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The Earth Federation is once again failing the people of space.
The Earth Federation perpetuated law that protects the Earthnoids but does not bind them and law that binds the Spacenoids but does not protect them. Every promise of reform was to be ephemeral. Every bad behavior of Earth continued.
The Earth Federation fell into civil war over its future, the racism and hate and ugliness at its core exposed for all of humanity to see. Unwilling to curb the excesses of its own leaders it continued to oppress the people of space even as it turned a blind eye to the actions of thos with a seat on Federation council. It incubated covert anti-spacenoid movements in the form of Blue Cosmos even as it funded overt anti-spacenoid paramilitaries in the Titans.
Should the people of space endure this? Should the people of space accept this?
No!
Now that the Federation is being reshaped by a faction that has achieved the upper hand in its civil war, it once again reverts to its base instincts. The only people invited to represent the people of space is the independent nation of PLANT and a group of bought and paid for corporate-sponsored resistance dilettantes, most of whom are former Federation soldiers from Earth!
Who truly speaks for the people of space? Who truly speaks for the majority of humanity? None of those invited to speak or be part of this rebranded Earth Federation. Once again the people of space are expected to simply accept the bindings done by the people of Earth.
The Earth Sphere Union is failing the people of space even before the ink is dry on its new constitution.
We reject this and we call on all the people of space in all the Sides to reject it as well! The people of space will no longer accept the diktats of Earth.
We, Neo-Zeo, announce our full and complete independence from the ambit of Earth's control.
We announce the freedom of Side Three and the antipodal side of Luna from the violent oppression of the Titans and the neglectful oppression of Earth.
We call on other spacenoids to do the same. Reject Earth's rule and reject Earth's laws meant to bind you but not protect you!
A pair of VF-17s touch down in Gerwalk mode before a trio of Linear Gun Tanks with the UN Spacey symbol on them after it's been confirmed that OMNI is in full retreat.
The pilots emerge and wave at the tanks.
"I'm not complaining, but how are you guys not dead?" One of the VF-17 pilots shouts incredulously.
"We have no idea!" One of the tankers yells back.
"Guess OMNI mobile suit pilots just suck." One of the other tankers speculates out loud.
"Or we're just that awesome to go up against mobile suits in tanks and come out on top!" One of the tank gunners cheers.
"I mean, Zakus did tend to struggle against tanks in the One Year War." The first tanker points out.
"Yeah, but those were ZAKUs. These were, what did they call them? Strike Daggers? Anyway, they're derived from the GM. Kind of a world of difference there." The other VF-17 pilot says.
"Well, we'll take being alive. Maybe we used up all our luck, and we'll get mauled to death by one of Professor Lando's Metal Beasts." A tanker says.
"Don't even joke about that, man..." Another tanker says. A UN Spacey officer surveys the damage outside of the Assembly building and winces.
"The politicians are starting to talk seriously again. Want to try to get a word in?" A UN Spacey marine asks.
The officer scoffs.
"You know I'm not brave enough for politics. Let one of the higher-ups try their hand at it." He says.
Both of them turn at the sound of a Variable Fighter rounding the corner in battroid form, which salutes the officer as it walks by.
The growing furball of interfaction fighting in Dakar proves indecisive, as the OMNI faction's numbers and seizing of the initiative are countered by the AEUG's experience in asymmetric warfare and the surprise arrival of the Maganac Corps and their pair of unrelated Gundams. Ultimately what tips the balance is, perhaps not surprisingly, UN Spacy's variable fighters, which with great effort take control of most of Dakar's airspace and make airmobile drops in to secure the Assembly Hall in Battroid mode - including multiple trainer Valkyries bearing the VIPs from the Zodiac faction to the hall, resulting in the iconic sight of President of Japan Hayato Jin confidently offering a hand to an extremely frazzled Pricess Marina Ismail as they both exit the cockpit of a Variable Fighter to enter the Assembly Hall.
"Where'd you come up with this idea, anyway?" Quattro asks, jumping down from his own borrowed VF.
"I've been talking to the Martians a lot," Hayato answers vaguely.
The pitched warfare happening outside had the Federation delegates in the Assembly Hall already confused and huddled, with many of them opting to leave the floor for shelter elsewhere, but the dramatically arriving Zodiac-aligned VIPs on the floor and some very creative interpretations of parliamentary rules sees the battle of armies turn into an all-out assault of words, broadcast by Permet to all corners of the Earth and even as far as Mars.
Esteemed representatives of the Federation Assembly,
I bring you together not for any matter of national concern, for things as petty as borders or race or creed hold a smaller meaning before the questions that will be posed here today. What brings us here is nothing less then ensuring the survival of the human race. Our young species, having not even emerged outside of it's own solar system, is now beset by alien powers that bestride the galaxy who hope to kill us in our cradle. Before you are a number of threat assessments gathered from Federation and ZA high level commanders that I ask that the assembled body here deliberate upon with the gravity it deserves. The decisions we make here today will mean the difference between whether the story of humanity ends this year with merely a epitaph left for future species to show for itself or if it will be able to seize it's destinies among the stars.
I pray that we come to the correct ones.
You all have heard, over the past month, challenges once thought unimaginable arrayed aginst us. We are being assailed by two alien civilizations either bent on our extermination or who see us as only prey, each nigh unbeatable by conventional means, with our best hopes of victory being the special operations outlined by the UN Spacy and GDF. The Vega Zone, while seeming to possess less advanced capabilities, may very well have access to a doomsday weapon capable of ending all planatary life not modified as one of his cyborgs. Even then, I believe it would take the full cooperation of the Earth Sphere in order to seize the day, not once, not twice, but at least three more times. Do not despair; every super robot pilot remembers how often impossible victories can manifest when their truly needed. Unfortunately, the Earth Federation structure has shown to be impossibly unstable and categorically cannot meet these challenges.
I beg that my counterparts throw away all notions of national pride or political ambition when they weigh these proposals, but fully consider the situation before us with the certainty that the duty to make sure their are future generations at all rest solely upon them.
The forces of Zeon, not just those among Axis or the Delaz Fleet, but the many Zeon remnants across the solar system now rallying to their cause possess the means along with the willingness to reignite the frozen conflict that has simmered since eight years ago. A conflict that humanity can ill afford at this juncture. Earthnoid separatists organizations such as Dawn of Fold and the Magenac Corps will almost certainly inflame this situation, both of which represent insurgents that would cause extreme domestic unrest for various ZA members to deploy national forces against and the latter of which possess technology on par with Celestial Being in at least limited quantities. If our young species is to overcome what has been arrayed against us, we may only do so united by a just peace.
However, due to the various grievances spacenoid and colonized earthnoid populations have with the Federation, the RoJ does not believe that such a peace can be achieved with the federation as it currently stands. Unfortunately, many of these grievances are legitimate, regardless of any disagreement with how they've attempted to rectify them. The earth Federation was created at the start of the Universal Century following the Disaster Era, a global conflict spurred on by climate change that saw heavy use of WMDs, whose banning amongst eachother was the EF Council's first resolution. Its future ones have not been so kind. The Disaster Era's end and the Federation's creation was predicated on the revelation that the unthinkable had happened. We had so wounded the mother earth that gave birth to us, who once could have sustained humanity entire even in this era by the bounty our technology gifted us, that the collective work of our planet must be bent toward finding a solution that would allow everyone's survival. It is the Federation's blackest sin, the root of almost every ill we dealt with in the One Year War and is why we are even now dealing with the specter of it's return. it is why our successors will not continue to deal with it, again and again, if we do not take advantage of this rare opportunity for true reform. Because if we don't, we will not have any successors whatsoever. No one will.
To put it bluntly, whatever your thoughts on the recent events at Side Three, if this solar system falls into another One Year War our species will end.
In order to prevent this, even the most radical political solutions must be attempted, even if it only secures a temporary ceasefire.
What ill's do these reforms seek to address?
Long ago, those called the elites of earth, seeing how their greed and wars had made it impossible for all but a portion of humanity to share this planet decreed that others must pay the price for their mistakes. Knowing that the people would never accede to such a measure imposed on high, they created an armed autonomous wing of the Federation we now aptly call the Manhunter's to enforce their will. At gunpoint, for there is no other way such crimes against humanity could be forced upon the masses, a program of forced relocation that shattered so many lives was imposed. One might argue that this was a necessity due to the circumstances of the time, and thus its morality is assured on utilitarian grounds alone. Even if we grant this argument, the manner in which this was done cannot be justified, not according to any of recognition of human rights that the convened states would respect within their own borders. Since the beginning of the Manhunter program, while maintaining their pretense of randomness, it is one easily dismissed. Study after study have conclusively shown that throughout the history of this program, it is disproportionately targeting those living in poverty or ethnic minorities, with those regions lacking federation council seats and whom have never recovered from imperialist extractive policies only being beat out by Britannia's Areas or the AEU's former African colonies by sheer numbers. Many of these pogroms such as previous Japanese targeting of the Ainu, both out of desire to meet quotas without causing domestic unrest and for far darker reasons, have been nothing more then defacto campaigns of ethnic cleansing.
The fate of those who shuffled to the other planets or the dark recesses of space was not kind. Even before the One Year War, relatively few willingly chose to immigrate to space and for good reason. Every quality of life metric that exists points to most space colonies have similar prospects as the most impoverished regions on earth, and the quick rectifications that occurred once side 3 or Riah gained autonomy show that this is not a inevitability of life there but the result of neglect at best, exploitation at worst. Economics there are almost entirely extractive, focused on wringing every bloody cent to take advantage of the cheap captive labored locked within the lagrange stations. When it was under the auspices of the Federation only several years ago, Mars was no better and in some ways much worse. It was all but captured by corporate interests, with even Federation forces within the Outer Planet Regulatory Fleet being routinely used to violently put down labor movements. Constant skirmishes between corporate powers produced countless war orphans, subjected to potentially debilitating surgeries to incorporate Alyana-Vajra systems, were press-ganged as child soldiers for various private militaries. The colloquial name for such children is Human Debris, and the private security contractors in Tekkadan who survived such life when mars was under Federation control assure me they were discarded as such.
This is not simply a case of material deprivation. Spacenoids have been denied even the simple rights of person-hood, even the figleaf of equality. Most colony charters make no provisions for the self rule of their inhabitants, a state of affairs that has only seen change when such was won through force of arms or Federation distraction by populaces seeking such regardless of the protests of the inhabitants. These protests have been many, with those who wonder why Spacenoids would resort to violence having only to look at the fate of those leaders who did not. Heero Yuy's pacifism or the fame of PLANT's own George Glenn, first discoverer of alien life and former mentor of Professor Saotome, did not save them from Federation assassination that is by now an open secret. It is easy to solely blame those who followed Zeon for the horrors of the One Year War when one lives in a fair and free society, where questions of your very personhood are not political questions made without even the possibility of your input. As a man who watched the Japanese people nearly be swayed by the Kyoto Oligarchs and their Nationalist puppet regime again, I tell you this, it is not because their is some grave evil that wells in the soul of those who call the void home that one would follow a monster like Gihren Zabi. It is because when you are a occupied by foreign masters who see you as merely resources to exploit in their own enrichment, denied any hope of justice and disdained under the law, you would follow even a madman if it might bring the hope your children would not suffer as such.
The people of space suffered just as cruelly from the One Year War as those of us left on Earth, something even a cursory glance at places like the Gardens of Thorns should show. Yet even those spacenoids who resisted against the Zabi regime were brands as undeserving of the basic rights, their situation only worsening. Through the 31 July Proclamation, the only federation resolution that can only be revoked by the unanimous agreement in a move that suggests denying Spacenoids the right to a fair trial is more important then preventing nuclear war to the council, gives the TITANs full authority to violate any rights or laws in the midst of it's duties. It has used this authority to not only perform innumerable extra judicial imprisonments and executions, but horrifying human experimentation meant solely to weaponize their victims, a practice that would be stood against by every government in this room where it to be proposed to be done to their own citizens. While lacking the influence of the TITANs in most case, many places on Earth are no better. It is no mystery as to why the Zeonic forces are of a different breed then those we fought eight years ago, who preached of souls bound by gravity and spacenoid supremacy. They decry the treatment of the oppressed peoples on earth because they believe that those Earthnoids suffer under Federation mismanagement just as well and tapping into their justified resentment can create a deep well of support for their cause even on earth.
They are correct to recognize such things.
Since the One Year War, shattered nations from North Africa all the way to Central Asia have had their autonomy stripped away in favor of either Federation Direct Administration Zones overseen by a malthusian cult, or special economic zones that Federation has literally turned over to a corporate entity. This farce was unilaterally imposed by the Federation Council against the will of their inhabitants due to a perceived general breakdown of the social order, with these organizations give a mandate to repair the devastation and bring stability to the region. Nearly a decade later, little progress has been made in any of these regions outside areas taken by the local Karaba rebels or their Dawn of Fold counterparts. They remain some of the poorest, most exploited and violence stricken regions in the Solar System; Their are places like the former Republic of Krugis where the treatment of children only differs from 'Human Debris' by the fact they are not forced to undergo dangerous augmentation procedures, more out of impracticality then any ethical stance. This is not some new phenomenom, to those who say this is but a temporary measure to retake stability, as if their any measures to do so being carried out. After the Disaster Era, similar supposedly temporary policies were carried out in the creation of Federation Direct Administration Zones due to similar circumstances, and over 80 years hence the populations in wide swaths around Joburo or Dakar still have no say in their own governance, nor means to gain it.
Even the very organizations that make up the EF are compromised. In the last few months alone, the federation forces have lost a grand total of seven gundams, a superweapon that could have been used to fight the genocidal aliens bearing down on us to a inferior force they failed to defeat, Jaburo through a self destruct mechanism installed without the knowledge of any Council member-state, and the entirety of Side Three. The TITANs have bee given free reign to visit whatever atrocity they see fit upon the people of space for years in a approach that has only managed to allow Zeon to come back strong then ever at the worst possible moment. This same conduct has caused a general revolt among the ranks of the EFF, with it completely losing cohesion as everyone from the heroes of the One Year War to the captain of the solar systems most powerful battleship have defected en mass to a movement seeking nothing more but equality, justice, and democracy for all who live under the Federation. The Inspector-General has seen fit to consult no one when he not only installs, but uses a actual self destruct mechanism on the fortress that allowed use to win the war eight years ago. The Manhunters latest move has been even worse, a unaccountable paramilitary group that has unilaterally occupied all of Egypt in a blatant overreach of their mandate with no consultation of any governmental body. Lines of communication between it and it's member states have become so broken that the only thing that revealed the long known gravity of the Zentraedi threat to the international community was the inquiries of the newly onboarded Republic of Japan. A third of the EFF has rejected all legitimate authority to stage a revolt on behalf of a Natural Earthnoid Supremacist group, making brazen suprise attacks via WMDs on one of the key defenses against the aliens that seek to kill all clades of mankind, invaded the soil of my home country, and attempted to sway civilian government to their whims via force of arms.
All in order to preserve the chains of oppression that enrich and empower Murata Azrael's masters, to keep the masses from recognizing their common sufferng and acting to uplift themselves.
It is clear that the Federation as it exists is a failed state unequal to the task of withstanding the threat of human extinction. What was going about it, along with the species, can still be saved but attempting to preserve the status quo via force of arms is worse then suicide, for suicide would only doom ourselves.
I pray that we have the courage to choose the path of life for our species, rather then succumb to death merely out of political convenience.
In light of all this, I bring a number of proposals for you that might yet reverse the course our people are heading down.
1. A universal declaration of human rights to be drafted into the constitution at the end of the month including guarantees of equality between Earthnoids and Spacenoids, Naturals and Coordinators, the removal of all barriers to service within the Federation, a right to a fair trial by a jury of ones peers with no more legitimacy granted to extrajudical punishments by arms of the Federation, and to a basic standard of living.
2. Abolishment of all space colony charters, Federation Direct Administration Zones, and Special Economic Zones to be replaced with provisional governments such as set up in Japan to represent the people therein, along with overseeing a swift transition to democracy. While the liberation of Japan and the Philippines from Britannian colonialism was a worthy struggle that the Japanese people will wholeheartedly repay in blood should the lands of any who fought with us ever be threatened by foreign conquerors, the treatment of Federation colonies in space and earth differ from Britannian Areas only thus: it is well within the power of this body to grant the same freedoms that the AEU and FRE proudly seized from the Eunuchs and the crowned heads of europe to them, quickly and bloodlessly. We cannot in one breath pat ourselves on the back for victories against colonialism while holding billions of people in bondage.
3. Preperations to be made for democratic referendums, to be watched by international observers both within and without the ESU, to be held in the above areas to decide their continued inclusion within the Federation or their independence in light of the historic injustice visited upon them. If we can live in peace with a indepedent Martian Union and Republic of Riah, we can live in peace with them. This will be used as a basis to enter ceasefire/peace negotiations with the rebellion known as Dawn of Fold, in order to free up as many military resources as possible to hold off the extinction level threats arrayed against us.
3A. A request to the AEU to agree to prepare similar referendums on the question of independence for it's African Territories within those regions, as a basis for ceasefire/peace negotiations with the Magenac Corps for similar reasons.
4. A resolution for the general reconstruction for the former Federation colonies, both Earth and Space, along with the AEU's current african territories regardless of their decisions in the referendum once these threats to humanity have been abated.
