asking about ZII

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david_winger
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asking about ZII

I just wanna ask sth abt ZII as im a big fan of it.
In MAHQ, it does mention that ZII is never built. But in a side-story of ZZ comic [Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ Side Story: Mirage of Zeon], ZII does appear.
which one should be seen as the official?

what would happen if AE manufacture ZII instead of ZZ? (just forget about "the need" of being the leading role's machine in TV series) it seems ZII is less costly than ZZ, would it be more terrific to neo-zeon to see a crowd of ZII rather than just one ZZ?
also, would it be possible to say ZII as the direct prototype of ReZel? they both share lots of similarities.

thx a lot.

PS: im a freshman here, hi everyone
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Kuruni
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Re: asking about ZII

Officially :mrgreen: , only animate works are official.

Case close.
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AmuroNT1
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Re: asking about ZII

Well, if you ignore the "need"...the ZII is still inferior. All it really does is simplify the transformation, distill the beam rifle and hyper mega launcher into one weapon, and remove everything else except that and the beam sabers. It fights well in space but not so much in the atmosphere and it lacks the biosensor. Even if it's less expensive, I somehow doubt that one single ZZ is worth a "crowd" of ZIIs. Overall, the ZZ is simply a better machine, and if it were made instead of the ZZ, the Gundam Team might not have made it as far as they did.
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Dark Duel
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Re: asking about ZII

david_winger wrote:would it be possible to say ZII as the direct prototype of ReZel? they both share lots of similarities.
If that's your argument, allow me to point out that the ZII is described in its MAHQ profile as little more than a Methuss on steroids. And as animated works trump manga in terms of "official" status, then the Methuss, which features in Z Gundam, would be the one better described as a prototype of the ReZEL.
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Izayuukan
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Re: asking about ZII

AmuroNT1 wrote:Well, if you ignore the "need"...the ZII is still inferior. All it really does is simplify the transformation, distill the beam rifle and hyper mega launcher into one weapon, and remove everything else except that and the beam sabers. It fights well in space but not so much in the atmosphere and it lacks the biosensor. Even if it's less expensive, I somehow doubt that one single ZZ is worth a "crowd" of ZIIs. Overall, the ZZ is simply a better machine, and if it were made instead of the ZZ, the Gundam Team might not have made it as far as they did.
Your last line is kind of weird, but I think I know what you're saying.

In real life, on average, mass-produced beats superior technology. One of the best modern military examples was the Third Reich overengineering the Tiger I, whereas the Soviets fielded the simple and numerous T-34. There's little point in having an extremely powerful and heavily armoured machine if it comes at the expense of being able to field in the required numbers.

Given the complexity of the ZZ's design, plus the ridiculously powerful weapons (did it really need that 50MW forehead cannon?) and crazy amounts of armour and frame strengthening, not to mention the biosensor, I think it is fair to say they could have built 20 ZII MS instead of the one ZZ they actually did build. 20 machines gives you tactical flexibility; you have the opportunity to attack multiple targets while being simultaneously able to defend your mothership. 20 machines means easy access to spare parts, as well as common systems. 20 machines means you are not relying on some kid with strange mental powers, but just regular and obedient soldiers. 20 "grunt" machines are easier to maintain and repair than something with advanced armour and black-box systems. and 20 machines means you can afford to customise some for certain roles.

A basic tenet of war is that the belligerent who wins is the one which can field the stronger grunt. Even the RX-78-2 didn't really win the war through battle, but rather by providing data so the Federation could build a grunt that could go 1-on-1 with a ZAKU. You can build one machine that is the strongest in existence, but it ain't going to win a war; you will only crush one enemy force at a time. The rest of the enemy however will - because they are freed up to do whatever they want - will just go around you and capture or nuke all your colonies, depriving you of supplies like fuel, parts and water and resulting in you sitting in the cockpit of an 18m tall paperweight.

Sorry, but the ZZ was too overengineered, simple as that.
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neolordmaxwell
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Re: asking about ZII

It's not said how much lower it's price is- just that it's somewhat cheaper. We don't know if that means one ZZ is three times more expensive or one and a half times more expensive. I'd imagine the cost difference is no where near as much as is being assumed here. To say that you could make that many ZII's for the cost of one ZZ is seriously stretching what we know about the design- Especially since what we do know about it is that it's design had difficulties being realized and that the AEUG specifically requested Anaheim stop working on it to focus on the ZZ- That alone should say that they were fairly confident that the ZZ would hold a tactical advantage over the ZII.

