The interesting aspect that Tomino points out to us in the Hathaway's Flash novels is that the normal run of the mill folks that are on Earth aren't thinking about what's going to happen down the line, they're only focused about tomorrow and where the money is going to come from to pay for a residency permit. While the public is blind to this fact, they also wish Mufti would do something about the deplorable state the Federation has turned into.
So, Hathaway came to possess a furious desire to put a stop to those systems if he had the power.
Just some random food for thought.In order to stay on Earth, it was currently necessary to obtain a permit issued by the Earth Federation government. This had begun as a necessary evil after migration to space colonies became common, and enacting forced migration became an essential to avoid the process becoming discriminatory.
After the Earth was polluted by waste products from the development of modern civilization and the greenhouse effect caused its average temperature to rise two degrees, people became filled with a sense of impending doom. Constant food shortages and destruction of nature wrought by the abnormal weather reduced the earth to a state where it could no longer tolerate human life, and space migration became a necessity. However, if the earth really came to an end, humanity would lose the power to construct space colonies and expand into space.
The Earth Federation government was established after the realization that humanity was headed for its extinction along with the earth spread outwards from the cities and construction of space colonies began. The Earth Federation's policy to indiscriminately take all of humanity into space once the space migration began was not misguided.
However, special case exceptions in the policy later gave rise to discrimination. The Earth Federation government made provisions for those deemed necessary to remain on Earth. There was a condition: those allowed to stay had to be those who would manage nature so as to preserve the Earth, or those who could preserve and conserve humanity's native cultures.
The law did not carry out that principle in an ideal fashion, and as the Earth didn't appear to be on the verge of extinction to the average person, it was natural for it to be broadly interpreted and exploited.
What's more, as those born on Earth were unable to forget the feeling of its gravity, people began to appear who ignored the law unconditionally on that basis.
That desire was understandable. Humanity's greatest sin, however, was not acknowledging the realization that the most dangerous thing for the Earth was their own propagation.
In this era, space migration was a price that humanity itself was forced to pay; the era of the space colonies was neither a frontier era, nor one of openness. That the frustration born of this realization only further lit the flame of the those who lived in space colonies - the Spacenoids - desire to return to Earth was paradoxical, but ultimately a natural outcome.
Humanity's continuing to see Earth as the only home it could return to after its propagation was its second sin.
In order to completely revive the world, it was necessary to wait a thousand years. And in the space of a thousand years, humanity would only further multiply. In short, people had to be prepared for the truth that the entirety of humanity could no longer live on Earth.
This too was a truth people were unable to admit.
Now, though, all exceptional clauses had to be removed, and humanity in its entirety had to be forced to withdraw to the colonies. If that was not done, then Hathaway felt that the spirits of those who died in Char's Rebellion would not be able to rest in peace.
Char Aznable had thrust that same ambition upon the Earth Federation government, but had fallen before the Federation's overwhelming military force. That had been the ultimate outcome of the conflict known as "Char's Rebellion".
At the time of the rebellion, Hathaway had happened to be aboard the battleship of his father, who served the Earth Federation government. And there, he had seen the battlefield.
It was also through that conflict that he had met the girl named Quess Paraya. She had viewed the war with innocent, almost childish eyes, and was so sensitive that it overwhelmed and killed her.
Hathaway had heard the voice of the spirit of that girl who had been his first love, along with all of those who had died in the void of space.
It was probably nothing more than blind faith. But Hathaway believed that in the final days of Char's Rebellion, he had heard countless screams. Screams of friends and foes alike that had been swallowed by flames in the fight to protect the Earth.
After this, Hathaway felt he needed to study the problems surrounding these individuals and organizations. He also learned of Char Aznable's background.
Realizing that Char's eventual conclusion had been that the planet which had given birth to humanity could not be allowed to be destroyed and had to be preserved, Hathaway found himself deeply empathizing with the man.
Reality, however, threw difficult phenomena into people's paths.
Had the core idea of the space colony age to almost empty the Earth and come up with a way of prolonging its life been followed, and had the migration law been enacted fairly, then the black uniforms of the Hunters and their exposure of unlawful residents might have been seen as a symbol of justice.