5. For the Federation assembly to be replaced by a democratic body where all those of age within the federation may cast votes, so as to guarantee all people within it to have equal representation through the systems that we so champion at home.
5. The pilot of Neo Getter Robo's Getter 2, Sho Kamui, is none other then a half human prince of the Dinosaur Empire. One, if you have any reservations upon hearing this, i'll remind, that without their service at the damocles everyone listening to this broadcast would have their wills enslaved to Charles. After it's retreat back underground following the death of Emperor Gore, he lead a underclass revolt to install his moderate brother Emperor Gore III to the throne when his sister Empress Jatego threatened to restart the war with the surface. He has come to Earth both to defend the human half of ancestry and seek to end the long suffering of his dinosuar half, who have languished in extreme deprivation for eons attempting to subsist underground.
I know many of you will have deep reservations about diplomatic normalization with one of the One Year Wars deadliest enemies. It's difficult to accept peace when so many grievances exist, and it's easy to blame everyone from a enemy nation for their actions or see them as beyond change. During my tenure in the Getter Team, I lost countless comrades in the fight to keep humanity free, even alive. I work everyday to honor the sacrifice of people like Musashi, who made sure we live in a world worthy of their struggle. But as someone who was only able to free their homeland by fighting alongeside Zero, the prince of the land that oppressed it, who cast aside a life of ease and risked everything to correct a injustice he had no hand in? I tell you this; Their is nothing to be proferred by smacking away the hand given in earnest because the sins of the father; and at times, everything to be gained by grasping it.
This, I believe, is another of those times.
Prince Sho Kamui believes a agreement can be reached that can allow the peaceful resettlement of the Dinosuar Empire which he suggests can be done with simply the humas territory left uninhabited by the ravages of war, who in exchange can not only aid humanities defense from extinction and provide the bounty of the inner earth in a time when it is desperately needed...But can use it's terraforming technology in order to reverse the ecological damage that we have wrought upon on it, allowing no excuse to cease the unjust policies of forced relocation and for those who have suffered from it to return to their homelands.
6. The illegal invasion and occupation of Egypt. The gassing and coverup of over three million citizens, the inhabitants of a entire colony. Nearly a decade of extrajudical imprisonments and execution. Nearly a century of forced relocations, ethnic cleansing, and colonialism. The sins of the TITANs and the manhunters are unfathomably deep, such they they can no longer to exist under the auspices if a fair and just earth sphere is to be built.
7. In recogniton of the bravery and unflagging stance against the injustices perpetuated by the old regime, and it's living proof of what can be accomplished through the solidarity of earthnoids and spacenoids, propose that with their fight won that the AEUG be offered full legal pardons along with a offer to reoganized into a new autonomous federation task force known as Londo Bell.
8. That on the basis of the choice to offer the people of space their own soverignity, along with the choice to continue to tie their fates to the Union or chart their own course, that ceasefire discussions immediately begin with Neo-Zeon, and negotiations to begin with other human states such as the Martian Union for the purposes of a joint defense against the extinctintion of the human species.
The first One Year War nearly ended our race. If we do not act now, the second one surely will. I beg the men and women here too see that it does not.
-Full Excerpt of President Hayato Jin's speech during the founding of the Earth Sphere Union
(While this is somewhat redited and added onto, Nerdo and the rest of the zodiac alliance can confirm that this has been written in atleast some form for at least a month.)
"The Circle of Gaia has chosen to not seek a new charter from any Earth Federation successor and shall evacuate all Federation military facilities we constructed in Egypt in accordance to the legal and military rules of Earth at the time. While our founding office in private accomodations in the AEU will remain open, active headquarters and all Wardens will evacuate to the ongoing rehabilitation project going on in the Outback with the consent of the indigenous and colonial peiples of Australia. We expect to return to our biome rehab projects across the globe shortly, with the permission of national and regional authorities in question.
As the inheritors of a tremendous trust of privately donated research hours by the Earth's leading minds, as well as bilateral monetary donations by many member states, we view the technology we privately developed - from our mobile suits to the terraforming engine for the Venus Project - as too precious a gift to humanity to place at the disposal of the bureaucracy and thus have rejected the Dakar Conference's offer of continued funding under a new charter.
Gaia continues to stand for our green and precious planet and welcomes the peace and national self determination of the coming years."
Lady Dominica sighed. It had been a narrow thing catching the "Jaburo Plan" spreading in the Warden barracks before it could do any harm. Much of the organization had been bitter enough to go to ground in South America as an underground army, "the legitimate successor to the Earth Federation". But the Federation was temporary in humanity's development, only the Earth as humanity's true and lasting home was eternal.
The victory of Zodiac-friendly forces in seizing control of the Federation capital, combined with the preponderence of representatives loyal to the AEU, FER, SATO, and Lelouch vi Britannia, and the broad support of non-superpower states, meant that the promulgation of a radical new constitution for the Earth Sphere was no longer an ideological wedge, but a material reality. Within days, new documentation was being written up that would transform the moribund Earth Federation into the Earth Sphere Union, a far more egalitarian state dedicated to including both Earthian and Spacian, Natural and Coordinator, rich and poor as equally protected citizens...albeit with the supernational-federal structure of the Federation remaining intact, with the old superpowers being joined by PLANT and the Republic of Japan as permanent members of a Union Council.
While the detailed constitution would need to be produced and ratified, the existing Federation governmental institutions were transferred to the ESU for expedience, along with its ongoing crises and existential wars. OMNI, naturally, immediately declared the ESU a breakaway state and proclaimed themelves the rightful continuation of the Federation under a military emergency government led by Admiral William Sutherland, who (despite his embarrassment at Dakar) remained both the pro-Natural faction's most experienced battlefield commander and the most trusted patsy of Muruta Azrael. Other states, including the Pendragon government in Britannia, remained more circumspect - the majority of Federation states were waiting to see if the new leadership would be effective before officially ratifying the constitution, while Schneizel and Cornelia simply planned to ignore the situation until they could defeat Lelouch, lest they either be forced to acknowledge the latter due to his influence in the ESU's foundation, or see themselves invaded by vengeful neighbors for actively denying the ESU's legitimacy - a stalemate was a satisfactory conclusion for now.
But We Dream in the Dark For the Most Part
More thorny and concerning for the Earth Sphere Union was the status of the ongoing conflicts with the Wulgaru and the Zabist Zeonic forces, who officially declared themselves Neo-Zeon on May 1, immediately after the announcement of the ESU. In addition to being an ongoing hot war, the entanglement with Zeon also heavily involved the Titans Autonomous Corps - and with the AEUG and some heavily revanchist Japanese radicals who'd seen the terrors of their Cyber-Newtype laboratories firsthand both taking prominent seats at the table at Dakar, it seemed the days of the Federation's sword were numbered, along with similar calls against the deeply unpopular Manhunters and, by implication, their sponsors in the Circle of Gaia.
Military tribunals and summary dissolution of the Titans were called for almost immediately, even while they were still engaged in active combat at Side 3. Proxies for Colonel Scirocco, finding their fortunes suddenly reversed as the ESU did not recognize the Titans's legal immunity, argued back vociferously that not only were most of the officers implicated in the 30 Bunch Incident and other crimes dead now, but that summarily dissolving a large part of the Earth's defenses in the middle of active wars would be suicidal for humankind. Calls for active sedition from the Titans led to calls for even harsher reprisals from ESU representatives eager to assert their authority and distance themselves from the Federation-sponsored private army, and it seemed like a third side might enter the global civil war. However, before shots could be fired, a deal was quietly brokered behind closed doors between Paptimus Scirroco and the AEU's Foreign Minister, Alejandro Corner, who made a risky personal trip to Artemis Station to negotiate in person. Reportedly, the broad outlines of a deal were determined over dinner between just Corner, Scirocco, and their respective personal secretaries.
The accord that was presented to, and approved by, the ESU would see the Titans officially dissolved and reabsorbed into the ESU's military forces. Titans officers would be arrested and remanded to Union custody on an individual basis, but Scirocco and his personal cadre, being about as far removed from the Titans' demonstrable crimes as humanly possible, would be allowed to remain in the field with a core of the Titans' most advanced ships and mobile suits to continue holding the line against Zeon, along with a handful of experimental units generously donated from one of the Corner Foundation's subsidiaries. As hundreds of Titans officers screamed at ESU authorities about a stab in the back from their own commander, Scirocco and his loyalists shook hands with the ESU and became their newer, purer sword: the A-LAWS.
The other unpopular albatross around the neck of the Earth Federation's successor, the Manhunters, was dealt with more simply due to its status as an armed branch of the Federation Criminal Police Organization rather than an autonomous paramilitary - it was simply dissolved, defunded, and defunct. A very popular move generally, the grumbling from labor-shorted Spacian businesses and the Manhunters themselves was for the time being diluted by enthusiasm for the new regime (and the fact that most of the Manhunters's dismissed toughs could easily find jobs as mercenaries in Britannia or the AEU, given the state of the world). What quickly became more problematic was the status of the Manhunters' sponsor and fellow concerning artifact of the Earth Federation's patronage, the Circle of Gaia. The ESU Council, flush with success in negotations with the Titans and the dissolution of the Manhunters, confidently attempted to dictate terms dismantling the Circle's de facto territorial control on Earth and re-orienting them toward interplanetary terraforming research, only to be greeted with a flat refusal. The Circle of Gaia's consulate to the Federation, now Union, government expressed their satisfaction in no uncertain terms with the new joint Earthian-Spacian government that happily included former Zeon militants in its most prominent diplomatic positions. Even if they didn't fight alongside OMNI, they expressed many of the same objections to the organization and deeply questioned its legitimacy, electing to unilaterally dissolve its theoretical to the Federation's successor and focus on its status as a private armed organization, retaining its paramilitary and de facto control in Egypt, Australia, and parts of South America without going so far as to declare war.
1. The Earth Federation and Zodiac Alliance factions are merged into a new faction, Earth Sphere Union. The ESU maintains the Federation's ability to enact resolutions, with voting members Far East Republic, Advanced European Union, PLANT, Republic of Japan, and Empire of Britannia. Until the Britannian Civil War is resolved, the Britannian vote is only considered as a tiebreaker, as Schneizel loyalists will vote against Lelouch loyalists and vice versa.
2. The full ESU constitution should be posted in an IC and voted on by the voting members at your earliest convenience.
3. The Circle of Gaia is no longer associated with any supranational government, and starting next turn replaces its trait with the following:
Trait: The Phantom Pain. As the "moderate" Earth-first faction, and with the spin of rejecting overreach by the ESU rather than outright rebelling against it, the Circle of Gaia attracts genuine ideologues and disappointed defectors of the more militant anti-Spacian groups on Earth. The Circle receives bonus units when OMNI, the Britannian Empire (Schneizel Faction), or some autonomist rebels take losses.
Additionally, Circle of Gaia Budget -
4. The Titans are officially dissolved, and their units are split between the ESU forces and a new faction, which is supplemented by some very generous gifts...
A-LAWS @Ceslas
Autonomous Military Earth Sphere Union
Headquarters: Jupitris (Mobile)
Territories: Side 7
Description: The corrupt Titans were purged, leaving the Earth Sphere Union in need of a more loyal and less horrendously war crimey sword. Paptimus Scirocco, seeing the writing on the wall, struck a deal with the mastermind behind the ESU's rise for him and his personal loyalists to remain in that role, albeit without the blanket criminal immunity. Equipped with the best of Jovian engineering and the resources of , the A-LAWS represent a new start for peacekeeping on Earth.
Special Trait: Scirocco Design Bureau. Between the genius mind of the Man from Jupiter and an unheard-of amount of computer-aided design, the A-LAWS outpace even the most advanced private concerns in developing new mobile weapon designs. "+" Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors cost 3/4 the normal production (1.5x base price, rather than 2x)
Special Trait: [Level 7 Clearance Required]
Technology
Conventional Weapons: 3
Mobile Weapons: 3
Super Robots: 0
Warships: 3
Cyber-Enhancement
Psycommu
Quantum Supercomputing
GN Particle Physics
Mobile Dolls
Units
Will be updated in stats post sorry
Japan
Even as their president makes for a historic shoving his foot in the door of a new planetary administration, the nascent Republic of Japan must deal with the chaos left in the wake of a seven-year occupation and the violent removal thereof. To stave off waves of potential ethnic violence or revolts by those in the nation who wished to see a return to a still free but less radical Japanese nation-state, the archipelago remains under martial law by the new government, assisted by Martian mercenaries and Zodiac allies from the FER and AEU, the former of which even gains permission from Hayato to establish a permanent base on Hokkaido, far from Japan's metropole but decidedly between it and threats from the north. While few are happy with the situation, the enduring coalition between the Republic, the Black Knights, and Japanese diaspora like the AEU's W-0 unit means that most of Japan's citizenry maintains its trust in the new regime for now, and isolated incidents of violence are dealt with without spiraling out of control. Also vital in this process is the intervention of Britannian settler-notable Millicent "Milly" Ashford, heiress to one of Tokyo Settlement's most entrenched families and childhood friend of Lelouch vi Britannia (under his original assumed name in Japan, Lelouch Lamperouge), who spoke for Britannian accountability through legal process on one hand and the vital need for appropriate reparations from Tokyo settlers on the other, leading by example by voluntarily liquidating a large portion of the Ashford estate to donate to rebuilding efforts.
Mt. Fuji
Miorine Rembran took in the beauty of Earth up close and personal for the first time. It was...overwhelmingly beautiful, even with the mining equipment and scars of war dotting the landscape, even with the super robots swarming around the shell of the Photon Power Labs in the far distance, rebuilding the military parts of the building, even with the eclectic and barely cordial collection of Far Eastern, Benerit, and LRC mercenaries swarming the place to secure the vital lifeblood of Earth's energy industry. Despite all of that, Mt. Fuji itself remained far more stunning in person than it could ever be shown in pictures or film, and she's willing to take a long moment to finally appreciate her long-awaited goal before she was forced to get back to work.
"Well, I made it, I guess," she said, unable to think of anything more profound.
She turned from the observation deck as the door opened behind her, letting out the the stolid hulks of Jeturk executives who had been appreciating the view with her, and letting in a...strangely dressed local representative.
"Ms. Miorine Rembran," her blonde interlocutor said. "I'm Milly Ashford. Welcome to Japan!"
Miorine nodded and offered a handshake, as she'd been taught to greet Britannian VIPs, and not feeling that a bow would be appropriate here even if Milly was flawlessly using the endonym and not awkwardly stumbling through half of the word "Area" first like the sullen guards at the spaceport. "Thanks for the welcome, Ms. Ashford. I'm wondering why you're here, though. I'm just here to oversee the changeover from Jeturk to Shin Sei/GUND-ARM control in the Benerit portions of the mining complex."
"Oh, I doubt that's all you're here for," Milly replied. "I heard you were going to do some market research on GUND-ARM's prosthetics and automation for the miners here, and I thought I'd bend your ear later about medical devices."
Miorine blinked. "I'm surprised you've ever heard of GUND-ARM."
The slightly-older Britannian giggled. "You have very effective viral marketing. And my friends and I are huge fans of that dueling game you have going on up there, too. I thought about putting something similar together at the Academy, but all the tragic princes and cute redheads in my life have gone off to war..."
Miorine rolled her eyes.
"Speaking of which, I knew you must be down here for something important if you left your dear fiancée alone for so long."
"Aren't you engaged to some stuffed-shirt weapons designer yourself?" Miorine asked blandly.
"I broke it off. Besides, he's a nice enough guy, but it was just a convenient arrangement anyway," Milly observed. "It lacks the romantic panache of a girl fighting for my hand."
"Tch. It's the same family arrangement anyway, isn't it?" Miorine asked.
"Hm, I wonder," Milly said, getting uncomfortably close for someone Miorine had just met, and leaning in as if she was sharing a secret. "I've had a look at GUND-ARM's public reports. It sure looks like you're investing more in one person's future here than a company that's going to make a lot of money~"
Miorine stepped back, annoyed. "Did you come here to gossip, or did you want to talk business? Regardless of what you think, I really do need need to get to some marketing. And why are you dressed like a witch, anyway? Did my father put you up to some kind of weird joke?"
Milly straightened up, and looked down, blinking at the red and black brocaded dress she was wearing. "Hm? Oh, no. I'm going to oversee one of my family's weapons factories being demolished later, and I'm dressed for that."
"As a witch."
"I promise it's really funny, but it'd take too long to explain. Anyway, let's talk Sakuradite and medical prosthetics..."
Republic of Japan Economy +
Republic of Japan Stability +
Photon Power Labs reoccupies their namesake
FER establishes a naval base on Rebun Island, Hokkaido prefecture
The West Pacific
Similar events occured in the Phillipines and Britannia's other vacated Pacific territories, though with lower tensions simply due to the smaller number of colonists. With the bulk of Britannians in the former Areas being military garrisons and their families, most chose a safe-conduct repatriation to the Homeland, though the few that apply for asylum based on the ongoing civil war will be tied up in newly-formed national courts for the foreseeable future, and the half-generation of Britannians born in these localities result in the question of birthright citizenship becoming a hotly-contested topic in many new constitutions. All the while, investment from foreign creditors poured into the Pacific zone, resulting in economically miraculous recovery both there and in Japan, while at the same time deeply tying the new post-Britannian states to financial interests in other polities, from their neighbors on the Asian mainland all the way to Mars.
