Imperial Japanese and Soviet Moonbases! (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this scenario, a set of strange flashes appear on the surface of the moon, Followed by strange radio transmitions comming from the lunar surface. In Japanese and Russian. Eventually it is confirmed that what look like settlements have appeared there. What happened transplanted the Japanese and Soviet lunar colonies from an alternate dimention to this one.

Long story short on the history:

The war in the pacific was averted through complex political stuff (including not allying with Hitler and declaring war on the Third Reich), with Japan getting to eat up China with impunity. Barbarosa was delayed for ten months. When it did happen, it was fairly quickly stopped and by late 1944 the Third Reich had been thoroughly curb stomped by the USSR and a larger amount of Europe (including all of Germany) fell under soviet occupation. The soviets were stronger having incurred less damage than in OTL and by shipping east captured German Industry. The US still did and completed the Manhattan Project on time. In the end, the world had three superpowers: The Empire of Japan, the USSR and the US while Britain managed to hold onto some of their colonial empire while Australia and Canada stayed close. By the 1950s all of these states had nuclear weapons and by the 1960s, all of them had active space programs with much tighter completion. Starting in the late 1970s with the creation of orbit to orbit spacecraft in orbit and really kicking off in the 1980s there was a strong drive to set up permanent settlements on the moon to establish space industry and they gained the ability to manufacture more and more onsite. The American and British settlements were left behind.

The Soviet and Japanese lunar colonies both have about 200,000 people each. Most of these (about 70%) are miners, technicians, engineers, factory workers, hydroponic farmers and so forth required to maintain these facilities. The rest are Bureaucrats and other administrators, local government, clerks, people employed in small businesses, doctors and other such people, scientists, a few tourists, spacecraft crews, police, agents and a military garrison of about 10,000 personnel, most of which are infantry with some light vehicles and technicians for defense systems including an extensive laser defense system, though treaties were put into effect which kept them (at least until now) from developing moon based nuclear arsenals. The Soviets are more spread out with twelve smaller bases and one central settlement with 40,000 people while the Japanese are more concentrated with six colonies. The colonies are mostly self sufficient at this point when it comes to keeping their population alive, able to manufacture most of what they need save for high end microprocessors, and they have those stockpiled. For energy they have vast sets of solar panels to provide energy. For transportation, they use electric rovers.

In orbit are some general purpose satellites and docking stations in orbit, as well as several shipyards and about a hundred and fifty ships capable of lunar orbit to earth orbit. The smallest are a few old craft that can carry a few dozen tonnes of cargo and a small number of personnel and the largest are newer ones capable of transporting up to 2,000 tonnes of cargo or hundreds of passengers. In addition there are various launch craft capable of getting into lunar orbit, as well as a few disposable landing pods capable of reentry and a couple of space planes capable of escaping earth’s atmosphere.

The heads in charge of both the soviet and Japanese moon colonies are fairly level headed, but are patriotic to their states.

What happens?

Zor

[lordroel]

Is there are reason why the American and British settlements where not brought along or is it because neither the Empire of Japan ore the Soviet Union are exciting in the present.

[BinaryRaiders]

I'll take a shot, this sounds like a fun thread.

First, do they appear here in our world?

Second, a major aspect of the Manhattan program in history as far as I can remember was using the bomb, but if it was finished on time in 1944, and Japan ate up China, and Russia essentially consumed most of Europe, when and where was it used? The reason for this is it can affect reactions to other national states, namely say X had a tendency to drop nuclear weapons. And I would think even though they are level-headed by growing up in their respective cultures some of this bias might be passed on.

Now, say they appear in our world, I bet attempts to contact them and figure out what was going on would ensue, first and foremost as both leaders are level-headed. Afterwards, well they have a very large advantage being on the moon already, maybe something might be tried against them, but seeing as how they have what amounts to a way to drop large moon rocks into earth and we presumably have nuclear weapons I do not think conflict is likely - though I would count on much more funding for space programs. Trade on the other hand could likely benefit everyone, from their position and existing mines on the moon they using their own lift capacity they could ship us rarer metals that we would otherwise have to strip mine from Earth, and we could send them microprocessors.

[Simon_Jester]

I for one would love to talk to people who come from an America that has a moonbase, just so I could double-check my dirty suspicions about which policy decisions the US took in the past forty years which precluded our having a moonbase.

That said, 200000 people on the moon by 2011/2012 is pretty implausible in any alternate history...