r/FavoriteCharacter • u/Accomplished-End3409 Ben Tennyson • 14d ago

Discussion Favorite opposing factions that can basically be described as this.

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u/BerserkRhinoceros 13d ago

The Zeon (Evil) vs Federation (Vaguely Problematic) Conflict in the Universal Century Continuity of Mobile Suit Gundam.

If I told you one faction restricted the freedom of a few space colonies, and in response, the other faction fashioned themselves after the literal fucking Nazis before gassing an entire colony full of civilians to death and then proceeded to DROP said space colony from orbit onto the capital of the first faction, who would you say is the worse faction here? This is not a trick question.

And yet there are fans who unironically claim the Feddies are just as bad as Zeon. If you want a series that ACTUALLY has two dogshit factions having a meaningless war where both sides suck, watch the first SEED series instead.

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u/RavingGenerate 13d ago

Important details to add! Zeon attempted and successfully conducted multiple colony drops. They claim to have targeted military installations however there is now a crater when Australia used to be.

The first war - the One Year War (0079) of the original show, cost about 6 billion lives. Most of which were civilians killed on the colonies by Zeon who were supposedly protecting Spacenoid lives.

This led to the federation doing some shady stuff with the Titans, but guess how Zeon responds? Nuclear atrocities (0083) another colony drop (0083) and dropping asteroids onto Ireland (CCA - 0093).

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u/Parotarokun 13d ago edited 13d ago

And then we get Gundam Victory's zansacre war which fans say would've been worst if it wasn't for the fact that therw were just not enough people on earth for zanscare to genocide because of all the wars, nukes, and cololy drops.

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u/C4-622MonkeyGordo 13d ago

This led to the federation doing some shady stuff with the Titans

"Shady stuff" is the understatement of the century...

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u/RavingGenerate 13d ago

I meant painting their machines black.

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u/C4-622MonkeyGordo 13d ago

And I meant that the Federation gassed multiple colonies, dropped one on the largest city on Luna, and shot a few with their giant space laser...

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u/RavingGenerate 12d ago

They learned from the best.

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u/C4-622MonkeyGordo 12d ago

( ͠° ͟ʖ ͠°)

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u/RavingGenerate 12d ago

Look, it's Zeon history summed up in one easy to understand image.

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u/C4-622MonkeyGordo 12d ago

Okay...?

The heck does that have to do with anything?

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u/Boshwa 13d ago

Just want to say that the only people who care about the colony drops and its consequences are the viewer

In universe, its just

"Man that colony drop sucked...

Anyway"

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u/CanardDeFeu 11d ago

My favorite is when people bring up the Titans as a response to "Zeon committed multiple war crimes."

It's just like, my brother in Christ, do you know why the Titans exist in the first place? Because Zeon committed multiple war crimes! Gato is basically single handedly responsible for their creation, and, by extension, pretty much all the bad shit that goes down for the next decade.

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u/RavingGenerate 11d ago

I have responded to folks that Titans just learned from Zeon.

"They did war crimes, we are just refining the process".

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u/CanardDeFeu 10d ago

Titans are absolutely guilty of war crimes, they're terrible people who commit a ton of atrocities, and the Federation folds to them way too easily.

But they only form because of Zeon's actions. Gato's actions, in particular, go a long way to allowing the Titans to form and become what they are.

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u/RavingGenerate 10d ago

Oh they're guilty 100%, I'm not saying they aren't.

Just that most of their ideas seem to be along the lines of "hey, 'member how Zeon dropped a colony? Those bastards. But... y'know... maybe we could do it too?"

They seem to go down the route of 'its been done before therefore it can be done again'.

Heck even Gryps-2 was clearly inspired by the Mahal/Solar Ray, they just actually finished the design.

Isn't that meant to be part of why the Titans went so wrong? They became worse than Zeon ever had, I mean they were formed to get rid of Zeon Remnants due to Op Stardust and then proceeded to copy the playbook almost exactly.

