#Sanc Kingdom

[a-river-of-stars]

The moment when you realize SANC stands for Scandinavian And Nordic Countries and is not just a homophone for cinq or a mangling of Scandinavia 🤯

[tinyozlion]

“True Peace” and “Total Pacifism”: the Peacecraft Ideals & the Point of it All

(buckle up, this is a long one)

Capital “P” Peace is by far the most crucial concept in Gundam Wing.

It is a simple word that’s tossed around a lot and it pulls far too much weight for one little noun. The range of topics covered beneath this straining umbrella of a term includes everything from “a general sense of unthreatened well-being”, to “unilateral demilitarization and disbandment of global military rule”. The fault here lies not with translation difficulties or simplification for the ease of dubbing; real-world discussions of pacifism and peace are plagued by a lack of nuanced vocabulary as well. Alas, in this instance, it is the English language itself that has conspired to prank us.

Nevertheless, while overuse of the word is certainly frustrating at times, I find that when broken down and decoded, what may appear to be a lot of vague, flowery statements about the Virtues of Peace™ is actually a strategic political debate. 

 …Mostly. This is complicated somewhat by the fact that there are a significant number of characters for whom making flowery statements about the Virtues of War™ is a hobby and a way of life. So yes, indeed, sometimes convincing someone with Extreme Eyebrows that mankind can find value outside of eternal, violent conflict IS a priority that must be considered. 

Part of why I think Gundam Wing had such a profound effect on its young audience when it came out is that it managed to cover most of an Intro to Ethics course in 49 episodes and a movie. It was a lot of kids’ first exposure to philosophy and politics, and it communicated its ideas by way of exciting robot fights and aspirationally cool characters. Gundam Wing made it easy to care about complex, abstract ideas and how they might affect the world– ideas that, at least for American audiences in the early 00’s, were well in advance of what they were likely to encounter in public school. 

…Now, maybe you read that and found yourself thinking: “Come on, ‘peace is better than war’ is a pathetically simple dichotomy that no one needs to seriously debate”-- and I would love to give that to you. But as an American, I must beg you to consider that in the USA we have been trying to decide for decades whether an average of 75 school shootings per second is enough school shootings to consider implementing basic gun control.

Never underestimate the ability of a simple idea to become so polemicized that it becomes impossible to talk about or resolve without a total public paradigm shift– and now consider that learning how to cause a paradigm shift is exactly what Gundam Wing is all about.

--There Is No War in A.C. 195--

For the majority of cases, when a character talks about war or peace, they mean specifically “between the Earth Sphere and the Space Colonies”--  as in, “an end to the conflict we have been embroiled in for roughly 20 years”. 

This rather misleadingly makes it sound as though the Alliance is at war with the Colonies– but in AC 195, the Colonies do not have a military to go to war WITH. The Colonies aren’t engaged in a war with the Earth Sphere Alliance, they are under military occupation by the Earth Sphere Alliance. 

When the Gundams first come to Earth and begin attacking the Alliance/OZ, the immediate question is: is this a declaration of war by the Colonies? 

The burden continuously falls on the Colony ambassadors to prove that the Gundams are not politically associated with them. For all intents and purposes, they consider the retaliation of the Gundams to be acts of terrorism– which they must! Because otherwise they will indeed be at war with Earth, something the Colonies absolutely, 100%, definitively cannot afford. The Colonies are space bubbles. They can be popped. They can be blockaded. Earth provides the Colonies with the majority of their resources; declaring war against it would be insanity.

All this makes “peace with the Colonies” a very lopsided affair. Since officially speaking the Colonies have no military power, and since the nations of Earth that had previously allied with them were wiped out, negotiating for peace would require placing full trust in the Alliance. In other words, it would mean relying on the oppressor to stop oppressing purely as an act of goodwill. 

This is why the “Peace Negotiations” proposed by the Alliance military leaders was at best a naive gesture that would have broken down at the first conflict of interest. The Alliance was responsible for the oppression of the Colonies to begin with– choosing to withdraw is a matter of their convenience; there is nothing to negotiate, because they have all the power. At worst, its “diplomacy” would simply be a farce designed to put a benevolent face on continued exploitation.

–Which is exactly what happens under OZ’s rule: “peace” is obtained in name only, while nothing about the power dynamic changes.

Here’s the trouble with settling for peace by any means: Every single military organization in Gundam Wing expresses a desire for world peace.

 The Earth Sphere Alliance Military began as a peace-keeping measure. OZ claims it is correcting the Alliance’s failure to bring about world peace. Romefeller insists that it will bring about peace through a firm, authoritarian hand guided by the traditions of the ruling class. White Fang asserts that earth is responsible for all wars, and that peace can only be attained by destroying it. 

There are many, many roads to “peace” that end in totalitarianism, to peace removed from liberty, to Pax Romefeller. In practice, White Fang’s approach would probably be the most effective at bringing about total, ever-lasting peace– if the result is all you care about, then sure, mass-extinction is one way to go! 

But assuming we value peace because we ALSO value life and happiness and art and puppies and things like that, then we need to set the acceptable standard for peace somewhere above the eternal calm of a dead universe.

--The Peacecraft Ideals--

So, having established that “world peace by any means and any cost” is not a reasonable, humane, or moral outcome to strive for, we must consider “True Peace” to be a different outcome from “peace”.

As defined by Relena and ideals of the Sanc Kingdom, True Peace must be non-exploitative. It must require no threat of violence to enforce. To establish it, the means of military conflict must be removed and abolished, and the sources of human dispute must be addressed by means other than force of arms. Most importantly, True Peace requires fostering a transformational attitude towards peace– one that empowers the collective will of the people to both achieve and maintain peace. 

To summarize, the Peacecraft plan of action is:  1) Remove weapons that are the means of military conflict, 2) Remove the primary sources of military conflict, and 3) unite people in the desire for peace, and to uphold peace.

It’s this last point that is so crucial to events that the entirety of the final narrative arc hinges upon answering the all-important questions: how does one foster the desire for peace, and bring about a massive paradigm shift that can change the course of history? and what price is one willing to pay for it? 

“Absolute pacifism [which is understood as a maximal and universal rejection of violence and war,] is an ideal. Some versions of absolute pacifism go so far as to abjure the idea of personal self-defense. Other absolute pacifists may allow for personal self-defense while rejecting the impersonal and political violence of war. Almost every defender of absolute pacifism recognizes the difficulty of attaining the absolute ideal.” “The world often presents us with difficult ‘kill or be killed’ choices as in the question of self-defense or war. Absolute pacifists may hold that it is better to be killed than to kill. But such a choice may be impossible for many of us to make. Pacifists will often argue that this way of describing a situation—as one where the choice is ‘kill or be killed’—usually presents us with a false dilemma: often there are other nonviolent alternatives to either killing or being killed. But when presented with such a stark choice, absolute pacifism may require self-sacrifice.”  --“Pacifism”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Andrew Fiala, 2006

--Pulling back to real-earth for a moment: there is a wide and continuous spectrum of ethical, religious, political, and practical attitudes to be found spanning the distance between Absolute and Conditional forms of pacifism, but despite its similar name, the Total Pacifism of Gundam Wing is not a synonym for Absolute Pacifism: 

There is no indication that Relena is against self-defense, nor that she insists on absolute non-violence; she’s a staunch defender of the Gundam pilots, after all, and they’re practically the face of violent resistance. She admits that in past history there were conflicts that could not have been avoided, and that one cannot maintain civilization without some degree of enforcement of principles. We can safely assume (especially after her change of heart in Endless Waltz) that she supports the proportional defensive reaction of people who are resisting oppression. But killing people is not, or at least very rarely, justifiable in her worldview (allowing for the fact that both Relena’s character and her philosophy evolve over the course of the series), and warfare never is.

“Peaceful intercourse is easily rejected by those who assert the benefits of the martial values, who claim that a war brings out the best of people and of a society, that wars heighten humanity s perception of itself in the great existentialist quest between life and death, that war relieves the monotony of consumerism and so on. This highlights one of the most difficult aspects of pacificism, that the goal of peace and of tranquility may not suffice human nature. The persistent nagging of bellicosity, of adventure, personal and collective glory, whether it derives from something genetic or culturally deeply embedded in most societies, remains an easily revitalized clarion call to war. The culture of peace is often very shallow, taking many generations to produce, and even then can be swiftly eroded with atavistic rhetoric.”  --“Pacifism”, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Alexander Moseley

(...Remember what I said about needing to convince certain people that mankind can find value outside of eternal warfare?)

Relena’s Total Pacifism is primarily an anti-military political stance; it is only secondarily a philosophy of nonviolence. Over the course of the series, Relena confronts over and over again the notion that many people are drawn to the act of fighting for various reasons, ranging from the vindictive to the instinctual. It is not an impulse she shares or understands, but she recognizes that it exists. She is ready to admit that even within Total Pacifism, a world totally without violent desires may be impossible– but it is not necessary that people accept a world where those desires give rise to military conflict. 

–Something that is worth noting is that the Peacecraft’s plan for total pacifism does not include a rubric for solving conflicts that do arise, only how they should NOT be solved. 

In the series, the single method that Relena espouses for solving disputes is through “dialogue”-- something that is repeatedly pointed out to be a flawed and inadequate form of conflict resolution. “Dialogue” cannot solve all of humanity’s problems, that is unquestionably true– but neither is it a bad place to start as a baseline. More to the point, of all the possible conflicts and struggles that humanity might encounter in the vast expanse of the future, it’s futile to try and codify the best method of solving all of them based purely on abstract theory and best guesses.

 Again, the Peacecraft ideal is only secondarily a philosophy; its primary goal is not to tell people HOW to solve all future problems, its goal is to solve ONE problem, and that one problem is war. 

“Disarmament” Means Mobile Suits

Removing the possibility of military conflict is a preliminary for Total Pacifism, and therefore it is necessary to implement universal disarmament– and “disarmament” as it pertains to the conflicts of AC 195 means primarily the discarding and prohibition of Mobile Suits.

The reason for this is not simply because Mobile Suits are dangerous weapons. After all, Mobile Suit warfare is hardly the biggest or baddest type of war the human race has developed– leveling a city with Mobile Dolls couldn’t possibly be worse for people than leveling a city with an atomic bomb– the main thing Mobile Suits allow people to do is fight wars using infantry in space.

