General Turn A Gundam Questions (SPOILER ALERT)

[CarbonStereoxide]

Questions about Turn A Gundam that suddenly popped in my mind

1) How did Syd Mead became the designer for the Turn A Gundam? Did Tomino choose him specifically?

2) Presuming after the Moon Light Butterfly was unleashed on Earth by Turn A Gundam, did the civilization on earth returned to the stone age technology level?

3) I did not get the purpose of Laura Rolla, the female alter ego of Rolan (or Loran) in Turn A, did the earth militia had a purpose for her aside to show to the moon race that the MS pilot is a girl?

4) The Moon Light Butterfly is a freakingly scary thing, is this plausible? Did Tomino based these on a science theory, fiction or did he made this up?

5) I recall in the early part (from episode 2 to be exact) of Turn A that the Amerian forces or the earth militia was parading its military to show to the citizens that it is ready for an impeding foreign invasion before the moon race arrives on the scene, is this true or did I misunderstood it?

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

I don't know about the other stuff, but isn't the Moonlight Butterfly a nanotechnolgy weapon? I suppose it could be plausible but there's a reason why sci-fi often takes many liberties with actual science. It wouldn't be dramatic if the MLB just made stuff fall apart like a Looney Tunes cartoon.

[Dark Duel]

3) I did not get the purpose of Laura Rolla, the female alter ego of Rolan (or Loran) in Turn A, did the earth militia had a purpose for her aside to show to the moon race that the MS pilot is a girl?

It's that one blonde goofball's fault..what's his name again? Guin Sard Lineford.
He never gets the hint, and continues calling Loran "Laura", with the end result that pretty much the entire world other than the main characters thinks the Turn-A/White Doll's pilot is a woman.
Ergo, the decision to have him cross-dress.

Though it was funny as all heck to see Harry hitting on "Laura".

[Chris]

Questions about Turn A Gundam that suddenly popped in my mind

1) How did Syd Mead became the designer for the Turn A Gundam? Did Tomino choose him specifically?

I don't recall for sure since I don't own Mead Gundam and only looked at it once, but I believe he was chosen by Tomino.

2) Presuming after the Moon Light Butterfly was unleashed on Earth by Turn A Gundam, did the civilization on earth returned to the stone age technology level?

I don't know about the stone age, but at the very least Earth was put into a position where it took several millenniums just to get back to early 1920s level technology.

3) I did not get the purpose of Laura Rolla, the female alter ego of Rolan (or Loran) in Turn A, did the earth militia had a purpose for her aside to show to the moon race that the MS pilot is a girl?

It all started from Guin Sard Lineford constantly confusing him for a girl and just evolved from that.

4) The Moon Light Butterfly is a freakingly scary thing, is this plausible? Did Tomino based these on a science theory, fiction or did he made this up?

Really? You're asking if something like that is plausible? Something like that is obviously implausible given our current level of scientific understanding, but implausibility has never gotten in the way of mecha shows before now.

5) I recall in the early part (from episode 2 to be exact) of Turn A that the Amerian forces or the earth militia was parading its military to show to the citizens that it is ready for an impeding foreign invasion before the moon race arrives on the scene, is this true or did I misunderstood it?

It's been about 6 years since I've seen Turn A, but yes, I believe this is true. However, the Militia forces in Ameria were disguising the impending conflict as being with another hostile nation, rather than Space Invaders.

[pozdniakov]

3) I did not get the purpose of Laura Rolla, the female alter ego of Rolan (or Loran) in Turn A, did the earth militia had a purpose for her aside to show to the moon race that the MS pilot is a girl?

It's that one blonde goofball's fault..what's his name again? Guin Sard Lineford.
He never gets the hint, and continues calling Loran "Laura", with the end result that pretty much the entire world other than the main characters thinks the Turn-A/White Doll's pilot is a woman.
Ergo, the decision to have him cross-dress.

Though it was funny as all heck to see Harry hitting on "Laura".

WTF, So she's not a girl. .
Guin did call him Loran during one of the later episodes though.

[ths1138]

3) I did not get the purpose of Laura Rolla, the female alter ego of Rolan (or Loran) in Turn A, did the earth militia had a purpose for her aside to show to the moon race that the MS pilot is a girl?

Guin created the persona of Laura Rolla because they had also reverted to male chauvinist thinking. Guin wanted the Moonrace to believe the Whitedoll's pilot was female because he wanted the Moonrace to feel inferior to the Earth people. Something along the lines of "Look, one of our girls can pilot this Whitedoll and match your men. You people are useless!" Guin simply kept the habit of calling Loran as Laura after that.

5) I recall in the early part (from episode 2 to be exact) of Turn A that the Amerian forces or the earth militia was parading its military to show to the citizens that it is ready for an impeding foreign invasion before the moon race arrives on the scene, is this true or did I misunderstood it?

Guin was forming a large militia on the pretext that people from the Garia Continent (I'm assuming Europe) are planning to invade Ameria (America). The two continents were at war or something during that time. He also used this as an excuse to develop the air force, which the Garia Continent forces had not yet developed. He needed an excuse because he knew that the Moonrace were coming, but he didn't want anyone else to know about it (he revealed all this in the scene when he showed Kihel the secret room in Bostonia Castle, that he had been in contact with the Moonrace for a while through the radio). However, he needed to be prepared in case the negotiations fell through (which it did), which was why the Inglessa Militia already had a lot of weapons, munitions, etc, etc once the Moonrace started attacking them.

- ths1138

[Mark064]

2) Presuming after the Moon Light Butterfly was unleashed on Earth by Turn A Gundam, did the civilization on earth returned to the stone age technology level?

I think overall it did degrade to a very low level but I think in some portions such as a energy specifically it didn't go that far. From what I recall reading elsewhere the airship used by the Militia in the series was actually solar powered. Turn A Gundam Newtype 100% Collection Volume 2 says that Gwen's car uses a Hydrogen Engine. Though I suspect this might be a standard in all cars possibly even planes.

[Phantomexe87]

Although the militia technology is relatively 'advanced', it did take them a long, long time to work their way back up to that level of technology.

My guess is they would go back a few centuries, but not the stone-age, as while a lot of technology is wiped out, they would still retain a lot of knowledge. I figure more like dark ages. With peculiarities.

[Yak85]

Guin created the persona of Laura Rolla because they had also reverted to male chauvinist thinking. Guin wanted the Moonrace to believe the Whitedoll's pilot was female because he wanted the Moonrace to feel inferior to the Earth people. Something along the lines of "Look, one of our girls can pilot this Whitedoll and match your men. You people are useless!" Guin simply kept the habit of calling Loran as Laura after that.

I never read into it that much, but that does sound like the most reasonable reason considering how Guin was always trying to accelerate the status of the Earthrace.

[Jack]

4) The Moon Light Butterfly is a freakingly scary thing, is this plausible? Did Tomino based these on a science theory, fiction or did he made this up?

There's a theory about nanomachinery called "grey goo", which suggests that out-of-control nanomachines could attack anything on a molecular level and reform it into dust or goo. It's been used for a lot of science fiction.

[Neo-Era]

1) How did Syd Mead became the designer for the Turn A Gundam? Did Tomino choose him specifically?

Some of that story from Syd's point of view can be read in an old ANS interview.

[Recon 5]

Those credentials are impressive. Personally, I think that anyone who did any work on a Yamato series would be able to handle Gundam.