The Jegan A-Type's long beam rifle, and some ramblings about the Jegan line.

[False Prophet]

The long beam rifle in question is the Jegan A-Type. Like the J-Type it was developed from, the A-Type had its own model of beam rifle different from the one used by the Jegan line pre-100 U.C. How ever, Vasuki/Yazan Gable's GM III Night Seeker carried the same beam rifle as the Jegan A-Type, and that machine was deployed before the Jegan entered official service. So that beam rifle was not made specifically for the Jegan A-Type?

You could of course chalk it to Ark Performance wanting to make a cool reference, but I personally think that there is something more to it. If you look at that beam rifle (as well as the Jegan J-Type's) the butt end of the rifle as well as the magazine clearly came from the Gundam Mk-II beam rifle. The GM III Night Seeker was also noted to have parts from the prototype Jegan (or maybe the Jeddah). That leads me to guess that the Jegan A-Type's beam rifle was actually developed before the the Jegan's standard-issue beam rifle but was not adopted for some reason (too big, not cost-effective enough, etc.) It was only years later that Anaheim took a second look at the design and adopted it for the Jegan A-Type.

Now, everything would fit perfectly if the Jeddah also used the Jegan A-Type's beam rifle, but it doesn't. So the most likely scenario is the the Jeddah's rifle came first, then the Jegan A-Type's, and then finally the standard Jegan's beam rifle.

This is the second thing that has been bothering me about the Jegan line. The first thing is that the jump between pre- and post-100 U.C. Jegan. If we consider every Jegan that appeared in F91 to be still canon (no one has invalidated F91's canonity yet), then we've got some questions to answer:

1. The J-Type is supposed to be the standard-issue model after the Type D, and yet why does the J-Type lack the hardpoints of the Type-D?

2. The pre-100 U.C. Jegan Type-A2 clearly bears several resemblances to the post-100 U.C. A-Type. But what is their relationship really, considering that the Type-A2 is RGM-89A2 and the A-Type is RGM-89R? Is there a RGM-89A Jegan Type-A that is the common ancestor to both of these machines?

3. What is the justification for the shift from the Stark Jegan to the Jegan B-Type?

Right now the most plausible answer is that in the 100s U.C., in an effort to lower their budget the E.F.F. shifted to the simpler J-Type, A-Type and B-Type that forwent their predecessors' modularity.

[Seto Kaiba]

You could of course chalk it to Ark Performance wanting to make a cool reference, [...]

It's MSV... it doesn't have to make sense, because it's not meant to. It's just there to look cool and, occasionally, to help boost the sales of low-profile designs from previous shows.

The most obvious explanation is that, because the RGM-89A Jegan was already in service they simply handed him the Early Type Jegan's beam rifle and said "have at it".

This is the second thing that has been bothering me about the Jegan line. The first thing is that the jump between pre- and post-100 U.C. Jegan. If we consider every Jegan that appeared in F91 to be still canon (no one has invalidated F91's canonity yet), then we've got some questions to answer:[...]

... not really. By in large, the answer is the obvious "F91 was made first, any subsequent weirdness in UC is on UC's author." Unsurprisingly, that's also about all you're going to get from official materials in terms of an explanation.

1. The J-Type is supposed to be the standard-issue model after the Type D, and yet why does the J-Type lack the hardpoints of the Type-D?

Because, in the real world, the J-Type came out seventeen years BEFORE the D-Type did and the differences in their design reflect the different styles of the early 1990s vs. the mid-to-late 2000s and the personal tastes of the light novel's author.

2. The pre-100 U.C. Jegan Type-A2 clearly bears several resemblances to the post-100 U.C. A-Type. But what is their relationship really, considering that the Type-A2 is RGM-89A2 and the A-Type is RGM-89R? Is there a RGM-89A Jegan Type-A that is the common ancestor to both of these machines?

The "A Type" and "B Type" in F91 was a note to help the art staff separate the different types of Jegan in the film without referring to them by the longer official names. Formally, they're RGM-89R and RGM-89M respectively. If you don't call things by their proper names you'll only get confused.

