#alaya-vijnana system

[wordsandrobots]

Is it just me or do the pilots that hold onto their suits for longer just generally tend to be stronger than the ones that switch them around? Mika and Gaelio, the ones that held on to the same MS for the longest in the series (Barbatos and Kimaris, respectively) are freakishly powerful with their respective Gundsms. The Bael, being the first Gundam in IBO, stayed with its pilot for the entire duration of the Calamity war. There's some sort of strengthening connection between pilot and machine going on here. The thing with the AV system pretty much being the first system in a mainline show where the pilot has to be physically tethered to the MS might also play into this. Idk this is sort of a thought vomit.

No, it's definitely an interesting angle . . .

Iron-Blooded Orphans isn't strictly the first Gundam series to play with the idea of linking a pilot directly to the 'suit. Arguably, the psycommu from the Universal Century stuff is the earliest human/machine interface in Gundam, albeit one bound up in the psychic powers and suchlike. Mobile Fighter G Gundam introduced a telepresence-style interface allowing martial artists to map their skills on to their machines. Later, Turn A Gundam would include a full-body connector allowing direct operation of a mobile suit, which would be kind of back-adapted into the UC canon via Unicorn's NTD system. All these, however, are presented as exceptional and fairly unique (in G Gundam, the Gundams are their own special class of mobile suit, even if most of the mobile suits we see *are* Gundams).

In IBO, though, the Alaya-Vijnana system is a more widespread, even commonplace technology, allowing the production of cheap, expendable soldiers who require minimal training. True, there is an original or 'perfected' version of the system that accords better with past examples, permitting mobile suits to operate at a superhuman excess. Mostly, however, the A-V is used as an illustration of the impact of military development beyond a national army or clean lab setting. They also have that great visual of the tethering, a far more viscerally arresting image than past attempts to play with the same concept.

This aside, what about the idea of pilots growing stronger the longer they use the same mobile suits?

I think in IBO specifically, there's a few things at play that mean it's worth digging into what we mean by 'stronger'. At a base level, certain mobile suits are described as being more powerful -- the whole point of the Gundam frame is to be exceptionally strong and durable, with two Ahab reactors allowing it to perform fetes beyond other machines. It is however entirely possible for a non-Gundam machine to match or even best a Gundam (Kimaris vs the Grimgerde or Barbatos vs the Reginlaze Julia). Pilot skill is also a factor and on top of that there's the A-V system, which allows for more instinctive control over a mobile suit, making it a physical extension of the pilot. In some cases, this permits novice pilots to overcome those who we can assume to have had much more training and experience; conversely, in others, a skilled non-A-V pilot can overcome pilots using the system -- see the Turbines vs the Brewers, for example.

Then there's the fact Gaelio is a cheating cheater who cheats. The Alaya-Vijnana Type E exists specifically because he comes up short in his fight with McGillis; even with Kimaris' extra oomph, he doesn't have the raw skill necessary to beat his old friend. So he lets Ein's undead brain do the flying instead. The way it's presented, while Gaelio is technically in Kimaris' driver-seat throughout, he isn't actually in control for the majority of its operations during Season 2. The writing is very explicit that the Type E is puppeteering his body, allowing it to exceed those pesky human limitations without resorting to full-on Alaya-Vijnana surgery. Gaelio selects the target, yes, but it's otherwise not *his* strength at play. In fact, the Eve of Vidar side-story shows the system can run entirely out of his control, to the point of tearing off and destroying everything in its path (hence the 'calibration' that keeps Gundam Vidar out of action for the first few episodes of Season 2).

[As an aside, we know the IBO setting has AI technology capable of matching and exceeding human pilots, and that mobile suits have algorithmic control programs assisting with their operation, so it wouldn't be out of the question to do all this without the squishy bits. Certainly, on the face of it, there seems little reason not to just plug Ein's brain into Kimaris and let it have at. But since military AI has a history of working out . . .

. . . poorly, it would make sense for there to be restrictions on its use. It might even be unquestioned best practice to always have a human with their hand on the on/off switch. So whether or not the Type E is actually capable of running a Gundam on its own, Gaelio's presence is probably non-negotiable.]

My point is, Gaelio is functionally a doorstop when the Type E is in operation so can we actually say he's getting stronger as a pilot over the course of the series? He certainly expends a lot of effort and makes personal sacrifices in order to reach a position where he beats McGillis. He has to be physically augmented to use the Type E, breaking his previous moral stance on that kind of thing. And Kimaris itself undergoes a lot of upgrades aimed at combatting McGillis' style of fighting. So in a sense, yes, being Kimaris' pilot for such a length of time means he gets stronger. Yet isn't it more like a lot of compensation for a persistent lack of strength? Gaelio himself doesn't necessarily improve through all this; it's more that he's willing to do things that give him a greater edge.

Which is a good point to turn to our other example. Mikazuki and Barbatos follow a similar trajectory over the course of the show, with the 'suit undergoing constant upgrades and Mika gradually removing the limits on his connectivity with it. True, it's not a case of Barbatos using Mika's body but --

Well, let's back up on that one. Because it isn't presented as Mika becoming a redundant extension of his 'suit. He is always clearly the one in control. However, when he takes . . . let's call it the first-stage limiter off his Alaya-Vijnana system in Edmonton, demanding more so he can beat the Graze Ein, he suddenly knows how to use Barbatos' sword to its fullest extent. Previously, his comments suggest he's at 'pointy end goes in the other guy' level with the thing. After the connection is deepened, he's able to perform incredibly precise cutting strikes and take Ein to pieces. As if the information on doing that was already stored inside the machine and just needed to be unlocked.

