Universal Century Nations and Factions

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This article describes the Nations and Factions of the Universal Century timeline of the fictional Gundam anime metaseries.

Contents 1 Earth Federation 1.1 Titans 1.2 Londo Bell 1.3 League Militaire 2 Anti-Earth Federation movements 2.1 Anti Earth Union Group (AEUG) 2.2 Karaba 2.3 Mafty 3 Principality of Zeon 4 Crossbone Vanguard 5 Jupiter Empire 6 Zanscare Empire

[edit] Earth Federation

Main article: Earth Federation.

The Federation is loosely based on the United Nations, with a Security Council and General Assembly, but is not a successor to that organization. It is a global government that was formed by a 'rich mans' club' of wealthy nations. In Gundam, only a few nations are mentioned in passing, but none continue to exist. Places are mentioned by what landmass or region they are in, such as New York City (or New Yark, according to on-screen text) and Odessa are mentioned to be located in North America and Central Asia, not the United States or Ukraine. While Japan, Australia, and Ireland are mentioned, these names refer to the landmasses and not the former countries. The only exception to this is the language and nationality of characters, which could be more based off their predecessors' former homeland before emigrating to the space colonies.

[edit] Titans

The Titans were an elite counter-insurgency group formed by the Federation Council in response to the events from the Operation Stardust, where the Federation lost the large part of its fleet to a nuclear attack perpetrated by Zeon loyalists. The Federation decided to form an elite unit of the Space Force whose sole purpose would be to hunt down renegade citizens who either supported the Zeon and their cause or spoke out against the Federation government.

The Titans were found by Jamitov Hyman, who argued that the safety of the Federation displaced the civil rights of the citizens living under the Federation. In creating the Titans, he essentially created a special forces unit that had the ability to act outside the limit of Federation's supervision. As time passed, more people lined up to join the Titans, inspired by the group's success in repelling Anti-Federation movements.

As time went by this force became more and more powerful, and its objectives eventually expanded to include all who opposed the Earth Federation, and the citizens of the Federation started to resent it. On 31 July UC 0085, a massive protest was held in Side 1's 30 Bunch (the 30th Colony in Side 1's territory) against actions of Titans, but the protest soon turned into chaos, with riots breaking out throughout the Colony. After repeated attempts by the Federation forces to calm the riots failed, the Titans were dispatched to put it to an end. The Titans began by shutting off the colony's air supply, and proceeded to pump the whole cylinder (about 20 miles long and 4 miles wide) with toxic gas, killing everyone.

When the most Federation Council members refused to charge the Titans with any wrongdoing, dissident citizens and soldiers both on earth and in space formed the Karaba and AEUG resistance movements, respectively.

As the AEUG and Karaba started to pose a serious threat to the Titans' forces, the Earth Federation eventually gave the Titans the most control of all military operations, and the most Federation army. Instead of resolving the issue, this only widened the conflict.

The Titans' repressive policies were exposed to the public by the AEUG, when they seized a congress hall during a meeting and broadcast worldwide the Titan's units fighting above the city with no regards to civilian lives. Following Char Aznable's famous Dakar speech, the Earth Federation withdrew its support for the Titans, dealing a devastating political blow to the taskforce.

The Titans fleet (comprising 30 % of the Federation fleet at the time) was defeated and almost wiped out at the end of the Gryps Conflict by AEUG forces. Some remnants of the Titans regrouped into a rebel group called New Desides, and was eventually annihilated by Earth Federation's Alpha Taskforce in late U.C.0087, as narrated in Gundam Sentinel.

The Titans seem to have been based somewhat on the Schutzstaffel. Most notable are their black uniforms, elite recruiting procedures, and horrible callousness to all human life. Very ironic when one considers the subtle Nazi undertones in the Principality of Zeon in Mobile Suit Gundam. Also ironic for an anti-spacenoid organization, the Titans seem to be very influenced by the late Principality, from basing their mobile suits on Zeon technology (namely the RMS-106 HiZack which is a direct descendent from Zeon's trademark Zaku II) to practicing many of their forms of genocide, such as gassing and colony lasers. Even the Titans uniform possesses similarities to its Zeon counterpart, namely the ornate golden lining. Higher-ranking officer uniforms have a purple texture that looks suspiciously similar to a Zeon officer's cape.

But in spite of the characteristics similar to the SS and Zeon, the group seems to be mostly centered on the real life North Atlantic Treaty Organization, having been formed to fight Zeon remnants and any opposition to the Earth, similar to NATO's role to preventing the growth of the Soviet Union and communism in general to the west. As well, the Titans' policy and practice could be considered a futuristic and by far more brutal form of McCarthyism.

