Gundam: Out of Earth

[jjarodurandal]

well, I've been contemplating posting this here for months on months now. Time to bite the bullet i suppose.

I've been working on this for nearly half a year so far, albeit at a snails pace. college always get's in the way of the important stuff. Anyway, None of my friends are really all that into Gundam, so I decided that if i wanted feed back on my story, I'd need to come here. so, enjoy.

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Gundam Out of Earth

Alexander Huntington walked into a sterile white meeting room. In the middle was a similarly sterile steel table behind which sat a woman in a white coat. “Am I here for an interview or an appendectomy?”

the woman behind the table looked up at him, thinking less of the joke than Alexander did. “Just sit down mister Huntington. The sooner we finish this interview the better it will be for the two of us.”

“Agreed,” Alexander nodded as he pulled out a chair and sat down in it. The woman, who was only known by the last name of Sato, began to pull papers out of a briefcase and arraying them on the table. She did this slowly and methodically, with the shuffling being the only sound for a full minute.

Alexander twisted his face into a joking squint and stared at Mrs. Sato. “You said something about getting this over with quickly?” He reminded her. Sato rolled her eye's up and stared at him.

“Immature as ever.” Mrs. Sato finished with the papers. “Well Mr. Huntington, It has been an interesting couple of months. Since you've gotten here, you've produced a total of...” Mrs. Sato looked over her papers. “...Thirty lines of code?”

Alexander jumped forward in his chair, then fell back. “Oh come on! That's only counting the freakin' governor code for the thrusters. I mean, we could pull that code from the old legionnaire code and it wouldn't be any different. I spent my time in areas were there was actually new code to be written, like the weapons recognition system and thrust vector control. I must have written twice as much code as anyone else here!”

“On projects that were not your responsibility! You were assigned to work on the governer code. You left your work unfinished and interfered with the work of others. You've done a lot of work certainly, but you edited code that others were working on causing confusion and forcing people to work around you to get work done.” Mrs. Sato's voice was starting to rise. Alexander responded in like.

“Bull! I checked up with all the programmers that were working on the code I edited, worked inside their framework and I haven't had one complaint from anyone!”

“That's irrelevant! You think that the off hand approval of coworkers is going to make up for the fact that the only project you've worked on down here remains uncompleted! Any recommendation letter you get from is going to be embarrassing to even write!”

“Yeah, because it will look so bad on my record that I went beyond what was asked of me!”

“You arrogant little...” Mrs. Sato slapped her palms against the table top just as an MP stepped in, telling them that if they weren't finished yet, they really should be. For a while Alexander and Mrs. Sato stared at the intruder, almost as if they thought he might leave and let them come to blows in peace. The MP stared back with a practiced intimidating expression. Finally, Alexander turned and slide around the MP and through the door.



Alexander stormed through the hallways, plowing through his fellow workers. This last confrontation with Mrs. Sato was only the most recent in a long list. He had arrived at the military base months ago to begin his internship working on a new software package for some secret mobile suite. The first project that he had been assigned to was a simple enough bit of code that would keep the thrust of the mobile suit from crushing the pilot during rapid accelerations or from blowing it's self up. Alexander hadn't really planned on leaving it unfinished, but it had always seemed like only one days work, and not very interesting, so he had been distracted by the more exciting parts of the project. The fact that he didn't do exactly what was asked of him when it was asked didn't sit well with his supervisor Mrs. Sato.

When Alexander got back to his quarters, he began to stuff his clothes into a duffel bag. His internship had finished and he was going home tomorrow. Over the course of his stay Alexander had wanted nothing more than to finish and head home. After all, for a college student used to a life of leisure, there wasn't a whole lot to do on a military base. This was compounded by the fact that over half of the base required high level clearance to see. Alexander knew that he was working on a mobile suit, and had at least scanned over most of the code, but still had no idea what it looked like. That was probably the worst part for him. He had walked the corridors of the base many times and it was always hard resisting the urge to try and sneak into the mobile suit hangar. Tonight was going to be his last chance to sneak a peak at the machine he had put so much work into. Alexander stopped packing for a moment weighing the options before falling against his bed and laughing. “Come on, Alexander,” He laughed to himself, “You're not dumb enough to risk a bullet. Besides, you've been happy enough without doing anything interesting in life so far. Why start rocking the boat now?” With that, he finished packing. The momentary distraction of the mobile suit behind him and his packing done, Alexander found himself thinking of his argument with Mrs. Sato again, and again he found himself getting upset. Figuring he'd sleep it off, Alexander began to climb into bed. About half way in, something from the back of his mind stopped him. Dressing himself again, Alexander grabbed his duffel, a C Scale reference book, and some of the design notes. Throwing his door open, Alexander began stomping his way back to the cave that housed the computers. “There's no way i'm going to let Sato have anything to complain about. If she wants new governor code, then come hell or high water I'll write it.”



