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Worldbuilding: A Less Stupid Gundam SEED Worldbuilding Thread

Discussion in 'CW Index' started by Aaron Fox, Dec 27, 2018.

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  1. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    So, someone went and discussed how crap the Gundam SEED borders were and pretty much didn't justify them at all. That started me working on an idea modifying Gundam SEED to make more sense. Well, more sense than the usual Gundam flare (although in Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans, the geopolitics are the way they are thanks to rampant AI killing any significant population center and turning them into cinders and Gjallarhorn 'balancing' the factions a little to ensure that they're easier to manipulate in a divide and conquer strategy) anyway.

    Now, after setting up a handful of basic faction bits in SB and SV, I've started to make a document as an intro for this more justifiable Gundam SEED. Now I'll probably need some constructive criticism to minimize the crazy... and that will be surely be welcomed.

    Some Prototypes:
    The Geopolitics and Nations of a slightly-alternate Cosmic Era

    By Aaron Fox

    1 Prelude: The Basics
    [​IMG]


    The saddest thing about the Cosmic Era is that it held such great promise for humanity, and yet it became one of the worst bloodlettings in the history of mankind and would lead to one of the worst wars that mankind has ever fought in. To properly set the stage, one must go back into time to when it all started during the mid-21st century, where everything went wrong…

    One of the key things that one must understand is the fact that gene-tech has been outright outlawed in the Cosmic

    1.1 The Resource Wars ~2045-2065 AD
    [​IMG]
    (a battle between US -later Atlantic Federation- soldiers and the European Union -which would be absorbed into the Eurasian Federation during the Reconstruction Wars- fighting in the outskirts of the London Metropolitan Area)

    To understand the Cosmic Era, one must talk about the infamous Resource and Reconstruction Wars. These are a series of immense and horrible conflicts that devastated much of the world and left billions destitute in one way or another. The Resource Wars happened first as it started around March of 2045 when resources in easy to reach deposits that all of civilization depended on for existence became depleted.

    These wars would cause devastation on a planetary scale. With the unintentional proliferation of DEW-based ABM systems, conventional warfare became incredibly common. This would have dire consequences later, particularly in the change of mentality when it pertains to nuclear weaponry as all nuclear armed sides had used tactical nukes in the later battles with some instances of strategic level nuclear ordinance being thrown around on states without DEW-ABM technology.

    This fundamental change in thought around nuclear weaponry is how much of the Middle East became a literal post-nuclear apocalypse wasteland, thanks to Israel deciding to throw nukes at the invading Syrian, Saudi, Iraqi, and Egyptian armies… and a portion of the Samson Option being implemented as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem became Stalingrad 2.0: Rattenkrieg Harder as Jewish, Israeli-friendly Arabs, and Christians made taking every inch requiring the invaders to have a mountain of their own bodies as the cost. This was also all the while the invading Arabs tried to genocide Jews in Israel.

    It is the Resource Wars that left much of the planet vulnerable to nations like Russia, the United States, and China. Allowing them to be able to do what they’ve done in the Reconstruction Wars.

    1.2 The Reconstruction Wars 2065-2100
    [​IMG]
    (Russian -later Eurasian- T-90AMV2s fighting Israeli troops in the Lebanon Unrecognized Zone)
    The Reconstruction Wars is a series of conflicts that happened soon after the Resource Wars and were generally horrific affairs to begin with. In the grand scheme of things, these conflicts had the goals of removing any and all possible threats to nations like China, Russia, and the United States. Problem is, it didn’t succeed as much as it was hoped by the various leaders.

    The Reconstruction Wars was essentially further proof of the idea that ‘Might makes Right’ is the only idea that matters. It was during this time the first humanoid war machines were developed. These machines, called Mobile Weapons or MWs for short, were a Japanese project that started during the Resource Wars to improve effectiveness of infantry units in the jungle and mountain terrain. By being able to haul weapons that became unavailable for infantry -particularly the latest generation of Explosive Formed Penetrator warheads on ATGMs and other missiles- they multiplied the effectiveness of the infantry units their attached to by several orders of magnitude, particularly in urban or other ‘rough’ terrain.

    [​IMG]
    (A view of a ‘finishing bay’ of a Mobile Weapon production line, a lot of the basics of Mobile Weapon production would be integrated to the initial production lines of Mobile Suits.)