And it seems likely that their bet payed off- I'm with Dark Duel in imagining that Judau and company wouldn't have made it nearly as far with a machine that's as significantly less powerful than the ZZ as the ZII.
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JEFFPIATT
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Re: asking about ZII

The ZII seemed to be AE trying to have a stepping stone to an mass-produced MS line out of the Zeta project. Both the ZII and Zeta plus lines were simplified versions of the Zeta that were meant to lead to an GM style zeta unit. The ZZ gundam was an Mobile fortress level MA mode with an massive MS mode The AEUG apparently wanted to go with the heaver armed gundam after faceing two psycho gundams and the rest of the titans newtype ms and expecting Axis to throw more ms like the Quebley at them. That and as we get to the UC 90's we see two last attempts at Mass Produced MSZ units with the backpack docking RGZ-91 and the Rezel that went back to the ZII plans.
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yazi88
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Re: asking about ZII

The ZZ was AEUG's answer to having a multi-weapon powerhouse to Neo Zeon's mass assortment of power mobile suits. The AEUG's mass produced and even most of its prototype units didn't have a firepower advantage that the Neo Zeon had especially later on during the 1st Neo Zeon war with MP suits like Doven Wolf, Zaku III, and the Qubeley units that had multiple built in weaponry. Also didn't help that the AEUG was severely understaffed around that time either.
Last edited by yazi88 on Fri May 06, 2011 12:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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AmuroNT1
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Re: asking about ZII

Izayuukan wrote:Your last line is kind of weird, but I think I know what you're saying.
Yeah, sorry, I'm gonna plead tiredness there.
Sakuya: "Whatever. Stop lying and give up your schemes, now."
Yukari: (Which lies and schemes are she talking about? It's hard to keep track of them all...)

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Izayuukan
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Re: asking about ZII

I do not like the idea of putting all your eggs in one basket. A single super-powerful machine cannot be everywhere at once, and if something happened to it (like something complicated on the machine broke, or the pilot had a bad day or got sick for example, which is highly plausible), then you don't have a Plan B. And a lack of a Plan B when Plan A has already failed is usually followed by defeat, unless you can make a new plan up on the fly.

What sets the ZZ apart from many other Gundams is that whereas most pilots in the Gundam franchise "fall into the cockpit", the ZZ was ordered and had competing designs and everything, the way a real military or well-funded militia might do things. I know the decision to go with the ZZ worked out alright in the end (if we relax canon requirements to include the Manga and assume that there was even a choice in designs), but it was a huge gamble nonetheless and they were bloody lucky that it paid off.
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yazi88
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Re: asking about ZII

Izayuukan wrote:I do not like the idea of putting all your eggs in one basket. A single super-powerful machine cannot be everywhere at once, and if something happened to it (like something complicated on the machine broke, or the pilot had a bad day or got sick for example, which is highly plausible), then you don't have a Plan B. And a lack of a Plan B when Plan A has already failed is usually followed by defeat, unless you can make a new plan up on the fly.

What sets the ZZ apart from many other Gundams is that whereas most pilots in the Gundam franchise "fall into the cockpit", the ZZ was ordered and had competing designs and everything, the way a real military or well-funded militia might do things. I know the decision to go with the ZZ worked out alright in the end (if we relax canon requirements to include the Manga and assume that there was even a choice in designs), but it was a huge gamble nonetheless and they were bloody lucky that it paid off.
The ZZ itself was not a gamble as 3 FAZZs was completed before the actual base ZZ itself and were successful themselves but sadly ultimately destroyed as they had no close combat weapons. There was also a protoype test ZZ unit as well.
david_winger
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Re: asking about ZII

yazi88 wrote:
The ZZ itself was not a gamble as 3 FAZZs was completed before the actual base ZZ itself and were successful themselves but sadly ultimately destroyed as they had no close combat weapons. There was also a protoype test ZZ unit as well.
well i think the gamble is all about "just building up one MS (i.e. ZZ) rather than a crowd of ZII".
ZZ itself doesnt hv any problems.
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neolordmaxwell
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Re: asking about ZII

Again, that's not really a gamble considering that there were multiple ZZ units constructed, as was just pointed out, in the form of the FAZZ.

