Ghost Of Summer

ghost of summer

watercolour on arches paper

Star Wars: X-Wing - Rogue Squadron #2 (The Rebel Opposition) Cover Art by Dave Dorman

Gino D’Achille

Ah! I wasn’t aware of that detail regarding the Astaroth (I should really look into re-reading/finishing Gekko). Hm, though this is absolute base speculation on my part, I wonder if the reason that the Falk and Baklazan Families don’t have a horse in this race is that their scions are in positions leaning away from piloting - politics or economics or shipping etc. -the reveal of the Gamigin at least implies that House Falk could’ve made a play (at least assuming Mcgillis didn’t have them locked down). But of course, if it’s no longer seen as a valuable skill (not least since a bunch of other houses have people in that area), then it makes sense (maybe they have vassals or a personal guard or something).

It of course makes sense that Gjallarhorn would see them (the Gundam Frames) as less valuable, especially if they’re going to release them into the public market. They’re essentially a toy or ornament for the nobility at this point - “oh, my great, great, great, great uncle twice-removed, piloted one during the third battle of Vancouver, it’s still in the family vault. Oh, your house has only been around a century? Oh, well then. Good for you, I suppose.” It’s essentially what Gaelio is doing early on, before his character growth, busting out the family sword in an attempt to teach these Martian bumpkins what-for. It also illustrates the fact that a lot of Gjallarhorn’s nobility is sheltered from the outside world (such as when Gaelio realised that Alaya-Vijinana is still a thing, or Carta gets crushed because she’s using outdated tactics, or pretty much Iok’s entire motivation). It feeds into this sense that they don’t recognise what they are. McGillis and Rustal are dangerous and effective because (for the most part) they understand what power is and how to wield it. The Gundam frames *can* be powerful, but it’s dependent on so many factors. Gjallarhorn at large is blind to them - even Rustal underestimates them at one point(or more accurately, he has the power to match them, Norba just demonstrates that he really shouldn’t write them off). But Mcgillis is just the opposite. He’s in love with the Gundam’s. He’s in love with the romanticism of him using the mythical weapons of the past to change the future. Of him being the Heir to Agnika Kaeru. And that blinds him to their limitations. To the fact that Tekkadan are not a match for the Arionrhod Fleet. To the fact that Gjallarhorn isn’t just going to fall in line once he has Bael.

Gusion and Vual…. Honestly I always took Gusion (in its original form) to at least be a demonstration of how good the Gundam frames can be if you know what you’re doing with them. It’s essentially overloaded with armour and heavy weaponry, cutting its agility and operating time down - it’s suitable for raids and anti-ship work, which is perfect for a pirate outfit like the Brewers. But because it can carry more than a Rodi and has better performance, it’s tuned as Kudal’s head machine. It’s a very specialised machine, because the Gundam frame can carry a heavier load than the rodi’s. Plus, it’d serve certain interests in Gjallarhorn to have an above-average pirate force running around in your competition’s trading routes. Vual I honestly don’t have a clue on, since it’s origin is just “Rosario found it and armoured it with spare Astaroth parts supplied by Klassen”. I typically read it as Ville Klassen needing some muscle and the Vual being the best of bunch, but of course that’s just my own supposition.

Hm. There’s a thought. How would a Gundam frame being reclaimed even work? I assume it’d just go to whichever family actually recovered it (as with Astaroth and the Warren’s), but I wonder if there’s some Seven-Stars esque ranking system that denoted who’d be in line for it? Like an inheritance?

So I realised something - two things in fact, today when thinking about Iron Blooded Orphans again.

So, Gaelio, having realised that his Schwalbe Graze isn’t enough, pulls out the Bauduin family Gundam, the Kimaris, with which to fight the Barbatos. Mcgillis (as Montag) expresses amazement that Gaelio did this, and surprise that Gundam’s are fighting one another. However, his tone is rather dry, suggesting that, while surprising, such a situation is not an unthinkable one.

So, could there have been other fights between Gundam’s post-calamity war?

The other thing is that, while we’re told that there’s 26 Gundam’s known to still exist in P.D. 323, at the start of the series (I *think* it gets pushed up to 31 by the end, since Flauros, Gusion, Vual, Asmoday and Hajiroboshi get unearthed or revealed over that timeframe, but I might have forgotten one), we don’t know for certain that all of the missing ones were destroyed during the calamity war. It’s possible some were destroyed in the intervening 300-ish years, whether by politicking (think the Warren’s and Nadira’s being shoved out along with their gundam’s) or by some other conflict (it’s of course possible that not everyone was completely willing to accept Gjallarhorn’s rule postwar, no matter what the state of things).

So it’s possible that other Gundam’s have been discovered or lost since the calamity war, and they could have intervened in numerous other conflicts in that time. Mcgillis himself notes that Gundam’s “have appeared numerous times at historical turning points and have been a great influence on the history of man”. Not “the machines that won the calamity war”. It’s of course possible that Mcgillis’ romanticism makes him a biased source, prone to flowery descriptions. But. It does seem to indicate that the Gundams have had influence beyond the Calamity War already by P.D. 323, thus implying other conflicts they’ve been involved in.

I don’t know, it’s just cool to think about (and possible fodder for sidestories set prior to tekkadan’s formation in 323).

Y’know, I give seed a lot of guff for its mobile suit designs. About how so many of the Gundam’s look so similar, how a lot of the suits are just knock-offs of U.C. ones, how they tend to be reduced to a “bigger-stick” design philosophy. But Y’know what I really appreciate?

Hip-mounted railguns. A solid projectile weapon in an age of beam weapons, a extra gun to break up what could be a fairly plain hip design and it enables a bunch of cool poses, since it’s a hands-free weapon so they can be basically anywhere.

Queen of the Moon

I’m really enjoying Turn A Gundam at the moment.