The plane touched down at San Francisco International Airport. When the cabin door opened, a warm, dry gust rolled in—carrying the mingled scent of the ocean and California sunlight. For Chief Nohara and the others, long accustomed to Tokyo's damp air, it was instantly refreshing.
Everything here felt open—so different from Tokyo's dense, crowded rhythm.
After landing, the group checked into a hotel near the American headquarters in Redwood City.
Following a full day of adjusting to the time difference, the team gathered in the lobby early the next morning, spirits revived.
SEGA of America's president, Tom Kalinske, was already waiting.
"Takuya! You finally made it back!" Tom marched forward and greeted Takuya Nakayama with a bear hug so enthusiastic it nearly knocked him off balance.
His trademark booming voice made the entire development team straighten instinctively.
Takuya, long accustomed to American exuberance, laughed as he freed himself and introduced, "Tom, this is our software development chief, Mr. Nohara."
Tom Kalinske's eyes swept over Nohara and the others—not a trace of condescension, only curiosity and genuine respect.
"Welcome to America, everyone!"
After greetings, they split into several cars and headed toward "Silicon Valley Online," not far away.
The cars stopped in a newly built business park.
Before them stood a sleek, two-story glass building with a simple sign—"Silicon Valley Online."
It wasn't as grand as SEGA's U.S. headquarters, but it was bright, clean, and full of that unique energy found only in tech companies.
The interior wasn't particularly large, but everything was well organized.
Dozens of workstations were ready—most still empty, waiting for their future occupants.
Most striking of all was an entire room dedicated to the server cluster. Several tall racks had already been installed, though most remained bare except for a few basic network devices blinking quietly.
"This is our beginning," Takuya said. His voice echoed in the quiet office as he spread his arms, as if embracing the vast potential of the space.
"Executive Director… this setup…" Chief Nohara walked into the machine room, running his hand over a pristine server rack, his voice trembling, "it's better than what we prepared in Tokyo!"
"This is Silicon Valley," Takuya replied, standing beside him with his eyes on the empty racks. "Here, we can't afford any weak links. Hardware—we use the best. Talent—we hire the best. And most importantly, our software must be revolutionary."
He turned to face the core team he had brought from Japan. His smile faded; his gaze sharpened.
"In Japan, thanks to our BBS, we were stars on campus. But here… we are nothing."
His words hit like cold water, pulling everyone back to reality.
"Look at these empty desks. Look at these empty racks."
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried piercing strength.
"They're waiting for us to fill them."
After the tour, they entered a bright, spacious conference room. Excitement still lingered on everyone's faces—mixed with a trace of uncertainty.
The first issue to resolve: the BBS board structure.
The U.S. team had already conducted a round of market research.
A young Stanford graduate named Harry stood before the projector, speaking rapidly as he presented.
"According to our research, in 1991, internet users in America are still heavily concentrated within academia."
He clicked the remote. A chart appeared.
"The users fall into four categories:
"First, university faculty, students, and researchers—the largest group, spread across major institutions like Berkeley, Stanford, MIT.
"Second, industry specialists—computer scientists, engineers, programmers in Bay Area tech companies.
"Third, government and research personnel—national labs, government-funded institutes, early ARPANET users.
"Fourth, early commercial users—small in number but influential. They participate in early commercial networks like CERFnet and PSInet."
The Japanese engineers, including Nohara, took notes frantically. This user profile was familiar yet entirely different.
Familiar, because the user base was elite.
Different, because every category here carried the scent of capital and commerce.
When Harry finished, the room fell silent. All eyes turned to Takuya Nakayama.
Takuya didn't speak immediately. Instead, he walked to the massive whiteboard and picked up a black marker.
"Great work, Harry," he said first, then wrote a single word: Academia.
"Same strategy as Japan—we start with the core audience."
He looked at Nohara. "Mr. Nohara, how should we subdivide the academic boards?"
Nohara thought for a moment and said, drawing from Tokyo Tech's experience, "We can divide by discipline—physics, chemistry, computer science—"
"Not enough. Too rigid." Takuya shook his head and circled "Computer Science."
"In America, if you only divide by discipline, no one will bother."
Everyone froze.
Takuya smirked, eyes gleaming with mischief.
"We need to spark their arguments."
Arguments?
Even Tom Kalinske looked intrigued.
"We can use non-admin personal accounts to post topics that spark debate—maybe even conflict. For example—"
He wrote quickly on the board:
Editor War
Sub-boards: Vi and Emacs
"And then:"
OS War
Sub-boards: Unix, VMS, and maybe even Windows—just so they have a place to rant."
