Reaching for the Stars [PH] - Jane's VI 3 Feb 15

[Fizwalker]

A few questions about some of the pre-WWII history in this timline! (Which may help with determining where Japan fell when sides were determined.... )

Does Japan maintain it's Alliance with England during RftS WWII?

Does Japan invade China?

Does the U.S. try to counter Japan's moves in China?

If the U.S. does try to pressure Japan to cease it's conflict, how aggressively does it do so? Is there a coherent overall strategy to it?

If there is a show down between Japan and the U.S., do the Japanese back down, or do they plunge the Pacific into war?

If there is a war, does the U.S. have the political will to finish it, or do the Japanese hold off the U.S. and end it with a negotiated peace? (Think if Japan attacked Pearl Harbor after it declared war on the U.S. instead of before.) Would lingering animosities spur the Japanese into trying to out-do the U.S. and other Colonial powers?

(China, if it survives to be a going concern, might also develop it's own space program to counter a Japanese one.)

In Real History, Japan and Britain were allies up until the late 1930's, when the treaty came up for renewal. Due to the Japanese adventures in China and under pressure from the U.S., Britain let the treaty expire. If Japan isn't running amok in China, there is a good possibility that the Alliance would be renewed (which might mean that Russia would have to worry about two fronts rather than one.)

If the Japanese are fighting the Chinese, then whether Japan joins a side becomes more interesting. Britain might maintain the alliance just to keep another conflict from erupting on the other side of the world from where it needs to concentrate, and to maintain it's own possessions in the Far East (much like how the Triple Entente and the U.S. let Japan take German possessions in the Pacific during WWI in reality.) On the other hand, if the U.S. isn't involved in the war in Europe, then it would be free to deal with Japan and may bring even more pressure on Britain, perhaps even sooner than in real history. In this timeline, Japan might have it's own space program as well.

Very interesting reading!

On another note, will RftS configs work along side the RO configs? Or are they mutually exclusive?

Edit: Is there another location to get the ReStock Parts Pack? It seems to be lost since the SpacePort transitioned to Curse..... >.>

Edit#2: I'd like to use the RftS engines for my own alternate history--tho probably renamed to be Japanese/Chinese I think. (Might ask you a few questions about that at a future date, if you have the time! ) Thank you in advance!

Edited February 3, 2015 by Fizwalker

[NathanKell]

Fizwalker: the divergence is quite far back (during the US Civil War, in fact). Japan has developed somewhat differently (and in particular relevance to China the Sino-Japanese War is different and less one-sided) but Japan remains the obvious proxy for Britain to ally with against Russia and thus the Anglo-Japanese alliance still occurs. Indeed, it is the promise of Japanese aid in securing India against Russia which makes Britain feel sufficiently secure to not come to an entente with Russia (or, therefore, France).* Most of your questions, I think, presuppose a 1930s situation [i[far closer to real history (or, said differently, a divergence much later) than is the case with RftS.

*I am very much persuaded by the argument that the reason Britain decided to join the Franco-Russian entente was its fear of the indefensibility of India (without which Britain felt it would no longer be a Great Power) in the face of Russian invasion--or at least indefensibility without compromising sufficiently with the tenets of British rule (i.e. giving in to Indian demands for self-government) so as to form a large enough Indian Army to do the task itself.

An additional factor in the (differing) development of Japan is that its model, Prussia/Germany, is a far different creature in RftS. Lacking nearly twenty years of Wilhelm I and Bismarck, instead developing for that same period under Friedrich III, Germany has begun to resemble much more the England of the latter's wife. With the political power of the army broken after an attempted coup, with the conservative elements in the Reichstag finally deciding that far from implicit support of the Kaiser (a tolerable policy even under the odiously liberal Friedrich) they must actively limit the authority of his firebrand son, and with said son due to his early escapades making overtures to the left-liberals and even the hated SPD...well, if the Meiji Constitution is based on the German one as it was in real history, it too will be a different creature.

I do still think the genro will look to Germany as a model, though somewhat less than in OTL (i.e. real history). Russia, of course, cannot be a model, nor can strife-ridden, reactionary Austria. France may be a dictatorship in all but name, but for all its conservatism it is a populist dictatorship, run by the son of a lawyer, and no fit model for Japan. Germany is a stable constitutional monarchy, one where the Kaiser has far more power than Britain.

Therefore the constitutional settlement in Japan--designed by genro who have seen the dangers of the military in politics in their model power, Germany, as well as the danger of the people in politics (as they feared OTL) will be different, different enough that the (equivalent of the) Taisho period does not come to an end.

[Fizwalker]

Very interesting, it seems the Pacific rim is a bit more peaceable in your timeline! . Looking forward to reading more of this, (if it isn't dead)

[NathanKell]

Thanks!

It's...hibernating. Though if you haven't read the other thread you should, though even that is a few months out of date.

Although actually with RO more or less OK for 1.0, I've been feeling the urge to get back in to this. I never posted all the Jane's aircraft (1.0 QA/Exp/etc bit all my time, then updating RO for 1.0), and I have a spreadsheet full of LVs....

Potential spoiler (per Bujold, author reserves the right to Have A Better Idea), a German spaceplane from a few years later:

Note: amazingly enough, I reentered that successfully in RO (though I had to make some changes to the gear).

EDIT: Oh yeah, re: the Pacific Rim. I still haven't fully decided whether Japan is involved in the Second World War; I'm vascillating between a China-Japan conflict (with China a Russian ally and Japan for the League) and both nations at (grudging) peace.

Edited June 23, 2015 by NathanKell

[Ravenchant]

Looks good! It's like this:

And this:

had a baby

[NathanKell]

It's actually more modeled on the Von Braun shuttle / ferry rocket.

(There's a model from Fantastic Plastics, actually.)

Edited June 26, 2015 by NathanKell