So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

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mcred23
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Re: So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

AmuroNT1 wrote:I know it's a bit off-topic, but...
Deacon Blues wrote:Steven “Doc” Rogers parents were on Side 4. Australia is where is younger sister would be married.
Am I wrong for thinking this was a deliberate reference to Captain America? I mean, IIRC, Okouchi's 08th MS Team novel is full of Western pop culture references.
It's a Western pop culture reference, but not that one. Deacon explained in this thread that the TV show in question being watched by Shiro is called Captain Joe and is a reference to the old American TV series Combat, and uses the names of some of the actors from that show as characters. The most notable one is Vic Morrow, but the first (And generally lesser known) medic on the show was played by an actor named Steven Rogers, so it's almost certainly another reference to that, rather than Captain America.
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Gelgoog Jager
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Re: So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

In particular, aren't we told that the Shangri La colony (Judau's home colony), located on Side 1, is the first Island 3 colony ever built? That alone would seem to contradict the notion that Side 1 was completely left in ruins.

My guess is that the crosses on Side 1, 2, 4 and 5 could simply mean locations where the Federation garrisons were destroyed.

That being said, there do is at least a few notable destroyed/depopulated colonies do are seen after the OYW:

-Two being sent to Side 3 during 0083 as part of the Colony Reclamation Plan (supposedly this is the second plan of this type, meaning that we may be speaking of a total of four colonies: two from Side 1 and potentially two more from Side 4).
-The one used by the Titans on their attempted colony drop on Granada (supposedly from Side 4/Loum).
-The one on which the Argama tested its new Hyper MPC on Gundam ZZ (they find this colony on route to Axis).
-The one Neo Zeon dropped on Dublin (supposedly from Side 4/Loum).

The ones used for colony drops (both by the Titans and Neo Zeon) seem to be colonies that were damaged during the Battle of Loum. Incidentally this means that at least a few colonies from Loum weren't completely destroyed, but were damaged enough to become uninhabitable.

I don't know if there's any clear indication on where Axis is located during the first half of ZZ, but assuming it was on the vicinity of Side 4 (Loum), that could mean that the abandoned colony that the Argama destroyed was also a leftover from Loum.

That leaves the colonies from the two Colony Reclamation Plans as the few confirmed damaged/depopulated non-Loum colonies from the OYW.
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Re: So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

toysdream wrote:
doghunter1 wrote:I thought the whole point of Operation British was to destroy Jaburo with a colony drop to end the war quicker?
That factoid hadn't been invented yet when Tomino was writing his novels. In the novels, the colony drop(s) are purely to terrorize the Earth population, not for a particular military objective. It wasn't until Gundam Century that everything we now assume about Operation British - one colony, aimed at Jaburo, broke up in the atmosphere and hit Australia instead - was retconned into being.

As ever, I think it's important to understand that the Gundam back story was pieced together after the fact by a bunch of independent (and sometimes contradictory) publications. It wasn't handed down on Day One as a complete body of lore inscribed on stone tablets.

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But wouldn't aiming for Jaburo also be part of that terror tactic?
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Re: So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

Not directly. In the Jaburo scenario, the main goal is the destruction of THE major Federation military stronghold, which would presumably bring the war to a much swifter end (considering Zeon's absolute domination elsewhere in the Earth Sphere, pre-Gundam). It would certainly cause terror, but as a tactic, its primary aim is purely strategic.
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Erisie
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Re: So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

toysdream wrote: Actually, the status of the other Sides becomes more confusing the more you think about it. The First Gundam animation indicated that Sides 1, 2, 4, and 5 were completely destroyed - they're crossed off with big X's in the opening narration of one episode, and during the attack on Solomon we're told that the Federation fleets are gathered in the ruins of Sides 1 and 4. There's no indication that any intact colonies are left at these Sides, aside from Texas Colony.

And yet, in Zeta, ZZ, and Char's Counterattack, we see a bunch of colonies at Sides 1 and 2 with no indication that they were destroyed or depopulated during the One Year War. Side 5, formerly Side 4, remains a shoal zone full of colony debris; the wartime Sides 4 and 6 have supposedly been renumbered, but they're never really seen or mentioned in the animation.