Not only do Mobile Suits allow for space combat, they also grant very granular control of combat zones and civilian populations without substantial risk to the troops– which is great if you’re trying to enforce military rule in the Colonies. Space fortresses and missile satellites are also threats of course, but where a missile attack would simply destroy or damage a Colony, Mobile Suits allow military forces to take direct control of it, the area around it, its resources, its populace; everything, inside and out. This is why disarmament of MS has to be a primary concern for de-escalating conflict between Earth and the Colonies: as long as Mobile Suits are still in the picture, the potential threat of domination by the Earth Sphere remains, and nobody in the Colonies is going to relax. 

The Other Pacifists of A.C. 195

“Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, aye, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? […]The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, &c. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well.”   —“On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, Henry David Thoreau

The Sanc Kingdom is not the only proponent of pacifism in the Earth Sphere.

 In the Autonomous Mountain Region of former China (helluva mouthful, you'd think they'd have given themselves an actual name), for instance, we’re shown another civic leader who gathers support for demilitarization and objects to Alliance occupation. Like the Colony leader Heero Yuy and King Peacecraft before him, this unnamed leader is assassinated, and his independent nation taken over by the local branch of the Alliance military.

It’s only a brief footnote in the series, but it’s important because it demonstrates that the dream of pacifism is not dead on Earth, despite how often it has been violently silenced by the prevailing world order. It speaks to how powerfully the message spread by Yuy and the Sanc Kingdom resonated with people that their ideals continue to generate new martyrs; we see it also in the nations surrounding the Sanc Kingdom who are willing to stand up against Romefeller and refuse to participate in military affairs.

The existence of these nameless “Autonomous Regions” and “Independent Nations” shows us that there is at least some degree of successful resistance against the Earth Sphere government (whether that be the Alliance or OZ); it’s also clear by statements from Duke Dremail that these independent entities are considered a tremendous threat. 

In a system of global military rule, to renounce the military is to essentially declare one’s withdrawal from the existing government– something that surprisingly doesn’t elicit immediate reprisal under Romefeller’s oligarchy, at least when the seceding nations offer no armed resistance.

But the rise of pacifistic nations on earth is nevertheless regarded with as much suspicion and hostility in A.C. 195 as it was during the Sanc Kingdom’s first bid for Total Pacifism, and while Romefeller, unlike the Alliance, is either unwilling or lacks the unilateral authority to quash dissenters without justification, it is more than willing to manufacture justifications to remove political rivals from the playing field. But what’s important is that they still need that manufactured justification– Romefeller, like any authority structure, requires a certain level of assent and cooperation in order to maintain power. 

The practical implication of multiple countries withdrawing from the Earth Sphere and/or refusing to support the global military, is that the Earth Sphere government has fewer nations to tax and draw on for resources or support, and more places where rebel elements can take refuge. In the long run, a sufficient number of simultaneously defecting nations could mean the collapse of global military rule itself.

Armies and weapons and soldiers don’t spawn automatically on a map. Everything has to come from somewhere, and a global military organization needs to be supplied and maintained by the globe.

Whatever the Alliance’s policies were, it’s safe to assume that OZ/Romefeller inherited and maintained many of them, partly because they were always part of the decision making process, and also because hey, why let a perfectly good global bureaucratic infrastructure go to waste? The Alliance began as a cooperative global peace-keeping initiative; at its root, it was developed from international bureaucracy, rather than an imposed dictatorship. Even after it became the dominating world government, that underlying bureaucratic structure surely remained to some extent. National borders were still recognized, at least as an organizational convenience; the Alliance relied on taxes from the various recognized nations under their control (including the Colonies), as well as the heavily-incentivized funding of the arms industry, tied to the wealthy estates of the Romefeller Foundation, many of whose members were leaders or rulers of different nations themselves. It’s also likely there was some sort of draft for citizens of the Earth Sphere and the Colonies. 

Why does this matter? Because in non-violent resistance, particularly in civil disobedience and non-compliance, it’s necessary to find ways to gain leverage that don’t involve offensive combat. In the case of resisting a military oppressor, learning what conditions allow the military to continue operating, and how to disrupt that operation, is of key importance. 

Outside of Earth, we’re shown another notable example of disruptive resistance from the Winner family– adamant pacifists themselves, though their sole male heir, Quatre, broke with tradition and chose to fight against OZ using the Gundam Sandrock. The Winner family is in charge of several major natural resource satellites, a primary source of supplies for the adjacent Colonies. When those Colonies allied themselves with OZ and began arming themselves in spite of their past commitment to pacifism, and in spite of OZ’s quite recent manipulative and violent suppression of the Colonies, the Winner family patriarch protested this move vehemently. When it was clear the now-militarizing Colony would continue supporting OZ and intended to begin manufacturing weapons on the natural resources satellite, Mr. Winner removed his support from the Colony– both ideologically and physically, by decoupling the resource satellite; a move that cost him his life at the hands of OZ.

A Glass Kingdom Throws No Stones

The Sanc Kingdom’s existence is based on hope. 

It assumes peace (i.e. a state of goodwill and non-conflict) is the natural state humanity longs for, the only condition it can truly flourish in, and therefore it is in everyone’s best interest to pursue. Even those who advocate in favor of war would eventually see the pragmatic benefit of peace– wars are costly, and demand a constant supply of resources and humans to throw into it. If everyone simply acknowledged these truths, True Peace ought to be the inevitable outcome.

This position is largely (but not universally) viewed as naive, idealistic, and ultimately hopeless. Even its proponents acknowledge that the Sanc Kingdom’s ideals are built on trust and air– but they maintain that their belief in that trust is nevertheless of utmost value, for inspiring others to realize what might be possible if that trust were universal. 

The Sanc Kingdom’s one defense is its total lack of offense. By removing itself as a potential threat and offering no resistance or antagonism to the ruling power, it minimizes the incentive for that ruling power to overrun and destroy it– but there are no guarantees. 

Relena pragmatically warns her students that the Sanc Kingdom will never be a safe place until Total Pacifism is adopted globally. She herself is prepared for the likely scenario that advocating for peace will cost her her life. The tenuousness of the kingdom’s position is fully acknowledged by all– how could it not be? The current Sanc is built on the ruins of the previous generation’s bid for pacifism. 

Despite this, the kingdom’s doors are open to all; Relena maintains a supremely generous view of mankind that gives everyone the benefit of doubt, continuing within the same logic that non-aggression will be met with non-aggression. Perhaps more accurately, this policy is her way of insisting that this is how peaceful interactions ought to be; despite the considerable risk they incur, both she and her kingdom stand defenseless in a world of grasping military powers, wielding only her dignity, her public visibility, and a conviction that everyone is capable of choosing respectful conduct. 

The Sanc Kingdom is perfectly set up for martyrdom– and it is a very short ride before it gets there. 

But the power of Relena’s ideals is not tied to the existence of the Sanc Kingdom– it’s not even tied to her, or the Peacecraft name. The naivety, the impossibility, of pacifism in an era defined by global military rule, is constantly reiterated, and yet it does not disappear. 

Even as the bottleneck of war grows tighter and the violence between the ever-fragmenting world powers continues to escalate, the majority of people bearing witness to these horrors look to an alternative that offers hope, as practiced and advocated by a brave girl facing impossible odds. 

The more pitched the violence becomes, the louder its perpetrators shout that peace is impossible, while to the people suffering its effects, the more outrageous and unnecessary that violence is revealed to be. The ones waging the wars seem to be the ones generating new reasons for them, their excuses becoming increasingly absurd, their justifications transparently thin. 

Is it really so absurd or unreasonable by comparison, to take part in an actionable plan for peace?

“I’m aware that my views may appear to be a little naive to some people, but I wonder why people battle if everyone agrees that it’s foolish to do so? I don’t think that we’re too far from the answer.”

[gundamfight]

[twinbrujahs]

Thinking about that one Gundam Wing 1x2 fic we read where it just turned into "100 reasons Relena needs to be unalived" for like 4 chapters before the last chapter randomly returns to the 1x2 plot and then abruptly ending on a cliffhanger and an author's note that said something along the lines of "so I'm on new meds and starting College and I'm a feminist now and we should really take down the government if DOMA doesn't pass" 😵‍💫

[local-redhead-bookworm]

“Heero Yuy has no personality” he’s basically a child Winter Soldier, were you expecting another Amuro? Heero starts the show clearly extremely traumatized. His number one instinct is “if you fail the mission, or if the mission is completed, self-destruct.” It’s a miracle he survives as long as he does, because he has no reason to live outside the mission, no personal goals. All he has is the order he’s been given. He laughs like someone who has nothing to fear because he isn’t concerned about living or dying.

The iconic birthday party invitation scene isn’t him hating Relena, it’s a warning. He is a weapon, all he knows how to do is kill. If he wants a person to live, the best thing they can do is stay far away from him.

Over the show’s two seasons, Heero learns how to be a person again. Working with the other Gundam pilots forces him to consider his effects on the team, thus on others in general. All he knows how to do is fight, but over time he shifts from fighting just to carry out orders to fighting to protect someone. He protects Relena, the other pilots, the colonies, the Sanc kingdom. When the Wing Zero system takes over and turns him back into a mindless killing machine, he wrests control back and learns to use it, not let it use him. He is horrified at the prospect of becoming nothing more than another weapon in someone else’s hands. He rejects the Epyon for this same reason, he is not willing to give himself over to the machine at the cost of his humanity.

He comes back out of his shell slowly. He builds tenuous friendships with the rest of the pilots, and forms an alliance with Noin. He clearly enjoys petting the dogs, even if those dogs are guard animals from Oz’s military. His words to Relena before the final match mirror Howl’s words to Sophie, “I’ve finally found something I want to protect—you.” Heero has found a cause worth fighting for. His feelings for Relena are filtered through layers upon layers of training and conditioning to turn him into the perfect soldier, but his love for her shines even if he lacks the words to convey it. He smiles at her, and he is genuinely happy. He wants to live, is determined to live in the face of seemingly impossible odds. This is Heero Yuy the boy, not Heero Yuy the Gundam pilot.

TL;DR: Heero Yuy has a personality, he’s just burying his emotions because he’s been so busy being a soldier he has to relearn how to be a person.

[wordsandrobots]

Wishing on Space Hardware: Trivia and the cutting room floor

Having finished the single longest writing project I've ever done, I find myself with a number of bits and pieces left over.

To be fair, I also invite you to contribute to the pile by letting me know if there are any extra scenes you'd like to see based on my truly excessive amount of Iron-Blooded Orphans fanfic. The ask box is open for that and anything else you'd like to prompt me to write about.

