Part 17: Mission 7 (Rescue Route) - Chaotic World - Part 1
Here we are with the Minerva team. With a handful of our Supers up top, Iczer-1 and Goh are now tied as our top ace, with Reiji one kill beneath them.
I spend some of our cash giving Ichitaka some boosts in everything, plus a bit of HP to Shizuru and Tetsuya Kouji.
Our losses shuffled our teams around some. Here’s how we’re going:
Ichitaka/Miu
Jeeg/Kyo
Yagyuu
Yamashita/Tetsuya
Iczer-1/Shizuru
Goh/Mira
Reiji/Shizuna
Yagyuu can handle herself well enough to fly solo and the upcoming enemies aren’t that hardy.
Off we go.
The Minerva’s just entered the atmosphere and reached flight altitude, Meyrin unable to give Talia a read from the sensors – the falling debris’ generating too much interference.
Regardless, she asks them to run laser and heat sensors to try and find Shinn, Athrun and the LOTUS unit. Only thing we can do now is hope that they’re managing to descend safely.
*Alarm!*
: Hrk, did I take too much damage? I can’t move either of my feet!: This isn’t good… I can’t even see where they went after that shockwave. And I don’t think I can make it to the ship with just my directional thrusters…*Beep!*
: Athrun!: Shinn?!: Hang in there – we’re coming to get you!: Don’t! Not even the Impulse’s thrusters are strong enough to handle two mechs entering the atmosphere together!: Why do you always gotta be like that, huh?!: What do you want me to say, then?: "Get me outta here, dammit!" – or something like that!: Hah… You'd really rather I said that?: It was just an example, alright?*Zooom!*
: Sorry I’m late! My subpilot came down with a bit of a fever…!
: I’m… sorry… I’m not quite… used to this…: Don’t worry – just get some rest. I’ll handle everything.: The three of us’re back together, so now you better quit grumbling, Athrun.: I’m managing to keep the field stable enough. Everything’s good here, so let’s go!
Back to the Minerva, Meyrin pings them nearby – everyone’s still safe.
Talia tells Arthur to direct them with their signal lamp. We need to get them onto the Minerva lest they crash into the ocean.
And we make it, thankfully. Athrun’s in one piece, much to Cagalli’s relief – was she worried? “Worried, who? Not at… well, maybe a little… OK, a lot! What the hell were you thinking, taking an MS out there just like that, you huge idiot?!” Well, he’s very apologetic at least, as is Shinn for worrying Luna and Rey. Things got a bit dicey out there but the Impulse helped him make it through.
Just the Impulse, Rey pokes him? No, the LOTUS unit also helped a bunch. Speaking of, Ichitaka is off in a sectioned part of the hangar – even if the Minerva’s slated to work with the UN, the situation isn’t exactly one where he could walk freely around the ship. Hell, Lunamaria also points out that if the PLANTs are deemed enemies of Earth, they might end up having to fight us.
Shinn knows what she’s getting at: it was Coordinator hands behind the Junius Seven drop. The PLANTs were finally starting to be accepted by the rest of the world but that’s likely to mess things up a lot.
The rest of LOTUS soon meets up with Ichitaka and Yamashita was very worried – and appalled that he went against an order from Reiji. Not like he could’ve just turned the other cheek there but, more importantly, he wants to know if there isn’t anyone around here who could take a look at Alice. She pretty much crashed under the previous strain.
Athrun’s nearby and is rather surprised to find out that she’s an android. He thanks Ichitaka for the assist out there and thinks he might be able to help Alice out a bit – he may not look the part but he’s rather tech-savvy.
As the two of them leave for a bit, Goh ponders the son of Patrick Zala, the previous PLANT chairman who sought to destroy all of the Naturals with GENESIS (a colony-sized gamma ray). Kyo remembers the terrorists yelling how the guy was in the right and, indeed, Athrun being the son of said man would make it likely for others to tag him as an enemy now.