One particular part of the Pacific was less gripped by political turmoil and Martian money, though, and more focused on the preservation of humanity. The UN Spacy headquarters at South Ataria Island played host to its own conference, smaller and less contentious than Dakar, but perhaps even more important, as the UNS, GDF, NISAR, and civilian scientists worked together to further humanity's research on Song Energy, its relationship with Fold Space, and even connections to Quantum Brainwave Phenomena and the ansible properties of Permet. A new field of science was being born, one that - while it may yet prove a useful tool in ending war - could also form a foundation for entirely new ways for sapient beings to communicate in the future.
New Special Technology available for research:
Fold Communications
Directed Sound Energy Weapons
Australia
The depopulated continent was in a strange limbo, with Lelouch's forces seizing and securing much of the east coast and proceding to spend a surprisingly relaxing time building up defenses for the few people still there, while thousands of miles away, the Circle of Gaia secures a base on the edge of the Arnhem Land savannah, or at least what used to be savannah. On some level, the continent actually did seem big enough for the both of them. On another, the Circle and the Black Faction had two very different views of the world, and one of them was working on constructing a prototype planetary terraformer. It remained to be seen if these worldviews could exist anywhere near each other.
East and Central Asia
Ongoing security arrangements in the Far Eastern Republic continued to do their job of keeping the Siberian anomalies contained, but the situation shifted in worrying ways this month, with anomalous monsters seemingly migrating westwards to strike, not into the well-defended reaches of northern China, but the far less fortified reaches of Central Asia, with a huge column of anomalous forces striking down the west side of the Tian Shan mountains, only to be stopped by a hastily redirected Far Eastern detachment on the outskirts of Almaty. Even more worrying than the new apparent strategy from the unknown monsters is the fact that they appeared, for the first time, to be deliberately escorting Metal Beasts south from the Vega Zone, bringing worrying evidence to the long-theorized idea of Dr. Lando finding a way to bend the Siberian anomalies to his own ends.
Far East Republic
Mechanized Companies: 2 Gen 2 Destroyed
Mobile Suits: 15 Gen 1, 5 Gen 2 Destroyed
Cruisers: 3 Gen 2 (Surface) Destroyed
Super Robots: 2 Gen 2 Destroyed
Vega Zone
Metal Beasts: 2 Gen 3 Destroyed
Africa
The continent of mankind's birth once again found itself wracked by violence in April, although it became apparent over time that the clash in the Horn of Africa and Neo-Zeon's retreat back to space actually did alleviate some of the pressure in East Africa, fueling speculation that militants there had not only been backed by Zeon, but had joined them outright in other theaters. The Circle of Gaia, in the month leading up to their divorce from the new government, also had the opportunity to perform their true and original mandate of ecological repair in the Nile Valley, carefully revitalizing soils and demolishing ineffective infrastructure to start to reverse previous centuries of desertification. A few people found their homes underwater, but far more saw increased prospects of the area's livability and investments that allowed the displaced to find at least relatively nearby local homes.
Circle of Gaia Budget +
Europe
As part of the lead-up to the Dakar Conference, the AEU's diplomatic forces found themselves almost as busy as their military ones, re-orienting the state toward the newer, less colonialist vision that just so happened to coincide almost instantly with the death of Dermail Catalonia at Side 3. While the strategically-important African overseas territories grumbled in their local parliaments and on the streets, the AEU focused on the more symbolic and PR-centric move of liberating one of the last European polities to be annexed into the super-state, the tiny Baltic monarchy known as the Sanc Kingdom. As it happened, or at least as was extensively published in AEU media, the adopted daughter of the late Foreign Minister Darlian was the biological daughter of the Sanc Kingdom's last monarch, putting a royal capstone on what had already been a terribly eventful few months for the poor girl. Relena Darlian, now acknowledged by the AEU, ESU, and Sanc Kingdom independent parliament as the new ruler, Queen Relena Peacecraft, would be coronated near the end of the month, simultaneously with the Dakar Conference. The other viable claimant to the Sanc throne, Relena's older brother Milliardo, remained missing and presumed dead, though snarkier political commentators observed that the throne might as well go to a photogenic princess anyway, to match the energy of Azadistan, Neo-Zeon, Mars, and the heirs presumptive of major houses in Orb, PLANT, and the Benerit Group.
The Americas
The Western hemisphere remained in the grips of civil war, and with both sides' energy devoted to attempting to annihilate each other and Sakuradite imports complicated by mutual embargoes, little happened in the way of economic development. The Circle of Gaia, already deeply influential in the South American rainforest belt, became an appealing third option for groups seeking paramilitary protection and not wanting to get involved in the ongoing war, sapping the White faction's little remaining influence there. The Black faction, by contrast, was able to hold onto its gains and morale with the usual theatricality of Lelouch and his forces.
Britannia (Black Faction) Morale +
Britannia (White Faction) Manpower -
OMNI, with its main base still in Alaska, focused on consolidation, with JOSH-A falling suspiciously, defensively quiet after the attacks on Jachin Due, Tokyo, and Dakar. It's possible that Azrael, Wyatt, and Sutherland know something, because the American front with the Vega Zone also remained strangely quiet.
The Earth Sphere
The fallout of the Battle of Boaz and the Jachin Due Incident was economically deleterious, even as PLANT and Earth-colony war manufacturing kicked into overdrive to replace the losses and build more new machines of war for the ongoing conflicts. The announcement of Neo-Zeon and its consolidation of a majority of Side 3 and, through Delaz's gunboat diplomacy, Grenada, combined with skepticism toward the reorganizing Earth Federation to see an upsurge in support for Haman, Delaz, and Mineva. Meanwhile, those who trusted the Federation more than Zeon to begin with polarized further into their own camp, with many state-owned colonies leaping at the proposals at Dakar for greater political representation and autonomy while privately-owned ones side-eyed Casval Rem Deikun's calls for Ere-ist emigration and Hayato Jin's calls for reassessing colonial charters, to say nothing of the immense disruption from the summary dissolution of the Manhunters. The chaos is bad enough that it even delays a planned Benerit inspection tour of one of their larger factory colonies to next month.
At the same time, skullduggery and intelligence work was still going on, with PLANT taking a look at Celestial Being's questionable interventions in space and transferring a large section of budget and support personnel from the Supreme Chairman office's FAITH special forces toward the GDF, whose mandate had been expanded by happenstance and convenience to include intelligence against Celestial Being and their own seemingly-omniscient intelligence aparatus.
The effectiveness of this budget increase would prove...questionable, with the GDF having plenty of expertise in keeping up with Celestial Being's Gundams in the field and little in the way of intelligence-gathering, or even knowing where to start looking, especially with most of their mobile assets (and even the nominally immobile asset Star Rose) tied up in the defense of Boaz. Nevertheless, near the end of the month, Colonel Komine was extremely pleased to announce, quite loudly, a miraculous breakthrough. Following a careful investigation of information leaks in Celestial Being's organization, the GDF was able to find and secure not only a group of what appeared to be mass-produced versions of Celestial Being Gundams, but also vital technical documents related to the unknown Minovskyoid charged particles that Celestial Being's technology made use of, a potential watershed moment for energy research everywhere, and in particular, a way to match Celestial Being's Gundams themselves on the battlefied.
Numerous conspiracy theories regarding the fact that these mobile suits discovered by Colonel Komine are identical to several of the models privately assigned to Paptimus Scirocco's new task force will be found and suppressed before they can make it farther than a private message board. There is nothing to worry about.
GDF Budget +
GDF receives free technology: GN Particle Physics
GN Particle physics is available for research by all factions
Global Defense Force
Mobile Suits: 15 Gen 3 (GN-X) added to inventory
Mars
With a relative reprieve from Wulgaru attacks thanks to the focused assault on Earth, Mars has time to reorganize its military might to some degree, promoting an arena-sport venue for mobile suit combat called Formula Front for mercenaries and militia personnel who either lacked the desire or the means to get to battlefields on Earth or even in Mars orbit. The League of Ruling Companies also reaped the rewards of postwar investment and midwar chaos on Earth, posting record highs on speculative markets as Martian finance and Martian guns were traded to Earth for Super Robot products under the label of Japan/NISAR's "Project D2", which saw the beginning of proliferation of eclectic materials from the Saotome Labs to Martian production facilities.
Naturally, no boom, especially an overheated one like this, ever came without a downside. The ongoing success of the League of Ruling Companies finally worried the planet's other powerbrokers enough that President Kudelia and General McGillis could put aside their own mutual distruct and start sending the LRC ultimatums in the form of parliamentary resolutions backed with military endorsement, and Kudelia's own diplomacy with the labor-minded Japanese overseers of the new technology - mining safety, mining wages, patent oversight for the proliferation of "Getter Drills" - all of these are things that Mars, unlike Earth, has the time and energy to worry about, and get popular sentiment behind them, as the laboring class starts demanding bread to go with the circuses of Formula Front.
Mars Union Stability -
Civic orders to increase civilian quality of life will be more effective next turn.
A bit of a meaningless title, all told. Regardless of her heritage coming as a surprise, Relena had been adjacent to the deep murk of Advanced European Union politics since she was in diapers. The Great Powers and their masters dictating from board rooms and refurbished Romanticist palaces had removed the Sanc Kingdom from the map because it was inconvenient for them that it existed. And now that it was convenient for it to exist again, they simply restored it, name, land, people...everything but the late King's Total Pacifism. And she got to be queen, by an accident of birth and OZ's accidental failure to tie her off as a loose end in the initial invasion.
It was enough to give a girl a complex.
Relena turned from the vanity in her stupidly lavishly-furnished apartment as she heard the door open. The only people allowed to enter without knocking were Zechs and Noin, her OZ handlers, and also the closest people she had to friends here, and Zechs always knocked anyway out of the stiff-necked politeness he exhibited toward her. Surprisingly, though, Relena turned to see a woman she had only met once before, smiling in Chinese formalwear like she was a guest in the reception hall downstairs. Honestly, she'd probably come from there.
"Who a--wait, I know you," Relena says, standing and turning. "You're with Celestial Being. You were the one giving Heero and the others their orders."
"You're overstating my importance, I think. I don't think we were properly introduced last time. I am Wang Liu Mei. It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness," Wang Liu Mei says, sliding in with the door closing and locking behind her. "Do sit down. I'm only the head of a household; royalty doesn't need to stand to greet me."
"I think I'd rather stay on my feet, just in case."
"Sit. Down. Your highness."
Reluctantly, Relena sat back down at her vanity, keeping an eye on Liu Mei in the mirror. To her surprise, Liu Mei walked up behind her and, after careful consideration, took one of the hairbrushes from the vanity, taking up the task Relena had originally been at of trying to fix her hair into something braidable for later.
"So..." Relena said, after a moment of strange silence from the woman. "Noin wouldn't have just let you in here unless you had OZ business. Are you a double agent? Or is this some kind of weird kidnapping-rescue attempt."
"Heero is such a bad representation of how Celestial Being does business," Liu Mei replied with a fake sigh. "I'm sure he'd love to ride in here on a white horse to spirit you off, but unfortunately he's busy with other matters right now."
The South Pacific
Out of sight and notice of the grand events shaking the world, four Gundams face off with four Gundams. Exia and Virtue float in the sky above a nameless atoll, staring down the trio of Gundam Thrones. Below them, a standoff between Wing and Deathscythe hanging back out of range of Shenlong Gundam's flamethrowers.
"Setsuna, Tieria, what's gotten into you?" Nena Trinity begs from a position of sheer bafflement.
"Hey, don't ignore us," Duo Maxwell calls from the ground. "Personally, I can forgive a little collateral damage, but you guys blew up a colony for no reason? Do I really have to explain this?"
"Wufei. Stand down," Setsuna insists. "Team Trinity...are not Gundams."
"Wrong, Setsuna. Justice is on their side, and so am I. Just because you don't like their methods doesn't mean they're not carrying out the will of Veda."
"Don't you dare talk about the will of Veda!" Tieria calls out from the cockpit of Virtue. "You're just a murderer using its name to justify your crimes!"
"Heero, I don't think these guys are calming down," Duo observes over a private channel as the other Celestial Being Meisters, including the Trinity siblings, continue bickering over the airwaves.
"Mm. You want to take Wufei while I hit Johan, or vice versa?"
"I'm going to guess double agent, then," Relena concluded. "But...how? I thought OZ was Celestial Being's biggest enemy."
"Things change. You shouldn't get all your political news from a bunch of hotheaded teenage terrorists, you know," Liu Mei observed. "OZ has been incredibly successful at enacting Aeolia Schoenberg's will. All of Earth is following Special Colonel Treize's new vision for humanity, and their barely had to do anything but point the guns in the right direction."
"The Earth Sphere Union. That's Aeolia Schoenberg's will?"
"How couldn't it be? It's humankind united peacefully, isn't it? All it took was a few months of war that coincidentally tore down OZ's rivals, Blue Cosmos and the Geass Order."
Ali al-Saachez calmly reloads his gun and picks up Laguna Harvey's phone, using the dying man's thumbprint to unlock the device.
"...w hy...," the dying magnate asks. "...did...everything he to...old me to..."
"Well, bad news, Mr. Harvey. Turns out you were supporting Blue Cosmos all along. Our employer thanks you for the generous donation of mobile suits to his new task force, though. Oy, Zaeed! What's Komine's email address?"
"The ESU and Celestial Being, though?" Relena said. "They've been hunting them since the start - Morgan, Lelouch, even PLANT's been fighting against them."
"Well, they've been trying," Liu Mei said, continuing to brush the queen's hair into long, straight strands. "Those GDF kids were a definite surprise, even to Veda. It's too bad - I think Izuru and Setsuna would get along, if Izuru ever decided to make a Gundam manga, anyway. But you're thinking too...binary, I suppose. Celestial Being, OZ, they don't need to be two different organizations, at the end of the day."
"A double agent? Colonel Treize...no. It wouldn't be him, even if your goals align."
Relena came to a realization and whipped around, despite the hands tangled in her hair.
"It's Alejandro. It has to be. He's the only one who's been in the right place at the right time since the start," Relena accused. "He...did he have Wufei kill my..."
"No, he was legitimately trying to have you killed. Getting to become Foreign Minister was just a nice bonus. Not sure if that's better or worse, sorry."
"But...Celestial Being's orders come from Veda, not a person. I gathered that much just talking to Heero."
"Yeah, he's really bad at opsec for a guy that quiet and obsessed with self-destruct buttons."
"So how...?"
??????
"Finally. Having to go all the way to Artemis to stop those yahoos in Dakar from starting a shooting war with the Titans was a pain. Thank you for accompanying me, Ribbons," Alejandro says.
"My pleasure, sir. Shall we resume?"
"Indeed. It seems like the Trinities have run into some problems with the Trial System. Be a dear and tell Veda they're on the up-and-up, will you?"
"That will require Level 7 Access. Are you sure you want to proceed?"
Alejandro smiles, and draws his gold-plated sidearm.
"I'm looking forward to it."
"So this whole time...'ridding ourselves of the scourge of war'...it was just a plot by OZ? Heero and the other Meisters, they were just being played?" Relena asked. "Don't tell me OMNI is right and they were just blaming the wrong people for the Third Pacific War being a conspiracy."
"Believe what you want. I just thought you might like to know some of what I know," Liu Mei replied.
"...why tell me all this? For that matter, how do you know all this?"
Liu Mei finally put the hair brush down and backed up, moving to the center, sitting-room-esque area of the Queen's private apartment as Relena turned to face her.
"Think of the world as a chess game. You are a pawn who was lucky enough to reach the back row and become a queen, but you're still just a playing piece. I am an observer, sitting in the audience. I can see the whole board, but I can never touch it.And both of us are stuck where we are because we had a big brother who couldn't live up to what was expected of him," she replied, spitting the last sentence with venom Relena hadn't realized she was capable of through her smug facade.
Liu Mei took a second to almost visibly coach her facial expression back into that of the mysterious trickster. "Sorry. It's not like me to speak ill of the dead. Anyway, whatever I do, and whatever you know, it doesn't really matter, because we're not the players. However...a Queen who's aware she's a piece? Maybe she'll do something interesting anyway. If not, oh well, a nice conversation costs me nothing. In any case, I should be getting back to the reception. We look forward to seeing your debut, your highness."
With a polite, Far Eastern bow, Liu Mei left the room, leaving Relena just as bewildered as before, but far, far angrier.
Ptolemaios, Earth Orbit
"Update from Tieria, ma'am. The TRIAL System failed, and the Trinities and Wufei got away."
Sumeragi nods. "I was worried about exactly that. Chris, cut our Permet connection to Veda, now."
"Ma'am?" Christina Sierra asks.
"Lockon was right when he called it earlier. Veda's been compromised. Switch to archived backups and go dark. We can't trust any orders coming in over the pipeline, or any other Celestial Being cells."
She takes a deep breath. She picked the wrong week to quit drinking. Actually, every week she's picked to quit drinking has been the wrong week. That's why she keeps having to start up again.
"We'll stay here to pick up the D-type equipment. After that, we'll need to retrieve the Meisters from Earth, and send an olive branch out to Quatre. He's had the right idea this whole time. After that..."
