Characters / Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – Benerit Group

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Benerit Group

The Benerit Group is a collection of companies and other organizations that serve as the de-facto rulers, movers, and shakers of the business world both on Earth and in space. They are primarily focused on war partitioning, Permet mining, and mobile suit development in order to finance the development of the space colonies.

In General

• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Due to the shady nature of how the Group makes its money, pretty much any given leader of a Benerit Group company is corrupt by default.
• The Elites Jump Ship: They're the descendant of humanity's most affluent, who have long-since migrated to space.
• Fantastic Racism: The Benerit Group are overwhelmingly Spacian in makeup and treat Earthians with massive indifference at best. To the group, Earth only exists for their parasitic war-profiteering and must be kept in line with campaigns of mass terror.
• MegaCorp: The group's collective economic influence and market share is vast, though none of the individual member company seem especially large.
• N.G.O. Superpower: They're the solar system's dominate political force, thanks to economic power, media control, and good-old fashion military force. At least in certain space colonies, it seems like the Benerit Group are the government, but they basically do whatever they want on Earth despite not seeming to serve the same purpose. The Space Assembly League, which is nominally more of an actual government, see their level of influence as dangerous and attempt to sabotage them.
• War for Fun and Profit: They manipulate the political situation of Earth to keep it in a constant state of warfare, and profit from the resultant conflicts by producing mobile suits that then get used in the fighting.

Cathedra

An auditing organization established by the Mobile Suit Development Council to regulate the development of mobile suits, and prevent the creation of Gundams. It's not actually part of the Benerit Group, but Delling is both president of the group, and Cathedra Supervisor.

Delling Rembran

Affiliation: Grassley Defense Systems (formerly), Benerit Group, Cathedra, Mobile Suit Development Council

Voiced by: Naoya Uchida (Japanese), Gabe Kunda (English)

"And our Cathedra...shall deny all Gundams."

^{Click here to see him in the prologue}

Miorine's father. In the Prologue, he serves as a top manager of Grassley Defense Systems and member of the Mobile Suit Development Council who acts as a representative of Cathedra. By the start of the series, he has ascended to the position of president of the Benerit Group and chairman of the Asticassia School of Technology.

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• Ambiguously Evil: He's clearly the Big Bad of the Prologue, and by the beginning of the series, he still serves as an antagonist, but less directly so outside of his initial attempt to have Aerial seized. He starts to tolerate Miorine much better when they're no longer interacting as parent and child, and by episode 10 or so he's straight up one of the main allies Miorine has. Despite this, he still runs roughshod over Miorine and other members of the Benerit Group with his authority when he feels the need to. His joint project with Prospera, Quiet Zero, is what keeps him in this bucket, as it involves the use of Permet Links to create a huge network of data storms, and Prospera herself is an extremely manipulative and sinister person.
• Abusive Parents: As the chairman of the Asticassia School of Technology, he deliberately set things up so that his daughter's hand in marriage and, by extension, his daughter herself would be treated as a prize. He knows that she hates the idea, but doesn't care. Even when given a reason to change this, he decides to choose a suitor himself and get Miorine out of the school, regardless of what she wants. When she comes to meet him, he tries to deny her the chance to even pledge her own case by pointing out she has no political position on her own until she forces him into a duel. He also doesn't even seem to care about her well-being. The school security staff, who are his employees, do absolutely nothing when Guel is abusing his daughter, a clear sign that nobody thinks he cares enough about her to intervene, which is true because he outright states meeting the people who are supposed to be his daughter's bodyguards is a waste of his time. It later turns out that he has always cared about his daughter, but he felt he couldn't do anything for her but make sure she was safe because of the many enemies he had made over the years. That doesn't change the fact that he's frankly terrible at showing affection towards her.
• Because I Said So: He says this verbatim after Lady Prospera states there is no evidence that Suletta's Mobile Suit is a Gundam.
• Big Bad: His actions in the Prologue led to his status in the series as the unquestioned leader of both Cathedra and the Benerit Group, positioning him as both the leader of the primary manufacturer of Mobile Suits and the judge and executioner of anyone who pursues the radical GUND Format that could upend the dominance of the Benerit Group. On top of that, he's a stern and abusive Control Freak who doesn't tolerate failure, disagreement, or dissent; when his daughter Miorine accuses him of acting as though he were a king, Delling bluntly answers that he is. As the series progresses, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Delling has massively moderated himself since the days of the Prologue (though he can very well be an authoritative Jerkass when it suits him), and steadily begins to improve his relationship with his daughter, placing him in the nebulous bucket of "ally" minus his involvement with Quiet Zero, which gets hijacked by Prospera after he's incapacitated.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Upon finding out about Delling's objectives and his feelings towards his family through Rajan, Miorine complains that her father should have tried to communicate those things to her directly. However, he was too worried about his enemies to allow himself to show his true feelings.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He's a top manager of Grassley Defense Systems who aims to ascend its corporate ranks further through various "means". He also orchestrated the attack on Fólkvangr in the prologue ahead of the conference without the council's approval. And given that he is in an even better position by the start of the series proper than he was in the prologue, it seems his ruthlessness paid off.
• Create Your Own Villain: It was his blunt force approach to dealing with the Gundams early in his career that sent Prospera down the path of revenge. If he hadn't jumped the gun with his decision to massacre everyone at Vanadis, Eri would have never piloted a Gundam, and never would have become the Aerial; in turn, if the Aerial hadn't become an integral part of his own plans, Prospera wouldn't have the perfect opportunity to enact her revenge.
• Dad the Veteran: He is Miorine's father and ex-military.
• Decoy Antagonist: While the Prologue and early parts of the story set him up as the Big Bad, he ends up being knocked into a coma just midway through the story, supplanted by the Big Bad Ensemble of Shaddiq and Prospera.
• Demoted to Extra: After taking a chunk of shrapnel to the side protecting his daughter, he goes into a coma for the majority of the second season, with Rajan and later Miorine taking over running the Benerit Group. He eventually wakes up in Episode 22, but is unable to talk. Though in Episode 23, he manages to recover his ability to talk as he negotiates with the SAL fleet. His last appearance is in a new report where he faces the fallout of the Benerit group as he attends a hearing related to the group's actions on the Quinnharbor attacks and the creation of Quiet Zero. It's unclear whether he's still on speaking terms with Miorine after she dissolved the group and married Suletta.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first scene has him pretty much telling the Council not to pick methods when dealing with Ochs Earth and the Vanadis Institute. Minutes later, he shows what he meant when he makes a speech that makes him a Villain with Good Publicity while secretly ordering his men to wipe out a community of innocent people whom he considers to be an inconvenience.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The man is a mass murderer and a needlessly cruel and cutthroat businessman, but he does not discriminate, given that there are no rules against girls competing in the dueling system and trying to win his daughter's hand in marriage, which comes with the prize of becoming his heir. He does try to force Miorine out of school and into a different Arranged Marriage when Suletta is accused of being a witch, but he isn't seen protesting because of Suletta's gender.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's an abusive parent who treats his daughter as a prize, having suitors fight in duels at Asticassia School of Technology to earn her hand in marriage, and throughout most of the first season, he's negligent towards her. However, when Plant Quetta is attacked, he proves he does care about her when he instinctively shields Miorine with his own body to save her life and tries to share information about a promise he and Miorine's beloved mother made before he falls into a coma. Miorine is surprised to discover later through Rajan that Delling did in fact marry out of love for Notrette, and concludes the duels for her hand were his attempt to ensure whoever marries her would be a person strong enough to protect her.
• Evil Is Petty: The moment Suletta upsets the system that Delling has in place via her mysterious Mobile Suit, he goes out of his way to have Suletta thrown in a cell and try to brand the Aerial as a Gundam to have it scrapped, forgoing all sense of the very honor that the school espouses to nip a potential problem in the bud. Keep in mind he doesn't even have much context for any of this nor any proof of foul play yet, he just did it to ensure nothing potentially throws his plans askew, much less some random girl from Mercury and her undocumented unit.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Miorine offhandedly mentioned that Delling forced her to quit piano.
• Foil: To Prospera. Both are antagonistic single parents of the protagonists and former pilots now acting as businesspeople, and every other detail is opposite.
  • Delling is blunt, uncharismatic, zealous, and very unlikeable. Prospera is soft-spoken, jovial, polite, and charming.
  • Delling is shown to be very direct and uncaring in his use of power, and entirely willing to use an explanation no more complex than Because I Said So. Prospera, meanwhile, almost never outright orders someone to do something, and prefers to manipulate others using only the available facts and the few assets she can call her own.
  • Delling has an entirely deservingly terrible relationship with his daughter, but he's suggested to still love her, albeit in a rather malformed fashion. Prospera's daughter practically worships her, but Prospera's own feelings on her daughter whenever in private range from indifferent to outright cruel.
  • Delling is initially presented as a cruel antagonist in the prologue and looks to hold that role in the series, but increasingly shows traces of complexity as he becomes an antagonist less and less. Prospera is introduced as a hero in the prologue and shows up in the series as an uneasy ally, but increasingly displaces Delling as the Big Bad.
  • Despite the two of them being apparently similar in age, Delling has a rather unflattering, stony-faced design and fully gray hair, clearly having been aged by his experiences despite being one of the most powerful men in the solar system. Meanwhile, Prospera has aged gracefully and still has her old beauty despite having spent the past 21 years on one of the harshest planets out there.
• Freudian Excuse: When he was a soldier, he fought in a war where computers determined who lived and who died. This lead to his belief that weapons that kill their users should not be allowed to exist and to outlaw the Gundams.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: In the prologue, Delling is introduced as just a subordinate of Sarius Zenelli in the Mobile Suit Development Council and is even hushed when he provides his opinion, but by the time of Episode 1, he is the president of the Benerit Group, meaning he now stands at the top of the pyramid of the organization and can even dismiss advice from his old boss.
• The Fundamentalist: He is a man very set in his ways and will not tolerate others who deviate from the way he thinks things should be, including going so far as to slaughter those involved in the GUND project.
• A God Am I: Implied by Miorine and Prospera. After Miorine learns of Delling's plan for Quiet Zero, she concludes he's trying to become a God with complete control over Permet Links, an assessment Prospera agrees with. Since Delling himself is comatose at the time, he can't affirm or deny this, but given his comfort with Miorine previously referring to him as a "King", it isn't hard to imagine him taking the jump in station in stride.
• Good All Along: Downplayed. While he is still guilty of many dubious acts, Episode 15 confirms that he was genuinely trying to do what he saw as best for humanity by preventing the development of the GUND system, and his actions were motivated both for protecting Miorine and fulfilling the wishes of his late wife.
• Hidden Depths: From the beginning he's shown as a typical Corrupt CEO and a horrible father to Miorine who doesn't care about anyone but himself, casually and callously controls and disregards people when they no longer prove useful, and in general a horrible human being. And yet, in episode 7 despite having no reason to do so, he gives Miorine 3% funding for her start-up business to draw in other investors and gives her a sincere warning about the Gundam's curse, implying that beneath everything he does care for his daughter at least somewhat and that his speech about the dangers of the GUND format was at least somewhat genuine. Additionally, in Episode 10, he's shown to have a somewhat respectable conversation with Miorine, implying that he's more comfortable interacting with her as a fellow executive than as his daughter.
• Hypocrite: He is called out as this by Miorine, who points out that for all his draconian enforcement of the rules he will gladly change them when they become inconvenient. Thus when she challenges him to a duel in front of everyone to hear, he has to accept, or else he would be seen as a lying hypocrite for not following his own rules.
• Kick the Dog: Whether it be ordering the deaths of others that inconvenience him, using his daughter as a tool, or allowing businesses that are temporarily in the red to go bankrupt (despite a chance at recovery), he proves time and time again that he's uncaring inside out.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The series starts with him ordering his men to infiltrate Fólkvangr and massacre everyone inside to shut down their research and gain power, 21 years later he is on the receiving end of this when a terrorist group from the planet he screwed over attempts to assassinate him on order from another company, leaving him mortally wounded. In the second season, he goes into a coma while Prospera takes over his late wife's Quiet Zero project and the Space Assembly League goes after his group because they've grown too powerful. At the end of the show, Miorine sells all of his group's assets to Earth corporations and happily marries the daughter of the Vanadis incident survivor while Delling faces public backlash for his group's actions.
• Leave No Survivors: He had specifically ordered those attacking Fólkvangr to eliminate everyone present, even to make sure that no shuttles left the colony.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His cruel methods may have allowed him to amass power fast, but they are also the source of the problems he faces in the series:
  • He probably could have shut down and taken over the GUND research using his influence, but he went for the mass murder approach, prompting Elnora to spend over a decade working her way up in Mercurian society and grooming her daughter to become the perfect pilot, all to take him down.
  • If he treated his daughter better, she might not have decided to challenge him for Suletta's sake. Not to mention Elnora came up with her revenge plan when she heard that Delling had allowed whoever becomes the top duelist at Asticassia to marry his daughter.
• Not Helping Your Case: He lacks actual, tangible evidence that the Aerial is a Gundam, simply going out of his way in the Witch Trial to straight up assume it has a GUND Format system before it can be analyzed or disassembled. When he pulls out his Because I Said So argument, it's only because he's the head-honcho that anyone is forced to give him the advantage in the debate — which Prospera and Miorine exploit to counter-play his arguments, and everyone else jumps on board with.
• Parents as People: He is terrible at showing affection towards his daughter, but it turns out that he has always cared about her. However, he was too worried about his many enemies to consider anything about his daughter outside of her physical wellbeing.
• Perpetual Frowner: This man always has a stern, frowning expression on his face. He doesn't break it not even for other villainous expressions like a smug smirk or an evil laugh, always keeping himself serious.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Gives Miorine 3% of the funding she needs to finance her company, a show of support that convinces others to finance Miorine's new company. He also genuinely gives her a sincere warning about being careful about the GUND-Format's curse.
  • He later gives Miorine advice on how to run a business and praises her for not doing a bad work on her own. As impersonal as he sounded, it's still far kinder than how he treated her before, and Miorine is visibly surprised by it.
  • Shields Miorine with his own body when terrorists attack Plant Quetta, getting badly injured with a large piece of debris in his back.
• The Promise: Before her death, he and his wife made a joint promise, and he is intent on keeping it. It is implied that a lot of his abusive behavior ultimately has come about from his attempts to keep it.
• Properly Paranoid: He's entirely on the ball that Aerial is a Gundam, but his mishandling of the situation by throwing his authority around without tangible evidence, combined with a Kick the Dog track record, allowed Prospera and Miorine to counter his plan.
• The Reveal: Prospera, his self-sworn Arch-Enemy planning revenge on him the entire time, is actually in cahoots with Delling, who is fully aware of what Aerial really is as a joint project. The entire show of his villainy and antagonism towards her and Suletta was, effectively, being one massive Manipulative Bastard towards his own executives and public showing as the pair seek to finalize a project called Quiet Zero by any means necessary.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!:
  • Even if he lacks evidence, if he declares a Mobile Suit is a Gundam, that is enough. Miorine called him out on this and turned that against him by publicly challenging him to a duel or else he's seen as a hypocritical liar. The only reason he accepts it other than to avoid being proven right by his daughter is that if he wins he gets to keep making the rules and force everyone, Miorine included, to follow them to the letter or be punished.
  • This is flipped a couple of episodes later when he leaves Aerial alone even when given evidence that it is a Gundam, much to the frustration and suspicion of Sarius. His protests are summarily shot down because once again, Delling is the one running the show.
• Sinister Minister: He has this motif in contrast with the witch-themed protagonist. He leads a group called Cathedra, wears a priest-inspired robe, and initiates Witch Hunts.
• Straw Hypocrite: It becomes clear a lot of his arguments and speeches make absolutely no sense. He knows it, and he doesn't particularly care. He openly states that "The rules are what I say they are." Any explanation or detail he provides is just something he makes up to fit what he needs at the moment.
• Taking the Bullet: Gets gravely injured using his body to shield Miorine from shrapnel during Dawn of Fold's attack on Plant Quetta.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The council had simply intended to seize Ochs Earth's assets through a regular corporate takeover. Delling however went out of his way to eliminate everyone involved in the GUND Format project, even going so far as to destroy the whole colony to make sure that the whole thing was dead and buried.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • While it's all just an excuse to keep Earthians from leveling the playing field with their Spacian oppressors, his criticisms that the Gundam mobile suits are killing their test pilots and causing deteriorating health to their bodies certainly carries more weight when those using the GUND-Format genuinely run the risk of killing themselves; though he simply opts to kill everyone involved in GUND Format development rather than listen to the upsides of the technology.
  • During Suletta's Witch Trial to prove that Aerial is a Gundam, he is fully convinced and even tries forgoing evidence to say it's a Gundam and have it dismantled Because He Said So. While he's actively bending his own rules to get what he wants, which reflects less than favorably on him after Miorine shows up to call him out and both Lady Prospera and Vim provide counterpoints to his decision, he is right that Aerial is a Gundam.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Downplayed as his actions are both in self-interest and in the interest of getting rid of what he believes is wrong. It's clear his opposition to the GUND format is in part to cement his own power and crush any radical change in the production of Mobile Suits by outsiders. On the other hand, he does seem to have some genuine belief that the GUND-Format is unethical, and in Episode 7 he gives Miorine a genuine warning to be careful about the Curse of the Gundams. Rajan confirms in Episode 15 that Delling truly thought getting rid of the GUND format would be the best for humanity.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He has zero qualms about immediately cutting off any company within the Benerit Group that posts a financial loss, even when advised that it could statistically bounce back.