The RGM-89A2 Jegan from Gundam UC and Gundam NT is an enhanced/improved version of the RGM-89A Jegan Initial/Early Type seen in Char's Counterattack. It is said to have been developed as a more conventional/traditional improvement of the Jegan that focused on improved basic specs rather than improved scalability via optional hardware. The Jegan's "family tree" in Mobile Suit Bible 08 indicates that the D-Type's success was limited to a handful of sub-variants like the RGM-89De used by ECOAS or the RGM-89DS Stark Jegan, while the Jegans of the UC 100's and beyond incl. the RGM-89J, RGM-89M, and RGM-89R are all descendants of the RGM-89A2 Jegan.

Why? Because F91 was made first and they couldn't just ignore it... so the A2 exists to join up the dots.

3. What is the justification for the shift from the Stark Jegan to the Jegan B-Type?

The say-so of F91 having come out 16 years before Gundam UC.

[Mafty]

This is an issue with prequels/interquels in general, they often feature overly advanced anachronistic
designs for sale and style purposes(Really Gundam the Origin is one of the few who avoided this). Not to start the whole canon debate again, but the MSV lines are probably non canon, so they have more leeway.

That being said some of the Gundam Shows do a bit better of a job with this. As the UC moves on it, the tech levels rise. So later UC works having more powerful units, and a wide range of mass produced MS, works a bit better than constantly adding more overpowered tech to the OYW.

(Seed Destiny makes in an interesting choice by animating some side stories, and airing them during the series initial runtime. Plus they also add in a few MSV units to the sequel series, and not just in the special edition.)

The Jeagan line is also rather interesting, as the MSV units date back to largely when the series first started. The Stark Jeagan appears in CCA MSV, which was released in 1989, and the variants appeared in F91 in 1991, which set thirty years later. So they aren't as extreme of an example, especially because it seems the Jeagans were a limited spec unit for Londo Bell , before entering mass production later.

[E08]

3. What is the justification for the shift from the Stark Jegan to the Jegan B-Type?

The Stark Jegan and Jegan B-type actually have different roles/purpose, so there might not have been a shift as you assumed. The Stark Jegan is said to be for anti-ship assault as per the HGUC manual, while the Gundam UC official site described it as a special forces machine that can be equipped with missile launchers for support use. As for Jegan B-Type, the Mobile Suit Bible 08 described it as a close combat type with enhanced firepower, which match up a little with the archived Gundam Official.com website's claim that the B-Type's rocket launchers have a short-range. The Gundam Fact File 59 had a slightly different claim about B-Type, calling it a close-mid range MS with enhanced firepower.

[False Prophet]

@Seto Kaiba: I know that everything could be explained with "the author likes it", buy could you maybe... nah, I won't ask you to keep the kayfabe. Just know that not everything could be as "clean" as Macross.

[Seto Kaiba]

@Seto Kaiba: I know that everything could be explained with "the author likes it", buy could you maybe... nah, I won't ask you to keep the kayfabe. Just know that not everything could be as "clean" as Macross.

As I said, it's unfortunate but sometimes that really is the only actual answer you'll get from a show's creators. (Believe me, I spent quite a bit of time looking because I wanted to give you a decent answer. Struck out, as it happens.)

It's especially bad in prequels and interquels made many years after the original work, where real world technological advances begin to bleed into the fictional setting as anachronistic technology. Sometimes they come up with explanations for it, but a lot of the time it just is what it is and there isn't a clear in-setting explanation for the anachronisms or why they disappear. (And that's not counting the ones that aren't even trying to fit in, like MSV...)

Every franchise gets hit with this sooner or later... Gundam just gets it INCREDIBLY hard because it churns out new material so expeditiously.

[E08]

So the most likely scenario is the the Jeddah's rifle came first, then the Jegan A-Type's, and then finally the standard Jegan's beam rifle.

