Black Knight wrote:Don't need the Jupiter Energy Fleet to mine asteroids, but rather Helium-3. But Zeon's Axis shows that, yes, they had access to the main asteroid belts and not just the scads of NEO asteriods.
You are completely missing the point of the neutraility of the Jupiter Energy Fleet. If Zeon could indeed obtain Helium-3, not accepting the neutrality of the Jovian Fleet would have been their most logical course of action. Also, in the original script, Sometime after the Battle of Solomon the Federation to attack the Jovian Fleet to cut off Zeon's supply of Helium-3.
Black Knight wrote:Well, Granada, as a lunar city, was essentially neutral already; that's why a fair portion of the Mobile Suit development projects could be conducted there. Then the Zeons formally seized it and integrated it into their defense structure (though Reccoa's flashbacks indicate not all was peace and serenity on the moon during the OYW).
I have looked around and found (or rather didn't) that there's very little information on Granada before the outbreak of the OYW or regarding when did Zeon set their base there. The best I could find is from Gundam Century, which mentions that during the 3 months after its formation on May U.C. 0076, the Mobile Training Batallion conducted exercises on the craters close to Granada, which is already referred to as a lunar base. Since there's not emntion of an invasion at any point, it seems more likely that the lunarians from Granda were sided with Zeon, similair to Side 6, but in a more open way.
Black Knight wrote:Side 3 was not controlled by the Federation after the OYW. So anyone appointed to rule a colony in Side 3 (assuming he wasn't democratically elected) would be an appointee of the Republic of Zeon, not the Earth Federation. Don't go blaming crappy Side 3 politicians on the Federation!
The common claim is that the government of the Republic of Zeon was a puppet government of the Federation. And the mayor of Shangri La is a good example of them putting that kind of people the put in charge of a colony.
More to the point I was making, there are plenty of historical cases of economic hardship that are hard to lay at the feet of the government trying to clean them up. Food rationing from WWII in the United Kingdom didn't end until
1954; was this the fault of the various British governments, or of Hitler, who didn't believe the British war ultimatum? It's a sticky moral question, no matter which side you argue, which is my point. Nothing is clear-cut when talking about the devastation following a war, and said devastation can last long after the war is over.
Black Knight wrote:Except that the fleets, according to most of the text sources you constantly mention for other points, were based almost entirely at Luna II -- Revil's fleet at Side 5 being the sole exception. The garrison forces in the colonies were, according to the org charts, infantry-type forces (like those seen inside Side 7 when on Slender Denim Gene's raid in MSG) suited to crowd-control rather than ship-to-ship warfare. The garrison forces were inconvenient, but not a threat. But sufficient grounds to gas entire colonies, at least for the Zeon high command.
This is the only source with actually says that all six Federation fleets were at Luna II and were led by Revil to Side 5, which contradicts the idea that Revil's fleet was already at Side 5. Are saying that all of the Federation fleets were at Luna II, including Revil's?[/quote]
Black Knight wrote:Well, according to Sunrise, the only "official" information is what's animated, which means that Side 2 in 0087 had up to 85 colonies while Side 4 had 27; Side 1 had 30 in 0085. Which brings our total colonies up to ~142, not 115. If only 40 colonies came from Side 6, then we have 102 colonies to claim as survivors from the other four Sides, unless Side 5 was truly wiped out as claimed in all the sources (though Igloo's interpretation of the battle seems to indicate all the colonies surviving; they certainly weren't caught in the crossfire as previously claimed, but also seems to be the "official" Sunrise take on the fight).
The 115 I counted were considering "combined Sides". Besides, the only
info I found on Bunch 27 is that it was the colony used by the Titans for the Colony Drop, but in this site it is identified as part of Side 5. If you have a different source saying otherwise, please share it with us.
Black Knight wrote:domtropen wrote:Again do we know the number of fed forces inside the colony?
Numbers in general in Gundam is a tricky subject; we can't even decide how many people, on average, lived inside a colony. We can't even figure out how large humanity is at any particular time. So, no, there's no idea of how large the Federation Forces presence in a colony was, but some of the sourcebooks claim the garrisons were merely constublary forces; no one claims that the pre-OYW Sides were armed camps stuffed to the gills with EFSF personnel.
