UC Faction Size Comparison?

["Kamille! Kamille!]

[quote=""Kamille! Kamille!"]Every new series (or movie, or OVA) automatically becomes "canon" upon its release, even with glaring disparities like IGLOO's case. Everything is just retconned. (although I hate the whole "canon" thing to begin with...)

I'm not so sure about that. The way I've always heard it is that the normal animated works are the only things that are automatically canon. The CGI works such as IGLOO, Green Divers and others aren't exactly canon (Just like the various manga out there). Perhaps one of the knowledgeable Marks or someone could clearify this...[/quote]

I disagree. I don't think it matters how they're animated as much as it does that they're big-budget enough to warrant animation in the first place. You have to separate IGLOO from Green Divers--the latter was a one-shot special thing, almost like Gundam the Ride. I don't think it was made to be canon, whereas IGLOO was.

Although all all of this does is go back to how much I hate "canon."

[Melchior]

The thing about Green Divers is that unlike IGLOO, it has absolutely nothing that contradicts with what we've seen in other animated series.

[Phantomexe87]

I really think "Gundam canon" is becoming an oxymoron.

I don't really see how MS IGLOO contradicts A Baoa Qu, it dramatically increases the numbers of units, mobile suits, pods, ships, etc. But the actual order of Battle seems to have remained intact. I think MS IGLOO's ABQ Battle is just an updated version, not really a rendition. Now, MS IGLOO's Loum... is a complete rewrite.

The constant inflation does make it hard to fully estimate faction sizes, as numbers keep changing, like Axis in Zeta Gundam and the Zeta Gundam New Translation trilogy. MS IGLOO also changes all of Zeon's and the Federation's ship numbers. But there is nothing to say which is more canon than the other, as both Zeta and the Trilogies were made by Tomino himself.

Only the numbers in Victory Gundam have stayed the same, and likely will stay the same.

["Kamille! Kamille!]

The thing about Green Divers is that unlike IGLOO, it has absolutely nothing that contradicts with what we've seen in other animated series.

Except the whole "Amuro piloting a second Zeta Gundam" thing.

You mean on a large scale basis (like ship numbers etc?)

[Phantomexe87]

[quote=""Kamille! Kamille!"]

The thing about Green Divers is that unlike IGLOO, it has absolutely nothing that contradicts with what we've seen in other animated series.

Except the whole "Amuro piloting a second Zeta Gundam" thing.

You mean on a large scale basis (like ship numbers etc?)[/quote]


Well, there's nothing to say that he didn't pilot the third Zeta Gundam.

[Melchior]

Exactly. Gundam Evolve 9 gives further "proof" that Amuro did pilot a Zeta. Note also, that Green Divers taked place about 2 weeks after the last time Amuro appears in Zeta (approximately ep 38), leaving plenty of time for Amuro to switch from the Dijeh to the Zeta A3.

[Phantomexe87]

Exactly. Gundam Evolve 9 gives further "proof" that Amuro did pilot a Zeta. Note also, that Green Divers taked place about 2 weeks after the last time Amuro appears in Zeta (approximately ep 38), leaving plenty of time for Amuro to switch from the Dijeh to the Zeta A3.

That actually raises the question if the Dijeh can even fight in space, but that's pretty far off topic.

Size wise, the AEUG having that many Zeta's kind of makes them considerably more powerful, as Johnny Ridden and Shin Matsunaga also have them now (or someone other ace with Ridden't colors).

[Mark064]

The Dijeh cannot operate in space and the pilot with the Red Zeta was not Johnny Ridden but some girl. Johnny Ridden possibly gets a Zeta many years later...

[toysdream]

[quote=""Kamille! Kamille!"]

As usual, they're not quite in continuity with the animation, but Tomino's Victory Gundam novels provide a detailed breakdown of the fleet sizes during the final battle. I can dig those up again if anyone's curious.

I'm curious as well.[/quote]
Hokay, here's what they say.

Federation Forces/League Militaire fleet: Starts out with the Federation's 18th, 19th, and 20th Fleets, which launch from the moon under the command of the Jeanne D'Arc. This initial force is said to comprise about 20 warships and 300 mobile suits.

By the end of the last volume, the League Militaire fleet has swelled to more than 30 ships, but it sounds like their mobile suit force may have shrunk since they deploy about 200 machines in one of the later battles.

Zanscare fleet: The novels break down the fleets around Angel Halo as follows. Tassilo's Schbattten fleet has 18 ships, Cronicle's Amathus fleet has 11 ships, and the main Sugan fleet has about 20 ships commanded by the Squid-class battleship Dalmatian. That comes to roughly 50 ships in all, which is pretty much the upper end of my estimates from the TV animation.

Ever thought of adding information from the novels to the Data Evolution section of your site? Not complete translations but any important information on the Gundam world not spoke of in the anime, that us Americans other than you can't get to.

I've thought about it, but I've got so much other stuff to work on that it's not really a priority right now.

When the Axis fleet abandons the asteroid in episode 45(?) of Zeta, the Titans and the AEUG are surprised at the number of ships. This led me to believe that the Axis fleet was larger than this.

Yeah, there is that. This scene does seem to be setting up a much larger Axis fleet than we see in the following episodes, so perhaps the writers simply changed their minds later on, and I note this line is deleted from the movie version. Paranoid viewers might wonder if Haman is using decoys to make her potential allies think she has a huge fleet in reserve.

Incidentally, we have one other data point on the size of the Axis fleet during Zeta Gundam. In Tomino's Zeta novels, Char estimates that the Axis forces have three Gwadan-class battleships and more than fifteen "improved Musai-class cruisers," which would presumably be Endra-class cruisers. This seems pretty consistent with what we see in ZZ.

-- Mark