    It wasn’t long before the technology fell into the hands of China -later rebranding itself as ‘the Republic of East Asia’ after the Reconstruction Wars- when Japan fell in the late 2070s. This technology would also find itself in the various African conflicts during the last days of the Anno Domini era and the beginning decades of the Cosmic Era.

    It is the flexibility of environs a mobile weapon can tackle that made it standard equipment amongst the various nations afterward. This would lay the groundwork for the now-famous Mobile Suits that the PLANTs would produce well into the 5th decade of the Cosmic Era.

    As the three and a half decade conflict came to a close, it became clear that Earth can no longer sustain humanity… and thus the beginnings of a new age of space exploration and colonization began.

    1.3 The Second Space Race (0000 Cosmic Era- 0045 Cosmic Era)

    The Beginning of the Cosmic era became five and a half decades of intense international rivalries as the new ‘Space Race’ began. Thanks to many technologies that were developed in the ending decades of Anno Domini, vastly cheaper methods of spacelift were developed. While most nations would opt for the use of electromagnetic Mass Drivers as their primary means of surface-to-orbit travel, two nations -the ORB Union and the South Asian Union- would opt for utilizing orbital elevators.

    [​IMG]
    (the ORB Union’s orbital elevator Heaven’s Pillar, responsible for 7/10ths of ORB’s surface-to-orbit traffic alongside a third of its power supply via the end station’s complex solar array)

    As soon as the ‘Age of Space Colonization’ -also known as the ‘Second Space Race’- started, the rivalries between the various power blocks intensified. While none of these rivalries would become world wars in their own right, there have been major conflicts that flared up during this era, especially CE 0025 onwards when space mining became more and more vital in ensuring the resources needed to maintain the civilization that humanity found itself in.

    The first space colony -an Island 3 O’Neil type called New Texas- was finished by the Atlantic Federation in CE 0020 in Lagrange 1, setting up a pipeline of another 49 Island 3 types that would be completed in CE 0027. New Texas was followed shortly thereafter with Eurasia’s Island 3 called Leningrad that is positioned in L4. The ORB Union would quickly follow suit with Heliopolis 1 in L3.

    In addition to the construction of space colonies, the various blocks would start colonizing the moon. While the UN would create the first successful lunar colony -Copernicus- in CE 0025, the other power blocks would carve the moon for themselves. This would lead to actual combat on the moon between the power blocks, leading to the wars known as the ‘Lunar Wars’. These ‘wars’ were more like skirmishes than actual wars, where adhoc escorts and armed mining equipment came to a sector of Luna and simply shot at each other until either a) the opposing side dies (which was rare) or b) the other side has enough and leaves. The Lunar Wars would end rather quickly, within half a decade this conflict would end as Zero Gravity mining became more and more plausible.

    By 0045, the foundations for the L5 colonies was laid down, eventually creating what would be known as the PLANTs.


    Now, my 'plan of attack' with this is to extend the timeline a bit to make it less... head-scratching on the world building front...
     
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  2. Extras: NOTICE!
    Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    Attention all: This is a Worldbuilding Thread that you can help with! You can ask questions, make suggestions, and more to make this 'world' better. You have explicit permission from the OP to come and help out.
     
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  3. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    Some of the ideas I've got is that we move the First Bloody Valentine War to the 0080s or 0090s while having the late 0060s/early 0070s being the PLANT's war of independence. The PLANTs becoming independent became casus belli for the nations of the Earth Alliance, as the PLANTs were the major resource processing center in the Earth-Moon Lagrange system. Resources that Earth needs.

    Also, I was thinking that which block that Blue COSMOS has control in, and since IRL it is Europe that is venomously against GMOs, it would be Eurasia that would be controlled by Blue COSMOS...
     
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  4. kaazmiz

    kaazmiz Waiting for an Issekai Adventure

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    Hmm.
    The resource wars are a solid base for a lot of stories. Though it would make some sense to flash out how those came to be. Like a lack of international cooperation leading up to little to no exchange among universities, thus resulting in deeper layers of oil laying untapped, and nuclear power plants having far less efficiency at higher price tags.
    Such a lack of cooperation would also destabilize smaller less advanced countries across the world, especially ones reliant on outside support for various materials and technological solutions.

    There needs to be a very solid reason why Israel would be left alone to deal with its neighbors alone and resort to tactical nukes. US was a staunch supporter of Israel since its inception, so there would need to be some solid reasoning why they would feel pressured.