Rajan Zahi

Affiliation: Cathedra, Dominicus

Voiced by: Eiji Hanawa (Japanese), Ian Sinclair (English)

"That's why Mistress Notrette's vision became a source of hope."

^{Click here to see him in the prologue}

A competent subordinate of Delling's in the auditing organization Cathedra. Like Delling, he is a former military officer. Originally serving as the commander of the Dominicus Corps during the raid on Fólkvangr, he retired to serve directly under Delling, leaving his command to his former subordinate, Kenanji.

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• Mr. Exposition: With Delling indisposed and Notrette long dead, he's the one who must explain to their daughter the nature of their relationship and the origins of their mysterious Quiet Zero initiative.
• Number Two: All his scenes indicate he is Delling's right-hand man.
• Oh, Crap!: He'd only been expecting the two pre-production Lfrith units during the raid on Fólkvangr, and was taken completely off-guard by the appearance of the perfected prototype.
• Retired Badass: Like his superior, Delling, he is ex-military.
• Satellite Character: He doesn't receive much in the way of characterization outside of being Delling's loyal, right-hand man. Episode 15 slightly expands this to being loyal to Delling's wife and daughter too.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: During his discussion with Miorine, Rajan talks about how harsh the various wars have been on humanity and laments the comrades he's lost.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He makes no attempt to hide how much he doesn't trust Prospera and is only working with her because of Delling's orders. He even pulls a gun the second she puts her hand inside her pocket.
• Undying Loyalty: To Delling, and, going by his dialogue in The Stinger of Episode 15, to Delling's late wife Notrette too. The fondness in his tone as he talks about her ideals imply he genuinely wanted to help Delling realize them, rather than just doing it because he was told to.

Notrette Rembran

Miorine's mother, who has passed away some time between the prologue and the start of the series proper.

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• Ambiguous Situation: The circumstances of her death are not expanded upon. She was the originator of the Quiet Zero program, and whatever happened, Delling prevented Miorine from attending her funeral. There's also an unspecified promise he made to her.
• Crazy-Prepared: She leaves her daughter a strain of tomatoes with a DNA sequence coded in them that can be decoded into a letter to her daughter. Oh also the DNA sequence in question is also a backup administrative override access to Quiet Zero should Miorine need it.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Basically everyone who knew her has kind words to say about her. Miorine clearly identifies more closely to her than to her father.
• Good Parents: Notable in this series for being a parent that didn't abuse or take advantage of their child, Notrette was in every indication a good mother to Miorine. Even while long passed, she is able to help her daughter when she needs it the most.
• Posthumous Character: She's long dead by the time of the first episode.

Jeturk Heavy Machinery

Mobile Suit Models: MD-0021 Desultor, MD-0031 Dilanza (Sol, Guel's, Lauda's), MD-0064 Darilbalde, MDX-0003 Gundam Schwarzette

A corporation specializing in the development of heavily armored mobile suits, as well as AI-controlled drone technology.

Vim Jeturk

Affiliation: Jeturk Heavy Machinery

Main MS: MD-0031UL Dilanza Sol

Voiced by: Tetsuo Kanao (Japanese), Christopher Sabat (English)

"If you want to be treated like an adult, then win and reclaim the title of Holder!"

^{Click here to see him in the prologue}

Jeturk Heavy Machinery's current CEO and Guel and Lauda's father. He is an ambitious person that puts his company's profit and reputation before anything else, including his family.

