It's a Gundam thread!

You're treating Katz losing at something like its worthy of mention

It's Katz.

I'm quite confident in my shitposting you know

Katz, Reccoa, Quess, and the entire ZZ Gundam series failed to make that list. It's truly a bad list.

Katz is my problematic fave. I love it when misfortune happens to him. Cause he's a little punk.

Its why I can't the list seriously.

Its says "most hated characters" but there's no Katz or Iok.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

So punk he crashed into an asteroid he was too busy to see because he was too busy waving his dick at Yazan

I'm quite confident in my shitposting you know

Yeah, feelings on Katz aside that was a dumb way to go. Katz knew to pay attention to his surroundings to avoid something that obvious.

UC has no shortage of morons but Katz literally files under Too Dumb to Live way too perfectly

I'm quite confident in my shitposting you know

Yeah that's true. Even beyond the standard screw ups, Katz had a bad habit of doing things life threateningly stupid.

Again, I can't hate him because his actions had consequences, but man it was surprising how much he was able to screw up.

Question. Wing was long considered to be the lowest-tech Gundam universe.

Do you guys think IBO is a contender for that title?

Uh... yes and no.

For one, the Gundam Frames require a highly specialised form of nanomachinery to work properly.

For two, Mars has been successfully colonised for centuries.

For three, genocidal AI constructs were created by accident, and humanity actually developed a mass producible form of nano-armour that for the most part renders beam weapons ineffective against whatever's coated in the stuff.

Of course, there's the obvious lack of beam weapons, but the point still stands.

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

IBO has advanced cybernetics available as dirt-cheap back-alley surgery, artificial gravity, magical healing tubs, FTL comms, and independent, fully autonomous AI. So no, it's definitely not the least advanced technologically.

I'd probably argue that X has less tech than Wing. Wing's computer science is pretty impressive — it has not only functional robot soldiers in the form of the mobile dolls, but also the Zero System, which was a tactical AI so advanced that it could effectively predict the future, and came with a psychic interface that communicated directly with the user's mind. (This tended to cause violent insanity, but hey, it's still pretty damn advanced tech.) The only really impressive bits of tech in X, though, are the satellite cannon (which isn't actually all that sophisticated, it's just brute force) and the G-Bits (which aren't AI-controlled, but rather remote-operated by newtypes).

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I mean, beam weapons are out because they’re obsolete. Any setting that’s developed paint that can shrug off a Wave-Motion Gun is pretty significant, and unlike the anti-beam coating in the UC and CE, nanolaminate coating is pretty good against physical attacks as well.

Basically, PD is at or slightly above UC-level, but instead of psycommu tech, they decided to get crazy-good at nanotechnology, and the best tech is jealously hoarded by a single faction.

Edited by Iaculus on Aug 24th 2018 at 11:45:13 AM

What's precedent ever done for us?

Not to mention said faction enforces the sci-fi equivalent of a Medieval Stasis, so that they always remain on top, and a second apocalyptic Robot War doesn't happen.

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

If we look at individual shows instead of timelines, there's a pretty clear winner in 0079

It really all depends on what you consider high-tech. Which is higher-tech, extremely advanced developments of existing technology (eg, nuclear fusion reactors that not only exist as economically viable power sources, but are small and reliable enough to be used as the engines for combat vehicles), or entirely new branches of technology that don't exist today (eg, anything to do with newtypes, which simply don't exist in our universe)?

Quick rundown of the various universe's most impressive tech as I see it:

UC — They've got some pretty serious engineering going on with giant energy weapons like the colony laser. Newtype tech (including the ability to create artificial newtypes) is responsible for the most ridiculous feats, but it generally seems to boost existing non-technological psychic powers rather than being a purely technological accomplishment, so I'm not sure how to count that.

FC — The sillier shenanigans (like having people living on giant islands floating in space instead of proper space colonies) can only be justified by highly advanced tech. Besides that, the Ultimate Gundam project shows a mastery of both nanotech and AI, and the fact that DG cells are a thing shows they're pretty good at biology too.

AC — Their engineering is less impressive than some AUs (though the fact that they can pack an enormous Wave-Motion Gun into a single mobile suit frame is nothing to sneeze at), but their computer science with mobile dolls and the Zero System are pretty impressive. They also built a warship (the Libra) that was several kilometers long, so that's probably worth mentioning.

AW — Basically UC but less advanced. The satellite cannon has Buster Rifle level destructive power, but they cheat by offloading the power generation. It's got some Newtype shenanigans, but nothing on the level of the psycoframe or Angel Halo.

CC — The Turn A uses nanotech, but is effectively Lost Technology itself, so I'm not sure how to count that. The only other thing I can think of that CC has and others don't is Human Popsicle tech used on the moon.

CE — Less advanced in many ways (they don't have nuclear fusion, which is ubiquitous in most other settings, for example), but on the other hand they can manipulate subatomic particles with ease using the N-Jammer and its derivatives. But those are used mostly as a plot device, so it's sort of a mixed bag.