Yet the interesting thing is, he doesn't use that skill again. Not directly. Barbatos Lupus' sword is designed more for clobbering than slicing, for all that it *is* a sword, distinct from the clubs he favoured before. Later, he'll return entirely to the mace as his principle melee weapon. Almost as if he took the skills he'd . . . downloaded and then adapted them to his existing strengths.

That seems to be what is happening here. Where Vidar/Kimaris is a deliberately constructed weapon targeting McGillis, circumventing the shortcomings of its pilot, Barbatos is somewhat more organically tailored to act as an amplifier for the man in the cockpit. It's reworked to fit his style. Even in the middle of battling Hashmal, where we might expect residual performance data to come to the fore again, instead Mikazuki's existing impulses go into overdrive, crushing everything in his path with speed and raw power.

So the longer Barbatos is with Mika, the more it resembles him and the more strongly they act as a single unit. Not accidentally, either. Despite the implied contrast above, it's very much something Tekkadan and Teiwaz's mechanics deliberately engineer over the course of events. But it's based on Mikazuki's personality and his preferences (he seems to have looked at Hashmal's tail and gone 'I need that'), rather than with a particular end in mind.

I think if I was going to draw a thesis out of this, it'd be that all this is just an extreme version of something that happens with any pilot. Amida outfights Julieta (someone whose life is literally dedicated to mobile suit combat) and the Julia (a machine at the bleeding edge of 'suit development) in a relatively unexceptional Hyakuren. That is to say, the Hyakuren isn't a very flashy mobile suit. But this *is* a custom model and more importantly, one Amida has been using for a considerable length of time. We know pilots update their 'suits using data from old fights, that they tweak the settings to better fit their abilities, and that they train extensively in simulations. It makes sense for someone like Amida, with likely approaching a decade of additional experience, to be nigh-on unstoppable compared to everyone around her. She's put in the effort. She's gotten comfortable with her equipment. She knows exactly what she's doing.

The Alaya-Vijnana exaggerates this effect, allowing both rapid advancement in ability (the Tekkadan boys are exceptionally quick students because part of the point of the surgery is to circumvent learning curves) and for the pilot to adapt to the machine and vise versa. I think the longer someone used an A-V with the same 'suit, the more they'd be able to understand that 'suit's quirks and direct maintenance to correct or increase them. Ultimately, though, I suspect that's just speeding up a general rule.

Because the A-V is never presented as an instant-win condition. It doesn't trump everything else on its own. Skill still matters. Experience still matters. Ein runs rings around Shino while they're using comparable machines because, A-V or not, Ein trained for years in a Graze; Shino had been using one for a few weeks, at most.

I love that about IBO. It never has any of the tech be magic by itself. You need a pilot willing to go the extra mile and put in the effort to become something truly incredible.

[kaxtwenty]

A thought I had while watching IBO was that the Alaya-Vijnana system had some serious untapped potential as a medical device. With the ways that it allowed people with the implant to connect their nervous-system and brain to technology it’d be a no brainer for *someone* to try and apply it for things like prosthetics. Granted, there’s reasonable explanations within IBO’s worldbuilding for WHY that potential remained untapped (Gjallarhorn’s ableist propaganda making cybernetics taboo specifically to suppress it’s development to maintain their military dominance being the big one), but I couldn’t help but wonder when seeing Mikazuki slowly lose his motor functions if they could somehow still use his AV in a way to reverse the process. Or maybe hook him up to a device that would allow him to move his body without being connected to a 60 foot tall demon that’s disguised as a robot.

So imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I realized that G-Witch was taking it’s Alaya-Vijnana equivalent, the GUND-Format, and doing exactly that! The main group’s entire goal with GUND-ARM is to research the medical usages of a device(?) that allows people to connect their minds to technology! Exploring how to take something associated with war and turn it into something that improves lives instead (Kudelia would be so proud)!

I’m really happy that I decided to first (re)watch IBO before jumping into G-Witch, it’s really awesome to see how G-Witch borrows many of the plot points and themes of IBO and takes them in a new—more optimistic—direction.

[toskarin]

I got an alaya-vijnana system implant to avoind piloting bad. But, now I pilot bad.

[hattiestgal]

Trick or treat!

You get...

the Man Rodi!

This heavily armored mobile suit is the signature close to middle range fighter of the pirate organization, The Brewers! Mass produced and highly versatile, not only were Man Rodi's surprisingly mobile for how armored they are, but they're also compatible with the Alaya-Vijnana system, giving them an even higher combat performance. Their main drawback is their high fuel use, causing them to have short operating times before needing to retreat.

[local-redhead-bookworm]

McGillis Fareed being a major nerd, a series

Ep 1: Explaining the economic necessity of Mars as a colony

Ep 4: Explaining the Alaya-Vijnana system to Gaelio

Ep 5: “I think this was destiny. Machines bearing the name Gundam have appeared at many turning points throughout our history. They’ve played a major role in the fate of mankind. If this one serves Miss Bernstein, an advocate for Mars independence, who knows what will happen next?”

