History Headscratchers / Gundam

We know it can't be some kind of mental link, at least not for relatively basic models like the Strike, because whenever an enemy unit uses that kind of technology, it's a big deal and a lot gets made of it in the show. Also, that's the sort of thing they tend to mention.

And if the computer's controlling the actual movements of the mobile suit, while the pilot just tells it where to go and whom to fight, then that's dumb. What would they need a pilot for?

I have a theory. I guess a total Gundam nerd can post something canon later. So, for the arm control; the sticks sliding forward and back control extension of the arms and some kind of gimbal on the stick for controlling up/down in the shoulder with the computer fine-tuning the control. The fingers are controlled by the triggers on the sticks and that controls the weapons systems. The pedals work like a car, you press the accelerator pedal to move the legs, press it hard and you run. The other pedal controls jet thrust for the boosters and maybe covers jump as well. Head control is handled by slaving the head to the pilot's helmet similar to what we do with modern helicopters. For turning, the pilot can shift his weight in the seat to the left or right to turn. Let's just say that it becomes very obvious when he scratches his butt.

*** That wasn't an attempt to push any patriotism circuit, just comparing the scenario. The American colonists weren't being oppressed in the 'Evil Overlord' sense, they were taxed without representation and forced to sell their goods only to the British Empire. Similarly, the people of the colonies weren't allowed to form their own governments and had been forced to emigrate to the colonies. Naturally, there was resentment toward the Federation. However, the bad guys seized control of The Republic of Zeon, and formed a totalitarian dicatorship, using the ideals of the Republic to gain the loyalty of the people. You see, one of the founding philosophies of the Republic were that the people of Space should be independent from control of the Earth. When Degwin Zabi took control and shifted to a dictatorship, he believed the only way to achieve and maintain independence was for Zeon to fight the Federation. Before he took over, the Republic had been trying to negotiate for its independence, with the federation attempting to force them to return through economic pressure. Now, while the colony drop was by far the most destructive single attack in course of the war, both sides suffered horrific losses. The opening claimed both sides had lost half of their respective populations due to indiscriminate use of WMDs such as nuclear weapons and poison gas. The colony drop was an attempt to wipe out the Federation headquarters at Jaburo and end the war quickly, but the colony was diverted before it could hit, and landed in a civilian city. It's not quite grey and grey morality, but it is done in shades of grey. Once you get away from the original series, we get more and more instances of the Federation proving it can be just as bad as Zeon can. I think the 08th MS team does the best job of portraying each side as equal in greyscale ethics, with the Zeon occupation of that village when the Apsalus and the Federation shooting down a hospital ship. As for Operation Stardust and future Neo-Zeon movements, there seems to less and less justification for these, I'll give you that. As Zeon is continually revived, the followers become more and more fanatical, leading to more extreme actions that begin to fade from 'war' to near-religious terrorism. As Marida Cruz said, belief in the ideals of Zeon Zum-Deikun had become a religion for many. And like I said in my first argument, many of the colonists (And certainly themselves) see themselves as freedom fighters, seeking to liberate space from the perceived tyranny of Earth. So yes, probably not as grey as the writers like to think, but grey nonetheless. (Sorry for such a long and backstory heavy response)

** Adding on to the above, Pacifistic characters who do not fight (Lacus Clyne, Relena Darlain, Marina Ishmail (I do hope I'm spelling that right)) tend to be unable to do much due to the fact that they are in the middle of a war, as such they are perceived as stated above to be "killing the buzz". They are not able to have any effect on the story until the epilogue, when the protagonist has beaten back all aggressors in their Gundam (or similar fashion) and as such are kind of useless until that stage (Lacus might be an exception to this in SEED, being the head of Terminal). Pacifistic Characters who have Gundams (Kira and Kio) tend to make decisions according to WideEyedIdealism, which can come off as making them TooDumbToLive. It really Depends on the character, as characters which simply yell "Stop fighting!" while gunning others down can be grating, whereas others who

