Homeostasis and upheaval; tension and harmony

Since the end of World War II and the unconditional surrender of Japan to the Allied forces, Japan’s armies have been designated Self Defense Forces.  These forces were mandated to be small remain local by our constitution, which was heavily influenced by the United States’ oversight of the Japanese post-war reconstruction. In the past 5 years, the Japanese Self Defense Forces have been deployed abroad for the first time since the war.  These deployments have sparked national concerns regarding their constitutionality, but with backing from His Imperial Majesty the Emperor as well as the United States, the Japanese Self Defense Forces went forward with international aid projects.

            It came to our attention that, with growing military powers on the Asian continent as well as a massive cleanup effort underway from the Great East Japan Earthquake, our Self Defense Forces were no longer large enough to both guarantee our national safety and continue with international aid projects.  A choice had to be made.  Lest we sound weak to both our citizens and the international community, we framed the withdrawal of forces from international aid work as a simple legal and constitutional issue.  Afraid for our safety, and working to hide our Self Defense Force’s weakness and dwindling size, we also made clear our intent to protect our islands by any means necessary in this article written for the Global Signal.

           

To align ourselves more completely with our national laws, Japan is currently taking action to return its Self Defense Force personnel to the islands.  Article 9 of the constitution, written in 1947, states:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

As such, effective immediately we are withdrawing Japanese Self-Defense Forces from humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in Africa and Asia.  The Self-Defense Forces will remain on our islands as originally intended, as a national extension of local police forces.  The forces will also play crucial roles in ongoing disaster relief efforts following the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Although we are taking steps to comply with our laws by renouncing the use of armed forces to settle international disputes, we retain the right to defend our nation with force if necessary.  Our Self-Defense Forces will remain well-trained and well-equipped, and our long-standing military defense alliance with the United States shall remain intact.

Thank you.

Mr. Satoshi Morimoto

Since world domination by military power is no longer within the bounds of Japanese law, the Japanese military decided to covertly work toward world international cooperation.  Japan sought to ensure our safety by forging strong international alliances and by encouraging global demilitarization.  The following is a transcript of a communication between the Japanese defense forces and the editor of the Global Signal.

The Japanese military is covertly seeking the total or partial disarmament of nuclear weapons worldwide and the reduction of offensive military capabilities of all nations aside from the US and ourselves.  Our ultimate goal is world peace and we intend to work toward this goal by fiercely protecting our own borders while pressuring other nations to cooperate with our plans -- or else.

Mr. Satoshi Morimoto
Minister of Defense

The balance of powers in the world was forever changed with the messages received from 55 Cancri.  Japanese scientists discovered the signals, and the Japanese military had forewarning enough to draft a communication to fellow military leaders supporting international cooperation in building the alien machine.  The military communication was done via email and received no personal response from military leaders of the world. A similar communication was sent to the Japanese government, scientists, and citizens, to a similar end.  It is unknown what effect these communications had on national and international decisions to support the Machine, but it was one of the first Machine-related messages to reach international audiences.

Having made our stance clear to both the Japanese and international communities, the Japanese military continued to wait for a response via The Global Signal.  Although personal communications failed to jumpstart diplomatic procedures, perhaps diplomacy could be negotiated through broader media.  The global media, headed by Big Brother (お兄さん), was the first to have an article in the Daily Signal regarding the machine.  Big Brother evoked the names of popular United States scientists in an address that implored global communities to build our military powers rather than work on building the Machine.  Big Brother’s own words summarize his position:

A strong Earth is a safer Earth, and if you need a job, push for the expansion of the military, it can only help us all in the long run.

Since the rise of global military power is antithetical to the Japanese military’s goals, an updated version of our original personal communique was released to the Global Signal posthaste.  It was our hope that quickly proposing an alternative to global military buildup would prevent too many people and countries from simply following the lead of the global media.  From our perspective, an oppositional stance had to be made before Big Brother’s ideas gained momentum.  It is not our custom to be so forthright and argumentative in such a large medium, but in the interest of Japan’s safety and the prevention of global war, we were compelled to do so.

With all due respect to Big Brother, I feel it is against our best interest as a planet to get involved in an arms race with the aliens from 55 Cancri.