Ep 5 again: Actually smiling while talking about Barbatos, deciding he has to go see it in action, and figuring out Mikazuki’s attack methods aloud mid-battle

[kydoesthings1]

fellas is it gay to slowly grow closer to the dirty boy who just got taken in from the streets and be in awe of how he easily surpasses you in everything that you do and want to be as good as him, to become his equal and stand at his side, to watch from a distance as he puts on a mask when he is with other people, to want to be the only person he can take off that mask with, to make snide remarks about his engagement with your kid sister, to believe him when he tells you the alaya-vijnana system is the only thing that can save your subordinate who was critically injured saving you, to trust him even as your childhood friend dies calling his name from the mission he sent her on as you pretend to be him coming to the rescue, to scream his name as he reveals everything was a lie and he had planned your death and charge at him, to lie slowly bleeding out in your destroyed cockpit as he tells you you were his only friend, to live even after everything that has happened to you that he did to you as a shadow of your past self, to obsessing over him wanting to understand why he did it, how he could do it, to understand him, and as you take off your mask for the first time in years and confront him, to realize that all this time love, friendship and trust have never touched his heart and he never saw you the way you wanted to like you thought he did, and as he reveals his ambitions to the world, swear to stop him yourself, to see the you of two years ago in his second-in-command who charges you to save him that you kill anyway, to stand in front of him as he tells you if you don’t get out of his way he will kill you for real this time, to scream his name as the two of you rip each other apart, to scream for him to see you, to defeat him with the powers that he never once believed in himself, to wait in front of that elevator with your loaded gun, to see him bleeding as he shoots at you and you shoot him, to grab his neck and push him against the wall stained with his blood, to ask him once again to see you, to gape stunned as he says he always saw you but had to pretend not to, because being with you would keep him from his lifelong dreams, to cry without knowing why, to push away his hand that weakly tries to wipe away your tears, to plead him not to say what you think he is going to say because then you would forgive him for everything he did and then you could never face those he killed, and to see the light leave his sea-green eyes as the reality sinks in and say, “farewell, mcgillis”?

[gremoria411]

*the following contains spoilers for Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans Urdr Hunt*

Alright, so I’ve finally finished Gundam Ibo Urdr Hunt, and I’ll be doing a proper post on it momentarily, but I do want to get one thing out right now.

I kind of really love the Hajiroboshi Second Form.

Which is a little odd in isolation, since it’s not actually that different from the original Hajiroboshi.

It’s really just got new shoulders, the new boosters on its backpack (the head might have been reworked slightly, but I think that might just be me) and a new sword. However, two of these features (the Boosters and Sword) bring it closer to its original form.

Just looking at its armaments on their own, I like them. I will admit I have a weakness for suits that are “We have a sword, let’s just use that really really well”. I like both the Destiny and the Throne Zwei for those reasons. But the Hajiroboshi second form has some points in its favour that those two don’t- it’s in Post Disaster 324, a setting where that is a very viable strategy, and it’s got those lovely thrusters on its back that seem to primarily serve to get it into melee range (not to mention the harpoons). I also like the shield -it’s streamlined, but not to the point of not being protective, and while I like how it’s got the claw tips for thrusting, it’s nice how there’s so little emphasis on them (though that might just be from the last protagonist suit I looked at being the Lah). But the Cross Mace hearkens back to the main sword of its original armament and the thrusters also bring it closer to the original silhouette of the Marchosias

So it kinda just feels like the ghost of the Marchosias.

Which is great, because both the Hajiroboshi and Barbatos seem to have something going on in that regard. Mikazuki talks to the Barbatos during the battle against Ein in Edmonton as if there’s some last vestige of its former pilot present, while the Hajiroboshi seems to react on its own when encountering mobile armours. Based on what we know about Gundam Frames from the original series, it’s typically some form of interaction with the Alaya-Vijnana (like when the Gusion Rebake gets shut down when attempting to engage the mobile armour, since Akihiro gets overwhelmed by the feedback). The Barbatos’ connection is obvious - Mikazuki’s in a high stress situation when using the Alaya-Vijinana, and presumably he’s doing something similar to what the original pilot did - using the sword to fight an enemy not too dissimilar to a mobile armour. However, the Hajiroboshi’s is considerably less clear. It seems to either lock up, as the Gusion Rebake did, implying it’s fitted with a limiter; or it seems to “flash back” to a similar fight from the calamity war (at least that’s my read on it versus Harael) and from there act as if it has the “True Alaya-Vijinana” installed (it’s only in speech marks because I don’t really have a better term for it). It’s honestly a little unclear on whether it’s Hajiroboshi, the Mobile Armour or both that has the flash backs, since it’s from Harael’s perspective but Wistario mentions seeing them.

So presumably, the Hajiroboshi’s fitted with some kind of system that mimics Alaya-Vijinana, but I would like to offer another suggestion; What if, on some level, the pilots are still in them?

Now, we know that Alaya-Vijinana is a man-machine interface developed prior to the calamity war, but there’s two specific pieces of information that we’re told about it I want to focus on;

“The Alaya-Vijinana creates a Pseudo-brain lobe in the pilot’s body using nanomachines, allowing the pilot's brain to directly process mobile suit data fed through the physical connection.”

“Furthermore, this continuous link can cause consciousness to be forcibly maintained even in situations where the pilot is supposed to faint or even die instantly.”