However, there remains a bunch of stuff that never made it into the final story and a lot of little details I feel are worth commenting on. So as I luxuriate in not having to spend the week editing chapters any more, I thought I'd share a couple of quick lists regarding the process and what got cut out of it. For posterity, at least.

Spoilers for the fics, obviously, and since they're post-canon, spoilers for IBO as well (go watch it if you have not, it is very, very good, hence the 656,000 words I wrote as a direct consequence [not counting the essays. Jeepers, I'll have to tot it all up some day and get the grand total).

Ahem. Anyway. Trivia!

First up, I must publicly credit penitence_road (on Tumblr as @stillness-in-green)’s excellent IBO fics for inspiring one of the major threads in WoSH (I've mentioned this in author notes but the debt cannot be overstated). The phrase 'Almiria's Adolescent Apocalypse' lodged in my brain and became a mission statement. I did try to steer in a completely different direction regarding the specifics (hence why Todo is very much not a part of the core gang), but the main thrust was all about taking that description and seeing how I could flesh it out. (Go read these fics, my goodness.)

Second, there are, of course, mythology gags referencing the wider Gundam franchise sprinkled liberally throughout. Some I've already called out in author notes, but I believe managed to reference Gundam 79, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Char's Counterattack, Gundam Wing, Turn A Gundam, Gundam SEED, Gundam 00, and Reconguista in G in more or less explicit ways. See if you can spot them all!

I named Skoll and Hati with specific reference to their roles in the Poetic Eda. That is, I thought of them as 'the moon-hunter Gundam' and 'the sun-killed Schwalbe', respectively, in reference to their rolls harassing the Arianrhod Fleet (formally the Outer Lunar Orbit Joint Fleet) and destroying the Ahab reactor factory. But also they reflect their pilots' temperaments, with Skoll 'the mocker' being flown by Embi and Hati 'the hater' by Lin.

Spaceships Baldr and the Váli were named in a similar fashion, for their connections to Ragnarök (Váli is Vidar's brother, another of the gods who survive the final battle), and I chose to describe the finale as 'Ragnarök' in the first place because in the sagas, it represents a renewal of the world, rather than a complete end. Quite apart from the Norse influence on Gjallarhorn's whole deal, the cyclical nature dovetailed nicely with what I was trying to do with the story.

I had a very near miss with Skoll in that I wrote it as being based on ASW-G-15 Eligos, named after a demon that took the form of a handsome knight who can see the future. Some months later, the IBO-G app would reveal ASW-G-16 Zepar, the very next Gundam in the sequence, whose namesake's appearance as a red-garbed soldier seems to have been muddled with Eligos in some of the sources I checked. I am really quite relieved I didn't have to rework anything there, but it was close!

Visually, the deconstructed Char-clone that is Almiria's gang channel aspects of other iterations of the trope, with Asher obviously replicating Montag, Embi settling vaguely in the region of Quattro (that is, a more civilian-mode masked man), and Almira assaying McGillis in a way that probably lands not a millions miles from Rau. But I was primarily thinking of Relena's Sanc Kingdom outfit for her, so the 'general's' coat is a lot fancier.

The media-savvy ally to Victor Handa in Revolution for Beginners... is the same cameraman who filmed Kudelia's pivotal broadcast at the conclusion of Season 1's Dort arc. Those events seemed like they would have consequences for the journalists involved and in Hajime's case, that involved being swayed fully over to the workers' movement.

I invented Alessio as a character to counter-balance Iverson and ensure I had some non-villainous non-binary rep. That I picked the stoutest background character model I could find was not unrelated to this, though it's also an *interesting* model, especially coupled to the ones around him/them in the big group shot.

Doc Chaifin, meanwhile, just sort of happened. Sometimes characters do that.

I wrote a significant chunk of the sex scene (well, post-sex scene) in To Catch a Falling Star while sitting in a car park, waiting for my partner to come back from an appointment. This was mainly because the fic was absolutely consuming my brain and I'd discovered the joys of using a mobile phone to write notes (I put off getting a smart phone for a long, long time).

With respect to the Calamity War recording segments of Eugene Sevenstark and the Hesperus Treasure, my working head-canon is that Agnika Kaieru had a science/engineering background. Or, well, I think he moved in a social circle full of scientists and engineers before getting started on the war effort. I also have this notion that his parents at least were part of the corporate class, distinct from the aristocratic class from which people like the Bauduins and Fareeds emerged. But I never sat down to work it all out in full, as that wasn't required for the story.

Regarding Hesperus, I kind of fudged a lot to get the story to work. I'd sort of assumed Radonitsa Colony was a post-War construct rather than something pre-existing, which isn't really supported by the Urdr Hunt game. So the idea of it being a composite of different space platforms bolted around a space elevator terminal is perhaps a bit of a stretch. I still like it though, the basic concept of doing archaeology on space stations.

There's a lot of stuff I did in the moment, to get an individual fic to work, that I was later able to basically repurpose as long-term plot-points. I didn't actually intend for the 'There are three things you need to know to understand what comes next' bit to set up the salvager ship in the finale, or the pluma in Let Sleeping Angels Lie to set-up for what the McGillis faction would do with the leftovers of Season 2's events. But having those things set up gave me some wonderful 'ah ha' moments as I marshalled the overall plot. If nothing else, I got quite a rush out of realising both Gaelio's weaponised wheelchair and the beach house's lethal defences were there to use.

...try not to think too hard about how excited I got figuring out a convoluted assassination method. I'm certainly going to try not to.

The plot really kicked into gear for me with The Ares Affair. Up to then, I'd been coasting on character interactions and fix-its. But then all the consequences suddenly coalesced in my brain and I went, 'oh, this is what we're doing, is it?'

In addition to the playlists I've already put up, grown-up!Almiria's theme is Bach's Polonaise in G Minor on the harpsichord because it is *precisely* what you'd get if you pitched Rustal Elion's theme higher and more playful.

I still have no proper explanation for why A New England stuck in my head so hard when I was writing th first few fics. But I'm glad it did because it gave me a killer series title, if I do say so myself.

I tried extremely hard to make sure everyone in the anime cast got some kind of moment in the spotlight or at least a mention. Think I did a pretty good job on that front, overall.

And to wrap up on that point, yes, the narrator who occasionally addresses you directly is a character from the show. I'd be terribly interested to hear if any of you've worked out who. (It might not be strictly guessable, since there isn't anything gesturing at it per se; I just imagined it being their voice and it kind of fits, thematically.)

Now let's open the door to the cutting room!

The big one is that when I originally planned out the plot of Revolution for Beginners and Polyamory for Dumbasses, a key part of the uprising in the Dort Colonies was going to be the hackers allied with Ride knocking out the nearby Ariadne beacons in order to blind Earth to what was happening. Gjallarhorn would then have analysed the computer virus they used, and that would have been the basis for them messing about with the Network in the final stretch of fics. In the end, there simply wasn't enough room to fit any more threads into that fic and the more I thought it over, the more I decided this would be weighting the balance of power wrong. It'd be too much of a flat-out win for the colonists. Joshua's appearance on Ariadne One -- which had been intended to set things up for the beacon-hacking -- remained, just recontextualised as a clue to who was responsible for the attack in Frozen Sunlight, and a small bit of character development for this OC. I repurposed the remainder of this plot as a way to tie Ride's arc into Almiria's (she taps him for the hacking resources as a result of them messing with Ariadne One's sensors instead) and made 'Höðr' an entirely Gjallarhorn project.

The delay to the release of the Urdr Hunt mobile game drastically changed the opening to arc 4 and had knock-on effects for how the grand finale worked. Because I thought I'd have more to work with in terms of plot and characters of the game when it came time to do the writing, I'd assumed I'd be able to work in appearances from Urdr Hunt's cast. I'd planned a much bigger pay off to the idea of Radonitsa Colony's tourist board trying to get the Martain Chairperson to visit, which was that Atra and Akatsuki would have gone alone with Eugene and Sri. The whole 'let's pretend we're here to assess the facilities on behalf of the Martian government' would have been more than a passing joke and instead been a full-on cover story, with Wistario and the his friends scrambling to put on a good show. This would, I admit, mainly have existed to set up a rather dumb gag whereby Sri and Akatsuki would have been the only ones not distracted by Nanao Narolina's everything in a room full of straight male or bisexual adults. But with the delayed release of the game, I needed a drastic rethink, hence bringing in Zaza and having the whole adventure take place with the Urdr Hunt characters off-screen (I even made it vague as to whether they were the ones running the colony, just in case I needed to swing it as someone else taking over following a tragic or failed ending). Ultimately I am very happy this happened, since I didn't especially gel with the protagonists of the game and it gave me greater opportunity to play with my beloved manga cast. But it did mean my idea of having both spin-off heroes come to the rescue at a dramatic juncture never materialised.

This proved to be single biggest alteration to my plotting for the final arc, too. Initially, the escape from Earth was going to be a lot more dramatic. For one thing, I was planning for the whole 'Yamagi gets left behind' element to happen in orbit, with Shino and Eugene actually present. Some sort of ship to ship transfer going wrong, people going adrift in space, that kind of thing. For another, I had the idea of bringing both Gundams Astaroth and Hajiroboshi into play, for a proper 'fight our way through the blockade' moment. Wistario was going to swoop to the rescue as the shuttle broke atmosphere, there'd be pursuit, and I'd wreck as many cop cars Grazes as I could get away with in some protracted chase sequence before we got to the big NOOOO moment. Yeah. But obviously without knowing Wistario's real personality or situation post-game, I didn't have enough material to work with and plans changed. For the better, I think, given the characters moments it allowed me to have and given that Wiz's character is one of my least favourite parts of IBO's extended media. But yeah. I was aiming for a proper team-up, the kind where you could have different people's theme music kicking in as they swooped into view, and it was not to be.

History of a Catastrophe. Oh boy. As I noted at the time, this one got away from me a lot in terms of length. I ended up cutting three complete scenes in an effort to contain the sprawl. The first to go was one focused on Ville Klaassen, (main?) villain of the Moon Steel manga, who I'd already had cameo in Of Obsessions and Erotemes. I wanted to gesture more towards a conclusion for the manga's story, extending from what I'd laid down previously, but ultimately that was too low a priority to justify adding to the word count, so out it went. Given the alternating structure of this fic (it switches between what is broadly 'Julieta's strand' and 'Almiria's strand), that meant cutting a later scene as well and I opted to ditch a brief cutaway to Embi, mainly because it just repeated stuff I'd already establish in A Handful of Rusted Petals. And possibly because of this cut, or because I'd just mucked up the ordering at some point, I also had to get rid of a scene between two of Gjallarhorn's high command that, while cute from an office politics point of view, didn't really contribute much else.

