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gremoria411 · 8 months

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Fuck it, it’s been out for….. however many days now, let’s talk about the Gundam Murmur.

Gonna be discussing the design and sorta just general implications of its existence (like I did a little with the Haagenti and Rustal).

Design-wise, gorgeous. I love how unique it looks compared to units that came before it, while still retaining enough Gundam-like features to not look too out of place. It is, I suppose, the limit of the Gundam’s human-centric design (watch something else come out that just blows this out of the water), especially since it’s primary weapons (the Surgical Feathers) are controlled via remote (through Alaya-Vijinana). It makes sense as a weapon system, since it seems to be designed to overwhelm a Mobile Armour from range. The form and flowing armour I find quite pleasing - I’d like to assume the engraving was added postwar (particularly since the Fareed’s are part of the Seven Stars), but I’ve absolutely nothing to back that up with. I did think that given the nature of its weapons systems, it’s possible that it relied on a lot of other units (like Hugo’s or Rodi’s) to tie up enemy mobile armours until it could strike the killing blow, so perhaps they’re there to inspire its vassals? Then again, the surgical stylings of its equipment seem to be pointing in a different direction.

I’ve seen a lot of comparisons going around with the Qubeley, because of the flowing nature of its armour, but I honestly associate it more with the Gundam Harute (Final Battle ver.), likely due to the skirt, back weapons and orange colouration. I do have a fondness for the head - it feels quite removed from the typical design, thanks to its large shape, but it retains the key features (twin-eye, “horns”, faceplate). It could even be said that the both have a significant compliment of ranged weaponry, since the Harute has Scissor Fangs. I do like how it’s upper half seems rather lightly armoured, since it makes it seem mobile and able to fight with its surgical knives - too much armour would make it’s mobility less believable, so it’s a nice touch. I generally like skirts on mobile suits (a good example off the top of my head would be the Xamel), so Murmur going the whole hog with a dress and a bunch of knives is just wonderful.

Alrighty, so I mentioned way, waaaaay back when talking about the Haagenti that it’d be interesting to see what the other Seven Stars Gundams are that remain in Vingolf along with Bael (barring Kimaris, obviously)

(Which is a thought. Wonder how Kimaris’ loss was covered up. It’s all very well saying Gaelio died at Edmonton, but surely you’d at least recover the Gundam frame. Supposedly the official records were doctored to say that the Kimaris had been returned, but I feel like someone should’ve at least checked if it’d been returned.) (Hm. Though now I am imagining Rustal just swapping the armour onto Haagenti and then smuggling it into the Baudin’s vault, which is fun).

Anyway, we now have the Fareed and Kujan Family Gundam’s leaving only the Baklazan and Issue families to go (I’ve been seeing some theories floating around regarding the Issue family Gundam, so it’ll be interesting to see how accurate they are). So, to recap, there’s 8 Gundam frames in Vingolf (unless House Baklazan’s missing theirs or something) of the 26 confirmed to still be in existence at the start of Iron Blooded Orphans in P.D. 323 (though we don’t know who’s doing the confirming, so that number’s fairly loose).

So, what does this mean regarding our erstwhile Agnika Kaieru Impersonator over here?

Mcgillis Fareed stood to, and by the second season did, inherit the Gundam Murmur as part of his position in the Seven Stars. It’s not difficult to fathom why it wasn’t used in his coup - Mcgillis wishes to inherit the power of Agnika Kaieru - Bael, the symbol of Gjallarhorn. If anything, I’d wager he actively wants to reject his connection to the Fareeds not only because of his relationship with Iznario, but also because it would tie his coup to the Seven Stars. It would cheapen it to (in his mind) an internal power struggle within the echelons of Gjallarhorn, rather than the glorious revolution he wants it to be, spurred by the inheritor of Agnika Kaieru’s legacy.

Ironically, Murmur’s rejected because it’s a thing of the past - The Fareed family is shortly to cease being an active part of Gjallarhorn as Mcgillis rejects it, Iznario no longer holds any power with which to access it and it’s not a part of the world that Mcgillis wants to create. It’s part of a bygone age - a symbol of the Seven Stars system that Mcgillis aims to remove.

