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Clockwise from right:Chris, Rosalie, Hilda, Ange, Salia, Vivian, Ersha, and Momoka
This is the character sheet for the Cross Ange series. Please note that there are unmarked spoilers ahead.
Arzenal
An uncharted island, Arzenal is where individuals who are found to be unable to use the Light of Mana are sent by the government. This is also the base of operations for Norma who fight off against the aliens known as "DRAGON".Norma
The name given to humans with a defective gene who prevents them from interacting with the Light of Mana, and also cause them to shatter all mana upon physical impact. For some unknown reason, this is limited to females. They are feared and shunned by humanity and quarantined from the rest of society and immediately sent off to the island Arzenal where they are conscripted to fight dragons when they come of age. In General
- Anti-Magic: Norma shatter all mana-fields upon contact, but the "light of mana" has been shown to heal their wounds on occasion. The reason for this disparity is never explained.
- Army of Thieves and Whores: They're committed to a Penal Colony in all but name where they are forced to fight DRAGONs. At first.
- Badass Normal: Played With, indicated by their name. Most Norma have been subjected to Training from Hell in order to combat dragons, but they do have the power to use Para-mails and cancel any magic they come into contact with.
- Blessed with Suck: The Normas inability to interact with magic or touch it without disrupting it.
- The Bus Came Back: The Norma make their return in "Conclusive Ocean".
- Cannon Fodder: All Norma are sent to combat dragons in Transforming Mecha with little in the way of safety or emergency provisions. This goes hand in hand with the discrimination against them that considers them expendable... At least until the finale.
- Child Soldiers: They are sent to fight DRAGONs at the age of 12. Few are lucky to make it to adulthood.
- Contempt Crossfire: Hated and used by the World of Mana as Cannon Fodder. Looked at as accessories to the World of Mana and Embryo despite the Norma having no reason to.
- Crapsack World: Being a Norma pilot in Arzenal is considered a death sentence.
- Cursed with Awesome: Said inability to interact with mana becomes this trope when it turns out that Embryo was able to control all humans, and too many of them became complacent and savage in the absence of mana. The Norma meanwhile were hardened enough from their trials to rise against Embryo.
- Disability Immunity: Their inability to use mana prevents them from being controlled remotely by Embryo, and allows them to shatter said mind control by contact. They are also immune to dragon screams unlike mana users, which make the latter go berserk. As noted by Liza, however, Embryo ran with the latter part by consigning the Norma to DRAGON-killing duty as a means of keeping the World of Mana going in its peaceful yet complacent and secretly dystopian state, and the Norma from shattering the proverbial facade.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The persecution of the Norma as a minority by the Mana is similar to how Nazi Germany persecuted the Jews. Arzenal is similar to that of a Nazi concentration camp.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After years of enduring societal discrimination and life at Arzenal, they finally triumph in their war against Embryo and prevent the time-space fusion. They are transported to the old world to live among their new allies, the DRAGONs, in peace and equality.
- Girls Behind Bars: In a sense. They're all living on a Penal Colony for the first half of the series. Played for Fanservice, of course.
- In It for Life: Due to the nature of Arzenal and the purpose it serves, the Norma are to serve there as Cannon Fodder as part of their life sentence. This changes once they escape and restart Libertas.
- La Résistance: When they restart Libertas, a rebellion against the humans and Embryo. They become The Alliance when they join the DRAGONs and focus on freeing Aura while still fighting Embryo.
- Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb: The Norma, barring personnel, are trained to fight their lives against DRAGONs and are sent out at age 12.
- Logical Latecomer: Anyone who is found out as a Norma well after they were born — namely Ange, Hilda, and Jill. A common thread is that they were in denial over their predicament, and being aware of how the outside world has wronged them, are more likely to fearlessly rebel against it, as well as Embryo, when the opportunity comes.
- Mildly Military: The Normas are a prison gang, not an army—and they're pretty loose for that once Ange is assigned to First Squad. Ange deserts in her first fight, getting three pilots killed and four suits wrecked, and only has to pay for their tombstones; later, she casually ignores her orders so she can Kill Steal. Also, Para-mail pilots make money based on how many kills they make, which encourages this kind of behavior. While Ange may be a Military Maverick, the response of everyone but Salia to her actions puts them squarely into this trope instead. Also, before Ange appears, there were no regulations against fraternization in the chain of command, or forcible rape of one's subordinates. This all changes when the Normas escape Arzenal and restart Libertas.