Actually, since these are all quite short, I might as well put them in here so you can see what you weren't missing!

««««««««««««⟸ ✎ 🜘 ✎ 🜘 ✎ 🜘 ✎ ⟹»»»»»»»»»»»»

P.D. 327 – In the middle of entirely unrelated events; Gjallarhorn branch office, Prague

“I'm sorry, is this a bad time?”

Ville Klaassen pushes his briefcase and hat across the desk, out of sight of the terminal screen. “Not at all. I'm just in the middle of preparing for a business trip.”

The Police Bureau officer's eyebrow twitches. “Hopefully this shouldn't take up much of your time. I'm calling regarding two cases you worked on in the aftermath of the McGillis Fareed Incident.”

That explains the highly-secured channel, which demanded Ville confirm he was alone before it would establish an encrypted link. “Oh yes?”

“I'm specifically referring to events at Research Station AD-5, and the investigation into the Fareed Charitable School.”

“The Alaya-Vijnana research? Of course.” The murdered scientists, the destroyed data – evidence of a zealot's self-mutilation turned to so much ash and broken glass. “What of it?”

“This is your official notification that information on these cases has been deemed deleterious to the public good and will henceforth be restricted to category five clearance.”

Interesting. The research Ville can understand, but a school –? Oh, that's right. Those rumours concerning Lord Iznario's predilections. “I was only peripheral to the second investigation. I wouldn't even have been on the ground for the first, had internal affairs not been so short-handed.”

Clearly the exact details of the involvement are irrelevant. “Please sign the forms now being sent to your inbox to confirm you have received this notification. Since you only hold level four clearance, you are not permitted to discuss the indicated cases unless ordered to do so by a superior with level five clearance or above. I am additionally required to run a remote-access search on your Gjallarhorn-issue devices to purge any data pertaining to these cases.”

“Remote access?” Ville asks, a drop of sweat forming at the top of his spine and seeming to fall right the way down it. “Now?”

“The scan must be run as soon as is viable.” There is an overly-deliberate pause. “Do you object?”

Such a rookie error. Ville curses himself inwardly. “Naturally not.” He casts a glance at the pad on the other side of his desk, still displaying the surveillance feed from this morning. “Will you need to scan my personal devices as well?”

“I am not authorised to do so, since under level four clearance, you will not have been permitted to take personal copies of relevant information.”

“Forgive me, I merely wished to be certain.” Opening the security menu on the terminal, he checks his settings. Shouldn't be too much of a risk since he isn't amateur enough to conduct his outside dealings using work equipment. “Please go ahead.”

“Thank you,” says the officer once the progress bar has run its course. “No excisions required.”

“I try to keep things tidy.”

“Please sign the forms promptly. Good day.”

Doing as instructed, Ville wonders what will become of the staff and 'students' of the school. They must surely know plenty of juicy details that would be deleterious to Gjallarhorn's good name… on any other day, he'd consider stretching feelers in that direction, just to see what he might find…

The pad twitters. Fresh footage of two people on a street corner, a skinny blonde with a crutch beside a big, white-haired man, both huddled in cheap anoraks.

Ville snarls, grabbing his hat and dialling furiously. “Nanao,” he snaps as soon as the comm connects, “the Warren boy and his employer's pet thug are right outside the building! I cannot have them causing a scene here. Where the hell are you?”

««««««««««««⟸ ♊︎ ♠ ♊︎ ♠ ♊︎ ♠ ♊︎ ⟹»»»»»»»»»»»»

P.D. 327 – More than two years after Tekkadan's last battle; Chryse, Mars

First time Embi takes Fly-Away, he doesn't stop giggling for four hours.

He floats on a cloud of painlessness, the ghosts and memories lost somewhere way below him as the vapour swirls happily inside his head. His brother is dead. He's constantly surrounded by the people Elgar died for. And right now, he doesn't care. About any of it! It feels so good!

Crashing afterwards sucks. Not getting the shakes bad. It just stinks to be stuck with all the usual feelings. He has fucked-up nightmares about carrying Elgar through the desert, a dead weight clinging tight to his back. Barely gets through the day without starting a fight. Tries to punch Hirume for asking what's wrong.

The solution is obvious. Embi gets some more Fly-Away and the second time is even better.

So it becomes a pattern. Get the money to buy what he needs to make things a little less shit for a while. Burn through that. Rinse. Repeat.

Everyone keeps telling him he needs to find something to live for, right? He guesses this is it.

««««««««««««⟸ ... ፨ ... ፨ ... ፨ ... ⟹»»»»»»»»»»»»

P.D. 329 – Some time later; a private dining room at The Blue Horn, Vingolf

The Director General of the Inspection Bureau sniffs, as he is wont to do whenever he wishes to delay speaking. “Lord Iznario's death is being ruled misadventure. As… anticipated.”

The Regulatory Chief of Staff eyes him from across the table, fingernails digging ever so slightly into the white cloth laid between them. “Indeed it is.”

There is a heavy pause, the kind filled with common understandings that cannot be said aloud.

“You don't think…”

“I wouldn't know.” The Chief of Staff adjusts her forks. “That falls in your purview, not mine.”

“The Police Bureau is… not my bag either. Unless there's evidence of misdemeanour, the investigation is beyond our scope.”

“Is there? Evidence?”

The Director General fiddles with the cuffs of his tunic. “Seems the old man just muddled his tablets and didn't care about watching his diet.”

“The Seven Stars always thought they were above mere mortals.”

“Yes. Yes…”

Another, heavily pause.

“Convenient, at least,” concludes the Chief of Staff. “One less remnant of the old order, hanging around.”

The Director General coughs. “You know I'll be retiring in the new year? Lord – I mean, Commander Elion has some up-and-coming young fellow picked out to replace me.”

“I heard. Is he up to the job?”

“Mm. Probably. Didn't… get much say in the decision.”

“How democratic.”

“Hm.”

A waiter glides into the third silence, bowing obsequiously. “Madam, sir? Your entrées.”

-----------------------------------------------

As I said, nothing especially mind-blowing. I also had a slightly different opening to the segment featuring the pluma, which I again cut for length, but that I rather liked, as a conceit.

««««««««««««⟸ 010 101 010 ⟹»»»»»»»»»»»»

Can a machine remember?

It is possible for a machine to record. Pluma ASW-A-H-011_sub:27 can access data on its previous combat deployments at any time, to support its tactical algorithms. It can return the dimensions of the space freighter it disabled on its last activation, the topography of the desert it traversed during the battle before that, or images of the colossal detonation that led to it becoming buried for ERROR: UNABLE_TO_SYNC years.

But that is not remembering as you would understand it. Memory is imperfect, riddled with loss of clarity and skewed by emotional prejudice. A machine records raw, uncaring facts, free from conscious understanding of why they occur. Even if it performs tasks based on the patterns it detects, even if that performance resembles intelligence, it is most likely nothing more than a cascade of hollow logic, as insensible to wider context as a pebble dropping into the sea.

These, then, are the facts.

-----------------------------------------------

On the subject of aborted starts, here is something I sketched for a putative 'Wistario segment' of the Arc 4 opening story, which as discussed never materialised:

Wisterio Afam is having a bad day. That is to say, he's not having a good day. In the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't count as truly terrible given that nothing is presently on fire and as far as he knows the colony isn't being attacked right this minute. He personally is being assailed from all sides but that largely seems to be on the scale of a cosmic joke whereby all his carefully laid plans are coming apart at the stitching.

-----------------------------------------------

And finally, just because I thought it was clever at the time, a reprise segment from Love, Death and Cannoli that I again cut for length, but that would have repeated the echoing memory trick from To Catch a Falling Star chapter 11, with Yamagi recalling lines of dialogue with Shino that were (mostly) from my fics rather than the anime:

««««««««««««⟸ ⬡ 🛠 ⬡ 🛠 ⬡ 🛠 ⬡ ⟹»»»»»»»»»»»»

Suns turn into black holes if they get too big and die. So it is with his feelings. Gravitationally crushing.

I don't want perfect. I want you.

What a dumb thing to say.

(There's something wrong with me.)

But isn't it better to be wrong together than apart?

Do you think if we're both worrying it's our fault, that's a sign of something?

At least there are similarities in how they're screwed up, for whatever comfort that is.

(You're here and you're – you're mine.)

And Yamagi will hold on with hands and teeth and everything he's got.

Jeez, you're so uptight sometimes.

He can be fierce too, if it's necessary.

(Of course I want to be out there with you.)

Right to the very end.

-----------------------------------------------

I've a few more partial scenes in my planning document, but they're mostly things I reworked for the actual posted versions, rather than cutting entirely. Stuff like some of the flashbacks Shino has to his pre-Tekkadan days were originally in different places and the conversation between Yamagi and Ordsley wound up requiring a lot of changes as the story developed. I think that about covers all the major deviations from my original outline.

Oh, except for Gundam Paimon. I swear I meant to figure out what to do with that thing, eventually, but in the end it just remained hanging on the wall. Ah well.

[its-a-kasshu-thing]

This is just a random observation that I noticed about Gundam Wing:

After like 10 years, I decided to rewatch the series and then I reread Heero’s Episode Zero chapter. According to EZ, Heero and Odin were only together by “contract”. That, to me, implied that Odin is not Heero’s biological father and that he’s only taking care of him out of some sort of obligation.

Now I haven’t read Frozen Teardrop and I don’t really plan to because, (I mean come on, have you seen that plot lol) I could pick apart what I do know about it but, it just seems a little odd. Heero’s chapter seems to lead the reader to the conclusion of Odin obviously feeling guilty about killing Heero Yuy and then he just randomly has this little boy with him. It’s as if that boy was Heero’s son and since Odin killed his father, he felt compelled to take the boy on as his own.

I understand FT says that Odin is in fact the boy’s biological father with Aoi Clark (who doesn’t even have an official character design btw) **Neither does Solo from Duo’s official backstory but I digress** being his mother but I just find it strange that the kid doesn’t have a name if he was Odin’s after all. Maybe it was mentioned that his name really is Odin Lowe II but why would that name not be alluded to at all in the series? The series alluded to his mantra that Heero repeats throughout the series which is basically to listen to the heart. Obviously Odin cared enough about Heero to take care of him. It just doesn’t make sense why this kid wouldn’t know his name/have a name. Also, I just find it random that Heero is related to Trant Clark, some random Oz soldier, that was curious about the zero system, with nothing really substantial mentioned about him like idk a great revelation that he’s like Heero’s uncle or something. Heero didn’t even end up fighting him lol.