She takes a deep breath, and considers a plan.
"Contact the Old Men. I've got one more gambit to get us out of this, but we're gonna need the 0-Derivatives."
A design by the Photon Power Labs of Japan for an all-purpose mobile weapons carrier. While technologically primitive, making use of 'Generation 1' technologies, it is highly robust, capable of operating both in space and Earth's atmosphere. Armament is relatively limited, consisting only of small-caliber megaparticle cannons and point-defense turrets. In summation, the Susano-Oh is meant to provide strategic mobility to the Super Robots of the Labs, without having to rely on 'hitchhiking' with the Zodiac Alliance.
She could kill them. Quite easily. Not by commanding her guards to gun them down, or for her to pull the old gun her husband used ... and insisted she carry on her at all times.
If she wanted to she could kill them with her own bare hands, ripping them limb from limb even if they clad in an exoskeleton. The standard of augments on Mars meant that anyone Britannian, Coordinator, Newtype, or anyone who deemed themselves inherently 'Superior' would be in for a rude awakening at any bar in the Marsphere. Or on the battlefield.
Kudelia didn't like to think about it.
What separated men from animals was their ability to stop and think.
And truthfully vain as she was she liked to have the greater solar system and herself seen as a gentler soul.
In a dress rather than a suit she watched the Solaris Stadium come alive with combat. This was an exhibition match where on one side Lady Kerensky from PLANT fought onboard a new design: The Marauder. Reverse-engineered from the Zentraedi Glaug it proved to be a nimble machine, in part to not having the bear the load of a literal giant ... or the need to simplify the design for the warrior race. On the other was the man simply known as 'Rusty' in his AC Steel Haze, considered, to Mr. Naze's annoyance, the sexiest pilot on Mars according to a few magazines she read. Steel Haze was like the lovechild of a wolf and a bird of prey.
The duel between them was a sight to see. Two giants clashed again and again. Steel Haze dived, dashed, and waved across scything lines of laser and beam fire. The Marauder in turn met Steel Haze head-on, brushing aside the infamous spinning 'Slicer' with blows that would have cracked the skull of any Zentraedi or Wulgaru MS-analog.
Bets were made, men, women, and NBs shouted and roared for two mechwarriors risking life and limb to sit on pulse-shielded bleachers just to see the action up close and personal. Kudelia was special, her skybox was built like a hanging bunker, strong enough to take a Mazinger Rocket Punch.
Moments ago she had dismissed the demands and thinly veiled threats from both sides of Britannia, the reconstituted Zeon, among others. One by one they had come to her, expecting that she could so easily bend the Corporations to her will while simultaneously bending to THEIR will. They had forgotten Mars. They had forgotten this was not Earth or the Earthsphere. Their power here was as fleeting as her patience with them.
Across from her was who would also have been called a Princess had things gone differently. Asseylum Vers Allusia was like many of her region: born Martian but with roots in Britannian Nobility and EU Aristocracy.
In their bid for independence, the nascent MU eliminated its competition. Mars Zeon was smothered in it's crib and it's leadership arrested. The BAHRAM paramilitary was fed into the lion's mouth during the uprising, alongside that monster Salem Koch and his 'Settlement Defense Front'. The Vagan were outright bribed by the LRC to claim orbit. The Red Faction stood down, any losses to productivity in the name of better worker conditions and benefits a small price to pay when the Corporations could own an entire planet. The Machine Cults were all too enthusiastic being recognized as a legitimate religion and consecrating the Mobile Suits for war with the outsiders in their factories. The Ultor tribes and their way of life were given recognition as citizens as their warriors were happy to take up arms against those who had hunted and displaced them.
But the Vers? Crushed. The Super Robots that made their Orbital Knight order buried under a tide of LRC MTs and Overed Weapon equipped ACs, the Commoners sick of the Nobility opened their gates for MU augmented kill-teams if they didn't drag the various lords and ladies out to the guillotine themselves.
It could have been worse. Far, far worse. ARETHA could have been deployed to Vers territory ... And activated. What made the thing a Super Robot was that it was a reusable nuclear bomb on legs. A dirty nuclear bomb at that.
Kudelia watched as Asseylum winced. Kerensky met Rusty head-on. The difference in mass meant the collision was a horrific mass of crumpled metal. But the Marauder still functioned. It stood battered but still capable of brutalizing a lance of its Glaug predecessors. Steel Haze lay with shattered limbs. To the relief of many young ladies and a few good men Rusty was alive, he stepped out of his mech waving to the crowd he was okay.
"Is this your first time?" Kudelia asked.
"No." She answered, "but it is the first time I have seen it in person."
The women married to a stoic and crippled cyborg pilot nodded, "my husband is next."
"Mika's opponent." She acknowledged, "it is why I invited you here."
"I don't blame you."
"...come again?"
"I don't blame you. The moment House Vers chose to make a pact with House Britannia their fate was sealed. Mars would have become like Japan."
As they talked two new Mobile Suits entered the ring.
One was Barbatos, its Master here to grab more supplies and men from Mars before a four-day straight burn back to Earth. With upgrades from its near decade-long service, it became more and more like its namesake: A bloodthirsty hound from hell itself. It's reputation was earned.
Across from him was Sleipnir. An unassuming plain orange Mobile Suit that nevertheless was responsible for dozens of confirmed Super Robot Kills during the uprising in part to being optimized for its pilot Inaho Kaizuka. No matter how vast the difference in power, he had cut down Orbital Knight after Knight. One wrong move, one simple flaw, and their Kataphrakts were burning wrecks not fit to be even stripped for parts.
"Have the MU decided on the ESF?" Asseylum asked.
"I do not need to ask them" She admitted, "I know what Martians want. They want to be free and that means separating themselves from Earth's and Zeon's conflicts."
As well as corporate interests.
"...Do the Vers say anything different?"
As the unspoken regent to an unspoken crown, Asseylum collected her thoughts, as their husbands battled for the crowd and combat data below them.
"Britannia's days as an empire are numbered. You will not expect many men willing to fight after the Corporations decimated our army."
No political will, no economic backing, and no military to speak of. The Vers regency was powerless but that didn't stop idiots trying saber rattle.
"Your people have their vote Mrs. Vers. We are a democracy."
"Does the LRC approve?"
"I approve." She answered, "And I am asking for your support as well."
Kudelia was established. But 'The Forgotten Princess' still had influence. Ironically enough Asseylum had the grassroots of the two. Leading a nation left her little time to help her fellow Martians personally.
"...What is your plan?"
But she could help those who did.
Walter was infamous as a middleman. The 'Hounds' of his PMC had their identities and histories erased. He treated them well, relatively, but he was not afraid to send his Hounds in the harshest and bloodiest of battles. Fareed knew he was no coward hiding inside an APC. The old soldier used a cane; despite the sheer number of augments forced upon over the years.
"The Burakumin of Japan." Walter listed, "The Dalits of India. The Romani in Europe. The Jews in the Middle East, in Africa Mbenga, Mbuti, Batwa. The First Nations...."
It was just him and the Handler as they walked through the ground floor of a Martian factory.
"The list goes on and on. PLANT is no better. Genoism goes both ways. The less said about the Jovian's view of 'parasites' the better."
To his left and right were rows upon rows of Guntanks and Guncannons being built to the specifications of the Core Maintenance Plan. Hardpoints that could take an AC/20 cannon that could shatter the hulls of warships could just as easily fit a pair of AC/2 Autocannons that could pick Zentraedi pods and Britannian Knightmares out of the sky. Missile racks that could be used to carry batteries of rockets could just as easily be swapped out for VLS missile artillery or SAM systems.
"These are the people I have recruited my hounds from. What the people of Earth and the Earthsphere would call 'Human Debris'."
"Slavery is illegal." Fareed grimaced, "I made sure of it."
Automation did more work than a hundred children's calloused hands. And one of the bargaining chips the LRC had was a promise to bring down the worst kind of men. Men like his father.
"On Mars." Walter pointed out, "But the point stands there will always be someone who wants to be above someone else. Even if they are both crushed under the same boot."
The JLF may have been the largest bastion of Japanese resistance outside of the Super Robot Labs and Black Knights but they were hidebound. They clung to traditional and as Prince Lelouch said 'outdated views'. Murakumo Millenium, Takigawa Harmonics, Arisawa Heavy Industries, Kisaragi were proudly Japanese but even before the invasion were open-minded in a way that wasn't acceptable in conservative Japanese society. When Cornelia broke the JLF's back at Narita the rest joined the Black Knights. The ... stubborn were hunted down. For a Zainichi it mattered little if the one treating them like garbage happened to be Chinese, Britannian, or Japanese.
"If you are speaking about Japan I know they are doing better. With Britannia and Kyoto no longer in the equation. I expect the Japanese to be good allies."
In his opinion they already were.
"...What are your opinions of the Earth Sphere Union?"
"I will leave that up to the people." the General spoke, "My only goal is to protect them."
"Noble." Walter grunted, "But I have faced reality. They said me and my hounds have no empathy. The truth is they have never been given any. Who I sic them on should not expect it from them either .... we're here."
'Here' was a lift with a groan it slowly but surely began to lurch into motion.
Down, deeper into the pitch-black depths of the Red Planet the Old Wolf and the Warrior King of Mars descended. As deep into the earth as any mineshaft and the General of the Martian Military realized this was one of the first mineshafts made in the earliest colonial years.
"Where are you taking me Walter?" Fareed questioned, "Why did you invite me here if it wasn't about the Factory."
"The Truth." he said simply.
And the Truth unsettled him. For down here in the pits as far away from human civilization it could terrestrially be ... was an army. Industrial flood lights slammed on row after row and showing rows upon rows of machines hybridizing Mobile Suits, Knightmares, MTs, ACs, Super Robots, and Alien Designs.
Some were familiar. Many were not. All-in-all they were sinister. Hinting the cold logic of a killing machine and the violence of rabid predators.
They were not designed to impress. They were not designed to inspire awe or pride. Not even fear; not the juvenile kind at least. THIS was utility in the banal and ruthless sense of the word. It was the herald of an uncaring giant ready to squash whatever bug foolish enough to get its attention. After staring at the assembled arsenal McGillis cursed himself for not bringing his Bael. Like it would matter.
"...Where did you get this?" the General demanded.
"It was always here." Walter explained, "THIS is the LRC's blackest of black sites. Ready for the day that the Corporations decided that profit and power no longer mattered. When they wanted someone dead, their bloodline erased, their homes ash, their fields salted."
Revelation struck him. The ESF was a practically done deal. With that came peace, prosperity, wealth, and the LRC's belief in Pax Economica was realized.
...But there were loose ends.
Walter finally stopped his tour at a familiar place and Fareed saw that they had indeed entered the heart of a mountain and came out beneath on the other end. Because in front of him was one of Walter's 'Kennels'. A full company of his most seasoned, most battle-hardened Hounds sat in their alcoves while robotic arms fitted weapons fresh from corporate R&D, many of them McGillis knew to likely bring a Warcrime from use.
In the center was C4-621, an innocuous name for the reaper that put all of the nascent Mars Zeon to the sword.
"General McGillis." Walter spoke, "My hounds are at your command. So are the Red Guns, the Vespers, the Alliance Tactical Unit, Vertex, ORCA ... "
Paramilitaries of Mars:
Part 1 of 3: Defiance Industries and the Bernstein Connection
by Osprey Publishing
Defiance Industries started as a standard heavy machinery manufacturer based in Hesperus Station orbiting Venus. For most of its early life it was set to tend to the needs of Venusian colonization ventures like the energy-production colony clusters of Venus Globe and the Venetian-inspired Radonitsa Colony. Economic turmoil on Venus and then Earth would force it's headquarters to move to Mars where they would eventually pick up various contracts for parts for Viggers PLC Destroids and Northrom Aircraft.
Defiance Destroids would join LRC MTs and the GMs and Grazes of the former Outer Earth Orbit Regulatory Joint Fleet to quickly and decisively complete the Martian uprising. As it stands they are less a corporation now and more a government (or rather Bernstein-owned) design house for native Martian combat systems. Many staples made for the UN Spacey by Viggers have their counterparts here, labeled under the 'Battlemech' Brand to the blind rage of Destroid otakus everywhere.
Supporters of President Kudelia Bernstein gathered funds to buy a controlling share into Defiance who would produce the Battlemech Lines almost exclusively on Mars for internal consumption. Various townships and cooperatives had a desperate need for protection from pirates and bandits to alien incursions. Imports to Mars are difficult and the prices for LRC equipment are often in the millions per machine. Defiance Battlemechs would end up in the hands of militias and settlement defense forces with government subsidies ensuring a constant supply of Mobile Suit. The exact details of Kudelia's role and motives in this was unknown. Only that the moment she called for war .... all of them answered...
Light Mobile Suits
Stinger
Derived from the Battroid form of the VF-1 Valkyrie, the Stinger is a non-transformable machine that has been the primary Mobile Suit for Martian Settlement Defense Forces. It is purposefully designed with mostly off-the-shelf civilian parts seen in Mobile Workers and Worker pods with even the electric-only FLOAT system used in lieu of thruster arrays coming from Britannian Cargo VTOLs. It's own armament is simple, twin arm Slash Harkens usable as both a ranged weapon and to help it climb rough Martian terrain and an integrated particle beam blow torch just as useful in welding, mining, and demolition, as it is as a combination beam rifle/beam sabre. For protection it relies upon thick, easily replaceable/reinforced ablative armor rather than speed and it's only true military piece of equipment: a directional Pulse Shield emitter that any police force or private security could purchase.
Ostsol
The first Mobile Suit reverse-engineered from Zentraedi technology. It is a general improvement over Regult-class Battle Pods with the main improvements being better armor distributing, a functional pair of hands for utility, and it's weapons now linked to a fire control system rather than being manually aimed by the pilot. It's armaments are roughly the same to Zentraedi analogs-albeit to Martian Union Armed Forces and LRC standards. Many Zentraedi defectors who could not fully integrate into civilian life would pilot Otsols to train Martian pilots or in duties in the relatively 'sedate' role as security guards.
Medium Mobile Suits
Archer
The Archer as a Battlemech is simplified from the Battroid Spartan that was it's predecessor. While the latter is known for it's close quarters combat abilities the Archer is more well-rounded; the Spartan's eclectic mix of integrated weaponry replaced with wrist and side-mounted beam vulcans and two large shoulder missile launchers with targeting systems able to pierce through Minovsky Particle-contaminated zones. It is infamous in combat with reinforced armored fists that could grab and smother a beam saber or rip the head off a Zentraedi soldier.
Rifleman
An improvement of the Destroid Defender with integrated landspinners for greater speed, and integrated laser-blade emitters for close quarters; a weakness that the Defender had. Modular omnipod technology allows a Rifleman to mount all types of weapons on it's two arms, with the mech warrior taking the pick between an assault gun, gauss rifle, beam cannon, an extended-range large laser, or any combination of the four. Despite its purpose as a SPAAG on legs the Rifleman has been used in frontline combat forming large staggered gunlines that can bring down Super Robots like many Vers Kataphrakts caught out in the open.
Marauder
The newest Zentraedi-derived machine. Based on the Glaug-class Battlepod it is the opposite of the Archer. As a Battlemech its overall performance has been vastly improved and it no longer needs a genetically-engineered giant warrior to pilot it well.
Heavy Mobile Suits
Longbow
The Battlemech counterpart to the Phalanx maintains the same role as it's mirror. It's feet have large landspinner units built into their soles for extra mobility but also anchor systems to allow the Longbows to properly deploy its missile artillery. Besides the more powerful Factsphere pod on its head, the largest change is the inclusion of basic pop-out beam vulcan turrets for short-range defense and Slash Harken arrays used for direct combat rather than climbing.
Warhammer
Functional identical to the Tomahawk. On paper. In reality most do not realize that Warhammer is a Destroid Tomahawk completely rebuilt with AC-grade parts including reinforced armor and self-repair systems and that post-manufacture 'booster packs' are the most common expansion mounting for them. Fitting their name the Mechwarriors who pilot them often choose the most direct, and brutal, of means.
Behemoth
The Behemoth is another variant of the Monster. Instead of missiles Behemoth models are almost exclusively heavy ballistic weapons from AC/20 cannons designed to shatter warships hulls and fortress walls, to the LB-X systems which merged the destructive powers of an automatic grenade launcher and shotgun, and four battleships-grade railguns.
Super Robots
Atlas
The Atlas is the first original design and Super Robot made by Defiance Industries. It was first started as a though exercise by soldier and engineer Aleksander Kerensky the genetic originator of the 20 founding Coordinator Clans that helped settle Mars. A crash program led by the Coordinators in honor of their 'Great Father' later and the Atlas was unveiled. A 'Mech as powerful as possible, as impenetrable as possible, and as ugly and foreboding as conceivable, so that fear itself will be their ally. While not as elegant as the Aretha or an Overed Weapon-NEXT it is a foreboding skull-faced machine reliant upon raw strength, durability, and sheer firepower in place of 'gimmicks'.
Far away from the conflicts in the Earth Sphere...
