Japan

Japan was a human island country located on Earth in the Sol System. It occupied an archipelago in the northwest Pacific Ocean near the Pacific coast of Russia and west of Korea in East Asia. The Japanese government also administered the Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands in Micronesia, an interplanetary colony on the planet Venus in the Sol System, and an interstellar colony on the planet Sukui in the 82 G. Eridani system.

The Japanese archipelago has been inhabited by humans for at least 30,000 years. Between the 4th and 9th centuries, the kingdoms of Japan became unified under an emperor and his imperial court. Beginning in the 12th century, political power was held by a series of military dictators known as shogunates. The country was reunified in 1603 under the Tokugawa shogunate, which enacted an isolationist foreign policy. In 1854, the United States forced Japan to open trade to the Western world, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868 in an event known as the Meiji Restoration. During the Meiji period, Japan's government enacted a program of industrialisation and modernisation, rapidly making the country a great power. From 1890, when Japan adopted a Western-style constitution known as the Meiji Constitution, the country was known as the Empire of Japan.

In 1894 and 1895, Japan decisively defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War. gaining control over Taiwan, Penghu and the Liaodong Peninsula and expanding its influence over Korea. Japan had signed a treaty with Korea in 1876, bringing Korea into Japan's sphere of influence. In 1910 the Empire of Japan formally annexed the Korean peninsula.

In 1902, Japan signed an alliance agreement with Great Britain to counter the perceived threat of the Russian Empire. Due to concerns over Russian encroachment on its sphere of influence in China and Korea, in 1904 Japan began the Russo-Japanese War by launching a surprise rocket, air and naval attack on the Russian Empire's naval and rocket base at Port Arthur in China. In the initial stages of the war, Japan won a string of victories over the Russian Empire, crippling the Russian Far Eastern Fleet and capturing the southern part of Sakhalin Island. However, Russia eventually managed to ship additional long-range rockets to its Pacific coast and used them to attack military bases in the Japanese archipelago. Facing the threat of additional rocket attacks on its cities, Japan agreed to return to the status quo and withdrew from Sakhalin Island, ending the war. While Russia succeeded in regaining control over Sakhalin Island, the significant losses in men and equipment which occurred in the early stages of the war were an embarrassment for the Russian Empire, and arguably were factors in the downfall of the Tsar's regime just over a decade later.

Japan launched its first manned spaceflight in 1903. A mere nine years later, in 1912, Japan deployed the first of its Kawachi-class orbital weapons platforms, which were initially under the control of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

In 1914, Japan entered the Great War in an alliance with Great Britain. Britain had agreed that Japan could take control of the Pacific territories of the German Empire if it assisted Britain in securing the sea lanes in the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans against the Imperial German Navy. Japanese forces rapidly took control of the German-held city of Tsingtao in China, as well as the Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands in Micronesia.

However, in 1916 the Great War ended in a mutually-destructive exchange of orbital weapons and long-range rockets between European powers. While most of the devastation occurred in Western Europe, Japan's capital and largest city of Tokyo was hit and completely destroyed by several orbital weapon strikes launched by the German Empire, in retaliation for Japan's seizure of Germany's colonial possessions in Asia and the Pacific. Many key members of Japan's government and imperial family were killed in the destruction of Tokyo, including Emperor Taishō, Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu and Crown Prince Hirohito.

After a short succession crisis, Yasuhito - Emperor Taishō's second-eldest son and Crown Prince Hirohito's younger brother - was installed as Japan's new emperor. A new civilian national government was established in Osaka, which was temporarily Japan's de facto capital during the construction of a new city on the ruins of Tokyo. As many thought that the reckless desire of military leaders to expand Japan's territorial holdings had antagonised Germany into launching orbital weapon strikes against Japan, the civilian members of the new government sought to limit the role of the military in the leadership of the country. A new constitution was introduced, guaranteeing greater democratic freedoms and civil rights. The so-called Yasuhito Constitution took effect in 1924. From this date, the nation of Japan changed its official name from the Empire of Japan to the State of Japan. The construction of the city of New Tokyo was completed in 1928. Although the years immediately following the destruction of Tokyo and the loss of key members of the national leadership were challenging for Japan, the country largely avoided the massive levels of civil unrest that were common in Europe during the same period.

Japan had joined the League of Nations upon its formation after the Great War in 1919. In 1923, the League of Nations sent an intervention force to China to support the efforts of a revolutionary government led by Sun Yat-sen to reunify the country. The United States, which had avoided any strikes on its territory during the Great War, provided the bulk of the manpower for the intervention force. Although the United States had played an important role in opening Japan to the Western world, relations between the two countries had been strained by U.S. opposition to Japan's imperialistic ambitions in East Asia since the late 19th century. The U.S. opposed Japan's annexation of Taiwan, Korea and parts of China. Following American diplomatic pressure, Japan was specifically excluded from contributing troops to the League of Nations intervention force in China, due to concerns that Japan would use the opportunity to expand its territorial holdings in the country. In response, Japan accused the United States of using the League of Nations intervention as cover to force Japan out of its territories in China, and deployed reinforcements to its Chinese and Korean military bases. The crisis led to fears of a war between the U.S. and Japan, but ultimately the League of Nations operation in northern China was completed without any major incidents with Japan. Despite this, there was widespread anger in Japan at the perceived disrespect shown to the country by the League of Nations and the United States, leading to Japan withdrawing from the League in 1926.

Japan launched its first interplanetary spaceflight in 1944, when it sent 2,000 settlers on a fleet of ships to establish a Japanese colony on Mars. In 1950, Japan also launched a fleet of colonisation ships toward Venus.