Cagalli will not stand for it – she saw how hard Athrun fought to stop this from happening and is willing to testify to sort this mess out. Shinn sighs at the Athha’s stupidity but Rey is quick to shush him. He sighs that he wanted to avoid our groups interacting with one another anymore than necessary but that’s obviously not flying now.
Following a quick introduction, he explains that what Shinn wanted to say is that while this might’ve been a terrorist act, the culprits were still Coordinators. Rey can already imagine what the ex-Earth Alliance folks may be bellowing about the PLANTs now. Thus, this isn’t merely Athrun’s problem.
Shizuru and Yagyuu understand, knowing that they’ll use this to try and remove the PLANTs from the UN and/or push the more hotheaded people, of which there are plenty, on a quest for payback. Worst comes to worst, Izuna fears another war might break out – despite the fact that humanity already has enough problems to deal with without us turning on each other.
Cagalli is sure that if she just explains everything, the people will understand what happened – she, Orb’s Representative, saw it all with her own eyes. It will NOT trigger another war. “You actually think the world’ll shift over just your idealistic bunk?!” Shinn yells and Cagalli counters right away: “Better than trying to shift it without any ideals whatsoever!”
Thankfully, Alice walks in right then and apologizes for the worry she caused. She’s 100% back now – no problems at all! Thank goodness Athrun was around, as her thought processes were on the verge of shorting out for good. It was no trouble, of course, especially considering he owed them. Besides, he only helped cool her off and reboot her systems.
He soon notices Shinn and Cagalli glaring at each other, though Shinn won’t say what’s what; all he does is grunt that Athrun could do way better than being bodyguard to someone like her. Right then, Meyrin calls Cagalli over to the bridge as Talia wishes to speak with her. She sets off, but not before asking Athrun to come see her later.
Miu rather saddened that things are going south as she figured the Naturals and Coordinators had chosen to coexist. Unfortunately, says Yagyuu, there are also people who don’t wish for that to happen – probably a truckload of those on the Naturals’ side, too.
Indeed, Goh sighs that the status quo between the Earth and the Colonies might still be the same as it was after the incident three years ago. What incident? When some Colony-aligned Gundams destroyed a shuttle with the leader of UN’s pacifist faction aboard. With him gone, the UN was unable to stop the rise to power of the militaristic Earth Alliance.
While today the event is known to have been a tragic accident, back then it was taken as a declaration of war from the Colonies. The conflict was set fully in motion with the Bloody Valentine Incident – the nuclear attack on Junius Seven. That’s war, sighs Shizuru, with progressively worse events happening as both sides lose their sanity.
Still, Kenji remembers that both sides lost their kill-crazy leaders and, thanks to Relena, managed to settle their differences. What changed? Athrun says that the PLANTs’ entry into the new UN was mostly due to, one, the people being sick of war after witnessing the showdown at Libra and, two, the appearance of the Mechabeasts – new enemies to fight.
Nations across the world were broken in more ways than one after the conflict and no one could stand by themselves. That was then, though, and Tetsuya Kouji says, after the two years of military buildup, there are plenty of folks who wanna settle the score for good.
Shinn for one isn’t about to let that hell break loose again and Rey says Durandal is dealing with the UN precisely to avoid it coming to that. Ichitaka, for one, knows Cagalli saw what we did and figures she’ll help set things right.
Shinn sniffs at him putting any stock on an Athha – poor Ichitaka – and stomps away. And without even a word of thanks! Rey asks Ichitaka to forgive him as there’re some special circumstances at work here; you see, Shinn lost his parents and sister when the Earth Alliance attacked Orb in the previous war. That’s why he has such a problem with the Athhas.
A bit later, down by sea level, Meyrin STILL can’t get in touch with anyone, not even Orb or JUDA – Junius Seven’s debris have raised too thick a dust cloud. Nothing we can do about that but, if we can get close enough to Orb, Cagalli figures we’ll have other ways of getting in touch with them.
