Disclaimers: Gundam Seed belongs to Bandai, I believe, and other companies. Either way, like most other authors here, I really do claim no ownership. Anything you recognize belongs only to them, and I daresay copyright lays say what you don't belongs to them also.

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Breaking Point

By Cynthia Chen

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Prelude

History

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The Atlantic Federation launched its invasion of the United States of South America, hereafter known as the War of America del Sur, in the year Cosmic Era sixty-five, in retaliation for President Domitian De Celtigar's support for the cause of political independence for the PLANTs. Under the administration of former President Renard De Celtigar, the USSA had abstained from the arms races that had plagued most other world powers earlier on in the Cosmic Era, and the large part of South America fell quickly and easily to the OMNI forces under the Atlantic Federation. The capital of the former USSA, Vista de La Mar on the northwestern coast, managed to remain a stronghold of resistance, and under the control of the Atlantic Federation in name only, by the sheer determination of the citizens to remain free.

To quell the resistance that was most rampant in the area immediately surrounding Vista de La Mar, to the extent that it prevented OMNI from taking control of the city, the armed forces under the Atlantic Federation often committed what could only be considered atrocities under the Scandinavia Conventions on Human Rights, as many civilians were caught in the crossfire as OMNI struggled to subdue the many rebel militias that appeared suddenly to engage in guerilla warfare against the hated invaders before disappearing as suddenly as they had come. To protect the civilians from the sudden and often unwarranted assaults of the Atlantic Federation, the most notable of these rebel groups; Red Eterna, would be formed under Lydia De Celtigar, daughter of the late President. Within the next three years, she disappears from the public eye, and is then presumed dead in the line of the dangerous life she chose to lead, fighting for the independence of her country. Before her assumed death, though, she publishes the Afterword to her first ground-breaking work titled The Tragedy of Power Politics as well as the manifesto-like As the Nation Ought, calling for others to fight for independence against the tyranny and imperialism of the Atlantic Federation.

Even as groups like the Red Eterna and Bloody Sunrise wage a bloody war against the military forces trying to subdue the rest of their country and on the outwards, the former USSA is annexed by the Atlantic Federation, the political and intellectual force calling for the independence of the former USSA grows if force and insistence while safely lodged in Vista de La Mar. With the war between the Earth Alliance and the PLANTs intensifying, however, calls for international aid go unanswered, and the issue of the lost sovereignty of South America is one that falls to the wayside to everyone but the people of USSA.

Marius Haberi, a politician noted for his charisma and oratorical abilities in calmer days, rises to prominence in this movement, and plots with others who also believe that the cause of their independence will go nowhere if all the various like-minded factions unite. By the early days of Cosmic Era year seventy, his plans are ready to come to fruition. With a living, breathing Lydia De Celtigar by his side, his political plans begin to come together against the backdrop of the recent Bloody Valentine tragedy, the April Fool's Crisis that leaves much of the Earth without nuclear power, and the ever-intensifying conflict between the Earth Alliance and the PLANTs.

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A/N: This rendition of Breaking Point is pretty different from the previous, which I wish to forget. It does, however, suffer from having even less to do with canon than my first attempt at Gundam Seed fanfiction (which has been removed for the sake of my sanity XP) though I've done my utmost to ensure that I do not violate any aspect of the Gundam Seed storyline, and there will definitely be interaction with canon characters and events in the future. I've followed the timelines on the Gundam Official website as closely as I could, the only deviation at this point being that the Atlantic Federation reached its grubby, imperializing paws out for South America in CE 65 rather than CE 70, before the war began for the gall of their then-president in voicing his support for the PLANTs a bit too loudly. (Though war had yet to truly break out.)

Warning all readers not inclined to liking such things: this will be a VERY OC or original character-centric fic. At this point, the Gundam Seed series is chronologically a few months away, and there's a whole (relatively short) story arc and a half to get through before you'll hear tell of that thing on Heliopolis where some mobile suits were comandeered and the whole place ended up exploding. Any pairings that occur will not be important at this point, and mostly not in violation of what is strictly canonical or popular.

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