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UNIVEEEEERSE!!! (-al Gundam idea and discussion thread)

amitakartok said:
A plot bunny that came to me just now.

Amuro fails to stop Axis.

With the Earth devastated and plunged into mass famine, the Federation collapses practically overnight and the Sides descend into cutthroat infighting over filling in the power vacuum. EFSF remnants wanting to restore order, Neo-Zeon remnants wanting to restore the Principality, Neo-Zeon remnants wanting to carry on Char's legacy, Neo-Zeon remnants wanting to carry on Zeon Deikun's legacy, independents wanting nothing to do with the above, third parties fostering the conflict for their own ends (hello, Anaheim)... it's a gigantic clusterfuck of anarchy and backstabbing that reduces the Earth Sphere into rubble. When the dust settles, the few still intact colonies decide there's nothing left worth fighting over and fly off to Jupiter.

Thing is, the Jovians watched the whole thing go down and concluded that the Earthers are all crazed warmongers who bring nothing but ruin. To that end, those colonies that made it to Jupiter were summarily gassed and the Jovian leadership declared the Exclusion Doctrine: any and all direct or indirect contact with Earth is forbidden on pain of death. Any radio signals from an Earth Sphere source are to receive no response and any vessel that tries to cross into the asteroid belt is to be intercepted and destroyed without warning. For all intents and purposes, the inner Solar System is placed under quarantine.

Fast-forward 300 years, Cosmic Era. The Earth Sphere have mostly recovered, albeit with great difficulty - partly due to the Jovians' treatment of them. Predictably, there's no small amount of resentment Earthers have towards Jovians, along with paranoia of what those crazed spacenoids have been up to for the past centuries. This paranoia is what resulted in the creation of the Coordinators this time around, with some scientists having dug up historical records about Cyber-Newtypes and decided to perfect the process as a trump card against a possible Jovian invasion. Of course, Blue Cosmos stirred shit up because they have a particular hatred towards enhanced humans of any kind due to the fact that the Collapse was caused by one.

With no access to Jupiter, the Earth Sphere has limited helium-3 available, hence the decline in fusion reactors and beam weapons. And as soon as the war began, one of the first things ZAFT did was to start excavations in Von Braun and Granada. You see, after Anaheim tried to manipulate the Collapse to their own ends one too many times, a pissed third party nuked their headquarters and bombed all their branch facilities - but historical records retained their locations. ZAFT's excavation efforts are after whatever lost technology that could lie buried beneath the rubble and OMNI know that too, so the Moon basically got turned into a WWI battleground in space as the two sides are continuously trying to dislodge each other.

With the Earth being threatened from space once more, OMNI decide to take a final step of desperation and resurrect an old legend. A legend that already protected Earth once before.

Gundam.
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Ok, that just brought a new meaning to SEED AU. With influence from the Post-Disaster Era to boot.
 
The problem I see is that there's very little Neo-Zeon left by then. Londo Bell killed most of them, and the EFSF as a whole actually hasn't been committed to the fight.

The real problem with Char's plan is that if it works, spacenoids are going to get oppressed harder than ever before to make room for the population of a dying planet.
 
Been working on that 16-year-old Apolly vs. 16-year-old Emma at Solomon idea a bit. Apolly's side of things.

A Ball was not supposed to be a match for a Zaku.

Apolly Bay cursed and hit his thrusters, dodging away from the mobile pod that had killed the two Rick Doms he'd hooked up with when everything had predictably gone to shit. The Feddie was alone, the only survivor of a flight of six Balls that had defended the Salamis they'd targeted. Russ, in the first Rick Dom, had killed four of the other Balls in the escort but had been blindsided by the Feddie mobile pod an instant after the last kill. A single round into Russ' back armor blew his suit to shreds. Apolly had managed to get a single kill himself before he'd seen Tan, in the second Rick Dom, die. Tan had been just been coming off his successful run at the Salamis, moving fast, but in a straight line to give the cruiser's turrets the highest-speed crossing target. The Ball had decided to hitch a ride and grab Tan's suit. The former work pod's arms were deceptively skinny; maneuvering heavy ship and colony components in zero-gee didn't need much raw strength, but it did need a lot of mechanical toughness and a grip that was capable of crushing mobile suit components. One pincer had crushed and then pulled off Tan's Rick Dom's weapon arm with no more difficulty than a child pulling wings off a butterfly, the other had crushed the Rick Dom's head. The Ball had then dispatched the crippled Zeon suit with a single, almost contemptuous, round into its cockpit.