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* Why are there so many underwater Zeon mobile suits, but only two terrible Federation suits, the Aqua GM (the Waterproof Gundam is literally an Aqua GM with extra bits attached) and the Zaku Mariner (based on a OYW Zeon design, and all of them stolen by Neo Zeon in the first Neo Zeon war)? Zeon remnants were active for almost 20 years on Earth, waged 3 wars on Earth and space, and no one thought to create a design that can fight on terrain that covers the vast majority of the Earth? [[/folder]]

* One thing that I have really been finding annoying is Shiro Amada's AlphaStrike and how it failed. He's sliding down the tower he stuck his Gundam EZ8's backpack to and is shown firing in straight lines. However, when it cuts to his opponent, Norris Pacard's Gouf Custom, the bullets from his 100mm autocannon go off to the left of the suit, his 35mm vulcans got off to the right side and his 12.7mm machine gun just kind of meander around the target, who's just standing there. I don't get it. After all, the 35mm and 12.7mm guns wouldn't have done much more than scratch the paint of a mobile suit, if that. I mean, if they really wanted to show how {{Badass}} Norris is, then he should have been shown blocking the 100mm rounds with the obvious shield he has and just tanking the weaker stuff.

* Why are there so many underwater Zeon mobile suits, but only two terrible Federation suits, the Aqua GM (the Underwater Gundam is literally an Aqua GM with extra bits attached) and the Zaku Mariner (based on a OYW Zeon design, and all of them stolen by Neo Zeon in the first Neo Zeon war)? Zeon remnants were active for almost 20 years on Earth, waged 3 wars on Earth and space, and no one thought to create a design that can fight on terrain that covers the vast majority of the Earth? [[/folder]]

* Why do all supplemental materials list Amuro's age as 15 when in the episode "A Fateful Encounter" he flat out SAYS that he's sixteen years old?

** Though it should also be noted that Char's age is 19, rather than 21, considering Casval lied about his age when he joined Zeon's military as 'Char.'

**** Yeah, nostalgia goggles definetly as many of the problems they list with those anime exist in UC and then some.

** Either that or they meant Megawatts, but got the units confused.

*** So one leader with an agenda can apparently convince an entire military to put nuclear warheads on a prototype? And none of the main characters think to question this rather poor decision?

** This is also one of the main reasons the Federation won the war: Zeon's production facilities were wasting time and resources trying to come up with the next super-awesome mobile suit that they forgot about mass production. The Federation, on the other hand, mass produces the highly versatile Gundam design in the form of the GM, which leads to a much better utilization of resources. It's basically AwesomeButImpractical vs BoringButPractical in action.

** There's a throwaway line in 0079 where a Zeon commander (M'quve) claims to have shipped off enough material from his mines to keep Zeon fighting for another decade. Furthermore, if Stardust Memory is to be believed a crapton of Zeon forces didn't acknowledge the surrender and fled to places like Axis or the Delaz Fleet. This troper's guess would be that these two factors together meant that there were still enough troops willing to fight, and with sufficient supplies, for Zeon to keep fighting even after the One Year War was lost.

** Considering it was at the very end of the war, with Zeon's resources stretched, they literally may not have had enough red paint to cover the Zeong...

** It is, it's called a "[[Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam correction]]".

** It was more meant to show the impracticality of the alpha strike than anything else. Guns have kick, and automatic weapons ''never'' stay pointed at the exact spot they started out with once fired. Given that Shiro was also messily grinding down a tower, the accuracy was shot all to hell, which is pretty much what would happen in Real Life if someone tried such a stunt. Packard knew this and didn't bother dodging because he knew very little of it had any chance of hitting him.

** It's all about execution. When you're a pacifist is a war zone, things should be hard and there need to be reasons for trying at all to be feasible if it's not. For instance, Loran spends most of the series on ''Earth'' where disabled MS tend not to [[MadeOfExplodium explode easily]] and the pilots can survive longer because they won't run out of air, so it's not totally unrealistic, plus he's creative at using a hugely destructive MS for noncombat purposes. Banagher, on the other hand, screws up a ''lot'' and a lot of his time is spent figuring out how to use such a massively destructive Gundam directly against its designed purpose, he completely fails in trying to talk down an enemy pilot, and it takes until episode 5 for him to succeed. The problem with pilots like late-S2 Setsuna or Kio Asuno is that they get Gundams that make it massively easy to apply pacifistic ideals in pitched battle, use space sparkles toso their enemies feel pacifism, or (in Kio's case) they do blatantly ineffective things despite obvious evidence that it's not working and refusing to change tactics (i.e. yelling "LET'S UNDERSTAND FELLOW HUMAN" to pilots who are repeatedly telling him to hold still so they can shoot him down easier).
** Simply put, if you're a pacifist - YOU SHOULDN'T BE FIGHTING IN A WAR. Also, a pacifist has no right to preach to the people who are actually fighting and killing, and desperately trying to stay alive. It's especially grating if they're stopping THEIR OWN SIDE from killing the enemy. Notably, Amuro Ray and Tomino's protagonists in general NEVER protested the necessity of killing the enemy.

