Mobile Suit Gundam SEED TWILIGHT

Your own tale of two mecha.
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ShadowCell
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Phase 15 is up.
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Thundermuffin
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Wow, you're churning these out.

Great cliffhanger.
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ShadowCell
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I have every chapter up to 29 planned out down to the relatively minute detail, so it's a matter of just filling in shells with writing. Past that, I don't have everything so tightly choreographed, but I know what it is I want to write and what needs to happen in each chapter.
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RedShirt0909
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Finally got a break in my schoolwork to get these read. Looking great so far, but I do see a problem. Even if she is an Extended, Kyali would be extremely lucky not to be executed for what she did. Letting her back into a mobile suit would be out of the question if COL Meyers had any idea what he's doing; since Kyali is a traitor to the Alliance and would almost certainly make a bid for freedom if she had the chance. Also, why doesn't she just shut down her radio to keep Meyers from block-wording her?
Yea, though I sail through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil, for I am conning ten thousand tons of 'screw you'
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ShadowCell
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RedShirt0909 wrote:Finally got a break in my schoolwork to get these read. Looking great so far, but I do see a problem. Even if she is an Extended, Kyali would be extremely lucky not to be executed for what she did. Letting her back into a mobile suit would be out of the question if COL Meyers had any idea what he's doing; since Kyali is a traitor to the Alliance and would almost certainly make a bid for freedom if she had the chance. Also, why doesn't she just shut down her radio to keep Meyers from block-wording her?
I never really explained this all explicitly, so I guess now is the time.

In the Cosmic Era ver Me, the Extended program is divided into three groups: the Combat Coordinators (which the Alliance abandoned early on after their brainwashing kept failing), the biological CPUs (which were the pet project of Azrael Conglomerate and kind of came to a screeching halt after Azrael died and the druggies made their escape), and the run-of-the-mill Extended (like Sting, Stella, and Auel). The Alliance divides the regular Extended into three groups: Class I (like Sting and Auel), who are more autonomous and thus are trusted by the Alliance to carry out missions on their own while remaining loyal; Class II (like Kyali), who aren't as autonomous and can be trusted to go out and fight, but not much else; and Class III (like Stella), who can't be trusted to brush their teeth by themselves and are only good for setting loose on the battlefield under heavy supervision. All of them require some time in the maintenance bed to calm themselves down, although the maintenance bed isn't the only way to achieve that end. In the Class II and Class III, if you separate the Extended from their caretaker, their bodies start slowly shutting down after a certain point as a failsafe to protect the Extended project's secrets. Sting and Auel didn't have to worry about that because they were Class I Extended that the Alliance put more trust in. Stella got away because while Neo was groomed in her mind as the person who would protect her, it was Shinn who actually protected her, so she switched her dependency and screwed up her mental programming. Lots of Extended don't really understand themselves and the ramifications of the changes their bodies and minds have undergone--if they did, then they'd get all rebellious like Sting and Auel and, to a lesser extent, Kyali. However, some Extended do understand the reality of their lives--and Kyali has just enough self-awareness to understand that separation from the Alliance means a slow and unpleasant death. And since she's deathly afraid of disappearing, Harris figures that as long as he keeps a firmer grip on the leash, it'll be alright to use her in battle--especially since he's running out of other options, and he intends on sending her back to the Extended laboratory at Althea Crater soon enough anyway.

As for the radios, I'd hope that after Sting, Stella, and Auel bitched everything up for the Alliance, they've learned not to let their Extended cut off communication with their higher-ups.
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ShadowCell
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You know what's a bitch? Finals are a bitch. But I slithered away from the biology textbook long enough to finish off Phase 16.
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Darkerangel
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ShadowCell wrote:You know what's a bitch? Finals are a bitch. But I slithered away from the biology textbook long enough to finish off Phase 16.
Haha, me too. Which is why I'm trying to wrap mines up so I can study more.
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RedShirt0909
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Hey, finals are just a distraction from the important task of watching anime.
As to the last phase, how the heck did Harris survive a 4 on 1 against all Gundams? And the end of the phase... can't you let anyone I want to see survive live?
Yea, though I sail through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil, for I am conning ten thousand tons of 'screw you'
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ShadowCell
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This is Gundam! People are required to die or else the Gundam gods will descend from the heavens and cause me to feel pain.
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RedShirt0909
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Yeah, people die in war, but why is it always the ones who I want to live that die and vice-versa? Also - Harris not dying when attacked by Destiny/Infinite Justice/Gaia/Savior all at once - That kind of a team would kill CCA Amuro if he was flying an Aegis, so how'd the good Colonel escape alive?
Yea, though I sail through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil, for I am conning ten thousand tons of 'screw you'
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I haven't actually read it, but that happened? :shock:

Perhaps he's the second coming of Kira Yamato.
Thundermuffin wrote:SETSUNA: There is no Tomino in this world.
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ShadowCell
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RedShirt0909 wrote:Yeah, people die in war, but why is it always the ones who I want to live that die and vice-versa?
Everybody I know has that complaint. I kinda figured that my war dead are marked for it early on, but eh. Sorry. If it makes you feel better, Emily's gonna be pissed.
Also - Harris not dying when attacked by Destiny/Infinite Justice/Gaia/Savior all at once - That kind of a team would kill CCA Amuro if he was flying an Aegis, so how'd the good Colonel escape alive?
The good Colonel is actually supposed to be a pretty good pilot, though I may not be doing as good a job of showing that as I should. He's also smart enough to know that discretion is the better part of valor, if not a very significant part of not-getting-blown-the-hell-up.

