It's a Gundam thread!

I'm assuming the large variety of low production run mobile suits for the Zeon faction was to further the Nazi analogs.

Pretty much, Low numbers of expensive but effective suits vs swarm of large numbers of cheap MP suits.

The GM was a great MS though. Better than a Zaku II and about comparable to the Rick Dom; it was like the EF's Sherman. The Ball was like a Jeep with a Recoilless Rifle attached to it.

EDIT: Read Char's Dakar speech and I'm like... how was this supposed to win over the Federal Assembly? "Space Rules. Feddies suck cock. We all need to live in the colonies. Peace out." Personally, I'd play it off as turning it into a 'House divided against itself cannot stand' sort of deal because just spewing boilerplate Zeonist rhetoric ain't gonna convince anyone.

edited 26th Mar '12 1:55:50 AM by Scherzo09

It convinced people because the Titans had been stupid/overconfident enough to fight a battle in Dakar's airspace, and even fire on the Federation Assembly Building. Your military going rogue on you is likely to make anyone seriously question their beliefs.

But then couldn't just about anyone go "Herp Derp, look outside, the Titans are bombing your shit"?

I mean, how the hell would the FA been moved by this when it was the exact same Zeonist rhetoric the Titans warned about?

Possibly because it was the exact same Zeonist rhetoric the Titans had warned them about. What better time to preach that than when your rhetorical opponents are busy shooting themselves in the foot on public TV?

RE: Numerous low production models.

I suspect it's got more to do with providing variety in mooks for the White Base to shoot down.

Well I guess it just bugs me because ANYONE could talk about the Titan attack, why tack on your kooky Spacenoid Rhetoric.

Because that rhetoric was a significant part of the AEUG's objectives. He wasn't just trying to get the Federation to stop helping the Titans, but to start helping them as well.

By framing them as the dangerous Zeonist extremists the Titans made them out to be?

Besides, I think Zeon himself more eloquently stated Newtype philosophy than any of the people since him. [1]

edited 26th Mar '12 12:09:52 PM by Scherzo09

Hmmm...He's very eloquent certainly, I'll give him that. A lot of the supposedly great speeches in Gundam do not live up to their hype. This one does. I'll also give him credit for the pacifist sentiment. And yet at the same time, he's still a prick. He's still positing this obnoxiously elitist sentiment, while accusing the people of Earth of doing the same. I am sorry—I just do not have the respect for Zeonic ideals that the series seems to demand I have. They want to live in space? Great. They want to be independent? Fine. But forcing everyone else to join them? Acting as though where they live makes them superior? They're doing the exact same thing that the Federation is supposedly doing. Yeesh.

Certainly doesn't hurt.

Well its comparable to say Marxism; a single revolution in a country would not be enough to undermine the overriding system, but that a world revolution is necessary to bring about change for mankind and uproot the preexisting system. In Zeon's case its a rebirth of mankind in outer space; the Earth being preserved and mankind, not being constrained by the past, can be allowed to develop into a more beatific people. And like Marx he see's this as an inevitability, with the Republic of Zeon being the first step in that direction. Now you might disagree with his philosophy, but I think he sincerely sees moving mankind into space as allowing it to grow. But just as Marxism breed totalitarian dictatorships potentially worse than the capitalist plutocracies they were supposedly opposing, Zeonism led to Spacenoid dictatorships which twisted populist Spacenoid Nationalism to suit their needs. But I think Zeon had a sincere desire to improve people's lives and that is why he adopted his comprehensive radical philosophy.

Of course, there are certainly counterarguments. I'm thinking of having Bask Om say something like this at some point in the fanfic:

"Tell me, what is so wonderful about these connections Newtypes will supposedly have? If they are these wonderful, emphatic ubermenschen you Spacenoids make them out to be, then certainly we could all come together in some joyous collective whole. But what if we're less noble? What if it turns out we really are driven by baser instincts, the things we don't like to think or talk about? The drive to Greed, Lust, Power; What if that's all humanity could see, in others and themselves? How would mankind, now intimately aware of itself, deal with the crushing weight of its collective sin?

Society is based on white lies, lies of omission, and common courtesy. Insincerity, as much it is demonized, is a necessary coping mechanism for dealing with human interaction. Newtypism will not strengthen the bonds between people; it will utterly destroy them. Newtypes, unable to cope with the vile natures lurking in their hearts and the hearts others, will be driven to sociopathy. That will be the legacy of Newtypes, a race of amoral emotionally-crippled sociopaths gifted with superpowers beyond their control. They will not herald the future of humanity but instead be harbingers of its destruction. Gihren Zabi, a man born and raised in space, is proof enough that the colonies have done little to change the nature of the human soul. I don't want to think what would've happened if he were a Newtype as well.

That is why Newtypes must be controlled. That is why I and the Titans have done what we've done. The principles and security provided by the Earth Federation are the only bulwarks against the nihilistic anarchy an entirely Newtype humanity would face. We've killed thousands, potentially millions of people who frankly did nothing to deserve their deaths, but let me say in no uncertain terms that this was done first and foremost to protect humanity from itself. The parasitic, self-destructive ideologies of Zeonism and Newtypism must be stamped out."

Also Revil gets a good speech from the novelization too which basically call's bullshit on the Zabi's spacenoid rhetoric: [1]

edited 26th Mar '12 2:53:30 PM by Scherzo09

I've read Revil's speech before. I appreciate the sentiment in it. Also, congratulations on turning Bask Om into something approaching a human being, without losing his inherent nastiness.