In the long, bloody history of the Wulgaru Empire, there had been many, many shiikaras. There had been the unimpressive, the lamata that had been decimated and proven to be a worthless harvest. Others were more notable, even if the shiikara itself had been unfulfilling, such as the supercivilization that called itself Gardim, which had destroyed itself so completely that when they had arrived there were no genes to harvest. Other civilizations were noted but left to grow until the day the Wulgaru came for harvest, such as the creatures living in the Pentagona System and the Astragius Galaxy.
What was shocking was that for the first time, the lamata had beaten back their hunt so aggressively, so completely, even in a force that included Prince Jiart and Dolgana, no newcomers to the shiikara. Of course, if you were to listen to Rada, there was exactly one person at fault.
"After all, Prince Jiart's forces were beaten back by the primitives. If he had something to explain how that could have happened-"
"Is there a problem?"
"Eh!?"
"Eh!?"
Jiart walked up to the throne as if Rada hadn't been talking, or that Rada and Klein were even surprised, even as Rada began sweating very nervously. "It seemed like you were talking about me."
"Of course not!" Rada said, a touch desperately. "I am merely saying that we are all very curious to hear your thoughts on the lamata, Pleguzes. After all, it has been a long while since the last time the lamata were able to decimate a combined force like this and with you among them."
"Alas," Jiart sighed. "Even I miss my mark on occasion." Klein and Rada only had a moment to question the prince's deprecation of his skill before he looked directly at them. "For example, I may even stab my allies in the back by mistake while on the hunting grounds."
Despite themselves and the location they were in, Klein and Rada took an unconscious step back at the implied threat. Jiart turned back towards the Wulgaru sitting on the throne. "I am sorry that I was late, Brother. I just arrived a moment ago."
King Galkie, impassive even in the face of his brother, pressed on as if nothing had happened. "Tell us how this harvest turned out, and why you have returned empty handed."
"I do not deny that we have underestimated the lamata." Jiart said, calmly, as if he had done nothing wrong and this wasn't in the wake of their fleet returning in shambles. "After all, by Rada's account he was able to fight off most of the primitives in the newly built Legatus before he chose to retreat after he wore out his machine in the harvest."
Rada swallowed a gulp, even if nobody looked at him.
"But even I cannot have expected such a devastating conclusion to this hunt. It appears that these creatures are not ones we can simply overwhelm with sheer numbers. Perhaps this explains why some of the other primitives have chosen to aid them."
The throne room was silent for a moment as they comprehended Jiart's words. Dolgana thought of his experiences fighting the uniquely shaped machines amongst the enemy forces. Lutieil and Klein perked their heads at the idea of a more interesting hunt than the fights they were tied up with the Zentradi. Rada was hoping that his own failures would be overshadowed if Jiart also failed.
Galkie, meanwhile, simply continued on after a moment without praise or condemnation. "And what of the lamata themselves? Tell us about this lamata that you have taken an interest in."
"I cannot do that." This time the room broke out into murmuring amongst the assorted commanders. "That is my lamata. I believe that it would be best if everyone selected their own."
"You're hogging him!" Klein muttered, before turning away with a 'tch' when Jiart glanced at him.
"According to my reports from the survivors," Dolgana offered, "There were eight units that put up a good show against you. There was even one that seemed to harness the power of the Getter Rays."
For the second time in as many minutes, Jiart refused to offer anything else. "I have nothing to say. Each may shikaara to his own taste, yes? After all," he said, looking at one very particular Wulgaru, "there are some who do not enjoy working together as a group."
That's what I said the other day! Rada thought. How did you hear about that!?
"Very well. Do as you wish."
"King Galkie!"
"However," Galkie said, over Dolgana's exclamation, " if you refuse to tell us anything else, there is a chance that someone else may steal your lamata. Bear that in mind."
"But of course." Jiart allowed. "After all, if he is so easily devoured by a small fish in the sea, then he is a small fish. That would mean he is not worthy to be my lamata. But I doubt such concern is necessary. My lamata will not prove to be an easy kill."
After a moment, as the others either seethed at the implied dismissal or wondered what the Prince's lamata was like, Galkie continued on. "Are there any other matters to speak of?"
Dolgana bowed. "Your majesty, it is a trifling matter, but with the Pleguze's breakthrough from his experiences in the asteroid belt close to their planet, we have decoded the primitive creature's communications. It appears they refer to themselves as 'Humans', although most of their civilization seems to be divided into various subgroups such as 'Earthlings', 'Spacians', and 'Martians', and 'Coordinators'."
Lutiel scoffed. "So they possess enough intelligence to give meaning to their existence, huh?"
"Fascinating!" Jiart said "In that case, why don't we call them Humans then?"
Everyone looked at him, surprised by the suggestion, even if only one of them actually voiced it. "But we have never done something like that in the past!" Dolgana exclaimed.
"Don't be so rigid, Dolgana. They've found a way to access the capabilities of their ancestors, harnessed the power of the Getter Rays for themselves, and collaborated with another one of our offshoots." Jiart smiled in excitement. "Such efforts are worthy of some respect. It has been ages since we came across such wonderful lamata."
Now then, what will you do to entertain me next, humans?
Resolutions of the Earth Sphere Conference at Dakar:
I. The Earth Federation is hereby dissolved. The Earth Sphere Union will assume its duties, obligations, powers, and assets in full.
Ia. The Earth Sphere Union will be governed by an executive Union Council consisting of five permanent commissioners, one each appointed by the Empire of Britannia, the Advanced European Union, the Far East Republic, the Republic of Japan, and PLANT; and three temporary commissioners serving four-year terms, one each from non-permanent member states chosen by rotation.
Ib. The Earth Sphere Union will have its laws drafted by a legislative Union Assembly consisting of representatives from all member nations, with numbers based on population.
Ic. The Earth Federal Forces will be supplanted by the Earth Sphere Forces, which will assume all of the EFF's personnel, policies, and assets, unless otherwise stated.
II. The 31 July Proclamation is repealed in full. The armed organization known as the Titans is hereby dissolved and its members returned to their duties as regular members of the Earth Sphere Forces. Those individuals deemed liable for crimes committed during their tenure as members of the Titans will be detained and tried for those offenses.
III. The armed organization known as AEUG is hereby recognized as an independent task force of the Earth Sphere Union, and will be held to the same standards and responsibilities of those task forces. All members of AEUG will be granted full amnesty for any crimes committed during their membership in that organization, unless those crimes are determined to be a matter of special outrage or egregiousness.
IV. Any acts committed by members of the Zodiac Alliance in furtherance of the reform of the Earth Federation or its member states prior to the promulgation of this resolution are hereby subject to a full and general amnesty.
V. All adult sapient citizens of the Earth Sphere Union are equal before the law. No law shall exist nor be considered valid within the Earth Sphere Union or its member states or constituent territories if that law denigrates or disadvantages a sapient adult person on the basis of age, race, culture, gender, religion, sexual identity, genetic makeup, region of residence, residence on Earth or in space, or any other factor deemed a matter of inherent nature or valid self-expression.
Agreement Regarding the Dissolution of the Titans and Formation of A-LAWS
The Titans will submit to official dissolution and cooperate with ESU investigations, with a fair military tribunal being given to individual Titans involved with criminal activities.
Those Titans cleared of wrongdoing be reintegrated into a new ESU task force under normal and proper oversight of the union council, to be known as the A-LAWS
Existing Titans assets will be distributed between the A-LAWS and the ESU forces
Resolution Regarding the Status of the Circle of Gaia and the Manhunters
"I hereby propose, in light of heavy Circle of Gaia involvement in the near century-long list of atrocities by the Manhunters from forced relocations to ethnic cleansings, the misrule of countless nations who sovereignties were lost to Federation imperialism following the One Year War, and the most recent subjugation of one of our member states, the reorganization of the Circle of Gaia.
"That the Manhunters shall hereby be dissolved and their members shall be investigated for abuses of it's authority.
"That this body shall officially condemn the practice of forced relocations, that protection from such will be enshrined with the Earth Sphere Union's constituton, recognize the human rights violation inherent in past Federation policy, and create a special committee dedicated to investigating these present and historical atrocities in order to make a proper account of the lives lost, along with what restitution should be victimized by it."
"The Circle of Gaia, in recognition of both it's role in many of these historical abuses, including the occupation of Egypt and colonial misrule of many other 'Special Economic Zones' will be stripped of its current government mandates, criminally investigated, and its assets relocated out of Earth, including Australia. Any terraforming technology will be given over to Union authorities given it's collaboration with said government to create it, and only shared with other national bodies or private entities at this Council's discretion. In recognition of its many legitimate scientific achievements, however, a new mandate will be given for it as the ESU's premier exoplanet research proect, with its first mission being the exploration and terraforming of Venus for future human habitation."
Approved Amendment to the Above Resolution
In light of the comments painting the Zodiac Alliance as "vile antihuman terrorists" made by the Circle representative, PLANT retracts its vote of assent to the former proposal and instead insists on the strongest possible terms that the Circle is dismantled by both law and force of arms should it be necessary
The Gaian Response
You need not complete the vote on this offer. The Circle of Gaia rejects this offer, maybe try again later when there is a ln elected assembly for the ESU the way there was in the Old Federation. We existed before our Federation mandate and will continue to do as a private group with all the rights the people of the Old Federation expect, and act in compliance with international law and with the consent of any ESU member states or groups that ask for our help.
In a show of good faith, the Circle of Gaia is evacuating from Egypt, now that the ecological rehabilitation of the Nile has progressed to a point manageable by third parties. We hope that the ESU leadership will keep this in mind when we say terraforming technology cannot be tested in orbit and requires terrestrial testing. The Outback is not merely a desert environment, but a product of the immense ecological damage Earth has suffered from human conflict, from the hole in the ozone layer of 20th century to the original war with Zeon and the colony drop, much less the Dinosaur Empire and other phenomena. Rather than despoiling a natural terran ecosystem, here is a ruined habitat we can repair using the novel technology of terraformation.
The Jin Amendments; all but number 6 ratified by the Council
A Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be drafted into the constitution at the end of the month including guarantees of equality between Earthnoids and Spacenoids, Naturals and Coordinators, the removal of all barriers to service within the Federation, a right to a fair trial by a jury of ones peers with no more legitimacy granted to extrajudical punishments by arms of the Federation, and to a basic standard of living.
Abolishment of all space colony charters, Federation Direct Administration Zones, and Special Economic Zones to be replaced with provisional governments such as set up in Japan to represent the people therein, along with overseeing a swift transition to democracy. While the liberation of Japan and the Philippines from Britannian colonialism was a worthy struggle that the Japanese people will wholeheartedly repay in blood should the lands of any who fought with us ever be threatened by foreign conquerors, the treatment of Federation colonies in space and earth differ from Britannian Areas only thus: it is well within the power of this body to grant the same freedoms that the AEU and FER proudly seized from the Eunuchs and the crowned heads of europe to them, quickly and bloodlessly. We cannot in one breath pat ourselves on the back for victories against colonialism while holding the vast majority of mankind in bondage.
Preperations to be made for democratic referendums, to be watched by international observers both within and without the ESU, to be held in the above areas to decide their continued inclusion within the Union or their independence in light of the historic injustice visited upon them. If we can live in peace with a indepedent Martian Union and Republic of Riah, we can live in peace with them. This will be used as a basis to enter ceasefire/peace negotiations with the rebellion known as Dawn of Fold, in order to free up as many military resources as possible to hold off the extinction level threats arrayed against us.
A resolution for the general reconstruction for the former Federation colonies, both Earth and Space, along with the AEU's current African territories regardless of their decisions in the referendum once these threats to humanity have been abated.
For the Federation Assembly to be replaced by a legislature whose representatives will be voted in democratically by ESU citizens, with each member state accorded a number of such based on it's population.
The pilot of Neo Getter Robo's Getter 2, Sho Kamui, is none other then a half human prince of the Dinosaur Empire. One, if you have any reservations upon hearing this, i'll remind, that without their service at the damocles everyone listening to this broadcast would have their wills enslaved to Charles. After it's retreat back underground following the death of Emperor Gore, he lead a underclass revolt to install his moderate brother Emperor Gore III to the throne when his sister Empress Jatego threatened to restart the war with the surface. He has come to Earth both to defend the human half of ancestry and seek to end the long suffering of his dinosuar half, who have languished in extreme deprivation for eons attempting to subsist underground. I know many of you will have deep reservations about diplomatic normalization with one of the One Year Wars deadliest enemies. It's difficult to accept peace when so many grievances exist, and it's easy to blame everyone from a enemy nation for their actions or see them as beyond change. During my tenure in the Getter Team, I lost countless comrades in the fight to keep humanity free, even alive. I work everyday to honor the sacrifice of people like Musashi, who made sure we live in a world worthy of their struggle. But as someone who was only able to free their homeland by fighting alongeside Zero, the prince of the land that oppressed it, who cast aside a life of ease and risked everything to correct a injustice he had no hand in? I tell you this; Their is nothing to be proferred by smacking away the hand given in earnest because the sins of the father; and at times, everything to be gained by grasping it. This, I believe, is another of those times. Prince Sho Kamui believes a agreement can be reached that can allow the peaceful resettlement of the Dinosuar Empire which he suggests can be done with simply the humas territory left uninhabited by the ravages of war, who in exchange can not only aid humanities defense from extinction and provide the bounty of the inner earth in a time when it is desperately needed...But can use it's terraforming technology in order to reverse the ecological damage that we have wrought upon on it, allowing no excuse to cease the unjust policies of forced relocation and for those who have suffered from it to return to their homelands. (note: Entered into record, but not ratified)
In recogniton of the bravery and unflagging stance against the injustices perpetuated by the old regime, and it's living proof of what can be accomplished through the solidarity of earthnoids and spacenoids, propose that with their fight won that the AEUG be offered full legal pardons along with a offer to reoganized into a new autonomous federation task force known as Londo Bell.
That on the basis of the choice to offer the people of space their own soverignity, along with the choice to continue to tie their fates to the Union or chart their own course, that ceasefire discussions immediately begin with Neo-Zeon, and negotiations to begin with other human states such as the Martian Union for the purposes of a joint defense against the extinctintion of the human species.
Legacy Federation Resolution not repealed
[Treaty of Granada]
-The Earth Federation recognizes the Republic of Zeon as the legitimate successor of the Principality of Zeon, and as an autonomous dominion of the Federation as a whole.
-The use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons is prohibited under Federation and Zeon law.
The Union Council - Permanent Members (PCs)
Advanced European Union
Far Eastern Republic
Republic of Japan
PLANT
Holy Britannian Empire (status pending ratification)
The Union Council - Rotating Members UC0087-UC0091 (NPCs)
Empire of India (SATO Faction)
Republic of Thailand (SATO Faction)
Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal (SATO Faction)
Federal Republic of Nigeria (AU Faction)
Republic of Cameroon (AU Faction)
Unified Congolese Community (AU Faction)
Kingdom of Suille (Middle East Economic Community)
Kingdom of Azadistan (Middle East Economic Community)
Federation of South African Nations (Independent)
Phillipine Republic (Independent)
Affiliated Factions
Earth Sphere Union Forces (NPC)
A-LAWS
Londo Bell
Global Defense Force
United Nations Spacy
Photon Power Laboratory
To help the Circle contest the new ESU restrictions in Union Council nation courts, and to help the Circle aid unrecognized nations achieve full rights within the ESU, Lady Auden Dominica has brought on former Britannian civil servant Job Trunicht as special counsel. A former Schneizel loyalist and colonial resident of Brazil, Trunicht has renounced his previous citizenship and is currently active in helping Number dissidents lobby the ESU for Union Council membership of an independent Brazil.
In the interest of furthering the goals of peace and autonomy for the people of space, the Earth Sphere Alliance and Neo-Zeon have agreed to a ceasefire with the following additional conditions:
Article 1) The asteroid fortification Artemis and all associated ESU forces will be moved out of the Side 3 Control Zone via nuclear pulse engines and will be allowed safe passage to do so.
Article 2) The Neo-Zeon forces currently occupying the city of Granada (The "Delaz Fleet") will turn over control of the city to local government and depart for Side 3 and will be allowed safe passage to do so.
Article 3) The ESU and Neo-Zeon will commit to continued negotiations to resolve the respective diplomatic statues of Neo-Zeon and the ESU.
Article 4) The ESU will be found in breach of this agreement if Artemis and all other ESU miitary and paramilitary forces have not withdrawn from the Side 3 Control Zone by June 1, UC0087.
Article 5) Article 2 will come into effect no later than 24 hours after the ignition of Artemis' nuclear pulse engines and will be complete by no more than 168 hours after the ignition of Artemis' nuclear pulse engines. Failure to do so will be a breach of this agreement by Neo-Zeon.
Casval Rem Deikun spent most of his life running from the conclusion of his destiny.
He was the only son of the greatest revolutionary of modern times. The burden that came with the name, especially after his father's assassination by the Zabi dynasty, led him to adopt the persona of Char Aznable. He became a fearsome pilot of the Principality of Zeon whose title alone struck fear into the hearts of his opponents. But beneath the glory was a desire for vengeance. He wanted to use the tools of the Zabi dynasty to undo them. In the midst of this burning rage, he found Lalah Sune, perhaps the only woman who could heal his fractured psyche. Their love was short-lived because of Amuro Ray, perhaps the only man who could hold his attention. Eventually, after living under a false identity, he wondered where the lie that was Char stopped and where Casval began.