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• Abusive Parents: Slaps Guel for losing the duel against Suletta, and (in Vim's mind) tarnishing the name of his company, making it clear what the priority is for him. He also demands he take the rematch and reclaim his honor. When Guel and the Darilbalde begin faltering, he also wastes no time berating him for failing him, then banning him from duelling after losing to Suletta again. And then he cuts him from any of the company's resources and kicks him out of the dormitory for disobeying his rules.
• Adoption Diss: After their first conversation, Vim mockingly tells Shaddiq to try hard to win his adoptive father Sarius's love, which disgusts Grassley House. When Vim realizes he's been had later on, he angrily calls Shaddiq "that damn adoptee".
• Alas, Poor Villain: Bastard he may have been, his death is still incredibly tragic, as he ended up killed in self-defence by his own son Guel, with neither of them aware of who the other was until it was too late.
• All Take and No Give: His son wants nothing more than making him proud and spares no effort to help his agenda. Not only does Vim never acknowledge Guel's efforts, he keeps berating and punishing him for any failure, all while still demanding him to follow his every order.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: He's a Dilanza pilot and boasts about having defeated his business rivals in battle.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Vim wants full control over the Benerit Group and makes multiple attempts to assassinate Delling, only to constantly be foiled either by Suletta's piloting skills or Lady Prospera's machinations. When he makes an alliance with Shaddiq, he ends up thoroughly out-played by the younger man and dying near the end of season one without accomplishing anything of note.
• Death Equals Redemption: Once Vim realizes he's only moments from death, he does what little he can to console Guel. Vim lets his son know he was looking for him after he disappeared, and he's more relieved that Guel's safe than upset that it came at the cost of his own life. This inspires Guel to secure his family's legacy, even without his father there to push him into it.
• Disproportionate Retribution: It appears Guel's kneejerk reactions to 'punish' those that even remotely go against him was inherited from his father as his father abuses Guel for being defeated by Suletta twice and Elan.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Vim is an abusive, cruel bastard who horribly mistreats his sons, but his death weighs heavily on Guel, not just for the trauma of having killed his own father. After his time on Earth, Guel dedicates himself to preserving everything that he has left of his father, and Lauda is likewise devastated to learn that his brother killed their father.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • He's a scheming Corrupt Corporate Executive who isn't above murder and is physically and emotionally abusive to his eldest son Guel. However, once Guel goes missing, Vim sends out people to search for him, and, after being mortally wounded in a fight with Guel where neither knew the identity of their opponent, expresses relief that Guel's safe before dying.
  • While the details are vague, flashbacks indicate that he welcomed Lauda into his house as an official heir rather than ignore his less "legitimate" son.
• Hidden Depths: He is revealed in episode 12 to be quite a competent mobile suit pilot, bragging about how he rose to the top by besting his rivals in combat.
• Hypocrite:
  • Tries to get Guel to obey him by telling him that the things at stake in his duels are much bigger than him, which is rather funny given how Vim doesn't seem to believe things more important than his desires exist. He is effectively calling his son selfish for daring to care about stuff besides Vim's needs.
  • There's also Guel's second duel against Suletta, in which he yells at Guel because his suit has ended up on the defensive and demands that he "stop messing around" and finish her off, even though said suit has been equipped with an AI program that completely removes any and all control from the pilot, which he himself oversaw the installation of, and had even even admonished Guel for complaining about it in the first.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Episode 11 shows Vim getting angry enough to try to assault Delling directly when the latter makes fun of Guel's disappearance, implying that losing all contact with his son finally woke some parental feelings inside of him, until it's revealed that it was actually a ploy to slap a tracker on one of Delling's bodyguards, giving his location to Dawn of Fold.
• Karmic Death: Guel, the son he abused, kills him in self-defense when the two of them fight without knowing that the other is their opponent.
• Laser-Guided Karma: It's only fitting that the man who establishes himself as The Starscream in his first appearance and treats his own children as pawns for his use, ends up betrayed himself by Shaddiq in their joint plot to assassinate Delling, who orders the attack on Plant Quetta while he's still there and puts him at the very real risk of dying in the crossfire. He is ultimately killed by the son he abused, who wouldn't be anywhere close to the battlefield had Vim not pushed him into running away. Not to mention, he inadvertently put his son in danger by getting involved with Shaddiq.
• Macross Missile Massacre: He pilots a Dilanza Sol, a variant which (among other things) attaches a homing cluster missile launcher to the standard Dilanza's back. Only an extremely talented pilot (like his son, Guel) can deal with the colossal amount of munitions it sends their way.
• Never My Fault: When Suletta starts turning the tables during her second duel with Guel, he is quick to once again yell at his son that he must not lose. Even though Guel had no control over his machine at that point thanks to the AI installed in it on Vim orders, he still acts like Guel would somehow be responsible if the duel ended in another loss. And when Guel does end up losing, rather than owning up to the AI having been a mistake, he just blamed Guel again, repossessing the Darilbalde and banning Guel from dueling.
• Pet the Dog: Vim is an Abusive Parent, but he still cares about Guel deep down. Although it's against Guel's desire to remain at Asticassia, Vim sending Guel to learn about business at one of their subsidiaries implies he wants Guel to inherit the company. When Vim hears from Guel again in episode 12, he smiles and tells his son how he's searching for him despite being fatally wounded.
• Retired Badass: Like Delling, he's a former soldier. As shown in Episode 12, he's still a capable pilot even in the present not that it saves him.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: One of the things he tells Guel while berating him is that he needs to let go of his pride. In context this is just another attempt to get his son to do what Vim wants, but come the second cour, a more mature Guel accepts this was true. He lives in a chaotic and unfair world and to protect the things he wants to protect he needs to learn when to toss aside his pride and do something dirty.
• Shared Family Quirks: In Episode 1, Vim strokes a lock of hair between his fingertips, exactly like his son Lauda does.
• Spanner in the Works: Most of the people at the Witch Trial seemed too afraid of Delling to speak up against him, until Vim, CEO of one of the group's biggest companies, spoke in favor of granting Miorine the duel she was asking for. Many more started voicing their support after that.
• Sore Loser: Of the bigwigs, he takes setbacks to his plans the worst. Solidified in episode 7, when he's gnashing his teeth at Miorine completely overturning his scheme with Zenelli and the Peil CEOs, and he's the only one taking it badly.
• The Starscream: Planned to take advantage of the whole Duels Decide Everything nature of the academy to assassinate Delling while his son was the top student to then become the head of the Benerit Group. Only Suletta's timely victory over Guel stopped the plan in its tracks. He later teams up with Prospera and uses the commotion and dissent caused by Miorine challenging her father to a duel and calling him a hypocrite to delay Suletta's expulsion and the Aerial's destruction. Using them to his advantage instead of getting revenge on them for ruining the Jeturk name like he first wanted to. Episode 10 also has him plotting another way to have Delling killed.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: After kicking his son out of Jeturk House and cutting him from the company's resources, on top of all the previous abuse, he leaves him a message saying that he should consider it as an act of mercy that he will still pay the rest of his tuition. Of course, three episodes later, he reneges on that as he decides to have Guel removed from school.

Grassley Defense Systems

Mobile Suit Models: CCP-068 Heindra, CFP-010 Heindree, CFP-013 Heindree Sturm, CEK-040 Beguir-Beu, CEK-077 Beguir-Pente, CFK-029 Michaelis

A corporation specializing in the development of general-purpose mobile suits that work best in squadrons, as well as the primary developer of the "Antidote" anti-GUND system.

Sarius Zenelli

Affiliation: Grassley Defense Systems

Voiced by: Atsushi Ono (Japanese), Mike Smith (English)

"Are you trying to tell us that black is white?"

^{Click here to see him in the prologue}

The CEO of Grassley Defense Systems. He is the adoptive father of Shaddiq Zenelli. While he is usually a reasonable businessman, he has a strong dislike towards Gundams.

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• Ambiguously Brown: He has dark skin but we don't know his exact ethnicity or national origin, like many members of the cast.
• Enemy Mine: The Benerit Group's Big Three are each other's biggest competitors, but that doesn't stop Sarius from asking the cooperation of the other two in his scheme to expose Aerial as a Gundam and, in the process, figure out what Delling actually wants.
• Entertainingly Wrong: In Episode 10, he dismisses Vim as an oaf who isn't capable of pulling off a stunt like killing Delling, ignorant of the fact he nearly did so in the first episode, and he was only forced to abandon his plans due to his son losing to Suletta.
• Everyone Has Standards: He is involved with political corruption, but he is still not as ruthless as Delling, as shown from the beginning:
  • When Delling is giving his speech about shutting down GUND research, an assistant whispers something unheard in Sarius's ear, likely informing him of the massacre in Fólkvangr, which was happening at that moment. His reaction shows that he didn't approve and was horrified by it.
  • He also believes that a company shouldn't be cut out simply because they have been in the red for a brief period of time.
• Good Is Not Nice: Despite how benevolent Sarius is compared to the other CEOs, he does make it clear that he's willing to disown Shaddiq if he doesn't carry out his duties properly.
• Good Parents: Sarius trusts his adoptive son Shaddiq enough to have him be an assistant for his business affairs. Even when Shaddiq disagrees with his orders, he lets him off with just a warning with no attempt to control his actions. This is a razor-sharp contrast with the rest of the cast who suffer from Abusive Parents, whether they know it or not. Even when Shaddiq kidnapped him, revealing his own plans while subtly expressing a Hidden Disdain Reveal, when he is finally beaten and captured, Sarius only expresses pity for Shaddiq being "[his] foolish son".
• Knight Templar: Out of the Big Three, he has the hardest anti-Gundam stance, and is clearly displeased and confused that Delling is giving Aerial special treatment. He even goes so far as to enact his own plots to get Aerial destroyed.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: This man is far from innocent, but on a normal day he acts like a Reasonable Authority Figure instead of just flaunting his power to push his own agenda like Vim and Delling do. And even when he feels the need to harm others, he doesn't go to the extremes Delling and Peil are willing to go. This means he still looks pretty good by comparison when he starts acting in opposition to Delling in Episode 7, despite his plan involving throwing Suletta under the bus.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • He advocates giving one of the Benerit Group's struggling companies a second chance given that it could reasonably come back from a financial loss. He even states that the financial statements indicate a recovery was a possibility.
  • During the Inquiry in the second episode, he points out to Lady Prospera that she hasn't disproven her mobile suit isn't a Gundam. However, unlike Delling, he is willing to hear out her explanation rather than outright dismiss it.
• Taking the Heat: Much like how Shaddiq voluntarily agreed to take all the responsibility for the activities he instigated with Dawn of Fold, Sarius explicitly tells Miorine to throw both him and Grassley Defense Systems under the bus to try and redeem the Group's reputation following the attacks at Quinharbor and Asticassia. Miorine refuses, stating that she refuses to allow any more sacrifices.
• Token Good Teammate: Out of the Big Three CEOs, Sarius is portrayed as the least morally corrupt.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: A more realistic version of this was shown in the prologue when he is being informed of the events transpiring while Delling is giving his speech as his eyes are noticeably widened.

