"Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed" (John 20:29).
April 2nd, 70 CE. 1900 Colonial Standard. ZAFT Command. Aprilius One. PLANT. Siegel Clyne POV
In the past two days the situation regarding the war had gone through a roll coaster from fear, terror, jubilation, anxiety, and now utter horror and panic. While Siegel didn't like to use vulgar language, he had to admit that the shit had hit the fan and everything was going to hell.
When Siegel had launched the fleet against the Alliance asteroid, he had expected a victory for ZAFT. In his worst fears there would be heavy casualties with dozens of ships and mobile suits destroyed, but with the N-Jammer they could at least bring a swift end to the battle and secure the PLANTs from threat of destruction.
Those hopes were dashed when hours ago he and the rest of the supreme council received word that not only had nuclear explosions been detected in the middle of the battle, but that these explosions lacked fissile material. Somehow, someway, the Alliance gained nuclear fusion.
When the council had heard about it they entered into heavy panic for ten minutes, acting as if it was the end of days. Eventually Siegel along with Patrick managed to restore order, with Patrick guiding them to the situation room of the ZAFT command center, with the situation now requiring that the council have instant access to communications and intelligence instead of debating in a bubble.
Once they had entered the situation room, Patrick managed to take quick leadership and was now the dominant voice of the council, quickly gaining power as if he had homefield advantage. While Siegel would normally assert his role as supreme chairman, this was a desperate time that was clearly more in Patrick's field, and thus he relinquished informal command to him for the time being.
The first thing the council had decided upon was to alert the public of the asteroid and its fleet, along with the fact that they achieved nuclear fusion. While reports from law enforcement told of panic and hysteria gripping the colonies, it was necessary at this time to come completely clean and divulge the truth so that they could prepare for the worst. Now the PLANTs had gone near silent, with all of its citizens either hunkered down in their homes, at work in ZAFT or in government critical jobs.
If any sign of an attack were to take place, then as many citizens would be evacuated to the newly-erected bunkers where they would hopefully be safe from an attack, They didn't have the time or space to save every citizen, but they could at least save a couple million in the worst case scenario.
One of those potential evacuees would be his daughter Lacus, as Siegel had ordered his aids that they were to evacuate Lacus as a top priority with a reserved spot and keep her in the bunkers no matter what she said, as Siegel was more than experienced in how much of a free spirit she was. Siegel was well aware that this was nepotism and unfair to many common citizens who could possibly be locked out, but in the end he didn't give a damn. Lacus was his entire life, he would suffer a thousand deaths before he ever let anyone harm his precious angel.
After the public had been informed and order had been restored with the emergency facilities online, the council then came to the discussion of military strategy. Thanks to the recall of the Uroboros fleet, they now had near 1400 vessels around PLANT space. Unless the Alliance brought the majority of their fleet, then there was a good chance they could win any offensive.
Right now there were two heated topics at hand. The first was the drafting and total mobilization of the PLANT civilian population suggested by Patrick. Any citizen with training in space would serve ZAFT in their ships or as a mobile suit pilot. The rest of the civilians who were non-essential would either be put into armament industry, or join an emergency militia to train to defend their homes in the case of an invasion.
The second topic was the abandonment of the Lorentz Base, suggested by Ali Kasim. With the threat of whatever was in L2 looming alongside the rest of the Alliance forces in their traditional lunar bases, it was probable that Lorentz had no way of holding against the Alliance hordes, especially since they now had nukes. Kasim wished for the fleet to return to bolster their defenses, a sound move though this was argued against by some as giving up their only stronghold on the moon that would leave them isolated in L5 for the rest of the war should they destroy the asteroid facing them.
"If we evacuate from Lorentz then we are going to be playing into the Natural's hands by giving them a war of attrition while eliminating our ability to launch offensive operations. Not to mention that doing so while cutting off our allies from Earth, will deprive us of our lunar mining operations. It's going to be weeks until the next asteroid comes into the Earth sphere and we need lunar metals if we are to feed the war machine. This isn't some last stand for prestige, it's a vital part of the war effort!" Ezalia said.
"Mining resources and supporting our allies won't mean a damn if the Alliances waltzes in tomorrow and nukes us to kingdom come! 200 ships could mean the difference between the life or death of the colonies, and you would risk our entire existence over nonsensical strategic hypotheticals that won't come into play for weeks or months at least!" Argued Parnel Jesek.
"Funny, because I could have sworn you said the same thing about hypotheticals that won't matter in the present when you argued against the draft and mobilization of our population. What use is the service sector or the unemployed going to be lying around when they could defend our nation and improve the defenses to a point which we would have had if we recalled the Lorentz flee?" Ezalia retorted.