How very poetic.

#Gundam Murmur #Fareed Family Gundam #gundam #ramblings #mcgillis fareed #gundam iron blooded orphans #gundam ibo #iron blooded orphans #Gundam ibo msv #seven stars #gjallarhorn

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wordsandrobots · 6 months

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IBO reference notes on … the Gundams (Addendum 1)

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Addendum 1]

Calling this the first addendum because hopefully, at some point, I'll be doing another to cover the Baklazan Family's entry in the list. In the meantime, let's take a gander at the two 'suits released to the world since I wrapped up my posts on the Gundam frames.

ASW-G-16 Zepar

(With apologies to Gundam Info, who had a higher resolution version of this image than the actual MSV site).

When I separated the Gundam frames into groups for the purposes of not having an extremely over-long blog post, they naturally fell into three groups: relatively simple designs, armed relatively simply; more busy designs featuring some kind of added gimmick; and the freaks and weirdos representing increasingly arcane strategies for beating mobile armours. Seems the official designers intend this to be an actual in-story progression since Zepar, as a low-numbered machine, neatly fits into the first category.

Excepting the 'cape' of shield-wings, Zepar is remarkably unadorned, comparable to Barbatos in its straightforwardness. That a pilot armed only with a sword and shield should have gained a position among the Seven Stars speaks to Embrilla Kujan's skill. True, the shield is motorised so it can be turned into a large-bore drill (handy). But that in itself demonstrates this Gundam did its fighting at close range, further underlining Embrilla's capability. There are undoubted similarities here to Agnika Kaieru's trademark two-sword combat style, which probably looked very good in the late-War propaganda. Indeed, few of the other Gundams seem as gloriously heroic as this in their resting appearance. Put Bael and Zepar in the same place and you're looking at a pair of elegant warriors. Champion dragon-killers, here to save the human race!

Before we get too caught up in the aesthetics, however, let's consider the realities of the Calamity War's outcome. Going by the seating plan, and assuming this maps seniority within the Seven Stars (based on the Issues being positioned at the top of the table), the Kujans and the Fareeds lie at the bottom of the heap. This would actually track quite well with Iznario Fareed's scheming. Lacking the comfortable entrenchment of, say, the Falk Family, he sought to gain other advantages by breaking Gjallarhorn's ostensive political neutrality and acquiring allies among Earth's governments.

Perhaps this also explains why the Kujan Family apparently has connections to underworld figures such as Jasley Donomikols. I'm not going to claim any of the noble families are less than extensively corrupt. Gjallarhorn bends to realpolitik at all levels. But it is notable that the Kujans should have a relationship with the JPT Trust that possibly extends as far as getting them a Halfbeak class spaceship for their boss to ride around in. Is a Jupiter mobster not a rather petty ally for a high-placed house? Or does this represent the level on which such a low-ranked member of the elite can operate?

Without knowing much about Iok's father beyond his earning the adoration of his troops and the above-mentioned connection, it's hard to say for sure. If the Kujans are indeed the runts of the Seven Stars, it seems our red-glad knight was surpassed quite comfortably by peers using different, more pragmatic strategies. Given the drive towards greater complexity in later designs, we might take this to be something the people fighting the War were themselves aware of. At some point, the base Gundam form was judged insufficient for the task at hand.

Then again, the Kujan progenitor still made a place among the seven, however lowly. And, lest we forget, the Falk's Gundam was the fourth in the sequence. The simpler machines cannot be counted out just by virtue of being simpler.

From the Ars Goetia:

The Sixteenth Spirit is Zepar. He is a Great Duke, and appeareth in Red Apparel and Armour, like a Soldier. His office is to cause Women to love Men, and to bring them together in love. He also maketh them barren. He governeth 26 Legions of Inferior Spirits, and his Seal is this, which he obeyeth when he seeth it.

There's an obvious joke in here about preventing Iok's from having been around to screw everything up. That aside, Gundam Zepar is most exactly a 'soldier in red apparel'. Further, on the theme of love, its heroic appearance and the way that Iok's father is talked about in the series seem to mesh well together. Perhaps in Zepar we see the epitome of Gjallarhorn as a positive force -- on the surface, at least.

