Gundam Liberate Comment Thread

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

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...what, are you people going to make me beg? Comments, please? ^_^

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All righty: sweeeet!
Shaping up to be even niftier than your idea-bouncing made it seem.
--Sam
"We are not ninjas. We are a hedge. Please move along."

[Valles]

Prrr. You flatter me. ^_^

GUNDAM Mobile Suit Prototype Alfa/0001 "Liberate"
TV: 3400 without GUNDAM system DTV: 1800 OTV: 3400 MTV: 5000
Armor: 40/80/120 (1600mm steel equivalent) Size: 15 (22 tons empty, 98 tons loaded)
Movement Type Top Speed Combat Speed Maneuver
Walker 16 (96kph) 8 (48kph) -1
Space 30 (3 G) 15 (1.5 G) -1
Range: 500 km Burn Poins: 6000 Crew: 1
Perks
Manipulator Arms x2: 14
Escape System (pod)
Limited Life Support (hours equal to range in km)
All Around Armor
Comm System: 0/10km
Sensor 1/4km
Hostile Environmental Protection: All
Hostile Environmental Protection: Radiation: 3
Backup Systems
Reinforced Crew Compartment
Self Repair System (GUNDAM system): 2
Flaws
Large Sensor Profile 1
Sensor Dependant
Haywire Vulnerable
Brittle Armor
Weapon DM BR Acc Arc ROF Ammo Perks
Arc Sword 25 M -2 F 0 N/A Concealed/Handheld, AC,
Parry, Drains Fuel
Katana 16 M +1 F 0 Inf. Handheld, Parry
Shield 10 M 0 F 0 Inf. Concealed/Handheld,
Shield, Defensive
20mm Vulcans 6 4 0 F 5 2500 Anti-Infantry, Anti-
Missile, Defensive
100mm Long Gun 16 10 0 F 0 50 -
Sorry about the formatting; blame ezboard.

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"Nyan-nyan nyan-nyan nihaou nyan!"
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[SkyeFire]

Okay Nate, you win, it was cool, it was great, we love it. Will you write some *more* now?
Kidding aside, this is interesting. One thing that jumps out at me is that this is the first Gundam setup I'm aware of (not that I'm an expert) where the "colonists" are the underdogs from the get-go - IIRC, most of the canonical Gundam universes begin with the Colonists running rampant over the Terrans for the first part of the war, from either Newtype Powers, Super Tech, or Genetic Tweaking -- usually as a plot device to offset Earth's huge numerical and resource advantage.
Another is that this is happening (so far) on Mars -- no orbital colonies or space-based action seems to be in the offing so far, though of course the story is very young. That makes a looong logistical stretch for the Earth forces, unless we're dealing with plausibility-busting Magical Fusion Torch[1] drives, which in turn makes a rag-tag rebellion more plausible. It also means that the number of Gundams, as opposed to lesser mecha, will probably be pretty limited, unless someone opens a Gundam factory on Mars (unlikely, but not impossible).
Unless I miss my guess, Ana is this story's Amuro/Kira, and I suspect she just *created* her Char/Rau opposite number....
[1] MFT is a term of art used by the SFCONSIM-L mailing list, which is populated by a mix of game designers and honest-to-gosh Rocket Scientists and High-Energy Physicists who try to model out real, workable space-combat systems, tactics, and technologies. Unfortunately, as long as they stick to Real Physics(tm), things get boring from a game-playability standpoint. But listening to people who actually know what they're talking about debating the relative merits of X-Ray lasers vs Fusion Torch Missiles is a lot of fun.

[Valles]

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Okay Nate, you win, it was cool, it was great, we love it. Will you write some *more* now?

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Working on it! ^_^

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Another is that this is happening (so far) on Mars -- no orbital colonies or space-based action seems to be in the offing so far, though of course the story is very young. That makes a looong logistical stretch for the Earth forces, unless we're dealing with plausibility-busting Magical Fusion Torch[1] drives, which in turn makes a rag-tag rebellion more plausible. It also means that the number of Gundams, as opposed to lesser mecha, will probably be pretty limited, unless someone opens a Gundam factory on Mars (unlikely, but not impossible).

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In terms of delta-v, Earth-orbit to Mars-orbit is closer than Earth Surface to Earth orbit, unless my memory fails me. Any difference that you may see in the relative logistics is a product of the animated canon's poor attention to detail. ^_^
Anyway, Mars will not be the entire setting of the 'series'.

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Unless I miss my guess, Ana is this story's Amuro/Kira, and I suspect she just *created* her Char/Rau opposite number....

