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….. I don’t think so?

Just off the top of my head I can’t think of any Particular examples of Zeon as a whole oppressing their own people (IE other members of Zeon, which I’ll get to in a minute).

EDIT: I can’t think of any examples of Zeon *overtly* oppressing their own citizens, other than propaganda.

I would like to call out Desert Rommel from mobile suit Gundam ZZ. He camps out in a small desert town and is implied to be oppressing the people there. Rommel is in charge of a remnant group comprised of some Desert Zaku’s and Dwadges. He smacks one of his own men for caring about his family instead of giving his all in his attempts to revive Zeon, and is implied to be ruling the town with an iron fist, conducting raids on the outer settlements and Federation bases. Thing is, he’s not affiliated with Zeon at this point, since he’s active during ZZ, and his actions seem largely to illustrate just how desperate his remnant group is.

The Manga “The Plot to Assassinate Gihren” does have some depictions of Zeon’s secret police and has examples of how the population was kept in line (I shan’t spoil, not least because I haven’t read all of it). It does however probably fall under the header of “Zabi Plots”.

Generally, when it comes to their own population during the one year war, my understanding is that Zeon didn’t really have to oppress their own people as such, since they had an excellent propaganda ministry and the Zabi family (Gihren) were massively charismatic and didn’t really require much else to keep the general population in line. It’s implied (at least in the Origin) that Kycillia had a lot of pull with the “civilian” police, and presumably she would deal with any major dissenters. It is stated in some side materials that the Zabi’s suppressed certain political dissidents who were vocally opposed to their rule, but it’s never shown.

I would however note that the Iffish Colony Gassing (the Opening Stage of Operation British) could be taken as an absolutely massive case of this, since I understand that publicly Zeon was trying to do the whole “Independence from the Corrupt and Unfair Federation!” thing, which Iffish completely undercuts. Zeon slaughters billions of colony residents, it’s supposed allies, in order to use Island Iffish as a weapon against the Earth. If the Federation hadn’t fought the (very costly) Battle of Loum, they probably would have tried again, doubling the death toll.

Like, in regards to your average Zeon Colony resident, I expect they’d just be seeing an awful lot of Gihren’s speeches and the occasional riot suppression. Maybe some shady secret service guys.

Genuine question that has just occurred to me: to what extent, in Universal Century Gundam stories, are the various iterations of Zeon shown to oppress their own people?

Because that strikes me as an interesting wrinkle to the whole ‘are they really the bad guys’ line of thought. I know the Earth Federation is repeatedly shown to be oppressive towards its citizens (that is how we got into this mess in the first place, after all). And that’s aside from the unethical experimentation and so forth – they are shown to trample on the rights of anyone inconvenient, up to and including instituting a police-state (the Titans, the situation by the time of Gundam:Hathaway).

Whereas on the Zeon side, yes we have the multiple war crimes and mass destruction against the opposing side, but the only solid incident I can think of where Zeon’s own citizens were definitely chafing under their rule is the Cicero uprising in ZZ. Which is … interesting given the issues of legitimacy inherent to Harman’s plot-line.

Like the Federation, I’m sort of parceling off the cyber-Newtype malarkey in its own box, and I’d equally treat the ascent of the Zabis as a separate issue: this is more a question around how the regime they instituted is presented at the level of the ordinary person. I’m curious as to what the overall impression is among people more invested in the UC stuff than me?

Star Wars: X-Wing - Rogue Squadron #28 (Masquerade #1 of 4) Cover Art by John Nadeau

I gotta say, while I am, I suppose, looking forward to Gundam SEED Freedom, after having thought about it for a little bit I am curious as to where they’re gonna go with this.

So, we know ZAFT’s probably gonna be the main villain again, since they’re what’s shown in the trailers (and honestly if it gets us a new HG Ginn I’m not gonna complain too much).

Anyway, putting that aside, we do know that Kira, Athrun (because of course) and Shinn (we see a clip of the Destiny in the trailer) are gonna be in the new movie. We also can guess that Kira’s gonna have a shiny new mobile suit/upgrade to the Freedom, since he’s got a new Helmet, and presumably a new cockpit, AND they specifically didn’t show us any shots of a mobile suit barring the Ginns or old footage, implying that it’s a whole new machine.

This is interesting, because I’m really, really curious about what it might be. Perhaps some sort of Perfect Strike Freedom? Or Amazing Strike Freedom? Or perhaps it’ll take influence from the Stargazer and be star themed? Like some sort of Freedom Galaxy Cosmos?

Honestly though, I imagine it’ll stick fairly close to the Freedom and Strike Freedom (I’m imagining a strike freedom covered in Witch From Mercury-style drone weapons in addition to the funnels), but I am distinctly curious how they’ll model it. Bandai’s been really pushing the Seed revives since they made them, like the Impulse and Strike Freedom get used for parts a lot, so I’m wondering if it’s going to be an entirely new mold, or if they’re just gonna make a few new runners for the Strike Freedom.

I am probably going to be interested in Athrun’s new suit though, since I do very much like the Infinite Justice.

The Earth Federation: Spend thousands on multiple separate attempts to mass-produce the Zeta Gundam, including but not limited to: the ZII, the Mass Production Zeta Gundam, the Zeta plus series, the Re-Gz and the Rezel, before finally giving up and settling for Jegans.

Neo Zeon: Makes the Bawoo.

Perfection.