I personally think it would have worked out better plot wise if Heero was Heero’s son rather than Odin’s because it would have only emphasized further that Heero really is the “perfect soldier”. He fights for the “revenge” of the colonies while beneath the surface he actually fights to avenge his own father without even knowing it. That’s the thing that makes Heero so pure intentioned though. He fights solely for peace within, not only the colonies but, the Earth as well (as seen at the end of the series). Revenge was never really the goal of any of the pilots or else they would have fully taken part in Operation Meteor, wreaking havoc everywhere for everyone both oz and civilians on Earth alike.

Also, I love how Odin’s character design in EZ was retconed for the more Heero looking one in FT/Glory of Losers and, at the same time, Heero Yuy’s design also has a striking resemblance to the main pilot. It’s like they couldn’t decide who Heero’s father should be.

Also, the Sanc Kingdom sought peace from Earth while Heero Yuy preached peace in the colonies and then you have the heir of the Sanc Kingdom end up with the son of the colonies’ prominent pacifist.

My headcanon is Heero is still the product of a love affair just not with Odin as the main man but Heero Yuy. Like his wife probably ordered for her husband to be killed for cheating with some younger woman, making Heero his illegitimate son, adding to the chaos of it all, resulting in his birth to be the actual catalyst that sparks war between the colonies and Earth. Somehow, I think that would have made more sense and really tie everything together so neatly and dramatically.

[theotherwesley]

Flight 👀

WIP from a multi-chapter Gundam Wing fic that I will be carrying on my back forever like Atlas... :'D (Rating: general, CW: none)

The little car was given a rigorous inspection, the remainder of its contents confiscated, and soon they were escorted down streets lined with barricades and soldiers, past rows of tanks, and beneath the long shadow of a mechanical giant that stood with its back to the sun. 

Then they were on an overpass, leaving the capital city of Havreneuf, of what was now the former Sanc Kingdom. 

The city looked the same as it always had, except unexpected parts of it were missing, as if a child had reached down with a clumsy fist and torn out sections of a model, knocking things flat that were in its way, and muddying the sunset with dirty fingers. 

The skyline was different now– there had been a palace up on that hill, backed by white cliffs. It had watched over the ships coming in from the western sea to port, and the squares of red-roofed houses, and the church steeples. Its garden had been full of tulips.

Milliardo watched it scroll past in the distance, smoke darkening the sky long after it left the frame of his window. Before Sanc disappeared from view completely, he saw it: hazy as a faraway windmill on a still day, passing so much slower than the nearby buildings, one of the bipedal metal dreadnaughts stood, bathed in the last long arms of daylight. It was motionless, its single eye reflecting brilliant, liquid gold, and nothing troubled it.

“Mobile suits here too, huh,” the man said warily, “no surprise, I guess. Must’ve learned how good they are at scaring people back in the Colonies.”

“Hey,” the woman turned in her seat and gave him a reassuring nod, one arm behind the driver’s headrest. “We did it. Everything’s going to be okay.”  

The man looked over his shoulder with his broad, American smile. “You did great, kid. You did everything right. We’re going to get you somewhere safe now, you’ve got some good people looking out for you.”

“--ill I s-- hhy s-hhist-r?” he tried to ask. He was handed a bottle of water. 

“Oh, sweetheart. No. I’m sorry,” the woman’s face creased, “not for a while. But she’s safe. She’s safe. We got word from Marena and Pagan. They made it out. We won’t be able to contact them again for a while, but she’s going to be alright, and so are you.”  

The sun disappeared over the horizon. Headlights switched on. 

“You can take the hair off now, if you want. It’s going to be a long drive– try to get some sleep.”

He slid the wig and hat off his head. How was he meant to sleep? He was a piano wire ready to snap. But he did anyway. He must have, because he did not remember anything else of that journey, only his arrival at their destination, several countries and a lifetime away.

[gatormeister]

39 episodes into Gundam Wing. Still enjoying it, I would say that the second half of the show is a lot stronger than the first half, but it is very disappointing to have not one, but two whole recap episodes in here. Unfortunately they confirmed an opinion of mine that I'd been thinking over since my last post.

Gundam Wing actually does very well with story telling in the moment to moment, but zooming out and viewing the events of the show as a whole so far, feels very... off. So much has happened in the show, and yet it feels like very little has changed at the same time.

Plot beats have this odd disjointedness to them. Things just sort of happen to the Gundam pilots and Relena, they can't change anything from where they are now, and haven't really had the ability to do so since the Romefeller Foundation takes over the Earth. They come close when the Sanc Kingdom existed, but that doesn't last very long at all. They're all just being tossed around an unstable environment with nowhere to really go.

I suppose that's what sets Wing apart though. There is no place to go back to. No White Base, no Argama/Nahel Argama, no Tekkadan, no 08th MS Team, no Earth House, no Inglessa Militia. Sure Quatre has something like that, but they don't show up enough for them to be that for the show. The space colonies don't want them back and White Fang just wants the Gundams as a form of propaganda to rile people up, the Sanc Kingdom was destroyed, those scientists are all over the place, and the Gundam pilots barely even want to work with each other half the time.

Which isn't a bad thing mind you, at least not inherently. Interesting developments are happening all the time, but there is so much that it becomes easy to forget a character or plot beat exists until they suddenly get brought back up.

Part of why Zechs sticks out to me so much compared to the rest of the show is probably because unlike a lot of other characters and factions, he does feel like a constant in the show. Even if he doesn't have an appearance for a bit, you can always be sure he'll pop back up in some way soon, and his plot is very easy to keep track of because of that.

Anyway, I'm going to cut off the ramble for now. I look forward to Heero trying to kill Relena (again) when I get back to it. And I've also decided what I'll be watching in Gundam once I finish Endless Waltz. The current plan is to go through War in the Pocket, Stardust Memory, and Thunderbolt, and depending on the length of those three I might include the Igloo OVAs. Once those are finished, I intend to go for After War Gundam X or Reconguista in G, both of which I've had my eyes on for a bit now.

[reneees]

A thousand slashes

A million deep eyes that garnered poetry and was a poet in two deep halves.She was a sly share and was a commune poetry.She was a million thousand cashes that were made of gold enterprises.She was a slayed shy which moved from country to country to club to club eating deep lies in shared wisdom.She was a sharing in two.She was a building faith of deep empirical data.She was a wisdom cupped in two poets.She was a share love and a shy mane that was a cool poet and was a lie that took out of context.She wa writing best novel poetry and her right deep ink was the right sank deep novellas.She was a share of two poets.She was a shy in deep madness and was a lie in her thought that her wisdoms were the shares of her ink and was a lie in womanhood.She never aged and was a lie that stepped down.She was a Nibule deep poetry.She took courage wrists.She took sand castles worth of knowly and dra-Ed it down her ink.Her ink shared and grew out of propitiation and thought of leaving her poets and was a shy share in ink.Slayed my pretense.Slayed my on-shore lie that was a mane of kingdom that lived on upkeep hills.He was a googled faith that which was a slaying share of deep sink teeth.She was a child of woe and teeth.And the most romance of mine was a pretty poetry of his.A slay was the share kingdom belonged to hips of sap kingdom.She was a share in two halves and was okay to deep eye poetry.She was a donkey Truber and halves that met me.The age was.The deep was.Te lie was.The age was.The shared slashes were.The sly-dyes were.There were a ongoing faith crisiswhuch took place in the courage kingdom.She was a slayed upon shy and was a Christ faith that grew in two halves.She was a sly cat that foxed in two wisdoms,the Slayed Ancharas and Dimacharas.She was a share of deep of lie that was her moving faith.Deep lied onto love-like hose.She was a shared leaping-movie kind faith.A lie your name was an ink and two.A give of her ink was the death she died.She was a cool account and had 3000 likes and was novelling her pretense to my kingdom victim.She was old of the era the colds knew.She was honestly an exuberance.She was a lie that took on faiths and made a community of cats.She made us movie cats.She made us into nimbballs to who we were.She slayed the Tom game.The slay of a sinner,a singer,a novelist.She was a right that was a God which was a lie and deep sanc-tank poet and was an exuerating lie.She was a courage-pry baby pan.She was a studded with Brown ink pans and half-sharing poetry.She was a Baby,she was like the Neet season.The season went on.The season lord.The season was a lie in two halves.She was a high novel that was a shared premise.She was a sinner in two wrongs.She was a lie enclaved I’m the two eyes and were a man and was a shy slayed kingdom.She was a slaying hose-hale.She was beautiful,the poet in the world.

[anthurak]

Bit of a shot in the dark here, but what if Schwarzette ends up effectively being the Epyon to Aerial’s Wing Zero?

As in, a new Gundam introduced by one of the antagonist(?) factions which the main character temporarily has to pilot because they have nothing else to work with before gaining (or in Suletta’s case, reuniting with) their actual Gundam. And then that temporary Gundam goes on to become the protagonist’s main rival until the end of the show.

Like what if we get a similar situation to the invasion of the Sanc Kingdom with an attack on Asticassia, and Suletta takes the Schwarzette to defend it. However, just like Heero with the Epyon, Suletta can’t handle the Permet System on Schwarzette and goes on a rampage. Leading then to Miorine and Aerial showing up just like Zechs with the Wing Zero to stop/save Suletta.

Which then leads to Suletta finally being reunited with Miorine and Aerial and Schwarzette is discarded/taken by another faction, likely Prospera. Or heck, maybe things stay even closer to Wing with Suletta returning to Aerial while Miorine pilots Schwarzette.

I mean, if it does turn out her mom is in there...

[fostersffff]

The Big Gundam Watch, Part 9.2: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Episodes 27-49

Well, it took a while, but I finally finished watching Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

I gotta be honest, guys: this was frustrating. The point I made in the first part of this where I talked about how Gundam Wing is at its weakest when aping aspects of Universal Century Gundam comes back in full force here. What got me particularly sour is that the show actually did start to rally by heading in a direction I didn't expect, rife with potential, before hard-stopping and saying "alright fellas, last batch of episodes, we gotta do Char's Counterattack now". But then, peppered throughout "we're doing Char's Counterattack again" is some really good stuff that just doesn't get the chance to soak in.

