It's a Gundam thread!

The Zulu has higher performance than the Doga. I don't know about the Doga but the Zulu was deliberately designed to be easy to mass-produce and pilot.

Yeah, the Zulu is a pure upgrade of the Doga. There's no difference in battlefield role, one just happens to be a better, more advanced, and more versatile suit.

And the other looks cooler. :3

(I can't take Zulus seriously, they look like they're wearing buckets)

They're supposed to be Stahlhelm-esque.

In regards to how SEED should have ended, which we know is a Kill Em All, technically, that isn't the case. Here's the intended ending:

Source: http://aeug.blogspot.co.uk/2003_11_01_archive.html

What is with Gundam and Kill Em All endings?

Well, most Gundam series are about war. And in war, people tend to die. What better way to show the horrors of war than to kill off half the cast?

The way I heard it was that Tomino generally dislikes doing sequels for any series he writes. So he got into a habit of killing off most of the cast at the end of a series to make sequels more difficult for executives to demand.

Didn't work with Gundam, obviously, but it kind of became a "tradition" of sorts. After Zeta Gundam, this became seen as an acceptable way to end a Gundam series (it does fit the War Is Hell theme), particularly since most entries in the franchise tend to start with a brand-new cast anyway.

@Hallow Hawk

Heard that before, or variants of it. Frankly glad it didn't happen. Kill Em All endings tend to feel really forced to me. There's nothing wrong with a high bodycount, but I like it spread out over a series, not shoved into the finale.

Thanks to that I don't think it was supposed to be "rocks fall, everybody dies." I think Fukuda intended to replace Kira as protagonist by going Invincible Superman Zambot 3, but got vetoed by Morosawa. Given the final product's sequel not having Kira and Lacus taking their relationship to the next level, I think that was Fukuda's way of revolting for not cribbing off Zambot 3?

Cutting off his nose to spite his face seems like a decent descriptor of his decision, then. I suspect it was much more cold-blooded and about not frustrating the shippers.

I find it funny that the SRW videogames are the only place where Seed Destiny gets a halfway decent ending.

Random-ass thought of the week: what would it take, from either of them, to make a Judau/Haman romance actually work out?

Or is such a prospect inherently doomed, right from the start?

more Newtype moments between them would help

and Judau actually influencing Haman to tone down her cynicism

Don't forget about Judau convincing Haman to give up on Char.

Well, there'd have to be a way to convince Haman not to carry out the Dublin drop, because after that, there's no going back for either of them. Also, a way for Judau to retain enough faith in humanity to be able to adequately counter her arguments and talk her around.

That assumes you want something vaguely approaching a healthy relationship, anyway. If that's not a concern, then you've got quite a bit more leeway.

I don't think you can make a Haman/Judau romance workable, because it's designed from the ground up to be unworkable. They can sympathize with one another, but in the end, seeing Judau's viewpoint just drives Haman to suicide. I suppose if you wanted to put Judau in a time machine and have him run into her during the OYW there might be something you could do there.

I don't think that suicide is the only answer available to Haman in that situation. It's an easy answer (mechanically and otherwise), probably, and it would be difficult to cope with the blow to her self-image if she chose any other answer. But Haman isn't in a position where her only option is dying by her own hand or dying by somebody else's. The EF can't really afford to kill her out of hand and it can't really afford to try and execute her; a quiet retirement is possible and I'm sure the Republic of Zeon could always use someone of her talents in their own military.

If Haman surrendered that would also have...interesting effects, come Unicorn, on the legitimacy of Sleeves.

I didn't say it was the only answer available to her, I said it was the route that she picked, and I'm not sure what, if anything, Judau could have done to make her select a different option.

I like Judau a lot, but in the end he's still a teenager, and I don't think he's emotionally equipped to talk down Haman as she is in the series. I can't help but feel such a plot line might involve altering both characters to be unrecognizable, which would defeat the purpose.

Though going back to something I said in a previous post, if someone wants to screw around with time travel (and it's fanfic, so why not?) and have Judau go back in time and meet a teenage Haman, I'd be game. Alternately, I suppose somebody could, going off something you mentioned in your post, write a fic in which Judau manages to physically interrupt Haman's suicide and take her to prison. In which case the fic could take the form of a series of jail visits, and have a relationship build from there, though as Laculus notes, that's post-Dublin, which means we may not want this Haman fixed.

edited 29th Dec '14 8:35:54 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Not just 'we' - after Dublin and the Leina shooting, I'm not completely sure about how much effort Judau is willing to put into helping Haman, and how much Haman herself would be willing to accept some measure of redemption (getting Mashmyre killed seemed to take something of an emotional toll on her as well).

Hmm, maybe have Haman have some sort of Newtype connection with Puru to see through her eyes somehow?

Is there any kind of information on what Haman might have been doing/been like around the time of the One Year War? Or at least pre-Zeta?

Also, I would probably end up struggling to think of a scenario of putting Judau back in time without sending the ZZ back with him.

Also, going to try and watch more Turn A Gundam again.

Dammit, Teteth, stop being such a tease.... -_-

edited 30th Dec '14 11:27:27 AM by EvaUnit01

Well, Haman appears to be a Military Brat whose dad was a top dog in the Zeon military. So it's entirely possible that Haman was going to a military academy during the OYW, methinks. The surest way for Judau to get close to her at that time is to enlist.

edited 30th Dec '14 12:09:08 PM by amitakartok

She was the daughter of the governor of Axis, who test-piloted experimental suits as a hobby. Her career was always intended to be in politics, it's just that nobody (especially her) expected it to be anywhere near as soon as it was.

Get to her before she meets Char and its a win.