One of the complaints I received about the DESTINY AU was that there weren't really any unmodified Naturals who could go toe to toe with the likes of Shinn and Athrun. All the pilots who could trip them up, or at least slow them down, came in the variety of Extended, Newtypes, or Coordinators. So as far as the fight scenes go, I'm trying to rectify that with characters like Harris and Sven. The latter, for example, is good enough to go head to head with Shinn Asuka--although he tries not to, since he's smart enough to understand that one-on-one MS duels inevitably work their way towards close range, where Shinn works best. That and I think I implied that older machines like the Aegis have been pulled out of storage and modernized, so it's not such a big gap.
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RedShirt0909
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I understand that complaint, but I'd disagree with it. As lousy as it sounds, there really shouldn't be any true Naturals, no matter how good they are, who can keep up with Coordinator Aces. Coordinators are faster, stronger, smarter, and have not just better but superior reflexes than Naturals - see SEED phase 1, where about ten Coordinators massacre at least 40 defending guards at Morgenrate. I don't think anyone left alive but Athrun, Kira, and Rau can match Shinn in terms of experience and skill. Shinn and Athrun also get the benefits of Newtype/SEED powers. Even if Harris can match them in terms of pure pilot skill, the superior reflexes of Coordinators and their even better Newtype reflexes should make it impossible for him to last very long against a pilot like Shinn, and even if the Aegis was modernized, its still inferior to the IJ/Destiny.

As for the running away bit, if he was there long enough to be quad-teamed, he was already dead, since there'd be no way at all to escape from that if the Destiny or the IJ can keep up with him.
Yea, though I sail through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil, for I am conning ten thousand tons of 'screw you'
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ShadowCell
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I know that Coordinators technically make for superior pilots to Naturals and that's it, but the problem I have with that (especially in this fic) is that pretty much the entire Earth Alliance is made up Naturals. And since the Extended have all sorts of strings attached to them, I don't want to rely on them for my supply of enemy characters. The Naturals in general and the Alliance in particular getting savaged in DESTINY was one of my many complaints of that show, and if I replicated the gap between the Naturals and Coordinators, then this whole thing would be about as one-sided as DESTINY was, at least in terms of fights. So for the sake of crafting fights in which the Alliance characters get to do more than act as enhancement talent, I had to level the playing field between the two. I suppose it's conceivable that to a certain extent, a mobile suit and Natural-use OS can compensate for the gap between the two, although I realize it's a stretch.

However, once you get into hand-to-hand combat, a Coordinator will without question kick an unmodified Natural's ass.
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RedShirt0909
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OK, that works. I had completely forgotten the OS issue, but you explain it well enough. As for keeping the Alliance competitive, I can see the logic there, and the show never has given us an actual ratio of IQ/Hand-eye coordination index between your average coordinator and your average natural, so the gap could be a lot lower than I've always pictured it and Naturals could be able to fly like that.

And please, give Harris the horrible death he deserves. I'm thinking... well, I can't mention what I'd do on the board, but I need a 2 by 4, a pair of pliers, and a goat.
Yea, though I sail through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil, for I am conning ten thousand tons of 'screw you'
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Thundermuffin
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ShadowCell wrote:You know what's a bitch? Finals are a bitch. But I slithered away from the biology textbook long enough to finish off Phase 16.
Uggggh, don't remind me of the lab practical I have to take on Thursday.

In any case, i kinda took it as the four getting in the way of each other, letting Harris escape, I dunno if you wrote it that way, but that's why I rationalized "okay, that can happen".

Another good cliffhanger.
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ShadowCell
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Woo! Two-thirds of the way through finals, so I finished off Phase 17.
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I finished reading Destiny and I must say it was pretty intertaining; I wonder if your are not posess by Tomino or something because this reminded me of Gundam Victory. However I am kind pissed at what happen to some of the characters but it makes the story more fun to read so I won't complain.
I like what you are doing with Twilight (except the cliffhangers) so best of luck to you and keep the good work. :D
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I was wondering, are the EA Gundams still the same as their SEED counterparts or have they been "tuned up" for use in modern combat?

Also, will we see any Impulse Gundam anytime soon?
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ShadowCell
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Pretty much everything that came from either the first half of DESTINY or the entirety of SEED has been tuned up. The Minerva mechanics spent a lot of time upgrading the Savior and Legend (particularly the Savior) for modern standards, and the Earth Alliance pulled older units like the Aegis and Raider out of mothballs and juiced them up as well.

As for the Impulse, the only Impulse units to be found are either in "Red Planet" or "ETERNITY." ZAFT operates several Impulse units, and Aoma hangs onto her Force Impulse unit--and Aoma won't show up until "ETERNITY."
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