Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

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Mafty
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Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Are Gundam AGE and Gundam X meant to be completely in their own timeline, Or are they implied to be a future of the Universal Century? Of all the other alternate universes it just seems as though these two could more easily fit with the Universal Century. In most alternate universes Gundams are stated to be a newer invention (Save for IBO which is ultimately proven to not be tied to other timelines). Gundam X has six prior space wars, (though mobile suits are still implied to be a newer invention). Gundam AGE meanwhile shows the Asuno family has been building Gundams for generations. Plus both series use the familiar O'Neil type colonies, while the other timelines have markedly different colony designs.
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Seto Kaiba
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

So, in connection with what we were talking about in the other topic about the Black History and space colonies...

Originally, when Turn A Gundam came out, it was established that all of the existing Gundam AUs up to that point were individual eras in the "Black History" timeline that led to Turn A's Correct Century. That was made up of:
  • The Universal Century
  • G Gundam's Future Century
  • Gundam Wing's After Colony
  • Gundam X's After War
All of which were separate historical epochs divided by Moonlight Butterfly-induced hard resets of human political, cultural, and technological progress that some involved with the series implied takes over 10,000 years to sort out each time.

The Cosmic Era (Gundam SEED) was initially considered a separate universe/timeline from the Black History, though that changed with the 2004 manga Turn A Gundam: Wind of the Moon. Its story explicitly added the Cosmic Era to the Black History.

Materials published at the time of Reconguista in G's broadcast also put the Reguild Century in that timeline as part of the Black History, though it's unclear if it's a completely separate epoch from the UC where some memory of the UC was preserved despite the Moonlight Butterfly or if it's simply the coda of the UC before someone wiped the era out with the Moonlight Butterfly.

I don't believe the Anno Domini, Advance Generation, or Post-Disaster timelines have been officially included in the Black History in any explicit sense (yet). I've seen a number of fanmade charts that operate on the assumption that they're in there though. It would make sense for them to be. Post-Disaster Earth still prominently features the old Operation British crater.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Well, all exist as fictional timelines in Build Series.
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Seto Kaiba
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Kuruni wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 12:04 am Well, all exist as fictional timelines in Build Series.
For maximum meta weirdness, let's petition Sunrise to add Build to the Black History. :lol:
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Mafty wrote: Mon Mar 29, 2021 7:21 pm Are Gundam AGE and Gundam X meant to be completely in their own timeline, Or are they implied to be a future of the Universal Century? Of all the other alternate universes it just seems as though these two could more easily fit with the Universal Century. In most alternate universes Gundams are stated to be a newer invention (Save for IBO which is ultimately proven to not be tied to other timelines). Gundam X has six prior space wars, (though mobile suits are still implied to be a newer invention). Gundam AGE meanwhile shows the Asuno family has been building Gundams for generations. Plus both series use the familiar O'Neil type colonies, while the other timelines have markedly different colony designs.
Gundam X is a pretty funny case.
They added a lot of metafiction things into the show, for example, AW15 is 15 years after the 2.22 New Generation Anime Declaration made by Tomino.(The declaration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0JXWYL2Zh4)
They talked about the 7th Space War because it is the 7th Gundam TV anime(MSG, Z, ZZ, V, G, W, X). Which also luckily coincides with the UC timeline and there are 6 non-OVA UC titles(MSG, Z, ZZ, CCA, F91, V).

D.O.M.E is supposed to the the First Newtype that piloted the First Gundam, and the original proposal they thought about getting Tōru Furuya for the voice, hinting they wanted that to be Amuro.(Notice Furuya didn't actually play any other character in Gundam series until 00) but they ditched the idea. However, the voice actor Yutaro Mitsuoka was also known to be a backup for Furuya as the role of Amuro if Furuya isn't available.

