"It was only 180 years after the Japanese had terraformed Mars that they cut contact with Earth. The stories brought by the traders who returned were not hopeful. Even the Earth born Japanese were expelled, or worse. Perhaps there was a certain prescience amongst the leaders of the new Meji empire, an anticipation of the storm that was about to be unleashed on Earth. Or maybe it was just the resurgence of the intense nationalism and cultural unity they had embraced in their attempt to master reality manifestation which caused the sudden and complete return to the self imposed isolation that had characterized their ancestors so many centuries before. Either way the stars would see whole turnings of the celestial disk before anything was heard from the red planet."
-Excerpt from "A History of the Red Planet" by Luccio Orialla.