Outline for Kamikaze

[johnreiter902]

Tetsujiro Yoneda was one of Japan's brightest young scholars in the interwar era. A prodigy decades ahead of his time, he graduated from the Imperial University of Tokyo when he was 16. Like Leonardo da Vinci, most of his discoveries were so advanced they were incomprehensible to his contemporaries, and either impractical or impossible to build with modern technology.

Undaunted, Yoneda spent over 10 years working on his dream project, an armored and weaponized battlesuit with the power of flight which would turn an ordinary solider into a one man army. He had many friends in the military, and was raised to believe that Japan needed a strong military to defend East Asia from the Europeans. Tetsujiro had absolutely no interest in politics himself, but he deeply wanted to be able to contribute something useful to the world, something that would fill a real need and make the Empire of Japan a better place in the future, He was convinced that this was it.

He finished his battlesuit in late 1941. The Military High Command was very impressed by his demonstration, and praised him as living proof of Japanese superiority. However, the suit was so bleeding edge that nobody could operate it as effectively as it's creator. Re-tooling the war industry to mass produce the suit would take years, and draw away valuable resources from actual, practical technology such as battleships and tanks. So, they gave him a medal and a cash prize and decided to file the project for after the war.

This did not sit well with Dr. Yoneda at all. He created this suit to help Japan, and he knew he could do great good with it right now. He volunteered to fly the suit himself, and become a special operative for the Japanese government. This seemed like a good idea, particularly with the rising number of German mystery men. Japan felt the need to prove that they were the equal with their Axis partner. Yoneda was given the code-name Kamikaze (after the divine wind which saved Japan from the Mongols) and one of his first acts was to join the UBA.

In fact, Kamikaze's participation in the UBA was fairly intermittent, since even for him flying across Asia was no joke, though he did attend the annual meetings without fail for 3 years. Truthfully, Yoneda initially felt the code-name was ridiculous, though it grew on him over time. Still, he would do whatever it took to serve his country.

By early 1944, the situation for Japan was getting desperate. The high command looked into making more suits of Kamikaze armor, but it was even more impossible now than when the war began. To build enough suits to make difference would take so long that the war would be over by then. So the military leaders of Japan came up with. . . an alternate plan. They ordered Tetsujiro to design a stripped down version of the armor, with practically nothing expect flight. Kamikazi was puzzled, since he didn't see what use this would be, but was pleased to report that he could turn out a large number in a few months even working alone. Dutifully, he hung up his armor and knuckled down to work in his laboratory, churning out the simplified armor and training pilots to use it as fast as he could.

Then, in late 1944, he discovered what the high command wanted the armor for. They were loading the pilots HE TRAINED with high explosives, and sending them to fly into enemy ships and formations as living missiles. Yoneda was shocked, and outraged. He felt he had betrayed those men. He demanded that the government allow him to sacrifice his life in the same way. Honor demanded that he not send men to do what he would not do himself. The high command refused categorically. Only Dr. Yoneda had the knowledge to built more suits, his life could not be risked.

But Yoneda could not tolerate this. When he heard of the American invasion at Okinawa, and all the suicide fighters giving their lives for the homeland, he donned his armor for the first time in over a year and flew into battle against orders. He fought like a madman, until he had expended all of his ordinance, and then deliberately overloaded his battlesuit's main powersource to kill as many enemy as he could with his final breath. In his death, Kamikaze felt he had regained his honor.

[redsycorax]

Breathtaking, as always, John, and very logical in progression. Some points do occur to me. Although crossing Asia might be difficult for him if he kept close to the ground once he got past Myanmar/Burma to the west and occupied China to the northwest, might it be possible that his flight suit would permit high altitude travel, since only Nazi Germany's V rockets ever got that high up in the World War Two time frame? Granted, Tetsuo would have to have a self-contained respiratory system within his outfit, but that probably wouldn't be beyond him. I imagine that there'd also be a prearranged Axis code sequence available, so the Nazis wouldn't mistake him for a hitherto unsuspected Soviet or Allied weapon, once he entered Reich airspace. The other is the interest that the Reich might take in his technological innovation, although there may be chemical and metallurgical procedures that require rare elements not widely available within the Reich or within Imperial Japanese territories. Added to which, I suspect that they wouldn't want the Allies to learn if they had developed such technology (remember, the Allies had mastered the Nazi Enigma code, due to Bletchley Park and IT pioneer Alan Turing). There may not have been particularly skilled engineers in the Reich territories able to exploit Tetsuo's discoveries either.