"That is entirely different. Those 200 ships will make an immediate difference and will turn the tide of any battle as they are filled with trained and crewed men and women. Drafting civilians isn't going to do a damn thing when the Alliance launches an attack in the coming days as they will be untrained lambs sent to the slaughter!" Parnel fought back.
Jeremy rolled his eyes and heavily scoffed at the statement, "Maybe for Naturals, but we're Coordinators! In a week we can train someone to at least the minimum potential of a Natural soldier who has gone through bootcamp. There is no adult besides the misfits who aren't fit for duty. We could gain millions of soldiers to defend our colonies and at the same time add a couple new fleets. Yet you would prevent this massive gain of manpower for some petty desire of normality?!"
The debate continued on for some time, with the mobilization and Lorentz withdrawal both nearing majorities. Siegel for his part was conflicted as he saw merits and good arguments on all sides. For the most part he tried his best to keep everyone calm and level headed, an effort that was nearing failure at the moment.
In addition to the heightened tensions, none of the council members had gotten a healthy amount of sleep in the past two days. Even with their augmented bodies they were still human and needed rest. By now Siegel had drank an entire pitcher of coffee in the last couple of hours with caffeine being the only tool keeping him awake.
In the middle of another tense round of debate, all eyes turned to the door of the situation room where Eileen Canaver walked in. Eileen had taken a short period of absence a while ago to address a situation with the Intelligence Bureau. When she had come back, Eileen looked deathly pale with her body shaking, looking far worse than she had in the aftermath of Junius Seven or the appearance of the asteroid fleet.
"Eileen, is everything alright?" Yuri asked in concern. What he didn't add was the fear that had been instilled in the other eleven members of the council, that the war had somehow gotten worse than the Alliance gaining nuclear fusion weaponry.
"I...I I was asked to c-come to the bureau because they wanted my input of something which had torn the monitor section in two." Eileen said, her voice shaking and spoken weakly at the same time. "A lot of the personnel stationed there said that it was nothing, a nonsensical Alliance lie, yet some of their superiors were adamant that it was real. If they had told us sooner then...th-then we could have prevented this from happening." Eileen said, tears forming in her eyes.
"What are you talking about?" Demanded Patrick harshly. Siegel would have rebuked him but Eileen then continued on.
"Apparently hours after the asteroid made its appearence within the Lagrange point we received a series of messages from the asteroid that continued until the battle had started."
"WHAT?! How the hell were we not made aware of this?" Patrick growled, causing Eileen to look down in slight shame.
"Patrick! Eileen is speaking and until she is finished with your explanation you will remain silent as is proper decorum." Siegel ordered, with Patrick reluctantly backing down and Eileen nodding towards him slightly in gratitude.
"What I am about to reveal to you is a massive failure on the intelligence bureau's part, I admit so and I will take full responsibility as it falls within foreign affairs. The reason why this unfortunately never made its way to us was because the communications contained contents that were deemed far too ludicrous to be taken as a legitimate message, some sort of Alliance trick to buy time. In any other situation I would have likely agreed, though the usage of fusion weaponry despite Earth still lacking power gives heavy reason to the message. I shall play it now."
Quickly typing away at her console, Eileen began to play a video on the main viewscreen of the situation room, all twelve members shifted their seats to look at what was being played. On screen appeared a giant of a man wearing a green and gold uniform with spiked amulets. His face sported a number of hideous scars and he wore a gray mullet. All in all this was far from what your average Alliance officer would have been.
"Greetings to the unknown Spacenoids who reside within the hourglass colonies. I am Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi, head of the Zeon Space Attack Force, commanding officer of the Solomon base, and second son to Sovereign Degwin Sodo Zabi, the ruling monarch of the Principality of Zeon. All of these words most likely sound gibberish to yourselves, however there is a good reason for doing so. You see, my men and I are not from this timeline, rather we are from a timeline called the Universal Century, a world where after the third world war the Earth was united into a single nation called the Earth Federation, who then proceeded to colonize the Earth sphere and deport a majority of its population to the Sides, creating the Spacenoid nations such as Side 3 or Zeon, who resides in Lagrange 2."
This "Dozle" then spent the next ten minutes going over a summary of the "Universal Century" and how in his words they came to be transported to the Cosmic Era. He had ended the message with wishes for the establishment of peaceful diplomatic relations and coexistence so that the two Spacenoid nations could help each other survive and prosper within the Earth sphere.
The room was silent for several long moments, though to its occupants it seemed like ages before anyone would speak.