Mid-dodge, a whang left Apolly momentarily stunned as the Ball skidded a shell across the bottom of his Zaku-F2's right foot. Freezing saved his life, as if he'd had the presence of mind to fight the imparted motion from the grazing hit and hold his course the next round would have been a center-cockpit shot. Instead it passed between his Zaku's right arm and body.

If he tried to extend, accelerate in one direction long enough to use his superior speed to escape, he'd have to limit his options for evasion. And his opponent was clearly a good enough gunner to kill him if he did that. Moving in for close combat...while he wouldn't be surprised like Tan was, the Ball seemed smooth and coordinated, moreso than he could pry out of his Zaku with what experience he had. His attempts to kill it with his own 120mm autocannon had shown that whatever the Ball lacked in terms of speed and agility its pilot made up for in being faster and smarter than Apolly was. That particular lesson had also cost him his shoulder shield and his heat hawk as a 180mm SAP round skimmed up the side of the Zaku-F2, tearing the heat hawk loose, passing up between arm and shield and detonating against the inside of the shield. Dogfighting wasn't working out too well either.

This Fed was going to kill him. It wasn't a conscious thought, but a growing awareness that nothing he was doing was working, that the terms of this fight were being dictated to him by his opponent, that he couldn't seem to find a way to escape much less win. The growing terror as the subconscious belief he was a dead man pressed closer to his thoughts affected his flying, jerkier and less coordinated. That only made the Fed seem smoother and more masterful in comparison, forming a reinforcing loop.
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Continuing on my 'Venusian IOST in SEED' bit...

(__________________________________________________________________________________________________)

[play track Modern Warfare 3: Russian Deliberations]
Venus City, Venus; May 11th, CE 0070​

The floor was the busiest that the Venusian Congress had in decades. The senators, representatives, and the heads and heirs of the political families have gathered into the grand antechamber of the building. Few could remember a time when all of these important politicians and influential persons were all in one spot. Fewer still could remember a time where war was even a possibility. A rise in tensions? Yeah that happened many times before after the Sovereign Colonies broke away... but war was a distant memory for the few who remembered it.

Let alone the collective -almost genetic- memory that the political families have.

The holo-consoles glowed with information and AI-based advise as the myriad of factions talked to those within and without. The sudden declaration of war and the surprise attack on Tehran yesterday had caused ripples within the halls of power within the vastly reduced Terran Republic. While the Sovereign Colonies weren't around (many of the politicians and the entirety of the political families thanked whatever deity they worshiped for that bit of relief), the suddenness and the shear brutality that the Earth Alliance was willing to do was almost as bad.

"ORDER! ORDER!" the Officer of Congress yelled as she banged the gravel, "I SAID ORDER OR I'LL HOLD YOU IN CONTEMPT!" Everyone stopped talking after that. "Now, the 1st Emergency Combined Session of the Terran Republic Congress is now in progress. Giving the floor to Gerhard Adolf Neumann. patriarch of the Neumann Family."

"Thank you Officer," The elderly man -some 124 years old- politely excused as he began, "Today is the third time in less than a month that an emergency session and the first time since our arrival that an emergency combined session has been called. While I want to enjoy life with my grandchildren, it is my duty to tell all who are here today and those listening at home that the worst has come to pass: the Earth Alliance has declared war on the Terran Republic for not only siding the 'Coordinator abominations', but also being 'unpure abominations' ourselves." Gasps and groans were heard across the antechamber in various intensities.

An elderly woman pressed a button on her screen, asking for her voice to be heard. "Ma'dam Windsor, is there something of note you wish to be put onto the floor?" the Officer asked.

"Sir Neumann," Victoria Windsor began, "Ambassador George Allster was a rather effective gentleman diplomat all things considering... why did the Earth Alliance change it's tone that much?" Anyone who met the man silently asked the same question. It was Mr. Allster's incredible charm and incredibly effective diplomacy that the families of several notable moderates -including his own- were relocated on Venus and it's orbital colonies. It was his hopes that things would not escalate into war.