Sounds good to Talia and she orders the Minerva to set out towards Orb as soon as they’ve finished their checks. Cagalli apologizes for having to take a lift from us but Talia knows how important she is to her country – she’d best return ASAP. Reiji sees no issues with that, especially considering we need to take stock of our situation before deciding what to do.
If anything, Cagalli promises to make sure both the Minerva and LOTUS are well accommodated as a way of repaying our efforts in Earth’s defense.
By Djibril’s office, he’s on the phone with another Logos member and relaying some very interesting footage sent by the Phantom Pain (Neo and co.): what really happened with the fall on Junius Seven. More than enough to set the world in motion.
Djibril certainly didn’t expect such a card to land right in his lap but he’s more than willing to play it. No one who sees this footage will remain merciful and their indignation will forge an unbreakable bond between the people and Logos. “This time, we will slaughter them down to the very last – for our pure, blue world,” Djibril proclaims.
The other Logos guy’ll leave him to handle that but there’s still the matter of the Katou Organization, Kiriyama Heavy Industries and NERV. The Logos member on the phone has already called dibs on the Far East business; Djibril argues that they should leverage this opportunity to get rid of any opposition, especially since their work’ll soon be over.
And, truth be told, he thinks the Katou Organization should’ve been destroyed, like, yesterday but the Logos guy isn’t budging: he said he’ll take care of the Far East business and trusts Djibril knows what that means.
At length Djibril agrees, proclaiming he never once thought to oppose him. With that, they both leave to enjoy some upcoming fireworks.
Cut to Orb, Yuna Seiran’s being informed that the ship with Cagalli’ll be arriving soon. The brand new ZAFT model, yes? Quite the troubling ride she decided to return with. Still, they can’t well give the cold shoulder to the vessel that escorted their head of estate… for now.
For now? Oh, here she comes, so off goes the soldier to ready her reception.
At the Minerva’s briefing room, Isabelle is relaying news of the damage caused by Junius Seven (Tsubaki’s rather impressed with the hardworking reporter). Several cities across the globe were hit with fragments of the colony and the damage has been catastrophic – the entire planet is in a state of chaos, Izuna sees.
Still, Rey says that it could’ve been a whole lot worse if Junius Seven fell without us breaking it down soon. Right then, Isabelle reports breaking news: Durandal has released a press statement.
“It is with tremendous sorrow that the PLANTs hear of this unprecedented event – I, myself, am left speechless face the disaster that struck the world over. I understand that you may feel these wounds to cut too deep, and the sorrow to be unending, but I beseech you, our friends from Earth: pull through and overcome this dreadful day. We, as always, stand ready to help in any way the unimaginable distress you face,” he says.
The hell? He didn’t even explain what happened up there or all the work we did! Kenji isn’t happy but Goh figures this was hardly the time to announce any of that.
Arthur runs in and reports that we’ve been given permission to land in Orb – LOTUS included. Kenji is especially happy since he’s hungry as no one’s business. What is Orb’s traditional dish, even? Tsubaki has no idea, but, whatever it is, Kenji’ll be all over it.
He runs off – Tsubaki going with to make sure he doesn’t do anything crazy – and don’t even listen when Arthur protests that he’s got more stuff to tell. Kyo’ll relay it to them later, but the gist is that we won’t be staying in Orb for long: just enough to repair the Minerva and LOTUS’ units. Afterwards, it’s straight to Japan.
Comms are still down, so we couldn’t get in touch with JUDA; from what Arthur’s heard, our heading towards Japan was Reiji’s call. Rey wonders if the Minerva can afford a detour like that but, apparently, this was Talia’s decision as well as Cagalli’s request.
Either way, that’s all for the briefing so Arthur suggests we enjoy our break to its fullest.
Cut to Orb’s governmental palace, Cagalli’s getting some distressing news: the other nations of Earth have decided to form a new alliance without the PLANTs. Right now. When huge chunks of the world are in dire need of an organized relief effort.