'My God, if this is all true then we attacked on a neutral and independent nation, one that hasn't even existed for two days in this timeline. A nation with a past similar to our own that has fleets of mobile suits and nuclear fusion weapons.' Siegel thought, increasingly horrified at the current predicament.'
"Bull. Shit." Patrick hissed venomously, fury raging through his body at the message. "Do any of you seriously believe in this crap?! A nation suddenly crosses space time and comes to our timeline and somehow they have fusion weaponry and mobile suits? It's just the plot of a bad B-movie! Obviously this was some sort of Natural trick to get us with our guard down and nuke us from existence."
Eileen looked at Patrick, a newfound determination flaring in her eyes, "Patrick, I would think that as the head of ZAFT that would know basic military strategy. They have a fleet out there near the size of our own with mobile suits and fusion nukes yet this 'Alliance fleet' choose to sit around and twiddle their thumbs while Uroboros was happening instead of preventing it or taking revenge? Don't even start with the stealth nonsense, even if they have a stealth system that broke the earlier battle shows its not needed. Why even bother to send a message at all when they clearly are the superior fleet in force? Why not send in reinforcements from L2 and L4?"
"I agree that rationally their strategic decisions are idiotic, but an enemy with a better fleet doesn't automatically mean dimensional travelers." Patrick retorted.
"A few months ago if anyone had presented us with the N-Jammer we would've laughed it off and called them insane, yet within our arsenal we have a weapon to completely shut off fission and flick the bird to physics. If we can do this then anything is possible. Hell, earlier we were so heavily considering the possibility of aliens, why not a nation from a different dimension?" Eileen argued.
"Just as you said, we created the N-Jammer, so it's not impossible for the Naturals with their plethora of resources to create stealth fleets or have fusion nukes within the cards. Instead of entertaining fantasies, let's focus on reason and logic." Patrick returned.
With the council once more descending into heavy bickering, Siegel prepared himself with a newfound resolve to take charge of the situation once more and get to the bottom of this mysterious Zeon. If this was truly some Alliance plot, then they would simply proceed as before. But if Zeon truly did exist, then he had to do everything in his power to resolve this conflict immediately and get peace.
April 2nd, 70 CE. 2247 Colonial Standard. Talia Gladys POV
When the war had started between ZAFT and the Alliance after the Alaska Declaration, there was a brief window of rationality within the PLANTs. While most Coordinators living within the new nation had suffered from discrimination by Naturals in one form or another over the course of their life, most of ZAFT with the exception of the most fearful and paranoid had believed that the war would be a conventional conflict of independence. Sure it would not be a pretty or civilized affair, but it would follow most of the patterns of historical independence wars that would see ZAFT drive the Alliance to exhaustion and force them to concede to PLANT's independence.
This optimism died entirely after Bloody Valentine, with the war changing from a conflict of colony against colonizer to a war of rice, of survival.
A consequence of the war's shifting tone was the subject of what to do in the possibility of being captured by the Alliance. Given that all of the conflict until now had been fought solely in the open vacuum of space, most Coordinators who would not see victory or successfully retreat would run away, but there was still the possibility of being surrounded by the Alliance and being forced into a situation of surrender.
When it came to Talia's fellow captains, a disturbing rise had taken place where many had been adamant that they would fight to the death, to take as many Naturals with them as possible. In the situation of being forcibly captured such as mobile suits being disabled, some ZAFT personnel went even further with Talia accidentally eavesdropping a conversation between two Greencoat pilots of possibly ingesting cyanide pills to avoid capture.
Fortunately, up to Uroboros there was a majority who like Talia were willing to become prisoners if there was no other option. Among this school of captains there was a ranking desire. First would be Eurasia, where at least there they would attempt to follow the Stockholm Convention. The second would be East Asia, they would most likely be treated with scorn and disdain but could at least be afforded some status of being a prisoner. Third was South Africa, who while not openly touting to the policies of Blue Cosmos were too much under the Atlantic Federation's influence to guarantee the lives and wellbeing of any Coordinator prisoners. Last was the Atlantic Federation. While there was always a likelihood of there being many moderates within Atlantic leadership that wanted to follow Stockholm, the possibility of being brutally interred by a Blue Cosmos group was high.
Then again, there had been less than a thousand ZAFT personnel leading up to Uroboros who were prisoners, so there was still a possibility that all of these scenarios were nothing more than figments of paranoia in Talia's mind. Still, rumors and speculation always had layers of truth embedded in them and Talia had no desire to find out.
As for her interment with Zeon however, well it was honestly one of the best cases she could ask for.