Peil Technologies

Mobile Suit Models: F/D-19 Zowort, F/D-20 Zowort Heavy, FP/A-77 Gundam Pharact

A corporation specializing in the development of fast and agile mobile suits. In addition to their line of mobile suits, they also manufacture the Tickbalang dropship.

The Four CEOs (Nugen, Kal, Nevola, Golneri)

Affiliation: Peil Technologies

Nugen voiced by: Masako Katsuki (Japanese), Wendy Powell (English)
Kal voiced by: Kazue Komiya (Japanese), Kristen McGuire (English)
Nevola voiced by: Yoko Soumi (Japanese), Brianna Roberts (English)
Golneri voiced by: Kimiko Saito (Japanese), Molly Searcy (English)

From left to right: Nugen, Nevola, Golneri, Kal

The four CEOs of Peil Technologies, who collectively manage the group via a parliamentary system. Like Delling, they are willing to do anything as long as it benefits their group.

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• Bad Boss: The fact that they unanimously treat Enhanced Number 4 as expendable and ultimately have him executed for outliving his usefulness and failing them, on top of denying Belmeria's pleads and requests, establishes them as ruthless businesswomen who won't hesitate to commit even the most questionable of actions for profits.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Alongside Delling, Prospera, and Shaddiq, the Peil CEOs are among the main individuals vying for the most power and influence within the Benerit Group. Notably, they're the least sympathetic of the group, being motivated purely by Greed and profits.
• The Dividual: They are always seem together and in synch with each other regarding the next move of their company. This also means they don't get to display different personalities much. It takes until Episode 10 for Nugen to get a scene without the others, and it doesn't even last one minute. A brief shot in Episode 24 shows that the four of them remain a single unit even after Peil is dissolved and they lose their positions. However, it turns out they've been using makeup and hair dye to appear more identical than they actually are.
• Evil Is Petty: They effectively admit they have an illegal Gundam and plan to jettison the entire project team around Pharact to the wolves, so to speak, solely to oust Aerial in the process as a Taking You with Me on Prospera, mostly to get her back for the Pharact's loss. Though once Miorine turns it around, they take it in stride to see how this turns out.
• Evil Old Folks: They are visibly not young anymore, and are also some of the worst human beings on the series, being willing to destroy the life of other people in several different ways for the sake of profit, all without showing a single sign of remorse.
• Final Boss: They, along with their allies within the Space Assembly League, prove to be the final antagonists of the series following Propsera's defeat.
• Gonk: Kal and Golneri are not easy on the eyes, thanks to Kal's huge, almost cartoonish head, and Golneri's rough, mannish facial features. They both stand out a lot among the more conventionally drawn characters.
• Graceful Loser: Miorine completely overturning their plans to expose Aerial as a Gundam doesn't really faze them, and even gets them interested at where this curveball will go. Averted in Episode 24 when Miorine foils their plan to seize control of the Benerit Group by announcing the conglomerate’s dissolution and liquidation of all assets, with Nugen angrily cursing Miorine’s name in the process.
• Hate Sink: Though none of the corporate leaders in the series are particularly likeable, the Peil CEOs stand out for lacking the sympathetic motives, Pet the Dog moments, or Evil Virtues of their fellows. They have no motive beyond self-enrichment, their designs are decidedly unflattering, and they have an infuriating habit of wriggling out of consequences for their actions, largely by backstabbing the closest person and papering it over with obvious lies. And that's before you get into the fact that they incinerated a teenager...
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: At the beginning of the series, they lead one of the most powerful corporations in the Benerit Group alongside Jeturk and Grassley. By the end of the series, they are destitute and languishing in a retirement home after Miorine dissolves the Benerit Group and sells all of Peil’s assets and stocks to Earth-based companies.
• Just Giving Orders: They admit that the Pharact is a Gundam, but assure the Benerit group that they will dissolve the team who created it, effectively pinning the blame on the scientists while feigning innocence.
• Lack of Empathy: They treat Enhanced Individual Number 4, a living, breathing human, as expendable and ultimately have him disposed of, as if he was either a defective product or garbage. They also brush off Belmeria Winston's pleads to have Enhanced Individual Number 4 spared, clearly not taking into account the amount of care she gives her subjects.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After spending the entire series backstabbing anyone and everyone they ever worked with in order to advance their profits, they end up losing everything they worked hard for when Miorine dissolves the Benerit Group and sells all of their remaining assets and stocks off to Earth-based companies. Their last scene depicts them languishing in a retirement home.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: If they are frowning, then it's clear something is wrong. One of them is outright furious and they're all left shocked in response to Miorine dissolving the Benerit Group and Elan 0 resigning.
• Opportunistic Bastard: They are not the ones for long term scheming. Instead they tend to take a nab at whatever opportunity presents itself or try to push things in a direction where they can make such an opportunity appear. Their approach tends to generally be focused on the most gain for the least risk. This is most prominent in Episode 21, where they snitch on the Benerit Group's wrongdoings in order to avoid getting caught up in the Space Assembly League's intervention on the Group as a whole.
• Perpetual Smiler: They are rarely if ever seen not smiling.
• Retired Monster: By the epilogue, all four CEOs have settled into retirement, sulking with the turn of events.
• Riches to Rags: They end up going from some of the richest and most influential businesswomen in the Benerit Group to being practically broke and stuck languishing in retirement by the end.
• Shadow Archetype: They all act as twisted, mirror caricatures of Delling, Vim, Sarius, and even Prospera. While Delling and Vim have a very strained relationship towards their respective sons, but they still show a degree of care for them. Sarius treated Shaddiq as if he is his own son, and despite the latter's own personal agenda, cares for him and is a more reasonable businessman. Prospera will go to extreme lengths to get back at anyone who took everything away from her, even if it meant using her own daughter as a pawn for her schemes. Despite this, she genuinely loves her daughters. The Peil CEOs all lack Delling, Vim, and Prospera's parental love for their offspring as they are shown to be very abusive towards the Enhanced Persons, viewing them as expendable pawns than people and Sarius' moral principles, by keeping themselves inculpable related to the Benerit Group's shady activities by joining the SAL.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: When the Benerit Group's stakes are hanging in the balance towards the end of the series, they betray the group with the intent of siding with the SAL's intervention to avoid accountability and take over the group once the Assembly League tied up all loose ends, only for Miorine to announce the dissolution of the group and the original Elan resigning. The then-CEOs end up retiring in bankruptcy and frustration.
• The Sociopath: They are the most morally corrupt figureheads amongst the Benerit Group; they have a blatant disregard for human life, treating the Enhanced Persons as expendable assets that they will gleefully discard if they fail to live up to their expectations. Their lack of principles is made more apparent when they side with the Space Assembly League merely to avoid being held accountable for the Benerit Group's transgressions, and make a bid to both take over the Benerit Group after the SAL intervention is over, and be the first company to reconstruct the fronts that will be damaged by the huge laser that's fired at the deactivated Quiet Zero under the pretext of an "accidental discharge".
• Turncoat: After the attacks on Quinharbor and Asticassia, they decide the Benerit Group is now the losing side, so they denounce the Group for their crimes and are welcomed by the Space Assembly League as allies.
• Villainous Friendship: The four still associate together in forced retirement, implying they have some attachment to each other besides business interests.
• Villainous Breakdown: They completely lose it when Miorine sells all their assets to Earth. They are last seen looking utterly miserable in retirement.
• You Have Failed Me: Or "You Have Failed Us", with them serving as the "Us" in question. They have Enhanced Person Number 4 privately executed for failing to carry out their orders, defeat Suletta, and secure Aerial.
  Nevola: An Enhanced Person that can't carry out their orders has no future.

Belmeria Winston

Affiliation: Vanadis Institute (formerly), Peil Technologies, GUND-Arm, Inc

Voiced by: Ayumi Tsunematsu (Japanese), Anastasia Muñoz (English)

"I was merely enthralled by the GUND's ideals..."

A former Vanadis Institute researcher, currently continuing Gundam development for Peil Technologies. She acts as the handler for the Enhanced Persons.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Prospera shortens her name to "Bel" when addressing her.
• Dirty Coward: Belmeria's strides in Gundam development are a result of being essentially a prisoner of Peil Technologies; she disapproves of what she has to do, but goes along with it anyway because it's the only way she can continue any of her work, and refusing to do so would make her life forfeit. Prospera, meanwhile, performed her own experiments of her own will and with full knowledge of their immorality, and never pretended that they were anything but immoral. To Prospera, Belmeria's objections really just make her guilty of moral cowardice—if she actually did hold those convictions, she'd have stood by them even at the cost of her life, as the other witches did.
• Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: Most of the time her eyes are halfway open, with notable lines under them giving her a perpetually tired, stressed-out appearance.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • She comes across as aloof when interacting with Enhanced Person Number Four, but does everything she can to stop the Peil CEOs from executing him, which she's unfortunately unable to prevent.
  • She’s absolutely horrified to learn that Prospera had Ericht’s consciousness uploaded into Aerial.
• Extreme Doormat: Belmeria is very bad at standing up for herself, and whenever her morals are challenged, she tends to shrink back and start crying. Prospera in particular is shown to be very able to push her around without even really trying.
• Grew a Spine: She finally finds the will to actively pursue what she believes is the right thing in Episode 23, attempting to use a gun to confront Prospera on board Quiet Zero despite being terrified and a terrible shot to boot.
• Hypocrite: Perhaps her greatest flaw is that she is prone to accusing others of inhumane ways of doing things, even though she developed the artificial nervous system theory that lead to the creation of the Enhanced Human program that she helped oversee, making her guilty of enabling the worst implementation of the cursed GUND format. Both Prospera and Elan call her out on this, and she can only break down and cry in response to either.
• Meaningful Look: Throughout the first cour, she has a habit of shooting Suletta and Lady Prospera these when they aren't looking. They signify that she's deduced Suletta Mercury is not the same girl as Ericht Samaya, and is wondering what happened to her.
• My Greatest Failure: She was the one who came up with the theory of artifical nervous systems that led to the creation of Enhanced Persons, something she has come to greatly regret—especially because her mentor, Dr. Cardo herself, wanted nothing to do with it.
• My Greatest Second Chance: How she views working for GUND-ARM Inc., not only because they are continuing the work she did in Vanadis, but also because it's work meant to help people, in stark contrast to what she had been doing for Peil.
• Pet the Dog:
  • She works willingly with Peil, but the way the Enhanced Person project has unfolded has clearly left her harboring doubts; although she's cold and distant to Enhanced Person Number Four, she treats him with more kindness than the CEOs and protests them culling him after he's no longer useful to them.
  • She willingly assists Earth House and Miorine's GUND-ARM Inc. in their setups, tests and initial activities. As she confessed to Suletta, the opportunity to do medical research with GUND Format through them is exactly what she was doing in Vanadis, and is what she would rather do again.
• Secret-Keeper: She's one of the few people aware of Prospera's true history as a survivor of the Ochs Earth purge, having been one of her co-workers.
• She Knows Too Much: She's one of the few who knows about Prospera's plan for Quiet Zero and the only person who knew about Ericht's whereabouts. This makes her both the key witness for Feng Jun who wants to investigate Prospera and a target that Godoy, Prospera's right-hand man, tries to assassinate to clean up loose ends.
• Spot the Thread: She knew about Ericht Samaya's existence, and pieced together that she and Suletta couldn't be the same person.
• Stress Vomit: After learning that Prospera turned her own daughter into the Aerial, Belmeria doubles over and covers her mouth like she's about to throw up from the horrible revelation.
• Survivor's Guilt: She's haunted by the deaths of her colleagues who died during the Vanadis Incident. She wishes that she had died with them instead of living by doing what Peil orders her to do.
• Token Adult: For GUND-ARM Inc. and, by extension, Earth House. She seems to be the only adult to have chosen to work with them personally on the development of their technology.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: During her introductory episodes, she always looked downbeat and tired. After she starts working with GUND-ARM Inc. she smiles more often and her attitude becomes more cheerful, since she's much happier with that line of work.