[edit] Londo Bell

Londo Bell became the Earth Federation's special forces unit in UC 0093. They were designed as an elite unit to be dispatched in the event of a major uprising. Londo Bell's personnel was composed of ex-AEUG and ex-White Base members who have served under Bright Noa before. Because so many of these people remembered fighting the Titans, they did their best to carry out their tasks in a humane and civilized manner. Until the rise of the Second Neo Zeon War the task force spent most of its time inspecting colonies for leftover Zeon supporters and sympathizers. Unfortunately, they failed to pick up on the new Neo-Zeon threat because the task force was badly understaffed.

This changed abruptly in UC 0093, when Char Aznable returned to the Earth Sphere. After occupying the refugee colony Sweetwater without firing a single shot, Char publicly declared that he was now in command of his own Neo Zeon movement. As a countermeasure, the Federation rapidly increased the size of Londo Bell in anticipation of a new war, which began in March of UC 0093.

In UC 0093, the Londo Bell task force was made up of three Clop class cruisers, the Ra Zyme, Ra Kiem and Ra Chutter along with Noa's flagship, the Ra Cailum - an MS equipped battleship and just 18 Jegans, the RE-GZ and the Nu Gundam. Londo Bell was the only group that saw action against Char Aznable in Char's Counterattack, although reinforcements were dispatched to assist.

In the Super Robot Wars video game series, the name Londo Bell would be given to the combined Federation unit comprising of the UC Gundam lead characters and other special giant robot pilots from other series (namely, the main characters and their robots) dedicated to fighting dangerous (and arguably, evil) factions in the games' different universes such as the Titans, Neo Zeon, the Reptile Empire, and malicious groups from other series. It is still headed by Bright Noa. The Londo Bell name was used in the first few games of the long SRW lineup (the "Original Timeline"), in the first game of the "Alpha Timeline" (although it would continue to exist in its Gundam-canon "mobile-suit-only" form during the sequels), and in some of the handheld SRW games (Compact 1 and Advance).

[edit] League Militaire

A rogue organization poised to defend the Earth from being invaded by the Zanscare Empire. Their main force consist of the mass-produced Victory Gundam (and variants such as V-Hexa, V-Dash, and V-Dash Hexa), Gun-EZ, Gunblastor, and its flagship mobile suit the Victory 2 Gundam; all of which are stored on either Reinforce (or Reinforce Jr.) and White Ark. It's main group is made up of protagonist Uso Evin, V Gundam intended pilot Marbet Fingerhat, and the Shrike Team. Like the AEUG before it, the Militaire is sponsored by Anaheim Electronics and is generally of the same rag-tag structure; the LM is not above using captured enemy ships and mobile suits or even decades old weapons like the Alexandria class heavy cruiser. Its primary mission is to help (or in some cases, simply fight in place of) the Earth Federation against the Zanscare Empire. Also like the AEUG, much of its membership consists of ex-Federals.

[edit] Anti-Earth Federation movements

[edit] Anti Earth Union Group (AEUG)

The Anti Earth Union Group, or AEUG for short, was a resistance movement formed to fight the Titans in space. The term "Anti-Earth" is actually a misnomer, as the AEUG is a political faction within the Earth Federation, and is more "anti-Earth elitism" than anti-Earth Federation government. Throughout the Gryps Conflict, the AEUG had been attempting to wrestle the Federation government's support from the Titans.

The AEUG was formed after the "30 Bunch Incident" on Side 1, in response to the Titans' cruel and brutal repression of a non-violent anti-Federation protests by gassing the entire colony. The AEUG was made up of Federation officers that felt that the Titans must come to an end, although it also contained several ex-Zeon veterans posing as Federation officers. One Year War veterans Bright Noa, Henken Bekkener and Quattro Bajeena (an alias used by Char Aznable to infiltrate Federation ranks) were notable members of the AEUG, as well as Kamille Bidan, who is considered one of the best mobile suit pilots and Newtypes in UC history.

Assisted by a similar movement on Earth, the Karaba, the AEUG started their resistance by raiding a Titan's military facility in their colony base at Green Noa 2 (Grpys Two) and stealing the new-concept RX-178 Gundam Mk-II prototypes. Naturally, this enraged the Titans, and after a chain of events following the heist, a full-scale civil war for control of the space colonies erupted between the Titans and the AEUG.

The AEUG utilized several units during the war, among them a Gundam Mk-II stolen from Titans (the other two were turned over to Anaheim Electronics for analysis), the Salamis class cruiser, the Irish class battleship, and the Argama class cruiser, as well as mixed Federation-influenced (MSA-003 Nemo and MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki) and Zeon-influenced (RMS-099 Rick Dias) mobile suits. However, the most powerful weapon in the AEUG's arsenal is undoubtedly the MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam, which became the AEUG's symbol defiance in similar manner to the Federation RX-78-2 Gundam during the One Year War. During the next year of fighting, the AEUG managed to seize the upper hand and ultimately used one of the Titans' superweapons (the Gryps colony laser) against them, destroying or disabling nearly every remaining ship in the Titan's fleet.