After 1943, too, Kamikazi and Sumo may have been able to see the writing on the wall for Nazi Germany and returned to Japan to prioritise the survival of their own homeland. They wouldn't have been as bound by Nazi propaganda as (probably) Ubermensch would.

[johnreiter902]

Dec 4, 2022 2:42:01 GMT redsycorax said:

Breathtaking, as always, John, and very logical in progression. Some points do occur to me. Although crossing Asia might be difficult for him if he kept close to the ground once he got past Myanmar/Burma to the west and occupied China to the northwest, might it be possible that his flight suit would permit high altitude travel, since only Nazi Germany's V rockets ever got that high up in the World War Two time frame? Granted, Tetsuo would have to have a self-contained respiratory system within his outfit, but that probably wouldn't be beyond him. I imagine that there'd also be a prearranged Axis code sequence available, so the Nazis wouldn't mistake him for a hitherto unsuspected Soviet or Allied weapon, once he entered Reich airspace. The other is the interest that the Reich might take in his technological innovation, although there may be chemical and metallurgical procedures that require rare elements not widely available within the Reich or within Imperial Japanese territories. Added to which, I suspect that they wouldn't want the Allies to learn if they had developed such technology (remember, the Allies had mastered the Nazi Enigma code, due to Bletchley Park and IT pioneer Alan Turing). There may not have been particularly skilled engineers in the Reich territories able to exploit Tetsuo's discoveries either.

After 1943, too, Kamikazi and Sumo may have been able to see the writing on the wall for Nazi Germany and returned to Japan to prioritise the survival of their own homeland. They wouldn't have been as bound by Nazi propaganda as (probably) Ubermensch would.

A good point. He probably teamed up with the rest of the UBA for a fair number of missions. Even so, the majority of his adventures were probably in Asia, where Japan's main interest lay

[redsycorax]

And we also come to the question of moral responsibility here. To what extent was Kamikaze involved in Japanese war atrocities, like the Rape of Nanking, interrogation and abuse of Allied POWs, Japanese bacteriological warfare experiments, ad nauseum? I suspect that he might have had some contact with those Japanese who might have disagreed with their government policies, some of whom he might have respected. And don't forget the intensification of Allied aerial warfare in 1944-45. I suspect he might have been involved in some rescue activity when it came to air raid injuries and consequences.

[johnreiter902]

1) Rape of Nanking - I had him debuting in 1941, so he was still sequestered in his lab in the late 1930s, and only knew what was on the Japanese news

2) Interrogation and abuse of Allied POWs - He may have had some idea of how the soldiers he captured were treated, he may have even sat in on some interrogations.

3) bacteriological warfare experiments - He definitely would have known a lot of the scientists conducting those experiments. Of course, it was all secret, and compartmentalized, and he was an engineer, not a biologist or chemist, so he probably knew very little about what they were actually doing.

[redsycorax]

As a matter of interest, given that this version of the UBA co-exists with the classic Justice Society/All Star Squadron and is presumably set on Earth-Two, would Tetsuo have been acquainted with Wonder Woman's enemy Doctor Poison aka Princess Maru, whose specialty was bacteriological and chemical warfare and would therefore have been involved in the Chinese bacteriological warfare experiments? I can certainly see her expressing interest in the wider applications of the Kamikaze suit, for her own interests. She could be an ally of his within the War Ministry.

[johnreiter902]

Dec 5, 2022 0:47:55 GMT redsycorax said:

As a matter of interest, given that this version of the UBA co-exists with the classic Justice Society/All Star Squadron and is presumably set on Earth-Two, would Tetsuo have been acquainted with Wonder Woman's enemy Doctor Poison aka Princess Maru, whose specialty was bacteriological and chemical warfare and would therefore have been involved in the Chinese bacteriological warfare experiments? I can certainly see her expressing interest in the wider applications of the Kamikaze suit, for her own interests. She could be an ally of his within the War Ministry.