"The decoration of war wasn't given to me by Mr. Allster. From what Mr. Allster told me when I was leaving that they went against his recommendations as Vice Foreign Minister... and that the entire thing was set up by one man going by the name of Azrael," Gerhard explained, "He also told me that over the last month, the political party connected to the group Blue COSMOS has gained many positions of power." If the groaning was bad before, this new wave of groaning was unbearable.

That was when one of the representatives called for his voice to be heard.

"Representative George Yamamoto, what do you want to add?" the Officer asked.

"We all know the our history about this sort of ideology," George started off, "It took the ancestors of the Seven Families decades to rid humanity of such ideologies even though it ended with mountains of bodies on both sides." Everyone nodded sagely as the remember the history of the Republic. The Neumann, Windsor, Fitzgerald, Yamamoto, Smirnoff, Richardson, and Bismark families were direct descendants of the men and women who more or less led the forces that dragged humanity out of it's darkest hour. "Now we are seeing the same thing happen yet again... and given that history tells us that the only way for this to end is the complete and utter destruction of anyone who holds the ideology that Blue COSMOS spouts. A campaign that would likely last decades." Everyone shivered at the timescale. While the average citizen can live up to about 125 years, something that would take the better part of two or three generations in the Pre-Republic sense would be as tedious as it would be bloody.

The debate on how through the war would be went on for hours... before President Santiago interrupted the meeting with news of the Earth Alliance trying to destroy one of the L2 colonies in Earth Sector with multi-megaton ordinance. While vengeance burned in their veins, they kept their calm before agreeing on total war...

The more pacifistic senators and representatives were saddened... so much blood is going to be shed that it will fill oceans... and it was the Earth Alliance's own idiotic blood lust that pushed the Republic over the edge. If they want a war to the knife, then they will get one...
 
A new idea that came to me yesterday, just for fun.

A Universal Century "mirrorverse" where the despotic fatcats on Earth are opposed by the heroic Zeonic Resistance.

Basically, the Federation stepped in more heavy-handed after Deikun's assassination in order to nip the civil unrest in the bud. As a result, the Principality of Zeon never formed but became an insurgency instead; the EFSF knocks down a cell, two more pop up in the next Side over. Years and years of hunting rebels with no real headway has frustrated some Federation generals enough to pull the occasional war crime every now and then, keeping the rebellion well-staffed - while at the same time, Gihren and Kycilia are being scheming immoral asses as usual and Char is conflicted because now he hates the Zabis and the Federation equally.

Into this gray-on-gray mess steps Amuro, who gets caught up in a skirmish between the EFSF and a Zeon strikeforce as the latter are trying to steal the Gundam. Amuro gets into the Gundam to help Frau get to safety and subsequently turn the Gundam over to the Zekes so that they'll leave, but ends up unwillingly tagging along and ultimately joining them after the asshole Federation officer chasing them tries to destroy a civilian shuttle to leave no witnesses.
 
amitakartok said:
A new idea that came to me yesterday, just for fun.

A Universal Century "mirrorverse" where the despotic fatcats on Earth are opposed by the heroic Zeonic Resistance.

Basically, the Federation stepped in more heavy-handed after Deikun's assassination in order to nip the civil unrest in the bud. As a result, the Principality of Zeon never formed but became an insurgency instead; the EFSF knocks down a cell, two more pop up in the next Side over. Years and years of hunting rebels with no real headway has frustrated some Federation generals enough to pull the occasional war crime every now and then, keeping the rebellion well-staffed - while at the same time, Gihren and Kycilia are being scheming immoral asses as usual and Char is conflicted because now he hates the Zabis and the Federation equally.

Into this gray-on-gray mess steps Amuro, who gets caught up in a skirmish between the EFSF and a Zeon strikeforce as the latter are trying to steal the Gundam. Amuro gets into the Gundam to help Frau get to safety and subsequently turn the Gundam over to the Zekes so that they'll leave, but ends up unwillingly tagging along and ultimately joining them after the asshole Federation officer chasing them tries to destroy a civilian shuttle to leave no witnesses.
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Are you sure this is Mirror Verse and not Zeta, seven years earlier?
 
Not everyone in the Federation is an ass.

I'm thinking that at one time, the rebels would infiltrate a colony to assassinate a particularly bad Feddie officer. They succeed but get caught... except once the local garrison commander hears why that officer was offed, he simply turns his head the other way and lets the rebels go.
 