The war ended with the destruction of the Principality. The dictatorship he had sworn to destroy had lost every adult member. Only a baby with no blood on her hands was left. He went to Axis, thinking it would be a haven from the vengeful Earth Federation, only to find the asteroid base to be another manifestation of the same destructive mindset that had polluted the Principality. Haman Karn, the girl he befriended there, absorbed the wickedness of the adults around her. The death of her innocence was the last straw that broke his will to stay. He returned to the Earth Sphere as Quattro Bajeena. A dead man's name.
In a way, he was afraid to take on his legacy. The layers he wore allowed others to see him as either Captain Aznable or Lieutenant Bajeena. Few suspected his connection to Deikun. He was well aware of his flaws: the anger, the ego, the cynicism, the shortsightedness, and the obsessions. He refused to be a leader, to have others place their hopes in him as Lalah had. Instead, he had let outside forces guide his hand. The youthful AEUG appealed to him. Here was a cause that could submerge him. Never did he expect to see the faces of his old enemies drive him to an inevitable realization.
His name condemned him. The facades built over the decades fell apart. Quattro Bajeena melted away; Char Aznable died. Beneath the banner of Londo Bell—the revolution that triumphed against all odds—he felt the chains around his neck twist.
"Mankind has never been closer to the future my father dreamed of than this year. The defeat of the Titans exposed the corruption of the old Federation: the perverse lust for power so evident in the Zabi dynasty. The reform of the political reality of the Earth Sphere will further develop the steps necessary to move beyond the trappings of the past, the wars and troubles that have so plagued us in the Universal Century. Member of Londo Bell: you stand at the forefront of this conscious evolution. You must defend it wholeheartedly!"
He was now and forever Casval Rem Deikun and there was no escape but death.
With the end of the Dakar Conference, and the announcement of the intent to completely reorganize the Earth Sphere into a new Union, chaos ensues across the planet. The major nations and alliances, mollified by their seats on the Union Council, sit pacified for now, willing to work with the victorious Zodiac Alliance and confident that the new system will favor them just as much as the old.
The remainder of the planet, however, is more skeptical. Seeing the ESU's grand pronouncements against obvious targets like the Titans and Manhunters, with only the barest mention of perhaps eventual maybe voluntary decolonization by Britannia and the AEU, push the simmering conflicts in the Global South over the edge into outright insurrection. In South America, the orphaned Circle of Gaia finds a home amongst nationalist movements in Brazil and the Orinoco Delta. In Africa, meanwhile, the existing anti-AEU and anti-Spacian-Capitalist sentiments explode into riots and furious denouncements of ESU hypocrisy from autonomist groups and national parliaments alike. The chaos even spreads into the Middle East, where Marina Ismail's bold move of establishing the Middle East Economic Community and getting herself and the wealthier Kingdom of Suile seats on the Council is met with sectarian and nationalist resentment among non-state actors. Only trust built up by decades keeps the same chaos from spreading to Southeast Asia, home to numerous permanent PLANT garrisons and dozens of stories of miraculous intervention by Japanese super robots. There, so the people believe, is where real change will come from, not Britannia or the barely-masked political conspiracies of Europe.
The Sahara Desert
"So that's the situation," Lockon Stratos explains, sipping coffee in the thin mixed light of pre-dawn coming through the windows and a warmer glow of a photon power lamp. "Truth be told, we're kind of screwed."
Quatre nods seriously in agreement. "I concur with Ms. Sumeragi's assessment. We need to regroup in space. I just hope the rest of her plan works out. I can feel...something behind the scenes here. Not Char's song, or even Scirroco's murmuring. There's something else that's trying to imitate the Heart of Space itself."
"Another Newtype, you mean," Setsuna murmurs from his position near the door the Maganacs' command tent. He'd declined coffee. Quatre suspects that he brews it too strong, and Setsuna is reluctant to ask for milk and sugar.
"People have opened their hearts to connection with each other more and more since the One Year War," Quatre says. "...or else they've been forced to. This, though...it's the feeling I get when I look at Getter Robo. Or the...echo from Wulgaru. Someone trying to drag the world to an end by force.
"Yeah Getter's like that," Ryouma Nagare's rough voice calls from outside. "Also you guys know these tents aren't soundproof, right? You've got the windows open and everything."
Lockon sighs and rubs his forehead. Quatre senses that he's developed a habit of doing that lately. "Do you want to just come in, Ryouma? None of this is classified."
The much taller man immediately brushes in past Setsuna, who, to his credit, just moves out of the way instead of starting a scuffle.
"So are we assassinating Hayato? I kinda always wanted to try that. I don't think it'd work, but."
Cagalli, who'd been sitting in the corner, broke in with "President Jin's not the problem, dumbass."
"Whatever idiot let him have a mic for more than ten seconds sure is."
Quatre clears his throat. "As Miss Cagalli observed, Hayato Jin isn't the problem. Even Treize or Patrick Zala or Lelouch or Li Lin...we shouldn't trust any of them, but the distortion behind the ESU is deeper than anyone who's appeared in public. If anything, they're all puppets."
"So what, we just run away until we figure out the mastermind?" Ryouma asks, eyebrows lower than should be possible on a human face.
"No," Setsuna says. "We find the heart of the distortion, and we cut it out."
"Michael Trinity's Gundam has been spotted moving indepently," he continues. "If we can isolate him, we can make him tell us what he knows."
Setsuna turns to leave. "I'll meet you all back in space...oh, Quatre."
"Yes, Setsuna?"
"Shouldn't you be praying right now?"
"Ah...I did that early today. We had this meeting, and I know you don't like it when I bring up religion, so I figured God would understand."
Setsuna makes a non-commital noise, and nods as he leaves.
Meanwhile, Japan and the Far East Republic prepare their forces for renewed war - not against Britannia or other members of the world order this time, but against the all too familiar specter of a mad scientist bent on secrets better left buried with the millennia. Japan's new Quantum Supercomputing cluster, the MAGI, had already warned the Republic of the threat, and the Photon Power Labs' inheritors had a very good idea of what, exactly, he might be coming for.
Mt. Fuji
"Hey, you can't come in here. Photon Power Labs personnel only."
Miorine Rembran gazes at the security officer coolly. "Legally, this mine is property of GUND-ARM Inc. The seismologist reports are concerning enough I want to see for myself."
"Technically, the extraction rights for Sakuradite are yours," says a cheery voice from nearby. "Hayato was very particular about that. I tuned him out as soon as he started talking about land tax, though."
Miorine turns and nods. "Director Kabuto. I think you'll agree that what was found down here is the concern of everyone with an interest in Mt. Fuji."
"Everyone with an interest in Earth, probably. That's why we're beefing up the defenses again, but...eh, sure. It'll be on the news within the week anyway. Let her in, please," Kouji Kabuto says.
Within the security cordon deep within Mt. Fuji, behind a Photon Power barrier and dozens of armed guards with, Miorine notes, odd equipment like reflective goggles and what looks like Permet transceiver cameras, lies perhaps the strangest thing the young heiress has yet seen, even in the land of bizarre superscience and revolution she's found herself in.
"Is that..."
"A Mazin," Kouji confirms. "If a Mazin was to Mazinger Z what Z is to me, size-wise. Buried here for God knows how long, encased in Sakuradite."
"It's...impossible."
"Yeah, we get that a lot here."
"And what's that light?" Miorine asks, causing Kouji and the armed retinue to focus on a strange Photon reaction that suddenly happened in the giant Mazin as the director approached it.
Golden photon light brightens and fades, as a human figure appears out of the enormous metal face that had been buried in the ground for millennia. Floating in the air, the strange oracle pronounces three syllables:
"Go...ra...gon..."
And then the light fades, and Kouji finds himself catching the nude form of a young white-haired woman as she drops toward the ground, unconscious.
Miorine, wide-eyed at this bizarre spectacle, snaps out of it as Kouji begins calling for medics.
"Right. I'm going back to space."
"Ah, sorry, we're going to have to up the classification on this now--"
Equally chaotic, although somewhat more polite, is the orbit of Earth. The events of the previous month - alien invasion, nuclear attack, a victory for Zeonic forces in retaking their own homeland, and the ESU dangling the both the freedom and potential economic disaster of fully divorcing the colonies from their Earthian overlords divided the populace like nothing since the One Year War had. Even beyond that, at the stroke of a stylus, the Titans were resolved and reformed into a new organization with far less legal policing power, encouraging the courageous and the criminal to speak out and act out, whether for change or for profit.
Shangri-La
"Hey hey, guess what, I followed those two cute girls the other day."
"Beecha, first of all, who the hell starts a conversation like that? Second, who does that?"
"Hey, not like that, idiot. I scoped out where they've been hiding out in case they had something good."
"Listen, they're either broke, or they're Earthnoid spies pretending to be broke."
"Pretending is right. Gundams. Two of 'em! Just sitting right there in the junk pile. They're not even locked."
"...Gundams, huh. I mean, it's an obvious trap."
"An obvious trap that can get us set for life, you mean."
"...listen, let's keep an eye out. Even if we don't do something stupid, Judau's gonna do something stupid, and maybe we can find a way in."
The upper halls of power are as chaotic as the streets of the colonies. Zeonic pirates make off with the best, brightest, and Zabi sympathy-est from the moon while billions of credits worth of materiel flows through gray market channels that the states of the world can barely hide, building secrets, hiding secrets, and bringing secrets to light.
Asticassia Institute of Technology
"Heeeeeey, Yamato."
"Elan," Kira responds, not looking up from the mobile suit schematics he's painstakingly editing. "If you're here to bother Suletta, don't. She's busy."
"Nope, not today!" the overly peppy Peil heir says. "I heard you were taking a little field trip away from GUND-ARM."
"Yeah," Kira admits, "I've got something personal to deal with. Why? Shouldn't you be going on the Plant Quetta trip?"
"Nope, old ladies already called me off of that," Elan admits. "Funny, they don't seem to want me anywhere near legal authorities lately. So. Where you going?"
"Does it matter?"
Elan is, very suddenly, leaning in over the shorter Coordinator, deep in his personal space, and interposing himself over Kira's tablet.
Finally, the red planet. Despite its name, it has rode out the turmoil wracking its parent world in peace, granting its people the power to defend themselves, and financing Earth's rebirth from afar with the unlimited money and clout of the League of Ruling Corporations.
But the League, and Mars itself, was built on the bones of millions, and the crushed dreams of millions more, people who wanted to remake humanity's future in their image. Two of them succeeded, in a sense.
One of them is willing to push a bit further.
Deimos
"Thank you for joining me...General."
McGillis Fareed nods, Bael mimicking the movement as it always does. "I had a bit of extra time after dinner with Nagai, and I thought, well, what better time to go investigate a dead terrorist talking to me."
The voice on his radio clicks its tongue. "'Terrorist', really, General? Someone with loyalties as flexible as yours using such a loaded term? What would Admiral Elion have to say about that, hm?"
"You mistake me, Colonel. A terrorist is a rebel who loses," McGillis replies, guiding his mobile suit forward through the near-airless mineshafts of Deimos. Good lord, why is everything in the Mars Sphere so creepy?
"And what is loss? What is death, for that matter?"
"Well, BAHRAM is dead, because NUT sold you out to the LRC, and you're dead, because one of my subordinates shot you. Loss is similar, I think."
A scratching scoff over the communications. "You know as well as I do that that kind of death is meaningless now. Half your brainstem is in that store-brand Gundam of yours, and you didn't even have access to Permet for the nanomachines."
"Odd time to bring up GUND tech," McGillis observes, clearing a room and waving his squad of backup ACs behind him. "Is that how you're talking to me? Tapping into the Permet lines somehow?"
"Hm. Tell me. What do you actually know about Permet, McGillis?"
"It's a miraculous ansible. Transmits data instantly between any two instances. Has a habit of killing people extremely painfully if you plug it into your nervous system. That what happened to you, Hardiman?"
"Don't call me that," the voice snaps. "I have no name."
"But McGillis," he continues, "...we talk through Permet all the time. Have you ever wondered...what else is speaking through it?"
And here, McGillis realizes, is where 'Colonel No Name' here is going to do something stupid. Indeed, his EWACS cover is informing him of an extremely strong reaction in the supposedly tapped out Permet veins in this very mineshaft.
"Permet, McGillis, is the Voice of God. And it would dearly like to meet us."
"Okay, I've seen enough. Control, contact Nagai. Ibis team, we're dusting off and ending this now."
Honestly, best to just nip this bullshit in the bud, McGillis thinks.
"Very good. And how's our little Gundam Elimination Operation going?" Alejandro asks.
"The A-LAWS and the GDF are making excellent use of the GN-Xs you gifted them, sir. They've already skirmished with some of the Gundams who escaped to space, our agent has eliminated two of the Thrones, and he and the GDF are closing in on Exia and Kyrios."
"Ha, excellent initiative from Komine, as always. We should consider bumping off Scirocco and putting him in charge of the A-LAWS, don't you think? He's much more reliable than some Jovian."
"That might have a few consequences, sir. In any case...it's time."
"Indeed."
The South Atlantic
Setsuna had arrived too late. Tracking down the Throne Zwei had led to the place where all three Trinities were hiding, low on GN particles (of course their fake GN drives lacked the key feature of the true ones) and, hopefully, amenable to capture and, if not atonement for their crimes, then at least an arrow pointing in the direction of whoever it was who was distorting the meaning of Celestial Being's Gundams.
Instead, he found only destruction - Throne Eins's fake GN drive detonated, reducing Johann Trinity to a rapidly expanding cloud of Tau particles and traces of carbon. Throne Zwei, charging a crippled Throne Drei on the ground. Without any idea what was going on, Setsuna's training kicked in, and he charged the aggressor, locking blades with...
"Don't get in my way, you little Krugis brat!" comes the Gundamjacker's voice through contact comms.
"Ali al-Saachez?" Setsuna exclaims, shocked beyond all reason at this turn of events. "What? How are you in a Gundam?!"
"Setsuna!" Allelujah calls from Kyrios. "We've got more problems! GDF units are closing in!"
??????
"Level 7 Access, clear. We have full control of Veda."
"Finally," Alejandro says. "I feel like we've been at this for months."
Amongst the massive structure of the quantum supercomputing cluster that is Veda, the God of Wisdom, a device begins to move. A section of floor in the grand chamber opens up, and disgorges a coffin. Or, so it would look like, if the cover wasn't transparent. Alejandro knows what it is, as does his accomplice: a cryogenic chamber, containing a frozen human form.
"I knew I'd find you here, Aeolia Schoenberg," Alejandro says, walking deliberating toward the cryogenic chamber. Indeed, behind a mask dedicated to keeping him oxygenated in case of emergencies, the face was the same as the man from Celestial Being's debut broadcast over four months ago.
"Hoping to see the reformation of the world, you placed yourself into cryogenic slumber, with no guarantee that you could be revived."
Alejandro checks his sidearm, ensuring it's loaded and ready to fire. A gold-filigreed pistol, a "retirement" gift, from when he graduated from the Special Military Service Corps and into the true Organization of the Zodiac.
"Unfortunately, you will never get to see that new world. The united world you so desired, and your 'ultimate deterrent', Celestial Being...I'm about to inherit them both. That's right...I'm the one who will change this world...who has changed this world! Not you! Not Treize! Not some jumped-up spacenoid or genetic superman! ME! ALEJANDRO CORNER!"
Alejandro empties the entire clip of his pistol into the cryogenic chamber, laughing as the glass shatters and the helpless man inside is pulverized with bullets.
He's almost laughed himself out by the time the alarms start going off and the status readouts on the supercomputing array around him change to the now-dead genius's guise.
"Ribbons! What's happening?" he demands of his accomplice.
"I don't know...a system trap, keyed to his vital signs?"
The image of Aeolia Schoenberg begins to speak.
The fact that someone has come to this place with evil intentions tells me that, unfortunately, the world has not turned out as I desired.
So humans are still foolish. They still love war, and are still guiding this world toward destruction.
But I still believe that humanity can save itself.
And I wish to entrust it with the power to do so.
This whole world, and humanity itself...
...must change.
The South Atlantic
Ange Kuroki has no idea what's going on, and they do not care. They're just here to finally swat down some of Celestial Being's Gundams, and it looks like thost tragic, misguided morons are doing half the work for them. Given that the two flying sword-types are busily chopping pieces off each other...
"Looks like the transformer is the only one we need to worry about," they observe. "Ignore that support shuttle thing! Dobermans! Pin it down! GN-X Team! Make sure the other ones don't get away!"
They mentally draw a bead on the flying wing as they dodge its onslaught of long-range missiles. "You're fast, Gundam, but you're not faster than THIS MANY BULLETS!"
"Ange is fired up today," Rakesh observes, following their instructions to break out in a triangle formation around the orange Gundam. The Rhinos Type-C didn't have the fancy new drive on it, but it was designed to keep pace with even Wulgaru commander units in raw speed, so this should be relatively simple. "Think they didn't get enough of a fight at Boaz?"
"I'm pretty sure this specific guy just rubs 'em the wrong way," Patrick Hoyle replies. "I was talking to their nice personality after Tokyo and--hey, where'd he go?"
"This Gundam is an incredible weapon!" Ali calls out to Setsuna, unheard by the GDF interlopers. "It makes war so much more fun! Your Gundam was made for that purpose too, wasn't it?!"
