Questions - General Nippon

Nippon

Roots: Japan

Languages: Japanese, Spacer, and various traditional ethnic languages.

            Religion: Modern forms of Mahayana Buddhism and Shinto are most common.

Government: Monarchy / Technocracy

            Present Location: Exists entirely in orbit, primarily in Houou, Hotei, and Suijin, the three great city ships of Nippon.  Also, the Japanese have thousands of smaller craft in orbit all around the solar system and are keen on pushing even beyond that.

            Prosperity: High, as the people of Nippon produce some of the best in computer technology and corner the market on robotics and hard tech cybernetics.

	Ankor Phett	EIN	Latania	Arabica	EUC	Mosc	Ocea	Solar Israel	Blane Consi	FSA	Indus Corp	PIC	RTA	Scrap Town
Nippon	0	+***	0	0	0	-	0	0	0	-	0	-	0	-

Nippon Characters (so far)

• Hideashu Yamamoto - Post Exodus Supreme Leader of Nippon, instituted Matial law to oversee space-arc projects, now near death
• Cmdr. Kotaro Isao - Nippon captain in charge of the Houou (Phoenix), their largest Space-Arc
• Motoko - New Nippon combat specialized AI robot 'dipped' from the continuum

Nippon Current

• The Hou-ou, Suijin and Hotei are all completed, the Hou-ou being the last, but the largest space arc which will orbit the sun without a particular place; most in the Asteroid belt
• Also closing in on FTL travel
• Rarely use gates
• Cybernetic parts and upgrades are large part of profit %
• Helps Keper’s team by rescuing them after Shiva incident

• Nippon is trying to break the monopoly of EIN on sol system travel by developing FTL (faster than light) travel; in doing so also creating more advanced and unique cybernetic humans and ‘dipped’ personas to handle the stress; also since they are the only ones without a logistical planet base and have already created their 3rd space-arc, are eager to move to the farther reaches of the system and beyond

• Nippon – based on high level of robotic hard and software, can explore much more of the current solar system and is attempting to go further; “Dips” and other cybertronics and cyborgs are more and more common to help with life on other planets and stars.

Nippon (by Nick)

            The great Exodus that came of the Lunar disaster in May of 2074 changed the character of the societies of humanity forever.  Countries were born and others died, man took to space in favor over his scorched home world, and the great era of the corporate nation came into being.  Amongst the myriad peoples who fled the falling rocks for the stars one deserves particular mention, Nippon.

            Japan continued its advancement and specialization in technological wonders of all kinds through the better part of the 21st century.  The Japanese excelled in the design and production of all types of computer and information technology and lead the world in the creation and production of robotics, cyberware, and advanced AI software.  Another side interest that developed in Japan during this time was space travel.  While countries like America, Russia, and China had long had national space programs and many other nations and large mega-corporations had developed at least fledgling programs of this kind by the 2050s, Japan was unique in its pursuit of small scale private space travel.  By the opening of the 2070s there were literally dozens of companies and firms producing all kinds of small spacecraft in Japan.  They hoped to find profit in the stars and push their science to the edge by extending it beyond the globe but just as much as these pragmatic reasons space held a certain wonder for the Japanese.  The source of this is hard to place.  It probably has something to do with of a kind of popular culture bleed over from their various comics, movies, and video games playing in this genre but whatever it may be Japan was always more willing to invest huge amounts of capital in questionably profitable space travel programs out of the sheer wish to push the envelope than were other countries.  So, when disaster hit, the Japanese were surprisingly well prepared.

            Of the small fraction of humanity that survived the Lunar disaster, most made it off on a relatively small number of “super ships”, huge vessels capable of holding 50,000 or more people a piece.  The lucky ones belonged to countries with several of these or worked for corporations who had some of their own.  Others were lucky enough to be taken in as refugees aboard the ships of other nations.  China was one of the most charitable in this way.  The Japanese however left in a different manner.  There were two such ships controlled by Japan, one by the government and another by Japan’s largest aerospace firm, but most Japanese made it off in the tens of thousands  of little space craft owned by the government and even more so by companies and private citizens.  These vessels, holding anywhere from eight to a thousand people a piece, left the earth like a swarm of bees.  They were separate but all remembered their connections as citizens of Japan.