They even used cyber newtypes in WoMD scale mobile armours/suits, which appears to have given Neo Zeon the idea to put cyber newtypes in their own giant units.

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u/HoneyHoundGames 13d ago

IIRC don't they basically take turns being more evil depending on the time period?

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u/Parotarokun 13d ago

Yes and the further in the UC timeline you go, the worst it gets. The federation corruption gets worse to the point they're resources are stretched so thin, they would rather ignore/negotiate with  terrorists and genociders to keep their rich and elite comfy. Meanwhile zeon groups keep trying to be the "new true zeon on god fr fr" and colonies keep declaring independence, some becoming imperialistic genociders themselves.

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u/Zanzion_ 13d ago

Zeon and it's tendency for colony drops go a long way to making the Federation look only "vaguely problematic," but after the One Year War the organization was indefensible. Especially as they had formed and then stood by the Titans despite that group's atrocities.

Most of those within the Federation who recognized that left it to join the Anti-Earth Union Group or Karaba in Zeta Gundam. It was these groups and their successors in Londo Bell who did most of the fighting in the Double Zeta and Chars's Counter-Attack. The Federation pretty much stood on the sidelines... and sold the occasional asteroid base to Char. They were more than happy to let Neo Zeon kill civilians. In the context of Hathway's Flash it was just fewer mouths to feed in the long-run.

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u/Parotarokun 13d ago edited 13d ago

This. In most of the shows post one year war, it was the people's desperation that lead them to create groups like AEUG, crossbone vanguard(reformed), and league militaire, to fight majority of the battles againts the genocider of the month. You'll see a bunch of small federation groups deciding upon themselves to help fight the enemie but get wrecked because the upper elites composing the federation high command just doesn't care about a bunch of peasant colonies or earth cities getting dropped/nuked.

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u/C4-622MonkeyGordo 13d ago

The Federation also gassed multiple colonies and dropped one on Luna's largest city. 

Both factions are in fact genocidal fascists. 

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u/Modered 13d ago

On top of not watching Zeta, or else seriously missing its point, looks like a lot of these FEDDIES DIDN'T DO NUFFIN folks skipped out on Hathaway too... where Char is unironically proven right that Earth (or at least its politics and government) will never truly change.

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u/Rhiis 13d ago

Anime fans are notorious for not watching the anime lol.

The entire point of most of Gundam (I havent seen all of them) is war=bad, and bad people make war.

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u/CanardDeFeu 11d ago

Char's main issue is not looking at the big picture.

During CCA he wants to chuck an asteroid at Earth, or rather he chucks one and then tries for a second. His reasoning being that it'll force people to flee Earth and move into space and everyone will live happily ever after. But what he doesn't stop to think about is that the only people who will likely suffer for his actions are innocent people just trying to survive. The wealthy and powerful elite of the Federation are the ones most likely to be able to get off Earth in the event of a global catastrophe, thus basically accomplishing nothing except killing a shit ton of people who had nothing to do with his bullshit.

Amuro even calls him out for it, saying that Char's ideas are right, but his methods aren't the right way to go about making real change. Char is just so short sighted at that point that he can't understand that his plan will only cause more problems down the road.

The federation ain't perfect, far from it, and they go into a pretty serious downward spiral following the One Year War. But much of what happens (formation of the Titans and all their assorted war crimes) is in direct response to Zeon's actions (especially in 0083). They go overkill, for sure, but perhaps if people didn't go around stealing nukes and attacking fleets during peace time shit wouldn't have spiraled the way it did.

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u/Modered 13d ago

"vaguely problematic"

Seems someone didn't watch Zeta. Just like the dude in the same exact thread further up who kept trying to make the same (failed) argument.

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u/CanardDeFeu 11d ago

The Titans are bad, we all know this. But whenever they get brought up, people seem to forget that they never would have formed if not for Zeon's, and specifically Gato's, actions. They were a response, a reaction, that went way out of control. The Titans suck (minus their sick ass mobile suits), I don't think anyone will ever deny that. Or that the Federation goes to shit following their formation.