Let's get into it:

THE STUFF I LIKED:

Dorothy Catalonia is the most consistently great part of Gundam Wing's second half. At first, it's because she was the most straight-forward character in the series- she is Based and Warpilled- and seeing her be comically unsubtle about her love of and desire for war was pretty funny. She then begins to occupy the position of "villain who gets underestimated because they're so transparently villainous they seem incapable of subtlety", which leads to some shockingly simple but effective maneuvering to get exactly what she wants, including the death of her grandfather. But ultimately, when they decided they should pair her off with Quatre, her hawkishness is sensibly re-contextualized and made deeply sympathetic, in a way that the series doesn't really achieve with Milliardo and definitely doesn't with Treize, who have the exact same motivations as her.

Speaking of Dorothy, the way Relena's commitment to Total Pacifism didn't play out the way I thought it would was an extremely pleasant surprise. The whole time I was anticipating a corruption-style arc, where Dorothy acts as the devil on Relena's shoulder, urging her into taking violent action in the name of peace... but she doesn't. From the time she takes over the Sanc Kingdom through to the end of the series, she is 100% committed to the ideal of Total Pacifism, no matter how much of a disadvantage it puts her at.

I guess maybe that's why Relena was so hated when the show first aired in the West? But I thought her absolute commitment to such a childish ideal was actually the most endearing thing in the series. It's naive in the exact way that the character is portrayed as naive from the very start, but she takes every opportunity to show her commitment to it in bold, bombastic ways. My personal favorite was "my brother is Milliardo Peacecraft, I have no idea who this Zechs Merquise loser is, so kill him if you feel compelled to, it's got nothing to do with me"

In general, the whole Sanc Kingdom arc was the show at its smartest, because the conflict between Relena/the Sanc Kingdom and the Romefeller Foundation under Duke Dermail was simple at its core, which meant they could do more interesting things with it. "Invading force proclaiming to the world that they are saviors and liberators protecting the locals from hostile elements when their real goal is to destabilize the region" is effective as hell!

Tremendous credit to the series for being also smart enough to highlight that Dorothy/Milliardo/Treize's goal of "have a war so horrifying it scares mankind out of having any more wars" was even more naive than Relena's Total Pacifism because it was completely and utterly ruined by Lady Une's surrender.

I wrote in my notes "if Milliardo just flat-out refuses Treize's duel and fires the Libra canon at him I'm giving this series a +2 buff no matter what else happens", so I have to mention that's exactly what happens here. Except, I reduced it to a +1 buff for a reason we'll get into later.

There's a handful of really tight, exciting action sequences that do specific things to elevate them over "Gundam pilots lay waste to an entire army of dolls". The one that I loved the most was in Episode 39, when Quatre realizes that he won't be able to make it to Trowa in time to protect him because the Sandrock isn't properly kitted for space, so instead of trying to use his verniers he takes advantage of the nearby exploding shuttle to launch himself. That's a fucking BALLER maneuver, and actually adds more credence to the "Quatre is the brains of the team and a good strategist" thing the show starts to lean on towards the end.

Despite just saying "Gundam pilots lay waste to an entire army of dolls" in a negative context, the aforementioned scene immediately being followed by Trowa and Quatre bump into Duo, who decloaks Deathscythe Hell and starts tearing up the battlefield as Rhythm Emotion starts playing was also Fucking Unbelievably Cool

On the same subject: using Rhythm Emotion as an insert song a couple of times but waiting until episode 41 out of 49 to introduce it as the new OP was very bold, but the correct decision.

Ending the series with Relena tearing the birthday card Heero left for her is just raw, unfiltered kinography. Maybe the single smartest decision in this entire series. I was hootin' and hollerin'.

THE STUFF I LIKED LESS:

The last nine episodes are just Char's Counterattack. Any time I tried to give it leeway and thought they were gonna do something interesting or different, it slapped me in the face, first with Milliardo delivering a speech in a Sweetwater-style colony (when literally every colony shown in After Colony is a Halo-style ring), then ultimately resolving to drop a space fortress on Earth to usher in an ice age, and then even doing the "We stopped the drop!... Oh no, a piece split off and is still heading to Earth!" part. This was hack shit, and kind of made me hate Milliardo because the interesting thing about him was the idea of taking the Char archetype in a different direction, not just writing Char doing all the things Char did, again.

I made a post just the other day about what turned out to be the setup for pairing off of Quatre and Dorothy, which I mentioned right at the top here was one of my favorite aspects of the series. Someone corrected me that they did actually 'meet'- Dorothy was in the room when Quatre and Heero introduced themselves as students, and presumably Quatre was in the room when Dorothy introduced herself to Heero- but looking that up reminded me that really should've been Quatre she was dueling. As it is, it's almost the same problem I've talked about with The Rose of Versailles, where you have a REALLY STRONG arc built on a foundation of nothing.

While I thought the reveal of the true nature of Dorothy's "love" of war was pretty well executed, the same cannot be said last second reveal that the Gundam Scientists sabotaged Operation Meteor somehow and that the original mastermind was Quinze. It's a good concept, and would actually explain a lot of why Operation Meteor was so disjointed, but like the character himself, there was literally no time to develop this.

When it comes to suspension of disbelief, I usually let things pass unmentioned, as long as they don't disrupt me in the moment. That's why I wrote that post about Quatre and Dorothy; at the exact moment it happened I went "THAT'S RAD... wait, what?" Even worse than that, though, was Lady Une waking up from her coma, escaping the hospital, hijacking the Wing Gundam and somehow making it from Earth to Libra fast enough to knock Trieze out of the firing path AND not dying herself. It wasn't even cool because...

I hate Treize. I already talked about how much I hated Treize in the first part, and it only got worse here. And it's not "oh man, what a good villain" hate, it's just... he sucks. Everything he says and does is so incongruous and lame, and not in a way that reads to me as intentional. It's insane that he survived until basically the last minute, but the silver lining is that led to Lady Une surrendering on behalf of the World Nation and completely fucking up Dorothy, Milliardo, and even Treize's plans.

No need to go over my dislike of the Gundams in the series again, but man does Epyon suck. Fuckin' boneless Master Gundam is what it is, and transparently just given to Zechs so he would have a red mobile suit to use in the final conflict (because he's Char, ya see). It sucks even more because they did make a Tallgeese II, and it actually bridges the gap between native After Colony mobile suit design and Gundams like I was bitching about, but they gave it to Treize!

So much of Gundam Wing can be boiled down to "poor planning and not enough time". It was regrettable in 0079 that they ran out of time because they got cancelled, and unfortunate for ZZ that Char's Counterattack went into development and they had to scramble to put together a story that somehow fit- or at least didn't clash- with that, but this? There doesn't really seem to be any good excuse. I still don't know most of these characters' backstories or motivations, and some stuff that's implied in context but is never meaningfully addressed, like the fact that Dorothy and Treize are related.

Another overall problem I have with Wing is that it talks about war as part of the innate human desire for conflict, when those are two very different things. Even near the end, Milliardo talks about how the colonies gave in to their desire for conflict, and like... no they didn't! They were manipulated by an external, fascistic power (Romefeller) into fearing The Other (non-Romefeller-aligned powers on Earth) and started developing weapons for the fascistic power, and then those weapons were hijacked by an extremist sect (White Fang). No part of that is the colonies, as a united entity, going "we crave violence". In fact, mankind's susceptibility to fear and the manipulation that comes with it could so easily be worked into other theme that Wing likes to bring up- that mankind is weak- but that's more about literal, actual weakness. It's just so bad at trying to make its points.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:

Once again we get some haute couture with Noin's non-uniform outfit of choice being a fuckin' cowboy fringe vest. Just amazing that when this woman isn't in fatigues or a dress uniform, she's ready to go to the rodeo.

Watching this dub has forced me to confront the possibility that maybe G Gundam also had a not-great dub, and I just love it because that's the one I saw when I was a kid. But to be honest, this dub would be perfectly fine if not for the fact that they had like six actors total, and major character's voices would be coming out of Random Soldier #3 one scene later.

There's a line in the final episode where Duo's like "we're gonna celebrate with some champagne when we get back!" and Quatre goes "just as long as it's non-alcholic". I was 1000% sure that was a dub thing, so imagine my surprise when I checked the subs and nope; Quatre is a good little boy in Japanese, too. Totally in character, but that's such a staple of 90's localization.

It's incredibly funny to me that the Wufei is responsible for both kicking off the Char's Counterattack portion of Gundam Wing by effectively staging a false flag attack for Milliardo because he's having a Category 5 Muh Justice moment, and then also completely ruins Milliardo's plans by actually killing Treize. Both because it's funny to be responsible for both parts of that, and also because, again, he's the one who pointed out to all the other boys that they got finessed into killing the Alliance brass.

Speaking of which, what the fuck was up with Wufei's cult of suicidal ascetic monks? Were they the only people onboard that colony? Did they murder millions of innocents for Wufei's (what can charitably be referred to as) "chararacter development"?

Duo calling himself "the God of Death" really takes on the energy of someone trying to force a nickname on themselves, especially the way that absolutely no one else ever acknowledges it. It gets even more laughable when he refers to the Gundam scientists as "the Gods of Plague". You don't have a Four Horsemen thing going on, dude!

Heero Yuy should never ever be portrayed with eyes this soft ever. Deeply unsettling.

IN CONCLUSION:

"Frustrating" is definitely the word for Gundam Wing, as far as I'm concerned. For a little bit there, I was comparing it to Angel Links, and re-reading that post, I think a lot of what I said about it also applies here. The difference is that when Wing tries to swings big more often, and in doing so, it will occasionally succeed. The trade off, then, is that the hackish lifting of entire Universal Century storylines with worse execution looks even worse. I don't think I would ever really recommend it to anyone- you're better off checking out literally any of the Universal Century Gundam stories- but if someone were hellbent on it, I don't think I'd go out of my way to ward them off, either.

But wait, I shouldn't be doing an "In Conclusion" section, because I'm not done yet!

Next up: the conclusion to the Gundam Wing experience, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz! My impression, based on what I've heard, is that even people who are out-and-out Wing haters think Endless Waltz is alright, so I'm holding out hope that this will be all of the stuff I liked about Wing and none of what I didn't.

Considering this one's a movie, and only 90 minutes at that, I don't think it'll take quite as long as my previous two Gundam Wing write-ups.

At least I fucking hope not.

[tinyozlion]

Zechs Marquise / Milliardo Peacecraft:  A Heel Turn for the Greater Good

Zechs Merquise is the main character of Gundam Wing. 

Ah, you thought it was Heero, or maybe Relena, didn’t you? Well, judging by the first act of the series, this is clearly not the case!  