Well, if we can't go by numbers, how about by comparisons: Gundam Century claims that at the beginning of the war the Federation thought they could easily put down the rebellion since they had ten times the fighting strength of the Zeon forces. By Loum we are told that they only outnumber the Zeon forces by a factor of 3 or 4. While it's possible that a fleet was left guarding Luna II, most rest of the Federation forces were probably stationed at Sides 1, 2 and 4 and were destroyed when Zeon attacked those Sides. For the sake of making a simple example, let's say that half of the Federation forces were at the colony garrisons and the other half were the forces that participated in Loum, and we could consider that the remaining tenth is represented by the forces lsot during Operation Brisitsh and/or the forces left to guard Luna II when the rest of the fleet left for Side 5. In such case it seems quite likely that
eachSide had a colony garrison that had as much fighting strength of the entire Zeon forces in the worst scenario (30% colony garrisons, 40% participating at Loum, 30% percent Operation British losses and Luna II defense) and as many as twice in the best scenario (60% colony garrisons, 30 participating at Loum, 10 percent Operation British and/or Luna II defense), at least according to the Federation calculations.
Either way, we have that the Federation forces had lost about half of their forces before the Battle of Loum and most of those lost forces were probably stationed at the attacked Sides.
Black Knight wrote:domtropen wrote:And even after Dakar even more brutalities were executed by Titans forces [more gassing and colony laser] before they can be eliminated. Like it or not Titans is still part of the fed, and since just one part of the fed can deliver the same or worst atrocrious act against spacenoids -rebels and innocents alike- repeatly before the rest of the fed try to stop it, how can the fed be trusted?
The Titans were indeed part of the Federation, but they were also keeping their misdeeds under wraps, such that even 18 months after gassing 30 Bunch its demise was still rumor to those who'd heard anything, and many people hadn't even heard the rumors -- the reactions of Emma and Lyla when
Argama visits the colony makes this clear. And as soon as the Federation government is confronted with the excesses of the Titans, the government repudiates them and declares them outlaws, making it clear that the Titans committed these atrocities on their own, rather than as the official policy of the Federation. This doesn't absolve the Federation of complicit complacency, but it does show that ethnic cleansing was not an official policy of the Federation, and this is where the Federation and Principality of Zeon governments differ with their treatment of spacenoids.
Emma and Lyla are not the best examples for making your point, if for no other reason because it's unlikely that the Federation would allow such rumors to flow freely among their ranks, which could lead to an uprising.
Black Knight wrote:Imperial wrote:Granted, I'm not totally up to date, but any show is going to have a hard time "out-Zeoning" 0083 or MS IGLOO. Sure, Unicorn makes a point of saying the people who fight for Zeon are a disenfranchised lot desperate to find something to believe in, but Banagher, the POV character with whom we are clearly meant to agree, consistently points out that none of this gives them the right to become a terrorist cell, which is a much more scathing condemnation of Zeon than anything the flag-waving IGLOO crew have to say about it.
I clearly should have spent more time on this topic. Yes, 0083 and Igloo show the
military superiority of the Zeons, despite them (seemingly inexplicably) losing the OYW, but I don't remember them saying much about the justice underlying Zeon's cause, which gets a fair amount of play in Unicorn. Sure, Delaz gets all hot and bothered about the Federation building a nuclear-armed Gundam and tries to twist this into "Federation = Evil! Zeon = Righteous!" despite 1) Zeon's track record and 2) there being no proof that nuclear weapons aren't allowed to
exist, just a prohibition on using them (which he builds his plan around violating, too). So, while there's a lot about how cool & badass the Zeons are, there isn't a lot of screentime devoted to justifying the Zeon war of aggression -- unlike Unicorn, which spends a fair amount of Episode 2 delving into this very topic. And while there are shills for the Zeon perspective, there's no one arguing the Federation side, just Banagher saying "Well, maybe you're right -- but you shouldn't have killed so many people!"
Unicorn is not a very good example for your case, at least as far as the OVA episodes go (I don't know what happens later on) and in the specific case of the Sleeves. Banagher POV is the one of someone who doesn't want to be involved with the conflict and already thinks that both sides are equally "evil". From what we see in the OVAs, the Sleeves that end up involved in the attack on Industrial 7 are not attacking civilians and rather seem to be wanting to avoid damaging them, such as Marida withdrwawing her bits and Sinnerman sparing Banagher.