So, an extra brain lobe to process the information and the system will keep the pilot alive even in situations where they shouldn’t be. So, is it possible there could be some sort of feedback loop or that the mobile suit could retain some of the pilot’s habits (the Barbatos telling Mikazuki how to use the katana through a sort of frame-wide “muscle memory” of its previous pilot).

It’s also interesting that this seems to happen during moments of great stress for their modern pilots - at those points when the greatest amount of data would be moving from the person to the mobile suit. So, if, say for example, a pilot was regularly facing strong enemies in life-or-death situations, might the system retain that data too? The heightened reaction speed, the chemical reactions leading to emotional output, the movements of the pilot to resolve the situation. The Calamity War was a time when humanity was desperately pushed to the brink by the mobile armours, it’s very unlikely that they would have taken the time to work out all the bugs in the system (heck, if they were taking high pilot losses, it might have been seen as a bonus).

So yeah, the Hajiroboshi might be haunted.

As the Hajiroboshi appears as a ghost of the Marchosias, there might also be another ghost in the machine.

I just thought that it’s a rad connection.

[canmom]

been ill, but today i’m less ill than yesterday so i could watch a bunch of Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans instead of just lying in bed feeling rubbish. here are some scattered comments on IBO.

this show is compelling! it feels like a post-Psycho Pass Gundam, but equally I could say it’s got a lot of Last Exile devices in it. the more I learn about UC gundam, the more I can see how it’s riffing on the devices of the main series - the privileged Earth class, the Char clone who appears starting in the second cour. at the time of writing this post i’ve watched up through s1e19.

I have this inclination to call it a grimdark spin that’s about the idea of realpolitik, but then that’s kind of just normal Gundam territory; however there is a special level of brutality to the way fights are portrayed, the ‘human debris’ concept is a very cool cynical spin on Newtypes, the general tone of the series is an atmosphere of thoroughly normalised violence. yet that’s not to say it’s just some kind of 40k style ‘no good guys, revel in the violence’ thing; much to the contrary the thrust of it (so far) is about sustaining some sort of revolutionary aspiration in a very hostile world, and a group of determined young people getting chewed up by the attempt to change things. I’m pretty invested in seeing how it turns out (probably not well, it’s Gundam after all).

the setting is well-realised; you have some classic sci-fi concepts like ‘earth as core and space colonies as periphery’, but equally some fun novel ones like space yakuza; and it does a convincing job of selling its wide suite of factions.

and, to compare with G-witch, since they’re both Gundams riffing on the imagery and concepts of UC Gundam. the GUND-ARM of G-Witch and the Alaya-Vijnana System of IBO are both presented as destructive surgical techniques which allow greater integration with the mecha at a severe physical cost to the pilot. functionally it’s a way of having a ‘special pilot who’s better at flying’ type of character like the Newtypes, but if the Newtypes represented a thwarted hope of a kind of 70s new age ideal recuperated by militarism, the Alaya-Vijnana and GUND-ARM represent a much more direct and ruthless kind of exploitation of children by adults.

as animation it’s... well, it’s complicated. it’s certainly full of ambitious layouts (characters floating around in zero-g at weird angles) and the designs are charming, and there’s a lot of nicely varied acting in how the different character interactions are portrayed: Orga’s slightly brittle coolness, Mikazuki’s emotionally disconnected obliviousness and almost mechanical violence, Kudelia’s naivete, Fumitan’s stoic caring, etc. etc.. but it definitely suffers in the composite. it’s got that kind of 2010s feeling of too much contrast, low resolution douga and noticeable digital textures. there’s also a handful of quite noticeable cuts where I can only assume the animation directors were too pressed for time properly oversee it and faces kind of melt.

as for the mecha animation... again, it’s a story of overall cool direction, but melting a bit in the details. Sunrise are rightly known as the last bastion of 2D mecha animation, but these are some ridiculously complex designs they’re handling, and it’s easy for the silhouette and overall pose to get a bit lost in all the high contrast shadows and small details. this is further confused by the use of a kind of clouds texture in the shadows, which I just don’t understand at all honestly! that said, a glance at Sakugabooru suggests there’s some really cool stuff to come.

one thing I notice framing through it like this is how often you get really drastic changes from frame to frame, that I’m surprised it wasn’t necessary to inbetween, but it looks decent in motion just by carrying it through in a consistent direction. ‘how much you can get away with’ is something that continually surprises me in animation. It’s too late and I don’t have the energy to do a detailed breakdown, but maybe worth looking into.

anyway, they seem to have improved on a lot on these fronts (compositing and colour direction especially) in G-witch. but I definitely need to watch more Gundam from the late 80s and 90s, since I really enjoyed the very grounded mech animation in War in the Pocket and 08th MS Team, and I really want to build up the context to find out what all the fuss is about with Char’s Counterattack haha...

that’s probably enough to say, I will save up more for when I’ve seen the entire arc of this.