The problem I find with this is that since Gundam is such a grey-and-gray thing, it'd be really difficult to pull off that whole 'reversed universe' deal. What you're suggesting could easily pass as a simple Alternate Continuity.
 
A plot bunny I tossed around for when I'm done with Beyond All Fear:

Gundam AGE takes place place after a big apocalyptic war that itself had gundams, and there's a big old macguffin holding a lot of computer data about the wars. What if the big apocalyptic wars were Gundam 00, and Gundam AGE replaces Trailblazer?
Specifically, I wanted to do a Ribbons focused pic since he is simultaneously my most and lest favorite gundam villain, so the setting is that Ribbons successfully repaired his mind sometime after VEDA became the EXA-DB. My central hook is that since generation 3+ is the only part I want to change, Ribbons secretly swaps Kio with an Innovade clone after being impressed by Asemu Asuno's skills. Ribbons has Kio running the defenses for the EXA-DB, but seemingly only keeps Kio around to indulge his ego, something Kio becomes less and less keen on as he hits puberty. Eventually Kio ends up falling into the middle of the normal generation 3 arc that his clone had been doing and then I don't know much else.
 
Zeon really doesn't work as a heroic faction because of the strategic dynamics. The space involved is too small for a space-based resistance, with too few places to hide. Earth is still much larger. The AEUG only worked because it had the kind of NGO backing that couldn't exist until after the One Year War had upset the order of things and created vacuums to fill.

If you want to do Reverse Gundam, I recommend Endless Waltz; the Gundam pilots fail to stop Mariemaia, now it's Escape From Planet Earth and rally the colonies to retake the planet.
 
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So, a request for Gundam fans here: are there military science fiction stories in the Gundam universe that center around the space navy rather than mobile suits / gundams? Especially any that have a more realistic bent?

I actually find the basics of the Gundam setting - the war between Earth and her colonies at the Lagrange points - pretty interesting, but I'm usually looking at the problem from the perspective of the rocketry challenges involved in waging war across such vast distances and the extreme velocity differences that such a conflict would almost necessarily entail. Giant robots (and psychic powers) aside, the technology and aesthetics of Gundam are very hard-sf of the kind I usually like. I was wondering if there were any stories that focused on things from that angle? Or, to put it another way, are there any Atomic Rockets Gundam fics?
 
Doesn't appear so, at a cursory search. I've always wanted to get more into the capital ship combat aspect of the setting (the obvious answer is to have Mirai and Bright use the White Base more aggressively, starting at Odessa) but the only real example to play off of is one episode late in MS Gundam where Char's Chimaera and the White Base throw down.
 
Night said:
Doesn't appear so, at a cursory search. I've always wanted to get more into the capital ship combat aspect of the setting (the obvious answer is to have Mirai and Bright use the White Base more aggressively, starting at Odessa) but the only real example to play off of is one episode late in MS Gundam where Char's Chimaera and the White Base throw down.
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One thing that isn't clear from the show or any of the technical information I've seen is what kind of propulsion the spacecraft in Gundam use. It's curious because, for something that goes out of its way to develop its own fictional physics complete with new type of fusion, you'd think you could find something on how they get around Earth-Luna system. Nuclear Thermal Rockets? Fusion Rockets? Some kind of reactionless drive?
 
Acatalepsy said:
One thing that isn't clear from the show or any of the technical information I've seen is what kind of propulsion the spacecraft in Gundam use. It's curious because, for something that goes out of its way to develop its own fictional physics complete with new type of fusion, you'd think you could find something on how they get around Earth-Luna system. Nuclear Thermal Rockets? Fusion Rockets? Some kind of reactionless drive?
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Fusion Rockets, duh. Then Minovsky Craft/Drive system for reactionless shinies.
 
Acatalepsy said:
One thing that isn't clear from the show or any of the technical information I've seen is what kind of propulsion the spacecraft in Gundam use. It's curious because, for something that goes out of its way to develop its own fictional physics complete with new type of fusion, you'd think you could find something on how they get around Earth-Luna system. Nuclear Thermal Rockets? Fusion Rockets? Some kind of reactionless drive?
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Fusion torch drives with Minovsky chaser reducing the problems. In atmosphere they use fusion jet engines; sucking air through the reactor to turn it to plasma and push it out the back, with Minovsky particles dampening the radiation. The Minvosky Craft system is some kind of reactionless contragravity setup that's not elaborated on well.

