Mobile Suit Gundam: High Frontier

Life In The Universal Century

Large asteroids were also moved into Lagrangian orbits and excavated as habitats. Between UC 0035 and 0045, the asteroid 3 Juno was moved into L3, directly opposite the Moon, and renamed Luna². At 244 kilometers (150 miles) in diameter, Luna² is a thousand times the size of any manufactured habitat and material excavated in the process of colonizing it was used to build the subsequent manmade colonies. Its creation is the greatest feat of engineering to date in the Gundam world, comparable to the Panama Canal in 1910 AD. Side 7 can be more correctly said to be in orbit around Luna² rather than in free orbit within L3 proper.

Zeon became the foremost developer of asteroid habitats, primarily as military bases. Two asteroids were fused together to form the great Zeon fortress A Baoa Qu in L2, opposite Side 3.

Its unusual name was derived from the Arabic name of the monster that guarded the “Tower Of Destiny” in the 1,001 Arabian Nights. Zeon was already thinking of itself as the mandated future leader of mankind, whose destiny was to be guarded by this technological monster.

Under the terms of the Granada Treaty that ended the One Year War, the newly restored Zeon Republic retained control of A Baoa Qu.

In June 0087, the Zeon Republic donated the asteroid fortress to the EUG Titans special police force, which renamed it Zedan’s Gate. In January 0088, Axis rammed Zedan’s Gate and broke it in two.

Zeon moved the asteroid Solomon to L5, midway between Sides 1 and 6, as a garrison outpost. Its unique shape, the endpoints of which form the vertices of an octahedron, made it ideal for this purpose. It literally points “six ways from zero” and can thus directly defend against attacks from the front, rear, right, left, top or bottom.

The occupying Federation forces renamed Solomon Kompei Island, which in Japanese (konpeitoh) is a play on the name of a similarly-shaped candy. In November 0083, it was again a scene of carnage when Zeon renegades nuked the Federation fleet with a stolen warhead.

Zeon moved the asteroid Pezun to L4, between Sides 2 and 5, to guard its other flank in a mirror image of Solomon. Like Solomon, it became a Federation base after the War, eventually becoming a mobile suit R&D center and the home base of the Titans Mobile Suit Instructor Corps. When the Federation disbanded the Titans in 0088, the Instructor Corps seized Pezun in a military coup, declaring themselves the New Decides. After several days of fierce fighting, the Federation task force sent to quell the rebellion nuked the Pezun base in March 0088.

Zeon equipped the asteroid Axis with apogee motors and a gravity block system (contained in a smaller, spherical asteroid called Mauser that was tethered to Axis proper) and turned into a mobile base station for the Jupiter Energy Fleet.

Axis became the refuge for the Zeon revenants following their defeat by the Federation in UC 0079 and was moved into cislunar space in UC 0087, its arrival coinciding with the foundation of Neo Zeon under Haman Khan. It was finally destroyed in the last-ditch Neo Zeon attack on the Earth led by Char Aznable in UC 0093.

Axis began its journey to the Earth Sphere on 6 February 0086 and arrived on 2 October 0087. Although we don’t know where Axis might actually have been situated in the Asteroid Belt, this is consistent with the transit time to and from the asteroid 1 Ceres, which works out to 1.84 years (22 months).

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Last Update: 01 January 2020

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