Enhanced Person Base (SPOILERS)

Affiliation: Peil Technologies

Voiced by: Natsuki Hanae (Japanese), Aaron Dismuke (English)

The real Elan Ceres. Secretly, the one who walks on campus grounds is the latest of many Body Doubles using his name and appearance. They do so because he himself is sorely lacking pilot ability, and thus would not stand a chance in the dueling system of Asticassia.

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• The Ace: Peil's leadership is chosen based on the evaluation of an AI, and Elan is its top-ranked candidate. This is largely an informed trait on Elan's part, though; since his selection causes the company to hold him in high esteem, he doesn't actually get to do much, and his stats indicate he's sub-par as a pilot, necessitating his body doubles act in his place for the dueling game.
• Affably Evil: Cheerful and upbeat as compared to his fourth Enhanced body double, and is nothing but polite to his double and Belmeria, but at the same time, he's a representative of Peil Technologies, and has an unmistakable air of arrogance whenever he speaks.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While impersonating Enhanced Person Number Four, he acts very friendly to Suletta when he was actually guiding her to a trap to expose Aerial as a Gundam. He also makes a big show out of how shocked he is by the reveal and how concerned he is for her, which is just him following the script of the three companies.
• Cloning Gambit: He has Disposable Vagrants turned into his Body Doubles to pilot his Gundam. This gives his house a huge advantage in duels, lets someone else suffer the consequences of the GUND system, and conceals its illegal use. It goes so far as to have his doubles stand in the Dueling Committee, go to student events, and live in his quarters. The only proof the real Elan even goes to Asticassia is that he wears the school uniform.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: This goes both for him and his clones. The real Elan doesn't wear earrings like his doubles do, and while impersonating #4 he's also noticeably more emotive, though it's not enough for anyone to catch on. #4 is the real one's polar opposite in terms of personality, being cold and distant as opposed to arrogant and condescending, but he was still able to pass due to no one knowiing what the real Elan was like other than #4 himself. Subverted with #5, who is described by his superiors as having a personality "just as wicked as the original".
• Dead Person Impersonation: After Enhanced Person Number Four is disposed of, he must pretend to be him while his next Body Double isn't ready. Despite his annoyance, he does a good job pretending to be Suletta's friend even though it's actually the first time he meets her. She does notice that Elan is smiling more, but since the Elan she knew was starting to open up to her, it's not enough for her to realize she is speaking to a different guy.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Even with his different attitude, his face still looks quite feminine, just like that of his clone.
• Even Evil Has Standards: For a guy who's kind of a dirtbag himself, he's visibly uncomfortable with the Peil CEOs' self-serving behavior throughout the last few episodes, which contributes to his abrupt resignation.
• Expository Pronoun: His very first line is him using the assertive ore, a very sharp contrast to the other Elan's more humble boku.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: In the finale, he's seen working alongside Secelia, making a deal to continue doing business with Jeturk Heavy Machinery following the dissolution of Peil. He's still as much of an asshole as ever though.
• Karma Houdini: After using disposable Body Doubles who impersonated him while slowly destroying their bodies piloting Gundams, he backstabs the CEOs of Peil after their plan to take over the Benerit group fails and never faces any consequences despite having conspired with them.
• Take This Job and Shove It: He ultimately ditches Peil following the Space Assembly League's failure against Quiet Zero, sick of being leashed to the Peil Grade, completing the CEO's humiliation after Miorine dissolved their company and sold off their assets.
• Walking Spoiler: The moment he shows up, the viewer's understanding of the character they thought was the one and only Elan changes a lot.

Shin Sei Development Corporation

Mobile Suit Models: XVX-016 Gundam Aerial (Rebuild), XGF-E3 Gundnode

A lesser corporation based on Mercury, more well known for Permet mining than tech development.

Lady Prospera Mercury

Elnora Samaya/Lady Prospera Mercury

Affiliation: Ochs Earth Corporation, Vanadis Institute (formerly), Shin Sei Development Corporation

Main MS: XGF-02 Gundam Lfrith, XVX-016RN Gundam Aerial Rebuild

Voiced by: Mamiko Noto (Japanese), Elizabeth Maxwell (English)

"It's you who should ask me for a favor."

^{Click here to see her in her the prologue}

^{Click here to see her in her youth}

Suletta and Ericht's mother, Nadim's wife, and a test pilot for the Gundam Lfrith. She was forced to change her identity after fleeing from the Cathedra raid on Fólkvangr. Formerly known as Elnora Samaya, she now goes by Prospera Mercury and is the president of the Shin Sei Development Corporation on Mercury.

