Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formations

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degwin_zabi
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Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formations

Before anyone goes all ballistic about my inexperience on Gundam, politics, and this site, hear me out. The Earth Federation from UC is led by a Prime minister, right? Does that happen in certain real life Federal bodies as well? I know the Russian Federation has a Chairman of the Government that's usually referred to as a Prime minister, but he's seconded to the President, and I don't think I heard of a President of any sort in the Universal Century. Also, there's Commander-in-chief Revil, who's official rank is either general or admiral depending on the source. I know it's science fiction and some stories have done something similar before, but is anyone else concerned by the lack of a realistic front in such things? It doesn't hurt to be precise. http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:72706 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_ ... us_nations
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Amion
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Technically a nation can call its leaders whatever the heck it wants. There is no fundamental law of physics, morals, or nature I'm aware of that insists all Federations must have Presidents or else.

That, and we don't know how the Federation really functions exactly, at least I don't. We get a lot of military-based politics in Zeta, which leads me to suspect the Federation's military bureaucracy has an integral role in politics or hold the reigns of power closer to them. Which makes sense given that every show is in wartime, where martial law would be far more likely than in peacetime. Emergencies like the apocalypse would make such measures appropriate, I'd imagine.
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degwin_zabi
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Amion wrote:Technically a nation can call its leaders whatever the heck it wants. There is no fundamental law of physics, morals, or nature I'm aware of that insists all Federations must have Presidents or else.

That, and we don't know how the Federation really functions exactly, at least I don't. We get a lot of military-based politics in Zeta, which leads me to suspect the Federation's military bureaucracy has an integral role in politics or hold the reigns of power closer to them. Which makes sense given that every show is in wartime, where martial law would be far more likely than in peacetime. Emergencies like the apocalypse would make such measures appropriate, I'd imagine.
Yeah, maybe.
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Amion
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Of course, that doesn't explain exactly how the Federal military is set up. And wanting explanations isn't a bad, thing I don't think. We're just not told because it could make things more complicated than they already are.
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degwin_zabi
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Amion wrote:Of course, that doesn't explain exactly how the Federal military is set up. And wanting explanations isn't a bad, thing I don't think. We're just not told because it could make things more complicated than they already are.
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

The only Federation government body we ever hear about is the Federation Assembly, which seems to be its legislature. As far as I know, there's never any reference to any sort of executive branch at all, much less a chief executive -- no president, prime minister, head of state, supreme mugwump, etc.
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toysdream
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

"Prime minister" is, pretty much by definition, a member of the legislature. Some systems have both a prime minister - leader of the dominant party in the legislature, and head of government - and a nominal "head of state," like an elected president or an unelected monarch. Russia and Germany, for instance, have both a president and a prime minister; Britain and Japan have a president and a monarch. In most cases, the president or monarch doesn't really have any administrative duties, and they're basically for show. Political systems organized along these lines are known as "parliamentary systems".

This is all basic dictionary stuff. Anyways...

In the case of the U.C. Gundam series, we now know that the Earth Federation originally had a prime minister (首相). This isn't really mentioned anywhere later on, though, and we end up with the impression that it's run by committee. In Gundam ZZ, there's an Assembly member who's identified as the "chairman" or "speaker" (議長) of the Assembly, which may suggest that the role of prime minister has been downgraded to a more ceremonial position.

-- Mark
degwin_zabi
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

From what I remember, the Prime Minster of Earth was introduced in Unicorn which was made long after the first show. Germany actually has a Chancellor alongside their president while Britain and Japan have Prime ministers in addition to their monarchs. Which brings up another question. I don't expect any of these governments to have a listed theme song, but some information on their official currencies would've been nice to know. I'll probably just call them credits, though, for good measure.
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Isn't the Federation currency called Kules? Pretty sure that term comes up in 0080.

As for Prime Minister, it's also worth noting that Canada has a Prime Minister, too, and the "monarchs" of the UK and Japan have zero political power. So, yes, the leader of a country can be called the Prime Minister.
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

I think the currency mentioned in Gundam 0080 is being used at Side 6. From the original series we know that Side 6 has its own currency, since the White Base crew have to exchange their money when they visit one of its colonies.

There are a couple of references to currency at one of the lunar cities in Zeta, and at Side 1 in ZZ, but likewise we can't be sure they're all using the same standard monetary system.

-- Mark
degwin_zabi
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

There's also the topic of the Vist Foundation. In universe, it seems to be some sort of conglomerate, but "Foundation" is normally a nonprofit organization in real life. Of course, the Ford Foundation has a good deal of pull globally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Foundation
Hyakushiki
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

The Vist Foundation functions as a privately funded foundation run by a single family therefore operates under a different set of rules than a non-profit group. Most of their funding come from trading artwork between Earth and its space colonies as well as being a large shareholder in Anaheim Electronics and with Martha Vist marring into the Carbine family means they for all intents and purposes control the company.