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Correct on both counts - and another point of difference. Far's I know, Gundam's never done a female as primary lead.

===============================================
"Nyan-nyan nyan-nyan nihaou nyan!"
===========

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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[SkyeFire]

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In terms of delta-v, Earth-orbit to Mars-orbit is closer than Earth Surface to Earth orbit, unless my memory fails me. Any difference that you may see in the relative logistics is a product of the animated canon's poor attention to detail. ^_^

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That DV rule-of-thumb only applies for a Hohmann transfer with one (rather broad) launch window every 780 days (one Mars year), though, with a transit time measured in months. Not impossible, with the example of naval transit times during the Napoleonic era, but definitely problematical -- at minimum, logistical response from Earth will lag nearly two years behind current events on Mars. The alternative is to introduce constant-accel drives that have the side effect of making weakly relatavistic bombardment of planetary targets cheap and easy....
And there's the question of whether the logistics come from Cislunar space (factories on Luna, say), or all the way from Earth *surface*, in which case you've got *double* the DV requirement.

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Anyway, Mars will not be the entire setting of the 'series'.

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Hm! I wonder how far-ranging the story will become. Honestly, I've always had to make an effort to swallow the whole "mobile suits in spaaace!!!" thing, but I'll turn a blind eye to almost anything if the story is fun enough.

[SkyeFire]

Well, rather than force Nate to beg for C&C again, I guess I'll get preemptive...

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Major Christiaan Boshoff, Ph.D, sat in his cramped-but-comfortable seat and reminded himself that the physician had insisted that his eyes were no longer bleeding and that any trickling he thought he felt was strictly psychosomatic.

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Hm. PhD? I wonder what he majored in? A field-grade officer with a doctorate is hardly unheard of, but it is a bit unusual. I can't help but think it'll be significant.
And, yup, he's lost his eyeballs. Given the extent of cybernetic tech this universe appears to have, I'm guessing he'll end up with prosthetic vision, but whether it'll look like regular eyes or something like Char's mask remains to be seen.
Rather a Boer-ish name, especially given the prevalence of African references so far. Are you sure this isn't Gundam Draka?

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Chris had never been prouder to work with them, let alone be permitted to claim to lead them, but he'd overruled the motion to draw straws to do the actual dirty work. When the Imperial Army's power blocs started to move to squash this insolent independence, they'd find only a single staff officer who'd gotten too big for his britches and ordered his subordinates into compliance, rather than a full unit mutiny or some similar pretext for a crackdown.

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Tells us something about the Empire's internal politics, and the people who serve it. Chris is definitely getting set up as the "sympathetic antagonist" here.

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"Yeah. No encryption, just basic internal passwords. But as far's I can tell without tangling with those, it's got everything - research work, personal files, security calls and responses... everything."

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Ooooo, shiny. Of course, a competently-run security apparatus will minimize the usefulness of the security-related data, but still...
And the mysterious unidentifiable system aboard the Gundam? Some hints *must* be in that database somewhere...
I'd swap "plumbing" for "bathroom" in the suit descriptions, myself.

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'to liberate the colonies from the burden of Earth's past hatreds and vendettas,'

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Mm. Utopian, aren't we? Ah, well, I'm the reader, I can afford to be cynical. Still, this is another insightful tidbit about the underlying causes of the rebellion, without resorting to infodumpage.

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"And far's I can tell he's right. You watch your pretty ass, though, lady - I can't make heads or tails of half his innards and I just do not trust a Terran to handle dust right."

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Eh, *Lunar* dust is the real nasty. Mars dust shouldn't really be any harder to handle than Earth dust. But far be it from a self-respecting mechanic to let that little fact stop him from asserting his territorial prerogatives...

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"I'll be careful," she promised, and hit the key and hung on as the wince yanked her off her feet and up to the cockpit ledge. In this position she had to squeeze up along the short ladder in a narrow access way to reach the front and main opening of the cockpit sphere - as designed, it was stable and level with the ground, completely insulated from the attitude of the machine it was mounted to. Ana'd memorized the override to that function - it might be useful for pilot comfort, but in a fight the disconnect between her inner ear and the feedback she'd be getting from her suit would be nauseating, at best.

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Makes sense in every respect. I suspect that the sphere might end up being one of those brilliant ideas that end up having more drawbacks than benefits in the long run, but that's neither her nor there right now.

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"I'll be careful," she promised, and hit the key and hung on as the wince

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winch

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link her pressure suit's electronic's to

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electronics, no apostrophe.