Unlike other military organizations within the Gundam universe, the AEUG is generally a rag-tag group consisting of renegades and some otherwise civilian fighters. Their main military force is made primarily of defected ships and for a time mobile suits from the Federal forces and whatever they could steal from the Titans. Uniform code and military procedure is especially lax, with the AEUG uniform simply being the Federation tunic minus the sleeves and with a V-neck; some members simply continue to wear the Federal Forces uniform or other variations of it. There also appears to be no general recruitment standard other than being physically fit and able to fight. This could all be considered an anti-thesis to the highly elitist and organized standards of the Titans.

As well, Titans activities placed numerous restrictions on trade and commerce. As a result, AEUG and Karaba activities were funded to a large extent by individuals and companies in the private sector (notably the lunar organizations sponsoring Anaheim Electronics). Unfortunately, this had the side effect of putting many non-military officials into leadership positions; although Blex Forer, Henken Bekkener, Char Aznable and Bright Noa can all be considered the group's official leaders, there is no doubt that the AEUG's main influence comes from Anaheim Electronics and other sponsors. The ineptness and indecisiveness of the AEUG's leadership has led to more than one blunder, namely the botched assault on the Earth's Jaburo basin and attempted negotiations with the Zeon remnants of Axis.

When out on the field, the AEUG's sponsors will usually send a representative to a ship to oversee strategic movements and overall command. During the events of Zeta Gundam, one such representative, Wong Lee of Anaheim Electronics, spent a large amount of his time aboard Argama. Bossy and argumentative, Wong Lee frequently clashed with Argama officers and crew over everything from tactical procedures to the somewhat informal atmosphere aboard Argama.

While two faction was busy fighting each other in the civil war, the real threat to the peace of Earth Sphere — Axis Zeon led by Haman Karn emerged as the eventual winner. In ZZ Gundam the mission of the AEUG shifted from fighting the Titans to fighting the Axis Zeon/Neo-Zeon movement. However, the bulk of the AEUG was still recuperating from the Gryps War, thus only the Arghama and her skeleton crew initially saw action.

After the First Neo-Zeon War, the AEUG was officially disbanded, with most of its membership going on to form the Federation's Londo Bell taskforce.

[edit] Karaba

Karaba was the Earth-based resistance movement against the Titans. Although they were not as well known as their AEUG space counterparts, they were nonetheless extremely important in the fight against the Titans. Their most important members were the ace pilot Amuro Ray and Karaba's leader, Director Hayato Kobayashi; both fought together on the White Base during the One-Year War. The Karaba operated from the Audhumla, a giant cargo aircraft (larger than many battleships) stolen from the Federation during the AEUG attack to Jaburo, which became the resistance's mobile headquarters and flagship.

Since their main benefactors were in space, the Karaba was initially even more rag-tag and under-equipped than the AEUG; besides the Audhumla, their main force consisted of ex-AEUG mobile suits left over from the Jaburo campaign, which included several Nemos and at least one Rick Dias. Later on when the Titans influence in space began to lessen, the Karaba managed to build up its forces to a formidable level, even gaining their own mobile suits, such as the MSK-008 Dijeh (which was made famous by being Amuro Ray's mobile suit of choice).

Karaba's most significant operations were an all-out attack on the Titans headquarters in Kilimanjaro, and temporarily seizing control of the Federation Congress in Dakar to allow Char Aznable to make a globally televised speech. After the Titans were shunned by the Federation as a result of Char's speech, the battlefield almost entirely shifted to space, pretty much ending the Karaba's role in the war.

In ZZ Gundam the mission of the Karaba shifted from fighting the Titans to fighting the Axis/Neo Zeon movement. By this point though, many of its leaders and pilots had gone to space in order to resupplement the devastated AEUG, thus the Karaba could do little to prevent Neo-Zeon's warpath. Despite that, they were the backbone of the resistance against Haman's conquest in Earth Sphere.

[edit] Mafty

An anti-Earth Federation terrorist group with similar objectives as many of the other resistance groups. Led by Bright Noa's rebellious son Hathaway Noa, motivated by the death of Quess Paraya. Mafty captured the Xi Gundam and attempted to attack a small Federation cabin in Australia. The attack failed and Mafty was disbanded. Hathaway was captured and his father carried out the execution without knowing it was his son, due to the fact that Hathaway was masked during the execution.

[edit] Principality of Zeon

Main article: Principality of Zeon

The Republic of Zeon was initially founded by Zeon Zum Deikun, who declared it independent from the Earth Federation in UC0058.

Deikun's successor Degwin Sodo Zabi renamed it the Principality of Zeon and eventually declared war on the Earth Federation in UC0079. The conflict became known as the One Year War, and it lasted until the Principality of Zeon surrendered with the Treaty of Granada, on January 14, UC0080.

