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prezaki · 2 months

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Foundations of Mendel - Durandal in Context of His Biography and World

The goal of this write-up is figuring out how Durandal's disparate backstory bits fit in with both each other and the chronology of the Cosmic Era as a whole. It's my attempt at taking the retcons presented in Freedom and turning them back into a coherent narrative. (As a side effect, I also recap a lot of important lore that was not directly mentioned on the show.)

I begin far before Durandal was even born, because I think the tumultuous context of the Cosmic Era is fundamental to the emotional development of the show's adult cast. I'm basing everything here on the official timeline, which was initially published around 2004 (in MSV, for example) and reprinted as recently as 2012 in "Gundam SEED Mechanics and The World". The timeline is translated on the Gundam Wiki here, but I'll recap everything I deem important.

Lore that is not taken directly from the timeline or the anime itself will be marked either with its source or clearly labeled as speculation.

~*~

In the year CE 15 George Glenn releases the blueprint for how to make Coordinators. Initially, the practice is outlawed. The first generation of Coordinators is born in secret, mostly to wealthy parents who can afford both the treatment and the secrecy required. Siegel Clyne, Patrick Zala and Aura Maha Khyber all belong to this generation. They grow up on Earth, hiding their genetic type from their peers.

The public view on Coordinators doesn't change until CE 29, when George Glenn brings back Evidence 01, the space whale fossil. Confronted with the knowledge that intelligent alien life exists for certain, religious organizations lose influence on public ethics, thus resulting in their objections towards 'violation of the natural order' being rejected. Fueled by the thought that humanity would have to compete with a much wider universe, the creation of Coordinators booms and becomes commonplace.

This is also where space station Mendel marks its beginnings. It's a research hub centered around genetics, one of the facilities where parents would turn in order to have their children modified. The first secretly born Coordinators are all between 5 and 14 years old by this point, and for the first time more of their kind are created outside of covert efforts. None have reached adulthood yet.

And it won't be until around CE 40 that a significant enough number of the earliest Coordinators enters the workforce and begin having children. This shifts public opinion and puts a damper on the wide-spread enthusiasm. It becomes apparent that the adult Coordinators have a significant skill gap that sets them apart from their Natural peers. The fears and anxieties caused by this observed reality sees to it that Blue Cosmos once again finds mainstream appeal

It's now, in the year CE 41. Gilbert Durandal is born. I think this makes it very likely that his parents were some of the first Coordinators, still born in hiding. While it's still possible that he is first generation and made by Natural parents around this time by sheer coincidence, I think the fact that Aura finds his genetics fascinating enough to want to study them also speaks for him being second generation rather than directly modified.

Then in CE 44, when Durandal is 3 years old, the first set of PLANT colonies (Aprilius) is completed. The PLANTs are named as such because they were intended as manufacturing plants that should help the Earth by outsourcing a lot of production to space. They wind up being pretty much exclusively staffed by Coordinators since their abilities make it easier for them to effectively work in space. They're forbidden from producing their own food, thus keeping the workers totally dependent on Earth.

I think it's interesting to keep in mind that colony living as a wide-spread phenomenon is incredibly young in the Cosmic Era, even as opposed to the Universal Century which already had millions of people living in space in UC 20.

While there are around 10 million Coordinators by CE 45, a sizeable amount of them still lives on Earth. Hatred against Coordinators continues rising and terror attacks on the PLANTs are common. This is the social climate Aura experiences during her formative teenage years.

At the same time, dissatisfaction with the Coordination process is very commonplace as well. The (rich) people who shell out for designer babies are unhappy about even the slightest variation in their orders (let alone actual emergencies as they may occur in any pregnancies). The researchers at Mendel are at theirs wits end.

Trying to solve this perceived "problem", Ulen Hibiki works on the artificial womb. But he lacks funding, leading him to accept Al da Flaga's request to make a clone of himself in exchange for more money for his research.

Thus, in CE 46, Rau le Creuset is born.

As mentioned, at this point the seclusion of Coordinators living in the PLANTs is by circumstance rather than design. The founding of an actual organization of Coordinators is not until CE 50, when Siegel Clyne and Patrick Zala found the Zodiac Alliance. In its conception the Zodiac Alliance is a movement for autonomy of the PLANTs, including a right to make their own food. It is not well-received by the powers that be and driven underground pretty much immediately.

With that, we arrive at CE 53. Exactly 20 years prior to the events of Destiny, all the key players we know have moved to their starting positions and the plot threads we are familiar with begin unraveling.