Among techies, tribal conflicts and ideological battles were the original and most powerful source of internet traffic.
Instead of letting the debates scatter across the web, why not host them directly—mark the threads artificially as hot—and create an official arena?
"And next—" Takuya wrote a new category:
Industry
He turned to Harry. "This is Silicon Valley. Academic discussions alone aren't enough—there must be commerce. For this high-net-worth user group, we need a place to exchange opportunities."
"Let's open a Startups & VC board."
The room froze.
"Executive Director… isn't that a bit early?" Nohara whispered.
"Early?" Takuya laughed. "Mr. Nohara, what land are you standing on? This is America. This is Silicon Valley. Here, one garage, two geniuses, and a crazy idea create the next world-class company."
"We won't just give them a plaza for discussion. We'll give them a runway for dreams."
"That way, VCs will gather naturally. And then our value skyrockets."
The room collectively held its breath.
Tom Kalinske stared at Takuya, eyes shining.
He had thought they were simply replicating Japanese BBS success.
He hadn't realized Takuya's ambitions were far, far greater.
He wasn't building a forum.
He was building an ecosystem.
Takuya capped his marker with a snap. "Academia draws core users. Industry brings commercial value. Tom, thoughts?"
Tom immediately gave a thumbs-up.
"Brilliant. I'm all in."
"Good! Then it's settled. Mr. Nohara—any technical issues?"
"No problem at all!" Nohara stood straight, doubts replaced by fiery determination.
Over the next days, Silicon Valley Online roared into life.
Nohara's Japanese engineers meshed rapidly with Harry's American team. At first, the Japanese were bewildered by their U.S. colleagues' habits—going for coffee at 3 p.m., eating half-finished pizza over keyboards, yet somehow writing blazing-fast code.
But they soon discovered that behind the casual appearance were wild, brilliant, high-efficiency minds.
Their polite exchanges quickly evolved into heated, mixed Japanese-English arguments scribbled across whiteboards filled with hybrid architectural diagrams.
Meanwhile, a guerrilla-style "ground campaign" quietly swept across the Bay Area and Ivy League campuses.
Marketing staff drove from school to school, plastering beautifully designed flyers across Stanford's bulletin boards, Berkeley's student centers—even sneaking into Apple and Sun Microsystems cafeterias.
The flyers were provocative.
One read in huge letters:
"Vi or Emacs? END THE WAR."
Below, in smaller print:
"Silicon Valley Online BBS. The ultimate arena. Settle it once and for all."
Another flyer:
"OS WAR: UNIX vs VMS vs WINDOWS. Who is King?"
The effect was explosive.
"Hey Mark, look at this! Someone's building a battleground for the editor war!" a Stanford student shouted, tearing down a flyer.
"Emacs is obviously the best—what's there to debate?" his friend scoffed, but leaned in anyway.
"Wait, they have an FTP link for the client?"
"No joke! I'm downloading it tonight. I'm going to show those Vi cavemen what a real editor is!"
Similar conversations erupted at MIT labs, Caltech libraries, and everywhere geeks gathered.
The flyers said nothing about SEGA or games—only the mysterious, tech-infused name:
Silicon Valley Online.
And at the bottom—the tiny FTP address became the center of nationwide curiosity.
"Executive Director! Look at this!" Marketing head Roy rushed in with a report.
"Our FTP server is nearly overloaded!"
The logs were packed with IP addresses from universities and tech companies across the country.
In just two days, the BBS client had been downloaded over five thousand times.
And this was only the warm-up.
"They haven't even seen the BBS yet, and they're already losing their minds," Roy said in awe. "Your 'start a war' idea is genius! I swear, on launch day our servers will face a real battlefield!"
Takuya smiled and set the report down. All of this was expected.
The client wasn't tiny. In an age of slow connections, pre-distribution was essential.
And raising hype to maximum before launch was exactly the plan.
He turned to Nohara and Harry.
"Make sure you scale based on the download logs. We don't want the servers crashing on day one."
Both men flashed "OK" signs.
The FTP logs, like a cascade of blazing war reports, spread excitement through the freshly renovated Silicon Valley Online office.
Morale soared.
But the next morning, Nohara stared at the server load graphs, brows furrowed. He rushed to Takuya, lowering his voice.
"Executive Director… these download numbers—they're beyond our boldest projections. If these users go online simultaneously… our servers and bandwidth may collapse instantly."
His fear was the team's fear.
If they failed here, their triumphant launch could become a disaster.
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