Decisive Darkness: What if Japan hadn't Surrendered in 1945 is a Alternate History timeline by The Red, a member of AlternateHistory.com - which can be read here
. It deals with an alternate history taking place after a coup in Japan in August 1945 leads to Korechika Anami seizing power and continuing the war against the Allies, and the domestic and international effects this has, from the continuation of atomic bombing of Japanese cities (and worse) to the fate of POWs in occupied Asia.
Currently, the story has dealt with effects on many people within the historical context, from Japanese civilians to American politics to the impacts upon the dawning Cold War, creating a chilling picture of what was narrowly averted in our reality.
Decisive Darkness provides examples of:
- A Child Shall Lead Them: Subverted. For a while it seemed like Hirohito's nephew would take the throne. Then Japanese forces were able to find Yasuhito.
- Apocalypse How: Between the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, the constant firebombings and the massive famine caused by wartime shortages, Japan suffers a Regional Societal Collapse by the end of the war. Over half the population is dead, central authority has been destroyed, and infrastructure is nonexistent.
- Asshole Victim: Very many for the Japanese.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: When the Allied forces land on Kyushu, the Japanese forces opposing them unsuccessfully try to overwhelm the beachhead by throwing every soldier and kamikaze they can muster at the Allied invasion.
- Balkanize Me:
- After the war, Japan is divided in four occupation zones. At least three of them will become distinct, separate countries.
- The division of mainland China lasts much longer.
- Averted by Korea.
- Bittersweet Ending: On one hand, the Japanese finally surrender and WW2 is over, but at the cost of Hirohito and the Imperial family. Over twenty cities in Japan have been nuked and millions of Japanese have died from the war. Japan after the war, is divided into four occupation zones, and is not the superpower it is in the OTL. Meanwhile, China is divided and Korea is fully communist, while Harry S. Truman refuses to run for a second term.
- Body Horror: Inflicted on everyone bombed with mustard gas.
- Bomb Throwing Anarchist: Averted by the Federation of Free Territories, in northern parts of Honshu. Ironically, one of the better-organized parts of Japan post-Coronet.
- Bungled Suicide: After the Imperial Family is killed by an American nuclear attack, Anami, believing himself to have failed his country, attempts to commit seppuku. He fails when the pain becomes too great for him to continue.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: Due to increasingly desperate shortages of weapons and ammunition, Japan starts arming their conscripts with increasingly archaic weaponry, beginning with outdated rifles and eventually resorting to bamboo spears.
- Chummy Commies: Soviet-occupied Hokkaido is the most pleasant part of Japan to be in this timeline, though that's not saying very much.
- Subsequently,the WPDJ/North Japan has the best overall living standard of all Japanese successor states
- Child Soldiers: As Japan's situation becomes more and more desperate, the Japanese government and army begin conscripting anyone who can walk and carry a weapon, including teenagers.
- Civil War: Laos plunges into one after Japanese forces withdraw.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Most of Hokkaido is overrun very quickly, with the notable exception of Wakkanai Fortress and the mountains defended by the battle hardened forces of the 7th Division, which take its toll on the Soviet forces.
- Also Operation Sandman, most of the Manchuria-Korea campaign, and the East China campaign.
- Just the Allied war against Japan in general, on all fronts. What casualties the Japanese Empire manages to inflict on the Allies in its death throes is dwarfed by the death toll inflicted on the Japanese, which by the end has reached Paraguay-in-War-of-the-Triple-Alliance levels.
- Darker and Edgier: Manages to do this to World War II, a war which was unpleasant to begin with...
- Deadly Gas:
- Why Operation Sandman is such a Curb-Stomp Battle. Earlier, a Dutch airman bombed Japanese-occupied Batavia with mustard gas after the Japanese commander there ordered the massacre of the Dutch population of Java (see Leave No Survivors below), giving the Allies the idea for Sandman.
- Essentially for the Soviet victory against Nobuhito's forces.
- Death from Above: The bombing campaign over Japan does not abate; and indeed escalates until effectively no structure in Japan is left standing.
- Death of a Child: A US Marine comes across the remains of a baby who died of radiation poisoning on Kyushu and their family.