[abyssal-gaze]

if u want some inspo for pilots getting Jacked The Fuck In one of my favorites is the Alaya-Vijnana system from gundam IBO-- armored core has a similar thing in 4th gen with the Allegorical Manipulation System but its expanded upon far less

yes, yes ! wires in my brain

[hibiscus-ships]

I think IBO!Jenni should be fascinated by the Calamity War and all the mobile suits that were used to fight it. She drops fun facts about all the gory atrocities committed during the development of the Alaya-Vijnana System at horribly inappropriate times and her boyfriend hates it because this is Season 1 and he's still squeamish about the whole neck implant thing. She is like if a guy who was obsessed with the World Wars was a girl who likes cute things and has a bed that's covered in plushies. 🌺

[wordsandrobots]

Oh blah. I suppose those kinds of takes are inevitable but -- urgh. 100% agree that Suletta is not in any way presented as being an unskilled pilot.

For one thing, it's really notable that her narratively important loss involves having her machine shut down on her, rather than any kind of 'met a tougher opponent' deal. And the big challenge at the end isn't overcoming a lack of skill, it's employing the skills she has without a safety-net, expressing the theme of learning to go outside an easy comfort-zone in order to get what she's truly after.

Thinking about it, I'm actually not sure how productively you can compare the different protagonists across all of Gundam on a purely mechanical level. The different iterations play such varied games with what exactly it is that makes a Gundam pilot 'the best' (which they invariably are, as a category). Amuro starts out as an atrocious pilot in a virtually indestructible 'suit, which gives him the opportunity to develop both his skills and his psychic powers until he's actually good at it. The Universal Century afterwards starts leaning heavily into psycho frame and Actual Newtypes as the game-breaker. G Fighter emphasises the prowess of the pilot in a more martial sense, with the machines channeling their power. Wing then flips that around: the Gundams being juggernauts, depending on a pilot of sufficient resolve to master their potential. And then you've got SEED where literally-superhuman pilots can effortlessly annihilate anything in their path with their super-duper Gundams, which becomes less a play on endurance and commitment and more giving some characters a magic 'win the plot' switch.

(I suppose you *could* look at Aerial through that same lens, but in GWitch this was actually building to something. It wasn't just about emphasising somebody's super-special-awesomeness; it ended up being the final boss, requiring physical sacrifice to overcome.)

I do like it when a series plays with pilot skill vs machine power. That's more or less the point of Turn A, with Loran having to learn how to fight *less* powerfully and to restrain the Gundam, making a lovely inversion of the norm. And Iron-Blooded Orphans does a lot with how unskilled its protagonists are, even as their augmentations make them incredibly effective fighters. Anyone who follows me will be tired of me banging on about the Turbines being better pilots than Tekkadan but it's true. When people who've had actual training start getting Alaya-Vijnana systems, it's quickly clear there's a plot-relevant difference between bludgeoning through on raw drive and negative survival instinct, and actually knowing what you're doing.

Oddly, I would actually say Kira and Suletta are the protagonists it'd be interesting to compare in this regard , since they both grapple with questions around the moral use of their skills and grasping for lives beyond the expectations placed upon them. But it seems a touch silly to base that comparison on the skill itself when you've got one character who is *literally* designed to be perfect in a fight and another who ultimately risks burning her nervous system out in order to even get a mobile suit moving. Those are . . . wildly divergent concepts, to the point I find it hard to conceptualise why 'who would win in a fight' is even worth asking.

(Unless said fight is, like, a baking competition. In which case, they're at the very least the two protagonists who have the lowest probability of setting the kitchen on fire . . .)

I definitely feel like a lot of people underestimate Suletta's skills as a pilot because she's a woman, she often fought in duels instead of a war and she was helped by Eri early on (though only with GUND-Bit control, which isn't significantly different from how non-Newtype bit control systems work in other AUs, but somehow that's usually only a knock against Suletta, I wonder why).

Just remember that when she took on Quiet Zero in the Calibarn by herself, she was not only fighting the Aerial Rebuild and it's 11 bits, but also it's support system of possibly over a hundred Gundnodes, some of which were equiped with 4 bits of their own. All while suffering significant physical strain from the data storm. She survived that battle while only taking a couple glancing blows from Aerial, destroying multiple Gundnodes in the process, all while only trying to disable Aerial.

Also remember that she started training in the Aerial when she was just a child, and despite not fighting in wars, had years of experience piloting mobile suits in harsh, dangerous conditions by the time the series started. She was already a better pilot than basically all her peers at Asticassia when she got there. She defeated Guel even when he had cheating in his favor. She practically wiped out the entire Grassley team all while specifically not using Eri to handle the bits. She defeated the Gundams she did face, even the one piloted by a child soldier trying to kill her. Her struggles in season 1 had more to do with her own self-esteem and self-confidence issues than her skill as a pilot.

(And before anyone claims that she only looks so good becase she had a technological advantage over her opponents, I think that's a laughable thing to hold against her because basically EVERY Gundam pilot holds a technological advantage against their opponents if they're not Gundams or aces in highly specialized customs, with some rare exceptions like Amuro in the Gundam at the end of the OYW. Again, just like with Eri controlling the bits, this is something fairly common among Gundam pilots but is one thing I see that is often specifically held against Suletta for some reason.)

Is she one of the best Gundam pilots ever? Probably not. Is she only average or bad? Fuck no. Her evasion skills alone are some of the best in the franchise, especially for not being a Newtype, Coordinator or Innovator. And she displayed those skills all while suffering from severe physical pain that almost killed her and left her disabled afterwards. There's only a small handful of Gundam pilots who performed that well while their Gundam was actively killing them.