            Japan would further set itself apart and greatly define its future destiny by its actions in the first years after the Exodus.  Most survivors scrambled for the few patches of Mars and Luna with colonies completed or at least under construction.  Most all of these were controlled by the Chinese or Americans but these nations allowed many foreigners within their protection in those dark times.  Japan however refused such invitations.  The Japanese chose instead to endure the hardship of living in the “tin can” atmosphere of spacecraft rather than come under the aegis of another nation.  They came together as a people and sought to carve their own destiny out of space itself.  The technological ambition of the Japanese did not end with the Exodus, and after months of discussion and deliberation the future fate of the Japanese people was decided by its living government officials and the highest ranking individuals within its remaining corporations.  The country would remain a democracy officially, but for a period of 50 years it would enter a kind of temporary socialist state as a form of an emergency martial law movement.  During this period all the resources and people of Japan would be direct towards a single primary goal; the construction of a home.  But this home was to prove unique, for unlike any other nation Japan had no intention to seek some other planet or moon to inhabit.  Instead the Japanese planned to remain in space and build their homes amongst the stars.

            50 years proved too short a time to fully complete its goal, but the great construction projects of Japan were mostly finished by 2125.  It would be only a few more years until all was complete.  In the end, Japan came out with three massive colony ships.  Hou-ou, meaning “phoenix” is the largest of the three and spans miles and miles across.  It is said more than 15 million people can live comfortably within it.  Suijin and Hotei are not quiet as large as Hou-ou but are still giants housing as many as 10 million a piece.  Truly, the three great city ships of Nippon are the most wondrous products of human ingenuity to date, followed closely only by the colony platforms of Indus on Ganymede.  But these are not the only assets of Nippon.  The Japanese have remained at the cutting edge of technological research and development, particularly in the area of computer technology, robotics, and cybernetics.  They are also known as travelers, having traversed the solar system in their fleet of small space craft since the early days.  While it is true they are again a democracy made up of elected officials with several massive corporations lead by CEOs as a kind of self styled new shogunate full with the competition and espionage such an arrangement suggests, the Japanese remain one of the groups with the greatest sense of racial pride and loyalty.  Though often regarded as strange, they are generally respected by the peoples of the Sol system for their genius, ingenuity, and dutifulness.

 

Questions

• Their space arcs have just opened their doors, per se.  Are they for anyone?
• Prolly not, but they might want to take more people
• What would they require of them?  Since they are quite stolid in grouping, would they even accept others or would they treat them as 2^nd class citizens?
• Are any of these “generation ships”
• I would say all of them have that capability if they chose so, but I believe they will continue to remain in system for the time being until they can access FTL or  work with EIN enough to get a gate that is to out of the system
• Course they have to work on their diplomacy a bit since they might go from friendly to unfriendly pretty soon
• From helping Keper after the accident?  Perhaps
• What are their views on extraterrestrial races?
• They are out there and it would be great to meet them and learn
• Hopefully there will not be a war, but I see Nippon as pretty heavy when it comes to firepower, which is also why EIN wants them to be friendly
• They can not take their ships through the gates, but why don’t more Nipponese smaller craft do so?
• They feel insulted perhaps or they are artistic – ‘to know the spaces, you have to travel them, not skip through them’
• They employ lots of drugs to remain young and healthy (as well as rigid exercise programs
• What is their main plan, now that they have 3 floating ‘islands’ in space? (a theme they know all too well, I assume
• Ensure survival
• Enhance marketing of goods
• Explore farther and farther
• These are the 3E’s, I wonder what they are in Japanese?
• How many of their citizens 1) made it off Terra AE, 2) are ‘bertied up’? 3) can dip into the stream?

Nippon

Definite Ships: 3 – 37,000

Definite – Myriad Tot off: 36,000

• Not many made it off
• But many of them were in their own ships
• These intrepid spacefarers are immortalized in their cultural history, stories and now up and coming legends

• How many are cybernetic?
• I would venture that most of them or all of them are born natural, but then in infancy, fitted with certain transistors and components that help them along their ships, so that most are somewhere between 10 to 50% electronic machine.  Perhaps more and more people are preferring even higher % rates as well – as a way to access the stream more successfully
• How many can dip?
• I am not even sure what this means
• Having access to the realm of gate tech?
• After AE, all those little craft had to refuel or get O2 or basic food stuffs to keep on going.  Where did they go to for help and who helped them?
• I would think many did die for lack of food etc…
• Some did go to Mars and Luna, but they were seen as weak.
• Making synthetic food and fuel was important as well as mining early on in the belt and on minor moons
• I would think solar sailing would be more common as well here
• Why did they not want to settle on a moon or planet either as their own (protect and fight) or by themselves?  Why would they prefer the tin can feeling?
• As mentioned above, pride most of all and the feeling of wanting to leave and explore
• How far advanced are they on FTL?
• They are reaching relativistic speeds of up to 50% LS