"You're wrong!" Setsuna shouts back. "Completely wrong! My Gundam isn't a tool of war!"
All hell breaks loose in the GDF formation with the sudden vast, impossible increase in the speed and power of two of the Celestial Being Gundams. Even as the blue sword-type starts systematically dismantling the red sword-type, the transformer begins darting in and out of the GDF formation, first knocking Patrick off course to break the cordon and then shredding one of the new GN-X's to uselessness with powered-up rapid-fire beam shots.
"The hell!" Ange shouts, trying and failing to lead the red-glowing Gundam with their shots. "This is just like Izuru's bullshit from the last battle! Where are they getting this power?"
Like hell is Ange going to let this stand - the other Gundams appear to be finishing their fight and fleeting, but they're not going to let this one go, not again.
"WOULD YOU KNOCK IT OFF?" an abrasive voice comes from the Gundam they're chasing. "YOU'RE GIVING THIS DIPSHIT A HEADACHE AND WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING HERE!"
"I'm not letting you get away!" Ange shouts.
"OH, YOU'RE NOT GETTING IT. THAT WAS ME TELLING YOU TO FUCK OFF OR I'M GONNA KILL YOU. YOU REMIND HIM OF SOMEONE HE USED TO KNOW, AND HE DOESN'T LIKE IT!" the Gundam Meister says, turning about to try and skewer Black 6 with a charge.
Ange dodges and takes a potshot at the support shuttle that's awkwardly hovering near the remaining sword-type. No dice, the swordsman just cut their rocket in half. "What are you talking about and WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING?!"
"YOU'RE LIKE ME! WHAT CYBER-NEWTYPE HELLHOLE BROKE YOUR BRAIN?"
"What are you talking about?"
"YOUR MIND'S FRACTURED! YOU'RE LIKE ME! LIKE HER! I CAN FEEL IT!"
"Holy shit dude, some people just have DID."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Eventually, the red-glowing Gundams make a clean getaway, and Ange is out of bullets.
They take a bit to cool down - they don't like switching in the cockpit, but given this debacle, it seems like the better call. "Oh dear. I'd hate to be on a team with that guy. Everyone alive?"
A chorus of yeses indicates that, if nothing else, the escape functions on the Dobermans and the new models are both working fine.
Celestial Being
Mobile Suits: 1 Gen 3+ Destroyed, 1 Gen 3+ needs rebuild, 1 Gen 3+ stolen and also needs rebuild
Global Defense Force
Mobile Suits: 1 Gen 3+ needs rebuild, 3 Gen 3 destroyed
AEU
Mobile Suits: 1 Gen 1 abandoned on an island in the confusion
Ali al-Saachez no longer available as a mercenary
Celestial Being splits into Ptolemaios Faction and Unknown Faction
Ptolemaios Faction unlocks technology "Trans-Am"
Special thanks to my irl friends with DID for a bit of sensitivity reading. Inasmuch as Ange or Hallelujah are affected by sensitivity reading.
It's cold underground, Koji thinks as he drapes a coat over Lisa's shoulders. They haven't started talking to her in earnest, yet, but she seems to understand Britannian Standard English and Japanese well for someone who was just...born? Manifested by Infinity? He shakes his head at the uncertainty; he's used to dealing with weird crap. "Sayaka, what's the latest scoop from Hayato's secret squirrels?" Koji asks his girlfriend. He was considering proposing to her once the Labs were back in operation, but this crap with Lando has postponed that. "Who's all coming to the party, so to speak?"
Sayaka quickly lists off the combatants on their side. "The UN Spacy, the Saotome folks, the Republic Defense Forces, the GDF, elements of the ESU's non-autonomous military..." She looks down at Lisa, who seems unperturbed by this all. For her part, Koji thinks, Sayaka is non-plussed.
"Uh-huh. We'll do fine, then. Dai Mazinger and New Great are only an iterative step, but they'll do their jobs. Unless Lando somehow brought back Dr. Hell himself, Tetsuya and I will be alright."
"I have no doubts you two will come out alive. Also, are you really calling it that?"
"What? New Great Mazinger? As good a name as any. Tetsuya said - and I quote - 'I don't care what you call it, bro, as long as it works'." Koji scratches the back of his head. He sighs. "Y'know, when this all started, I didn't expect we'd overturn the Britannians, much less institute the new world order."
"You're out of your depth, is what you're saying." Sayaka nods, as the med-techs put Lisa through a few basic scans behind them.
"Yeah, I sit in on the council meetings, but I'm no politician. We're building a better tomorrow, sure, but I feel woefully out of place."
10 January UC0087: Rubicon Research Institute, a private investigative science station on Deimos, begins detailed investigation of a newly discovered mineral within abandoned Permet mines on the Deimosian surface. Originally dubbed Permet Variant MT, the substance becomes informally known as "Coral" due to its polyp-like structure and reddish-pink hue.
17 March UC0087: RRI scientifically confirms the Coral's ability to consume and sequester energy to build more of itself. Director Nagai begins submitting scientific papers to classify Coral as the first known mineral-based life form, which also make incidental note of the potential of Coral as a self-replicating fuel and a potentially limitless source of Permet. These observations are noted by his sponsors in Mars's League of Ruling Companies and quietly diverted from mainstream scientific papers, lest they lose the opportunity to undercut their rivals in the Benerit Group.
2 May UC0087: Frustrated with the lack of attention to his discoveries, Director Nagai contacts General McGillis Fareed of the Martian Union directly, in his capacity as both a senior government official and major investor in the Helium-3 fuel trade. McGillis responded positively, making a state visit to Deimos the following day.
1900Z, 3 May UC0087: After concluding his official state visit, General Fareed is contacted by a person claiming to be a remnant of the defunct far-right Martian independence faction BAHRAM. Upon investigating, he finds that the RRI Coral investigation zone has been infiltrated with autonomous weapons presumed to be of BAHRAM origin, and also that the Coral is rapidly multiplying and expanding as it sequesters energy from an unknown source.
2023Z, 3 May UC0087: The Fires of Ibis. Stray fire from the battle between Fareed's "Ibis" Armored Core squad and BAHRAM-associated autonomous weapons ignites Coral in the area, causing a cascading plasmic detonation that spreads throughout the connected Coral substance, reaching temperatures in excess of 4000 Kelvin and expanding so rapidly that the moon of Deimos itself is destroyed in a massive explosion, wiping out the Rubicon Research Institute, the BAHRAM remnants, half of Fareed's accompanying forces, and dozens of unrelated research and mining communities on the small moon in a matter of seconds. The General himself had returned to his command ship by this time, which was heavily damaged but not destroyed by debris.
3-8 May UC0087: Remnants of Deimos blast outward into Martian orbit and toward the Martian surface, raining destruction down on the planet's equatorial region with both solid moonrock and burning Coral, causing untold destruction to equatorial settlements and blasting the planet with the volatile new mineral. President Kudelia Aina Bernstein declares a planetwide state of emergency and a lockdown of all non-emergency orbital traffic, which League of Ruling Companies members ignore with varying degrees of subtlety as they begin attempting immediate salvage efforts on the Coral samples now propagating in the orbital debris field, the equatorial surface, and even in hard vacuum expanding outward away from Mars.
9 May UC0087: A police interdiction by Martian Union military forces and mercenaries employed by Arquebus escalates into the death of several Martian soldiers and an announcement of sanctions against Arquebus by the Bernstein government, which are immediately contested as unconstitutional by the League of Ruling Companies.
10 May UC0087: The Bernstein government declares the LRC in contravention of Martian law and terminates their special economic privileges on the planet. The Martian Union government remains divided on how, or if, to actually enforce the President's executive order.
After the Fires of Ibis incident, the previously comparitively sedate planet of Mars finds itself in both a physical and governmental crisis. Debris from Deimos continues to rain down on the planet. Coral continues to expand even as isolated pockets of it catch fire and become brief, small suns that purge life from where it touches. Corporations vie with each other to snag an advantage in this mysterious new metamaterial, while the civilian government and military attempt to halt the disaster that the latter inadvertanly sparked. Lines are quickly being drawn as Mars's glut of mercenaries and militias declare for various employers, and Mars spirals toward open civil war.
Martian Union
Mobile Suits: 16 Gen 1, 8 Gen 2+ Destroyed
The Martian Union has split into two factions, with the following effects:
League of Ruling Companies @Spktr Alpha
NGO
Independent
Headquarters: Decentralized
Territories: Mars (disputed), Deimos
Description: [TBA]
Special Trait: League of Ruling Companies. The League of Ruling Companies, a semi-cooperative trust of major corporations, holds significant power on Mars and extends influence all the way back to Earth and Jupiter. Luna-based Anaheim Electronics, the Jovian-based Teiwaz, and the 'Martian Three' comprised of Balena, Emeraude, and Zio Matrix are all a part of this league. Their falling-out with the Martian government aside, they still remain an economic hegemon of the solar system.
Technology
Conventional Weapons: 2
Mobile Weapons: 2
Super Robots: 3
Warships: 2
Cyber-enhancement, Psycommu
Units
Mechanized Companies: 8 Gen 1, 7 Gen 2
Aircraft Wings: None
Mobile Suits: 40 Gen 1+, 73 Gen 2+
Mobile Armors: 8 Gen 1
Super Robots: 1 Gen 1, 1 Gen 2
Cruisers: 12 Gen 1+
Battleships: 2 Gen 1
Special Units: None
Chryse Government
NPC
Nation-State
Independent
Capital: Chryse (Mars)
Territories: Mars (disputed), Deimos
Description: [TBA]
Special Trait: Maiden of Revolution. With the fracturing of the uneasy alliance between the LRC and the Martian government, those forces loyal to the latter have quickly fallen back onto their strengths of rhetoric and propaganda from the days of the independence movement, centering Kudelia Aina Bernstein as a figurehead. As long as she remains President, the Chryse Government will be considered the legitimate government of Mars by NPC factions, and the Chryse Government has a bonus to increasing Reserves and Unity on Mars.
Technology
Conventional Weapons: 2
Mobile Weapons: 2
Super Robots: 3
Warships: 2
Cyber-enhancement, Psycommu
Units
Mechanized Companies: 23 Gen 1, 1 Gen 2
Aircraft Wings: None
Mobile Suits: 40 Gen 1, 20 Gen 1+, 21 Gen 2+
Mobile Armors: 5 Gen 1
Super Robots: None
Cruisers: 28 Gen 1
Battleships: 6 Gen 1
Special Units: None
The Mars Sphere is now home to Coral, an extremely valuable metamaterial that has all the effects of Permet, but is also highly energetic and self-propagating, "growing" the best in vacuum in the presence of uninhibited solar radiation. Combat in the Mars sphere may or may not include highly volatile Coral structures now.
Chaos on Earth increases as Martian reconstruction loans are undercut.
On behalf of Arquebus, we offer our sincere condolences to the victims of the Deimos Incident. While the LRC and Bernstein administration resolves their differences we of Arquebus are committed to cleaning up Deimos debris and restoring any-and-all Arquebus and Schneider-based infrastructure as soon as physically possible. The overzealous aggression displayed by Martian Union police notwithstanding, we are dedicated to ensuring Mars endures as it has been since the Union's founding.
- Signed V.II Snail
Joint Statement of the Martian Three on the Fires of Ibis
While we understand Chyrse's stance. Emeraude, Zio Matrix, and Balena are in joint agreement that the Bernstein Administration has grossly overreached with the powers entrusted to them by the Martian Union Constitution. We hereby declare a freeze on any and all agreements we have with the Martian Union until this situation is resolved.
We ask that the ESU (@Nerdorama ) mediate as a neutral party.
Second, we shall still honor the contracts with The UN Spacy (@theguynamedwafer) , The GDF (@Shade31415 ), and NISAR (@Sara). The defense of humanity is one of our highest interests.
-Signed The Board of Directors of Emeraude, Zio Matrix, and Balena
Balam Industries Statement on the Fires of Ibis
If anyone asks if Balam or the Redguns are involved in this Charlie Foxtrot? Bullshit. Arquebus has the classic Britannia stick-up-the-ass like every Peacock that sucked Charle's dick. We Red Guns got STANDARDS. Balam isn't going to look for a fight. But we'll finish it. Let the LRC and the 'Chocolate Man' know they are on Balam's shitlist! Fix your malfunction or I will fix it for you!
Mika! If your reading this let Orga know he better put a bullet between Snail's eyes before I wring that smug shit eater's neck. Me and Gun-13 will make sure that Mars isn't MORE FUBAR before you get your manlet be-hind back here! Gun-1 Michigan out!
Among AC Pilots it was common for them to go by callsigns. Even off duty.
None knew where the practice came from, only that since the days of the Chromehounds, the nascent modular Mobile Armors that preceded both MTs, ACs, and Mobile Suits AC pilots went for them over their actual given names.
Perhaps it was to hide their identities at first. Maybe the first of their subculture of subculture saw it as a means to differentiate themselves from the rest of the military community. Especially when Mobile Suits became the face of modern warfare.
Regardless Michigan was Michigan. Rusty went by Rusty, and Nightfall returned to Nightfall once 621 claimed the title of THE Raven and became his favorite Gun-13. Even Walter. It wasn't his real name.
They gathered in the middle of the open desert. No man's land claimed by neither the LRC, Chryse, or any commune or warlord for that matter. This meeting was set up by a third party. The party that both the corporations and the MU government forgot to consider: The Martian Frontier. Far from Chryse and the 'old colony' were dozens of people who sought life away from the rest of human civilization ... or had a society of their own.
Guarding one side was a Martian-Coordinator Militia. Twenty Battlemech-type Destroids from the twenty founding Clans. Among the most prominent being an Archer of Clan Wolf whose Spartan-derived Archer mech had it's missile batteries opened and already locked onto every AC ... just in case.
On the other side those from the nascent Marsphere. The Vagans who controlled the handful of Space Colonies orbiting Mars' Lagrange Points ... and a Bisidian Captain, a nomadic trader/privateer employed to both protect Martian space and merchants as well as being a deniable pirate willing to make non-martian problems 'disappear'.
G1 brought himself, as the face of both the Red Guns and Balam Industries. Like the others, Liger Tail was fully fit and armed. The man who burned down half a Zeon base to prove a point, and the other half just for fun, liked to claim he was the deadliest man on Mars but his company gave a run for his money.
Rusty's new AC, Steel Haze Ortus wasn't made by Arquebus. But another company entirely.
"You joined Elcano when I wasn't looking Rusty?" Michigan questioned the Vesper. While Steel Haze had a bestial mix of bird of prey and wolf Ortus was more humanoid, more refined.
"Many have." the former 4th Vesper Squad commander answered, "The Corporations were given slack, but they went too far."
"Not all of them," Walter spoke in turn, for once in an AC of his own rather than in his command station, "But Balam and Elcano are the exception rather than the rule."
Reading the Handler's movements, the HAL 826 he piloted shifted. It was one of the few Coral-based ACs made by the research institute and like the Gund-Arm banned by Benerit it was as powerful as it was rare.
"They are our employers as much as they are my customers." Walter spoke, "Before Deimos I spoke with General McGillis about ways to reign in the Corporations before their short-sightedness kills us all."
"You don't need to ask 'Chocolate Man' to say the obvious." Michigan huffed.
"And I'm stating this for weight." Walter replied, "Mars is burning and the LRC is playing for keeps."
"They expect us to go along with them." Rusty spoke, "We aren't drones. Not even Buddy or your other Hounds."
"Then as their enforcers, we need to remind them. Collectively."
"Ballsy." Michigan mumbled, "I like it! For once the Commies got something right for once!"
There were others besides the Vesper, the Red Gun, or the leader of The Hounds. Michigan himself warily glancing at Leos Klein. If there was any man he knew who chose strict order and control it was him. He was a monster in his 'Annihlator' AC.
This whole time he stood and listened. He didn't even power up his weapons. Barehanded he had slaughtered MS teams.
"AMC?" Walter spoke, "As good a name as any. Commander Galette, Captain Asuno, Colonel Wolfe. None of you are mercenaries and I understand this meeting was arranged by you as a neutral party ... but I am asking for your support."
Battlemechs and Mobile Suits became alive with comms chatter.
"....Aff." The Archer's pilot spoke, "The Clans will honor it."
"As do the Vagan and the Bisidian." the lead red Vagan Mobile Suit spoke, "A war is inevitable."
"It always was."
A third voice, Leo Klein's, finally spoke.
"Anyone can give up his fight by laying down arms. But the feeling of holding a gun—that, we do not forget. Like lost limbs, The sensation lingers. We hold our rifles in missing hands. We stand tall on missing legs. We stride forward on the bones of our fallen. Then, and only then, are we alive. This "pain" is ours, and no one else's.
Deimos changes nothing. Chryse. The Corporations. None of it changes.
...War, war never changes. Mankind needs to remember that."
He raised his laser blade into the air. He needn't speak more. One after another independent mercenaries to whole mercenary bands raised their beams sabers. If didn't have beam sabers then it was their physical blades or guns. If not it was the clenched armored fist of giants raised up into the sky in both defiance and in solidarity.
Lynn Minmay slaps her own cheeks to get herself to focus.
The UN Spacey had...suggested that she perform in a territory discontent with the formation of the ESU.
