Part 9: Mission 3 (Setsuko) - Prologue

Setsuko Route Chapter 3 Prologue


Last time on Super Robot Wars Z, Glory Star ends up in a weird place, with hijacked Mobile Suits and all that other fun stuff. Now they're on board the ZAFT ship Mirvana as this plucky group tries to get their stolen mechs back.

Current Top Aces:

1. Denzel - 9 Kills
2. Toby - 7 Kills
3. Setsuko - 6 kills
4. Talia - 1 Kill


We got a part last mission! Parts are equipable items that can go onto mechs to improve their performance. A mech can have one to four part slots.
Generally the stronger the machine, the less part slots it has. For today we give Setsuko a Booster, which increases a the Virgola 3's movement by 1.

But, of course, we're goint to have some new units to play around with this stage. So let's have a look at them!


Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
Shinn Asuka - ZGMF-X56S/γ Blast Impulse
Voiced by Kenichi Suzumura(Japanese), Matthew Erickson(English)

Skills:
*????
* Blocking - If the mech is equipped with a shield and/or sword, can use Sword Block and Shield Block. Sword Block will neutralize melee and missile attacks, while Shield Block will reduce damage taken. Activation rate is based off the skill stat.
* Battle Spirit - Starting from the second turn, will gain 3 Will every turn.

Spirit Commands
*Focus(15) - Increases hit and evasion rates by 30%

Squad Leader Bonus
*+10% Counterattack damage, +20% Critical rate

Shinn is overall a strong, versatile chracter. He has the stats to go both melee and ranged, and will often be doing both. The Impulse fits him pretty well, and I like this unit a lot. It actually has multiple forms, as last mission we saw the Sword Impulse, but we can't switch between them right now. We will soon though. One thing of note is that Shinn is actually fairly surviable for a real robot pilot. Between the Imuplse's Variable Phase Shift Armor (Which greatly reduces non-beam attacks), his decent skill, Blocking, and having both a sword and shield


Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
Lunamaria Hawke - ZGMF-1000/A1 Gunner ZAKU Warrior
Voiced by Maaya Sakamoto(Japanese), Maryke Hendrikse(English)

Skills:
* Prevail(Level 2) - As the character takes damage, hit rate, evasion, defense, and critical rate will increase.
* Blocking - If the mech is equipped with a shield and/or sword, can use Sword Block and Shield Block. Sword Block will neutralize melee and missile attacks, while Shield Block will reduce damage taken. Activation rate is based off the skill stat.
* Support Attack(Level 1) - When adjacent to an allied character before having attacked that turn, can perform a Support Attack after the ally attacks. The support attack will be slightly weaker then a regular attack.

Spirit Commands
* Strike(30) - The caster will have 100% Hit rate for that turn.

Squad Leader Bonus
*+20% Attack power during Support Attack

Luna here's just strong enough that if you want you can make her a regular squad leader. At the very least, she's a great force multiplier with that Squad Leader bonus. Even if just you're using her as a squadmate, always switch her to the leader when she's doing Support Attacks. Her biggest weakness is the massive cost of her Strike Spirit Command. A single casting of it right now will drain all of her SP. You probably want to prioritize accuracy for her, to minimize the times you need to cast that absurdly expensive spell.


Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
Rey za Burrel - ZGMF-1001/M Blaze ZAKU Phantom
Voiced by Toshihiko Seki(Japanese), Kirby Morrow(English)

Skills:
* Blocking - If the mech is equipped with a shield and/or sword, can use Sword Block and Shield Block. Sword Block will neutralize melee and missile attacks, while Shield Block will reduce damage taken. Activation rate is based off the skill stat.
* Will +(Evade) - Pilot will gain an additional point of will every time the pilot successfully evades an enemy attack.
* Hit & Away - Pilot will be able to move after attacking

Spirit Commands:
* Focus(15) - Increases hit and evasion rates by 30%

Squad Leader Bonus
*+10% Accuracy and Evasion rate

This guy starts out strong stat wise, but he's not going to be able to keep up to Shinn and Luna. His biggest strength right now is innate Hit & Away, which is always a good skill for people without strong post movement attacks. That long range Tri attack will come in handy.


Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
Talia Gladys - Minerva
Voiced by Mami Koyama(Japanese), Venus Terzo(English)
Arthur Trine - Minerva Subpilot
Voiced by Hiroki Takahash(Japanese), Jonathan Holmes(English)
Meyrin Hawke - Minerva Subpilot
Voiced by Fumiko Orikasa(Japanese), Nicole Bouma(English)

Skills(Talia):
* Prevail(Level 1) - As the character takes damage, hit rate, evasion, defense, and critical rate will increase.
* Support Attack(Level 1) - When adjacent to an allied character before having attacked that turn, can perform a Support Attack after the ally attacks. The support attack will be slightly weaker then a regular attack.
* Commander(Level 1) - Allies in an area (denoted by yellow squares when highlighting the character) have an increased hit and evasion rate. The size of the area and bonus increases by level.