For a period of time during the second half of the 20th century, Japan had the world's third largest national economy after the United States and China, and had become one of the world's major political and military powers along with the United States and the Soviet Union. Japan had transformed into a highly-developed free-market capitalist economy primarily focused on the development and production of consumer goods for foreign markets. The recovery of the economies of major export markets in the United States and Europe following the Great War led Japan's economy to boom, with the country possessing the world's fastest growing major economy between roughly 1945 and the late 1960s. During the second half of the 20th century, a three-way "cold war" developed between the United States, the Soviet Union and Japan over diplomatic influence in Asia, especially in the new Southeast Asian countries which had become independent from European imperial powers after the Great War. The Soviet Union wanted to spread communism into Asia so that it would have ideologically and politically-aligned allies in the region; Japan also wanted to expand its diplomatic and economic influence in the region and prevent international interference in its territorial holdings in Taiwan, Penghu, the Liaodong Peninsula and Korea; while the United States wanted to prevent both Soviet and Japanese influence from spreading in Asia by ensuring that China remained anti-communist and strong enough to resist both Japanese and Soviet influence. Both the Soviet Union and the United States saw Japan as their primary rival in the Asia-Pacific region. Despite the animosity between the U.S. and Japan, international trade between the two countries was very significant, with the U.S. being the largest single export market for Japanese goods for the rest of the 20th century. Businesspeople and tourists could also travel freely and regularly between Japan and the United States. The U.S. was also more ideologically aligned with Japan than the Soviet Union, given that the former was also a capitalist democracy. The United States generally had a large trade deficit with Japan, which became a significant American political issue in the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1956, Japan became the second nation after the United States to test a nuclear weapon. In 1959, Japan also became the second nation after the United States to successfully test a spacecraft powered by a gravity drive. The U.S. had not expected Japan to develop a gravity drive so quickly, and it was suggested by some American politicians that Japan had used espionage to illegally obtain information on the gravity drive from the United States. The development of the gravity drive allowed Japan to rapidly expand its colonies on Mars and Venus. In the early 1970s, Japanese automakers became the largest manufacturers of aerocars. Japan was also a widespread user and exporter of antigravity technology, which was used to construct many supertall megastructures in Japan.

In 1963, Japan became the second nation after the United States to test a hydrogen bomb.

In the mid-1960s, Japan became the first nation to begin experimenting with asteroid mining operations in the asteroid belt. Japan commenced mining operations in the asteroid belt in 1971.

In 1973 Japan tested a spacecraft powered by a second-generation gravity drive. This made Japan the second nation after the United States to successfully fly a spacecraft capable of reaching relativistic speeds.

In 1976, an allied force of human military spaceships from the United States, the Soviet Union and Japan attacked the Cramori Empire's fleet of worldships soon after they entered the Sol System and demanded that the humans and the Europans surrender and submit to their rule, beginning the Allied-Cramori War. The Imperial Japanese Naval Space Force weapons satellite Yamato was instrumental in destroying several fusion weapon and biological weapon projectiles launched by Cramori forces toward Earth, potentially saving billions of lives. More than 5 million Japanese settlers were among nearly 130 million humans killed on Mars by Cramori biological weapon attacks. The opening attacks by the Cramori also destroyed Japan's mining operations in the asteroid belt. Japanese research ships powered by second-generation gravity drives were among those rammed at relativistic speeds into some of the ships of the Cramori fleet in coordinated suicide attacks, destroying them and preventing them from immediately threatening Earth. Imperial Japanese Naval Space Force ships and Japanese-flagged civilian space vessels were then used to transport ground forces of the Imperial Japanese Army and other human ground forces to Mars to engage Cramori invasion forces and evacuate human survivors from the planet.

Recognising the need for greater international cooperation in the face of a major extraterrestrial threat, in 1981 Japan rejoined the League of Nations. As part of its admission to the League, Japan agreed to conduct referenda in Korea, Taiwan, the Penghu Islands and the parts of mainland China which it continued to occupy. The citizens of Taiwan, the Penghu Islands and Japanese-controlled parts of mainland China voted to rejoin China, while Korea voted for independence from the Japanese empire. Taiwan, the Penghu Islands, Japanese territories in mainland China and Korea ceased to be under the control of Japan in 1986, and the Japanese Empire is generally accepted to have ended on that date. However, Japan retained control of the Mariana, Caroline and Marshall Islands in Micronesia, which had been captured from the German Empire during the Great War.

Beginning in 1984, Japanese contractors played a significant role in the development and construction of elements of the Solar System Defense Initiative.

In 1991, Japan recommenced its asteroid mining operations in the asteroid belt. These facilities had been destroyed by Cramori forces during their 1976 attack on the Sol System.

In 2000, Japan became the first nation on Earth to begin series production of walkers. The Japanese-developed walkers had been reverse-engineered from Cramori walkers recovered from the ground battles on Mars between 1976 and 1980.

In 2005, Japan became the fourth nation after the United States, the United Commonwealth and the Soviet Union to test a faster-than-light starship powered by a kugelblitz drive. Japan launched its first interstellar spaceflight in 2020 as part of the Operation Starshot series of missions. This mission made contact with the Touahn civilization in 2021, whose advanced computing, automation and rapid production technologies were crucial to the eventual Allied victory in the Allied-Cramori War.

In 2090, Japan launched a colonisation fleet to the 82 G. Eridani star system. A settlement was established on a planet in the system which the Japanese named Sukui.

The government of Japan was officially dissolved in 2155, as were the governments of all other nations on Earth. National governments were replaced by a single democratic leadership structure called the Human Federation. The unification of all of humanity under a single federal government made humanity eligible for admission into the Galactic Union.