So there are people speculate X to be related to UC. But the LD commentary basically talked about the metafiction reasons.
Seto Kaiba wrote: Mon Mar 29, 2021 8:40 pm
I don't believe the Anno Domini, Advance Generation, or Post-Disaster timelines have been officially included in the Black History in any explicit sense (yet). I've seen a number of fanmade charts that operate on the assumption that they're in there though. It would make sense for them to be. Post-Disaster Earth still prominently features the old Operation British crater.
Anno Domini(00) is. In 2007 when Turn A's DVD release, after 00 1st season aired, they still explicitly say "All Gundam" are included.

Also, in Gundam EXA, they also keep saying the database they are using, CC is special that it is the only one that can also link to all other timeline's data.

The official stance is pretty clear, and I don't think they will bother to re-announce that every time they have a new show.
Seto Kaiba wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 12:39 am
Kuruni wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 12:04 am Well, all exist as fictional timelines in Build Series.
For maximum meta weirdness, let's petition Sunrise to add Build to the Black History. :lol:
The MG manual kinda hints that the SD shows aren't included(in a not very sure tone), I surely hope that they are.
Considering the original SD Gundam anime actually has the SDs accidentally getting into the UC OYW combat in one of the shorts.

But anyhow, since Build series aren't mentioned(not published yet), we can pretty sure that all Gundam includes that, so no petition is required.


BTW, there was supposed to be a Turn A Gundam 2:
https://twitter.com/akiman7/status/565896673759485952
It ended up becoming the PS2 game Gundam True Odyssey.
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Chris
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

MythSearcher wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 1:17 amThe official stance is pretty clear, and I don't think they will bother to re-announce that every time they have a new show.
An official stance that amounts to nothing given that no anime series post-Turn A has ever made any effort to connect anything to the Black History and likely never will.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Chris wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 8:27 am An official stance that amounts to nothing given that no anime series post-Turn A has ever made any effort to connect anything to the Black History and likely never will.
Yet the official stance is definitely much more authoritative than any fan speculation.
Anyone speculating they are not related is fine because it is not specified.
Anyone speculating they are all connected in one linear line is completely ignoring the listed facts.

Also, G-Reco did made efforts to connect to CC.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

MythSearcher wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 11:48 am Also, G-Reco did made efforts to connect to CC.
Gundam: Reconguista in G did a hell of a lot more than "make efforts". It was explicitly stated that it was a period directly before Turn A Gundam, with specific references to nations and technologies which appear in Turn A Gundam (like the G-Lucifer's Moonlight Butterfly or Ameria).

For the record, I only listed the ones which were explicitly connected to the Black History.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

MythSearcher wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 11:48 amYet the official stance is definitely much more authoritative than any fan speculation.
Anyone speculating they are not related is fine because it is not specified.
Anyone speculating they are all connected in one linear line is completely ignoring the listed facts.

Also, G-Reco did made efforts to connect to CC.
How often has Sunrise emphasized this "official stance" to make it a relevant issue? It is de facto irrelevant because it's not something they're actively advancing. Even what G-Reco does is questionable, as I've seen it claimed that Tomino has at different times placed the series both before and after Turn A.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Chris wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 1:23 pm How often has Sunrise emphasized this "official stance" to make it a relevant issue? It is de facto irrelevant because it's not something they're actively advancing. Even what G-Reco does is questionable, as I've seen it claimed that Tomino has at different times placed the series both before and after Turn A.
Ah, yes... the official materials published alongside Gundam: Reconguista in G indicate the Reguild Century it's set in is a historical period between the Universal Century's ending and the beginning of the Correct Century. There was that one interview where Tomino opined he thinks of the series as happening 500 years after Turn A... but the part that always gets left out when that's brought up is that he followed it with an acknowledgement that he is not empowered to decide the setting by himself.

