N.B.: ships and mobile suits images appear in order of quotation

I. PROLOGUE.

In 1999 the Earth counts more than 6 billions inhabitants and the frenzied industrial development is causing a climatic breakdown. In order to face the situation the old UNO turns into the Earth Federation and, thank to big steps forward taken in the field of nuclear fusion, they start planning the colonization of orbital space and of the Moon. In 2009, in order to help the colonization program, they found the Federal Assembly and Government, as well as the United Nations Troops (UNT), and inside it the UNT-Spacy. After a slow and difficult planning, finally they start building the first space colonies in Side 1: it’s 2045. About thirty years after, when the first transfer of civilians onto the orbital colonies takes place, they introduce the Universal Century (U.C.) and time “starts again”. Earth’s population is now more than 9 billions. In 27 U.C. they found the lunar colony of Von Braun City, in the Cayley crater, in the Tranquility Sea, and in 40 U.C. more than 40% of Earth’s population has been transferred to the three Sides now ready. Five years later the satellite Luna 2 (the asteroid Juno) is moved to the lunar orbit, while in Side 3, the farest colony area settled in the orbit of the dark side of the Moon, the rising of democratic Jion zum Daikun, Duke of Jion and patriarch of a mighty and very rich colonial family, begins in 56 with his unanimous election as a member of the local Administrative Council. Political and racial estrangement between left Earth’s population — a little more than 2 billions — and the 9 billions Sides’ inhabitants, exploited and considered as lower and subjected people by terrestrials, is now a matter of fact. That’s why Jion Daikun conceives an utopian doctrine (Contulism) according which mankind’s future won’t be anymore on the Earth — symbol of evil and decadence — but in the universe, where it will be able to develope its spirituality. In 58, then, after expelling the federal delegates, Jion Daikun declares the independence of Side 3, renaming it Republic of Jion, and starting this way a political chrisis that, in a few years, will bring mankind, two centuries after world war the second, to a new age of global wars. Together with the foundation of the independent republic he forms Jion’s National Guard which, in 62, becomes the Army of Jion Republic, answering to the Federation’s embargo against Side 3.

The cold war brings about an exponential increase of military expenditures on both sides. The Federation turns Luna 2 into a military advanced base and starts building a fleet of new space battleships: the Saramiss and Magellan classes. For its part, Jion finances Y.T. Minvoski’s researches about a new subnuclear particle: but truly Jion Daikun doesn’t want the war, pursuing a wise dissuasive strategy instead. In 65, actually, Side 3 joins the Sides’ Confederation and signs a self-government motion, then submitted in 67 to the Federal Assembly. But the motion’s failing strengthens the anti-republican inner opposition, led by the patriarch of the Zabi’s family, who wants the war. In 68 Jion zum Daikun dies in a mysterious way and Degwin Sod Zabi seizes the power wiping out the Republic and founding the Jion’s Principality: it’s the 15^th of August 69. In October the Princedom Great Council decrees to break off every diplomatic contacts with Earth Federation and to get out of a dying Sides’ Confederation. In the meantime, the Zabis start a hidden persecution against the Jions, forcing Daikun’s children, Casbal Rem (Char) Jion and Artesia Som (Seyra) Jion, to flee on the Earth. Meanwhile, Minovski’s researches come to their goal: the isolation of the so called Minovski particles and their generators’ production, allowing complete radar concealment. Jion’s armoury improving, according to Zabis’ policy, now aims only at the war. For its part, the Federation moves Luna 2 to Lagrange Point 2, on the dark side of the Moon, and starts building Side 7, where’s going to settle most part of its war production. From the end of 70 to 78 we see the final warning signs of the war: Jion completes the strategic self-propelled base of Axis, in the asteroids’ belt between Mars and Jupiter, and carries out its mass production’s plan of a brand new weapon: the mobile suit (MS), an anthropomorphic robot 50-80 feet tall and about 50 tons weight. Provided with nuclear fusion microreactors and a Minovski’s particles generator, the Mobile Suit turns out to be an extremely effective weapon in close fighting. Radar invisibility, actually, let MS to get closer to its target undisturbed, nullifying the great attention paid by the Federation to long distance fighting spaceships’ development. Between May and June 75 Jion completes the prototype MS-05 Zack II and starts building a fleet of quick cruisers, the Musai class; anyway, only at the beginning of 78 U.C. they start mass production of combat MS, with the 06 S Zack II and 06 F Zack III types. In the meantime, Char Jion, Daikun’s son run away on the Earth together with his sister Seyra (who’s entered the federal Army), unable to live together with the terrestrial enemy and tormented by his hate for the Zabis, comes back to Side 3 under the false name of Char Aznable and succeeds in entering the Jion’s Principality’s Army as a Mobile Suit’s ace pilot.

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VIII

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