Yuna says now is precisely the time for that, as the new treaty includes a clause for everyone to help with that. Indeed, this is all being done in the interest of efficiency – to unite all of Earth’s nations in the interest of rebuilding the damage caused. Why exclude the PLANTs, then, especially since Cagalli saw them help break down Junius Seven.
Yuna knows but asks her if she could stand before the countless people who lost their homes, their loved ones, and tell them: “we know you’ve suffered much but we should still remain friends with the PLANTs”? Cagalli has no answer to that.
It won’t be long before word gets out that Coordinators were behind the colony drop. When it happens, Orb will need to decide which path it wishes to tread. Cagalli should think carefully on that.
By the coast of Onogoro Island…
: (Dad, mom, Mayu… I’ve come home.)
: Tweet, tweet!
: … (Kira): Hm…? That’s… it’s a memorial for the dead?: By the looks of it, yeah. I don’t really know for sure, though…: It’s my first time actually coming here, really…: Are you a local?: No… but I did lose many dear friends in that war.: …: The flowers are finally blooming…but they’ll wither away in the spray of the breaking waves…: …Guess that means there’s no fooling them.: Hm?: No matter how beautiful the flowers bloom, people would just wipe them out again…: Are you…?: Sorry… for saying weird stuff like that.: No, it’s not weird. People really should stop repeating the same mistakes – they should strive to create a world where these flowers could bloom forever.: Yeah.: … Well, I have to get going. Sorry if I bothered you.: (What sad eyes he’s got… his heart must also have some deep scars…)
Back at Cagalli’s, she wants Athrun to head back to the PLANTs. She couldn’t persuade the other chiefs – they haven’t a whole lot of goodwill even for the Minerva. Orb is on the verge of forsaking its founding ideals and, if that happens, she wants at least him to be out there, fighting to protect the Earth Sphere.
In truth, Athrun had already given this idea some thought. He wants to meet with Durandal and see if he can do SOMETHING to help the world in any way. If things are allowed to continue unabated, humanity’ll lose sight of everything it’s done these past years.
Cagalli apologizes for putting him in this situation and Athrun’ll be leaving soon, having already done the paperwork to be replaced. Mind, there are still plenty of loose ends – some which he wants to tie up, some he doesn’t – but he needs to get going. Cagalli will only tell him to be careful and stay in touch, while Athrun wishes her to stay strong down here.
Cut to the Minerva’s briefing room, some time later, the talk on everyone’s mouths is the news of the Earth Alliance being reformed. One thing Saotome finds odd about all this is that movie showing that Coordinators were behind Junius Seven’s drop – where the hell did it come from?
Mira doesn’t know either, considering the only people who even knew about the terrorists doing their thing were us and the few ZAFT folk involved in the operation. Think there’s a traitor who leaked the intel? Who knows, but the fact is the video had a tremendous effect – Durandal’s attempted cover-up has backfired massively and the people are very angry.
Already the Alliance is proclaiming the event to be an act of war from the PLANTs and Ichitaka wonders if the UN can’t step in to calm things down. Nope, since the UN’s power players are precisely the nations that joined the Earth Alliance – they don’t care about the parliament’s approval or not. And with the public opinion being the way it is… yeah.
Things are interrupted when the alarm starts blaring, Meyrin declaring yellow alert. Talia gets on the mic and says intel just came in that the newly reformed Earth Alliance has decided to execute a nuclear strike against the PLANTs!
Goh’s appalled at how sudden it is and Reiji agrees – this is moving too fast. Most likely these people were only waiting for an opportunity to start a war again (Shinn isn’t happy). Meyrin then reports an encoded message from a “tiger” and Talia takes it. The PLANTs are already mobilizing and, by the look of things, Orb will soon do the same.
Is that intel trustworthy? Well, things are a bit too crazy for Talia to be 100% sure of who’s actually trustworthy but she thinks it is. With that in mind, despite our lack of orders, she commands the Minerva t set sail immediately.
Reiji wants everyone to get ready for a very likely battle but Talia is loath to have a neutral force like LOTUS get involved in this conflict. So she wants us to make ready to leave the ship if things go south.
