoned by ancient Chinese sailors. But look at your local dogs: can they hunt camels? Or herds of camels? You're kidding!

　Camels also reproduce at an astonishing rate. With a lifespan of up to 50 years and a reproductive period of 30 years, female camels give birth to a calf every two years, and their population doubles every nine years. Eventually, there were a million feral camels across Australia!

　While a million camels might not seem like a large number compared to 10 billion rabbits, a camel's appetite is many times greater than a rabbit's. Combined with the rabbit plague, the combined camel and rabbit plagues have completely devoured the grasslands along the edge of the Australian desert, leading to widespread desertification.

　Now, in addition to fighting the human-rabbit war, human-cat war, human-fox war, and human-rat war, Australia also has to go to war with camels, and even use a large number of armed helicopters to wipe out wild camels - US military helicopters strafed the Viet Cong in the rainforest, and Australian military helicopters strafed camels in the desert!

　But even with such heavy firepower, the Australians fought desperately and only killed about 16 camels, barely curbing the growth of the wild camel population in Australia. It is still a long way from truly eliminating the camel disaster in Australia!

　If we say that the above-mentioned combat targets, although not humans, are at least mammals.

　Then, in the following "Emu War", the Australians were so embarrassed that they couldn't even defeat the birds.

　- The emu is an ostrich-like chocobo, two meters tall and able to run at speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour. In 1932, a drought caused about 2 emus to migrate from inland Australia to coastal farmland. They ate wheat, destroyed fences and competed for water, causing farmers to complain.

　The Australian army dispatched a company armed with machine guns to exterminate the emus. However, the emus were extremely alert and scattered at the sound of gunfire, making it impossible for the troops to catch up even with their vehicles. As a result, the soldiers used up 20,000 rounds of ammunition and a large amount of gasoline. They only managed to kill 12 emus, a dismal achievement.

　Afterwards, the Australian army organized a second bird hunting

　The operation expended another 10,000 rounds of ammunition, but only killed 40 emus. The newspapers mocked the Australian military as "men are worse than birds," and the military became an international laughing stock. The Australian government then offered a bounty to civilian hunters to control the emu population.

　(However, by 1988, Australians had officially defeated the emu and stopped hunting it. However, the timeline of this book only reaches 1971.)

　Since Australians were defeated by both animals and birds in the various "interspecies wars" of the early to mid-20th century, did they not achieve victory at all? Not really. They at least triumphed over plants, specifically, over Australia's "cactus plague."

　Also in the mid-19th century, British settlers immigrating to Australia introduced cacti from South America to beautify their estates. Due to their drought tolerance and ease of growth, cacti quickly spread throughout the vast, arid interior of Australia.

　As a result, starting in 1900, cacti in Australia were completely out of control, spreading rapidly at a rate of 100 million hectares per year.

　By 1925, cacti had covered 2400 million hectares of land in Queensland, New South Wales and other places, causing a serious ecological disaster: these cacti occupied large areas of pastures and farmland in rural Australia, leaving cattle and sheep with no grass to eat, and farmers were forced to abandon their land.

　So, while battling rabbits and cats, Australians also had to wrestle with cacti. They first diligently cut down the cacti, only to find, in despair, that their rate of growth couldn't keep up. They then resorted to chemical spraying, but the cacti were so resilient that ordinary herbicides proved ineffective. Arsenic was the only option, a costly and harmful solution that seriously polluted the land and water.