The scene is Mendel. Ulen Hibiki, one of its best researchers. Aura Maha Khyber, also on Mendel although presumably working for a different company. She is engaged in a fierce rivalry with Hibiki. (Freedom Novel) 8 year old Rau, undergoing a secluded and strict education to become Da Flaga's heir. (SEED Novel) And Gilbert Durandal, 12 years old... also on Mendel, about to meet Aura Maha and change both their lives. (I am guessing on the year number - technically this could have also happened a year later, when Durandal is 13.)

Why Durandal came to Mendel is a mystery. Did his parents work there? Was he specifically coming there as a test subject? Or was his genius intellect big enough that he was coming there to work? Either way, his intellect is noticed by Aura and found to be exceptional. She begins studying his genes. (Freedom Novel)

Having grown up in these troubled times, Durandal was already trying to think of ways to use science to improve the world and bring about peace. The Destiny Plan is born here, as the naive dream of a tween. And "maybe we can use our newfound genetic expertise to give everyone a life that makes them happy" is perfectly reasonable as the dream of a kid who has immense intelligence but not yet attained true emotional maturity. And maybe it would have remained as such a dream, if not for Aura. Aura, at this point 29 years old, decides that actually the tween is CORRECT and we should absolutely structure the world around the tween's ideals! (Freedom Novel)

Maybe Aura is inspired in her fervor by the precarious point in history that they are in. George Glenn is assassinated either briefly before or briefly after Aura and Durandal meet. Making matters worse, Earth is faced with a pandemic of a new strain of influenza, which kills Naturals left and right but to which Coordinators are immune. Rumors spread that Coordinators engineered the illness, further escalating tensions. With things turning upside down this way, Aura may well have felt that she was on the cusp of a new era and given her the resolve to try and shape that era for what she felt is the better. We can only speculate.

Either way, the end result is that in CE 54, Aura actually convinces a whole team of researchers of her and Durandal's idea and begins creating a mediator master race for the new world they envision: the Accords.

Aura, just like Hibiki, is hurting for funding. Where Hibiki took money from the earth elite Da Flaga, Aura seeks her money from the Coordinators living on PLANT. She works on devising an anti-aging treatment as it is becoming increasingly apparent that the second generation of Coordinators is incredibly infertile and thus concerns are rising about the aging workforce. (Freedom Novel) (While this is the reason we are given in the text, the oldest Coordinators would only be around 40 at this point and the second generation around 20. The realization of second generation infertility would be very very recent.) Further, Aura's relative, the Emperor Mihar Khyber from Earth, is sending significant support to her project. (Freedom Novel) (My personal conclusion is that these circumstances led to Aura's labs being far better off financially than Hibiki's at this point, further worsening relations between the two.)

Then, in CE 55, Mendel sees its own little baby boom.

Via Hibiki gives birth to Cagalli. The first successful artificial womb gives birth to Kira. Lacusmama gives birth to Lacus. Aura gives birth to Orphee. An unknown researcher gives birth to Ingrid. (There is also a white haired baby in the movie screenshot, but Shura is two years too young to be the baby depicted. Mysterious!)

This is where I want to once again reiterate my belief that the Accords were carried to term rather than born from artificial wombs. Rau goes through great pains to tell us that an incredible amount of fetuses died in the attempt to get even a single live birth out of the artificial womb. It's absolutely nuts to think that Aura, two labs over, had successfully made three live births from artificial wombs just a few months before Kira was born.

The much less lorebreaking explanation is simply that Aura and Hibiki just had wholly different goals and priorities to start with. (Fukuda himself has stated at a live event that Aura's claims of Kira being a 'failed Accord' are nonsense, as Hibiki was never aiming to make an Accord at all.) Where Hibiki was trying to create a Coordinator that is 100% accurate to the genetic settings input by himself, Aura was much more focused on creating babies that had psychic abilities. It stands to reason that mild variations caused by natural pregnancy weren't a big obstacle.

In the same year, genetic modification is once again banned on Earth. From here on out, the only new Coordinators would be second and third generation Coordinators born to Coordinator parents. The creation of new Coordinators seems to have basically stopped entirely - if some secret births are happening, they do not impact canon significantly enough to ever be brought up.

Unfortunately neither the ban on making new Coordinators nor Mendel's scientists successfully developing a vaccine for the pandemic satisfy Blue Cosmos. They launch a terror attack on Mendel, as it is the epicenter of genetic research. Ulen Hibiki loses his life in the attack. Aura gets exposed to an overdose of her own anti-aging drug prototype and begins a painful months-long process of gradually aging in reverse until her body turns into that of a child. (Freedom Novel) Kira, Cagalli and Lacus are all brought away to their respective families. Durandal, now 14 years old, seemingly gets through the attack with no lasting injuries and decides to remain on Mendel, making more Accords with the now tiny Aura.