- Decisive Battle: The IJA's obsession with fighting one to finally drive off the Allied forces for good is one of the reasons Japan is levelled to such a degree.
- Defiant to the End: Japan. Then subverted as more and more Japanese soldiers begin to surrender. Also deconstructed as it is shown this defiance is costing far more than it's worth.
- Subverted by parts of the IJA who successfully went into hiding, something no-one noticed for a while and continue to fight to the present-day.
- Destructive Savior: The Americans will do anything to rid Japan of the militarist, ultranationalist regime ruling the country. Like nuking, gassing, and bombing the country into the Stone Age.
- Dirty Communists: Mentioned from time to time, but mostly averted due to the Soviets being allied with the American, British, and Commonwealth forces in the fight against Japan.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Nobuhito's failed charge against Soviet paratroopers results in his collaboration with the Japanese People's Emancipation League.
- The Empire: Japan, naturally, though the Netherlands also displays this in retaking Indonesia, and Thailand becomes quite belligerent towards its neighbours following its Heel-Face Turn.
- Evil Chancellor: Korechika Anami seizes power in a coup over Japan's intent to surrender, ruling the nation with an iron fist and plunging Japan into an apocalyptic war.
- Evil Cripple: Anami, after he gets shot in the spine during Doihara's failed coup.
- Epic Fail: Anami's suicide attempt fails because it hurts too much.
- Japan's attempt at building an atomic bomb results only in the device killing the scientists who detonated it.
- Expanded States of America: After the end of the war, America annexes the Ryukyu Islands and southern Kyushu.
- From Bad to Worse: Practically a given, based on the premise.
- Face Death with Dignity: Invoked by an enormous number of Japanese soldiers and civilians but wears off as the war drags into 1946; Anami's attempted suicide averts this trope entirely.
- For Want Of A Nail: Korechika Anami launches a coup d'etat, takes control of Japan, and chooses not to surrender after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even with how hopeless the war had gotten. It was a bad decision.
- Full-Circle Revolution: The anarcho-communist Federation of Free Territories eventually becomes an Objectivist dystopia where a small class of wealthy businessmen has carte blanche to exploit everyone else in the region without regard for pay, safety or working standards.
- Gender Is No Object: Due to Japan scraping the bottom of its manpower barrel, they've removed the "man" part and conscripted increasing numbers of women and girls to fight the Allies.
- General Ripper and General Failure: Anami's entire raison d'etre. The timeline is kicked off when he launches a coup d'etat against the Japanese government, literally preferring that every last man, woman and child on Japan fight off the Americans rather than surrender and prevent a devastating war for the Home Islands. Actually putting up a proper resistance, on the other hand, proves to be a task beyond his abilities.
- God Is Dead: After Emperor Hirohito is inadvertently killed by the Americans when they nuke Nagano.
- Heel–Face Turn: Thailand, initially looking like a major Anti-Japanese force in Southeast Asia, becomes a militaristic, expansionist power in its own right, demonstrated in its annexation of Laos.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The United States, when one of their A-bombs is captured. Then subverted when the bomb fails utterly.
- Honor Before Reason: The military Junta in Japan believes in fighting before surrender to the point of obliterating the concept of a unified Japan nation.
- Hope Spot: The attempt of the junta to end the fighting against the US-Americans. It fails and subsequently their last capital is nuked by them.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The survivors of the Zenko-ji bombing turn to cannibalism to survive, urged on by a warped Buddhist cult.
- Japan Takes Over the World: Thoroughly averted, if not inverted:
Word of God states that Japan remains impoverished as of TTL's present day. - Just Before the End: The situation in the remaining unoccupied portions of Japan.
- Karma Houdini: Kenji Doihara. Not only does he escape capture and trial, it is implied that he plays an important role in the Japanese underground.
- Kill the God: The Americans accidentally kill Emperor Hirohito (revered by the Japanese as a living god) when they nuke Nagano, where the Imperial Family, along with a large number of refugees, is taking shelter.
- La Résistance: After Japanese soldiers end up killing Sukarno, Indonesia begins revolting en masse against the Japanese occupation forces.
- Leave No Survivors: When British forces are about to retake Singapore, the Japanese commander has all of the Allied prisoners in his custody massacred. The British then return the favor to the Japanese in Singapore.