Tomino's position doesn't really make sense, since the Reguild Century calendar has been running for 1,014 years as of the events of G-Reco, which would mean it overlaps with the Correct Century... but many of the nations, major institutions, etc. in G-Reco didn't exist in Turn A like the AG Tech taboo, SU Cordism, that period of major resource shortages that supposedly preceded the Reguild Century where humanity was forced to resort to cannibalism to survive, etc.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Trying to shoehorn everything into Turn A Gundam hasn't made sense and is quite frankly asinine. If you take the setting material that was penned by Shigeru Morita, there is no direct connection to the other series, at least none that I've translated so far. The information in the model kits only adds to the confuddled mess of things since that information contradicts the setting material, which then gets contradicted by Fukui's attempt at shoving in references to the other Gundam series.

The imagery in the show, at least to me, was laziness on the animators' part. Why bother showing new imagery for destruction and whatnot when you can just utilize what is available. It'd made no sense for Tomino to try and include other shows that he had no part with anyways.
Also, in Gundam EXA, they also keep saying the database they are using, CC is special that it is the only one that can also link to all other timeline's data.
Ah, but you can't go relying on Gundam EXA if you're trying to hide behind the official material says clause. Manga, by default, is that gray area of what is classified as official. Plus, I don't recall seeing Sunrise's stamp of cooperation with Gundam EXA anyways, but I never bought it so I can't recall what the staff page says anymore.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Honestly the idea behind tying every timeline together is actually pretty interesting, but it really falls apart when you actually try to merge all these very different stories together. Not only would there be an extremely long period of time for multiple Moonlight Butterfly apocalypses(we'd be talking thousands or perhaps millions of years), the histories of the universe also contradict each other heavily. The Colonies in Gundam Wing bear no relevance to any other ones, and Endless Waltz mentions Gundams disappearing forever. Gundam 00 has Orbital Elevators and Colonies in Anno Domini (while the UC makes it clear the start of their universe was the start of colonization), plus their ending finishes with the evolution of humanity, and can't possibly fit into other timelines. Some of the Gundam series can kind of fit into the UC (like X and AGE), but a lot of the other ones work better as their own individual stories.

I also read somewhere that Tomino wanted to put EVERY mech show he's ever worked on in the Dark History, try figuring of the logistics of that...
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

I agree with Deacon and Mafty on this one: the tech specs and levels and descriptions besides G-Reco and UC don't necessitate shoehorning every Gundam TL to Turn-A.

Better yet, one happy solution is, the events existing before Turn-A and between UC with G-Reco should be treated as broad strokes, not necessarily the previous series themselves, and the AU serieses still officially as their own verses; no merger of timelines is necessary.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Mafty wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:14 pm Honestly the idea behind tying every timeline together is actually pretty interesting, but it really falls apart when you actually try to merge all these very different stories together. Not only would there be an extremely long period of time for multiple Moonlight Butterfly apocalypses(we'd be talking thousands or perhaps millions of years), [...]
That doesn't make it fall apart... that's the explicitly acknowledged reality of the situation, that these different eras of the Black History are separated by thousands or tens of thousands of years. The Moonlight Butterfly's activation is destroying all technology in its area of effect, causing a massive human die-off and effectively resetting humanity to iron age tech levels. All digital records are lost, and most paper records don't survive the intervening millennia, and humanity is forced to gradually re-learn all of the advancements it lost in the cataclysm.

For instance, the last Moonlight Butterfly activation prior to the events of Turn A Gundam was implied to have occurred at the start of the Correct Century calendar. 2,343 years later, Earth is only JUST getting back to pre-industrial 19th century levels of technology, plus or minus the occasional bit of lost technology they dig up from mountain cycles. That Moonlight Butterfly activation is also implied to have been kind of a weak one, as it seemingly only impacted Earth and near-Earth space instead of covering almost the entire solar system.


Mafty wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:14 pm [...] the histories of the universe also contradict each other heavily. The Colonies in Gundam Wing bear no relevance to any other ones, and Endless Waltz mentions Gundams disappearing forever. [...]
This is absolutely not an issue.