    Using Mobile Weapons... as an extension of an infantry tech tree... to gain Mobile Suits
    There is a whole world of difference between any singe man operable bipedal or quad legged machine, and a giant Mobile Suit. And trying to push them as anything other than a whole new military solution will always fall flat, as militaries have already used and designed solutions for solving those problems.
    For example utilization of UGV's or tankettes to supplement infantry carry capability.

    1960' US Airforce Beetle
    Consider MS's as a completely new development born from a lack of industrial capability to build or maintain vehicles that need ceramic/armor plating, post resource wars. And becoming viable due to heavy urbanization pre-collapse making their large silhouettes (height) losing significance in the face of direct fire or air superiority.
    Canon MS are internally made out of metal foams, so this gives a way in for creating their origin.

    It made little sense for ORB to own an orbital elevator in canon, even if it was unfinished, much less there being two of them ,owned by 2 different countries.
    ORB was the pacifist Japan wank of its writers, and I suppose there is little that can be done to circumvent this.
    By all that is un/holly, giving it an economical reason to exists that wont break the setting is futile. Anything you do that would allow ORB and SAU to build those monstrosities would at the same time solve all of earths energy/resource problems.
    It had little reason to exist in canon other than poking holes at the uncooperative "western" nations, while also being completely ignored and overshadowed by mass launchers.
    ML's gave the setting a lot of strategic depth, and make for much harder targets to take and control.
     
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  5. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    They are but not the focus.
    True, and they would be gobbled up in a might makes right scenario.
    Because Great Britain would be the furthest extent of their reach?
    The thing with Mobile Weapons is that they basically are the equivalent of Mobile Workers that have been already weaponized. That and it made a more logical step between infantry and MS.
    Actually here's the thing I've noticed with Gundam SEED: there are no drones. Period, end of story. You might have remotes at best, but those are rare as fuck and only three or four designs even use them. From what I can gather, Gundam SEED had basically rendered drones absolutely useless.
    Here it is vital for the needed goods and energy traffic.
    Here, I've been planning to have ORB be basically Israel on a massive scale, with disproportionate forces for it's capability... especially given China's record with dealing with other ethnic groups (i.e. bow down to them or get exterminated).
    The major problem I was thinking was that they were recent things that were built over a period of decades. Add a very general 'everyone out for themselves' mentality...
    Here it has a few reasons to exist.
    Not exactly, especially if all that fissile material is basically out of the equation or the fact that you can't supply missile launchers if your logistics are annihilated. ORB was going to fall in canon one way or another, it is just too vulnerable to having it's logistics smashed to survive more than a few weeks.
     
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  6. Slayer Anderson

    Slayer Anderson Orthodox Heretic

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    So, I went searching for Gundam Seed (or general Gundam) discussion thread and this was the closest I got to it.

    I have to say I'm not disappointed. I'm very interested in the level of worldbuilding demonstrated here, but...

    ...I will admit I was primarily looking for a place to throw around some ideas about a fic that I'm dipping my toes into. I'd be principally using the Seed universe, as well as bits and pieces from the IBO and Wings timelines for a crossover with Mass Effect. Would the OP be amenable to me adapting some of this material for use in my story, should it get off the ground?

    As a corollary, I was curious if I could open up some more general gundam discussion here on this thread or if the OP would rather I take it elsewhere?
     
  7. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    I'm very amiable with people using my stuff as long as credit is given... although this might take a while since I'm doing several others as well (one that is a bizarre fusion of Anno 2070/2205, Front Mission, Nexus: The Jupiter Incident, among others and a 'Frostpunk meets Day After Tomorrow' world where humanity is forced to live in giant biodomed arcologies for the most part) on top of two stories that I'm writing (a FiM/XCOM fic and a GATE fic) with life being an asshole to me and getting me quirky.

    The reason that I have these worldbuilding threads is to have people help me 'keep real' as it were. Things like find inconsistencies that I didn't catch, tell me things that are 'off' of the setting that don't make sense, stuff like that.
     
  8. Slayer Anderson

    Slayer Anderson Orthodox Heretic

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    Thanks, good to know. Since it's amenable, I'll likely post a brief synopsis of the idea I'm working on... after I get some sleep. So I'll be back in a day or so.
     
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  9. Slayer Anderson

    Slayer Anderson Orthodox Heretic

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    Well, that took a little longer than I'd thought.

