The rice paddies shimmered, a mirror to the endless summer sky. I, Hirotaro, son of a blacksmith, felt the familiar weight of my katana, its polished steel cool against my skin. But the whispers of the old woman haunted me. She spoke of a “Capsule,” a vessel of stars, and a place beyond the clouds where samurai fought not with steel, but with light. She gifted me a tarnished silver coin, cold and strangely humming with a power I couldn’t comprehend, saying, “Find the Nexus, Hirotaro. It awaits you.” I dismissed it as madness, until a shimmering portal, born from the very fabric of reality, opened in the heart of the village’s sacred grove, the air crackling with impossible energy.
Hesitantly, I stepped through. Gone were the rice paddies, replaced by a dizzying panorama of swirling nebulae and colossal spaceships. My katana felt insignificant against the backdrop of these celestial behemoths. A voice, smooth and artificial, filled my mind, explaining – in broken, surprisingly fluent Japanese – that I was in New Eden, the silver coin, It was a neural implant, a key in this world that would transform me, a simple village warrior, into a Capsuleer, a pilot of starships. My English, limited as it was, served to convey only my confusion, expressed with a surprised, “Watashi…Capsuleer…?”
My first command ship, a battered frigate named Musha, felt oddly familiar. Its controls responded intuitively, as though years of katana practice had somehow prepared me for this strange new battlefield. A fleet of pirates, their ships like monstrous space-squid, attacked – and I fought, instinct guiding my movements. My katana was gone, but the spirit of Bushido remained. The lasers blazed, the enemy ships exploded in fiery blossoms of plasma, and I, Hirotaro, the humble blacksmith’s son, became a legend amongst the stars, a Japanese warrior in a galaxy far, far away.