* The IdiotPlot that starts off [[{{Gundam0083}} Stardust Memory]]. Who THE HELL equips a live nuclear warhead to a prototype that hasn't been evaluated yet and for that matter is done practically ''out in the open''?

**** This troper always assumed it was Rule of Cool. The Alliance and Oz have a very old-world feel to their militaries, so I assumed they were based on WW1 fighter pilots, hence the goggles. It's adding to the atmosphere, I guess.

** HypeBacklash at American fans who only know about Gundam from Toonami, not that there isn't an equal HypeBacklash [[RedundancyDepartmentOfRedundancy Backlash]] at UC fanboys who refuse to accept anything that newer fans [[AssociationFallacy also happen to like]].

[[folder:Pacifist characters. Why are they hated?]]
* This is mainly towards Gundam in general and not any specific series. Why do people feel the need to hate on these characters? Do they forget that Gundam is a war show that has analogies to real life? Of course there'd be people who are like that. People keep going on about how the likes of recent Gundam protagonists stink because they "spew" idealism, but in the end, shouldn't that be what we as a people want? No war? Why feel the need to hate on something that deep down many wish were possible?
** It changes from example to example, but in general it's because characters holding to pacifist ideals come across as either hypocritical or delusional. Gundam Seed is probably the prime example (though hardly the only one); you can't lecture people about how fighting is wrong when you use the biggest god damn stick in the solar system to beat the message into their skulls. The other issue is that pacifism, as an ideology, is flawed. Just because you refuse to fight, it doesn't mean that your enemies will respect your choice, which is one of the major themes from Wing. Not to mention, there's also a sizeable part of the fandom that enjoys Gundam not for the political intrigue and philosophy, but for big ass robots blowing shit up. If the carnage is why you enjoy the show, characters preaching about how awful it is really kills your buzz.
** It's all about execution. When you're a pacifist is a war zone, things should be hard and there need to be reasons for trying at all to be feasible if it's not. For instance, Loran spends most of the series on ''Earth'' where disabled MS tend not to [[MadeOfExplodium explode easily]] and the pilots can survive longer because they won't run out of air, so it's not totally unrealistic, plus he's creative at using a hugely destructive MS for noncombat purposes. Banagher, on the other hand, screws up a ''lot'' and a lot of his time is spent figuring out how to use such a massively destructive Gundam directly against its designed purpose, he completely fails in trying to talk down an enemy pilot, and it takes until episode 5 for him to succeed. The problem with pilots like late-S2 Setsuna or Kio Asuno is that they get Gundams that make it massively easy to apply pacifistic ideals in pitched battle, use space sparkles toso their enemies feel pacifism, or (in Kio's case) they do blatantly ineffective things despite obvious evidence that it's not working and refusing to change tactics (i.e. yelling "LET'S UNDERSTAND FELLOW HUMAN" to pilots who are repeatedly telling him to hold still so they can shoot him down easier).
** Simply put, if you're a pacifist - YOU SHOULDN'T BE FIGHTING IN A WAR. Also, a pacifist has no right to preach to the people who are actually fighting and killing, and desperately trying to stay alive. It's especially grating if they're stopping THEIR OWN SIDE from killing the enemy. Notably, Amuro Ray and Tomino's protagonists in general NEVER protested the necessity of killing the enemy.
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* And, of course, the dirty little fact that Zeon '''had''' independence under Zeon Daikun. There is every indication that their war was a war of "independence" only from a propaganda sense, while their REAL motives were naked imperialism and greed.