Solar Empire of Japan

**Dev. Status** | Original units and building In-game

*"May your reign*

*Continue for a thousand,*
*Éight thousand generations,*

*Until the pebbles'*

*Grow into boulders*

*Lush with moss"*

- *"Kimigayo"* - *"Japanese National Anthem"*
The **Solar Empire of Japan**, also known as the **Empire**, the **Japanese**, or **Japan**, is the polity representing Japan and her Imperial Dominions . Once an obscure power that shut itself away after a strange incident in the Russo-Japanese war, coming out only to manage its relatively modest colonial empire and engage in trade; the Empire of the Rising sun first came to the world's attention when it attacked the Allies during the second world war with the intent of securing some important concessions from the Comintern, acquire some key islands and loot from the Allies, testing its ideas for war and seeing the mettle of its enemies. The reasoning for Japan's requests for its participation in the war would not become fully clear until the third world war, where it used what it had gained and learned in the second world war to launch a devastating attack on the Comintern and the Allies; accompanied by a number of factions opposed to the current world order, and also being forced to confront Epsilon when that force went rogue.

As the Axis that the Empire fought four different world power blocs across every continent on the planet, the Empire eventually found that it had underestimated the resolve and the strength of its opponents. And even their fantastical technology and warrior spirit could not overcome the simple reality of them being gravely outnumbered by their enemies who had the reserves to recover from initial setbacks and strike blows the Empire could not easily recover from. With the Crown Prince and Emperor dead in the wake of the third world war, the crown has passed to Kamina, a direct relative of the house of Yamato who was sworn in as the new Emperor and the new heir to the divine lineage of Ryujin and Amaterasu. For now, the Empire seems content to try for economic supremacy and control in the world, using its fantastical technology to gain great wealth; but while the Empire has been humbled, it has not been defeated, and millions of soldiers still stand ready to finish what had been started.

## At a Glance

 **Motives** | World Conquest, Economic Expansion, Technological Supremacy

## Background

### Land of Cherry Blossoms

The event that is perhaps most responsible for the path the Empire took is a strange incident during the Russo-Japanese war; as the Japanese were assaulting Port Arthur, a flash of light heralded the sudden emergence of a number of Comintern vehicles sent backwards in time due to a malfunction in the Chronosphere that was meant to teleport them into an Allied base. The Comintern vehicles quickly engaged both sides in confusion, dealing substantial damage before naval artillery from a number of battleships was called down by the Japanese. Even modern tank armor could not hope to contest the impact of the twelve inch guns and the crews of the vehicles were reduced into bloody mash. Eventually victorious but confused, an enterprising commander ordered the vehicles to be taken back to Japan for study.

For decades, Japan would remain quiet, taking what they had learned from the future and combining it with the formidable power of Japanese science to advance considerably. Due to the seemingly miraculous nature of the event; the idea of Japan's divine destiny to rule the world began to gain considerable traction. How could they not have the favour of the Gods when they had so clearly been blessed with such a gift after all? Briefly participating in the first world war to take some German colonial concessions and shore up Entente defenses in the southern pacific and fighting some bloody battles in the eastern waters with a naval blockade and some amphibious actions; successfully overrunning Zhenzuren as part of the war effort thanks to their technology and adding it as part of their empire, the Empire generally remained a quiet observer in world politics. It was not until the second world war that they would come to the fore.

Seeing that the Comintern was in difficult straits in their war with the Allies in the pacific region due to other commitments drawing away their ability to help Zhou Enlai's North China or revolutionaries; and feeling more threatened by the Allies' Eurocentric overtones than the Comintern's strategic goals; the Empire came to the Internationale with an offer. They would support the Comintern war effort in exchange for certain concessions of territory, funds, trade (particularly in resources the Empire was poor in such as Oil and Iron) as well as supporting their claim to a number of allied held islands. Seeing little other option to save Zhou Enlai's Socialist China and Communist guerrillas in the east and pressed by the Totanian attack to the North; the Comintern acceded to Japanese requests. With the trades in place, the Empire waited for the right moment to strike, and when that moment came it fell upon the Allies like a divine wind.

With staggeringly successful and daring campaigns the Japanese had stabilized the situation in China and even allowed counter attacks and reseizure of occupied territory to take place. In the pacific they had turned the colonies of the Allies from a recruitment base into a quagmire for the Blue Lion. The allied colonies in the Southern Pacific were also invaded in tandem with communist forces as part of a counter-attack; and the Canadian pacific fleet was forced to cease its submarine and surface raider operations to protect its own coastline from the mighty Japanese war machine. So roughly had the Allies been handled in the Pacific that they struggled to even supply their holdings in the southern pacific and were forced to siphon off huge amounts of resources to deal with spirited insurgencies and the increasingly dominant Communist and Japanese pacific fleets.