Around this time (presumably by CE 57), things start heating up for the Da Flaga family. Rau is introduced to the Da Flaga main house (and Mu) as the new heir. It is implied that it is then that Da Flaga finds out that Rau suffers from short telomeres. (SEED Novel) This essentially means that his cells are the same age as Al's cells - middle-aged. Rau will die around the same time as Al, making him completely useless as a successor. It's possible that this prompts Al to call up Mendel labs to order a second clone - if Rey is born around this year that would make him around 16 by the time of Destiny, matching the timeline pretty well. Before Al can find out whether or not Rey suffers from the same defect as Rau, he is burned alive within his mansion. Rau has decided to do a little righteous arson in retribution for having been discarded.

With Rey now born, he winds up living a sad shadow existence on Mendel. In one lab, there's Rey, growing up isolated and alone. In another, Aura and Durandal merrily keep making siblings for Orphee and Ingrid and raising them all carefully (as specimens and tools). Knowing they were only separated by a few buildings sure is a terrible irony....

The last Accord (Redelard) is born in CE 60, when Durandal is 19 years old (and Aura is 35 going on 11). I feel like it puts a great amount of context to Durandal's messiah complex to consider how much his teenage years were fully dominated by Aura and her reinforcement. An idea for creating a simple utopia is something you might grow out of as you learn more nuance, but it's hard to learn that nuance when you have an accomplished older researcher constantly telling you you're right and literally making designer humans for you. I believe that at this point, Durandal is still fully convinced of the Destiny Plan (Masterrace Edition).

The Destiny novelizations feature a scene from when he and Talia were still dating, in which he gets all starry-eyed telling her about how he truly believes science will save the world and everyone in it. With the retconned-in knowledge that at that point he's hiding half a dozen of genetically-engineered children from Talia, the scene takes on an even more sinister tone... And yet his enthusiasm and desire to do good are sincere. The scene should take place sometime around this time. We don't know when Durandal and Talia started dating, but I imagine it's a year or two after Redelard is born. After all, Durandal and Talia already break up in CE 63 - when Durandal is 22 and Talia is 18. (Omake Quarters)

At the time of this scene, there are 7 children who think of Durandal as their father - but he doesn't think of them as his children, both because they were made when he was too young to be a father and because they are not genetically 'his'. It's such bitter, bitter irony. Aura certainly created a mess for everyone involved when she decided that making custom babies for a 13 year old boy was a reasonable thing to be doing.

I tend to think of CE 63 as the big turning point year for Durandal's life another way as well. In my opinion, it is the year in which Aura and the Accords move to Earth.

This picture appears to have been taken in a colony, so it must have been while all of them were still on Mendel. The Accord's sterile-looking outfits support that assumption. If you ask me, Redelard looks about 3, while Orphee and Ingrid could feasibly be 8. Durandal could easily be 22. Going with those ages would place the image squarely into CE 63. In my interpretation, this picture is a commemorative goodbye photo, taken specifically as a keepsake.

(Since the picture shows Durandal wearing his chairman outfit (that he shouldn't be wearing until a decade later), it's hard to take the clothes Aura and Durandal wearing seriously as indicators of timeline. They appear to have been chosen solely for being their most iconic looks. However, I'm still choosing to interpret the fact that Aura donned her queen garb here as supporting evidence towards this headcanon.)

My more relevant reasoning for Aura moving to Earth at this point is that it solves a major timeline conundrum: it gives an explanation for why Rau doesn't know about the Accords (as confirmed by Fukuda at a live talk session). If Aura and the Accords had still been living on Mendel while Durandal befriended Rau, it'd have been odd for Rau to not find out about them. But if Aura has already left for Earth, then Durandal has a much easier time lying by omission.

Besides, Aura has good reason to want to hide out on Earth. Due to her connections to a royal family, she's guaranteed to have a safe and comfortable living - and it gives her opportunity to amass more power and influence. Once the Mendel labs ceased being needed (for producing more Accords), why wouldn't she leave them behind to try and advance her plans elsewhere?

I think that Rau and Durandal met shortly after Aura left. The exact year is hard to pin-point, but I assume it's been the same year (CE 63) and CE 65. This would make Rau between 17 and 19 years of age, matching his appearance in the flashbacks.

Why would Rau return to Mendel at this point? Funnily enough, Freedom provides a plausible answer to this!