Several years later (UC0083), the Delaz fleet, under Aiguille Delaz, sought to rebuild Zeon in Operation Stardust. The resulting colony drop destroyed much of the North American farmland. The Delaz fleet was soon defeated, but the war led to the Earth Federation's creation of a force called the Titans to prevent future insurrection.

After several rebellions and wars failed to take control of the Earth Sphere, in UC0100 The Republic of Zeon officially rejoined the Earth Federation.

[edit] Crossbone Vanguard

The original Crossbone Vanguard was a powerful militia created by Meitzer Ronah, an old aristocrat. Placed in the command of his son-in-law, Carrozo "Iron Mask" Ronah, who conceals his face under a helm-like mask since his wife, Meitzer's daughter Nadia, abandoned him, the Vanguard's purpose is to establish in the new Frontier-side colonies an aristocracy, led by the powerful Ronah family, called "Cosmo-Babylonia".

The pilots of the Crossbone Vanguard use advanced Mobile Suits, such as the Den'an Zon and the Berga Giros, and are secretly and intensely trained for several years. They are therefore far superior in skill to those of the Earth Federation. In UC 0123, the attack is begun. Simultaneously, Iron Mask brings his daughter Berah, who has been living under the name Cecily Fairchild, back to him to serve as a political figurehead for the Crossbone Vanguard. The plans of Carrozo Ronah are thwarted by Berah herself, who takes the new Vigna Ghina and defects, in order to be with love interest Seabook Arno, the pilot of the new Gundam F-91. Carozzo is killed by Seabook, who later marries Cecily.

But the Crossbone Vanguard resurfaces years later. After having faked their own deaths, Cecily Fairchild and Seabook Arno resurrected the Crossbone Vanguard in a secret battle against the power-hungry Jupiter Empire, led by a madman called Crux Dogatie. Cecily took back her birthname, and as Berah Ronah, led the group from the sleek and galleon-like warship Mother Vanguard. In reality, this new group is simply a resistance under the guise of a space pirate group; it is no way comparable to the original Crossbone Vanguard besides possessing a general "pirate" theme and mobile suits made by the Buch Concern. The name Crossbone Vanguard was simply used to rally support to the group, much like the name Berah Ronah.

The Crossbone Vanguard's pilots are now led by Seabook, under the name Kincaid Nau, in the F97/XM-X1 Crossbone Gundam Unit One, which was ironically made by the Federation's Strategic Naval Research Institute, creators of Seabook's original Gundam F91. The nearly-identical XM-X2 Crossbone Unit Two is piloted by ace pilot Zabine Chareux, a veteran of the original Crossbone Vanguard and Berah's mentor. Young newtype Tobia Arronax joins the Crossbone Vanguard as the pilot of Crossbone Unit Three, which is different and somewhat more powerful than the other two. After the plans of the Jupiter Empire were thwarted, Cecily and Seabook left the leadership of the Crossbone Vanguard to Tobia Arronax, who led it and eliminated the Jupiter remnants.

[edit] Jupiter Empire

The Jupiter Empire was a self-proclaimed political entity comprised mostly of the Jupiter Energy Fleet, a vast fleet of Jupitris-class long-range deep-space ships. Under the leadership of Crux Dougachi, the Empire tries to conquer Earth, but the Crossbone Vanguard pirate movement thwarted their attempts.

[edit] Zanscare Empire

The Zanscare Empire starts in UC 0153, when the Side 2 (L4) proclaims itself as the Zanscare Empire, and begins its own Earth-bound invasion with its military, the BESPA. Their opponents were the League Militaire and the Earth Federation. Their de jure leader is Queen Maria Pia Armonia, but the de facto leader is Fonse Kagatie. Some of the ace pilots included Cronicle Asher, Arbeo Pippinden, and League-Militaire defector Katejina Loos.

Zanscare forces had European-inspired uniforms and ceremonies; the Empire also had a very nationalistic and militaristic atmosphere, as evidenced by the young age of some of the soldiers in the Zanscare's home colony, Amelia. (It is unknown if the Zanscare enforced a draft or if they were all-volunteer like the Crossbone Vanguard.) Due to its strong military policy and extremely brutal methods, the Zanscare Empire could be considered the ultimate form of evil within the Universal Century, even surpassing the Principality of Zeon and the Titans.

The Zanscare is known for their tendency to use execution as a method of punishment, most notably, the guillotine. Another method of execution was the release of the condemned into the vacuums of space, causing the person to die through starvation, asphyxia or simply exposure. It is also notable that Zanscare's own soldiers are not exempt from execution, and that failure on the battlefield can result in condemnation. This is most likely used to motivate other officers in Zanscare through fear and generally to keep them in line.