This is a qood question. I've often wondered about the interactions of the UBA members with other, non-affiliated, Axis villains. I'm sure they teamed up on occasion. Many probably didn't join because they valued their autonomy of operation and felt it would be a step down in their careers.

Another crossover that would be interesting would be a team-up between the Red Panzer and Kamikaze. Red Panzer is sort of his German counterpart. They both designed advanced battlesuits a hundred years ahead of downtime technology. The difference in their suits reflects the different design methodologies of the Nazis and the Japanese. The Red Panzer armor sacrifices flight and speed for heavy armor and more weapons. Kamikaze is more lightly armored and armed, but also faster and more agile.

[redsycorax]

There are certainly some interesting questions here, such as why the non-affiliated Axis metahumans didn't join the UBA. At a guess, some of them may have crossed paths with Horned Owl and Fledermaus if they were active in the Frankfurt area or further afield and feared his deductive and forensic prowess, given the cases that I detailed in his story arc. He might have some questions about the depth or sincerity of any 'reforms' they state that they've allegedly undertaken to 'rehabilitate' themselves (but are actually ankle-deep in black marketeering and government corruption). Another might be jealousy of the UBA participants or perhaps the perennial infighting within the various Nazi factions might have been reflected within the metahuman community there. Many AU Nazi victory stories have some degree of infighting between them when Hitler eventually dies. It's quite possible that the same was true within Japanese society, as I've suggested in my Captain Nippon stories. I can certainly see Red Panzer and Kamikazi sharing some fraternal bonds over their respective technological expertise. Would they have been able to use each others suggestions to fix each others design specs within their particular battle suits? One other story element occurs to me- Ubermensch. Does he have a rivalry with Baron Blitzkreig due to their power status and does that mean that he actively campaigned not to have Baron Blitzkrieg within the UBA? Perhaps the two of them are affiliated to rival Nazi factions too. On the other hand, perhaps Gudra and Sumo have strong mutual respect for one another given their respective warrior ethos. It'd be interesting to explore these complexities in a Kamikazi story, I agree.

[johnreiter902]

Thinking more about Baron Blitzkrieg and Ubermensch, I suspect that Ubermensch is closely allied with the SS faction of radical Nazis. Baron Blitzkrieg, we know, is an actual Prussian nobleman, and more likely therefore a support of the traditional military. I wouldn't be surprised if they are arch-rivals.

[redsycorax]

I think the question is, to what extent might Baron Blitzkrieg and Ubermensch be at each others throats? As you can see from my Horned Owl stories, I've depicted Ubermensch as increasingly addicted to the supersoldier serum that gave him his abilities, for which he developed an increasing tolerance. To put it bluntly, he ends up a musclebound junkie suffering from the equivalent of steroid hormone imbalance ("roid rage") at the end of World War II. Therefore, I can see Baron Blitzkrieg increasingly disgusted at Ubermensch's inhumanity and lack of self-discipline and self-control. Would he therefore feel the same way about Hitler, given the psychological collapse that the stress of military defeat produced, coupled with his own amphetamine addiction and tertiary syphilis? Would that mean that he gets tangled up in the 1944 plot to overthrow Hitler through a booby-trapped suitcase at a high command meeting? I wonder if he even survived the war and ended up in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay or one of the other boltholes for Nazi exiles?

Getting back to Kamikaze, though, I can certainly see a bond developing between him and those UBA members who have greater interest in technological and scientific applications, as well as with Axis-aligned metahumans who aren't members of the UBA. They might share technological knowledge. One question occurs to me, though. As I've noted beforehand, I suspect Earth-Two's  UK white magicians* were able to rig up a thaumaturgic barrier to nullify the abilities of Axis metahumans if they ventured onto British soil, akin to the Axis one on the other side of the English Channel. The question is, would that necessarily affect tech-based metahuman combatants? This raises some interesting possibilities if that is the case- perhaps therefore Robotman could operate behind enemy lines, but reciprocally the same might be true when it came to technologically adept Axis spies. 

*As well as US magicians who might have collaborated with them such as Doctor Fate and Zatara. However, it does lead to some questions about those UK black magicians like Aleister Crowley who were Axis sympathisers. Would they have been interned so they couldn't sabotage the Allied war effort?