It is also possible for Jegan A-Type's beam rifle to come later, as an improved model of the one used by Vasuki/Yazan Gable's GM III Night Seeker but retaining similar, if not identical, appearance. We already have two existing cases of this.

Case 1 is the GM III's beam rifle, which the HGUC manual noted is a renewed version of the GM II's beam rifle, retaining the same production cost and shape, but having about 50% increase in output.

Case 2 is the Hyaku Shiki's beam rifle. An identical looking beam rifle was associated with some late type GM such as the GM Sniper II, so the Hyaku Shiki's beam rifle was explained in various sources, such as model kit manuals, as a refurbished version of that OYW-era rifle with higher output.

[Mafty]

To be fair Gundam is rather forward thinking at times when it comes to tech. In CCA the terminals in the Jegan and Nu Gundam cockpits look kind of like a proto laptop (to be fair laptop concepts have been around since the 70s, but a full screen laptop was still a relatively new concept in 1988, you can also see a laptop in an early LOGH episode), Also there is the reversible airbags (something which doesn’t exist even now).

Also regardless of timeline, Gundam largely ignores the internet. We rarely see civilian life in Gundam anyway, so most of the computers involve military hardware.

Likewise as has been shown, it's possible the reusing/retconning of weapons is probably one way of cleaning up the continuity. Like E08 mentioned the reuse of the guns through different units, or how the Stark Jeagan was taken into continuity from MSV in Unicorn, or how the Loto from Unicorn serves as a precursor to the Guntank in F91.

On another note about MSV, what exactly is it? Is it just model kit lines with info written on them, or are there printed books with lineart that explain the story?

[yazi88]

The Jegan A/B type beam rifle from F91 actually does show up in Unicorn. When the Banshee Norn is attacking the Nahel Argama, we see a team of ReZels and a Jegan attack it, one of the ReZels is using that beam rifle as a beam bayonet to attack the Norn but it get its arm crushed. Its definitely not the CCA normal Beam rifle the Jegan uses.

[MythSearcher]

This is one of the very few examples of AE's standard e-pac appearing on a mass-production model's rifle.
We start seeing e-pac of this shape since Zeta(out-universe)/0083(in-universe) and we can pretty much say it is AE standard issue but we don't really have mass production models using this until this very gun.
The closest of which is early T3 models(AOZ) where you see RGM-79CR and SR using variants of the Mk-II rifle's carbine and sniper variants.(later in AOZ we also see a really heavily rigged variant on the RMS-106E but also ditched this e-cap completely, like the Barzam's added grenade launcher did. This one seems to at least still have some kind of magazine for the beam rifle part, the Barzam one replaced the e-pac with something like a bazooka magazine from RX-78)

[Mafty]

It seems as though the Re-Zel can be equipped with several different types of beam guns. The main gun seems to be the most powerful, while the Jegan gun is used for melee combat. Interestingly the main gun is based on the Zeta's gun, while the other gun is based on the MK II's. Given how it is identified as the Jegan's gun, it appears as though it was the Jegan's gun to begin with, given how it's not clear when all the machines were modified this isn't really a continuity issue.

Also is it possible that the gun started out life as a prototype that ended up assigned to various units? AE could have made a gun , and tested it with different models to see which worked best. Plus from the Federations side, it would be cheaper to replace weaponry than constantly build new MS (that didn't stop them from building the ReZel, Gustav Carl, and other units, but that again falls under show merchandising.)

[Seto Kaiba]

It seems as though the Re-Zel can be equipped with several different types of beam guns.
[...]
AE could have made a gun , and tested it with different models to see which worked best. Plus from the Federations side, it would be cheaper to replace weaponry than constantly build new MS (that didn't stop them from building the ReZel, Gustav Carl, and other units, but that again falls under show merchandising.)

Ideally, the Federation would/should want to standardize Mobile Suit armaments as much as possible. Having a unique beam rifle for each model or variant of Mobile Suit is a criminal waste of resources. You'd expect that most any Mobile Suit built by AE should be able to operate any beam rifle it has enough power to trigger, and the same for any other manufacturer.