Remember, the Moonlight Butterfly's nanomachines destroy all technology. That means the only records that have a chance to survive are records stored on paper media and information passed down orally. Paper is not anywhere near as robust as older materials like vellum or papyrus, so paper records tend to decay within a space of a couple hundred to at most a thousand years.

This means that, every time the Moonlight Butterfly is activated and causes an apocalypse, humanity doesn't just lose a huge chunk of its population as a direct or indirect result of the loss of its technology... it also swiftly loses its entire historical record and its record of technological developments. The humans who survive the collapse of modern civilization are thrown back to an iron age level of development and their descendants have to start over from zero technologically. It's only natural that they wouldn't always reinvent things the same way.

As for statements like the one about Gundams disappearing forever... as far as the narrator knows, they did. The narrator isn't omniscient, and time marched on after the events of the series. Gundams could've remained absent until they passed from living memory, or even vanished from that history forever. After Colony may not have even considered the Turn A or other Moonlight Butterfly-equipped MS to BE a Gundam since they are not made out of Gundanium, which would mean that statement is still true up to the point that the Moonlight Butterfly swept in and erased their history and technology from the face of the solar system.


Mafty wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:14 pm [...] Gundam 00 has Orbital Elevators and Colonies in Anno Domini (while the UC makes it clear the start of their universe was the start of colonization), [...]
Which would have been destroyed by a Moonlight Butterfly activation, so not an issue.


Mafty wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:14 pm [...]plus their ending finishes with the evolution of humanity, and can't possibly fit into other timelines.
Yup... specifically, those Innovators are shipped out on a deep space exploration ship headed out of Earth's solar system. They're far from the only ones who legged it for greener pastures. Judau Ashta flew a colony out of the solar system headed for Proxima Centauri in a Victory Gundam sidestory manga and Turn A itself very openly indicates that the space colonies that weren't destroyed left for greener pastures (which is likely where Towasanga's colonies went, though whether Venus Globe is still there is a mystery).

As for the Innovators left behind... many of them would have been emigrating to space anyway, and would have therefore died horribly of decompression when the Moonlight Butterfly turned their space colonies and the solar elevator to dust. Then, of course, there's the question of whether one can be born an Innovator just by having Innovator parents, or if it requires exposure to sufficient quantities of true GN particles. If the answer is that sufficient GN particle density is necessary, then the Moonlight Butterfly destroying the GN drives would simply erase Innovators from existence in a generation or two. There are several even more horrible prospects like the widespread use of nanomachines (as in the HRL's Super Soldiers) may have caused the Moonlight Butterfly to kill people directly by breaking down nanomachines in their systems or even flesh that contained nanomachines. Or even more unpleasant, the Moonlight Butterfly's nanomachines may have interpreted quantum brainwaves as a technological artefact and destroyed the brains of Innovators and Innovades.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Deacon Blues wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 5:06 pm Trying to shoehorn everything into Turn A Gundam hasn't made sense and is quite frankly asinine. If you take the setting material that was penned by Shigeru Morita, there is no direct connection to the other series, at least none that I've translated so far. The information in the model kits only adds to the confuddled mess of things since that information contradicts the setting material, which then gets contradicted by Fukui's attempt at shoving in references to the other Gundam series.

The imagery in the show, at least to me, was laziness on the animators' part. Why bother showing new imagery for destruction and whatnot when you can just utilize what is available. It'd made no sense for Tomino to try and include other shows that he had no part with anyways.
Also, in Gundam EXA, they also keep saying the database they are using, CC is special that it is the only one that can also link to all other timeline's data.
Ah, but you can't go relying on Gundam EXA if you're trying to hide behind the official material says clause. Manga, by default, is that gray area of what is classified as official. Plus, I don't recall seeing Sunrise's stamp of cooperation with Gundam EXA anyways, but I never bought it so I can't recall what the staff page says anymore.
You can, as a fan, ignore anything published, or accept it and say that it is not making sense.
However, none of us or our words are stronger than even the least official publication that actually obtained the license, no matter how grey the area is. Even the Gundam vs Giganta manga where the author state it as non-canon is more canon than our speculations.