With Aura gone, Durandal is presumably the new head of her previous research team. This also leaves him as the person in charge of whatever is left from her anti-aging program. Rau, who is literally dying of accelerated aging, has every reason to try and check out this research. It's plausible that the pills Durandal custom-makes for Rau are roughly based on the same medication that de-aged Aura. The de-aging itself is likely not an option for Rau as a) it seems to have left Aura incapable of ever going back to becoming an adult and b) it is unknown whether or not her physical transformation actually extended her lifespan at all. Further supporting this idea is the fact that Rey only goes symptomatic during the events of Destiny (Destiny Novel), when he is approximately ~16 years old. Being genetically identical, Rau might not have experienced any seizures or migraines until he was a teenager. His symptoms would make it necessary to seek out treatment in order to be able to continue his career unhindered.

Over their time as doctor and patient, Durandal goes intrigued with Rau. And how could he not? Rau is the shadow-side of everything that Durandal had venerated. Durandal had been creating designer babies with good intentions, but now one such created child is staring at him with hatred in his eyes. For the first time removed from Aura's direct influence and confronted with a person entirely unlike anything he'd seen before, Durandal can mature for the first time.

Seeing Rau teaches him about the unhappy byproducts of ambitions, and it also shows him that Coordinator supremacy is a load of bullshit. Rau is a Natural, a terminally ill one at that, but he's blending in with Coordinator society without issue. Between that and the first-hand knowledge that Naturals like Ulen Hibiki were also able to keep up with Durandal and Aura just fine, Durandal's view shifts more strongly. Coordinators may be all-rounder talents, but a Natural (when doing what they have aptitude for) would not lose to them. Unlike Aura, who is stewing in anti-Natural sentiments, Durandal is open to seeing the talents of others and adjusting his ideas accordingly. The rift forms.

Sometime into Durandal and Rau's friendship, they find Rey who's still been isolated in a different laboratory. Rey would be between 6 and 10 years old at the time. Testament to the trust between them, Rau leaves raising Rey to Durandal. Durandal, now well into his 20s, is now actually of an age to be having children and also actually loves the person the child is tied to. It makes Rey fundamentally different from Orphee.

Then in CE 68, Mendel has to close down due to a bio-hazardous incident. (I am fond of the theory that Rau is the cause of that incident and that's why he told Durandal to take Rey and move to the PLANTs beforehand.)

In CE 69, the existence of a ZAFT military is made public knowledge. Some of the Junius colonies are converted for food productions as PLANT takes real steps towards autonomy. By then, most Coordinators have fled Earth to the PLANTs.

The first PLANT-Alliance war begins CE 70. It continues into CE 71, the year Gundam SEED is set. Rey, then 13 years old, enters the military academy to follow in Rau's footsteps.

Meanwhile Aura is plotting on Earth, still believing Durandal to be fully on her side. She seems to be sorely mistaken.

When Durandal tries to enact his new version of the Destiny Plan (notable not featuring a masterrace) in CE 73, he never once calls on Aura for assistance. It stands to reason that he has emotionally and materially abandoned Aura and the Accords after meeting Rau. Fukuda himself has questioned whether Durandal was truly on Aura's side. (Live Talk Event) Further, fandom friend made the pretty salient point that Durandal personally handpicked Shinn as his ace. Shinn is a super-pilot notable for fighting purely on instinct and thus being impossible to defeat with psychic abilities. He's the perfect anti-Accord weapon. Had Durandal won, would he have had Shinn wipe out Aura and her children? We cannot know, but it's definitely possible.

The Durandal we see on the show earnestly believes that the Destiny Plan will be an equalizer between Naturals and Coordinators, bringing out Naturals' full abilities and allowing them to compete fairly. He does not seem to hold any specific Coordinator-supremacist view. Some of the most important people in his personal life (Rau and Rey) are Naturals. This is fundamentally at odds with the picture of him that Aura tries to paint. Durandal on the show wishes for Kira's death so no 'Ultimate' remains to imitate. By the same reasoning, he would want to get rid of the Accords so they cannot inspire greed and jealousy that would lead to more suffering like Rau's.

That's why I say that taking what Aura says about him at face value wholly destroys the character as had been established prior.

But laying out the backstory like this, I think we can peace it all back together into a consistent character. Was this the intended read? I do not know. It's the read I am going with anyway.

Despite being a nihilistic murderous maniac, Rau le Creuset did manage to change one man for the better. Even if 'better' only means 'slightly less deranged' in this case, I appreciate it on a thematic layer. Even a man who thinks of himself as wholly unlovable, as destruction incarnate, can bring about positive change simply by existing and being loved in spite of it all.

#gundam seed #gilbert durandal #rau le creuset #gundam seed destiny #gundam

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