One of which had been a genetic retrovirus called the 'Super Soldier Formula Mark III.' People on learning of the name naturally wondered what had happened with Mark I and Mark II, but apparently Mark III had been the first one to actually work.
It gave their soldiers a minor edge, increasing their strength and speed slightly as well as their sense of balance. At the indication that their product actually worked, they went into mass production with all the enthusiasm they could bring to bear on it. From 1931 to 1936 (during the Early Showa period) - the Super Soldier Formula was administered to over a million soldiers, with only three hundred or so dying from the effects.
With this, the Japanese Empire took and held a good section of Russia as well as their inroads in China and conquering of Korea.
Naturally, the other nations didn't take too kindly to the idea of Japanese supersoldiers and began their own programs to analyze what the Japanese had done and emulate it. America's program under Abraham Erskine would prove problem-ridden, much as Britain's program.
Side effects began showing up in 1936 with the Japanese program.
'The child of a frog is a frog' being an old proverb in Japan, it wasn't too surprising that the child of a supersoldier would have odd powers.
The tail and ears though - that was unexpected.
Especially it was unexpected when those original 'supersoldiers' began altering to a more feline appearance. It wasn't too much of a problem until feline mannerisms began creeping in.
The supersoldiers of Japan had all the negative aspects of a feline personality begin cropping up. Independence, fierceness, territorialism, innate cruelty, and an attention deficit disorder. It was later determined that the Japanese SuperSoldier Formula was unstable. This became more obvious as the supersoldiers began to go insane.
As time went on, it also became obvious that the children of those supersoldiers were considerably more stable.
The supersoldier program fell apart just when Japan needed it most. The Japanese people despite their own martial traditions lost faith in their military as the supersoldiers disobeyed and in some cases attacked their own chain-of-command.
World War II ended for Japan, not with nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but with human tomcats battling each other for dominance.
Which brought things to now.
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(Posted Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:21)
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