1945, Japan suffered the unfortunate tragedy of two atomic bombings.  Our cities were decimated and hundreds of thousands of citizens died because we defied a country with technologically advanced weaponry.  It is my belief that we are now in an intergalactic, rather than international, crisis of a similar nature.  The aliens that sent the message from 55 Cancri are clearly technologically superior: they have sent us schematics for a device whose purpose our top scientists can not understand; they have sent us a repeating message consisting of all prime numbers; and they have managed to bend time and space to receive and send messages much faster than the speed of light.

Building weaponry and preparing for war with the 55 Cancri beings is irresponsible.  It is our job as leaders to protect our populace from undue harm, and we cannot afford to make enemies of unknown and technologically superior beings.  Furthermore, if we should not need to go to war with the 55 Cancri, we will have created thousands of weapons which can only be used for human destruction.

Rather than position ourselves as both a technologically inferior and war-mongering planet, I strongly suggest our nations cooperate on building this alien machine.  We should do everything in our power to make allies of these aliens lest they destroy us, or worse, lest we destroy ourselves with the rise of global military powers.

Mr. Satoshi Morimoto
Minister of Defense
Japan

During an international summit, Viviane Reding, the European Union’s Executive, revealed her plan to increase the EU’s military budget by one trillion US dollars.  This increase in military budget was supposedly in response to the looming alien threat; at the same time, the EU’s government declared the ($5 trillion) international Machine-building budget “fiscally irresponsible.”  This struck the Japanese military as disingenuous: with international cooperation, building the Machine would only have been as “fiscally irresponsible” as increasing the military budget by $1 trillion, as no single country was expected to fund the entire project.  Furthermore, Japanese espionage experts planted in the EU’s military also revealed the EU’s possession of a new and extremely deadly weapon.  This weapon was said to be stronger than a nuclear warhead; combined with the EU’s plans to increase their military budget despite extreme financial hardship, the Japanese military decided the EU was preparing for war.  At this point, the Japanese military reassessed our goals.

The Japanese military's top priority is preventing global buildup of military weapons and personnel, especially by those that are against the building of the Machine.  We are most troubled by the EU's initial plan to increase their military budget by one trillion US dollars and hope to engage in diplomatic relations to curb this spending.  We are most concerned about the rise of military powers and believe the "alien defense" argument for building military power is a thinly veiled attempt to build global empires using military might.

Our second priority is working to complete the machine on time.  This objective has been in the forefront of our consciousness.  His Imperial Majesty the Emperor has decided to go forward with building the machine, and he has taken the machine instructions from the 55 Cancri.  In a way, I suppose, we are now following orders from His Imperial Majesty as well as the 55 Cancri beings?

Immediately following the summit in which the EU’s budget plans were revealed, global military leaders held our own summit.  The Japanese were caught in an uncharacteristically emotional state.  Forced to engage on such short notice with a military leader that was possibly planning our destruction, the Japanese military confronted the EU’s military leader directly.  The EU’s military leader was accused of attempting to build an empire and attempting to start a war or an arms race, among other things.   In the face of such direct accusations, the EU agreed to delay the trillion-dollar increase in their forces.  The Japanese military handled this delay delicately: it was noted that it was not a complete cancellation of the buildup of military forces, but it was also noted that the EU went forward with this delay in the name of international cooperation.

Meanwhile, progress on the Machine continued, and the Japanese military stayed committed to our original support of it, as well as our support of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor.  The Machine was starting to yield impressive scientific gains for us; the Latin American Union used Machine plans to learn how to synthesize Rare Earth Elements from common rocks, solving some of our more pressing technology production concerns.

In our next global address, we took the time to thank the EU’s military for their diplomacy, although we still personally held them at arm’s length.  We hoped, with a message of support and brotherhood, that we could forge a working relationship; this would prove especially important, as China and Russia joined the EU in an alliance known as the Resistors.  This address was also the first to recognize our alliance with the Latin American Union, which would soon become very important to our cause.

The Japanese military is committed to serving His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Japan as well as our people.  His Imperial Majesty, under guidance of our scientific community, has decided to work with the Latin American Union as well as the United States in building the 55 Cancri machine.  As a military, we are fully in support of His Imperial Majesty in this decision.  Many members of our self-defense forces are remaining on the islands, but some have been deployed to undisclosed locations around the world where 55 Cancri machine parts are currently being built.