- Also, after Borneo is liberated, the Japanese commander has as many Dutch civilians as possible rounded up, before ordering that they be killed several thousand at a time until the Allies make peace. This leads directly to him getting bombed with Deadly Gas (see that trope's entry above).
- Nuke 'em: Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still nuked, followed by twenty-two different cities before Japan finally surrenders.
- Occupiers Out of Our Country: Indonesia and much of Asia still under Japanese occupation.
- Oh, Crap!: For Japan when Kyushu is invaded, and again with Operation Sandman.
- Also for the United States, when a B-29 carrying an atomic bomb is shot down and the bomb captured.
- Once more with the knowledge of the three Japanese submarines assigned to carry biological weapons and drop them on the West Coast.
- The Purge: After Anami's coup, he purges the Japanese military of those favouring surrender. Happens again after Doihara's failed coup.
- The Quisling:
- Sanzo Nosaka
- Crown Prince Nobuhito
- Colonel Hiromichi Yahara
- Religion of Evil: After the atomic boming of Nagano, the Buddhist monks of the holy temple of Zenko-ji go insane and embrace a profoundly disturbing version of Tantric Buddhism, which entails the cannibalization and literal butchery of much of the surviving population; often cutting off limbs from still-living victims to eat and leaving them maimed for life. It's mentioned that their atrocities effectively destroy the reputation of Buddhism in the West.
- The Remnant:
- Several Japanese holdouts and isolated garrisons, mainly high in the mountains of places like the Philippines or on remote Pacific islands, either are or are in the process of becoming this.
- General Isamu Yokoyama, commandant of the last major Imperial Japanese force after the nuking of Nikko, the last junta capital.
- The Yakuza and other Japanese underground organisation staffed with former members of the Japanese military continue to oppose and undermine the Allied-occupation forces.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge : Operation Petbe,in retaliation of Japanese biological attacks on Pescadero. Thirteen atomic bombs detonated in a single day.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After the recapture of and Singapore, the Japanese commander in spoiler:Indochina retreats with all his remaining forces.
- Seppuku: The Japanese commanders' favoured method of suicide as the American troops approach (what's left of) Japan's major cities. Including Anami's, though he is ultimately unsuccessful in carrying it out.
- Sliding Scale of Alternate History Plausibility: A solid II, borderline III at times.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Lots of examples for all sides.
- Spin-Off: Decisive Darkness: A Morning Reborn covers the events in Korea.
- Submarine Pirates: See Nazis with Gnarly Weapons above; as the two U-boats still have their German crews, they fly the German flag alongside the Japanese one, causing their targets to think German versions of these are operating in the area.
- Succession Crisis: Downplayed when Hirohito and his family are killed. While a suitable heir has to be located the search for a successor to Hirohito is very low on the junta's list given the existential total war still in the process of being waged.
- Suddenly Significant City:
- As a result of the destruction of other Japanese cities, Sapporo in Hokkaido becomes the largest Japanese city, location of the Peace Conference where the post-war order is decided and capital of the Workers and Peasants Democracy of Japan.
- Noshiro in Akita/Tōhoku becomes the capital of the Federation of Free Territories and subsequently the Commonwealth occupation zone.
- Nikko in the northern Kanto plain becomes the last capital of the junta/Imperial Japan. It is the last city in Japan to be nuked.
- Suicide Attack: Becomes pretty much the entire Japanese war strategy.
- Unexpected Successor: Yasuhito is the one to take the Chrysanthemum throne after Hirohito's death
- War Is Hell: It's a timeline where World War II lasts a few years longer. No shit.
- We Have Reserves: Japan uses this tactic despite not actually having reserves; they attempt to stretch their supply of soldiers by conscripting women and teenagers.
- Also invoked by the US; the casualties endured during Majestic would usually be enough to sink any operation, but thanks to a large number of available reinforcements and a vast logistical network, disaster is averted.
- Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Averted by everyone, especially Japan.
- Yakuza: Plays an important role after the war and likely lead by Kenji Doihara and other Japanese nationalists whose war has not ended.
- Young Future Famous People: Machiko Hasegawa has shown up volunteering for an army unit.