Everyone present in that meeting-the UN Spacey officer, Lynn Kaifun, and Minmay herself-knew that it was part of the Spacey's propaganda campaign to try and get people to accept the new ESU, or at least not rage against it.
But who was Minmay to refuse? Humanity could scarcely afford to be divided at a time like this, and if her song could get the 118th Zentraedi fleet on her side, she could surely soothe the nerves of those discontent with global politics.
Kaifun pokes his head into her changing room after knocking.
"It's almost time. Are you ready?" Kaifun asks.
"Yes. I'll be out in a moment." Minmay says.
Kaifun nods before exiting. Minmay's thoughts stray toward Hikaru Ichijou, her dear boyfriend, and Misa Hayase, her...rival for Hikaru's affections. He had not yet decided on whether he was going to assist Photon Power Labs with what she had been told was going to be a massive assault from Dr. Lando's Metal Beasts, or to assist with peacekeeping operations on the Coral-scorched Mars. Minmay's money is on Hikaru picking the former-ever since being press-ganged into Skull Squadron, he had always sought to make the biggest impact for the right reasons.
Minmay utters a silent prayer for Hikaru's safety before standing up and walking out to the stage.
The lights come on and the crowd cheers.
"Hello, people of Cape Town!" Minmay says as she waves.
She does not bother with empty pleas or politically charged statements; she simply sings.
Schneizel El Britannia prides himself on keeping an aloof, carefree demeanor at almost all times. The quiet serpent ready to strike the enemies of Britannia, or ready to give just the right words to just the right people to ensure the Empire's continued brilliance. His sardonic air is something he puts on like a mask every morning and hardly bothers taking off to sleep.
Sometimes, however, the situation calls for a slightly different mask. One with a thin slit in it to let loose just a tiny fragment of the glaring, sun-hot boiling rage that has animated him since mid-March. One that he's now wearing to deal with someone who needs perhaps a bit more motivation than she had been showing.
Frankly, he's surprised at her when he enters the control room of the FLEIJA development site. She still looks the part of the disheveled mad scientist, still looks the part of a vessel for her own rage for vengeance that had led her to look to him for sponsorship. Still, when she looks up to meet his eyes from behind those ridiculous old-fashioned glasses of hers, he doesn't see anger, nor the fear or respect she should rightly be according him. He sees the worst thing he could possibly see in the most innately talented weapons developer in Britannian history.
Regret.
"Miss Einstein," Schneizel says, and notes the girl's flinch. "I eagerly await reports of a successful spate of research."
"Ah, y-yes, your highness," Nina Einstein replies, eyes and hands flying to a nearby touchscreen. "We've got an 8% improvement in increasing the speed of the Sakuradite-Uranium hybridization process, with good results indicating a potential further--"
"Eight. Percent."
Schneizel does not rage, he does not threaten, he does not get violent. Such inefficient passions are reserved for his lessers, or barbarians like his late father. He simply drops single words with the weight and precision of a Continental guillotine, with nearly the same effect on Nina's disposition, if not her actual neck.
"That's...there's...we're working--"
"I took you on for two simple reasons, Nina," Schneizel says, walking over to her. He'd draw himself up to his full height if his posture wasn't already perfect. "One is that you're a genius who, nearly in her spare time, solved a problem that even other, more established geniuses had bashed their heads against without success since the invention of the N-Jammer. Two is that you were as righteously concerned with punishing enemies of the empire as I was. Is. There. A problem?"
She doesn't meet his eyes. Of course she doesn't. "...I love the Empire. I do. But after OMNI got a hold of the prototypes...how many people died?"
"IT'S A STRATEGIC WEAPON YOU--" he's yelling, that's unacceptable, claw it in, claw it in. "That is, it's regrettable that the initial production run was seized by terrorists, but I fail to see why you're concerned with their efficacy. It's not like they even attacked civilians - if anything, I'd call their assault rather measured compared to their overall rhetoric."
"They were also going to bomb Tokyo, though, until--"
"And? You made it very clear you hated Elevens even before Zero's merry little coterie killed my beloved sister."
"Milly still lives there! And Shirley! And everyone from school! And Zero's really--"
"My brother and your 'friend' Lelouch, a charlatan who abused the trust of both sides of a colonial conflict to make a play for a truly laughable claim to Emperorship," Schneizel snaps. "He's not some school boy acquaintance of yours, Nina, he's a terrorist mastermind who's tearing down Britannia and the Earth Federation to feed some petty grudge he nursed with Father. And, once again, literally, provably, and on-camera murdered Euphemia Li Britannia!"
Schneizel takes a deep breath. "Perhaps I should have sent Cornelia to discuss this with you. You and she could compare memorabilia collections."
Nina blanches, and looks at the floor, sufficiently shamed that Schneizel believes she'll do better now.
"...there's something else," Nina says. "Professor--the Eleven asset, I mean. He's been behaving erratically for the last week."
Schneizel nods at that, finally at least having a problem he thinks he knows the source of. "Whatever Father did to scramble that man's brain has been erratic since the start. I'll pull up some of the research Guilford brought back from China and see what we can do."
"I...don't think it's that," Nina admits. "There was some kind of catalyst, there had to have been."
Schneizel shrugs, and turns on his heel. "Well, he won't be your problem much longer, Miss Einstein. Another interested party will be taking him off our hands, given that he hasn't contributed anything useful to the FLEIJA project since his initial debriefing. I'll be taking your 8% production improvement with me. See to it you have something better for me by the end of the month if you don't want to find yourself in an unexpected transfer north."
Schneizel could feel her staring at his back with fear as he swept out of the room. Good. It's better to be loved than feared, but he'll take what he can get.
The Panama Canal Zone is one of the greatest choke points remaining in the Earth Sphere, with the medieval canal itself forming a lynchpin for Earth's still extensive ocean-going traffic passing between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and the much more recent orbital mass driver functioning as a vital link between the Britannian industrial economy and space. It is one of the most economically vital places on the surface of the Earth, despite a complete lack of locally produced resources, and consequently one of the most militarily significant - every military in the solar system from the AEU to PLANT to the Martian Union has contingencies for attacking it, and the Britannian Empire has a case on file for defending it from any of them.
Today, Lelouch vi Britannia will try his hand.
It starts in the early hours of the morning, with a suborbital bomber flying over the central Britannian garrison in Panama. Not just any bomber, rather, but a rebuilt copy of the Stilva β that had given the Japanese independence movement so much trouble. Perhaps more surprising is that its pilot remains the same, the ur-Purist Bird Knight, Schwarz Kopf, having defected to Lelouch's faction after some thorough persuasion by the former victims of his ire (and the chance to plead out of a number of accessory charges in Japanese criminal courts). Schwarz now fights to put his homeland in the hands of a more ecumenical ruler, but he is not yet killing his former comrades on this first run - rather, the Stilva drops a huge number of Gefun Disturber munitions toward the Panama Mass Driver garrison. Only a fraction makeit through the anti-aircraft fire, but it's enough to disrupt communications and long-range LADAR, which is all the Black Faction needs to begin phase two of its plan.
Next comes the main initial strike, submersible cruisers surfacing to launch airborne Knightmare Frame forces from both the eastern and western oceans, bypassing White Faction control of the northern Andes to catch the mass driver in a pincer attack, with forces led by Suzaku Kururugi in the east and Jeremiah in the west. Despite the communications jamming, the Panamanian garrison responds with trained precision, this relatively simple maneuver easily countered by constant drill and static defenses, which is why Princess Cornelia, immediately responding to this attack from her temporary headquarters in Cartagena, is certain that there's another layer to the trick.
She's proven right when, as soon as her Avalon-class command ship reaches the combat theater and begins deploying amphibious KMFs to intercept Lelouch's submarines, incoming orbital drops are detected: the Black Faction's half-dozen space capable warships, coming in hot from directly above to envelop Cornelia's forces vertically. Cursing Schneizel's intelligence apparatus for missing their move to orbit, Cornelia pivots - she knows for a fact that even if the Black Faction's flagship is still squirreled away in drydock from their last battle, Lelouch wasn't one to leave himself out of his strategic chicanery, and he's almost certainly part of the orbital drop group. She's proven right when the forces meet in a fierce aerial knife fight, and she fights herself, the Knight of Nine, and a full squadron of Vincents engaging Lelouch's Mirage in the chaotic brawl.
"Lelouch! This ends here, one way or another!" Cornelia broadcasts. "No more of your childish games!"
"Big brother's going to be mad that you called chess childish," Lelouch replies, taunting.
"He called me off too soon last time! How dare you act like you have the moral high ground? How many have you killed to put madmen in power in the Earth Sphere? How many of our family?"
"You think our family doesn't deserve it?" Lelouch asks, even as Cornelia wraps her Vincent Commander around the barrage of fire from his KMF. "...well, some don't. Nunally doesn't. Euphemia probably didn't. There are plenty of our other brothers and sisters who are innocent, too. But you?"
A clash of MVS to slash harken.
"Me? Father?"
Cornelia dodges a point-blank hadron shot.
"Schneizel? Even Marybell, let's be even-handed here."
Cornelia's close enough to press a blade to the Mirage's barrier system, beginning to cut through it.
"How can you say any of us shouldn't be willing to die, when we're so willing to kill?"
Cornelia, a true soldier, doesn't hesitate in the face of battlefield banter. It doesn't matter, though, Lelouch was just being dramatic and, more importantly, holding her Vincent Commander in place long enough for the Guren SEITEN to smash into it from the flank and immediately start cooking it with the Radiation Wave Unit to disable any attempt by Cornelia to escape.
"Cutting it kinda close, aren't you, Q-1?" Lelouch asks.
"You realize I had to shoot down Guilford first, right? That guy does not know--."
Gilbert G.P. Guilford, flying about 3/4 of a Knightmare Frame, interrupts communications by tackling the Guren, and the situation devolves further into a three-dimensional aerial brawl.
The overall battle is generally inconclusive as White Faction reinforcements pour in to outmatch the Black Faction's numbers, but it becomes rapidly clear that that doesn't matter to the real objective of the fight, and the Caribbean end of the Canal Zone turns into a positive furball of people trying to respectively capture or rescue Cornelia or Lelouch, depending on which side they're on. The initial ambush by the Guren SEITEN eventually proves decisive, though, as Cornelia's KMF loses enough flight capacity that a slash harken fling is enough to smash it onto the deck of a Black Faction battleship. Not that that stops her from getting out of the cockpit only to immediately start taking potshots with a sidearm, Guilford eventually landing on the selfsame deck to cover her, which in turn turns into an Area 3 Standoff between the Princess's knight and Lelouch's KMF.
"Stand down, Guilford," Lelouch commands. "I can blast you and Cornelia to atoms from here, and I know that's the last thing you want."
"Gilbert, if it seems like he's going to capture me, kill me yourself!"
"I'm not going to do either of those things, I hope your highnesses understand."
"Honestly," snide crackling comes over the comms, "you should probably do something quickly, Mr. Guilford. Say, in the next 30 seconds."
"Schneizel," Lelouch growls. "You're late."
"I anticipated a trap, albeit perhaps not soon enough to save my dear sister," the White Prince says. "More to the point, I'm going to grant both you and her your respective wishes of martyrdom in T-minus 21 unless you surrender immediately."
"The Avalon is approaching from the north," C.C. reports quietly to Lelouch inside the Mirage's cockpit. "He'll be in range for a long-range torpedo shot in the time frame he's given us."
"...you brought FLEIJA, didn't you?" Lelouch asks his brother.
"Surely you didn't think I'd ever allow all of the warheads to be stolen," Schneizel points out. "Not when you're so fond of putting yourself and so many of your troops in the same basket. My gunnery officers assure me we can angle this shot just right to avert most of the damage to the mass driver and canal, while still ending your little rebellion. And you. And, unfortunately, a few of my more LOYAL household members, but that's the price we pay for peace."
"You're insane, Schneizel!" is what Lelouch wants to say, but Guilford beats him to it by half a second, and much louder at that.
"Lelouch vi Britannia is a septic wound in the fabric of peace on this planet," Schneizel replies, almost spitting in spite of himself. "FLEIJA will not only cauterize it, but show his co-conspirators in Dakar that Britannia will not take being dismantled lying down. It's a new surgical tool for a new age, and as much as it pains me to admit, it's our nation's only hope to continue existing."
"Stop being a smug prick and admit you used me as bait!" Cornelia chimes in. "You'd better just fire now, because if I survive this day I'm going to fillet you!"
"Didn't you go out there saying you'd die or Lelouch would? Not my fault you didn't specify that was exclusive," Schneizel sniffs.
"Last chance, Lulu. Order an immediate surrender, or everyone within a precisely 750 meter radius of you is vapor."
Lelouch vi Britannia is a larger than life personality. One that contains multitudes. One of the things he is notably lacking is a self-preservation instinct, which is why his first instinct is to tell Schneizel where he can stick his warhead and to spend the probable last ten seconds of his life figuring out some way to manipulate his way out of nuclear hellfire, and if it doesn't work, he tried.
However...he looks at the ship he's standing on, full of comrades that believed the insane promises of Zero. He looks at Kallen and Jeremiah, both hanging nearby waiting on his word, too loyal to even start fleeing. He looks at Cornelia, and at Guilford's KMF, both glaring defiantly at him. He looks at C.C......okay she'd technically probably be okay, but it's the principle of the thing. At the end of the day, the best thing a player can do is recognize when it's time to challenge his opponent's gambit, or simply let him have it.
"I...surrender. All forces stand down. Case Indigo," Lelouch says, indicating to everyone that they should retreat if able, or otherwise lay down arms. With luck, he thinks, most of Suzaku's group should escape, and leave themselves to Marybell's overall command. Or do something stupid. But hopefully, not right this second.
Shocked voices come from everyone on the Black Faction side of the field, but no one is willing to defy even an order they never expected. Schneizel, for his part, takes a shocked moment before he replies.
"...yes. Very good. You've finally seen reason, little brother! Hahaha...no tricky dead man's switches, now. We can finally settle this like gentlemen..."
Britannian White Faction
Mechanized Companies: 2 Gen 1, 2 Gen 2 Destroyed
Aircraft Wings: 2 Gen 2 Destroyed
Mobile Suits: 23 Gen 1, 6 Gen 2, 6 Gen 3 Destroyed
Cruisers: 5 Gen 1 Surface, 2 Gen 2 Destroyed
Battleships: 3 Gen 1 Surface Destroyed
Britannian Black Faction
Mobile Suits: 10 Gen 1, 8 Gen 2 Destroyed, 12 Gen 2, 3 Gen 3+ Captured
Cruisers: 4 Gen 2 Captured
Battleships: 2 Gen 2 Captured
Lelouch vi Britannia, C.C., Kallen Kozuki-Stadtfeld, Jeremiah Gottwald captured
Overall command remanded to Marybell mel Britannia
Due to the catastrophic losses seen in the opening week of the One Year War, the Principality of Zeon and the Earth Federation negotiated and signed the Antarctic Treaty, which banned the use of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction, as well as the deliberate use of colonies as kinetic impact weapons. It is clear today that these terms were too narrowly defined, as leading Federation member state the Empire of Britannia developed and allowed the proliferation of "FLEIJA" warheads, explosive devices of comparable payload to nuclear bombs.
Neo-Zeon condemns without qualification this effort to skirt the Antarctic Treaty, and all who use FLEIJA warheads. Neo-Zeon pledges to consider FLEIJA warheads to be covered by the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty as a banned armament, and will not develop, construct, or utilize FLEIJA warheads. It furthermore calls on all civilized nations to do likewise.
If however the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction continues, then Neo-Zeon will unfortunately be forced to reconsidered its commitment to the Antarctic Treaty.
"FLEIJA is an abomination against our Precious Green Earth. Those who fight on for a better settlement to reform the Earth Sphere Union should consider if their efforts to preserve what they hold dear would be better spent in our organization committed to the salvation of the planet...FLEIJA is an abomination against our Precious Gre..."
Lady Auden Dominica was adjusting...adequately to the transfer of the primary Gaian civilian headquarters from the ecological zone in the AEU to Brazil. A branch office remained in the old building but it was mainly a mailing address manned by college students at this point. Egypt would have been more in the style she was accustomed to as well but the evacuation was proceeding apace; despite gaining anything in exchange from the Earth Sphere Union the Circle was committed to its pivot to supporting national governments to gain sovereignty within the ESU rather than directly governing territory.
Her closest friend and confidant, the Gaian Warden commander Emilio Marindar, was ironically with her in his homeland South America but instead calling in from Australia, where outback ecological rehabilitation continued apace. "You can still see the scars of Operation British in Sidney, and I don't have to tell you what the old Federation Jaburo Complex looks like these days. The Zeeks are making threats we can't ignore."
Dominica sighed, something she was doing a lot these days. "We can't afford to encourage hardliners to stay with groups like Blue Cosmos. Those are dead ends. We have to approach the Neo-Zeon declaration not as a threat but as an invitation...to work together on non-proliferation and a renewed commitment to the Antarctic Treaty."
Marindar chuckled. "I'm no diplomat and I know for a fact you hate spacenoids and only pretend to hate Britannia the way I do. Just who is going to do these negotiations?"
"Dispatch Trunicht. On the plus side, if they hold him hostage it won't be any great loss."
