Gundam: From Piece to Player

This has nothing to do with Char's personal will or morality; it can only be said that the Zeon nation lacked consideration in its top-level design.

Char Aznable did consider making efforts in the realm of realpolitik, but he was always blocked by traditional forces... He didn't have enough prestige to launch a major purge domestically, and besides, he himself was somewhat conflicted between his left and right brains.

They can only engage in a broad SIDE3 nationalist narrative—claiming that Zeon is the most suitable form of nation for space colonization, while simultaneously elevating the significance of the War of Independence.

"It's been a long time since I've been back, and it's still the same."

"Dad, what do you mean?"

“The things they believe in, public opinion, your father used to stand in the same spot where Uncle Xia once stood, giving psychological massage to the people below the stage... Putting aside the extreme things he did, he was actually very suitable to be a psychologist.”

“There was no other way,” Eloby said. “If you hadn’t left, Dad, would you have been able to change things?”

"If I had changed things my way, many people would have died, and I wouldn't have such a good reputation in the Republic of Zeon."

"That's why Dad wanted to build a new country; he didn't want his reputation to be ruined."

"Part of the reason is that I have accumulated a lot of prestige during the One Year War, and I don't want to use it all up with a reform... Elubi, my ambitions are quite great."

When Kalmar arrived at the speaking area, he walked around many areas and found that many of the Zabi family's influences had been erased, but surprisingly, there were still statues of them in the city streets and parks.

There were also flowers, gifts, and other items at the base of the statue.

These are all related to Kalmar's irreplaceable role in the War of Independence and her post-war stance of not clinging to power.

If they portray him as a villain... they won't be able to reconcile this with the narrative of the War of Independence.

Could it be that the Battle of Odessa was commanded by Char Aznable?

So much so that the Daken faction dared not portray him as a traitor or make him transparent in political propaganda.

They were also afraid that Karma might come back and teach them a lesson.

That's a bit too narrow-minded of Karma... As an important industrial base of the Space Alliance, Zeon wouldn't care about such trivial matters; what needs to be defended must be firmly defended.

About 3000 kilometers away, Brad Noah, aboard the Elbion, was leading the New Federation fleet and was conducting pre-battle reconnaissance on the outskirts.

Meanwhile, the 10 newly purchased reconnaissance-class Jegans from AE Corporation slowly returned to the ship... bringing back first-hand intelligence.

Chapter 322 A Cosmic Version of "Cutting Off the Enemy's Supply Lines"

“经过18小时的侦查，侦测到的移动战舰级高热源数有30-40个，小型热源约在210-250个不等。”

Listening to the reconnaissance report, Brad stroked his chin: "You've deployed a main fleet in your own country? Major Kahn, what's the situation you can detect?"

“There should be only about twenty battleship-class targets, based on our sensing,” Harman said. “Some of them are in disguise.”

"But there are a lot of MS, so they probably use each side as a base. The fleet is more for supplementing strength, and there are also some wire-guided detectors."

It's very difficult to fight; the city of Side 3 has been fortified.

SIDE3 was built as a fully enclosed colony, which is much less habitable than Island 3 colonies, but it has one unexpected advantage.

The colonies will be more fortified—and the New Federation certainly won't use nuclear weapons, and attempting to take SIDE3 with conventional forces would turn countless cities into meat grinders.

This is not conducive to the future integration of SIDE3 by the new Federation, as the Federation's past actions serve as a negative example.

But it's not like there's absolutely no way out.

A war of attrition.

“It seems we have no choice but to use piracy combined with an economic blockade,” Brad said. “Once the satellite weapons are destroyed, we can have a decisive fleet battle, and then we’ll be confident.”

"I hope everything goes well." Harman gazed out the porthole at Side 3.

On March 1, after a month-long sit-in, the New Federation launched a full-scale commerce raid against Zeon.

A force of over 600 mobile suits, organized into guerrilla squads of three, launched the largest guerrilla operation of the Universal Century near the Lagrange 2 point.