When the end of the war came; Japan emerged as an absolute victor. Everything they had set out to accomplish had been done with little cost to the Empire and when the reconstruction period came; Japan was highly sought out as a creditor and a source of engineers to repair the damage done. They had expanded their borders considerably at the expense of the Allies and Comintern both, The Empire was now respected and considered a world class power, granting the Japanese unprecedented prestige. With such a glorious outcome, the Empire of the Rising Sun believed itself invincible and that soon it would be time to carry out their heavenly mandate to rule the world.

### The Wind Builds

Emperor Yoshiro and his son Tatsu would prove to be a formidable duo. Just as they had built the military that had gained them such glory and spoils in world war two, they would build an army that would surely win them the third world war to come. All able bodied men and women were trained to some degree for battle; though women would not be permitted in the military outside of a number of usually gender segregated roles. The Empire's continued heavily pro-birth policies had created a large population suitable for the conquest they sought even as people moved out of the crowded old holdings of the Empire and into its newer acquisitions, creating Japanese metropoli and majorities where there had been none overnight. The Empire's industrial capacity continually grew as Yoshiro, Tatsu, and the shogunate sought to create their military machine and all manner of strange projects and weapons of war were commissioned.

Just as important was the Empire's outreach for allies. Contacting others who opposed the Allies and the Comintern in equal measure, the Empire formed a powerful Axis with rebuilt remnants of the old world order destroyed by the first world war, those who followed a cabal of people who wanted to strike down the shadows they saw in the world, those who sought a restoration of extinct monarchies and dynasties, and those who dreamed of a free Africa. Each seemed to have a contradicting goal, but they all had common enemies in both the Alliance and the Communists if they were to achieve those respective ideals, they could determine who among them would be the sole ruler of the world after they had won. In clandestine meetings they conducted in the years between the world wars, they built the bedrock for what would be their challenge to the first and second worlds.

The Empire would build a massive army. Using the labour freed up by the increasing mechanization of their economy, the Empire would secretly build an empire that numbered in the tens of millions. Whether they were ashigaru reservists or were full time members of the mighty Imperial Japanese Army, they would be amassed to prepare for the greatest surprise attack in human history; all according to the meticulous planning of the Japanese high command. But it would not just be infantry wielding rifles who would bring forth Japan's destiny to rule all the lands the sun shone upon, it would be a vast fleet of tanks, new mecha, robots, aircraft, ships, and more. And they would be fighting with one of the world's most formidable arsenals.

Knowing full well about Japan's population limits, the Empire sunk vast amounts of funding into research projects to give them an edge over their opponents. They would not fight their foes with conventional arms any longer. Standard guns gave way to kinetic burst weapons and superheated slugs, new anti-tank plasma cutters were developed, rockets replaced with intelligent burst missiles, wave force weapons would bring a new standard of firepower to the Japanese military, nanotechnology would be weaponized on a powerful new scale, and earlier experiments into psychic research were intensified so as to provide Japan with a technological edge against any possible foe.

And to go with these new weapons would come new platforms. New robots, new vehicles, new ships, new planes, new mecha that would put the clumsy old designs from the prior war to shame. Blended together in an army that would combine the thinking of the futurists of Japan with the militarist establishment and the traditionalist bloc into an army worthy of the divine wind that would scour the world and bring all under the sun under one house. Serving as the lynchpin of this peerless assault would be the new floating fortresses that would serve as the logistical backbone of this mighty army. With their assets readied, all that needed to happen was an opportunity for the right moment to strike.

### The Glare of the Sun

That day would come with the outbreak of world war three. With the struggle between Socialism and Capitalism fully underway the world was once again plunged into war on essentially every inhabited continent. But the Empire would bide its time for just the right moment to strike; shepherding itself and its allies as it moved the pieces into the right positions on the board. There would be no mercy for the Gaijin who had not seen the wisdom of joining the Axis of Powers. And waiting for just the right moment for the Alliance and Internationale to be at the crux of their war with one another; the Empire and her allies struck out all at once. Western Europe was to take the initial thrust of the invasion's long range strategic strike force delivered by a large number of black tortoise guarded fleets as the Japanese deemed that that the Allies would have a weakly defended western flank while port facilities across the pacific were suddenly struck by the mighty arm of the Kido Butai to make way for brutal amphibious invasions.