The next morning saw Maria Sato in a worse mood then before. As part of the security for the project each development team had been told as little as possible. This included the time table of the project. Early in the morning, a lieutenant had visited her asking to the completed code for the mobile suit. She had it, sure, but in about 80 different places. It had taken nearly all her morning to get the code together and compiled. Between people giving her old files that didn't compile and the network crashing due to too many of her programmers searching the entire servers for the files she wanted, Maria had a sort of comedy of errors. She didn't appreciate it at all. Finally, though, she had gotten all of the code together and had handed of to the lieutenant (who at this time was grinning wide at the bumbling assembly of the final code). Just as the lieutenant had left, a programmer came running up to her out of breath. “Mrs. Sato!” the programmer was nearly shouting.

“I swear,” Maria growled, “If you tell me that you submitted bad code, there are no words for the suffering I will put you through!”

The programmer stepped back and held his hands in a defensive position. “No! No! It's Huntington!” Hearing the name and jumping to conclusions Sato began to loose the last bit of sanity. She may have assaulted the programmer if he hadn't quickly spat out “It's too good! Come on, you've got to see this!” Maria was now confused, and allowed herself to be dragged down to the computer lab.

Upon arriving in the lab Maria was lead over to one of the desks. Underneath the desk slept Alexander Huntington, his head propped against up on his duffel bag. The programmer who had brought Maria looked at her. “You're not laughing? This is hilarious!”

“It's really not that funny.” Maria eyed Alexander. “I'm more wondering why he's still here. His was supposed to have left earlier today.”

“Ah, well,” The programmer began messing with the computer on the desk, “This is what he was working on, at least.”

Maria leaned in and looked at the monitor, body checking the programmer out of the way. She began from the bottom of the source code and scanned up the comments. Mumbling to herself she used the functions to put together just what she was looking at. The more she read, the angrier she got until she finally cried out and slammed the table. “It's the thrust governor code!” She turned to the programmer and with a quieter, exasperated tone repeated, “It's the governor code.”

The programmer nodded, “And it's better than the legionnaire code we copied.”

Marian sat down in a nearby chair and stared at Alexander, still asleep on the floor, in disbelief. “What code did we have in the copy I handed over?”

“That was the legionnaire code.”

Maria sighed, “Mother of... will the code work? Will the legionnaire code work?”

“Sure. It won't be as good as what this code should do, but it should work.”

“Look this over for mistakes, compile it and get me another copy of the completed software.” Suddenly feeling much older than she was, Maria slowly rose from the chair. “They said they were just doing start up tests today, So it shouldn't make a difference. I'll want the completed software asap just in case. If anyone needs me I'll... I'll be in the showers. Don't send anyone to get me. Please.” With that Maria left.



Some hours later, The Gundam was assembled, and the start up went down without a hitch. Marian, as the head of the software team, had been asked to watch. After the successful start up, the military brass and the various scientists and engineers where talking together about what the mobile suit would be able to do when real testing began. The officers were somewhat surprised when all the different teams actually had figured out much of the information that was supposedly top secret.

Maria had just hit her stride explaining the software in jargon that no one else understood when the lights flickered of and a deep rumble caused everyone to crane their heads upward. Emergency power turned on just in time for maria to see an MP run up to the officers and whisper something to them. The officers started to nervously excuse themselves when an Explosion shook the whole base, sending a few people to the ground. Red emergency lights came on and Maria saw one of the officers run over to a intercome panel on the wall. A few seconds later, she hear his voice echoing, “Attention please! This is general George Wahlz. The compound has come under sudden attack. The breach is so far limited to the number one hangar. All are to obey the orders of the MPs and move immediately to the number two hangar in preparation for an emergency evacuation. Transport division is to report to the number three hangar to see if we can move the prototype out. Please conduct yourselves in an orderly fashion but move with urgency. That is all.”