[Deacon Blues]

You could of course chalk it to Ark Performance wanting to make a cool reference...

Considering that every little tiny thing that appears in a Gundam manga (uniform, insignia, shield, rifle, etc) all have to be licensed from Sunrise and can't just be tossed in all willy-nilly (as Ark Performance pointed out), something tells me it's more than a quick reference.

[Mafty]

I hadn't heard about that ,but it makes sense the different designs would have to be licensed separately. The same things happen in Marvel and Godzilla films (apparently each different monster has to be separately licensed ).

If that's the case than it would appear that Ark Performance put a lot of work into the production ; as they not only needed to know the obscure trivia, they had to license it.

So maybe the reason there using it is actually an attempt to retcon the different design features into earlier story(like Unicorn and Hathaway) by introducing them earlier.

I agree with Kaiba that a relative standardization process would be the most economically sound idea. Plus isn't there actually some reference somewhere that many units in the UC ended up standardized so they could more easily trade parts and weapons?

[Seto Kaiba]

Considering that every little tiny thing that appears in a Gundam manga (uniform, insignia, shield, rifle, etc) all have to be licensed from Sunrise and can't just be tossed in all willy-nilly (as Ark Performance pointed out), something tells me it's more than a quick reference.

I very much doubt that every item they use has to be licensed individually... that'd cost so much and take so long to process that nobody would turn a profit on any licensed manga or game. No, it's a very safe bet that it's one license and that pre-approved them to use a specific list of designs and for anything outside that list they have to go through a brief approvals process to have it added to the list of items they're approved to use.

So maybe the reason there using it is actually an attempt to retcon the different design features into earlier story(like Unicorn and Hathaway) by introducing them earlier.

It's not a retcon, the Jegan A was already in service at the time in-universe.

[Deacon Blues]

Considering that every little tiny thing that appears in a Gundam manga (uniform, insignia, shield, rifle, etc) all have to be licensed from Sunrise and can't just be tossed in all willy-nilly (as Ark Performance pointed out), something tells me it's more than a quick reference.

I very much doubt that every item they use has to be licensed individually... that'd cost so much and take so long to process that nobody would turn a profit on any licensed manga or game. No, it's a very safe bet that it's one license and that pre-approved them to use a specific list of designs and for anything outside that list they have to go through a brief approvals process to have it added to the list of items they're approved to use.

I suppose phrasing it as licensing was poor on my part, so I'll clarify. What I should have said were "rights" to the aforementioned items. Unlike the days of yesteryear (think the 80s on into early 90s), you could toss in whatever the heck you wanted into your manga without any sort of care in the world for stepping on creative rights and whatever not. There was a full stop to this when Sunrise was trying to right the ship (something that manga artist Masafumi wrote about for the 20th celebration). So, there are specific copyrights on mobile suits/weapons/insignia/uniforms, with various contractual agreements established that are somewhat "harsher" for certain designs. But, there are also those that fall into a "safe" space for use by artists.

Either way, there are still politics and complicated factors that go into the whole process of what can and cannot be drawn, so in a sense, they are sort of "licensing" a particular design for use if there's something they wish to depict. It was pointed out that this could be something simple as a one-page contract for a quick depiction to something more in-depth depending on the usage (of which certain credits have to be listed in a work for certain designs). Ark Performance states they go above and beyond and research a wide variety of what can and cannot be used easily, and said that most artists typically rely on their supervisors and publishers to make sure everything is up to snuff (as it's typically not the artist's job anyways). A lot of this came to light because there was apparently a bit of a dust-up over the depiction of the MSA-0120 in the Fastest Formula series and proper credit not being attributed and/or permissions asked for it to be used. But, then again, Twitter users were quick to point out they think it was a sham account trying to create something out of nothing, but it was enough for two major artists to give a hella vague explanation of things nonetheless.