She’d absolutely prove a challenge to pin down and defeat for even the beam spammiest of pilots, and if she fought seriously after fusing with Eri/Aerial and exceeding score 8, I think she’d be an absolute menace to anything short of some of the more ridiculous mobile suits out there.

I just don't see how you can objectively watch her performance at Quiet Zero and come away thinking she's only average or bad unless you're biased against her because you hate the show or you're just plain sexist.

[wordsandrobots]

Been up in Harrogate for this year's Thought Bubble convention, during the course of which, @thedancingwalrus-blog and I got talking about how you might do a Gundam (specifically Iron-Blooded Orphans but probably generally applicable) TTRPG.

Because, while I have flicked through Lancer, that seems to follow a very combat-focused Armoured Core-like model, which is not how Gundam tends to operate. I'm not saying one couldn't adapt it (and I'm sure some people are already on that), but at base, I think you'd want a system that would allow you to incorporate a lot more non-pilot roles into a party. Your C&C, your mechanics, and so on. Essentially, if you actually wanted to capture something akin to how Gundam has traditionally operated, you need to be able to do both Epic Giant Robot Fights with appropriate aircraft carrier support, and the obligatory dramatic/homoerotic fencing as you corner your rival in an exploding space fortress.

I think, based on my limited experiences and @thedancingwalrus-blog's considerably greater knowledge, that means skewing more towards character-based gameplay than machinery. Obviously, the mecha are important, but in Gundam, it's always the pilot that makes the difference, and there's always more than pilots contributing. (I'm aware of Mekton, which I think did something similar, putting character-building first; it just doesn't sound like my idea of fun.)

Thus maybe a three by three set of attributes like Vampire the Masquerade?

Physical

Endurance -- what can you take?

Reflex -- how fast can you react?

Training -- do you know what you are doing?

Mental

Intelligence -- how smart are you?

Awareness -- are you paying attention?

Education -- did you go to school?

Social

Social standing -- how does society view you?

Charisma -- how do others react to you?

Experience -- do you know what's going on?

I think this probably captures most of what you'd what to quantify from a Gundam character, with its spacenoid/earthnoid, earthian/spacian, colonist/core kind of divisions and all manner of silver-tongued aces and psychic teenagers.

Then you could have Newtype powers to boost awareness, Alaya-Vijnana systems to boost reflex, being the president's daughter to boost experience, and so on. You could do backgrounds that would set bonuses or penalties to various attributes e.g. for social standing: Human Debris = -3, Martian war orphan = -2, space colonist = -1, Gjallarhorn aristocrat = +2 (or the equivalent). And you could do experience gain -- quite literally -- by boosting the 'learning' stats.

But then of course at some point you have to weld this to a combat mechanic and I'm not sure of that part. Certainly I think having some kind of initiative order where you can have mecha fighting, captains surveying the battlefield and directing ship fire, mechanics doing repairs/optimisation and so on, and having the order they go in mattering. Like, a pilot can race ahead of their captain, but that'll mean not getting the help of a tactical overview. That could model something like Judau charging ahead of the Agama, without getting a full view of what's actually going on, leaving Bright to frantically play catch-up. Or they could wait, holding their turn until their captain can give them a better idea of what they're up against.

Beyond that . . . well, mecha specs would obviously have to play some a part. IBO has the frames, which could provide discrete base stats like Lancer, that you then build out with armour and weaponry. I don't think you'd need much in the way of scale variation. Then again, I suppose mobile worker -> mobile suit -> mobile armour would work as another division.

I'm thinking some sort of base power stat (Ahab reactor) that then gets split between attack, speed and defence . . . but really I need to work out what kind of basic mechanic to adapt before I try to go further with this idea.

(Please note: I am not a big TTRPG person *at all*. But it might be fun and I really like the Post Disaster setting would be good for running games in.)

[kaxtwenty]

It's fun looking back on that original post now--two months later and having now completed both Iron-Blooded Orphans and The Witch from Mercury. I wanna say, "I didn't know what I was getting myself into," but that'd be a lie. I was expecting to watch a pair of space operas revolving around giant robots fighting with stories that would probably get me emotional. Both shows are generally well regarded so I expected them to be good going in. Suffice it to say they both still managed to exceed my expectations.

I firmly believe that these shows should be watched together. If you watch IBO, move on to WFM--if you watch WFM, go back to IBO. WFM very much feels written with IBO in mind (the similarities between the GUND Format and Alaya Vijnana System being the most obvious example of IBO's influence) and I feel that having the immediate context of one going into the other enhances your experience. WFM is IBO's little sister through and through and watching IBO before it made me appreciate the show (especially its ending) more than I would have otherwise.

If you wanna know which one's my favorite, it's Iron-Blooded Orphans. Largely because I love a good tragedy, but also because it felt more complete than its successor. It's kinda obvious in WFM season 2 that they wanted more episodes than they got and had to cram a lot near the end. I could especially feel this in the last 4-5 episodes. Was it bad? Hell no! But there were a lot of plot threads awkwardly left hanging and some others that were under-cooked or felt contrived (the Space Assembly League are painfully under-cooked). I feel like WFM needed at least one more season to reach its full potential, but what we got was still damn good and had me crying waaaaayyy more than I usually do watching television.

In summary uhhhhh...

Mobile Suit Gundam is really good and words cannot describe what these two kids mean to me.

