Matthew Perry

Commodore Matthew Perry was an officer in the U.S. Navy in the early nineteenth century. He is best known for leading a flotilla of four gunboats to Japan in 1852 to present the Japanese shogunate a letter from the President of the United States demanding that Japan open trade relations with the US; it had previously refused to deal with any foreigners other than the Netherlands and China. The Japanese shoguns attempted to refuse Perry's ships access to port but Perry refused to leave Japanese waters until his demands had been met, and the preindustrial Japanese were unable to resist the threat Perry's flotilla represented. Perry was granted access to the Japanese shoguns. He presented the letter and promised to return for a response. This he did in 1854 with even more gunboats, and found that the Japanese had complied with the demands he had presented.

In 2031, the United States named its (and the known universe's) first FTL starship the Commodore Perry in Perry's honor. Atvar, who was familiar with Perry's biography, expressed his concerns to the 37th Emperor Risson that, like Perry's expedition to Japan, the starship's visit might be construed as a show of force to coerce the technologically inferior Race to comply with American demands unfavorable to its government.