Spirit Commands(Talia):
* Strike(20) - The caster will have 100% Hit rate for that turn.
* Accel(10) - The caster gains +2 movement for one move action.

Spirit Commands(Arthur)
* Vigor(25) - The caster regains 30% of Max HP.

Spirit Commands(Meyrin)
* Scan(1) - Reveals an enemy squad's stats without having to fight them
* Trust(20) - Restore 2500 HP to an ally.

Squad Leader Bonus
*-10% damage taken for adjacent squads

Meet our first battleship! Battleships are basically the third catagory of unit. They're massive units, having the most HP of any type. A battleship will, at minimum, have 10k HP. They can tank hits pretty well with that. Finally, battlerships have multiple pilots, as such having large ammounts of support spirit commands to throw out. Of course, their downsides are that they tend to be a bit innaccurate, as well not the strongest units around. Also most of their attacks aren't post movement, and often a battleship getting blown up means game over. Finally, battleships can not be in squads. A ship will always stand alone. Overall Battleships are support units.

The Minerva is overall a basic, sturdy ship. There's not a ton of variety in them, so we'll mainly be using Talia's Command skill to boost the main fighters accuracy.

Now that we've met our new units, onto the stage itself!



The attackers from space sweep up the ZAFT guard easily (considering we already destroyed half of it); the commander is Neo Roanoake himself, who smirks that it's just his job. He and his ship's runner exposit about their little spies, Sting and his buddies - the so-called "Extended," children created and bred for war.


The Extended return with their Gundams. Neo gives Stella the word of praise she was so desperate for.


The ZAFT ship approaches the group they're calling "Bogey One", and Neo admits it's a fine piece of work - "so let's save it for later."


He and his forces are pulling out.


Captain Gladys wants to go after them with the Minerva and asks Durandal to return to the colony, but considering the situation, Durandal has no intention to sit back and wait for information. He would very much like to be part of this operation as Chairman. Gladys agrees, if he feels so strongly about it.

As for those mysterious three machines? She's left her first mate Arthur Trine in charge of handling them...


Their pilots are already being taken in, but Vino's more curious about their mechs. He's pretty sure they're not Mobile Suits! Yoran protests that there aren't any humanoid weapons platforms other than Mobile Suits that are deployed in real combat, but Vino is definitely certain they're not based on any Mobile Suit technology on record. What if they're aliens?


Yoran again tells him not to be stupid. Meanwhile, he was going to check on the other mecha they captured, the Zaku. Lunamaria herself is taking care of that; they say the pilot's not in ZAFT, and for all we know, he might be an incredibly dangerous terrorist.


She keeps her gun trained on the cockpit as she orders them to deboard.


Alex informs them why he took the Zaku and who his charge is, the representative of ORB. In fact, Rep. Athha needs medical attention, and he would like to speak with Chairman Durandal.


Elsewhere in the ship, the Glory Star is trying to explain their situation to Arthur. The problem is that he still doesn't understand that the Earth Federation, which they're from, is slightly different from the Naturals' OMNI a.k.a. the Earth Union (oh, god), because he has never actually heard of the Earth Federation. What rock do you have to be living under to be from the Earth Sphere and not even know what the Federation is? On the flip side, this is like no colony we've ever even heard of, and Arthur doesn't know how we've never heard of PLANT.


He asks if we're "Naturals," and Toby takes it as an insult! So we don't know what "Coordinator" means, either, he supposes. Again Toby is confused - "what do they coordinate, exactly?" This is getting weird.


But duty calls Arthur; Captain Gladys wants him on the bridge. Specifically, if the Minerva is going into her maiden battle, she needs all hands on the bridge. We'll have to sort this out later; Arthur and Denzel both really wish we weren't stopping the discussion at such an awkward time, but at least Arthur no longer considers us dangerous.


Toby wishes him luck, since this would be a sucky time to go down with the ship; Arthur replies that they won't lose "no matter who our enemies are."


But as he leaves, Denzel wonders if he would face a force like the Vegans and still have the nerve to say that. "Are they too proud to take help, or are they just underestimating the enemy?"


In the meantime, though, Denzel and Toby can't make heads or tails of what's going on here; Setsuko starts to say something, but says it was a ridiculous idea and clams up. So Denzel, being a good commander, takes it upon himself to remind her that they're the Glory Star, R&D pilots, and their job requires them to consider all kinds of possibilities. Besides, at this point, he'd welcome just about any idea whatsoever.

So Setsuko, very carefully, pitches her idea: they've been transported to another world, like a parallel universe.


"I did say we need to consider all possibilities," groans Denzel, "but..."