After surrendering to the red Zaku that she would later learn would be the mobile suit of Char Aznable, there had been a short but tense period where the Georges Danton was left to its own devices while the rest of the battlefield died out. During that time Talia did her best to manage the repairs of the ship and treatment to the wounded. Fortunately for her, while Hector's injury was severe, the timely treatment applied to him would ensure that he would live and recover. While there were nineteen members of her crew who had been killed, at least Hector along with a few others would still live and return to see their families should they be released from Zeon captivity, whenever that would be.
They waited for about three hours until a large green shuttle landed itself in the bay of the ship, what she would later learn to be Zeon's Komusai.
The squad of Marines that had inhabited the shuttle demanded that Talia come with them to Solomon where she would be held captive for an indefinite period of time. To her crew's credit, they protested greatly to the request, with a few even offering to take her place, something that warmed Talia's heart greatly. In the end she had complied with the demand of the Marines. If she made a struggle now after surrendering then it could lead to severe repercussions for her crew and the other ZAFT ships that surrendered. All that was left to do now was to comply as much as reasonably possible and hope for the best.
After a short ride (along with other Komusais that she observed in the distance, most likely with the other captains), Talia had arrived at Solomon, undocking at one of the asteroid's hangars and then being escorted by the Marines to a cell where after taking off her normal suit, she was held captive with two armed guards waiting outside.
On the way to her cell, Talia did her best to observe the mood and attitudes of the Zeon servicemen and woman stationed aboard the asteroid. Seeing their high diversity that eclipsed even the Atlantic Federation and Eurasia, along with their universal devotion to wearing green and gold, it was quite obvious that this was not an Alliance base. Such a sight further drove into Talia the foolishness of Fukuyama's actions.
What she also noticed was how the men and women who noticed her looked at Talia. What she saw there were faces of hate and anger, but they were not those she had been abused with while growing up on Earth. The faces she saw were not full of the irrational and animalistic disgust that filled so many Naturals in their treatment to Coordinators, rather they were anger filled with grief, confusion, and frustration. These people were not wroth with Talia over her genes, rather it was due to her uniform and the actions that ZAFT had inflicted upon Zeon.
"Outside of the heavy political differences that came within a one world government, there are many societal differences between the Universal Century and the Cosmic Era. The first of which is that there was never a George Glenn and as such there is no concept of Coordination."
The words that Dozle Zabi said during his brief attempt to make peace with the fleet continued to ring in Talia's head as she sat glumly within her cell. In another timeline humanity had never unleashed the Pandora's Box that was Coordination. Since there were no Coordinators that existed, there was no reason to hate what had until just recently for Zeon been nothing more than fiction.
The fact that Dozle tried to initiate a peaceful first contact and open relations with the PLANTs gave Talia some sliver of hope that maybe there was still a chance for peace with this new Natural nation. Dozle had said that the Universal Century had gene therapy, so maybe they were trying to reach Coordination but didn't have the miracle formula that was George Glenn's DNA. Were there people within Zeon who would openly embrace Coordinators and point to them as the future? Or was it a nation full of potential Blue Cosmos recruits who would see the Cosmic Era as a timeline tainted by the genetically augmented?
Talia was left to ponder this question for a while before her guards opened her cell door, the first time they had done so since delivering a light dinner. They motioned to Talia to get up from her bed. After she did one of the guards moved forward and placed handcuffs on her, with Talia then being motioned to follow the lead guard. When Talia asked where she was going, all she received was the simple reply "Questioning". Expecting this, Talia then went silent and moved along with her current fate.
If there was a positive, the fact that they only placed handcuffs on her was somewhat of a warm sign. With Coordinators being physically superior to Naturals, it was a common belief by the later that Coordinators were beings of super strength from comic books, that they could bend steel and lift cars with ease. There were many Coordinator criminals who were restrained through transfer chemical injections that made their bodies limp thanks to heavy doses, while their cells had several centimeters of steel aligning all walls.
Such a belief was nothing more than an outrageous superstition in truth. While there were some Coordinators who were capable of such feats, they were a high rarity among the overall population with most Coordinators merely having the bodies of professional Natural athletes. Capable of strong feats to be sure, but nowhere near the hysteria that they were suspected of.
Talia herself was far extraordinary with her max bench press being 150 kilograms. There was absolutely nothing that she could do to escape these handcuffs unless she had an amazing moment of adrenaline, even then Coordinator bodies were still made of flesh, and as such she would be easily struck down by bullets while attempting to escape.
After eight minutes of travel, Talia was led to what appeared to be an interrogation room, with her being forced to sit in silence at a metal table for a minute until the door opened once more, revealing the titanic figure that was Dozle Zabi.