    This is the backstory narrative I've got so far. I'm planning on setting the actual story sometime in the early 2200s, right before contact with the Citadel races of Mass Effect.

    At the moment, this is very much still a work in progress, I should add. Pretty much everything is up for changes.

    Gundam Seed/Gundam Wing/Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans/Avatar/Mass Effect

    Na'vi: Achieve spaceflight around 1700, FTL 1800, discover Humanity 190X, observe until WWI. Put First Contact off until they can understand humanity properly. WWII happens. Debate between interventionists, abandonment of FC altogether, and obstruction of violent human social development. Debate continues into the 1960s, when humanity starts making strides towards space, much faster than the na'vi did.

    1970s: Eventually decided upon releasing a retrovirus to cut birthrates, revert humanity to an earlier stage, slow their growth, and give them a 'second chance' at development.

    1990s: Retrovirus begins deploying, despite (or because of) shifting opinion of the consensus after seeing humanity pull back from the brink of nuclear armageddon between the USA and Soviet Union. Initial observations go well, birthrates begin a slow decline.

    2000s: Virus mutates due to contamination with eezo module in the dispersal craft. Humanity begins to die in a variety of horrifying ways. Initially mistaken by humanity as outbreaks of pandemic variants of avian flu, antibiotic-resistant STDs, and other virulent agents.

    2005: The na'vi, having established discreet observation posts within the Sol system, become concerned, then horrified as it is discovered what they have wrought. Three separate attempts over the next years to acquire samples of the diseases and halt their weapon's proliferation result in the contamination and painful deaths of all crews involved, including one case where the vessel in question crashed into Luna.

    2010s: Human population numbers begin to decline, globally, as deaths exceed births. Panic sets in as national quarantines are enacted and social order breaks down. The na'vi, increasingly appalled at what they've inadvertently done, shut down all observation stations and abandon Sol and humanity to its fate, unwilling or unable to cope with watching a civilization die by their own hand.

    2020s: Casualties from the dozen-plus 'mystery illnesses' mount into the millions, then tens of millions. Specialists from every nation attend hundreds of teleconferences monthly in an attempt to cooperate. Simultaneously, national government crack down on press organizations which attempt to blame minorities, rival nations, and various secret societies or fringe religious groups for causing the diseases. Mainstream religious figures blame sliding morality and anti-religious behavior for the situation. Blame also circulates towards genetic research and development groups, the backlash against the possibility of contaminated gene-modded crops creates food shortages that exacerbate the death toll.

    2030s: The death toll reaches one billion. Even with the best efforts of quarantines, the near-complete cessation of trade, and authorization of lethal force against those attempting to cross borders, martial law has been needed to maintain a semblance of order. Where nations still survive, curfews in all urban areas have been put into force in an attempt to curtail looting, crimes of opportunity, and mob violence. Having seen the benefit of enormous sums of money directed to spaceflight, genetics research, and agricultural production to survive the seeming-apocalypse, mankind begins to move to a newly-constructed moon base as a last defense against their own extinction.

    2040s: A man with one of the rarest medical cases in human history, Stoneman Syndrome, is discovered to be completely immune to many of the current super-plagues ravaging humanity. The discovery is kept top secret as scientists the world over study and analyze medical samples. Eventually, this chance find becomes a key piece in a series of treatments designed to combat the plagues. By altering the calcium-replacement process which resulted in ossification to a carbon-replacement process, a paradigm shift in developing a plague-resistant human genome occurred. It was decided, at the highest levels of surviving governments, that the CURE Project would now incorporate any and all genetic improvements they found as a byproduct, not merely the publicly-stated goal of resolving the disease-crisis. This decision would later come under heavy fire, but only after a leak revealed it long after the majority of the individuals involved had died. Due to the lack of evidence, many have speculated that the decision was made to better enable the next generations to survive in the hostile environments outer space and other planets offered.

    2050s: With the death toll of the super-plagues and resource wars now standing at 6 billion and counting, the breakthrough cure has been found. An invitro treatment for human embryos allows the next generation of humanity to be born free from the worries of the vast majority of diseases and cancers. Almost universally stronger, faster, smarter, capable of enduring greater pressure, gravity, and temperature differentials, and, as would eventually be discovered, significantly longer-lived many of the surviving older generations question if their progeny remain human. Facing down lingering fears of genetic alteration and apocalyptic religious zealotry, the governments of the world distance themselves from any talk of a 'next evolution' or a 'superior gene-line' and instead judge that these children are merely a 'New Type of Humanity,' eventually coining the milder term 'Newtype.'

