Hauksberg And Hayato

The purpose of military intelligence is to understand the psychology and motivations of an enemy. It would be fatal to treat compromising and uncompromising enemies identically. In Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry, Lord Hauksberg assumes, without taking the trouble to find out, that there is a "reasonable" element among the Merseian High Command whereas Max Abrams of Naval Intelligence, having studied the Merseians, knows that they do not reason like Terrans and treats them accordingly. This makes Abrams a warhawk according to Hauksberg.

In SM Stirling's The Stone Dogs (New York, 1990), the Alliance plan is to demonstrate overwhelming power to the Draka, then to demand that they disarm and gradually reform. A Japanese scientists knows that:

the old Japanese military caste, if shown the power of nuclear weapons, would have surrendered and sacrificed themselves for the nation;

to the Draka, their caste is their nation - if that were to be destroyed, then they would destroy the world in retaliation.

So there is an important difference between the Japanese and the Draka. The scientists, knowing this, begin to act independently of their government. Another factor is that the Draka clearly have some comparable secret weapon and will not hesitate to use it. Delay is not an option.

Although we understand the reference to Japan, details differed in the Draka timeline:

"...the rain of fission weapons that had brought down the Japanese Empire towards the end of the Eurasian war was still a sensitive subject." (p. 413)

Kandemir, Vorlak And Japan

Previous comparisons with Japan:

Ythrians And Cormorants
Japan And Avalon
Merseians And Russians (see combox)
Hauksberg And Hayato 
Fanciful Comparisons: Ythrians And Japanese

In (Star) Wars, I compared a Kandemirian to a Japanese. I should also have mentioned another comparison: the Kandemirians squat before legless desks under arching leaves. (Poul Anderson, After Doomsday, CHAPTER SEVEN, p. 74)

Later, Anderson explicitly mentions Japan but in connection with Vorlak:

"'All Monwaingi writing does go from left to right, like English or Erzhuat, and not from right to left like Japanese or Vorlakka.'" (CHAPTER TEN, p. 103)

Erzhuat is a Kandemirian language. Having discussed number systems, the characters now discuss scripts. How many ways are there to write on a page? Left to right or right to left, obviously. Maybe up or down as well?

English language sf writers describing aliens can make them sound Asian, e.g., by calling places of worship "temples." A Japanese sf writer might refer to alien "churches." Really, of course, aliens should sound like nothing on Earth.

(Did I say this before? Once when I went to meditate in the Quiet Room of a Youth Hostel, I was joined by a Japanese man reading his Bible.) (I did. See Acculturation, Art And Horror and Passing The Time In Space.)