Star Wars: X-Wing - Rogue Squadron Special Cover Art By Mark Harrison

Star Wars: X-Wing - Rogue Squadron Special Cover Art by Mark Harrison

Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (WotC): Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds - Gem Diver Station by Mark Tedin

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.

….. 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?

So I’ve been seeing a lot of people chatting about the new Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance trailer, and there’s a part of it I’d like to throw my two cents in on.

Honestly, in regards to there being a billion Gundam’s running around the OYW, I made my peace with that fact years ago, so it doesn’t bother me. Yeah, yeah it’s a little silly from an in-universe perspective, no matter how many times they pull the “secret prototype” card. But from an out of universe perspective, Gundams sell, and they want it to sell. It’s a rare thing in the UC series that doesn’t have a Gundam in it.

But just for the sake of it, how many Gundams are (at present) running around in the One Year War?

Note: I was originally going to ignore things like Thunderbolt, The Origin and the Sidestories, since they all have a somewhat weird canon state. Then I realised that “Gundams that Canonically existed in the OYW” ≠ “Gundams that you see marketed in OYW sidestories”. So, I’m going to lead with the suits that we know existed, then move on to the other ones. I am, however, ignoring Manga, because I haven’t read everything and we’ll be here all day.

Alrighty, so we start off with the original RX-78 series as built in Operation V (sometimes called the “Vinson Plan”). We have:

RX-78-1 “Prototype Gundam” - As its name suggests, the prototype unit to the entire line. Never deployed to my knowledge, I’m honestly not sure what happens to it. I usually read it as being destroyed during the attack on Side 7, but I’m not certain of that.

RX-78-2 “Gundam” - you know this one. Amuro falls into the cockpit at Side 7 and proceeds to pilot it from then until the end of the One Year War.

RX-78-3 “G-3 Gundam” - apparently recovered from Side 7 and used as a test bed for magnet coating technology. Beyond that we have absolutely no idea what happened to it, since there’s a bunch of conflicting accounts. My usual headcanon is that it was used as a basis for all the MSV suits, but we have absolutely no idea if and where it was deployed.

RX-78-4 “Gundam G04” - deployed alongside unit 5 at the Battle of Solomon.

RX-78-5 “Gundam G05” - deployed alongside unit 4 at the battle of Solomon.

RX-78-6 “Mudrock Gundam” - deployed in the defence of Jaburo and the re-taking of California base.

The other two units are part of the series, but were not (as far as we know) deployed during the OYW:

RX-78-7 “Gundam 7th” - completed and deployed after the war.

RX-78-8 - we know nothing about. There may have been an 8th unit, it may just have been design data, and we have no idea if it was deployed or what it looked like.

Next; The Gundam Ground Types. There were 20 (-ish, some sources say 28) Gundam ground types produced during the One Year War from spare parts of the RX-78 series. This includes:

The units seen in 08th MS Team - 12 Gundam Ground Types were deployed to the Kojima Battalion.

The Ez8 - Deployed, as above.

Blue Destiny Unit 1 - Deployed

Blue Destiny Unit 2 - stolen by Zeon Ace Nimbus Schterzen.

Blue Destiny Unit 3 - Deployed in pursuit of Unit 2.

Slave Wraith - Questionably Canon, assigned to and deployed by Slave Wraith team.

I’m also gonna quickly call out that we have no idea on the various Full Armor units (the FA Gundam, the Heavy Gundam, the FA Ground type, the FA type B etc). Some sources say they were built, others that they were only simulation data.

And finally we have everything else:

Gundam NT-1 “Alex” - Developed at Augusta Base, then moved to side 6, where it was deployed against the Cyclops Team.

Gundam NT-1 “Prototype NT-1” - apparently an entirely separate suit to the NT-1. The prototype to the above. Presumably not deployed.

RX-78XX “Pixy/Pixie Gundam” - Questionably Canon, three units built. Unit 1 deployed in Belfast, Unit 2 in the Gobi Desert (and planned to be deployed at Odessa) and Unit 3 in Africa.

RAG-79-G1 Gundam Marine type - Sometimes known as the “Gundiver”. An underwater-spec unit. Unknown amount produced, primarily because it’s essentially a modified Underwater GM as opposed to a “true” Gundam unit.

And that’s about it for mainline UC. Gundam The Origin intentionally keeps things very vague as to how many Gundam’s exist there, so I’m not going to bother.

Gundam Thunderbolt is a bit of an odd case, since at first glance, it adds three:

FA-78 Full Armour Gundam (Thunderbolt ver.) - deployed by the Moore Brotherhood at Side 4.

RX-79[GS] Gundam Ground type S - produced by the Federation during the One Year War and after, presumably deployed.

RGM-79/GH Gundam Head - a GM with a Gundam-style head in an attempt to reproduce the psychological effect on Zeon forces.

But that last one illustrates Thunderbolt’s position on the matter, which is later made clearer in the manga in regards to the Bull-G, a unit built postwar. The Bull-G is a prototype unit contending for the position of the Federations new main unit. However, it’s actually an upgraded GM, fitted with a Gundam-style head to make it more appealing.

And this seems to be thunderbolt’s position on the matter - after a certain point it comes down to a suit’s performance rather than it being a Gundam. So yes, it adds a bunch of Gundam-style suits, but it also deconstructs that just because a suit looks like a Gundam doesn’t make it special.

Which is honestly a pretty interesting position to take.