00 — GN physics and its derivatives are highly advanced quantum bullshit.

AG — I never watched the whole thing, so I'm sure I didn't get into the most ridiculous tech, but from what I did see it was largely early-UC-ish tech levels but with a giant 3D printer on top?

RG — Sort of hard to quantify as the tech level has backslid from its height and been kept artificially low since, but there's nothing particularly impressive here besides photon batteries having a pretty ridiculous energy density.

PD — Artificial gravity, nanotech, advanced AI, cybernetics... despite the general poverty level on display, IBO is actually pretty advanced.

Edited by NativeJovian on Aug 24th 2018 at 8:14:42 AM

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

AG has things like cold-sleep, remote weaponry, colony-busting warheads, and miniature bit technology taken from a piece of a long-lost weapons designs archive.

They also have helmets designed to aggravate the X-Rounder powers, but they didn't elaborate on what exactly meant. Oh, and they have advanced cloaking technology, as seen by that massive fortress they somehow slipped under the EFF's noses.

And an evolving AI that's implied to be made from Lost Technology.

Spelunking through a Halo Ring is something else...

The only reason CE doesn't have nuclear fusion is because of the N-Jammers. They have the capability to build that tech easily, but it's rendered ineffective by the N-Jammers, so unless you have a Canceller on hand, it's useless.

Yet they can't even essily solve space radiation in AG. Bunch of idiots.

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

The Reguild Century is actually seriously advanced, which is not a huge surprise when you consider that it’s the midpoint between Victory and Turn A. In particular, it includes the most exotic and complex manipulations of Minovsky physics to date, from reshapable full-body beam shields to guided missiles and funnels that work inside particle-rich environments. Even the lowest-tech faction, Ameria, have beam whips. That’s before we get into the solar sails, photon batteries, space elevator, life-extension tech, full-body exoskeletons, and all the other jazz.

What's precedent ever done for us?

After colony also implied that Gundam Sandrock ran on the ALICE AI from Gundam Sentinel so they've got some form of artificual intelligence advancements.

Also the Future Century basically uses glorified video game motion capture tech to move its primary mobile suits sooooo...

I'm quite confident in my shitposting you know

N-Jammers prevent nuclear fission; CE simply hasn't developed economically viable fusion reactors yet. N-jammers would actually probably make fusion easier, as it presumably works by boosting the strong nuclear force, making it harder for atomic nuclei to break apart and easier for them to bind together.

None of that is actually all that advanced, though? Outside of photon batteries (which we don't know anything about other than that they have a really high energy density) and the Minovksy physics stuff (which is more advanced than UC, but not staggeringly so), there's nothing there that's really super crazy.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Space elevators alone are an indicator of serious hypertech. Ignore messianic weirdos like Elon Musk, creating a cable light, strong, and long enough to reach orbit is no small feat. The fact that they’ve become so good at Minovsky physics is also significant because, as Star Trek teaches us and their I-Field solar sails demonstrate, forcefields can do anything. I mean, the Dahack’s beam plunder system alone offers crazy possibilities from both a military and civilian perspective. The fact that they’ve found a way to work around some of the downsides of Minovsky particles is also a major step, not least because it partially obsoletes Newtypes as military weapons. La Gu managing what appears to be three hundred years of continuous, active living is also a sight unseen in any other Gundam show, and then there’s the manipulation of antimatter in the Elf Bull series’s drive system and the Perfect Pack’s photon torpedoes.

What's precedent ever done for us?

I always thought the Photon Torpedoes were an application of the same nanotech that the Moonlight Butterfly uses.

(Especially considering the Moonlight Butterfly does exist in G-Reco... built into the G-Lucifer.)

Naah, they’re glowing particles that make weird explosions. They don’t eat through enemy suits like you’d expect a nanoswarm to, and if the nanites were fitted with ordinary, miniaturised bombs, you’d expect more conventional explosions.

What's precedent ever done for us?

Space elevators are seriously advanced by modern standards, but not by Gundam standards, which includes settings like FC where people just live in giant floating islands in orbit because why not, or CC where they've got nanomachine swarms that can envelop the entire solar system, or 00 where they can use quantum particles to teleport and create telepathic links.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I think that the reliance of a G-Reco-style space elevator on a vast amount of a material that’s apparently impossible from our modern understanding of physics puts it up there with those. A space elevator cable is about as reachable through modern science as artificial gravity or 00’s quantum technology (a weird amount of which is actually physically justifiable, IIRC). It’s below Future Century colonies, which rely on two impossible things (artificial gravity and force-field tech capable of keeping an atmosphere in), but it’s still a remarkable achievement by Gundam standards. For the record, it also seems to lean harder on supertech than 00’s space elevators, which are much more heavily reinforced megastructures with the orbital ring serving as a brace (I suspect they were built downwards from that). The Capital Tower is exceptionally delicate in comparison.

What's precedent ever done for us?