ASW-G-61 Zagan

16 at the bottom, 61 at the top. I wonder if that was on purpose? They share a designer out of fiction, and seem to share more design cues in-universe than most other pairs of Gundams we could pick. These are perhaps the pair it is most easily to look at and say 'the second is developing on the first'.

Anyway. Gundam Zagan. Original pilot: Arzona Issue. The most prolific mobile armour killer of the Seven Stars. Perhaps *the* most prolific of all the Gundams, depending on whether we assume Bael took the actual top spot and whether the Seven Stars bagged most armours overall, not just out of the surviving pilots.

If Zepar represents simplicity of form, Zagan is a triumph of function. Its numbering places it in the top third of the 72 frames, which by my breakdown classifies it as a freak, and, well. Those aren't just shields it's got there: they're Zagan's main weapons.

With three canonical fights against mobile armours under our belts, we can safely say the goal in such encounters is to rip the 'armour to bits. Whether it be Marchosias dicing Harael with a show of expert swordsmanship, Wiz and friends ganging up to wear down Mebahiah by sheer weight of numbers, or Mikazuki clobbering Hashmal until he gets an opening to stab it in the central processor, a certain degree of dismemberment seems par for the course. This ties into the 'medieval' combat style of the show, but also fits with the general sense that the 'armours are such juggernauts, their defences need to be peeled back to expose any trace of weakness.

A Gundam outfitted with a part of giant tin-openers, therefore, feels like exactly the kind of thing you'd want on the battlefield. Moreover, in his (brief) usage of Zagan, erstwhile Issue Family-supporter Londo Bron demonstrates the sheer brute strength of the machine, effortlessly dispatching a squad of three Grazes, including one he quite literally punches to death. Like Gusion in its Brewers form, this Gundam is built thick, the limbs set wide on the frame. It's the most brutish 'suit we've seen since Gamigin and where that appeared built for heavy-lifting, this one seems designed to be a berserker. Close-range, like Zepar, but discarding swords or spears in favour of crushing force.

Again, it reads as an extension of previous attempts, pushing the envelope in the pursuit of victory. Like Murmur, this looks like a case of incorporating the enemy's strengths: those claws would be at home on a mobile armour -- riffing on Ananel, perhaps? It is certainly building on the kind of equipment Marchosias used, moving from providing auxiliary limbs to making them the Gundam's primary offensive capability (remember, Marchosias' main weapon remained its long sword/club; the other articulated blades were in addition).

What strikes me most of all is how this circles around to what Barbatos will become under Tekkadan's watch. Gjallarhorn might assay the heroic appearance of Zepar, with ornate uniforms and aristocratic trappings, a proud bearing in the face of a grubby world. But the most powerful group among their leadership for three centuries was founded by someone who flew a machine like Zagan, which would be quite at home alongside Barbatos Lupus Rex.

All kingship is rooted, ultimately, in conquest and brutality. The trappings of honour and martial splendour among which Carta Issue dies in PD 323 are a veneer over the horror of a devastating war -- and the horrors required to end it.

One has to wonder what she would have made of her ancestor in their prime, tearing armours apart with their all four of their bare hands.

From the Ars Goetia:

The Sixty-first Spirit is Zagan. He is a Great King and President, appearing at first in the Form of a Bull with Gryphon's Wings; but after a while he putteth on Human Shape. He maketh Men Witty. He can turn Wine into Water, and Blood into Wine. He can turn all Metals into Coin of the Domninion that Metal is of. He can even make Fools Wise. He governeth 33 Legions of Spirits, and his Seal is this, etc.

'Bull with gryphon's wings' is a certainly an apt description of the form and with respect to what I was just talking about, putting on a human shape 'after a while' feels like a theme to run with more than in the other metamorphoses we've read about. Indeed, there is much here to do with the transformation of baser things into the stuff of civilisation: wit, wine, coin, even wisdom. Is this not what the Issues led, the refinement of an organisation dedicated to ending a war into the bastion of a new age? Or, if we are to be cynical about it, is it any surprise a demon's production of such things should only run skin-deep?