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• Abusive Parents:
  • Prospera has no issue lying to and manipulating her daughter for her own ends, having implicitly indoctrinated Suletta into listening to her above all other concerns.
  • Double Subverted with Ericht. Prospera basically turned her into a mobile suit, but this was an Emergency Transformation whose downsides she's working to negate. However, once Eri is "revived", Prospera quickly pressures Eri into abetting Prospera's most violent and reprehensible deeds, either oblivious or unfeeling to Eri's hesitance.
• Affably Evil: While her morals might be lacking, her politeness is not. Prospera is consistently well-mannered when talking to virtually everyone, and even comes off as an ordinary Doting Parent when around Suletta. At points, she even seems downright charming and goofy, such as her visit to Earth House in episode 16. This, if anything, makes her even creepier. She even manages to be perfectly cordial with Delling, openly revealing her identity to him even though he's nominally her biggest enemy.
• Ambiguously Evil: Her incredibly manipulative streak alone is suspect, but the fact that she is not on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Delling actually makes her far more sinister, as it makes her true motives indiscernible. As it turns out, she's working with Delling himself on the Quiet Zero project, but even that is a means to get her vengeance. Once her plan to awaken Aerial starts reaching its final stages, she starts racking up quite the bodycount with zero hesitation.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: As Nadim rushes off to his demise to protect her and Eri, Elnora tearfully tells him she loves him before fleeing.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • When Belmeria tries to criticize Prospera for using Suletta as a guinea pig for her Gundam, Prospera immediately counters by coldly asking Belmeria how many test subjects she had to go through for her Enhanced Person project.
  • Prospera doubles up on this criticism in episode 16 when she rhetorically asks Belmeria just who came up with the theories that later enabled the Enhanced Human system in the first place.
    Prospera: The one who conceived the idea was you, am I right?
• Artificial Limbs: Her right arm is artificial, which is shown when it runs out of battery just as she is about to put a candle in Eri's cake. She also claims her mask is a result of damage to her face, though this one is a lie.
• At Least I Admit It: This is largely her attitude in response to Belmeria's shock at her actions. What Prospera did with the Aerial is hardly much worse than Belmeria's own advancements—the only real difference between the two is that Prospera makes no bones and has no regrets about what she did, while Belmeria is still hiding behind the excuse of Just Following Orders.
• Bait the Dog:
  • Prospera patiently listens to her daughter's excitement and concerns about attending school, even silently motioning for one of her employees who came in to report to her to wait until she was done, then tells her how proud she is for making progress on her list, encouraging her to have fun. This is followed in episodes 7 and 8 by allowing Suletta to be arrested and publicly humiliated when Aerial is fully confirmed to be a Gundam. Not only does Prospera not intervene at that point (and unlike the first charges against Aerial in the first few episodes, Prospera is actually present in the room when the accusations roll out), but after the debacle is settled, she nonchalantly reveals to Suletta that Aerial has always been a Gundam despite telling Suletta otherwise earlier.
  • When Suletta calls her in episode 11 about feeling isolated from her friends, Prospera hears her out, and carefully asks her if her friends have actually said anything that indicates they think she's useless, encouraging Suletta to come to the hangar where Aerial is currently undergoing maintenance to see her. Come episode 12, she uses the good faith her daughter placed in her to easily manipulate her into being completely okay with murder.
• Became Their Own Antithesis:
  • In the Prologue, she was horrified when Eri innocently killed enemy pilots without noticing what she was doing. In the last episode of the first cour, she takes advantage of Suletta's innocence, manipulating and lying to her at every turn, and twists Suletta's trust in her to convince Suletta to kill.
  • She joined the Vanadis Institute out of gratitude to Dr. Cardo for providing her a prosthetic arm, and truly believed in the peaceful applications of the GUND Format. As Prospera, she betrays her past self's intentions multiple times. First is by developing Aerial at all, as she intends to use her to get revenge against Delling and Cathedra — especially because she ended up turning Eri into Aerial's OS despite the anguish the decision caused her. It happens again when she uses Aerial, the pinnacle of the GUND Format's power, to stage a fake Earthian terror attack and re-open hostilities between Earthians and Spacians during Miorine's trip to Earth — getting multiple people killed in the process.
• Because I Said So: Played for Drama. Prospera has subtly put Suletta on such a tight leash that Suletta just takes her word as absolute law. It's innocuous at first, but as time goes on it gets noticeably more disturbing, notably when Prospera nonchalantly justifies lying to Suletta about Aerial after the fact and Suletta takes it at face value and when Prospera talks Suletta into killing people to protect her friends. Later on, Suletta admits that she'd openly kill people if her mother asked her to. The most perturbing part is that Suletta doesn't realize this, and gladly jumps to defend Prospera despite her lies and deceptions.
• Best Served Cold: Elnora never gave up on taking revenge on Delling after the events of the Prologue. In fact, she decides to do so by having Suletta and Aerial attend Asticassia and win the duels there, thus getting closer to Delling's daughter via the Holder title while she's actually collaborating with Delling himself (who knows her true identity) on Quiet Zero. She later makes it clear in episode 16 that while she does plan to execute her ultimate vengeance against Cathedra and the Rembran family, this is ultimately still secondary to Eri's "freedom", so she doesn't mind collaborating with Delling at all — she'll get to the revenge part when she gets to it.
• Beyond Redemption: Once Suletta sees her mother for what she really is, she holds no grudges, continues loving her, and thinks there is no way she could ever talk Prospera out of using Quiet Zero. Ironically, this leads to Prospera giving up anyway because Eri convinced her.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Alongside the Peil CEOs, Delling (at least early on), and Shaddiq, Prospera eventually serves as one of the major threats of the show. The main plot post-Prologue is kicked off by her plan to send Suletta to Asticassia, which is only the first step of a plan that escalates to working with Delling, her mortal enemy, on Quiet Zero, which uses Aerial as the linchpin for a gigantic Permet Link and data storm network. She's performed extreme experimentation on her firstborn daughter Eri, turning her into Aerial to purportedly save her life from the extreme conditions of space, and has subjected her younger daughter Suletta to a level of mental conditioning and brainwashing that acts as a constant source of interpersonal conflict between Suletta and Miorine even as they grow closer to each other. All of these plans and schemes turn out to be related to three major objectives: revenge against Cathedra and the Rembran family for the events of the Prologue, "freeing" Eri once Aerial reaches Permet Score 8, and using Quiet Zero to create a world where Eri can exist freely by traveling through the network created by Quiet Zero.
• Blatant Lies: She insists that Suletta's Mobile Suit isn't a Gundam^note In this franchise entry, what makes a mobile suit a Gundam is the use of the GUND Format, which allows the pilot to interface with their Mobile Suit via a neural link that can kill the pilot if they're incompatible and push themselves too hard and that the Funnels Suletta used were drones. Everyone in the room is aware there is no way Mercury would be able to create such a massive leap in drone technology so fast, but she counters that they have no solid proof to deny her claims either.
• Boom, Headshot!: Downplayed. In Episode 23, Elan #5 shoots Prospera in the head just as she’s about to close in on Miorine with her own gun. Though he doesn't kill her, knocking off her mask instead, the hit leaves Prospera incapacitated enough to allow Miorine to finish overriding and shutting down Quiet Zero’s systems.
• Char Clone: While Lady Prospera wears a mask to hide her identity (while supposedly covering up an injury), is related to the main character, and has the death of her family as part of her backstory, she is no longer a mobile suit pilot nor The Rival to The Heroine. In fact, she supports Suletta, even while manipulating her for revenge. The more favorable comparison is to Char as AEUG member Quattro Bajeena or McGillis "Montag" Fareed. The less favorable view is that she embodies Char's habit, especially in Char's Counterattack, of using and abusing those around him, and her primary target just happens to be the protagonist. Prospera's love for the disembodied Eri even parallels Char's long-term grieving over Lalah Sune.
• Children Forced to Kill: She's utterly mortified when she realizes that her four-year-old daughter has full control over the Gundam Lfrith where she had previously failed, as her precious child is now the pilot of a highly dangerous weapon and will now have a target on her back for life.
• Coat Cape: She briefly wears this after taking off her blazer to show her right prosthetic arm in front of everyone.
• Consummate Liar: Her every sentence seems to be some kind of mix of lies, truths and half-truths and she is able to switch between them all with startling ease to the point that almost everything she says has to be examined carefully if you don't want to be strung along.
• Control Freak: She handles almost all social interactions by always holding the right cards in her hand and making people follow her lead. This is highlighted by her later reaction to the terrorist attack on Plant Quetta; she keeps a cool head during the attack and even takes it as an opportunity to manipulate Suletta even more, but afterwards she's aggressively investigating it—as it was something completely out of her control, it caught her off guard, and she's extremely bothered by it.
• Cool Mask: As befitting the local Char Clone, she wears a mask to conceal her identity. The mask also serves a practical function of allowing Prospera to "talk" with her daughter Ericht once the latter reaches Permet Score 8, as it has the same shell units that Gundams do.
• The Corruptor: She takes advantage of Suletta's trusting nature to convince her that killing her opponents is a viable solution, which Suletta proceeds to become okay with doing with disturbing ease.
• Didn't See That Coming: In Episode 22, she is surprised to see Suletta opposing her.
• Dissonant Serenity: No matter what the situation, after becoming Prospera, she never so much as raises her voice an octave. It doesn't matter if it's a corporate meeting, a chat with her daughter, or a megalomaniacal rant.
• Dressed in Layers: Prospera can wear her "mask" under a spacesuit like other Char Clones, even though hers is a helmet that wraps all the way around her head.
• Dye or Die: Since assuming her current identity, she's dyed her once-red hair brown.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She can be seen among the many people virtually present for the Benerit Group financial meeting in Episode 1, one episode before her formal introduction (and two episodes before being revealed to be someone already seen in the prologue).
• Easily Forgiven: In the epilogue, no one seems to have any gripes with Prospera, and she is shown happily playing with some children and Suletta.
• Enemy Mine: Is willing to work with other corporate entities and schemers like Vim if it gets her to her goals, and if she considers Miorine an enemy by her association with Delling, then she's ready to capitalize on Miorine's contempt for her own father to blindside him all the same. This even extends to actually collaborating with Delling himself, intending to use Quiet Zero to bring Aerial to a Permet Score of 8 and "free" Eri.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: She is decidedly not a good person, but Suletta loves her still, even while acknowledging that Prospera saw her as a tool and will never listen to her.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For all her sins, she does genuinely love her daughter Ericht and sees her schemes as merely a way to ensure Ericht can live some kind of normal life. Parental Favoritism aside, by her own account, she loves Suletta as well: she even sees abandoning her as part of that, as she agrees that Suletta should not be involved in her plan more than absolutely necessary. Miorine's response to the latter claim is essentially "if you love her, then act like it."
• Everyone Has Standards: She's dismayed that Ochs Earth survived the purge in the prologue thanks to backing by the Space Assembly League, and has secretly continued developing Gundams, even providing Dawn of Fold with a pair for their terrorist activities, all of which goes against the original ideals of what the GUND Format should be.
• Exact Words:
  • Prospera always speaks fondly of Aerial, even referring to the machine as her "daughter". At first, it seems to be a habit based on the fact that Aerial may be a memento of her colleagues from the Vanadis Institute, and because of Suletta's attachment to Aerial since she grew up seeing Aerial as her sister. In reality, Aerial really is her daughter Ericht Samaya, whose biometric patterns were integrated into the Lfrith at some point after the Prologue. According to Prospera, Eri's body couldn't handle the stresses of space, and after the synchronization, the Lfrith was remodeled into Aerial to serve as Eri's new body.
  • Season 2 sees her pushing Miorine into joining the Benerit Group's presidential race by saying Quiet Zero would surely be shut down by another president once they found out about it. That's probably true, but it's later implied she left out just how far along the project was, as shortly after Miorine wins the election, Quiet Zero is shown as operational enough to annihilate an entire fleet.
• Fallen Hero: Elnora Samaya, from all that we see, was a genuinely good-natured woman and a loving wife and mother who joined Dr. Cardo with nothing but an optimistic desire to help humanity, and was ready to be right on the frontlines during the Vanadis Incident. As Prospera, she is very much not that woman anymore.
• Foreshadowing: In the Prologue, Elnora displays a reckless disregard for her own safety and well-being, requiring Cardo Nabo to reel her in, telling her that their successes in testing won't mean much if it cripples her for life. Following Cardo's death, Prospera throws herself into her plots for revenge and saving Ericht, frequent exposure to Permet and data storms over the ensuing decades ultimately resulting in her losing the use of her legs.
• The Gadfly: When she and Miorine end up cooperating, it is clear that she is taking every moment she can to get on Miorine's nerves in various subtle ways.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: The cover story for her bulky, face-concealing visor is that it's a prosthetic just like her arm, but this is a lie. Its real purpose is to allow her to communicate remotely with Aerial, after she hits Permet Score 8. The black "eyepieces" are actually something like a Gundam's shell units, lighting up with Tron Lines when Aerial interacts with her. Word of God reveals that, while the mask doesn't function as prosthetic eyes like she claims, it is actually still a medical device, serving to slow the degeneration of her mobility by mitigating some of the neurological damage data storm infection is causing her.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In seeking revenge against the Benerit Group, Prospera has long since adopted their worst traits: using her own children as tools, using technology meant for medicine to create weapons, manipulating unrest, and causing mass civilian casualties all for her own selfish gratification.
• Hearing Voices: While it is unclear how honest or literal she is being, she claims that she can still hear the voices of those who died in the Vanadis Incident and that they are crying out for revenge. The fact that she's surprised to see the Permet ghosts of her husband, Dr. Nabo, Wendy, and Nyla in the finale during the expanded data storm made by Suletta, and that they convince her to stand down indicate her earlier claim was merely her being deluded and none of them were actually seeking retribution through her.
• Heel–Face Turn: In the finale, Eri and the Permet ghosts of Nadim, Cardo Nabo, Nyla, and Wendy convince her to abandon Quiet Zero and live a peaceful life with Suletta.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: She keeps her cards close to her chest, and it's hard to say what exactly her intentions are in the first season outside of The Cradle World confirming that she intends to get revenge for the events of the Prologue. While she eventually claims her goal is the completion of Quiet Zero, Belmeria isn't convinced, as it wouldn't require Permet scores as high as those Aerial are creating. In Episode 16, Prospera explains a bit more, saying that getting Aerial to Permet Score 8 will "free" Eri, but whether she means this literally or not is still unclear.
• Hypocrite:
  • She's disgusted that Ochs Earth survived Delling's purge thanks to the Space Assembly League, continuing to develop Gundams for warfare, trampling over the original ideals of the GUND Format, even supplying Dawn of Fold with machines for their terrorist activities. And yet, she uses Aerial to start a war, sabotaging Miorine's attempt to win peace with a demonstration of the GUND's original medical use in the process.
  • Likewise, she thinks absolutely nothing of starting a massacre of protesters and civilians on Earth with her False Flag Operation, even though half of her own motivation is avenging the deaths of her own friends and loved ones from a similar massacre by the same forces. What sticks out even more is that the people of Earth had absolutely nothing to do with the Vanadis Incident, making them completely innocent collateral.
• I Gave My Word: In Episode 18, she honors her agreement with Miorine to leave Suletta alone, and focuses her efforts primarily on working with Miorine and Guel. Even when Suletta visits the main office directly to talk to Miorine, Prospera doesn't take the opportunity to involve Suletta in her plans again, though she briefly wonders if she should have brought Suletta with her and Aerial at the end of the episode before Eri asserts that Suletta is better off staying Locked Out of the Loop.
• I Have Your Wife: Pulls this off, even when the "wife" herself isn't physically present nor in any physical danger. Episode 16 has Prospera mentally holding Suletta hostage in order to get Miorine to run for presidency at the Benerit Group so that Quiet Zero can proceed as planned. Knowing that Prospera can easily tell Suletta to do anything and it will get done (including telling Suletta to kill people, as Miorine saw for herself), Miorine has no choice but to cooperate with Prospera in Episode 17 as part of a desperate gamble to get Prospera to leave Suletta alone.