The alliance of the European Union with Russia and China has increased our awareness of local military action, as our military and diplomatic relations with these neighbors has not always been positive.  We appreciate, however, the European Union’s decision to delay the building of military forces, and we take the EU’s action to be a gesture of good will and peace.  We can only hope that our positive relationship with the EU will color our ongoing relationships with China and Russia, and together we can welcome a new dawn of brotherhood.

 It is my belief that the 55 Cancri have sent us this message as a tool to bring the people of Earth together, united in a common goal.  As a military, we will do whatever we need to bring this goal to fruition.  We look forward to the cooperation of the other nations of the world in bringing us closer to the 55 Cancri and their hopes for human cooperation.

The address is one of many that served to unite Accord nations in our dedication to the construction of the Machine.  The Resistors, however, continued to threaten Accord nations with their military power.  The European Union in particular saw the Machine  as dangerous and flexed their military muscles in an attempt to dissuade Accord nations from continuing its construction.  Such threats are best captured in this quote from a Global Signal piece from the European military:

I think of myself as reasonable man and would be terribly dismayed to use military force if a settlement does not result from our summit tomorrow. Despite my position as defense leader, employing military strength is never the first option to solve a pressing global issue, however I will advise my troops to do what they must for the safety and stability of our nations.

The Japanese military was once again put in the delicate position of supporting His Imperial Majesty the Emperor while attempting to dismantle growing military tensions.  At this time, the Machine’s plans had given us even more amazing gifts: we learned how to open and stabilize wormholes; we found plans on how to build cold fusion reactors which gave us cheap, clean, limitless, and safe energy; and we found within the Machine a plan for an impenetrable shield.  From a military standpoint, the shield was the most exciting of the Machine’s gifts.  Our ongoing military tension with the Resistors was now mostly a moot point.  Although we could have used this opportunity to invade Resistor countries and demand their cooperation, it was not within our constitution, nor was it within our goals as a military, to settle our dispute with the Resistors using military force.  We were committed to peace through diplomacy, and we continually attempted to make our peaceful intentions explicit.  We purposefully did not reveal our shield or its capabilities, as we did not want to contribute to the Resistors’ impetus to build their militaries.

The Japanese military remains firmly committed to the orders of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Japan.  The building of the 55 Cancri machine has brought an unprecedented sense of peace and transnational cooperation between Japan, the US, and the Latin American Union.  From a military standpoint, we are excited about the opportunities that this global cooperation has brought us.  Perhaps this is naive, but we are looking forward to a day when global military powers no longer have to brandish weapons and threaten each other. We hope to bring forth an age where we can cooperate and work together to achieve what is best for all.

In response to the European Union's fears regarding the machine, including the EU's military threats, we must let this be known: Japan is not looking for war.  The Japanese military is going forward with our orders from His Imperial Majesty, and His Imperial Majesty has thought deeply about the needs of our populace as well as the impacts the 55 Cancri Machine may have on global safety.  As a country, we are committed to world prosperity, not mass human extinction or world war as Mr. van Osch would have you believe.  Those who join the Accord shall enjoy the fruits of our collective labor -- unprecedented scientific discoveries, unknown intergalactic horizons, and the beginning of a era of human peace and global cooperation.  We wish no harm to the Resistors -- we recognize their autonomy and the depths of thought that must go in to their decisions to not support the Machine.  The Japanese military hopes only that we can coexist peacefully in our two different trajectories.

Following this address, it was made clear to the Accord that we needed more allies to make the construction of the Machine a reality.  Our alliances with Canada were stronger than those with the European Union, as His Imperial Majesty the Emperor once lived in the same college dormitory as Prime Minister Stephen Harper.  Furthermore, Canada had not been as strongly against the Machine as the European Union, and its position in the Western hemisphere made it physically very close to many of the Accord nations.  It was decided that bringing Canada to the Accord would be an easy way to complete the Machine on time.   A personal email between myself and His Imperial Majesty revealed His Imperial Majesty’s confidence in a new alliance with Canada.

The building of the Machine went forward, and on the final night of the Old World, we were left to reflect on the changes that were to come.  In a journal entry, I pondered on the nature of change and what this meant both personally and for a nation and a globe.

            It is exceedingly uncommon to know the exact date and time of the end of an era; it is easier, generally, to mark beginnings.  When the Great East Japan Earthquake devastated our islands, everything suddenly morphed into something that no Japanese citizen could have imagined.  There was no warning, no time to reflect on the events that were to follow. The ending of the pre-earthquake era was instantaneous; the beginning of our new lives was, and is, a much slower project.