Gain slammed his fist against the console inside his Legionnaire. Gently tweaking the controls, he brought half his MS out from around the corner. Immediately, fire came down the hanger's entrance ramp. He covered himself as best as he could with the small shield his MS had, and lined up a shot on one of the enemy Mobile Suits. He knew that the shots were coming closer when he felt his suit shake from a round to the exposed leg. He quickly checked his HUD to make sure all the joints worked, than got back to aiming. The cross hairs dropped first over the head of the mobile suit, then fell onto the chest and turned from yellow to red. He pulled the trigger once, and as the enemy mobile Suit shook from the hit, his cross hairs bounced up onto the head. He pulled the trigger again, and another round smashed in the face of his target. In the corner of his monitor, he noticed one mobile Suit not firing at will, but still pointed at him. Cursing, Gain slammed the controls hard, flinging his Suit back around the corner just in time to see a round pass through the air where he had been. He gave let out a hoot and then grinned wide. “That was closer than I'd prefer.” He reached over and flipped a switch. “Careful not to stay out there too long. One of 'ems got the brains to aim his shots.” He heard affirmative responses from the other mobile suit pilots. He peeked around the corner to try and take out the marksmen, only to be forced back by the enemy fire.

Gain drummed his his hands. Being held up was exhausting, and he could sense the fatigue setting in on his squad. He played with the radio again, waiting through the static until he could get in touch with one of the commanders. Finally he heard what sounded like instructions being read calmly by a woman. Gain interrupted her. “Who is this? Are you in charge of the evacuation?” The woman ignored him and continued to read the instructions roboticly. Gain was about to start laying into her, when he heard her scream over the radio and another voice came on.

“Hello? Please respond. Is this a ESF officer? Identify yourself!”

“Master sergeant Gain Miller, army mobile suite corps, 1st maneuverable armor division 9th MS Squadron. Who am I speaking to?”

“This is colonel Abramov. Sergeant Miller, what is your status?”

“Me and 5 others have gotten mobile suits down here and are holding our ground, but we won't be too much longer. Enemy keeps reinforcing outside, and we don't have much in the way of ammo. How's the rest of the base?” Gain fired a blind shot up the ramp to keep the enemy from trying anything bold.

“not good. East hanger has already fallen. The troops there caved in the tunnels, so they can't spread out, but we have to move you to the west hangar for evac. That's the only one they haven't opened up yet. We've got most of the civilians on board some Hermes transports. If you can hold out there for a little while longer, we have contact with an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic. We're gonna try to get our planes out there, but we have to get them all out in one shot.”

“roger. I think I can hold this for ten more minutes. Will that be enough?”

A MS grenade rolled down the shoot and exploded, but none of the legionnaire's were damaged.

“More then enough. As soon as we get the command staff on board, all the planes will take off.”

“roger that. We'll hold here. What's being done about the Gundam.”

The colonel didn't respond immediately, which was enough to tell Miller that he wasn't going to like what he heard.

“they hit the main hanger just a little after we heard they'd breached near you. Our forces slowed them enough to evacuate staff and retrieve information, but we couldn't scrap the Prototype.”

“Damn. This really isn't going well for us is it.” He hung his head in thought. “Alright. You let me know the moment those planes get off the ground, and we'll cut out to give you cover.”

“Thanks sergeant.”

Gain Miller leaned him self out again, this time making a quicker shot then he liked, but still landing it, and taking out a mobile suit.



Alexander Was holding his head and cussing. The sirens had caused him to jump up from his sleep and he had struck his forehead against the desk. Which confused him, because he didn't quite remember going to sleep under the desk. Between the last holds of sleep, his confusion at where he was, and the blow on his head, Alexander wasn't responding as fast to the situation in the base as everyone else was. He stumbled around the lab, leaning on the desks. “wh...Why's everything red. And would someone turn of the freakin' alarm.” Slowly Alexander began to come around and realize that something wasn't right. He exited the lab after a few minutes and found the halls emptier then usual. Even the MPs had abandoned their posts, which to Alexander seemed like a sign of the apocalypse.

Alexander was sweating as he wandered the deserted base. It didn't take long for him to realize that he had due cause to be scared and he began to try and sneak around the halls. A few times he had seen uniforms that he knew weren't any ESF country's. Luckily he had kept him self hidden, but his nerves were shot. He began to work his way towards where he thought all the ESF forces would gather, in the number three hangar around the Prototype.