By the Orb Army’s HQ, Yuna’s getting reports of the Minerva’s departure. He was expecting it and figures a speedy ship like that won’t take long to reach the designated area.
The officer reports that they’ve already gotten in touch with a certain group and preparations are finished. Good, Yuna’s eager to see how this’ll play out.
Mission 7 (Rescue Route) – Chaotic World
The Minerva’s just about to leave Orb’s soil when Meyrin detects heat signals up ahead – Earth Alliance MSs, waiting for us smack-dab in the middle of Orb’s coastal waters. Worse, a bevy of Orb troops immediately flank us. Yuna tells the soldiers to relax and just do exactly as instructed.
The guys ain’t looking too happy but Yuna says that’s a ZAFT ship – an enemy of pretty much any Earth nation. Seems to Talia that Orb’s decided to make a small offering out of us and commands the ship’s MSs to get ready for combat. As for LOTUS, she wants us to get ready to launch and leave.
Talia tries getting in touch with the Alliance troops, saying the UN’s personal squadron is aboard and requesting that hostilities wait until we’ve left the ship… Or not – the Minerva gets blasted straight away.
Talking’s obviously not getting us anywhere, so Talia orders Shinn, Luna and Rey deployed. Shinn, of course, is pretty mad with what he’s seeing: “Is this how Orb does things now?! You let so many of us die in the last war just to uphold your ideals and now you’re going to throw those very ideals into the trash?!”
Trowa, with the Alliance, spots ZAFT’s prototype up ahead and figures this’ll make for a good opportunity to see what the new Mobile Armor’s capable of. Moreover, he needs to score some points with the army in order to close in on his target.
Luna recognizes Trowa’s unit as a Gundam and wonders what it’s doing with the Alliance. The thing’s loaded with a ton of guns and Rey knows it won’t be easy for them alone to break through the enemy line. Talia apologizes but we’ll have to make do with just these few troops.
Destroy everything, don’t lose the Mineva or Impulse. This one’s on the easier side because the Alliance is very much willing to hang back and let the Orb soldiers get wrecked by us first, so focus on the nearby troops.
As things pick up and the pincer attack breaks, start heading south and try to bunch your guys under command auras. Trowa and the new MA – the Zamza-Zah –are the bigger threats and, FYI, they’ve MAPW attacks so don’t keep your units bunched up. If anything, they’re not too accurate.
At the very least the standard Orb M1 Astrays and Murasames are kinda crappy.
: The hell is Orb thinking, siding with the Earth Alliance?!: Can the Athhas not take care of anything?!
Shinn: ”You’ll get no mercy from me if you’re at the Alliance’s camp!”
Just keep your guys inside Talia’s command aura.
: They already had this many troops lying in wait… does this mean Orb intentionally leaked that intel?
: What’s wrong with you?! Are you really accusing us of being buddies with those terrorists?!: Actually, they’re didn’t even give us time to get a word in edgewise…!
Rey falls just short of a kill but Luna brings it home.
Finally, Talia’ll finish what Shinn started.
: Our path of retreat is cut off, so we’ll need to break through their lines and then escape!
Bam.
Enemy Phase!
And, of course, Talia and her high HP make for a very tempting target: she gets jumped by a ton of things, scoring there kills and weakening many others. Luna manages to bag a kill, too.
Player Phase!
The ZAFT forces are getting overwhelmed and Kenji wants to get out there to help. Again, Talia says she won’t bring us into this battle but Kenji doesn’t want to sit on his hands when the other side started this. Plus, the Minerva crew tried their hardest to save Earth and Ichitaka really doesn’t care for how these guys attacked without even giving them a chance to explain what happened.
Shizuna is also plenty pissed with Orb for pulling this stunt – she’s very much as outraged as Shinn – and while Izuna doesn’t want to think that Cagalli went back on her word, Orb’s actions are certainly a departure from the norm.