This is specifically designed for cargo ships. Once a ship is spotted, the New Federation will give the ship about 3 minutes to escape. After 3 minutes, they will use melee weapons to destroy the ship beyond repair.

In just two days, the Republic of Zeon lost more than 50 transport ships, trade was basically cut off, and food was not in short supply in Side 3 due to its small population. However, the inability to transport rare earth elements and helium-3 needed to manufacture weapons led to a sharp increase in the depletion of reserves, and some ammunition factories were shut down.

"Establish an escort system, concentrate fleets, dispatch MS escorts, and ensure the supply of weapons and metals!"

After understanding the situation, Commander-in-Chief Char Aznable immediately gave instructions.

Therefore, starting from March 3rd, Zeon cargo ships were divided into fast and slow teams, directly escorted by MS forces.

Thanks to his experience in MS guerrilla warfare accumulated during the One Year War, Drayson was able to defeat the New Commonwealth's GM-3 when both sides were evenly matched. After learning of this situation, Commander Brad began to increase the size of the attack formations.

After the GM-3 squads carrying out commerce raiding operations were upgraded to squadrons (9 aircraft), Zeon's Drayson was also added to the squadron for escort.

Brad escalated the attack, deploying squadrons of 30 aircraft to conduct commerce raiding against large naval formations—a move akin to smashing eggs with a sledgehammer.

—At this point, Char didn't dare to escalate the situation further, because he had realized that Bright's goals had changed.

However, the lifeline cannot be abandoned... Once Zeon's war machine stops, there's no need to fight anymore; we can just surrender.

"Kalma, I need your support."

You have to pay a 'friendship fee'.

Karma suggested that the immigration issue be relaxed, and Char could only acquiesce to this opportunistic behavior.

So when the MS squadron sent by Brad attacked the merchant ships, they discovered that 20 mobile suits flew out of two strange merchant ships.

(Gaza-D)

This is a transforming machine with extremely high speed, and the mega particle destroyer in its hand is also quite powerful. In the fast-paced battle, the assault team did not gain any advantage, but instead suffered great losses in the battle.

(Gasa-D, in a transformed state)

What's even more terrifying is that the enemy seems to be fearless. Once the damage to the machine exceeds a certain value, they will rush up, grab the enemy with their two huge mechanical arms, and execute Command 2887 to carry out a suicide attack—the overloaded rice furnace self-destruction.

The New Federation's commerce raiding squadron suffered heavy losses—and Brad also learned a startling fact from the accompanying Newtype forces.

These structures appear to be just drones.

In this era, if you were to ask which force possesses this level of technology, the only one would be the Space Alliance.

But Brad did not give up and instead adopted a different strategy: the troops to carry out the commerce raiding operation were pre-assigned sniper GM3s, and the fleet composition would be observed before the commerce raiding operation was carried out.

The merchant ships, suspected of carrying unmanned escort forces, abandoned their attack, betting that the Space Alliance did not have enough cargo ships.

然而布莱德失望了……因为太空联盟在吉翁将近2000艘运输货船组成的100个大船队里，每个船队配备10艘武装商船，这样就有将近1000艘搭载MS的武装商船——由此推算太空联盟居然生产了将近2万台无人机。

What terrifying production capacity!

However, from Karma's perspective, it's not a big deal... During the One Year War, the Luna II set a record of destroying 4000 GMs in two months, and the construction time for this Gaza D, which was modified from an engineering machine, wouldn't be much longer than that of the GM.

In fact, without considering the driver, the Gasa-D can save on the cost of the cockpit, and the Minovsky nuclear furnace can reduce the machining precision in order to reduce working hours.

In any case, this type of machine has a very short lifespan; it was designed for attrition warfare.

By this time, Karma had finally overcome her fear of human wave tactics... and Brad didn't make things difficult for himself in this matter.

The war lasted until May, and although tactical victories were achieved, the casualty ratio was also quite good.