The things one does before the end of an era are the things that define us as people.  When this ending is unscheduled and unpredictable, we go about our lives.  We go to work or to school.  We play sports or games.  We water our plants, pet the cats, and clean our apartments.  We think about the daily tomorrows, the deadlines, the meetings, the laundry, the dinners to cook.  We think about going to that new ramen shop on the way home from the train station.  Then, one day, tomorrow is not just a tomorrow; it is an after.  After the earthquake.  Our humanity is redefined and our tomorrows become something else.  We are no longer laundry-doers and ramen-eaters.  We are nuclear disaster cleaners and search and rescuers, rubble sifters and shelter managers.  We become something other than what we were before.

The birth of my daughter was  a bit more predictable than the earthquake.  The pregnancy progressed, my wife’s belly going from flat to distended in a few short months.  Doctors predicted her due date – the zero-hour, the end of our previous lives.  Still, we do not celebrate the end of life before a daughter; we celebrate the beginning of hers.  Perhaps this is what it means to know that the end of an era is coming.  Perhaps to know of an incoming ending is simply to predict a beginning.

The knowing, in itself, brought forth a different dilemma.  We couldn't stop our minds from skipping ahead of the todays and tomorrows, skipping to the after.  We anxiously anticipated the infinite futures that could have been, and we made mental lists of how best to prepare for millions of outcomes.  We bit our nails and waited.  Waited.  We stayed up late, red-eyed, wondering when and how and why. Even now, memories of the days before her birth are dominated by things that did not happen outside our minds.  In a way, the event of her birth brought grounding: where the before of the event was cerebral and indistinct, the after was earthly, demanding of the whole body.

I cannot pretend to know who we will be tomorrow.  I am left with the simultaneous dread and excitement inherent in change, in the infiniteness of what has not happened yet.  All that is left to do is wait.

And with that thought, the Old World was over.  When the Machine was turned on, we received a message that the Resistors had vanished.  They had been excised, as a tumor may be excised by a skilled surgeon.  We had completed a rite of passage and were told to grow in peace and wisdom by these beings that had caused half of the humans on the planet to disappear.

The Japanese military had mixed reactions to this new world.  With the absence of all of our military enemies, global tensions seemed to disappear.  It seemed like we had been given the perfect opportunity to become stewards of global peace.  Militaries had become obsolete as all remaining nations were united in their work on the Machine.

Still, the disappearance of the people of Eurasia left the Japanese military with some regrets.  What is global peace if, in order to achieve it, one must excise half of the planet?  Where have the people gone?  Even though they may have been considered our enemies when they were on Earth, we did not wish for their disappearance.  We wonder what could have been done differently.  Although we are certain the Machine is a force for good, as it has given us the directive to grow in peace in wisdom, we wonder what must have happened to those who failed the test, who failed to find peace.

With these regrets in hand, we continued with the cleanup and peace efforts that would define the New World Order from the perspective of the Japanese military.  The future would have to be written rather than the past.  The excision provided us with a peaceful emptiness as well as the ability to go forward without hindrance from our stubborn and bellicose neighbors; using this mixed blessing to the best of its ends, we redesigned ourselves not as a military, but as an international Order of Harmony.

The New World Order presents an enormous opportunity to redefine ourselves along the lines of what we would like to be rather than what we have been in the past. With the loss of the EU, China, and Russia, all of the military adversaries of the Accord's individual nations have disappeared, and we are left with very little geopolitical strife.  We will never again get such an opportunity to build a lasting peace across nations.  The 55 Cancri have chosen us, as peaceful and scientifically capable humans, to join them in the community of life.  It is time for us to live up to their expectations, lest we fail our Zok'chi/d and be "excised" as the other half of our populace has been.

Japanese nuclear scientists, cosmologists, and astrophysicists have all studied the environmental impacts of the disposal of our nuclear waste using a Machine-created wormhole.  They have deemed that this transportation has had no negative effects on the universe.  As a symbol of both our lasting peace and our intention to join the Community of Life, the Japanese military suggests that all nuclear weapons and war machines be disposed of on February 1, the first day of International Friendship Month. At this time, we can hold a global celebration at the location of the Machine.  The celebration will mark the end of cold wars and mutually assured destruction and the beginning of the New World Order.  The transition will take time and effort on the part of all countries involved, but with cooperation, it is assured that it can be accomplished.