I'm still letting G-Witch settle in my mind before I move on to the next Gundam show and while I know I should go back to the original and start my UC journey; y'know, to enrich my experience through the AUs and mecha anime as a whole...

There's still one other Gundam show I got unfinished business with...

[hattiestgal]

Trick or Treeeeeeet

You get...

Gundam Barbatos Lupus!

Thoroughly damaged in the battle of Edmonton, Gundam Barbatos was due for an overhaul. Many changes were made to the original mobile suit, including having its Alaya-Vijnana system tuned more towards the pilots' preferences, the machines' arms lengthened, and general tweaks to the design that allowed the Barbatos to perform better as a close combat ground-focused gundam. Through these changes, the Barbatos Lupus also gained a more animalistic appearance that would be fully realized in its final upgrade.

Overall, the Barbatos Lupus became even more of an efficient and brutal killing machine, wielding heavy melee weaponry that caused it to essentially crush its foes into the ground, embodying Tekkadan's philosophy of destroying anyone who got in their way.

[goblingirlpicnic]

In IBO they have this like the Alaya-Vijnana System which is like an implant that lets you connect your brain to the mobile suit using nano bots so you dont need training to pilot the thing, but like it's mostly forced on orphans by private military companies. Oh and if you use it too much it can break ur brain

I've only seen g-witch; what is it that makes gundams special in other Gundam shows? In g-witch it's that they kill the pilot, but I gather that's not a factor in the main series? Is it just that they're really good mechs or what?

[wordsandrobots]

IBO reference notes on . . . pilot ability

I was typing this up as an author note on the latest chapter of Wishing on Space Hardware and it overflowed any sane word count for such a note, so I'm pulling it out as its own thing.

Basically, when thinking about how good a pilot is in the Iron-Blooded Orphans setting, I tend to group them into one or more of the following categories:

Also-ran. The jobbing pilots, like the Dort and SAU workers or the pirate grunts Shino and 598 beat up in Urdr Hunt. People who have some ability and maybe a little bit of training but don't necessarily know much more than a few basic moves.

Formally-trained. By this, I tend to mean formal military training, though not necessarily training in a military context. Just that they've been explicitly taught to fight in an organised manner. Almost everyone in Gjallarhorn is in this bracket, along with the Turbines, much of Teiwaz, probably a lot of the Dawn Horizon's better pilots, and the non-augmented people in Tekkadan.

Expert. While most of these are not intended as tiers by themselves, this group extends out of the previous one. These are people who've really dedicated their lives to perfecting their piloting ability. I tend to take Amida as the high end of this category, though McGillis is also a good example. Lots of experience and theoretical understanding to go along with their basic skill-level, which makes them extra dangerous on the battlefield.

Gifted. The people who, for whatever reason, are innately talented when it comes to flying mobile suits. There's not much more to say about them; whatever you need to operate one of these machines, they have it in spades, even without formal training.

Augmented. And finally, of course, you have the people who use the Alaya-Vijnana (or AV-adjacent technology). Obviously this creates a massive starting advantage, allowing most people with whiskers to easily out-match any also-rans they fight and even a considerable proportion of trained pilots, simply because they can react faster and more instinctually. However, it's not an automatic win. Season 1 Shino vs Ein is my go-to example for this: Shino has a lot of advantages from his A-V system but Ein is able to neutralise them via his greater training and experience.

And that's where the ranking comes into it. When I'm making claims about someone being 'a good pilot', in response to what's on screen or while developing a fanfic character, I'm positioning them within one of these categories and then seeing how things work out if you match them up with others.

Let's have ourselves some lists. Some spoilers to follow.

Also-ran

Range Dubrisko ([from the Urdr Hunt game] a former pirate so I'm guessing he falls here; also he's not exactly brilliant at this stuff)

Argi Mirage ([from the Moon Steel manga] I feel Argi epitomises a 'good' also-ran pilot: he starts with no mobile suit training and learns rapidly on the job)

Wistario Afam ([the main character of Urdr Hunt] at least, this is where Wiz *should* go based on his stated mobile suit experience, and yet he's able to out-fight veterans. He's probably therefore a case of also-ran+augmentation but explanations are still pending on that)

Formally-trained

Iok Kujan (regrettably I must concede that he has to have had *some* training; clearly it didn't take and he represents the nadir of this group)

Hush Middy (a bit unfair to place him right after Iok since he's leagues better, but he's a trainee pilot throughout the entirety of Season 2 and is a more realistic 'low end' of the category)

Orlis Stenja

Coral Conrad

Major Bradley ([from the Urdr Hunt game] places higher than Coral on the grounds of lasting slightly more than five seconds)

Coriis Stenja (he at least survived multiple attempts to fight Tekkadan so he's got to be better than his brother)

Ein Dalton (does nothing all that special until Events Transpire and then he changes categories entirely; however he does handle a Schwalbe Graze right off the bat which is meant to be tricky)

Crank Zent

Isurugi Camice

Carta Issue (I place her higher than the rest because I assume she'd have received more training by virtue of her position; she's just kind of hamstrung by lacking practical experience)

Tamami Rokou ([from the Urdr Hunt game] a Turbine, and she does pull off some fancy moves)

Londo Bron ([from the Urdr Hunt game] I figure Londo is probably more driven than Carta when it comes to learning to be a good pilot; he's likely near the top of this group and I'm only not placing him in the next one because he doesn't seem especially inventive)

