MSG: Zeon’s Ambition

This idealism would not endure. From the very beginning it was the practice of earth-bound elites to deport entire populations using whatever justification they deemed fit. Many of the colonists resented this heavy-handed approach to solving environmental issues at the cost of everything they knew and held dear. Many more resented the fact that the Earth Federation government continued to exert control over the colonies long after multiple generations had lived and died.

Each of the colony clusters, referred to as Sides, had a variety of peoples and customs, but one embodied this idea of “spacenoid independence” more than all the others. Side 3, once called Munzo, had fallen under the sway of an ideologue named Zeon Zum Deikun. His philosophy espoused a “new type of human” who, living in space from the moment of birth, would be more attuned to its demands. Indeed, they would evolve into superior human beings. It was only natural that they should govern themselves. In fact, Earth itself should be depopulated entirely such that all of humanity would become these so-called “newtypes.”

Philosophy met politics in a most unfortunate way: No sooner had Deikun’s ideas coalesced into an independence movement did he perish under suspicious circumstances, leaving this revolution in the hands of the least scrupulous sorts of people. Chief among these were the Zabi family who had provided considerable financial, and violent, backing to the movement. With the founder dead and lionized as a martyr, the Zabis took control, instituted the Principality of Zeon and began plotting for the violent overthrow of the Earth Federation.

For their part, the Federation, an almost moribund organization paralyzed by corruption and infighting, utterly misjudged the threat. Granting one concession after another, they enabled the Zeon to build up domestic industry far in excess of their natural limits. This soon translated into technological advancements, assisted by the pressures of daily life in space, and thus into military equipment and tactics. It was the Zeon who pioneered the compact fusion reactor and its unforeseen byproduct, the Minovsky Particle. Both of these led to an upheaval of conventional military tactics, blocking long-range sensors like radar, scrambling communications, obliterating targets using particle cannons and, perhaps most importantly, creating the conditions for the mobile suit.

Mobile suits were towering mechanical monstrosities combining vaguely human features with the best technology had to offer. Capable, adaptable, maneuverable and lethal, mobile suits were a category unto themselves. The side which had them often won, with inferior numbers. The side which did not often lost, with significant casualties.