There's apparently quite a weird categorization of designs over the years, something like:
Base Gundam > Gunpla Boom > MSV > Century > (Z.ZZ's citation?) > Bandai Pub. Div. Setting (e.g. Masafumi's) > Sentinel > Izubuchi Historical View (0080) > Katoki Historical View (0083) > Kadokawa Derived Setting > Designs with a Purchase Agreement

[Mafty]

Makes sense copyright/international copyright is a rather complex issue. I've heard several times that copyright laws in Japan have changed over the decades( hence the Lupin III legal fiasco, the Director of Project A-ko saying it couldn't be made today even as a parody with the new laws, plus even then they stopped short of spoofing Superman and Wonder Woman, Mint's random ET ballcap a century in the future in Mospeda, The Shrike Team having their names altered in the official release, nearly anything to do with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, etc.)


Really this seems a bit like the whole Space Battleship Yamato issue, where different people owned different parts of the same franchise.

[Seto Kaiba]

So, there are specific copyrights on mobile suits/weapons/insignia/uniforms, [...]

There literally always were. (It's pretty much mandatory for merchandising.)

[...]with various contractual agreements established that are somewhat "harsher" for certain designs. But, there are also those that fall into a "safe" space for use by artists.

All that changed was Sunrise switched from "anything goes" licensing to a more restrictive practice to having standard slates of content that authors could draw on with Sunrise having approvals over anything outside that pre-approved slate of designs. You're making this out to be an exponentially bigger deal than it actually is. This is literally a standard licensing practice used by practically any franchise worth mentioning.

Makes sense copyright/international copyright is a rather complex issue. I've heard several times that copyright laws in Japan have changed over the decades( hence the Lupin III legal fiasco, the Director of Project A-ko saying it couldn't be made today even as a parody with the new laws, plus even then they stopped short of spoofing Superman and Wonder Woman, Mint's random ET ballcap a century in the future in Mospeda, The Shrike Team having their names altered in the official release, nearly anything to do with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, etc.)

Eh... not quite.

The issue with Monkey Punch's Lupin III was, in the main, one of differences in the definition of derivative works and trademarks. Lupin III didn't really reference Maurice Leblanc's novels in any meaningful way other than the protagonist claiming the Arsene Lupin was his grandfather. In Japan, that was within the bounds of acceptable homage. In France, that was enough to consider it derivative of Maurice Leblanc's still-under-copyright set of short stories and novels. The issue was finally resolved when Leblanc's work entered the public domain.

The issue with Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and the issues with renaming members of Shrike Team in Victory Gundam is all about trademark enforcement. Japan's looser attitude towards it makes Araki's use of artist, song, and album names protected by trademark acceptable homage/parody where the more restrictive trademark laws elsewhere make it infringement.

Project A-Ko, well, it's not impossible to create something like that in this day in age... the studios are just more vigilant about protecting their IP so the license agreements would be extremely complex. Super Robot Wars stands as a testament to the fact that you absolutely CAN do stuff like that 100% legally today provided you do the paperwork FIRST.

[MythSearcher]

Super Robot Wars stands as a testament to the fact that you absolutely CAN do stuff like that 100% legally today provided you do the paperwork FIRST.

That being said, SRW is deteriorating FAST.
Most of the shows used boils down to Sunrise shows with only a few that needs licensing from other companies. The quality of the games are dropping pretty quick and you have this strange reduction in combat animation in new games compared to slightly older ones.(SRW30, which is supposed to be the 30th anniversary title had worse animation than some of the VTX version for the same unit.)

[Seto Kaiba]

That being said, SRW is deteriorating FAST.
Most of the shows used boils down to Sunrise shows with only a few that needs licensing from other companies. [...]

Well, yes... but how much of the lack of new IP is simply a product of Sunrise having stagnated the genre into submission with decades of form letter Gundam sequels and spinoffs?

It's still proof that you CAN do something like that with the appropriate contracts drawn up... it's just a pain to do.