If Talia had to guess, Dozle probably wanted to make an intimidating entrance meant to scare Talia into cooperating. Unfortunately such a move failed when attempting to enter, Dozle hit the doorframe head first.
"Motherfu-! Every. Single. Time!" Dozle cursed, then muttering heavily under his breath, being completely oblivious to Talia's presence for a short period while he nursed his forehead.
Dozle's appearance was in a way quite amazing to Talia as she had never before witnessed someone with gigantism before, something that could have easily been removed had he been born a Coordinator. Dozle's large muscular frame seemed to be the perfect fit for Blue Cosmos' propaganda of Coordinators being brutish monsters. Fortunately his rather cumbersome entrance had removed a high chance of Talia being scared by looks alone.
Once Dozle's pain had receded, he then seemed to remember the purpose of his visit and gazed upon Talia with embarrassment, scratching his mullet at the same time.
Wanting to segway into a hopefully productive conversation, Talia did her best to remain stoic and attempted to initiate dialogue. "Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi, I presume?"
The mention of his title caused Dozle to lose his awkwardness and shift his attitude to a rigid and professional manner. "That is correct. And you are Talia Gladys, the captain of the ship that Char captured." Dozle said, sliding into the chair opposing Talia. In his left hand he brought onto the table a large bulky tablet, something that Talia would have guessed to be a suitcase where it not for the visible screen.
"Sir, I would like to ask if you have read about the Stockholm Convention that we have currently been fighting under in our war with the Alliance. I know that Zeon is not a signatory to the agreement, but I sincerely hope that since you are now residents of the Cosmic Era that you may follow the Convention's rules and guidelines." Talia said, hoping that she was not being too brazen with the Zabi.
Instead she observed what appeared to be a pleased smile make its way onto Dozle's lips. "I haven't had enough time until your people unjustly attacked," Dozle began with Talia wincing at the mention of the battle and the tone Dozle used for it, "to read up on the finer details of the Cosmic Era's history, so I have no idea of the existence of this Stockholm Convention, though it has been mentioned by some of your peers." Dozle said, alerting to Talia that she was not the first to be interrogated.
"The Stockholm Convention is basically an update of the classical Geneva Convention, which I presume exists in your time unless the divergence between our worlds was before the 20th century. The reason the convention took place in 44 CE was to mainly prevent the atrocities of the Reconstruction War, particuarly the Equatorial-East Asian war from repeating, creating a comprehensive series of rules for how to deal with insurgents, and most importantly how to wage war in space." Talia informed with Dozle nodding along.
"From what I can gather so far, our timelines mainly converged sometime in the 1980's of Anno Domini, so we're not too alien from each other aside from the existence of Coordinators like yourself. For over a century the world fought under the nominal influence of Geneva until the first year of the Universal Century when the Federation created the Brussels Convention. This was mainly a legal gathering to stipulate how the Earth Federation would fight the nation-states that had refused to surrender their sovereignty during the Unification Wars. Since the Federation was proclaimed to be the only legal human government, then its opponents were rogue states and as such an argument could have been made for abandoning the Geneva Convention entirely, though fortunately the Liberals pushed for certain rights and rules to be recognized.
For now until we can force ZAFT and the Alliance to recognize our existence, we'll treat the both of you with the Geneva convention." Dozle said. Talia sighed in relief at the words, though she did not hear how Dozle mentioned the Alliance, alluding to the Battle at Pezun.
"Truth be told, I am rather pleased that you have enough sense to recognize our existence. A couple of your comrades were still in denial at first, believing that we were some Alliance unit that they had surrendered to." Dozle said, with Talia lowering her head slightly in shame.
"I presume this is why you attacked us despite my efforts to open up dialogue? Because you believed we were part of the Alliance?" Dozle asked harshly, with Talia nodding in response.
"If the reverse had occurred and we had somehow been transported to the Universal Century, would you first believe that we were a secret Federation cluster or a nation from another timeline composed of transhumans?" Talia asked, with Dozle simply responding with silence.
"I know my words are practically meaningless, but I am truly sorry that we were lead into this conflict and I was forced to take the lives of those who served under you. Up until the very end, I had thought that your fleet were forces of the Earth Alliance, that I was fighting not only for my life, but for my son back home and for all Coordinators like us. I don't know what Zeon went through in the Universal Century, but for us this isn't just a simple war of independence, it's one of survival, for the existence of our race. An Alliance fleet with an asteroid and mobile suits seemingly parked on our doorstep would have spelled the end for us. Thus we attacked, and so many lives were lost needlessly." Talia said.