Whether it really make sense or not is pretty meaningless, it happened, and pretty much just like how giant humanoids fighting ground combat makes little sense, you as an audience have to accept that is the reality of the show.

Also, including all those shows aren't really laziness because most of those are shown in panels not covering the whole screen, they still have to animate the actual new footage showing those screens, unlike SEED and SEED-D which just cut and paste the same footage over and over again for like 30 times that just occupy the airing time without any new added plot. Tomino was also supposed a master of cut and pasting and did the first movie of MSG with almost no new footage so he can get much more "lazy"(in your terms) but he didn't. The pretty famous lazy request is that Turn A has to have a really big shield so it can hide behind the shield to minimise drawing(same reason for Gundam and Gelgoog's shields in MSG) but as you can see, the shield was seldom used towards the climax of the show.
Mafty wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:14 pm Honestly the idea behind tying every timeline together is actually pretty interesting, but it really falls apart when you actually try to merge all these very different stories together. Not only would there be an extremely long period of time for multiple Moonlight Butterfly apocalypses(we'd be talking thousands or perhaps millions of years), the histories of the universe also contradict each other heavily. The Colonies in Gundam Wing bear no relevance to any other ones, and Endless Waltz mentions Gundams disappearing forever. Gundam 00 has Orbital Elevators and Colonies in Anno Domini (while the UC makes it clear the start of their universe was the start of colonization), plus their ending finishes with the evolution of humanity, and can't possibly fit into other timelines. Some of the Gundam series can kind of fit into the UC (like X and AGE), but a lot of the other ones work better as their own individual stories.

I also read somewhere that Tomino wanted to put EVERY mech show he's ever worked on in the Dark History, try figuring of the logistics of that...
Thus it all falls to the parallel world interpretation.

BTW, The end of EW original words are pretty specific about it to be talking about in the AC calendar, which let them cheat in the Frozen Teardrop novel and just create a new calendar called MC.
Kyuzo Aoi wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 8:41 pm I agree with Deacon and Mafty on this one: the tech specs and levels and descriptions besides G-Reco and UC don't necessitate shoehorning every Gundam TL to Turn-A.

Better yet, one happy solution is, the events existing before Turn-A and between UC with G-Reco should be treated as broad strokes, not necessarily the previous series themselves, and the AU serieses still officially as their own verses; no merger of timelines is necessary.
You actually see a bunch of G, W, X footage used in Turn A, and blueprint of that mobile horse. So no matter how you try to ignore the AU series being in Turn A, you can't ignore those 3.

Also, if you want to talk about fan speculation, I always like to use the above picture I posted, you can notice CC isn't a line, but a circle. It is a loop, you can't escape, everything converges and than loops inside forever. G-Reco being before and after Turn A's events are perfectly reasonable if it is part of CC. It doesn't matter the events overlap with the CC calendar if it is part of the loop.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

I still interprete it that there's no one long linear tomeline. CC is yet another AU, with Black History contain (and keep on growing in meta sense) yet more alternate versions of other timelines, which is kind of work since it's only the backdrop to the CC and not somethings that's supposed to be detailed.
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Re: Gundam AGE/X timeline question?

Seto Kaiba wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 9:13 pm
Remember, the Moonlight Butterfly's nanomachines destroy all technology. That means the only records that have a chance to survive are records stored on paper media and information passed down orally. Paper is not anywhere near as robust as older materials like vellum or papyrus, so paper records tend to decay within a space of a couple hundred to at most a thousand years.

Just saying, paper is definitely human technology and should be destroyed along with all the other things unless specifically ordered the nanomachines to protect (like Gundam Officials records)
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