Mobile suits actually use chemical reaction rockets until some ill-defined point in UC, when they switch to ducted plasma created by their reactors. The implication is the change is underway during Zeta and finished by CCA.
 
Acatalepsy said:
They have a sort of hover/cushion effect...when near a planetary body. This is useful for a lot of things, but making orbital maneuvers is not one of them.
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In canon, Minovsky Drive equipped MS can travel from Earth to Jupiter in 150 hours or about so. No, I got no idea how.
 
NHO said:
In canon, Minovsky Drive equipped MS can travel from Earth to Jupiter in 150 hours or about so. No, I got no idea how.
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Wait, what? Are we talking about two different things? I was pretty sure the Minovsky Craft thingy was mostly a way of pushing off the earth so you could have flying carriers without running out of fuel, not a full blown reactionless drive.
 
Acatalepsy said:
Wait, what? Are we talking about two different things? I was pretty sure the Minovsky Craft thingy was mostly a way of pushing off the earth so you could have flying carriers without running out of fuel, not a full blown reactionless drive.
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Yes, Minovsky Craft was a way to fly by making a cushion out of Minovsky lattice and riding it. Minovsky Drive, circa UC140, is improvement of that and it's reactionless drive. See Crossbone Gundam's ship-mounted Sail of Light. And later stories.

If you want to ask me how they work - don't. Ask @Barricade on SB.
 
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NHO said:
Yes, Minovsky Craft was a way to fly by making a cushion out of Minovsky lattice and riding it. Minovsky Drive, circa UC140, is improvement of that and it's reactionless drive. See Crossbone Gundam's ship-mounted Sail of Light. And later stories.
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Ignoring that for now. Mostly interested in more conventional spacecraft. With rockets. Who need to worry about things like "delta-V" and "mass ratios" and "reentry" and so on.
 
Acatalepsy said:
Ignoring that for now. Mostly interested in more conventional spacecraft. With rockets. Who need to worry about things like "delta-V" and "mass ratios" and "reentry" and so on.
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If you're dealing with warships, Delta-V isn't the same as modern rockets. During the One Year War, warships had thermonuclear propulsion, and the setting treats this like there is no need for expendable fuel. However, the Magellan and Salamis class ships required auxiliary boosters in order to leave the atmosphere. White Base could launch into space from the sea without orienting itself like a rocket. Why? Because Minovsky Craft System! Reentry does require some prep, the crew applies a heat resistant gel to the underside of the ship and approaches the atmosphere like a space shuttle.
OH! Mass Drivers are a thing. That's important for any logistic considerations in the spacy war.
Word of advice? If Minovsky particles are involved, tell your understanding of physics to keep quiet. It's death screams are annoying.
 
frostedflanker said:
If you're dealing with warships, Delta-V isn't the same as modern rockets. During the One Year War, warships had thermonuclear propulsion, and the setting treats this like there is no need for expendable fuel. However, the Magellan and Salamis class ships required auxiliary boosters in order to leave the atmosphere. White Base could launch into space from the sea without orienting itself like a rocket. Why? Because Minovsky Craft System!
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Again: acknowledging that the ability to push off of the Earth's surface at close range is valuable in many situations, "making orbital manuevers" continues to not be one of those situations.

Note that "thermonuclear propulsions" is still pretty vague. It brings up important questions like 'is the fuel the same as the remass', which are relevant for a number of reasons, especially when fuel is difficult to come by.

frostedflanker said:
OH! Mass Drivers are a thing. That's important for any logistic considerations in the spacy war.
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How many are there, and do we have any idea of their capacity?

frostedflanker said:
Word of advice? If Minovsky particles are involved, tell your understanding of physics to keep quiet. It's death screams are annoying.
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No.
 
Acatalepsy said:
Note that "thermonuclear propulsions" is still pretty vague. It brings up important questions like 'is the fuel the same as the remass', which are relevant for a number of reasons, especially when fuel is difficult to come by.
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Obviously, no. Fuel is helium-3 and protium. He=3 is from Jupiter and somewhat restricted. Remass - and source of that second component - is water, most likely. Again, for warships.
 
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