Looking at Dozle, she saw a change in the demeanor of the man in front of her, a softening of his face which hardened into something that seemed to be respect.
"I see, so you and most of your comrades were simply pawns in your government's plan, with your leaders either entirely ignorant or simply tricked themselves into believing that we were the Alliance?"
"I'd like to think better of the men and women we elected into office along with those who lead ZAFT, but I have no explanation for why they never responded to your communications, so for the moment it appears so." Talia said, internally cursing the idiots who had charged in blindly to this great mistake.
"Captain, as a prince of Zeon whose people have suffered so long under the boot of the Federation, I sympathize with people like yourself who fight for their independence from gravity's tyranny. If you had not attacked us without reason, then perhaps we would have greeted you warmly as fellow Spacenoids in arms. Still, for as much as I despise the Federation, I would never once think that in defeat that they would wipe us from existence. Why do you use such extremes?"
Talia was puzzled by Dozle's statement. While she was aware by his earlier comments that the Universal Century had no Coordinators, surely he must have held some innate prejudice or fear towards transhumans? Such an attitude would explain why no one had dared created a George Glenn in their timeline.
"Admiral, if I may ask, what was your timeline's attitude towards biological augmentation and transhumanism?"
Dozle rested his head on his shoulder, thinking of how to respond. "I don't really know to be honest, that's because we never really got anywhere near towards the existence of people like you. I'd say the closest we ever got towards transhumanism was the existence of human clones early in the Universal Century, though the entire Earth sphere was pretty adamant against allowing its existence so the Federation cracked down hard on its practice and there's never been any mainstream movements since.
Perhaps crushing down such an advance prevented anyone from bothering to create augmented humans from birth like you Coordinators, but I don't think anyone really bothered. With decent wealth and proper medical care anyone can live to be a hundred, cloned organs and gene therapy can easily get rid of most diseases so we have no great viral threat. We've made rapid strides in technology in the past century so there never was a necessity to augment our mental capabilities. Perhaps it just never happened by accident, like how your timeline never discovered fusion despite its stabilization being created in the early 21st century for us."
While she was curious about how 21st century Naturals discovered the concept when Coordinators had spent half a century failing to grasp it, Talia instead decided to explain the conditions of the PLANTs and Coordinators in general.
"While I'm not so hateful as to believe that all Naturals are evil and out to destroy us, it's a sad fact that the majority either are such people or apathetic to the actions of those who seek to destroy us. Ever since George Glenn revealed himself to the world, countless people have sought to reverse the clock. There are countless reasons for our persecution such as our existence being some sin against God, a fear we'll take over and rule the world, jealousy over an inability to be born with the same abilities, an inability to cope with the changing times; whatever the reason we have suffered great pain across the globe with a majority of us being exiled to PLANT so that we could serve at their leisure and not desolate their blue and pure world." Talia said, sneering at Blue Cosmos' infamous slogan.
"Even in nations where we are lucky enough to have achieved some semblance of integration and normality such as Scandinavia and Orb, hate still follows and will find its way to take as many of us down as possible. The PLANTs are all we have left at this point, if we lose them, then there's no alternative accept to keep running away into the solar system."
While Dozle was doing his best to have a poker face, Talia could notice some signs of sympathy showing, a hopeful sign if there ever was one.
"So, are you now going to interrogate me for ZAFT's military secrets?" Talia said, fearful of what was to come.
To her surprise, Dozle shook his head. "No, at least not now, that'll probably be left to Kycilia's men. What I want to do here, and what I attempted to do with some of your colleagues, is to get a clear picture of who it was that attacked Solomon earlier today. In return I want you to receive an understanding of what Zeon is, our history and who we are. The purpose of this is so that I can bring an end to this damned war, and you people will be crucial in this once you have taken a visit to the homeland."
"I beg your pardon?" Talia asked, shocked at Dozle's words.
"In a few days time your ships and the crews in them will be escorted to the Principality where there will be proper facilities to keep your people as prisoners until the conflict settles. You and the other six captains however shall be undertaking a tour of the homeland, so that you can see who you fought against. Before then you shall learn about the Universal Century on this ebook." Dozle said, gesturing to the data pad he brought with him, "Once you are aware of who we are, all that's needed is for you to see Zeon to believe."
"What would be the importance of showing us Zeon?"
"For whatever reason, your leaders refuse to believe in our existence, that we are an Alliance super fleet. Once you have seen Zeon, your testimony along with other methods of proof will be sent to PLANT where they shall understand the true nature of what has taken place. If your leaders then decide to still believe we are the Alliance, this war shall continue to be fought until I am pointing a gun at the heads of your supreme council and make them believe that we exist."