• It's All About Me: Or at least "it's all about me and my daughter". Prospera seems rather dismissive of practically anything that happens as a consequence of her vendetta, as long as she gets to accomplish her goals. Notably, the destruction of Quinharbour was not in the slightest bit necessary for her plans, but she explicitly engineers the events there because she wanted to pursue her vendetta against Ochs Earth.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Manipulating Suletta as a tool for her quest for revenge is already a red flag in and on itself. Further escalating the conflict between Earthians and Spacians through a False Flag Operation indicates that she's perfectly willing to kill more innocent people than she's trying to avenge.
• Lack of Empathy: As Episode 19 shows, she fuels the conflict between the Earthian and Spacians even further by doing a False Flag Operation and making it look like Miorine is responsible. She doesn't care if innocent lives are hurt or whether it would cause a full-blown war. All she cares is about is Eri and her plans for Quiet Zero.
• Lady in a Power Suit: As Lady Prospera, she wears a nice business suit as president of a Mercury-based corporation.
• Mama Bear: Prospera loves her daughter very much (that is, Eri, not so much Suletta), and the reason behind all the actions she takes are simply to be able to create a world where Eri can live freely.
• Manipulative Bitch:
  • The Cradle Planet web novel shows that Prospera is using using Suletta as a tool of revenge against Delling, counting on her to get caught up in the duels at the academy where the fearsomely powerful Aerial Gundam will be used to claim Miorine's betrothal. Worse, she lies to Suletta about why she's going to Asticassia, telling her that she's going for the altruistic goal of improving life on Mercury.
  • In the series proper, this extends to lying to Suletta about the fact that Aerial has always been a Gundam, which she nonchalantly reveals to Suletta at the end of episode 7. Prospera's also more than happy to let GUND-ARM Inc. stand as a smokescreen for her and Delling's Quiet Zero project, and in episode 12, she manipulates Suletta into being completely fine with murdering people to protect others by using her own "gain two" philosophy, justifying it by pointing out how she saved Suletta's life by murdering the Dawn of Fold members that were about to find Suletta hiding in Aerial's hangar.
  • Episode 16 reveals just about the full extent of this manipulation: when Miorine confronts Suletta about what her mother has done, she's horrified to learn that, if her mother told her to abandon all her dreams for whatever Prospera wants, she would. Taking things further still, Prospera starts using Miorine's attachment to Suletta as leverage to get Miorine to cooperate with her. In other words, Prospera has managed to exploit her greatest enemies by turning her own daughter into a hostage.
  • Miorine herself winds up subjected to the bulk of Prospera's manipulations from Episode 17 onward. Preying on Miorine's attachment to Suletta and resentment of Delling, Prospera tricks Miorine into severing her relationship with Suletta, and uses that as a means of isolating and setting her up to be framed as a bloody warmongerer no better than Delling; the guilt of failing to counteract Prospera's schemes gradually crushes Miorine's spirit more and more at every turn, leaving her a crying mess by the end of Episode 21.
• Masking the Deformity: Subverted. Prospera Mercury claims she wears her mask in order to cover up severe injuries she sustained in a mining accident on Mercury. It's actually to conceal her true identity as Elnora Samaya, the Sole Survivor of the raid that wiped out the original Gundam program. That being said, Episode 23 reveals that she has Permet Link marks on her face, though concealing them is secondary to hiding her identity.
• Mask of Sanity: Prospera generally comes off as a polite and friendly woman, showing the occasional hint of a manipulative streak at worst. Episode 16 shows just how deranged she really is under that mask, waxing poetic about turning her daughter into a death machine at the start, and later threatening Miorine while talking about how the voices of her dead loved ones whisper in her ear, compelling her to seek vengeance against Miorine's father, Delling.
• Meaningful Name: Her alias comes from the Shakespeare play The Tempest, being derived from the main character Prospero who was usurped and is now seeking revenge with the help of the wind spirit Ariel. Like Prospero, she is also using her own daughter as part of said revenge. Perhaps most surprising is that both give up revenge and their "magic" power to return to exile.
• My Beloved Smother: Deconstructed. Prospera seems to buck the noticeable signs of this archetype since she's not outwardly controlling of Suletta and seems pretty relaxed as a parent. However, it becomes clearer as the series goes on that she's deliberately alternating between isolating Suletta and praising Suletta in order to make Suletta unwaveringly obedient to her, to the point of reverence. As a result of this, Suletta is incredibly easy to manipulate if Prospera is the one that says the word—it merely takes Prospera a few minutes to convince Suletta to unquestioningly kill her enemies when "needed".
• Nerves of Steel: No matter what the situation, even facing down an inquisition, Prospera maintains the same calm, confident demeanor, giving the distinct impression everything is proceeding according to her plans.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Towards Miorine in particular; Prospera will often either invade her space or pull the girl very close when they are talking, making her highly uncomfortable. Given Prospera's personality and her willingness to get whatever advantage she can over Miorine, this is likely the entire point.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Prospera is alarmingly good at tearing down the moral high ground anyone else thinks they have over her by pointing out how their hands are just as stained as hers. She's done this twice to Belmeria about her involvement in the Enhanced Person project (the first being a pointed question, the second a full-on lecture), and twice to Miorine as well — first by asking Miorine if she intends to free Suletta from Prospera's control just to put Suletta under her own, then later making Miorine feel guilty for something that happened before Miorine was even born.
• Not So Stoic: After seeing Aerial overpowering the same system made to counter Gundams that spelled the doom of Vanadis and the death of her husband, Prospera sheds a single tear from behind her mask.
  • Likewise, Prospera loses her composure when Eri jumps at the opportunity to defend Quiet Zero from the Space Assembly League's orbital laser, calling out to her to stop in a panic. When Eri successfully deflects the blast at the (seeming) cost of her life, Prospera can only scream her daughter's name in horror.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: A dark, noncomedic example. Most of her interactions with Miorine include pointed remarks about how well Suletta and Miorine get along, and she's generally happy to sneak in pointed digs at Miorine, but it really spills out in Episode 16; when Miorine confronts her about Suletta, Prospera proceeds to make her views on the Rembran family explicitly clear—specifically, that she intends to get her vengeance on Delling one way or another, and that she doesn't think any more favorably of Miorine.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • The first time Lady Prospera breaks her Perpetual Smiler streak is when she sees Beguir-type mobile suits being piloted by the Grassley House members.
  • After the terrorist attack on Plant Quetta, she's uncharacteristically annoyed and sightly loses her cool, which is noteworthy as this didn't occur during the event. This is most likely because the attack wasn't any part of her plans and threw her own timetable off track.
• Parental Favoritism: Prospera isn't speaking metaphorically about Aerial being her "daughter", as one of her major goals is freeing Eri's mind from the confines of a mobile suit—mostly by manipulating Suletta into piloting her. Things get more complicated after Episodes 17 and 18, as Prospera ultimately chooses to leave Suletta alone but "safe" after breaking her heart, while keeping Eri at her side and in danger by using Aerial to kick off a new round of hostilities with the Earthians by destroying Quinharbor.
• Parental Neglect: While living on Mercury, she would often go on long trips to Earth, leaving Suletta on her own for extended periods of time with Gundam Aerial. This also has the effect of causing Suletta to become extremely sensitive to praise and attention from Prospera, which Prospera then uses multiple times to manipulate Suletta as she sees fit.
• Perpetual Smiler: As Lady Prospera, she's always shown to have a small, knowing smile on her face, befitting a charming manipulator who always knows what button to press to get the response she needs from someone. She isn't smiling at the end of Episode 22 when Suletta goes against her.
• Pet the Dog: Downplayed — in episode 18, after confirming to Suletta that everything she's just learned about her origins and Aerial is true, Prospera encourages her to enjoy her school life to fill the gap left by Prospera and Aerial before leaving her behind, keeping the promise she made to Miorine and preventing Suletta from getting into a situation where she'll have to take more lives. Additionally, while it's not entirely clear if Prospera is acting out of a sense of lingering responsibility or genuine care for Suletta, Prospera does seem to have some misgivings with leaving Suletta Locked Out of the Loop, before agreeing with Eri that Suletta deserves to live out her life in peace without them. The downplaying comes in because Prospera leaves Suletta alone in space to cry her lungs out after hearing the most traumatic revelations of her life back-to-back, with only an SOS beacon attached to ensure she gets picked up.
• Playing Both Sides: While she's clearly willing to team up with Vim Jeturk or anyone else that's opposed to Delling and Cathedra as part of advancing her goals, she's also up to something with Delling, too. In the opening parts of episode 11, she tells him that Aerial hit Permet Score 6 during the Grassley duel and openly admits to him and Rajan that she's Elnora Samaya, then gives him Aerial's network architecture and confirms that she's working with Delling on an initiative called Quiet Zero, which is later revealed to use data storms to control Permet Links and create a network that's under Aerial's control.
• Red Herring: Throughout most of the first season she refers to both Suletta and Aerial as her daughters, but only as long as Suletta or Miorine are within earshot. After speaking to Belmeria about Peil's Gundam, she cryptically expresses faith in her daughter (singular) winning the duel against Elan, and during the attack on Plant Quetta only refers to Suletta as "that girl". Once it's revealed Aerial is actually Eri, it's increasingly suggested that Suletta is purely a tool to Prospera and/or literally not her daughter. Ultimately this turns out to be a mixed bag; it's confirmed that Prospera is genetically Suletta's mother (since Suletta is a clone of Eri), and while Prospera very much did use Suletta as a tool to facilitate Aerial's Permet Score growth, she has just enough lingering sentiment toward Suletta to try to keep Suletta physically safe once she's not needed for Prospera's plans anymore.
• Redemption Equals Affliction: Ultimately, Eri convinces Prospera to abandon Quiet Zero. While Shaddiq takes the fall so that Prospera can be with her daughters, she's also lost use of her legs. She doesn't even have prosthetic legs years later, suggesting either damage far beyond the legs themselves or that Prospera thinks she doesn't deserve them.
• Reverse Relationship Reveal: Once Eri and Suletta are revealed as separate people, the show increasingly plays up the idea Prospera felt nothing for Suletta, and only cares about Eri. Ultimately, while Prospera does keep Eri/Aerial and abandon Suletta, she does this while leaving her younger daughter safe and with friends, while keeping the elder as a knowing-but-reluctant accomplice to the most violent parts of her scheme.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • In Episode 7, she delivers one to Miorine, calling her out for her overblown sense of pride and the hypocrisy of disparaging her father when she enjoys great privilege as Delling's child in spite of her hatred for him. It hits home hard enough for Miorine to swallow her pride and plead with him to invest in Gund-Arm Inc. to save Aerial.
  • In Episode 16, she responds to Belmeria's accusations of how inhumanely she treated Eri by converting her into the Aerial by pointing out how Belmeria's hands are no less tainted; Belmeria developed the technology that she'd later use for the Enhanced Person project despite Dr. Cardo's objections. Prospera then tells Belmeria that there is no escape from her guilt in order to try to coerce her into helping with Quiet Zero.
• Sins of Our Fathers: In Episode 16, she makes it clear to Miorine that she despises every member of the Rembran family for Delling's slaughter of the Vanadis Institute, calling her Delling's blood-stained daughter. This is despite the fact that Miorine wasn't even born yet at the time the Prologue's events occured.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: She very rarely raises her voice, even as she's encouraging Suletta to kill others, or threatening Suletta's safety in order to get Miorine to cooperate with her.
• Shipper with an Agenda: She claims to support the idea of Miorine marrying her daughter when meeting the girl for the second time, but it soon becomes clear what she actually wants is to use Miorine in her schemes against Delling. Miorine is horrified to realize she cares for Suletta much more than her mother does, yet Prospera's words can still override whatever Miorine tells Suletta, basically turning their relationship into one big conduit for Prospera's blackmail.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • She is somehow aware of Vim's attempts to usurp Delling, blackmailing him in return for his assistance in beating Delling's inquisition. He reluctantly sides with her, using Miorine's challenging her father to a duel as a chance to undermine Delling.
  • She sabotages Miorine's attempt to negotiate peace with the Earthian protest leaders by creating a False Flag Operation that erupts into a battle between the Earthian and Spacian forces. She also screws over Shaddiq by destroying all of the Gundams he'd been stockpiling from Ochs Earth.
• Start of Darkness: Once upon a time, Prospera — or rather, Elnora Samaya — was an optimistic woman with a loving husband and daughter, and wanted to help humanity. Then came the Vanadis incident, where she witnessed her husband, mentor and all her colleagues massacred in cold blood, followed up by having to witness Eri's health deteriorate due to the harsh living conditions of space, forcing her to upload her to the Lfrith in a last ditch effort to keep her alive. This leads to Elnora taking up the name "Prospera Mercury" and formulating a plan years in the making to make Delling pay for taking everything from her, regardless of how many ethical and moral lines she has to cross in the process.
• Stealth Pun:
  • In Japanese, "suisei" can mean either "Mercury" or "Comet".
  • In the Ad Stella setting, "Gundam" is short for "GUND-Arm". Prospera has an artificial arm based on GUND technology, making it a literal "GUND arm".
• Strong Family Resemblance: In her youth, she looks as Suletta does now.
• Survivor's Guilt: In the final episode, she admits she feels just as guilty as Belmeria over not perishing with the rest of Vanadis, which drove her desperation to ensure that Eri could survive and be free. Ultimately, the spirits of those she lost appear to her, reassuring her it's not her time, and that she should be with her daughters.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Given she was a very loving mother in the prologue, it can be quite a shock to read how she would leave Suletta alone on Mercury for extended periods, even missing several of her birthdays. And then she reveals to Aerial her plan to use Suletta as an unaware tool of revenge, which also reveals what changed her behavior so much.
• Trouble Entendre: A lot of her dialogue, especially concerning Suletta, might looks perfectly fine on first viewing, but if one stops to think then a lot of what she says comes with rather troubling implications and hidden double meanings.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Downplayed since she's probably not all that torn up about it, but when she enacts a False Flag Operation as cover for destroying a cache of Ochs Earth's Gundams at Quinharbor, the only intended consequences of that were escalated violence on Earth and punishing Ochs Earth for betraying the principles of the GUND Format. She had no idea that Norea — a terrorist Gundam pilot in hiding at Asticassia that already had immense hatred for Spacians before she started breaking down due to her friend and fellow pilot Sophie's death — would see Quinharbor's destruction on the news, Freak Out, and go on a rampage at Asticassia once Shaddiq let her loose as a backup plan. Suletta was in Asticassia at the time and was nearly killed as an indirect result of her own mother's actions.
• Villain Has a Point: Prospera, for all her deceitfulness, very rarely makes points that are outright wrong. Almost every time she gives a person advice, there's at least a very strong grain of truth to it, or it's just outright good advice (even if it's not for the right reasons). Quite a number of characters, Miorine in particular, start off in opposition to her but end up gritting their teeth and admitting she's basically right.
• Volcanic Veins: When Eri tries to save Quiet Zero, it's shown that she does in fact have Permet Link marks on her face. Unlike every other user of the GUND Format, it only appears on one side of her face, and is vaguely hand shaped, compared to the neat, symmetrical circuit diagram style markings of other pilots.
• Xanatos Gambit: In episode 17, she uses Miorine's closeness to Suletta to force Miorine into a nasty lose/lose situation — if Miorine continues resisting Prospera's plans for Suletta, Suletta will likely remain under Prospera's thumb to who knows what end. Alternatively, if Miorine agrees to run for presidency of the Benerit Group, she can potentially find a way to ensure Suletta's safety, but doing so means following Prospera's plan — and of course, chances are that the long term effects of the latter option will just further Prospera's goals. The latter is what ultimately comes to pass in Episode 19, as Prospera and Aerial make it to Earth as part of Miorine's retinue for negotiations with the Earthian Independence League, which lets Prospera destroy Ochs Earth's hidden cache of Gundams to screw over Shaddiq while falsely blaming Earthian terrorists for the incident.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: With Delling left in a coma after the Plant Quetta attack, her plans for Quiet Zero take a temporary hit. However, she's able to quickly adapt by shifting her focus over to Miorine, using Miorine's relationship to Suletta to eventually coerce Miorine into taking over where her father left off.

