Terra and Japan: A Faded Bond?

Day 1,381, 01:11 • Published in Japan Japan • by Sophia Forrester

It would not be wrong to say that eJapan was lucky to be invited to the Terra alliance. At the time, we had been allied with the US, Canada, Australia and Ireland in the "Brolliance." Originally an informal club of to the US and Canada, the "bros" who fought off the PEACE GC invasion together, the Brolliance was expanded in 2010 to include three more English-speaking countries.

But by early 2011, the brotherhood was showing its age. PANAM was the new hope sought by the USA: An alliance with the former Phoenix nations of Brazil and Argentina. Of the nations who had sworn brotherhood, only Canada and Japan were invited to join. Japan was by far the weakest of the founding members, although we had significantly gained strength compared to the prior year. It was the goodwill of the USA that had made us the only founding member from outside the Americas.

PANAM soon became Terra, and with the addition of France and Germany, threw down the gauntlet to ONE: We intended to protect those two oft-conquered nations, habitual targets of powerhouses Spain and Poland, respectively. Even after ONE emerged as the leading alliance of the New World, Terra continued to fight for freedom. Unfortunately, Japan would soon begin to lose our sense of connection.

The trigger was a political dispute in North Korea. The Chinese ATO unit Volunteer Army and the native, English-speaking City Party had collaborated to push out the longstanding Russian PTO -- but the Chinese had begun to dominate, insisting on a more significant role. The two groups had agreed to take turns as Country President, but the Chinese broke this deal, unexpectedly calling the City Party a subversive group. Furthermore, when Japan's diplomats tried to intervene on behalf of the City Party, the Chinese exploited an open training war to invade, claiming that Japan had been corrupted by City Party influence.

Within a week, China had pushed Japan down to one region. Our Terra allies, pushed hard by ONE, were not able to intervene. But as sudden as it had begun, the war ended. It had either been a misunderstanding (as the Chinese now claimed), or a brutal attempt to show force before drawing back to establish an illusory peace.

It seemed that most of Terra believed the illusion, if that is what it was. China was an important member of EDEN, which was also under attack by ONE's onslaught. With the enemy at the gates, it was easier for them to trust China than to acknowledge the true situation. Indeed, most of our allies were not aware until quite late that the Chinese attacks had not been part of the training war. China kept Kyushu and Chugoku, but offered a token rent of Gold, more or less "take it or leave it."

And so, we drifted away. Our leaders saw China as an enemy, but our allies' leadership did not take this seriously. To them, ONE was the enemy, a clear and present danger that kept most of them constantly under attack. China was therefore a needed ally, and if they wanted to sweep their attack on Japan under the rug, Terra would not gainsay it.

Trust faded on both sides. We had faced a serious attack for the first time, and been ignored. But to our allies, the continued attacks of ONE seemed like the only true serious threat. It's easy to forget, now that the war is again confined to Europe, how America was wiped by the assault of five strong enemies at the same time. When our government protested China's defensive withdrawal from Kyushu, saying they intended to use us as a "meatshield," we must have seemed ungrateful to allies who had already been under attack from the war's start. The danger to a "meatshield" would have been far less than they'd faced from day one.

The irony is that Terra's success remains very much in our national interest. The dominance of ONE's alliance of the heavy hitters cannot be good for smaller countries. Terra gave us an opportunity to shift the balance of power, building an idealistic new alliance from the ground up. If we had remained engaged, the hasty move to eject us would have been unthinkable -- but engagement with an alliance is a two-way street. The truth is that both Japan and Terra lost an opportunity in July, and the next chance to change the New World may be a long time coming.