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as the MS computer synchronized with and started to take inputs from her braintop. When her vision had cleared and she could let her breath out again, they had edited the mobile suit's cockpit out of her field of view and replaced it with a detailed construction of what was being fed in from the two main cameras. Combined with the force-sensor feedback from the chassis, the illusion that she was suddenly twelve meters tall and kneeling bent-over on the front of a child's toy wagon was almost irresistable.

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Not something we've ever seen in a Gundam universe, AFAICR. Though how your average canonical Gundam pulls off all those melee maneuvers with just joysticks and pedals is a heck of a question...
What "chassis"? Is she sitting in a pilot's seat, or in some kind of Gunbuster-esque full-body frame? The cockpit interior description could use just a bit more fleshing out, IMO.
I guess next chapter we get to the Good Stuff -- MECHA FIGHT SCENES!!!

[Valles]

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And, yup, he's lost his eyeballs. Given the extent of cybernetic tech this universe appears to have, I'm guessing he'll end up with prosthetic vision, but whether it'll look like regular eyes or something like Char's mask remains to be seen.

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I am not unaware of the traditions...

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Ooooo, shiny. Of course, a competently-run security apparatus will minimize the usefulness of the security-related data, but still...
And the mysterious unidentifiable system aboard the Gundam? Some hints *must* be in that database somewhere...

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No need - the late Doctor Ngumba told her what it was.

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winch

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D'oh! Thought I fixed that!

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electronics, no apostrophe.

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Whoops, thanks!

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Not something we've ever seen in a Gundam universe, AFAICR. Though how your average canonical Gundam pulls off all those melee maneuvers with just joysticks and pedals is a heck of a question...

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I consider original Gundam's 'learning computer' to be a far worse handwave than anything to do with the machine's power or structure. It's even less forgivable since there are clear and easy alternatives that are far more practical... Anyway, IIRC, there are hints in some of SEED's terminology that its Mobile Weapons use some kind of at least partial thought-interface.

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What "chassis"? Is she sitting in a pilot's seat, or in some kind of Gunbuster-esque full-body frame? The cockpit interior description could use just a bit more fleshing out, IMO.

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The patchwork rebel MSs have FMP or Escaflowne-like shrouding frames; Liberate is a fly-by-jack machine whose cockpit is mostly there to protect the pilot, and only has a couple of small console screens - it's designed to route everything HUDlike through either the pilot's suit faceplace or their spinal cord.
I'm also amused to note that no comment has been made about the lack of real descriptions of any of the characters. ^_^

===============================================
"Nyan-nyan nyan-nyan nihaou nyan!"
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Valles]

Poking this thread to make it available for people noting the finished Episode Two in the main thread for this.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[CattyNebulart]

Comments coming as I read.

Half the bank tore away under her feet under hundreds of force,

Hundreds of what? Newtons I would assume, but a few hundred newtons isn't much force, for a mech it's trivial.

Interesting start so far, very much in keeping with the traditional gundam starts in most ways.

EDIT: I get the feeling that we will be seeing the driver of the buggy again sometime, since that battle read like a duel between ace pilots.
Overall verdict: It's good and I will keep reading.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Berk]

Just as an aside, there have been two female leads in Gundam.

Chris MacKenzie in MS Gundam 0080: War In The Pocket.

Asuna Elmarit in MS Gundam: Ecole du Ciel.
- Grumpy Uncle Gearhead

[Murmur the Fallen]

Asuna is, I think, pretty much the only female main protagonist in the gundam meta-series.  I *think*. 
Chris was more of a foil for Al in War in the Pocket.
Pretty much all of the main characters of Gundam follow the simple route of "teenage boy goes into/pushed into/accidently climbs into Gundam and gets shanghaied into a war.  Or, and this is more the case for Wing/00, they are elite terrorist types who volunteer in secret Gundam suits that only they have like a magical sentai terrorist team.  Unless it's Domon Kashuu who, through sheer hot-bloodedness tramples all conventions in his wake.  But, yeah, pretty much exclusively teenage boys (unless they're, you know, girls who are sort of peripheral to the guys, in which case they turn out to be traitors, crazy, or YOUR SISTER! [possibly twins or body doubles will show up at some point as well])
All of which makes this series very good and surprising.  It's nice to feel some sort of gender parity in a Gundam world, even if it is fan-made.  The fact that we haven't had a professional soldier as protagonist since 08th MS Team is also quite good.
However, this is falling into the trap that techno-thrillers and a lot of sf books get into, which is worrying about the specs rather than the people.  You have to care about the characters more than the fact that RPG doesn't actually stand for rocket propelled grenade.  Which isn't to say that this isn't very good.
-murmur
not sure what else to say beyond "very good but more character development."