- Mutant Draft Board: Half-averted: All humans created by Embryo are mutants. It's the Norma who are drafted.
- One-Gender Race: The Norma are, for some reason, all female.
- Put on a Bus: After "Arzenal Burns", only Ange, Vivian, and Tusk get their main focus until they reunite with the others on the Aurora by the time of "Conclusive Ocean".
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: By the time they restart Libertas, they have suffered several losses. A majority of Norma were killed in sieges led by DRAGONs and Emperor Julio. Three of the main squad members, one of which was their leader, as well as two other secondary squad members, have been turned over to Embryo's side and given shiny new Ragna-mail to fight their former teammates in. Ange, Vivian, Hilda, Rosalie, and the three newbies who have been assigned to fill in the vacated slots: Marika, Nonna, and Mary. And without the help of Ange and Vivian, Hilda is the only ace on their side, and with Ange, the Diamond Rose Knights, their former teammates, give them a hard time given the massive firepower advantage. And they're all led by a major Control Freak more concerned with her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Red Shirt Army: Most of the Norma army including Chris get massacred by Julio during the latter's invasion of Arzenal.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: Pretty much all of them are either good, or in the case of Zola, Jill, Hilda and her girls, somewhat mean and misguided but well-meaning, in contrast to the Always Chaotic Evil Mana people of the Misurugi Empire.
- The Scapegoat: Embryo made up the superstition that the Norma are responsible for everything wrong with the world for the sake of having the humans worship Embryo as a god.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The World of Mana views all normas as "violent monsters" who deserve their banishment to Arzenal. If Ange and the other normas are any indication, this belief perpetuates normas to turn out the violent slave soldiers they were exiled for allegedly being, as they end up growing up there fighting DRAGONs.
- Slave Mooks: They are this to the World of Mana.
- Theme Naming: Villkiss and The Ragna-mails that Salia and her squad acquired from Embryo are named after famous real-life female historical figures.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Although they were considered The Scapegoat to the humans, the Norma manages to attain a significant victory forming The Alliance with the DRAGONs and killing Embryo.
- Took a Level in Kindness: In Super Robot Wars V, characters from other series smooth out the problems of Arzenal and its personnel, making them more heroic than before.
- Sumeragi eases their bounty problem by introducing a salary system that eliminates cases of Kill Steal.
- Ange doesn't Madden Into Misanthropy due to interacting with other characters who treat Norma as human beings. She'll still never forgive the World of Mana aka the Founding Nations for their crap, but with Syliva and others standing up against the status quo, there's no longer any point to continue hating them.
- Salia overtime has her secrets exposed by everyone else, who see it both comical and fitting. She gets advice from Shinn, someone who's gone through similar experiences and he's a major factor for her returning to the heroes' side. In the IF Route, she becomes the outfit tailor for the Arzenal Paradise Plan.
- Chris and Rosalie throw out their distaste for men after encountering Athrun and Banjo.
- Emma has bigotry removed, considering she's surrounded by member powerful groups like Orb Union, Celestial Being, and the Nadesico.
- Thanks to the efforts of Celestial Being, the Dragons immediately come to the Normas' aid when Julio tries to exterminate the Norma.
- Un-person: Norma are all removed from society and effectively considered Persona Non Grata.
- Un-Sorcerer: Norma are uncapable of using or interacting with mana.
- Unwitting Pawn: Their societal discrimination was allowed to happen by Embryo and they are used as Jill's pawns in her plan to further Libertas. At first.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The Norma are meant to function as an army, yet at the same time, they're part of a Penal Colony with all the prison infighting it entails. (Not to mention that anyone sent in well past infancy and knows the outside world has reason to escape and rebel, possibly going alone because they don't trust anyone not to snitch.) Couple that with the fact that money earned is tied to the kills scored by each pilot, and it all works about as well as you expect. This fades away after their escape from the decimated Arzenal as they engage in Libertus, and especially after Jill willingly steps down as commander.
- You Are Number 6: All norma are given numbers when sent to Arzenal (ABBB-CC, where A represents nation of origin, B represents year of exposure and capture, and C the number of order of capture among Norma during the year).