And none of this addresses the mention in this websites very own profile of the ZII that it wasn't structurally fit for production in the time frame the AEUG wanted.

To use Gundam Sentinal's own wording, the ZII is a paper-tiger. The ZZ was a producible, formidable weapon to field against Neo Zeon's machines. The AEUG made their choice for a reason, no matter how nifty the ZII or a handfull of ZIIs would seem.
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Izayuukan
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Re: asking about ZII

neolordmaxwell wrote:
And none of this addresses the mention in this websites very own profile of the ZII that it wasn't structurally fit for production in the time frame the AEUG wanted.
Well, I have wondered about that. Why would a simpler machine - one that is essentially a "Methuss on steroids" (the Methuss being so basic that it could easily be repaired no matter how badly Fa wrecked it) - be structurally unfit for production whereas a brand-new design with complicated transformation and combination sequences be better?

I suppose you can't argue with canon, but the scenario as is presented just doesn't logically follow. At all.
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reeoyuy
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Re: asking about ZII

ZII isn't just Methuss with Gundam head. The transformation is similar, but the proportion (and the frame) is very different. There might be some problem occurred during redesigning phase that can't be solved until ReZel era. I don't know the exact timeline or details of each project, but it could be that when AE struggling with ZII, another team successfully tested ZZ concept and AE decided to just go with ZZ instead.
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neolordmaxwell
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Re: asking about ZII

That much we might not know per se, but realistically it could be any number of issues. Anything from the methuss frame needing to be reworked for the new design to something small like the generator being insufficient. Problems with construction in this case could really refer to any stage in development.

All we do know is that canonically, the machine wasn't ready, so the AEUG abandoned it for the technologically superior ZZ Gundam, while interest in the ZII's concept languished for nearly another decade or so. Whatever the problems may have been, canon makes it clear that they enough to seriously derail the project for a number of years.
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yazi88
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Re: asking about ZII

The ZII's concept never died as it came back during the Laplace Incident in the streamlined form of the ReZel, as the ReZel also shared a mega beam launcher which shares the same concept as the ZII's mega beam rifle. Plus was the ZII that great in performance to begin with? It surely beat the Zeta in performance and weaponry (sans Bio Sensor) could it?
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Re: asking about ZII

The reality is the AEUG likely would have been screwed with the Z II however you look at it-they were short on people who could effectively pilot the stupid thing. The ZZ is a pretty forgiving machine, and that's a big part of why it got priority besides development problems with the Z II.

There's a few interesting things going on with Mirage of Zeon. The attack launched by the other remnants of the AEUG is something of an existing event, but they also include other oddball machines like the Gemeaux (the GM version of the Le Cygne built out of a combination of spare and Nemo parts) and the Super Dias (which is a G-Gen original). If you want to justify it, this AEUG force isolated from the Argama is where all those other machines they developed ended up, and they changed their mind on the Z II after the Argama got dragged into everything it did with the Zeta and ZZ.

In terms of "canon" neither version of events makes a difference to the plausibility or even claimed history of the ReZEL, since the material only refers to the Methuss at the base of the tree. The Guncannon Detector is the only other ancestor in there liable to actually be immortalized in animation.
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neolordmaxwell
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Re: asking about ZII

yazi88 wrote:The ZII's concept never died as it came back during the Laplace Incident in the streamlined form of the ReZel, as the ReZel also shared a mega beam launcher which shares the same concept as the ZII's mega beam rifle. Plus was the ZII that great in performance to begin with? It surely beat the Zeta in performance and weaponry (sans Bio Sensor) could it?
That's exactly what I meant by languish for nearly a decade. 8 years or so pass between UC 0088 and UC0096 before we see hide or hair of anything resembling the ZII, and only then in the hands of a much better staffed and funded organization.
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Re: asking about ZII

It's also possible that the "problems with the construction" could've simply been similar to the weaker frame of the ZZ or even the original Methuss itself given the simpler transformation as opposed to the Zeta. (Methuss itself even looked clunky and ready to fall apart, lol.)

If they did have a similar problem, it's also no surprise that they'd simply go with the faster, more mobile, and much more powerful MS to make up for such a problem.
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