[UC Gundam] Civilian Ships/Carriers?

[TDR-10M Thunderbolt]

Been trying to research this, and not having much luck... I wanted to ask: Does anyone know much about what sort of crewed ships civilians use in the UC timeline, circa 0075 to 0097? Things that would have a significant crew, a clear captain, meaningful cargo capacity, and so on.

This is not about things like transport shuttles. I'm talking 'big enough to hold a mobile suit', quite possibly even outright carrying mobile suits. Are there any such craft? If so, are they armed in any way? I can't imagine them having anything like a Dogosse Gier class ship or even a Musai (something tells me the Federation would violently frown on civilian groups having something armed with major beam cannons), but I'm curious anyway.

EDIT: Another way of looking at it... we know civilians have MS (the occasional salvaged or surplus Gelgoog, etc.)... how do they get them around from one place to another?

EDIT 2: For that matter, any cases of civilian entities getting hold of a Federation or Zeon military ship of ANY sort and successfully keeping it?

For the purposes of this question, ignore Anaheim Electronics and their 'La Vie En Rose'. Any other entity is fair game, though!

[Chris]

I don't know if this quite fits what you're looking for, but there was a Cargo Ship that popped up in ZZ and later 0083, used by Neo Zeon and the Delaz Fleet to secretly transport mobile suits. In the OVA adaptation of Gundam: The Origin, the design was basically reverse engineered into an EFF suit transport, the Pizarro class. There's also the Space Crane Ship used by the AEUG in Z and Neo Zeon in ZZ. It looks civilian in origin, and we know from ZZ it can carry a mobile suit.

[MythSearcher]

Been trying to research this, and not having much luck... I wanted to ask: Does anyone know much about what sort of crewed ships civilians use in the UC timeline, circa 0075 to 0097? Things that would have a significant crew, a clear captain, meaningful cargo capacity, and so on.

This is not about things like transport shuttles. I'm talking 'big enough to hold a mobile suit', quite possibly even outright carrying mobile suits. Are there any such craft? If so, are they armed in any way? I can't imagine them having anything like a Dogosse Gier class ship or even a Musai (something tells me the Federation would violently frown on civilian groups having something armed with major beam cannons), but I'm curious anyway.

EDIT: Another way of looking at it... we know civilians have MS (the occasional salvaged or surplus Gelgoog, etc.)... how do they get them around from one place to another?

EDIT 2: For that matter, any cases of civilian entities getting hold of a Federation or Zeon military ship of ANY sort and successfully keeping it?

For the purposes of this question, ignore Anaheim Electronics and their 'La Vie En Rose'. Any other entity is fair game, though!

The Jupitris is supposed to be a civilian cargo ship.(not military owned)
We know that it can carry and had carried many MS.
The Garencieres(from Unicorn) has been operating as a civilian cargo ship for years(at least from 0080 to 0096) it has a replacement in NT, which seems to be the same model. I'd imagine it is a commercially available civilian ship modified to be a military ship thus no one is suspecting it to be a military one.


Not completely civilian, but in Return of Johnny Ridden, FSS got hold of an Argama class, Nikaya.
(Conspiracy aside, since they are supposed to be just a sub-division for testing old military models, they are just paramilitary in nature.)

[TDR-10M Thunderbolt]

Those are both great leads, and appear to either be exactly what I meant or very, very close to it (I just need to do a tad more research to be sure). Thank you for the help!

[Deathzealot]

Speaking of Origin there is the Arcana Class, which is the prototype for the later Musai Class. Therefore, should be possible to carry mobile suits. Origin also gave us the Lunar Line Ship and the Ocean Cargo Ship.

There are also the Space Transport Ship seen in 8th MS Team which I can see carrying a mobile suit, an expy version is seen carrying a couple of mobile suits during the Gundam SEED X Astray Manga, so the UC version could basically do the same thing. Then there is the Aguabelde from 0080 which is the ship used by Bernie to get into Libot Colony. It held the Kampfer, though disassembled in its cargo containers. Char's Counterattack gave us the Plenitude which looks to be a decent size, along with the ship that Char and company used to head for the conference with the Federation Leaders which did carry the Hobby Hizack. The Narrative Gundam Movie had the Rosebud which carried the Narrative Gundam and its packs to the Londo Bell ship Damascus . Finally, there is the ship from the Moon Gundam manga which transports a few mobile suits and sports hidden weapons.

[Darjeeka]

Hi, first post from a long-time lurker.

Speaking of Arcana-class from Origin, it always boggles my mind as to how Zeon simply flipped the design into Musai-class. We all know that the Arcana-class first started as a cover-up for the Musai, but from the beginning, did Zeon design its innards (cabin/crew space, machinery access etc) the 'right side' up or the 'wrong side' down for the eventual development to Musai?

The only explanation I can think of is that the innards are produced in standardised modules which allow fitment in either orientation. But even that, it doesn't make sense since some parts of the ship are asymmetrical when turned 180º, for example, the command bridge.

By the way, even if the Arcana's innards were designed the 'wrong side' down, it doesn't really matter since there is no gravity in space. For all we know, the occupants might actually be in the upside-down orientation, even though the animation is shown in the 'right' orientation otherwise.

[Kuruni]

Bladewood from Silhouette Formular 91 is Anaheim's. The mega particle cannons on the ship are hidden in the cargo, so they might be illegal too.

[MythSearcher]

Bladewood from Silhouette Formular 91 is Anaheim's. The mega particle cannons on the ship are hidden in the cargo, so they might be illegal too.

Looks suspiciously like a combination of the ColumbusXArgamaXAlbion
The thruster block looks familiar but I can't recall which ship it is from.

The cannons might be legal if they filed in some kind of document since space is littered with pirates, and asteroids, and debris, or for whatever reason deemed fit to have overwhelming fire power and EF don't seem to care.

[Deathzealot]

Looks suspiciously like a combination of the ColumbusXArgamaXAlbion
The thruster block looks familiar but I can't recall which ship it is from.

If I correctly. The Bladewood center hull is basically a Clop Class cruiser and sports several cargo modules along either side of the ship.

[MythSearcher]

Looks suspiciously like a combination of the ColumbusXArgamaXAlbion
The thruster block looks familiar but I can't recall which ship it is from.

If I correctly. The Bladewood center hull is basically a Clop Class cruiser and sports several cargo modules along either side of the ship.

The centre hull looks like a clop, but the front looks like one arm of the Albion with an extended catapult attached.
The cargo modules makes it look like the Columbus, the vertical catapults look like they are from Argama.
The back catapult is from Nahel Argama.

[Deacon Blues]

The hull is, as some online sources say, a Space Ark with the sides being reminiscent of a Columbus.

[MythSearcher]

The hull is, as some online sources say, a Space Ark with the sides being reminiscent of a Columbus.

As previous discussion, the EFSF ships seems to have resupply cargo bays designed around the Columbus(For example, WB's double hull and even Nahel Argama middle and side catapult are both seen to be supplied that way by Columbus) and thus it makes sense to have an arrangement the same as Columbus for resupply of other ships.