    2060s: Although the Newtype-Proliferation had begun a decade earlier, efforts are ongoing to contact extremely isolated, militant, or otherwise incommunicado groups of humans. In the public eye, though, the secondary conflicts brought about by the immense death toll, take the predominance in focus. Over the past decades, fuels requiring transportation and a net of human contact to spread the diseases, had fallen out of favor. Renewable fuels and the cutting of trade routes began a downward spiral in less-developed countries. Combined with ongoing ecological problems and lower agricultural yields outside of multi-story farming 'plants' result in an often-overlooked series of conflicts beginning in the 2030s and lasting through the 2080s, collectively called 'Resource Wars.'

    2070s: With the revelation of alien life and their culpability in the 'Great Dying,' the human war machine begins to unify and ally the disparate factions of the world once again. Bereft of purpose after the creation of the 'Newtype Treatment,' the surviving governments of the world now push for a stronger unified front against the monsters who had killed over 6 billion people. Secretly, research begins on a slate of genetic modifications to be made to the soldiers who will fight in the upcoming war of vengeance. Given the unassuming name of the 'Panel for Greater Troop Coordination Studies,' the resulting gene-modded soldiers are eventually labeled as 'Coordinators' and perform at a level above even Newtypes.

    2080s: Militarization culture spreads rapidly among the remnants of humanity, a movement for global political federation, if not unity, induces mostly-successful attempts at bringing the Resource Wars to an end. Although decried initially as a return to Western Imperialism and Empire-Building, this era is most-marked by organized humanitarian outreach using pacification and interventionism as a pretext for the start of cultural assimilation. While 'industrial cloning' is in development utilizing artificial wombs to increase population numbers, there are worries that it will not be quick enough in the face of a possible alien threat.

    2090s: The first spacefaring human warships finish construction, based heavily on na'vi designs lifted from the crashed vessel's computers. Mostly prototypes used for training, many are tested to destruction and valuable lessons in construction and operation are picked up. The first generation of Newtypes begin hitting their late twenties and early thirties in appreciable numbers, changing combat doctrine even further. Due to the low overall numbers of personnel available, a decision is made to implement wide-scale training in heavy-combat exo-suits. Information regarding the na'vi physical abilities is kept largely secret, but analyses of the bodies within the crashed ship inform as to their larger sizes, enhanced physical strength, and what will eventually be termed biotic capacity.
     
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  10. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    ... that's... unusual to say the least, and the thing with the Na'vi is that they're basically what the eco-prims want in a civilization... just my two cents on the idea.
     
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  11. Slayer Anderson

    Slayer Anderson Orthodox Heretic

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    The whole eco-primitive stuff has always been kind of unviable bullshit for me, culturally at least. Long-term, that kind of technological stasis on a world-wide scale just... at any rate, I'll admit that part of why I slotted the na'vi into the role is that I really don't like that kind of philosophy. The other part is that the na'vi live relatively close-by, in the stellar sense. It's not out of question for them to easily stumble on humanity. I could, theoretically, swap in a different race.
     
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  12. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    Understandable, but given what we know about the Na'vi, the only plausible way that they're eco-prim is that they effectively have no free will, that Eywe basically controls them through their 'bio-USB' tendrils. That has the smarter SBers worried because that runs the possibility that their trans-Na'vi cousins are out there and are willing to set up something like that for their eco-prim cousins...

    ... but I digress.

    Anyway, as I was building towards the 'PLANT War of Independence (with violations of the Rules of War in abundance, mostly on the proto-Earth Alliance side)', a little quip on SB got me thinking: Gundam SEED was a hair breadth away from becoming basically Mad Max, hence Earth's immense reliance on fission reactors and geothermal energy.
     
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  13. Slayer Anderson

    Slayer Anderson Orthodox Heretic

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    A na'vi cerberus-esque group, having rejected the Eywa bond and gone digital instead of biological? That's... actually pretty intriguing. I may use the idea.
    Oh, certainly. There are any number of points where SEED might have turned into a Mad Max style setting, especially during the Resource Wars, little that we know about them aside. I'd say there's even pretty fertile ground for a post-SEED story where Zala manages to successfully fire the death-ray at Earth. Athrun or Kira (or even Cagalli) might blow up the mirror system part way through and save Earth from the full blast, but they'd doubtless sustain massive damage. With the proliferation of N-Jammer Cancelers, though, you could have Gundam-style giant robots/vehicles running on nuclear reactors fighting over the now-scarce resources.