In short the Vist Foundation may have established itself under whatever legal status requirements they needed to fulfill but in time may have drafted legislation to gain even greater powers through blackmailing the Earth Federation through their possession of Laplace's Box.
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Dendrobium Stamen
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Kratos wrote:As for Prime Minister, it's also worth noting that Canada has a Prime Minister, too, and the "monarchs" of the UK and Japan have zero political power. So, yes, the leader of a country can be called the Prime Minister.
I can't speak for Japan, but the British monarch actually has significant political powers (although one of the major ones was recently curtailed), to act as a check and balance on elected officialdom; the fact that they are rarely used by design doesn't make them any less so. Check them out, it's a good read.

As for the Earth Federation, it could be that their system made an executive branch redundant or otherwise unnecessary as a result of some kind of political reorganisation during the early UC era; with only one world government, there'd be less need for a central figure to embody national leadership - there being no other nations to represent the Federation in front of - and so the "head of state" role could be marginalised or phased out entirely. In fact, looking at the above list of HM The Queen's functions, a lot of those would be rendered moot in the Federation system as depicted in the animation.

Of course, then Zeon comes along and mucks up the "no other nations" thing, whilst having a number of powerful individuals leading its government... but that's another matter entirely :roll:
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degwin_zabi
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Dendrobium Stamen wrote:
Kratos wrote:As for Prime Minister, it's also worth noting that Canada has a Prime Minister, too, and the "monarchs" of the UK and Japan have zero political power. So, yes, the leader of a country can be called the Prime Minister.
I can't speak for Japan, but the British monarch actually has significant political powers (although one of the major ones was recently curtailed), to act as a check and balance on elected officialdom; the fact that they are rarely used by design doesn't make them any less so. Check them out, it's a good read.

As for the Earth Federation, it could be that their system made an executive branch redundant or otherwise unnecessary as a result of some kind of political reorganisation during the early UC era; with only one world government, there'd be less need for a central figure to embody national leadership - there being no other nations to represent the Federation in front of - and so the "head of state" role could be marginalised or phased out entirely. In fact, looking at the above list of HM The Queen's functions, a lot of those would be rendered moot in the Federation system as depicted in the animation.

Of course, then Zeon comes along and mucks up the "no other nations" thing, whilst having a number of powerful individuals leading its government... but that's another matter entirely :roll:
Fascinating read.

Maybe, some appearances of Star Trek's United Federation of Planets seem to have made currency itself an immaterial need, but even it had a president and council. If there were no heads of state and government, wouldn't that make humankind a little more hive-minded? And of course, we're not like the bees and ants.
toysdream
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

As discussed above, there's a difference between "head of state" and "head of government." In many parliamentary systems, like Britain and Japan, the government is run by members of the legislature and there's no separate executive branch or president. This seems to work just fine, and the Earth Federation appears to run along the same lines. It's not an exotic sci-fi concept, just a non-U.S. political model.

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degwin_zabi
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Don't the Prime ministers count?
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Amion
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

That was a point I was trying to articulate in my own head. There doesn't appear to be a single "role model" figure at the head of everything who sits at the top and tries to be the public face. At least that's how it appears.

Maybe that's one reason why Zeon Daikun was so overwhelmingly popular to so many, he was a man with a vision and charisma speaking for a republic with a mission. Against them was this amorphous blob of politicians with no apparent crusade to triumph other than overbearing political power over the colonies.

Course, considering all the wackos who attack Earth in the second century, one has to wonder if perhaps that amorphous blob was doing a good job all along... :?
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degwin_zabi
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Amion wrote:That was a point I was trying to articulate in my own head. There doesn't appear to be a single "role model" figure at the head of everything who sits at the top and tries to be the public face. At least that's how it appears.

Maybe that's one reason why Zeon Daikun was so overwhelmingly popular to so many, he was a man with a vision and charisma speaking for a republic with a mission. Against them was this amorphous blob of politicians with no apparent crusade to triumph other than overbearing political power over the colonies.

Course, considering all the wackos who attack Earth in the second century, one has to wonder if perhaps that amorphous blob was doing a good job all along... :?
Well, Revil was popular enough for the whole Federal military and wasn't as close-minded as a Zeon can expect from a Earthling. And let's not forget about most of the main antagonists.

That does sound like a good reason. One I would like to go into topic in my own story someday. Thanks.

Maybe so, but it probably would've been better if they actually had ideals other than population control.
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Re: Discrepancies in Gundam political and military formation

Like we noted above, the Federation had a prime minister at the beginning (as per Unicorn). It's not clear whether it still has one by the time of the One Year War, though.

As also noted above, a prime minister is BY DEFINITION a member of the legislature who serves as head of government (but not head of state). I think we've been repeating the distinction between a president and a prime minister over and over in this thread, so again, see above.

-- Mark
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