April 2nd, 70 CE. Ferbuarius Two. PLANT. Third Person POV
When the PLANTs were created by the sponsor nations, each city was forced to center itself around a single type of industry. While this type of organization was completely nonsensical to capitalist economics, it served a hidden purpose designed to keep the PLANTs in check. By having each colony's economy be solely centered on a single type of product, no PLANT could ever truly be self-sufficient and isolate themselves from the rest of the Earth sphere. With the prohibition of trade with other nations outside of the sponsor states, this essentially gave the Big Three a monopoly over the PLANT's economy.
When the PLANT's were divided, Februarius was chosen as the medical colonies. While these PLANTs had some of the cluster's highest quality infrastructure due to the sponsor states wanting to exploit the Coordinator's intelligence to cure their diseases, Februarius was the second least populated out of all the PLANTs, only above Junius.
The reason for this lack of vitality towards Februarius was due to a general sense of apathy from Coordinators towards medicine. It was not so much that Coordinators were ignorant or distasteful of medicine, as it was only through the wonders of modern genetics that they came to exist, rather it was due to a perceived lack of need to engage in and learn of medicine.
To many Coordinators, the Glenn blueprint, as they referred to the genome sequence given by their spiritual father George Glenn, was completely perfect with no need of improvement or expansion. With a Coordinator rarely getting any form of disease over the course of their life, the only form of healthcare that Coordinators would need would be from physical trauma. With this attitude, to many Coordinators a hospital was a place only fit for modifying their children's embryo's or taking care of injuries.
That was not to say there were no Coordinators interested in medicine, as hundreds of thousands of citizens within Februarius dedicated their lives to the noble pursuit of healthcare, with their crowning achievement being the creation of the S-2 vaccine.
Unfortunately, this great achievement would only serve to make medicine a profession of scorn among the PLANT's as despite the fact that they saved billions of lives, most Naturals on Earth still regarded Coordinators with hatred at worst and mild dislike at best. To many Coordinators born in the 50's and 60's, they asked themselves why they should care about being doctors when Naturals didn't want to have their lives be saved by them.
This unfortunate attitude caused many Coordinators to be blind to one of the necessities of Februarius, that being its care and services to Misfit Coordinators, a term that referred to tens of thousands of Coordinators who through complications in the coordination process, came out with physical or mental deformities.
Usually these misfits would be created due to black market coordination methods that became popularized after the passing of the Turin protocol. Without the process being conducted by proper geneticists or having the necessary equipment from a modern hospital, the coordination would usually undergo some sort of flaw that would leave the resulting child physicall or mentally disabled despite their augmentations.
To be a misfit was to live a life of sorrow, as misfits usually received intense hatred from Naturals for their existence despite them being less skilled than the average Naturals, while to a number of their fellow Coordinators they were marks of shame, mistakes that should not have been brought into the world and had no place within their society.
Inside of the Februarius Two Colonial Hospital, a doctor Shoto Aikawa looked over the file of a certain misfit within his office, that of a ZAFT pilot named Riika Sheder.
A half German half Japanese Coordinator who immigrated to the PLANTs from Munich, Riika was born with complete blindness thanks to the faulty process of Coordination inflicted upon her, with it only being a miracle that the rest of her physiology was relatively healthy. While Riika would be able to see with the usage of a cognito visor, this device would only present her vision in black and white, with minor amounts of static as if it were being presented through an old video device.
Against all odds, Riika preserved through life and became an MS pilot of ZAFT, though her disability forced her to be stationed in the Februarius Guard, making her a virtual reserve member with no hopes of frontline combat.
As her doctor for the past two years, Shoto had until now a spotless record with Riika, with herself having spotless records on her tri-annual checkups along with no fortunate harm on her vision and usage of the cognito visor. This perfect bill of health ended yesterday when Riika's squadmates found her to be suffering from a siezure in the middle of the night, then proceed into a comatose state.
To add even more bizarreness to this medical anomaly, twenty minutes ago Shoto had received an email from Februarius Director Gilbert Durandal that had warned about the influx of nearly 3,000 cases across the PLANTs were all patients who were admitted into the hospital suffered similar symptoms of either siezures or panic attacks, then promptly went comatose, all of which happened at or around Midnight on April 1st.
In all of his years of practicing medicine, Shoto had no plausible explanation for what was occurring. There was no such thing as a disease or condition that acted in clockwork and the dispersion of all of the victims made any rational cause implausible. The closest Shoto had was that maybe they were the victims of a bio attack, yet all of these victims were spread across the PLANTs and no one they were in contact with seemed to be infected.