Iczer-1 has an idea what happened: “I can feel Cagalli’s sorrow… I think things moved past the point where she could contain them by herself.” Goh is more pragmatic, saying there’ll be no one to stop this insane war if we all get dropped here.
If everyone’s on the same page, then Reiji already knows what to do and makes a loud announcement through all channels: “The Minerva’s crew is deemed by us to be material witnesses to the recent terrorist attack. And, as such, we’ll now take it upon ourselves to deploy and keep them safe!”
It’s a bit of a stretch but it'll work; and with that, the ship’s officially under LOTUS’ protection. Reiji does ask that we try to minimize hostilities as much as can be (to make it easier to justify this) – the priority is escaping the area.
With that in mind, as our guys deploy (to Shinn’s slight surprise), Talia points out the escape route. Ichitaka’s ready to clear out anyone who tries getting in the way – if that don’t sound too good, they better run off!
Now that’s much better. You should know that Ichitaka and his Laplace Wall are the Gundam mooks’ worst nightmare because so many of their weapons are energy-based, so you oughta let him lead the charge.
Reiji too, with his command aura.
Easy money.
Yagyuu and Iczer-1’s team stay up top to help clear the Orb guys – their MSs are very easily twoshoted by everyone.
Kenji nabs an easy kill and Goh moves for the survivor.
Meanwhile, Talia hangs up here to oneshot mooks.
She learns Trust and Support Defense L2 while at it.
Shinn and Rey are on clean-up duty for everything the Minerva weakened previous turn.
Enemy Phase!
And here they come.
Ichitaka: “This isn’t gonna fly… That guy’s way faster than us!”
Alice: “Fight on, Ichitaka! Make up for that difference with your spirit!”
She’s learning how to Super Robot, indeed.
And, by the by, this was the most recurring battle scene in the entire mission: the AI was fixated on Ichitaka, kept on attacking (recharging the Rushbird’s EN) and he’d either oneshot on the counter or leave the mook so weak that Miu would finish it off.
Just on this first turn Ichitaka scored 4 kills and Miu got 2, boosting her Prevail and Support Defense.
Up top, the Orb troops are dropping like flies. Shinn got one, Talia got two, can Luna get one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hlueK8Tp88
Aaay!
Player Phase!
Alright, last couple of Murasames.
Last one falls to Rey.
With Ichitaka having cut the enemy’s vanguard down to size, we now go to town.
Shizuru gets it. Following that: two to Reiji/Shizuna, two to Goh/Mira, one to Yamashita/Tetsuya…
Only reason I’m holding back a bit is to draw in Trowa.
: How can you go and call a nuclear strike just like that…?! Do you want a war this badly?!
Ichitaka keeps ahead, though, to torment the second wave of Daggers and Windams.
Here goes the last one of the first wave.
Yup.
Enemy Phase!
Here comes Trowa!
: (Things have gotten really hectic with the Alliance as well. Still, the least I can do is try and check what ZAFT’s new battleship can do.)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Ez0fP_tNg
Ichitaka: “Set our thrusters and left hand output to 80% and 70%, respectively!”
Alice: “U-Understood… more or less!”
The Heavyarms is meant to be tanky but it’s still an MS. Also, Ichitaka nabs another 2 kills.
Player Phase!
Let’s get rid of Trowa now before he MAPWs us.
: The pilot of this unit is Trowa Barton. Then you’re a Preven—: You’ve the wrong man. I’m not Trowa.
: Why’s a Gundam with the Earth Alliance?! You’re supposed to be a symbol of colonial freedom, so shouldn’t you be on the PLANTs’ side?!: Sorry but I’m just a nameless soldier who got picked up by the Alliance. As for the Gundam, I found it.
And done.
Oh, cool.
Trowa now sees why “that man” is wary of us; he figures he needs to hurry or “she” might be in danger.
He leaves and Talia stops Shinn before he can run down the Gundam – we can’t pursue right now. Shinn doesn’t understand why Orb and the Gundam sided with the Alliance.