After a while he came to a small personel door to the hangar. His hand was shaking as he reached for the door handle. Opening it slowly, he half expected some terrible metal on metal screech to expose him. However, the door opened quietly, and he looked through the crack. However, he didn't see the ESF uniforms. Instead, the strange uniforms of the invaders stood around spread thin on the hangar floor. Quickly, he flew from the doorway to a near by palette of crates. Looking around, he saw the massive white foot. His gaze followed the leg upward where he found him self staring at the massive engines of the prototype Gundam. He stood there, for the first time appreciating it's size, then remembering that he was in a (now) hostile base. He pressed himself back against a palette and contemplated going back for the door. While he wasn't a soldier, he doubted that he could count on the mercy of who ever was invading. However, without actually deciding on it, he found himself climbing the ladder to the boarding walkway of the Gundam. By some miracle, he wasn't seen, and when he reached the top, he turned and began to creep (as well as one can when completely exposed) towards the Mobile Suit. A person leaped out of the cockpit and leaned over the railing.

“Hey guys! These mud heads forgot to put monitors in the stupid mobile suit! They're gonna let their pilots fly blind!” distant laughter was heard from the hangar floor and another soldier shouted back.

“Well, It can't be anything but in improvement!”

The first soldier chuckled to himself and stood up straight, putting a hand to his head. “Oh man, this is a hoot.” He turned and saw Alexander crouching on the scaffolding. “Hey, who are you?”

Alexander moved in a panic, exploding forward and sprinting towards the soldier.

“Wait! Halt!” The soldier reached for his pistol, but couldn't get it out fast enough. Alexander collided with the soldier, burying his shoulder in the other man's stomach and tackling him to the ground. Still riding an adrenaline rush, he climbed on top of the soldier and started throwing punches.

After two hits, the soldier got his senses back and began to overpower Alexander. The situation turned quickly as the soldier rolled over and smashed Alexander against the railing. Now on top, the soldier began to strangle Alexander, who was unable to break the soldiers grasp or throw off his weight. The soldier reached back for his gun, and Alexander swung his fist into the elbow the the arm still holding him down, causing the soldier to collapse forward into Alexander's elbow. The soldier sat upright out of reflex, holding onto his nose as blood dripped out of his hands. Alexander quickly leaped forward and grabbing the soldier by his shirt, smashed his head against the railing, knocking him unconscious.

Alexander stood up in disbelief breathing heavily. He was in a daze for a few seconds until a bullet ringing off the railing sent Alexander diving into the mobile suits cockpit.
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and fin. Sorry if it's long, but i wanted to at least get Alexander in one fight before the first chapter let up. I know it's vague on the back story, but i kinda jumped around as i was writing it, and I'm not sure at this point what details escaped my mind onto the page. If you have a lot of questions I'll answer them as best as I can. If it looks like i need to, I can make my next big post on the details of the universe where this takes place, but most things are still very fluid. Anyways, I'll try to have more of the story completed before the semester lets out.

And now that I have a mechatalk account, i suppose i should post in someone else's thread. can't be a hermit after all.

[Big B]

Not a bad start. I like the take of using the programmer aspect, but expanding on it more.

Being one bit, it's hard to say further, but I would suggest running a spelling and grammar check before posting. I've noticed a number of sentences starting with lower-case letters.

Also, the Gundam's assembly and testing seems to be portrayed as happening rather quickly. We all know this is science-fiction, but given that we're entertaining a combat machine with code being used for the first time, the time frame here is really, really stretching the level of believability.

You're cramming a lot of stuff here into one piece, and you might consider revising it to be in two parts. It feels like you've got some good ideas, but are skipping over the founding details, such as time and calendar (UC or an AU time line). The structure is there, but, IMO could use some fleshing out.

[jjarodurandal]

right, thanks for the advice first off. I've never put a piece of my writing before the public before, so I'm still an inexperienced writer.

The reason i skipped the background details is a bit of a sad excuse. I had a prologue written, but some of the changes i made forced me to just scrap it. after that, i didn't think they where really necessary at first, but i guess i never tell you who the ESF is, so i suppose i do need it.

As for the Gundam's construction being rushed, i guess what i wrote and what was in my head diverged. I meant for the physical construction of the MS to be finished well before the two days you see in chapter one, and they just had to install the software. As for the testing, that isn't anywhere near finished. all they did was test to make sure they can get the thing to turn on. The hard core test where to come later, until they were interrupted. I'm sorry if i wasn't clear on these points. Like i said, I'm not a very experienced writer. With any luck, i should improve.