    Personally, that would have been a far more interesting sequel than Destiny was.
     
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  14. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    Been quite some time but the way I heard it, it was to keep the prims quiet while they do Postie things...
    Eh, Destiny was going to be a Zeta thing no matter what, as the second series of any Gundam series always has been constrained by Zeta one way or another until Builders and Iron Blooded Orphans where the mentality was finally taken out the back and shot with a 8-gauge shotgun. Also the entire thing with Patrick is that he started off acting like a 'loyal opposition' but the mental cost of the war (and the death of his wife at Julius 7), the realization that the Earth Alliance is willing to go full-on genocide to get what it wants, and that the Earth Alliance is dominated by Blue COSMOS in terms of leadership... then there was Rau whispering in his ear...

    Also, even Genesis firing without the mirror would have ended all life on Earth anyway, and probably ended the PLANTS as well as they're likely to be caught in the new blast... Remember, a Gamma Ray Pulse would literally strip Earth's atmosphere, and Genesis is basically an (weaker) artificial version of that.

    Another thing is that the main reason that Coordinators are having problems is that SEED-verse doesn't have things like CRISPR or what I call 'gene-stabilizers' (basically genes that 'stabilize' genetic augmentations), without those key technologies, their genetic makeup is fucked at best, thus why the extremely low birth rates. The genetic makeup is so fucked that it is acting like late-stage incest (and that has all sorts of problems). Without these bio-technologies, you have to force the mother to adhere to a completely and utterly strict dietary plan despite the infamous motherly cravings nagging at them all the time. Glen came out right because his mother was able to do that. Everyone else didn't. That is why Kira's father went crazy trying to create what is essentially iron wombs.

    Then there is the fact that SEED-verse can do some pretty sick shit with brains in jars...
    Also, for those going "What are these lettered devices you are talking about?", well, Front Mission 1/1st has the main characters discover that the factory they were investigating in the beginning of the game was a RnD facility for biological CPUs in the strictest sense.

    You heard me right, biological CPUs. Brains taken from actual, experienced (and still alive) pilots then placed in jars to be used as CPUs. A lot of pain and suffering has been made thanks to these things. The original program was made by the OCU, originally spec'd to vat-grown clone brains until the OCU top brass decided to use adult brains instead. One of the members left the program soon after this meeting, but his other compatriot went on to work with a conspiracy within the UCN. The B-Device is a literal brain in a jar that you hook up to a Wanzer. While an improvement over conventional CPUs, they were extremely temperamental and prone to malfunction, usually in the form of a rampaging Wanzer with a dead pilot inside.

    The S-Device is basically an MMI that requires a level of compatibility to function properly. If one has bad compatibility, then you suffer things like memory loss and brain damage... it wasn't uncommon for death to happen because one isn't compatible enough. In addition, an S-Device can cause a Wanzer to act on its own based on the pilot's personality. `:confused: The main antagonists of the game Evolved share traits of pilots with poor S-Device compatibility ratings, the EDGE system is likely partially based on the S-Device, and the AI at the end of the game is probably based off of the General's time in an S-Device equipped Wanzer and someone used the stored personality to create an AI.

    A neat little video about the B and S devices.
     
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  15. Slayer Anderson

    Slayer Anderson Orthodox Heretic

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    Eh, I've seen worse.

    Anyway, shifting topics. I rewatched SEED recently with a friend who had never seen it. It'd been about ten years since my original run-through back when it came out, and... with a greater knowledge base and understanding of geopolitical repercussions...

    It's honestly a complete mystery to me as to why Orb sides with the Earth Alliance at all. The Alliance opens the war by committing a war crime, refuses to acknowledge the captain's culpability, and publicly espouses a doctrine of what is, functionally, genocide against anyone who has had genetic surgery or been the result of those advancements.

    I get that the general themes of Gundam are that 'war is hell no matter the side' and so on, but it seems to me that the Earth Alliance are pretty unequivocably the bad guys here, with the notable exception of Chairman Zala and Rau le Creuset. In fact, it seems like those two were only added in for the sake of making ZAFT look at least a little bit guilty too.

    So... am I crazy or was Cagalli totally right when she called out, "Father, you've betrayed us all!" in episode one?
     