However, strategically they are clearly at a disadvantage, and the Republic of Zeon is experiencing economic problems.

In order to equip each merchant fleet with sufficient armament, the tonnage originally intended for civilian supplies had to be used to carry mobile suits.

"Arming costs" squeeze out "transport tonnage," meaning that if you want to build weapons, you can't build goods—the actual cargo-carrying capacity of merchant ships actually decreases, and transportation efficiency is greatly reduced.

The Republic implemented a "tonnage priority system"—cargo space was only used to transport military supplies and industrial raw materials, and not civilian consumer goods (such as coffee, cotton, and pharmaceutical excipients), which greatly reduced the quality of life for the people.

Consumer goods on the market have also begun to decrease. Although food is self-sufficient, cargo space on transport ships is extremely valuable.

Char also had to advocate frugality... However, it was clear to everyone that if the economic blockade was not lifted soon, the economic achievements accumulated by the Republic over the past seven years would be reduced to ashes.

"It seems we have no choice but to become pirates." Seeing this situation, Karma didn't have any good ideas.

Then we can only hurt each other. Let Liao go and deal with the New Federation's merchant ships, so that the people of the New Federation can also experience the taste of lack of food and clothing.

Chapter 323 Silver Thunder

Liao quickly achieved results. Within a week, the Space Alliance's "Pirate King" force began to launch planned attacks on New Federation merchant ships.

The New Commonwealth members who read the newspapers were also jolted awake from their dream that only they could impose a trade blockade.

To demonstrate the Space Alliance's adherence to humanitarian principles in war, Liao would even wait 10 minutes to lure the New Federation's rescue MS forces over before using a swarm of drones to annihilate the enemy's armed forces.

Unlike the One Year War, which involved battles with thousands of mobile suits and hundreds of warships, the war in 0087 was known as the Pirate War. It was famous for its small scale, high intensity, and its strategy of attacking the enemy's weaknesses rather than engaging in direct confrontation.

Gradually, Side 1 and Side 4 stopped engaging in foreign trade and instead became self-sufficient with each other.

Under Anna's orders, the Newtype MS combat teams remaining on the home front also began to participate in the escort mission.

Facing the new humans, Gaza D's combat effectiveness also began to decline... Ryo also adjusted his strategy, choosing to conduct a commerce raiding campaign that avoided direct confrontation.

However, after a month of pirate warfare, Kalmar had to admit that even if the Alliance could launch a larger-scale pirate campaign, the New Federation's economy and self-sufficiency were still stronger than Zeon's.

The fact that the enemy has been delaying a decisive fleet battle and has been keeping its combat fleet hidden away like a treasure is clearly because they are wary of the SOLAR SYSTEM, which could pose a threat to their fleet.

--

On May 12, Anna also arrived at Brad's ship to inspect the front-line operations and to supervise the battle.

Shiko was standing next to him. She winked at Brad. Miss Anna wasn't in a particularly good mood.

"Commander Brad, the attack on the SOLAR SYSTEM can't wait any longer. I remember this mission was led by Io... It's just about retaking SIDE3, we can't let it turn into another one-year war."

Brad felt the pressure, but still managed to say, "Miss El, I'd like to confirm one more thing; now is not the time."

"You want to wait for Char Aznable to appear?"

“Yes, I’ve been waiting for intelligence about his appearance since the start of the war, but he hasn’t shown up on the battlefield yet.” Brad said with some doubt.

“Char Aznabul went to Abaoakun today, along with his Newtype forces,” Anna said with certainty. “Does that meet the requirements?”

"Have you already detected it with the detection system?"

“At this distance, there’s no need for that kind of equipment. We’re less than 1 kilometers from Abaoakong, and I can sense their scent.”

Brad couldn't help but sigh, the problem that had been troubling him had been solved so easily—or perhaps Miss Anna El had come specifically because she knew Char had gone to Abaoa.

Was this also part of their calculations?

"Captain Io."