The Shin Tokaido Gate and Tetsuzora

Constructed in 1915 by the combined efforts of the Japanese military, the Shin-Tokaido-Mon is the product of efficient replication. Naval researchers had purchased the blueprint for the original Jefferson Gate, studying ways to replicate the design with a more limited power input. What complications they could not solve on their own they removed via some international theft, stealing some elements of the Nikolovsk Gate’s fuel system when they briefly captured it in 1905. The completed gate was 8 kilometers in diameter, then the largest aether structure until the Americans completed their own expansion project.

The original plan after construction was completed was to connect the gate to the city of Edo with a Tsiolkovsky Ladder, allowing the quick conveyance of cargo. Unfortunately, fabrication of the necessary parts halted in 1917, after the outbreak of the Santo Sensō. When the devastating Great Kantō Earthquake rattled Edo and cracked the very foundation of the ladder, Japan understood that their country could not feasibly connect the gate to the earth below, even if the civil war died down. Instead, all future shipments for and through the gate would have to be flown up, developing an industry revolving around breaking and reentering the atmosphere to ferry all manner of cargo to the aether.

To best facilitate this industry, all cargo arriving to the Shin Tokaido Gate from any location would undergo their typical inspections in the aether, rather than their destination. The Minato-Gumi was established on the gate in 1925 as a bureaucratic arm of this new trade, taxing and regulating the transportation of all civilian cargo. With an influx of bureaucrats and dockhands came the necessity for a number of businesses. The workforce needed housing, food, and especially entertainment. This provided a unique opportunity for Japan to make the best of the destruction of the war, as many of the cities in Kansai were still in ruins from the infighting. Displaced refugees from the commercial sector were incentivized to move to the growing community, and many of the zaibatsu received kickback from the Showa Government for “selective transfers” to the gate.

The result was an overnight boomtown, unlike anything seen in the aether. Other gates had modest towns and maintenance teams manning the structure, but the sheer density of the population on the Shin-Tokaido dwarfed the others. By its 10th year anniversary, the gate’s city, now known as Tetsuzora, housed one million people. In terms of population density, the city was almost quadruple that of Central Osaka. In that time the city had developed a distinct subculture, as well as a sizable foreign quarter. The wards were excessively lit up with color-coded street lights, using the runoff power from the gate to provide Tetsuzora with a dazzling visage. The lights also aided vessels in mooring at the correct ward when arriving, the crews of which began referring to the city by the nickname Kuroniji, the Rainbow in Black.

The leadership of the city is divided along the borders of the six civilian wards. Each ward elects a mayor from its population, who handles all civil regulation and development codes in the area. As a peculiar example, the Ranbiki Ward, the main foreign quarter of the city, has a Greek mayor, making it one of only two Japanese cities with a non-native representative. All of these wards answer to the Governor of the Minato-Gumi, who also directly controls the ring’s two industrial zones. One can only hope that he is cut out for the task, as there is no telling what nefarious parties may try to smuggle under his watch.