In Africa, Japan's allies in the Pan-African League rose up all at once and started to relentlessly drive the Alliance out of their own coloniesand crush Comintern Client states, adversely affecting their war effort as the Majestica inclusive poured out of its bases around the world; particularly in the Atlantic through which they made a number of destructive surgical strikes. And around the world, the Guardians of Monarchy proved to be wily foes in their mad quest to restore as many old monarchies as possible, attacking places such as France, Brazil, Mexico, Russia and more to bring back their beloved Kings and Emperors. Meanwhile the Empire ran rampant through the Indian and Pacific Oceans and at the height of the success of its long range strategic strike forces, was launching attacks as far as Liverpool and Calabria as well as Los Angeles and Leningrad.

In these blows, Japan dreamed of a conquest even more ambitious than that of Hideyoshi, with Japanese troops making rapid progress all over the world. However, there was an uncounted for factor in the Empire's plans, as the powerful force of Epsilon rose forth to make its own play for world domination simultaneously. Though the Dominion was as surprised by the Empire's furious assault as the Empire was by the Dominion's plans for global conquest, the clashing attempts to conquer the world had proven to be the final straw for this third world war going according to anyone's plans. Even the mighty spirit of Bushido was shaken by the horrendous abominations that Geoffrey's minions threw at them, and the indoctrinated and cloned hordes of Epsilon and its own allies seemed endless.

Even worse, the enemies of the Empire began to rally and the Empire found that it had overestimated its own forces. The weight of the world began to turn against it as its forces began to withdraw farther and farther from their furthest points of advance. They were being driven from America, they were being driven from the Soviets, they were being driven from India, they were being driven from Indonesia. Their dream of global empire was starting to seem more and more far fetched with each passing day. Then a series of blows struck them. The battle of Guam tied up a great number of ships, many of their occupations were turning into bleeding sores that drained resources, Epsilon forces had defeated them at Tasmania, then the Interntionale struck at Pearl harbor to disguise a strike force just as the Alliance did the same at Taiwan; then the triple blows came.

An assault at Mt.Fuji and southern Honshu and Ryukyu lead to the deaths of Yoshiro in a clandestine raid while Alliance forces were busily trying to do as much damage as they could before the Imperial Fleet could stop them, then the International launched the invasion of Tokyo with a massive army just as Tatsu was enthroned as the new Emperor. Though the Axis fought hard, Tokyo was lost and the northern part of Japan was proving difficult to reclaim. The Shogunate had hoped to regroup and retaliate, but a surprise Epsilon invasion of Kyushu ended up killing much of Japan's high command and the Hokkaido fortress was levelled by the Zephyr Revolt. While there were some encouraging results like the stabilization of fronts elsewhere and a successful strike on an Epsilon genetic superfactory and the downing of the Zephyr mega-airship *Atraxia*; Japan decided to sue for peace.

Though the peace was far from as harsh as it could have been (the Empire was allowed to keep many territorial gains such as the Philippines), the experience had been humbling. An Armistice was signed with the Alliance and Epsilon, while a special peace treaty was signed with the Communist International. While the Empire's imperial house would be retained and it would hold onto its empire (with the exception of Korea), Japan was to open itself to the world and the Comintern in particular, joint operations would be conducted with the International to build solidarity, and the Zaibatsu were to begin the process of cooperatization and collectivisation. Though in theory Japan and the other powers of the Axis were still the "third world bloc", the Comintern put its foot into the door of Japanese politics and the Japanese Communist Party would emerge from hiding and establish a coalition with the left-monarchists.

However, the Empire has recovered tremendously quickly, its GDP already bouncing back as the Empire once again flexes its mighty financial muscles and engages in heavy trade and rebuilding. And while the Empire is officially now a nation that claims to have reflected on the feasibility of violent conquest and now pursues the path of peace, the land of the rising sun still waits and plots and does battle where its armies are needed. And for all of the new Emperor Kamina's talk of a new direction for Japan, the Imperial military remains vast and is rebuilding and inventing new weapons of war. Weapons that are being tested in the new theaters of conflict the Empire finds itself involved with such as containing the Chinese or Revolutionaries in its sphere of influence, weapons that may one day take what is rightfully Japan's.

## Imperial Armed Forces of Japan

*"Just as there is one Sun in the sky, so too is there one Empire. And under that one Empire, there is one Nation of people. And to protect that nation, there is the Defence Force. See the rows upon rows of loyal warriors, each one the pinnacle of their position within society! See the shining Mechanicals and Armoured Divisions, their paint bright and their banners gleaming with the light of the Sun! Listen to the roar of the glorious Imperial Airforce and the ripples left in the wake of the Imperial Navy, and know that together they will overcome any obstacle. Everything is in its place, and like a great machine it all comes together into one vast whole."*

- *Opening broadcast of the "Imperial Defence Force And You" show, which instructs and teaches Imperial subjects about proper interaction with soldiers and military officials.*

## Protocols

A list of protocols used by the Empire.

Template:SolarEmpire Protocols