On the other hand the Federation goes all out in the battle. This reminded me of when Char was fighting the GM IIs and Gryps and said something regarding earthnoids fighting in the colonies liek they were fighting on Earth, despite the former being far more fragile.
Other than attacking the Federation Forces, the Sleeves have yet to commit and atrocious act like other Zeon factions. And jsut in case you bring up the Shamblo, whiel at this point we don't know all the details, it seems that Loni Garvey's attack on Dakar is her personal revenge on the Federation, and until the episode comes out, we won't know exactly what is the Sleeves position regarding that.
Black Knight wrote:domtropen wrote:I won't used the word atrocious for Zeon if I think it is ok. And it is not ok for Titans to commit it and should I trust its boss who fail to stop its repeated acts? I agree that both Zeon and Titans are evil, but I do not agree that spacenoids have to like the fed because it looks like the lesser of the evil. And after all these wars and tragedies the fed still doesn't correct one of the root causes for all these messes: any plan to grant independence or equality to spacenoids. What does spacenoids get after OYW? naval review, Titans, Londo Bell, and that colony laser still hanging in the sky.
I'd have said they get to "continue living" which is more than any of the other factions offer them.
Sure, the Federation isn't perfect, but since the first century of the UC calender is effectively a two-party system, the "everyday spacenoid" really only has the options between "would exterminate you for your land" and "don't really care about you, but will violently react to challenges to our authority".
Well, during the OYW Zeon did respect Side 6 (which you could argue they had connections with) and Von Braun's neutrality, so extermination isn't certainly a rule of the dumb. And don't forget that it was Zeon who helped Side 6 obtain their independance. And besides, later Zeon movements are not exterminating spacenoids. In fact, most space-bound Zeon remnants left on the Earth Sphere were probalby helped by them and other groups such as Haman's and Char's even seeked their support. In their cases, their acts of genocides were directed at the Earth populations and even then at the improtant cities where the "Earth Elites", and unfortuantely a lot of unrelated earthnoids lived. Let's not forget that in thsoe cases these Earth Elites were more concerned about saving only themselves while feeling grateful that "they would have less mouths to feed".
Black Knight wrote:If Moon-Moon can be lost, it seems even spacenoids may not care about much more than the doings of their own individual colonies, which paints a much more isolationist and non-communicative view of spacenoids than what seems to be assumed by many people due to our highly-interconnected modern world.
Moon Moon is and will always be a very odd case. For once it uses an different and less efficient type of colony. Then, I have the impression that they might eb an indigenous group that the Federation drove out of their land or rather promsied them a better live in space and put them in such colony as a sort of experiment, and afterwards forgot about them.
Black Knight wrote:domtropen wrote:and completely ignore all argument about the fed not accept it, build up EFSF, and put sanction on it?
What about the Federation "not accepting" Zeon's independence? They essentially ignored the Side, just like the Federation ignores all problems in space whenever it can (and sometimes when it can't). That doesn't change the fact that Zeon declared independence and governed itself independently, or that the Federation appeared to be completely content with this situation, or at least unwilling to act in any forceful way to change it. While sourcebooks attempt to justify Zeon's War of Aggression with claims of economic sanctions from the Federation, there's nothing on Earth which can't be found in space, and everything in space is more economical to move to a colony than it is to ship it up from Earth. Not that, as modern international affairs show, economic sanctions have every done anything.
But the Federation indeed begins building their military forces on U.C.0060 as a result of Zeon's declaration of independence on U.C. 0058. The Zabis doesn't rise to power until U.C. 0068. As for the resources, yes, common sense tell us that all the resources they need "should" be available, but the economic sanctions and Zeon's need to secure resources on Earth say otherwise. What are they possible lacking that is not available in space? We don't know, but the first TV series in particular seems to make emphasis on Zeon's need for resources that they don't have available in space, so we will just have to accept that and work around it.