Zechs is the very first character we’re introduced to. He’s mysterious, handsome, ultra-competent. He shows concern for civilian safety and the safety of his men. He takes personal risks, fights on the front lines. He demonstrates right away that he has a strong ethical code that places great importance on the moral conduct of soldiers. His subordinates look up to him, his superiors value and respect him. We get all of this in act one of episode one.

Absolute hero material, so far! Hard to see why he's being framed like antagonist. Whatever, I'm sure he'll be on the winning team in no time! Just like Quattro Vegeta, or whatever.

By episode three, we’re introduced to the Tallgeese, a mobile suit that matches all the criteria for being the Big Damn Hero Machine that a protagonist would use: it’s ancient, it’s got a history, it’s the progenitor suit, it’s got no bells or whistles, it demands great strength and skill from the pilot but offers unmatched performance to those who can overcome its challenges. It’s the perfect suit for Zechs, and obviously the next step in his hero’s journey! This is the part of the story where he can finally meet the terrifying, so-far unbeatable enemy on equal footing. 

...But of course, OZ is also introduced in episode 3. So now we know that Zechs works for some faceless, secret military organization– but that’s fine, right? It’s the Alliance military that’s the Big Bad Guy, and Zechs seems to be part of some elite special unit that’s only for brave, self-sacrificing soldiers! OZ hasn’t done anything really bad yet, while on the other hand, the Gundam pilots have been a bunch of mercilessly violent loose cannons who’ll kill anyone who gets in their way.

In episode four, we meet Noin, an immediately likable and equally skilled OZ officer who has a deep personal connection with Zechs. Already this is a power couple we can get behind. We watch as Noin suffers a humiliating defeat and a barrage of misogyny from a Gundam pilot, who kills a bunch of young recruits in their sleep. Definitely not a good look for the Gundam Team! while Zechs and Noin (and Treize, in a more literal sense) come out of this episode smelling like roses. 

Just look at them! They’re going to make such a great team. I hope they give those homicidal Gundam kids what for!

It’s only when episode five rolls around that we finally see what OZ is really about: assassinations, covert schemes, foul play, political manipulation, and the ruthless accumulation of power. Uh oh! 

But surely, Lady Une is the real baddy here, and Treize is no more than a shadowy puppet master whose true motives remain mysterious. Zechs and Noin are still such obvious Good Guy candidates, they really ought to be the main protagonists of this show by now! The big scary OZ that the Colony rebels warned us about seems a far cry from the OZ we’ve seen so far. Even after the point where OZ becomes the new uncontested Bad Guy, Zechs and co. keep their noses pretty clean.

And then! Then Zechs reveals his tragic past, his double-identity, his secret Count of Monte Cristo/ Man in the Iron Mask plot to avenge the ruin of the Sanc Kingdom and the deaths of his family, the noble house of Peacecraft! How romantic, how dashing! His quest continues to best the Gundams, but this takes on the hue of personal enlightenment; Zechs wants to defeat the Gundam pilots to prove he is capable of being a “True Soldier”, worthy of the power he’s been given, worthy of what has been sacrificed to his cause. 

Boy, that’s some hero behavior! And it gets even better: Zechs and Noin leave OZ to begin championing the Sanc Kingdom and its policies of Total Pacifism. No one can say Zechs isn’t one of the good guys now, right? He even dresses up all spiffy in white and becomes an ambassador to promote peace in the colonies! 

–Or rather, he tries to. 

Because despite having gained a reporte with a few of the Gundam pilots, he still hasn’t managed to ally with them. They still view him as an enemy, no matter how hard or how desperately he tries to convince them that he’s turned over a new leaf. 

He can’t beat them, and he can’t join them. Why?

Pictured: the saddest boys in the universe.

The second act of Gundam Wing is a crucible where every character is forced to re-evaluate their place in the ongoing conflict. You can see and feel his frustration building as the future spirals out of control. 

What is the purpose of Zechs Merquise, or of Milliardo Peacecraft?

He has refused to be OZ’s mascot, the Lightning Count. He’s not capable of bringing peace to the colonies by himself. He can’t join the Gundams in their fight against OZ. He can’t even protect the Sanc Kingdom, because the very act of fighting in its name is used as an excuse to wipe it out. 

He bids a heartfelt adieu to his Big Damn Hero Machine, the Tallgeese, and finds himself in possession of its polar opposite: the Epyon, a machine made to scour its pilot and the world of hypocrisy. 

Finally, Zechs has his answer– the reason why his purpose eludes him, why all his best intentions go astray, why the harder he tries to align his moral compass to the Gundam pilots or embrace his pacifistic inheritance, the more lost he becomes: He is not the hero. 

He has been trying and failing to be a hero since episode one because this isn’t a story about noble, heroic, chivalrous warriors doing battle in order to gain personal clarity and strength.

It’s not about man-vs-man conflict resolving in a test of skill. If it were, Zechs would have been victorious and completed his hero’s journey by now, and the show would be over. 

But that was never the role he was meant to play. That’s not what the stage requires. The third act begins as he accepts a new mantle, and becomes the villain history needs in that moment to bring everything together.

“Zechs considers this place his grave. [...]He intends to pay for the sin of purging humanity, all by himself.”

–Not to purge humanity of “violent earthlings”, as his White Fang propaganda speech stated, but to purge the current generation of the means to wage mechanized warfare, and of the desire for combat and retribution itself, in order to finally bring the cycle of war between the earth and space to an end. 

…But of course, nothing ever really ends, does it? History dances forward, with or without you, and all the sacrifices and fail-safes in the world will not stop new challenges from arising. 

Nevertheless, if it is possible to choose, by means of noble principle, to be a villain for the sake of the greater good, in the full assurance of one’s own destruction and revilement, then surely that is also in some winding, definitionally tragic way, a path to heroism– and if this is so, then Zechs is strong (and disillusioned) enough to take it. 

I do not think that the series supports the idea that his actions or their consequences are justified– only that they achieve their immediate purpose: setting the stage for peace. For now.

...And Now, An Important Note on Gundam Meta:

Zechs is what is referred to in the parlance of the Gundam fandom as a “Char Archetype”, or “Char Clone”-- a term I think is of debatable accuracy. For a longer discussion on Char Aznable and his role in MS Gundam, please see the entry: The Char Aznable Problem.  But I want to make it clear that knowing about Char’s backstory IS NOT a necessary prerequisite to understanding Zechs’s story. 

Zechs and Char share a lot of DNA as characters, that’s unavoidable– a masked man in red who poses a threat to the main Gundam pilot is a staple of the genre; he’s deliberately an homage to Char, as much an expected feature of a Gundam series as... well, Gundams. That much is not in question. 

However: Char’s motivations only make sense in the context of the original Gundam series; if you try to apply the same logic within the structure of Gundam Wing, it becomes gibberish. But the gibberish is by design– If you don’t understand the context behind Zech’s late-series genocidal spiel on why “earthlings are the ultimate threat to peace so we must destroy earth, the source of all conflict yadda-yadda blah-blah”, then… yeah, you’re up to speed. No one else listening to White Fang’s broadcast understood it either. It’s MEANT to sound like the ramblings of an extremist madman who poses a catastrophic and unavoidable threat to both Earth AND the Space Colonies he claims to represent. That’s the basic nature of his Ozymandius Gambit: invent something scary enough that everyone has to band together to fight it.

So you don’t need to know about Char to understand Zechs– but knowing about Char does make Zech’s role (and Treize’s role!) in Gundam Wing that much more interesting.

Zechs is not a Char Clone, he is a conversation with the idea of Char, taking a theme and transposing it into a new composition.

--Anyway, it’s a little unfair to try and force a comparison between Zechs and Char, when Char had MS Gundam, Zeta Gundam, and Char’s Counterattack to do everything he did, and Zechs only had Wing. 

Now, I’m not a mathematician or anything, but I’d say that makes Zechs roughly…

Three times faster.

[fallenwingzero]

New Mobile Report Gundam Wing Timeline

I redid the timeline again but this time with pictures! This is my take on what order all the anime/manga/novels/radio dramas take place in the Gundam Wing universe. For a quick recap, this is the order and dates:

Episode Zero (sans Preventor epilogue) - AC 187 to AC 195

Anime (sans epilogue) - AC 195 April 06 to AC 195 December 24

Chronicle of the After Colony Era - AC 195

Odds and Evens - AC 195 December 24

Anime Epilogue - AC 196 April 06

Battlefield of Pacifists - AC 196

Blind Target - AC 196

Ground Zero (sans epilogue) - AC 196

Endless Waltz - AC 196 December 24 to AC 196 December 27, Epilogue - AC 197 January 01

Ground Zero Epilogue - AC 197

Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 1 - AC 197 March to AC 197 April 07

Episode Zero Preventor 5 epilogue - AC 197 April 07

Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 2 - AC 197 April 09

Frozen Teardrop - MC 22 Next Winter

Frozen Teardrop Epilogue - MC 23 Summer

The full explanations for the order of the timeline as well as pictures are under the read more:

Episode Zero: AC 187 to AC 195.

Obviously places first, being a prequel. For the specific dates mentioned we have -

Duo’s Backstory:

AC 187 - Duo is taken in by the Maxwell Church.

AC 188 - Father Maxwell and Sister Helen are killed in an attack.

AC 192 - Duo meets Professor G.

Heero’s Backstory:

AC 175- Odin assassinates Heero Yuy

AC 188- Heero travels as a hitman with Odin. Odin is killed by Dekim Barton. Heero meets Doctor J.

Trowa’s Backstory:

AC 190 - No Name (Trowa) meets Middie Une. Heads for outer space looking for a “home”

Relena’s Backstory:

AC 191 - Alpha Yuy enrolls at her school. Zechs saves Relena and realizes that she is his long-lost sister.

Quatre’s Backstory:

AC 193 - Quatre meets the Maganacs

Wufei’s Backstory:

AC 194 - Wufei marries Meilan

AC 194 - Meilan dies.

Episode Zero Operation Meteor: AC 195 April 06

2. Anime Series and Light Novel Series (sans epilogue): AC 195 April 06 to AC 195 December 24

Anime series begins on Relena’s Birthday, April 06 and ends Christmas Eve. The final battle later becomes known as “The Eve Wars”. The novelisation I believe is similar to the anime so for now I'm listing it as concurrent instead of an alternate interpretation.

3. Chronicle of the After Colony Era: AC 195

Takes place during the anime series, after Heero wakes up from his coma and is travelling with Trowa. Duo is still travelling with Quatre, and Relena has just revived the Sanc Kingdom.