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  16. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    From the expanded universe material, it wasn't ORB in it's entirety but a house of ORB who is really buddy-buddy with the Atlantic Federation. It should also be noted that ORB in canon is impossible to defend against a determined opponent, the only thing you can do is surrender and hope for the best.
    No, the expanded universe material has one of the houses of ORB do this behind his back... which he then used to accelerate his own mobile suit program as he wasn't unwilling to try to pull a Sweden...
     
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  17. Slayer Anderson

    Slayer Anderson Orthodox Heretic

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    You only have to tell me once, I've got it. Though for such an important detail to fall by the wayside as to be put into the expanded universe material... that seems like either a serious fumble by the creators or something created after-the-fact in order to justify a plot twist that made no sense. Either way, it's pretty bad writing. Viewers should have a self-contained plot that makes sense, at least superficially, without having to dig for details in other media.

    In-universe... it's a serious flub by the ORB union that we don't ever see their government attempt to rectify. That kind of thing should have been almost enough to justify ZAFT considering ORB to have broken their neutrality. I can only imagine ORB handing over serious concessions after the fact in order to keep a ZAFT landing force from showing up. The PLANTs were winning the war pretty handidly at that time.

    As far as my supposition goes about ZAFT being the good guys, as a whole, though? Is that something you think is borne out or do you disagree?
     
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  18. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    From what I gathered, SEED caused a major fanbase schism on par with Gundam Wing, causing most of the gidiens and what not to be canceled... that and there was only one writer for all of SEED and SEED Destiny who had a very 'my way or no way' attitude.
    True, but then again they might have given ZAFT portions of their data on the V Project and stated that one of the houses was going out of bounds...
    Overall, ZAFT was pretty much in the right throughout the series until Zala went coo-coo for coo-coo nuts near the end. Remember, the first response to the PLANTs getting some form of self-sufficiency was blockade then nuke the colony. It likely didn't help that the Earth Alliance went full Ostfront first by throwing out all the Rules of War (and a fact that somehow escapes everyone's notice is that the Rules of War has provisions that allow the other side to respond in kind) thanks to Blue COSMOS...
     
  19. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    I was thinking a few things about the setting, as fleets and independence just don't happen... they are a series of events that led to them.

    Now I was thinking that in the years leading up to the 'PLANT War of Independence', the majority of the Coordinators and their families had been moving to the PLANTs because of Blue COSMOS and the bio-conservative leanings of the majority of the planet. Others left to Oceania and ORB but the influx pales in comparison to the PLANTs.

    Now ZAFT in the PLANT War of Independence heavily relied on modified civilian designs at first, the lessons leading to ZAFT's first generation of warships (which are the precursors to the Laurasia and Nazca class with new escort class to boot). The Earth Alliance had the upper hand here, as the Earth Sphere had low-level fighting between the major blocks for decades at this point. It was here that the idea that would lead to Mobile Suits and the N-Jammer would be born, as there were several instances that the various power blocks would use nuclear weapons wantonly...
     
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  20. Aaron Fox

    Aaron Fox That Crazy/Not-Crazy Guy

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    I was thinking about the makeup of the ZAFT Fleet, and from what little there is in canon, it's wholly inadequate, period. Even Mobile Suit Gundam UC 0079 -SEED's psudo-predecessor- had Zeon have a healthy mix of supply vessels, escorts, and capitals... yet ZAFT doesn't which is peculiar to say the least.

    Now, ZAFT's space forces would be like their counterparts in the Earth Alliance, undergoing transition. ZAFT's main focus had always been their strikecraft -which would be replaced by MS in general in the inter-war years- and it's support, thus practically every ship within ZAFT's fleet has some form of hanger that isn't just there for shuttles. This allowed ZAFT to send out smaller taskgroups without decreasing their capabilities like their psudo-Earth Alliance counterparts. This basically caused the psudo-Earth Alliance to be force to cover numerous locales at once with a very bulky force.

    ZAFT's older ship designs had more harsh lines instead of the ridiculous amount of curves that 'modern' ZAFT ships sport, and were the first designs to utilize ship-to-ship beam weaponry, particularly ion laser cannons (ZAFT uses gasses that create a green ionized air glow while the Earth Alliance uses gasses that produce an orange ionized air glow and ORB purple ionized air glow). These first generation weapons had a poor cyclic rate however, forcing ZAFT vessels to supplement them with linear rifles and CIWS autocannon...
     
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