Right now Durandal had ordered for all of the victims to be brought to Februarius discreetly and for non-personnel to be told that these were random and isolated events. With the war looking to enter into some climax, causing mass panic over a bio attack or pandemic when there was zero evidence to the cause would only be damaging to the nation as a whole. While Shoto preferred for treatment to take precedence, he could understand the logic of Durandal's order.
Fortunately Shoto would soon get his answer when his office phone range.
"Doctor Aikawa speaking."
"Sir, miss Sheder has awoken and is now fully conscious." Said one of his nurses.
"Good news, I'll see her in a few minutes." Shoto was about to hang up the phone before the nurse delivered more information.
"Sir, I would ask that you come quickly. Not only is the patient awake, but she claims to be able to not only visually perceive her surroundings without the visor, but she's also claiming to seecolors." The nurse said in a tone of slight panic.
Shoto's body froze at the information. "What, she can see? Is this some kind of joke, her optical nerves are completely dead, no coma would be able to grant her vision."
"Sir, I am completely serious. I just finished an eye exam on her and she passed with flying colors, just as well as any regular person would." The nurse said.
Upon hearing this Shoto slammed the phone down and briskly made his way towards Riika's room to see the situation with his own eyes.
Like most Coordinators, Shoto was an atheist and as such he did not believe in the concept of miracles, an impossibility with the world being run by logic and science. Yet what he heard could be described as nothing more than a miracle, an impossibility which simply could not have occurred.
After two minutes Shoto barged into the room, two nurses were present by the bedside while an excited and jubilant Riika met his gaze, without her visor.
"Doctor Aikawa, is that you? It's so good to finally see you without that stupid visor. You look the same but you seem so alive with color. The color of your sweater, it's green right? And your paints are brown, they're dark but they don't look like black?" Asked Riika, who was letting out tears of joy over her new gift of sight.
Hearing her words caused Shoto to enter a complete state of shock. He was indeed wearing those colors, but to be more specific he sported a lime green sweater and a light brown near khaki pair of paints.
"Riika, how..how do you understand the concept of color? You're seeing for the first time, you shouldn't understand anything besides black and white!" Shoto didn't mean for the words to come across harsh, but what he said was completely true as even if she did completely regain her eyesight, she should not have been able to understand colors more than an infant.
"I don't know how, I just know. Something inside of me, it's telling me what all of the colors are and I know I'm right. I don't care how, all I know is that I can see!" Riika shouted in excitement.
Little did Riika know at the time that her restored eyesight was not through any biological means, and that it was not a miracle in the traditional sense. Riika Sheder was only able to see thanks to her newfound abilities as a Newtype.
A/N: Hello everyone, Kaiser Chris here! Sorry for the long wait, though with school winding down and the lack of any travel outside with the quarantine, things should be picking back up soon. I got a lot of messages asking for my wellbeing, and just to let everyone know I and my family are healthy, though I appreciate the concern.
Firstly in this chapter we have the aftermath of Solomon in the eyes of the council and them being revealed of Zeon's existence, something that was tragically kept from them due to the stupidity of a few. I know it looks like the council is an erratic group of people who can't get anything done, but you have to remember that in their POV the Alliance just showed up with a fleet full of mobile suits and fusion nukes and can now strike the PLANTs and probably win at any moment. Fighting for the survival of your nation and race makes people irrational with heavy pressure. Any other day or circumstance and the council could get through this with better grace and clarity, something that might happen soon with Siegel now open to Zeon's existence and looking to take charge again.
Next we have Talia and Dozle's talk, which was my favorite part of the chapter and something I saw as a nice exchange between the two on their universe's outlook and the tragedy of Solomon. Now that Talia knows about Zeon she truly regrets what she did, and Dozle is well aware that it wasn't her fault but those above her. In this case Talia truly was just following orders.
Lastly we have an important development, the beginning of Riika Sheder's new life as a Newtype and the birth of her powers. For those who don't know, Riika Sheder is a character from Destiny Astray who was originally meant to be the pilot of the Gaia Gundam before it was hijacked by Phantom Pain. She's unique among Coordinators for having been blind from birth due to complications. However now that she's a Newtype she can now see normally, though this technically didn't heal her sight and using it has drawbacks that will be explored later. Riika will serve as a critical point of view for Newtype Coordinators and how they're handling their new or discovered potential and how they choose to move forward. She'll be a recurring character moving forward so expect more of her in the future.
The next chapter will come after the next Gihren's Glory update and will primarily focus on Zero Squadron as Mu and a couple of other Newtypes talk about their experiences. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!