My biggest issue with the philosophy is that I can see where Marx was coming from (I'm an ex-Communist). I get the theory. I get why he thought it was a good idea. The whole Newtype thing, on the other hand, is just weird. Why would moving into space give you powers? And even if it did, how in the hell would anyone predict that? Not to mention that the logistics of what Zeon wanted to do are approaching impossible.

I will be curious to read this fic when it's done.

EDIT: The episode where they send Reccoa to the Jupitris. How dumb are these people? Everyone brushes off Kamille's very legitimate concerns (based on the evidence of what happened last time), acts like he's being childish and reacting based solely on a crush, and my personal favourite, behave as though her desire to "prove herself" is a legitimate reason to jeopardise the entire organisation by letting her go. God, how has the AEUG survived this long? And what is with the Japanese and "proving yourself."

edited 26th Mar '12 3:02:04 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I thing the biggest thing to get over is the whole "New Age" aspect of it. (By the way, in my sorta Fanon I kind of turn Minovsky Particles into Element Zero, long term exposure to it causing Newtypism) But when you get passed that aspect, you have the benefits of 1. Starting society anew in space without being weighed down by the prejudices of the past, and 2. Preserving the environmental integrity of Earth. He saw in space the potential to create states that weren't based on the old systems, and he felt the forces of the EF, driven by the traditional ruling class, would stifle that. Space represented possibility and rebirth while the EF was decay. I won't deny that a lot of it is too abstract, but I do see where Deikun is coming from.

For the fic, I was thinking like having it have about the material for a series with 24-26 episodes; seems to be about the right length for a story like this.

Reccoa Londe ladies and gentelmen, the world's worst spy. Goes undercover with a horrible story and can't lie to save her life when she gets caught. This episode makes Kamille look like the Only Sane Man. That's not a good sign.

Problem is, how does it maintain environmental integrity? The sheer amount of gas you'd have to burn just to get all those people into space is staggering. Not to mention the food, materials, etc that you'd have to ship. Yes, iron and other materials like that could be mined from asteroids, but a lot of it is, once again, coming from Earth.

edited 26th Mar '12 3:32:20 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

As far as I understand, the colonies are pretty self sufficient. I think the idea is the short term environmental damage done by reducing Earth's population would be more than offset by the longterm benefits of their being no more human's the earth's surface.

Also you spoiler 'her' but not 'she'?

edited 26th Mar '12 3:30:19 PM by Scherzo09

Also remember that a pretty good chunk of the earth's population is dead since the OYW.

The colonies are self-sufficent, but you've got to get the livestock, crops, etc. up there in the first place. And regardless of how much of an advantage getting people off of Earth would be, the fact that the colonies are as big as they are, and still hold as few people as they do, would seem to indicate that building Spacenoidotopia will take a lot of resources.

My impression was that the construction materials were taken from the asteroid belt and the moon. They didn't actually ship the stuff from earth.

Problem with that is that once again, I'm not sure you could get all the materials from the asteroid belt or the moon. The iron certainly, but I don't know about whatever else you'd need. And that's not getting into the materials you need to construct urban centres.

They could probably synthesize heavier elements via the Fusion reactors.

re: environmental impact of living in space — the point isn't to remove all human influence from Earth's environment forever, it's to minimize it as much as possible. Island 3s are self-sufficient once they're set up, and most of the raw materials in building them comes from the moon (or, in Gundam, various asteroids like Luna II), so once you get all the colonies set up and people living in them, the impact on Earth would be reduced to gathering the handful of resources that aren't available in space. Not zero impact, but definitely preferable to having a few billion people kicking around.

re: Zeon philosophy — it's worth remembering that Gundam itself (well, UC Gundam, anyway) doesn't buy into Deikun's newtype theory. Yes, Newtypes exist and are a result of living in space, but they don't end conflict like Deikun thought they would. Deikun's ideas are based on the concept that all conflict is caused by misunderstanding — if everyone had psychic Newtype powers that allowed them to completely understand each other, then they would have nothing to fight over. We see exactly two reactions between characters sharing a Newtype flash: love and hate. Point being, just because you understand someone doesn't mean you agree with them.

Sadly some of the shows (and Zeta in particular) are not great at making that point. I don't necessarily disagree with you about the message that the show was trying to create, but unfortunately the constant blathering (by characters we are intended to sympathise with) that everyone has to move into space and that Newtypes will fix the world is so heavy handed that any other message gets lost in the confusion.

First part, that was the actual intention of the Earth Federation, yes. In all practicality, its nice to spread your eggs with space colonies and all just in case of some ecology failure on earth, but Colonies can be fragile too and a lot of people probably would prefer living on Earth. What Deikun said is that everyone would be better off abandoning the earth and he believed that to be their destiny, but he didn't put a gun to people's heads about it like later Spacenoid Supremacists would.

As for the second part, I honestly do not get that. I mean that Zeon's vision keeps failing is self evident; but everyone in universe goes on and on about how its either the fault of a few bad egg spacenoids or the evil, evil Earth Federation which has the audacity to want to exist. People still seem to genuinely believe that Zeon was right and that "If only people were more" whatever it would work. At least in Unicorn its all predicated on the much less insane idea of Colonial Sovereignty instead of "Everyone needs to move into space right the fuck now".