With the beginning of the New World Order, militaries as they were known in the Old World will be obsolete.  Our energy resources are infinite, as are our new technological abilities, and our alliances are deep.  Both the Japanese military and the Canadian military have a history of being used for humanitarian and peace-keeping efforts across the globe; it is our suggestion that global militaries be deployed to underdeveloped areas of the Accord nations and depopulated areas of Europe and Asia to work with local populations and to aid in cleanup efforts, respectively.  Military units will be retrained to function as corps of engineers, building infrastructure along their deployments across the globe.  Those military personnel who are less fit for infrastructure work will be necessary for cleanup and salvage efforts in the Eurasian continent.  It is estimated that the existing engineers in the Japanese military can start this work effective immediately, but increasing our global peacebuilding capabilities to their full potential will take 5 or more years as our former soldiers must be retrained.

With the blessing of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, the Japanese military will heretofore be referred to as the Order of Harmony.  Although the Order of Harmony will mostly be retrained troops, it is important that our roles be recognized as distinct from what they were in the Old World.  Furthermore, although the Japanese Military only welcomed Japanese citizens, we recognize the inherently global nature of the challenges we face.  In doing so, we recognize that these challenges are best met with a group that relies on the diversity of experience and talent provided by citizens of all Accord nations.  Private citizens of any job or skill set are welcome to apply to the Order of Harmony.  We actively welcome other countries and unions and their constituents to join the Order of Harmony, and we look forward to engaging in diplomatic relations with the other Accord nations to build what may be a truly global peacekeeping organization.

The Order of Harmony wishes to move forward with the US, Canada, and the nations of Africa and the Latin American Union in our creation of a peaceful and just humanity.  As the 55 Cancri have foretold, we will grow in peace, and when we have grown, we will be welcomed into the community of life.

Satoshi Morimoto
Minister of Peace
The Order of Harmony

The beginning of the New World Order also brought forward a new relationship between the global media and His Imperial Majesty the Emperor.  Although he initially supported the Resistors, Big Brother took refuge in Japan as the Machine went online.  At the dawn of the New World Order, a piece in the global media outed Big Brother as His Imperial Majesty’s chief advisor.  In a further shock, Big Brother addressed His Imperial Majesty by a name as of yet unknown to the people of Japan.  It would be revealed later that His Imperial Majesty had changed his name to Emperor Aidan in an attempt to reach an international audience.

The Order of Harmony has deep roots in the Japanese military; although we are peaceful, we are not naïve, and we are deeply skeptical of vast changes.  The sudden and intense relationship between the former Emperor and Big Brother left the Order with many things to consider.  The subsequent change of the former Emperor’s name led to the decision of the Order to eventually cease its association with the government of Japan.  The Order still relies on the structural support provided by the government, but steps are being made to create the Order of Harmony a separate and truly international entity.

A short series of personal communications from the Order of Harmony to Japanese scientists and citizens followed the former Emperor’s decision to change his name.  The communications, as with many personal communications sent from myself, went unanswered.

The first email:

The Japanese military is deeply disturbed by Emperor Aiden's [sic] change of name.  This name change flies in the face of thousands of years of Japanese history; furthermore, changing his name to sound more white and European is not "international," it is deeply racist.

What are your responses to such a drastic action?

The second email:

It's easy to want "one global race" when you are part of the "ruling race" of Westernized Japan!

The Order of Harmony revealed their newest recruitment materials at an international summit.  At the same summit, the Order of Harmony announced their growing distrust of the former Emperor of Japan.  The former Emperor further offended the Order in his defense of his new name, citing thousands of years of Japanese tradition as not that important.  We are left at this moment, unsure of our place in the global political structure, but now determined to not work under the man who calls himself Emperor Aidan.

Before the end of the Old World Order, we enjoyed a certain amount of homeostatis: the European Union threatened military action, the other militaries of the world were relatively quiet regarding international affairs, and the Japanese military tried to diffuse tensions and create peace between the Accord and Resistor nations.  The upheaval caused by the building of the Machine still reverberates today.  The former Japanese military is now being converted to an international Order of Harmony; the former Emperor of Japan is deeply mistrusted by those that were once his most loyal subjects; and though we grow in a certain level of peace, national and personal interests still prevail in the New World.  The excision has given us a reorganization of global powers, but will it allow us to grow in peace and in wisdom?