Black Knight wrote:The timing of things also make it possible that the EFSF wasn't given warships until the Zeon began building warships. We don't know which came first, the SAF or the EFSF, but there's not a lot of verified anti-Earth sentiment outside of Zeon pre-war, which suggests the colonies didn't feel like they were either occupied territory or being shortchanged. Side 2, in fact, was said to be extremely pro-Federation in some accounts. When the EFF are shown in org charts, the pre-war structure looks very heavily geared towards peacekeeping and internal security and not very well geared for fighting wars -- otherwise the major fleet base of the EFSF would probably not be as far from Side 3, the only potential military threat, as it is possible to be in the Earth Sphere.
The EFSF.
Black Knight wrote:So, yeah, people can claim that the Federation didn't like the idea of an independent Side 3, or that it built up a strong military to force them back into the fold, but such would run counter to everything we know about the Federation's dealings with space and the locations they decided to fortify.
The location of Luna II could simply mean that they wanted a base which would not be targeted first in case of an attack. And as I previously mentioned, the colony garrisons actually seem to be quite large, so there's no need to have another fortress in that zone.
Black Knight wrote:domtropen wrote:And Again the fed’s action soon after [sanction, EFSF, Naval review, rejection of colonial autonomy] does show that the fed blatantly reject Side 3’s independence. And trying to isolate Side 3 via sanction is one clear way for the fed to show its hostility against Side 3’s independence at the very least. And trying to isolate Side 3 via sanction is one clear way for the fed to show its hostility against Side 3’s independence at the very least.
I don't think it shows anything of the kind. For one, the Federation is a collective group of nations. Side 3 declared independence from the Federation. Why should the Federation establish trade relations with Side 3, which had just said they didn't want to be a part of the family? And it's not like Side 3 needs anything from Earth, because, as I noted before, every material on Earth can be found in space, and it's cheaper (from an energy-used standpoint) to ship things from the asteroid belt than to ship them up from Earth -- this is precisely why so many asteroids were moved into the Earthsphere. And we know Side 3 has some asteroids, or at least A Baoa Qu. Plus that whole 20-years-of-independence thing without an economic collapse and
with a massive military buildup, which really suggests neither Side 3's economy nor its populace suffered for the lack of trade relations with the larger Federation.
I already talked about the resources, so let's mvoe to the economic sanctions. Let's face it: whatever economic sanctions the Federation imposed on Side 3 should have been important enough that the Federation thought that Sdie 3 would be left with no choice but to rejoin the Federation, so they were certainly nothing minor.
Black Knight wrote:Sure, the Federation doubtless doesn't like the idea of the colonies (and so much of the tax base) becoming independent of the Federation, but if they let Side 3 rot for 20 years without doing anything more than building up a predominantly peacekeeping military force, it's very difficult to say that the Federation was bent on militarily reconquering Side 3 -- they don't even force it back into the Federation after winning the war. The Federation was happy with the status quo ante, which rather suggests that they really didn't care that Side 3 had gone rogue, even if they weren't about to let another Side go rogue (except that, of course, they did -- Side 6, in 0077; no massive EFSF occupation followed the Side's actions, nor any sort of massive military buildup).
As mentioned in the Gundam Officials glossary, the EFSF is created in response to Zeon's declaration of independence on U.C. 0059 and the formation of whatever could have made up their national guard, and by U.C. 0079 they have ten times as much fighting strength as Zeon in space, so it would seem that the military option was indeed among their considered options. As for Side 6, the Federation tends to focus only on one. the major threat, at a time, which obviously was Zeon. Let's not forget that in U.C.0083 they allowed the Axis fleet to stay on the Earth Sphere since they were more busy with the Delaz fleet. The non-militarized Side 6 was not a threat to the federation, so they left it alone while they first dealt with Zeon. In the end, after the OYW comes to an end, all the neutral populations are forced back into the Federation.
Deacon Blues wrote:Just a minor nitpick... I don't know where you're getting "Bunch" from but the Japanese バンチ (banchi) is really just 番地 which means 'house number' or 'address'. Ergo, it's Colony 30, Colony 1, etc. Bunch would imply there are multiple colonies together, which we know not to be true.
I also use the term bunches for referring to colonies, and other sources do as well, but the term itself comes from notion that the O'Neill colonies were supposed to exist in bunches, not individually as depicted in Gundam, something which is explained
here.