Anyway, I should thank you again, Big B, because i started writing the back story up again, and i kept writing, and i actually got what i think is a decent prologue. it should explain a lot

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Gundam: OE
Ch. 0: History of the world part 1

Humanity had long exhausted the frontiers of their planet. Running out of room on their own planet, the individual nations of earth each began to build colonies in space. These where outrageously expensive projects, and the contained environments where exceptionally fragile. As such, the first settlers of space weren't not society's unwanted, but the very best that could be enticed to make the journey. The mental and physical cream of the crop where scanned for any genetic or mental weakness, and those that made the cut where offered incredible incentives to move to these colonies. So began the Out of Earth calendar.

The concentration of great minds lead to a second renaissance. New energy sources where developed, Alloy's discovered, and the greatest marriage of all the new technologies (aside from the colonies themselves) where mobile suits. Originally designed to be one tool for many jobs in space construction, it didn't take long for them to be armed and adapted for the police and military forces. The standard of living on the colonies began to rise at an astounding pace. The space colonies where the jewels of human civilization.

For all of the advances in the colonies, relatively little change was seen on the earth. The overpopulation was eased slightly, but many of the advancements failed to make it back to earth. Mobile Suits in particular where ill received on earth, seen as novelties.

In the early stages, the colonies where under tight control. Resources where strictly rationed and the projects that a colony could undertake had to be approved by the mother country back on earth. However, as time went buy, the colonies began to become more and more self sustaining. Hand in hand came the desire to have more control over their own affairs. The colonies began to form various political groups, gathering together for a common interest. The colony groups found themselves at constant odds with earth governments, but the conflicts were by and large peaceful for a time.

A pivotal conflict came when a European Union colony, the New Avalon colony, diverted resources from manufacture of trade goods to begin the unauthorized construction of mobile suit construction facilities and facilities for starship construction. In response, the EU placed resource rations on New Avalon far and away harsher than any that had previously come since the construction of the colonies. Riots broke out not just on New Avalon, but inside sympathetic colonies as well. Eventually, New Avalon caved to EU's demands and the rationing was lifted. While the EU held strong that no one died as a direct result of the rationing and that the colony was supplied with enough resources to maintain its self, New Avalon sued for damages from lack of medical supplies to insufficient emergency stores and numerous other sources. The situation had only worsened for both sides.

In order to prevent another situation like New Avalon, the world's nation formed the Earth Space Forum. Though the colonies where still under control of their mother countries, they were allowed a separate voice. Initially, this seemed to please all parties involved. The ESF gradually became more powerful, going above resolutions and passing and enforcing laws with a volunteer military force. For all intents and purposes, man kind had finally managed to unify under a single banner. However, all was not well. The men and women who had been heads of state in earths nations still held power. Attempting to make the ESF a true world government, earth politicians began to subvert the ESF, gradually lessening the importance of the member nations and colonies and increasing the ESF's own political power.

Where as little objection was heard from the people of earth, the Colonies still remembered the harsh treatment that had received previously. A large group of colonies (with New Avalon) banded together to form the Trade and Defense Alliance of Colonies. Though not intending to secede, the TDAC member colonies began to build up arms stores in case they where needed.

Again New Avalon found its self at the center of events. Conflicts began through out all colonies, and violence was beginning to rise to a point where ESF and TDAC military forces where forced against their will to cooperate to maintain order. The ESF, fearing the increasing unrest and more than a little sore from previous dealings with New Avalon, decided that quelling the riots on New Avalon would be the first step towards regaining peace. As such, the policing actions of ESF forces in New Avalon grew harsher. The final straw came at a nondescript rally, a fight broke out. While this situation had played its self out many times before, this time the governing body of New Avalon had had enough and asked the ESF forces to leave. When they refused, TDAC forces where called in to remove them. War had officially begun.

The conflict in space was almost a complete route. Earth generals had underestimated TDAC's numerical and technological advantage, and within a month, all ESF forces had been forced back to earth. As soon as ESF had lost all it's foot hold in space, there was a lull. The ESF began to fortify earth and attempted to develop weapons to counter TDAC's Mobile Suit forces. Though progress was made, the best they could produce was an outmoded TDAC design. It wasn't enough however, because the temporary reprieve ended before the ESF could properly shore up their defenses. Despite this, TDAC's earth campaign did not go nearly as well as the space conflicts. Humiliated on all other continents, TDAC had managed to secure a significant part of Africa, and then hit a wall. Neither side was able to make much progress, TADC unable to break out of Africa and ESF unable to force them out. Such is the situation when out story starts.

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and fin. I look forward to more reviews and advice. most of Ch. 2 is already written, but I'll want to go through it with a fine toothed come to make sure it meshes with part one and is a little better paced.