Cyclase Meyer ([from the Urdr Hunt game] possibly the most capable pilot I'd hesitate to call an expert, although it is a little hard to gauge where his ability actually lies. However, he does wipe out numerous Graze squads and Omden grunts single-handed, in a notoriously hard-to-use machine, so he's got to be pretty capable)

Expert

Azee Gurumin (somewhere on the cusp of formally-trained and expert, leaning towards the latter)

Galan Mossa (seems like he really knows his stuff, although he doesn't get to show off much in the show itself; expert by dint of being a veteran, I would say)

McGillis Fareed (I tend to see him as being driven to learn how to be a good pilot rather than naturally gifted; eventually expert+augmentation, which explains why he can take on an entire fleet's worth of mobile suits by himself)

Amida Arca (I'll always stand by the claim Amida is the best pilot in the show, simply based on how thoroughly she out-classes the people she goes up against. She might be expert+gifted to some degree, but I honestly prefer to think of her as just having years more experience than anyone else.

Gifted

Gaelio Bauduin (yes, really -- my view on Gaelio is that he's a gifted pilot whose innate talent led to getting lazy on the formal side of things, which is why McGillis runs rings around him. Ultimately boosts himself with augmentation to make up the difference)

Lafter Frankland (given her initial fighting style, I feel she fits here; gifted+formally-trained)

Julieta Juris (the poster-child for this group; she's obviously also gifted+formally-trained but it's plain from her side-story that she was supremely good at piloting from the get-go)

Augmented

Eugene Sevenstark (Eugene doesn't actually ever get to pilot a mobile suit with his A-V since the King's Throne doesn't have one, but the implication seems to be he's kind of crap at it)

Elga

Embi

Hirume

Trow

Takaki Uno

Ride Mass

Chad Chaden

Dante Mogro (these aren't really rankings at this point; this is just where most of Tekkadan falls)

Aston Altland

Derma Altland

Masahiro Altland

598 ([from the Urdr Hunt game] seems pretty good at this and also like he's been flying a lot longer than most of Tekkadan have; same with the Brewers kids listed immediately prior)

Norba Shino (Shino's skill level rises notably as he gets more training but he remains third in the pack by a long chalk)

Akihiro Altland (augmented+formal-training, and he doesn't know what to do with his life except work and train so he gets really, really good at it)

Mikazuki Augus (the nuclear option of augmented+gifted, where 'gifted' equates to 'a horrifying capacity for violence owing to a really screwed-up sense of his own worth')

Now, obviously this isn't an exhaustive list. But you get the idea. Someone can be in a category where you think they'd have a natural advantage, yet be out-classed by someone at the very top of another. By rights, Julieta should be much, much better than Mikazuki, since she has a lot more formal training. However, his A-V system and greater sacrifice in using it means he's able to pushing himself much further than her. Similarly, Amida being vastly more experienced out in the real world means Julieta comes up short against her. Conversely, while Argi lacks the grounding to be a good pilot, he is dogged enough to power through against Gjallarhorn-trained pilots, in a machine that is a cut above theirs.

(That's another big factor in deciding the outcome of battles. Having written quite a lot of fight scenes over the years, I can safely say it helps to have in-built factors that can assist you in getting the outcome you want and the individual capabilities of mobile suits is a great one. Especially you can twist it around to show that a really skilled pilot can make a less powerful machine work for them. Galan's Geirail thwomping Julieta's Graze in her side-story is a perfect illustration of this technique.)

Anyway, I don't have any deeper conclusions to draw from all this, I just thought it might be interesting to explain what's behind my reasoning. To bring a long, meandering point to a close, this is where the Goibniu Unit test pilots fall:

Kipchoge Ordsley (original flavour) -- formally-trained (mid range)

Mackenzie Croft -- formally-trained, (high end)

Pele Torvalds -- expert (high end, veteran)

Lowri Lin -- expert (high end)+gifted (low end)

Ahmed Fahim -- gifted (high end)+formally-trained (high end)

Norba Shino -- augmented+formally-trained (mid range)+expert (broad experience)

Other reference posts include:

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (Part 1)

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (Part 2)

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (corrigendum) [mainly covering my inability to recognise mythical wolves]

IBO reference notes on … three key Yamagi scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Shino scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Eugene scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Ride scenes

IBO reference notes on … the tone of the setting

IBO reference notes on … character parallels and counterpoints

IBO reference notes on … a perfect villain

IBO reference notes on … Iron-Blooded Orphans: Gekko

IBO reference notes on … an act of unspeakable cruelty

IBO reference notes on … original(ish) characters [this one is mainly fanfic]

IBO reference notes on … Kudelia’s decisions

IBO reference notes on … assorted head-canons

IBO reference notes on … actual, proper original characters [explicit fanfic – as in, actually fanfic. None of them have turned up in the smut yet]

IBO reference notes on … the aesthetics of the mobile frame

IBO reference notes on … mobile suit designations

IBO reference notes on … the Gundams (part 1)

IBO reference notes on … the Gundams (part 2)

IBO reference notes on … the Gundams (part 3)

IBO reference notes on … the Turbines, or ‘Tekkadan done right’

IBO reference notes on … the Gundams (Addendum 1)

IBO reference notes on … deals with the devil

IBO reference notes on … odds and ends