Godoy Haimano

Godoy Haimano

Affiliation: Shin Sei Development Corporation

Voiced by: Yutaka Aoyama (Japanese), Kamen Casey (English)

"Even though it's been more than 20 years, are you still afraid of witches?"

A member of Shin Sei Development Corporation who is always seen by Prospera's side, acting as her secretary and bodyguard.

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• Beware the Quiet Ones: He's not as blatantly suspicious as Prospera, but ruthlessly puts a half dozen bullet holes in Feng.
• Number Two: Just like Rajan's relationship with Delling, all his scenes portray him as Prospera's right hand man. He's attached closely enough that he's become a familiar sight to Suletta, given how cheerfully she greets him.
• The Quiet One: He rarely gets a line. He usually stays behind Prospera, watching over her actions in silence.
• Satellite Character: Between his sparse scenes and lack of dialogue, he doesn't get much characterization beyond being Prospera's right hand man.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Prospera is the only member of Shin Sei that appears after Quiet Zero is destroyed. It isn't specified if Godoy and the others were captured by the Space Assembly League, or if Shaddiq Taking the Heat would affect their sentencing.

Dominicus Corps

The military arm of Cathedra, dedicated to the suppression of Gundam development by force.

Kenanji Avery

Main MS: CEK-040 Beguir-Beu, CEK-077 Beguir-Pente (Dominicus Corps unit)

Voiced by: Yoji Ueda (Japanese), Brandon Acosta (English)

"This is the end of the Gundam."

^{Click here to see him in the prologue}

A pilot working in the Mobile Suit Development Council's Dominicus squad during the raid on Fólkvangr. He has since ascended to the position of captain of the squad.

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• Ace Pilot: Initially kept in reserve and only sent when it was confirmed they would have to fight Gundams, Kenanji was quick to prove it wasn't a mistake to treat him as an ace in the hole; he makes quick work of every unit he faces down in direct combat during the prologue. He's later shown to still be quite skilled in the present despite his increased girth, going toe-to-toe with a rampaging Norea in Episode 20, holding his own against a Gundam without the GUND-suppressing Antidote system.
• Affably Evil: He's quite friendly when he reappears after the timeskip, but he still enforces the Benerit Group's corrupt system and doesn't hesitate to threaten a child for information.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Kenanji is easygoing and upbeat on the surface, but he's the last person to screw with if he's given reason to suspect that he's dealing with a threat of any kind, either to the people he's guarding or the Benerit Group as a whole.
• Big Fun: He's on the heavy side, and is a cheerful and friendly guy.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: A more grounded version of one. Despite his comically round figure and generally laid-back attitude in the present, Kenanji repeatedly proves that he is not any worse at his job for it. He quickly realizes that Shaddiq is the culprit behind Dawn of Fold's activities during his conversation with Sedo, tries to reign in Guel when they're on their way to arrest Shaddiq, and is able to fight on even footing with Norea in Episode 20 despite her being in a Gundam and going on a rampage.
• Famed In-Story: Guel, who wanted to become a Dominicus ace himself, recognizes Kenanji on sight, though he's surprised by how much weight Kenanji has gained.
• Formerly Fit: In the prologue he is in peak physical condition. By the time he reappears in the series proper, he has put on quite a few pounds, and his subordinates joke about him being unable to fit into a mobile suit cockpit. Episode 20, however, proves that he's still more than deserving of his Ace Pilot status.
• Hero Killer: Kills several of the test pilots in the prologue, including Nadim, Ericht's father.
• The Juggernaut: The CEK-040 Beguir-Beu is damn near unstoppable and while Nadim can push it back from his family, it ultimately emerges completely unscathed. Notably, the Lfrith easily destroys three Heingras, yet the Beguir-Beu instantly makes short work of it.
• Lightworlder: Downplayed; Kenanji can move around fine even on the Earth's surface, but he admits his weight makes him more comfortable when microgravity is an option.
• Man of Kryptonite: His Beguir-Beu has quasi-remote emitters that shut down the remote weapons and the functions of the GUND-Format Gundam Lfrith mobile suits deployed against him.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He's a rather friendly guy who just happens to work for a corrupt system.
• Rank Up: A pilot in Prologue who becomes a captain by the time of the main series.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: While he goes along with Miorine's plan to attack Quiet Zero with Earth House, he tells them that the moment things might go south he wants them to get out of there and let the adults handle the rest. Despite being the captain in charge of protecting the Benerit Group — and realising that the plan that Suletta, Miorine, and Earth House have at hand is their best shot at success — he refuses to put students in more danger than he absolutely has to.
• Retired Monster: A downplayed example, in that he is only retired from active piloting and still has a career, but he was one of the main figures of the massacre at Vanadis and has no evident regret for it.