Relative difference in Gundam Designs of the UC

[Amadi Akintunde]

We've all seen it by now. The Universal Century is full of Gundam designs large and small. But I've noticed something.

When the Earth Federation itself designs their Gundams, they usually take the RX-78 2 design and retrofit it, altering the design in most unimportant places, while still keeping the base structure relatively unaltered.

However when the job is put up to Anaheim Electronics, they apparently say 'fuck the RX-78, we're starting from scratch'. Thus gives rise to the Gundam Development Project, the Zeta Project, and so on; excluding Nu Gundam, since it seems Amuro was behind that design rather personally.

While I do realize that this whole situation is because of the several artists taking part in designing/redesigning the Gundams themselves, I was curious as to whether there was an actual in-universe reason for the rather big difference in design focus on Gundams in the Universal Century.

Is there?

[Geoxile]

It's actually less than you think, the head is an optical illusion. Zeta and S kinda look similar right? As well as the ZII right? If you try to compare piece by piece they're completely different.

Ground Gundam and the original? The cockpits are completely different, I guess you could say arms are similar but they're pretty basic arms. Legs? Completely different, hell they even store beam sabers in the ground gundam. Backpack? Well for one it's an actual backpack on the ground Gundam.

If you argue the original Gundams 9 or so OYW gundams then yeah I guess they're similar but they're all based off the original prototype in some way, and even then the G04 and G04 units are fairly unique and resemble a cross of Zeta and the RX-78-2 and the Mudrock is just strange compared to the others. Alex? Its arms had gatling guns inside them...its legs were also nearly completely different, if anything the Mudrock and the Alex standalone with their legs (pun thar).

Later on in life, F91? The only thing that even resembles anything like pretty much any othoer MS is the helmet and mask.

[Amadi Akintunde]

It's actually less than you think, the head is an optical illusion. Zeta and S kinda look similar right? As well as the ZII right? If you try to compare piece by piece they're completely different.

Ground Gundam and the original? The cockpits are completely different, I guess you could say arms are similar but they're pretty basic arms. Legs? Completely different, hell they even store beam sabers in the ground gundam. Backpack? Well for one it's an actual backpack on the ground Gundam.

If you argue the original Gundams 9 or so OYW gundams then yeah I guess they're similar but they're all based off the original prototype in some way, and even then the G04 and G04 units are fairly unique and resemble a cross of Zeta and the RX-78-2 and the Mudrock is just strange compared to the others. Alex? Its arms had gatling guns inside them...its legs were also nearly completely different, if anything the Mudrock and the Alex standalone with their legs (pun thar).

Later on in life, F91? The only thing that even resembles anything like pretty much any othoer MS is the helmet and mask.

Well, I'm really speaking during the One Year War Era. 0079-0099

[hellbore]

Well, I'm really speaking during the One Year War Era. 0079-0099

I think your slightly confused there. The One Year War lasted from 0079-0080, hence One Year War. The other wars were the Stardust Crisis (0083), the Gryps War (0087-0088) and the Neo-Zeon conflict(0088-0093).

[Gadget]

How about the Unicorn. In normal mode, it's the most 'un-Gundam' Gundam. In fact, it looks more like a GM with a pointy antenna. It will only look like a Gundam for 5 minutes.

[Amadi Akintunde]

Well, I'm really speaking during the One Year War Era. 0079-0099

I think your slightly confused there. The One Year War lasted from 0079-0080, hence One Year War. The other wars were the Stardust Crisis (0083), the Gryps War (0087-0088) and the Neo-Zeon conflict(0088-0093).

Er, the ERA. You know, when everyone was still talking about it, or had something to do with it originally. D:

[hellbore]

Well, I'm really speaking during the One Year War Era. 0079-0099

I think your slightly confused there. The One Year War lasted from 0079-0080, hence One Year War. The other wars were the Stardust Crisis (0083), the Gryps War (0087-0088) and the Neo-Zeon conflict(0088-0093).

Er, the ERA. You know, when everyone was still talking about it, or had something to do with it originally. D:

Still, the nomenclature was wrong. Just so people don't get confused

[Amadi Akintunde]

Alrighty then. D:

[Black Knight]

Nothing seems to be mentioned overtly, but there are two general methods of developing new weapons & technology. One can either take existing technology, but make it a little better than what is already being used, or one can try out whole new technologies, and see if they're better than what's already being used.

The constant refinement of Luna Titanium/Gundarium is an example of the former, incremental type. And this is what the Federation itself tends to prefer; the entire GM line (RGM-79 through RGM-86) is built on this principle, and so is the RX-78/RX-178 progression.

Anaheim, with the Gundam Development Project, starts out doing this same thing, with the GP-01/GP-01FB, which doesn't really introduce anything new, just improves existing technology. The GP-03D/S is a hybrid, the MS itself being nothing special, but having the ability to work with the big Mobile Armor-esque module.

But nothing came of that, and shortly afterwords the Transformable MS craze hit the Earth Sphere, and everyone and their mothers was attempting to make a transformable MS. This was essentially a new, and potentially revolutionary technology. Which, when finally perfected, didn't pan out, and so was dropped like many an evolutionary dead-end (gyrocopters, inflatable aircraft, submarine aircraft carriers).

Even the miniturized MS of the second century UC weren't really revolutionary; they were doing the same thing as the older MS, but on smaller, more maneuverable frames. Its not really until the combining wackyness of the Victory era that we start to see any successful revolutions in MS design, with the modularity of the V2, though one could argue that such was actually a throwback to the Gundam/G-Fighter combos, but without the need for a second vehicle. I'd still call that pretty revolutionary, particularly the Minovsky Drive, probably worth calling the V2 a revolutionary design on its own, since modular mission packs were around as of the Gelgoog.

[Strike_Rouge_Mk2]

How about the Unicorn. In normal mode, it's the most 'un-Gundam' Gundam. In fact, it looks more like a GM with a pointy antenna. It will only look like a Gundam for 5 minutes.

For win.

Besides that, I don't really think that there really is a specific reason (That I could say) for the difference between AE Gundams and EF Gundams, but when the EF pays the AE to build it, wouldn't you think the EF would want AE to make their designs different for whatever reasons they had asked someone outside the EF to build it in the first place?

I dunno. Just my 2 cents.

[Gadget]

I just realize that most AE Gundams is using Zeon technology, or at least engineers from Zeon. And if AE cannot get their hands on the technology, they steal. (F90 story?)