It's pretty hard to reconcile First Gundam with the later series on this point. Since the First Gundam opening narration tells us that half the population was killed, I guess we have to take that as a fact, but what happened to the colonies and who are all these people living in them after the war?
Considering this, I really don't know if The Origin made things easier or more complicated. The books only mention that Hatte (Side 2, L4) and Loum (Side 5, L1) were destroyed by Zeon's campaign. Island Iffish, the one used for Operation British, was the only one we see attacked with chemical weapons. There's no mention of any Zeon attack of any kind against L5, the location of both Zarn (Side 1) and Mua (Side 4).
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Re: So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

Erisie wrote:Considering this, I really don't know if The Origin made things easier or more complicated. The books only mention that Hatte (Side 2, L4) and Loum (Side 5, L1) were destroyed by Zeon's campaign. Island Iffish, the one used for Operation British, was the only one we see attacked with chemical weapons. There's no mention of any Zeon attack of any kind against L5, the location of both Zarn (Side 1) and Mua (Side 4).
I personally find the idea that only Sides 2 and 5 were completely wiped out to be easier to logistically reconcile than EVERYBODY but Sides 6 and 7, seeing as Zeon would be hard pressed to have the fleets available to dedicate mass numbers of ships and MS to a campaign against nearly the entire Earth Sphere at the time. According to the map of space during the OYW, the only Side close to Side 2 is Side 6, who openly declared neutrality at the start of the war. That means that Side 2 was pretty much on it's own at the outbreak of the war with the surprise attack, and we do indeed see the Federation forces at the Sides seen in the opening getting their shit wrecked alongside the colonies. We then see the Federation forces gathered at Earth to stop Operation British seven days later, which means at least a few of the available fleets from the Sides or Luna that hadn't yet participated in battle had time to make it there. They break off when they figure out the Colony won't be stopped.

Then the battle of Loum happens five days later at Side 5, which is the closest Federation-allied Side at the time, meaning the Zeon forces left from British probably headed directly there. This is a battle Federation fleet is far better prepared for, and the Side itself is destroyed during the battle, either as a result of the crossfire or directly attacked by Musais and mobile suits (seeing as most animated works like IgLoo and origin depict the battle itself between ships and don't show the colonies there at all, I think it's pretty safe to assume the latter.)

After all that fighting, Zeon doesn't seem like they have any reason to spend their already exhausted war resources go on to attack colonies where the fleet garrisons have already been deployed/destroyed from other than to just be absolute arseholes. It's probable that they did in fact attack those other sides, and they might have suffered damage during the surprise attacks at the opening of the war, but seeing as they're still very much intact later on in the timeline, it's possible that only colonies with garrisons were attacked as opposed to the entire Sides being wiped out for the purposes of colony drop operations. As I mentioned, Side 5 is the closest colony to Side 2, and they were both, from a practical perspective, close enough to Earth for colony drops. It seems like four entire sides plus a colony drop of casualties would amount to more than merely half the total human population, especially with Side 7 consisting of a single colony with a small-ish population at the start of the OYW.
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Erisie
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Re: So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

J-Lead wrote:And they were both, from a practical perspective, close enough to Earth for colony drops
That's not a determining factor. In The Origin, Island Iffish is not shot straight to Earth, but rather sent towards lunar orbit in order to use the Moon's gravity and gain a much greater terminal velocity during the drop.

In any sense, the scenario presented in The Origin (only Hatte and Loum wiped out, plus the devastation on Earth brought on by British) makes more sense from any perspective than the wholesale destruction of Hatte, Loum, Mua and Zarn: it gives you a high enough number of casualties to constitute "half of mankind" and be consistent with Zeon's limited resources and the appearance of the rest of the Sides intact in later works.
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AmuroNT1
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Re: So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

Erisie wrote:That's not a determining factor. In The Origin, Island Iffish is not shot straight to Earth, but rather sent towards lunar orbit in order to use the Moon's gravity and gain a much greater terminal velocity during the drop.
I know what you mean, I just wanted to point out that there's no such thing as "greater terminal velocity". The term means the highest falling velocity an object can attain (in other words, it can't go any faster). So while the Zeons might have used a gravity assist in order to get the colony to Earth faster (or to make it harder for the Federation to stop it), they couldn't make it hit Jaburo any harder than it would if they just dropped it straight away.
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Re: So just how many colonies did Zeon gas, anyway?

"Terminal velocity" refers to the top speed something will reach when falling "naturally", ie not accelerating. It's basically the point where the forces of gravity and drag cancel out. You can, in fact, fall faster than terminal velocity -- by accelerating toward the ground under your own power. It's theoretically possible that you could use a gravity assist to throw something at Earth faster than terminal velocity, but generally speaking, it's probably not worth the effort because the forces involved with a falling object as large as a space colony are so massive in the first place.
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