4. Odds and Evens: AC 195 December 24.

Takes place immediately after the final battle of the anime series.

5. Anime Epilogue: AC 196 April 06.

Takes place on Relena’s Birthday the following year with her being too busy as Vice Foreign Minister to attend her birthday party. She also receives the bear and card gifts from Heero.

6. Battlefield of Pacifists: AC 196

For the three midquels, I put this one first. My reasoning is that Quatre first comes up with the idea to send the Gundams into the sun, to the surprise of Duo. Wufei realizes that he still has to fight for justice despite the war ending.

7. Blind Target Manga and Radio Drama: AC 196

This is the second on the timeline for the three midquels. The need to destroy the Gundams becomes more apparent for the boys as the remnants of White Fang use the Gundams protecting peace as a point for why the UESN cannot be trusted with total disarmament. Wufei meets up with Mariamaia and Dekim Barton.

8. Ground Zero (sans epilogue): AC 196

The final of the three midquels. After agreeing to destroy the Gundams, Duo, Quatre and Trowa suspect that Heero is secretly planning to continue to use Wing Zero and devise a way to learn his intentions. Wufei is already wearing the Mariamaia Doll uniform showing it takes place after Blind Target.

9. Endless Waltz Movie and Novelization: AC 196 December 24 to December 27 /Epilogue: AC 197 January 01

The Mariamaia Incident starts on Christmas Eve, exactly one year after the Eve Wars, and ends on December 27. The Epilogue takes place on New Year’s Day.

The Endless Waltz novelisation is concurrent with the movie. I also listed it in the same timeline due to not contradicting canon. It follows the same story with added extra backstory for characters.

10. Ground Zero Epilogue: AC 197

The epilogue for Ground Zero states that it took place in AC 197 making it take place after Endless Waltz. Heero also promises to stay by Relena’s side.

11. Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 1: AC 197 March to AC 197 April 07

March- Heero is staying at the Darlian Estate by this point with Relena tending to his wounds that had accumulated over the series. Relena is planning to run for president of the UESN.

April 07- Relena throws a campaign party on the day after her birthday. Sanc Kingdom is under attack by a terrorist organization. Wufei and Sally gather the Gundam Pilots to carry out a rescue mission.

12. Episode Zero Epilogue: AC 197 April 07

Concurrent with Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 1. Relena throws a campaign party on the day after her birthday. Sanc Kingdom is under attack by a terrorist organization. Wufei and Sally gather the Gundam Pilots to carry out a rescue mission. Quatre devises a plan for them to rescue the hostages without anyone dying, enemies included.

13. Frozen Teardrop Preventor 5 part 2: AC 197 April 09

The new Preventor 5 team carry out the rescue mission. The mission doesn’t go as planned and fails. Relena sacrifices herself to save the Sanc Kingdom and is cryogenically frozen. Heero is also frozen sometime later.

14. Frozen Teardrop Light Novel series and Picture Drama: MC 22 Next Winter to MC 23 First Spring

25 years later Heero Yuy awakens to fight a new war on Mars along with the old and new Gundam Pilots.

There’s a full timeline for the events leading up to current day Frozen Teardrop that I will translate as a later edit for this post. It covers all the backstories as well as important historical events of the Mars Colony Era. I will also add the extra dates mentioned in Frozen Teardrop as I translate the series.

15. Frozen Teardrop Epilogue: MC 23 First Summer.

Heero and Relena have been married for 5 months and peace is slowly coming to Mars.

I looked over all my manga and light novels to check dates so hopefully this is all accurate. It all surprisingly fits in nicely too, so I guess the writers were careful not to contradict each other’s extra stories.

Content that doesn’t fit on the timeline or is contradictory to canon:

Glory of the Losers - This is a reboot, so it has its own timeline and canon with different versions of events from the GW series.

A Scythe in my Right Hand, You in my Left - This story is… odd, to put it nicely 😂. It’s a good story but it doesn’t make sense in canon at all, so it goes under the “Duo’s weird catholic fever dream” category of the timeline. It also didn’t have anyone from the show work on it, unlike the rest of the media, so it’s not considered canon in that regard and that’s also probably why it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the canon.

Operation Preventor Radio Drama Cassette - It’s a crack scenario revolving around the boys hosting a radio show that takes place sometime after Endless Waltz. Although the boys hosting a radio show is an unlikely scenario 😂, it does have good characterisations and hilarious interactions between the G-pilots.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Manga by Koichi Tokita - This is a retelling of GW and contains vastly different scenarios so it’s its own canon. The writers of GW also didn’t work on it so it’s not part of the main canon in that way too.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Endless Waltz Manga by Koichi Tokita - The sequel to the Mobile Suit Gundam Manga and the same deal as before where it didn’t have any of the original writers work on it. Although it really doesn't differ from the movie at all so it could also work as concurrent to Endless Waltz movie and novels.

[urban-unease]

Gundam Wing Sims 4 Save File

decided to share how I've built up the worlds in my gundam wing save file. Most of the builds are not by me but if folks are interested I can make a list of the builds I used.

L1 Colony - characterized by white eco futuristic architecture

L2 Colony - grungy Cyberpunk inspired world

Maganac Earth Village - characterized by Moroccan-inspired by architecture

Earth gateway city for L5 refugees - world populated with traditional Chinese architecture

Sanc Kingdom - Characterized by Tudor architecture, Sanc Academy school for girls and a large Spaceport

[gundamgirlvioletta]

Zechs Merquise

Real Name: Milliardo Peacecraft

Origin: Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

Timeline: After Colony (A.C.)

Role: Secondary Antagonist

Affiliations: OZ, Sanc Kingdom, White Fang, Preventer

Pilot Of: Tallgeese, Tallgeese III, Tallgeese Flugel, Gundam Epyon

Age: 19 (Wing), 20 (Endless Waltz)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born Milliardo Peacecraft and heir to the Sanc Kingdom throne, Milliardo took on the name Zechs Merquise and joined the OZ army after the destruction of his homeland.

A conflicted character at his core, Zechs is full of guilt, pride and self-loathing; despite having a reputation for being an amazing mobile suit pilot, he feels he's betrayed himself, his father and his homeland by going against their ideals of total pacifism. As such, the name Milliardo Peacecraft comes with great shame for him.

Another internal conflict is between chivalry and the professionalism expected from a soldier of his caliber. This drove his motives as he struggled to find the balance between his former identity, and the uncompromised warrior he felt he needed to become.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HISTORY

Zechs has his beginnings in A.C. 186, where has chosen from Treize Khushrenada's class of soldiers at the Victoria Academy to take part in a test run of the feasibility of mobile suit corps. He earned a flawless victory at the Battle of Mogadishu, which lead the Alliance to use the Specials (AKA OZ) more often.

In A.C. 191, Zechs was sent on a mission to repress a terrorist organization's attack on the Earth Alliance base. Piloting the then-brand-new Aries mobile suit, Zechs fought back the terrorists in record time, and Treize, who witnessed the battle, commented that he "fights like lightning", giving an origin to the "Lightning Count" nickname Zechs would later be known for.

On April 7, A.C. 195, Zechs encountered Heero Yuy and the Wing Gundam for the very first time during the latter's descent to Earth to commence Operation Meteor. Zechs managed to hold the Wing back and plunge it into the Pacific Ocean by latching his own suit on it. The lack of a mobile suit that could stand on par with the Gundams led to him being introduced to the Tallgeese.

Zechs took part in Operation Daybreak, where OZ overthrew the Alliance. Amidst the coup, Zechs would get his revenge by killing the commanding officer who led the fatal attack on the Sanc Kingdom.

Later, Zechs used the Tallgeese for a rematch against the Wing Gundam in Siberia. Their duel was cut short when Lady Une threatened to shoot down the colonies unless the Gundam pilots surrendered, and so Doctor J did. Heero emerged from his cockpit and self-detonated the Wing Gundam in response to the surrender, and Zechs allowed Trowa to recover Heero's body and escape. Afterwards, Zechs took the Wing Gundam's remains and began to secretly rebuild it under OZ's nose.

A couple months later, Zechs offered Heero yet another rematch in Antartica. It was interrupted once again, this time by Zechs' sister Relena, who had found out Zechs' true identity. OZ's search party descended on them and Zechs fought to allow Relena and the Gundam pilots to escape.

The battle marked the end of Zechs' friendship with Treize and his relationship with OZ. He flew away and met Mike Howard, the designer of the Tallgeese. He then went to space and introduced himself as Milliardo Peacecraft, goodwill ambassador to the Sanc Kingdom.

Zechs soon discovered that OZ was planning to destroy the confiscated Wing Gundam Zero, and self-detonated his critically injured Tallgeese to jump into the Wing Zero instead. He then found out that his sister Relena was dissolving the newly resurrected Sanc Kingdom and surrendering herself to the Romefeller Foundation. Zechs immediately rushed back in the Wing Zero and met Heero, piloting the Gundam Epyon. The two fought a fierce battle to a standstill before giving up under the mental strain of their ZERO Systems and then trading Gundams.

He was then approached by a man named Quinze Quarante who offered him to be the new leader of the colonial rebel group White Fang, which Zechs accepted, and he ironically decided to go by Milliardo Peacecraft as White Fang's leader.

Under Zechs' leadership, the White Fang fought OZ back and eventually fired on Earth as a declaration of war to the recently installed World Nation, led by his former friend Treize. He fought the Gundam pilots in battle, but the ship Peacemillion was rammed into White Fang's battleship. Undaunted, Zechs tried to drop the heavily damaged battleships on Earth to cause an endless winter.

He engaged in a final duel with Heero, in which Heero was victorious. In the aftermath of the battle, Zechs was presumed dead.

On December 24, A.C. 196, Zechs returned to earth as a mobile suit pilot for the Preventers, an elite intelligence agency designed to stop aggressive conflicts before they're executed. He was given the codename Wind, and was there during the attempt to overthrow Earth's government by Mariemaia Khushrenada, Treize's pre-adolescent daughter. He fought Mariemaia's army alongside the Gundam pilots, and disappeared at the end of the conflict for Mars, where his sister had begun a terraformation project.

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Personal Opinion: He was a very confusing character on my first watch of Wing, especially when he became leader of White Fang. That being said, Wing as a whole was very confusing so its whatever lol. I think he's one of my favorite Char clones despite it all, his design is really cool (and handsome tbh), and his character really raises Wing's melodrama to a new level and moves the story forward.