2007-05-16, 19:37 | Link #1 | ||||||||
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Economics in the Gundam universes
So far, of the different Gundam, I think that the Cosmic Era has one of the better portrayals of economics. Politically, as of the end of the Cosmic Era 73 war, the EA is in shambles - each constituent state is either shattered, or has serious issues with the others. PLANT has tons of its own issues to deal with, so it's unlikely to interfere very much with Earth's affairs. That leaves Orb and the other smaller Earth nations as the engines of growth and recovery.
Of the rest of the Gundam universes, the situation in Turn A is the most fascinating one: how a steam-age civilization is jump-started to spacecraft in a matter of years. However, many of the questions of how it will proceed is completely unexplored, and the question of how well the Moon will integrate with such a civilization goes unasked. UC Gundam has some interesting ideas about economics, but I think that it's got a bunch of loopy ones as well. I'm a little unsure of the precise details, so I wonder if anyone can expand on it. I'm pretty sure that Gundam Wing said a few interesting things about economics as well, but I can't recall anything at the moment. I'd appreciate it if anyone can fill in the details. Of the rest, Gundam X betrays the ramifications of its premise, so there isn't much left to discuss. And the geopolitical situation in G Gundam isn't meant to be taken seriously, so it can be safely ignored for our purposes. I believe that the following is better suited for this thread than for the original one: Quote:
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2007-05-16, 21:56 | Link #2 |
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Well, I believe one of the original disagreements between PLANTs and the Earth governments was that PLANTs wanted to be politically and/or economically independent from its sponsor nations which were predominantly governed by people who are biased against Coordinators. In fact, I believe that was why Junius 7, an agricultural colony, was attacked. So this would tell me that they are capable, at least in the foreseeable future, to stand on their own and they have the means to sustain their environments. Now if this is the case, then it wouldn't be too hard for them to choose isolation (maybe partial at first) since they're already geographically isolated as it is. The only issue would be they would probably have to eventually give up all the territories they've acquired on Earth, otherwise the probability of contact would still be higher than it should be. At any case, it is possible for now, in my opinion, to not interfere in Earth's politics much. They can still keep an ey on the Earth as well as maintaining minimal trade relations with the more favoring nations. On the other hand, they still have the issue of maintaining their population I believe. If they can't igure out how to solve their declining birth rates in time, they may have to look to Earth for help, which may somehow get them involved with Earth again. Then again, they may have enough time to find a solution. Or Mars... |
2007-05-18, 01:52 | Link #3 |
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So far, the economic models for every Gundam series came off as highly unimaginative and unrealistic. Take CE for example, because its the most recent Gundam franchise out there.
I shall begin by stating that I am hardly convinced that Orb is in any position to be the primary influence of Earth's immediate future. How many times was Orb burnt to cinders? In contrast, despite the division of EA, we are not provided with any concrete evidence that the rest of EA were as devastated as their enemies. Let us not even forget that Plant was but a fraction of the scope and size that was EA (in terms of manpower, industrial capacity... etc), and throughly weakened by the conclusion of the first war. Yet, by the second war, they were able to churn out so many advanced mobile suits even developed nations would be jealous! Obviously, there is an absence of a coherent economics explanation. Realistically, if CE was a real war, the EA would have won, for the sake of simple logic. And then we get Orb. Within two years, Orb suddenly bounced back to its former glory, with enormous cities and skyscrapers. Then I was reminded that only less than five years ago, Orb was a battered wasteland. Not to mention the way wars are engaged. It took the Russians two years to reorganize and three years to counterattack after Germany invaded in '41. Yet, it took only mere days for either EA or ZAFT to mount multiple invasions against each other! We are also talking about the enormous loss of resources here. Every single time there is a huge operation, hundreds of mobile suits would engage in the open skies, by the battle's end, hundreds of mobile suits became scrap metal. Unless EA and ZAFT somehow acquired the magical speed-build code of 'operation cwal' and/or resources by magically summoning raw materials out of the blue, the way they fight wars cannot even be considered superficially realistic (economically). It is true, Orb actually had a much more realistic portrayal of economics in the series, but that in itself isn't saying much, if anything at all. By the latter end of Destiny, my 'realism' mindset trickled in, and kept on nudging my brain telling me "they still have mobile suits!?" Please do not look into Gundam for creative economic ideas, its sad man, sad... Lastly, I am reminded that Gundam is fictional. - Tak ("The British Empire was one where the sun never sets, because God couldn't trust the Englishmen in darkness")
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2007-05-18, 02:42 | Link #4 |
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I must say, of all the Gundam series I've watched over the years, Char's Counterattack and SEED Destiny were the only one which actually made a reference to economics, when Neo Zeon purchased Axis, and when Chairman Dullindal mentioned that MS were incredibly expensive. Though, it seems that the economies of those two universes are quite different, since only a few briefcases of gold were needed to completely pay for an enormous asteroid like Axis, which (I'm not sure how much a briefcase of gold bullion goes for nearly 200 years in the future...) Couldn't be much more than 1 or 2 billion dollars, give or take. That could be the equivelant of an advanced fighter jet, or a common MS in the SEED universe. ... I don't really know what I'm trying to say through all of this, but I guess you could say that economics in the Gundam universes is pretty much a useless argument. Of all the things they expand upon, economics is probably one of the last ones they'll explain.
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2007-05-18, 05:12 | Link #5 |
~Night of Gales~
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Gundam economics are rarely portrayed well. While C.E may have a better showcase of it, itself is by no means really solid, and believable within context, unless it's somehow revealed that C.E uses the same technology as True Odyssey, where mechas can be created within a snap of a finger just with use of godly technology.
In many ways, it can be said that the strongest economical portrayal of Gundam are always better handled in the background. Take C.E's power crisis, Reconstruction War timelines, and stuff that lead to the birth of C.E as we know it for example. It gives out highlight on the importance of power source, along with the rationale of how ORB prospered, despite being a small island nation. Gundam for one, never really takes itself strongly to explore the pre-world happenings as it is at core, a mecha anime. It takes place in an interesting setting, but unless there's a Gundam-spin off that's somehow politician, historian, or even journalist (( Jess not counted )) centric, that has concepts of narrative storytelling, I don't think much of economics will ever be a strong highlight in Gundam. I for one can mildly accept how the general war in correlation with economics is shown in a dfferent shade left and right, but sometimes, I wish they show the collapse and recovery of economic strongholds following large-scale wars. I still found it strangely perplexing that both sides had the economic front, even with the restoration of power-bases, to amass everything in line for what happened in Destiny, just within 2 years.
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2007-05-18, 09:17 | Link #6 | |||||||
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Need I remind you that despite invasion and widespread strategic targetting of German industry, they still managed to have their highest production in 1944? Quote:
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Astronomers have theorized that there's actually more gold in the asteroid belt than there is on Earth, and that this and other metals would be much easier to extract as well. Assuming that this is the source for Char's gold, then the situation is hard to explain without resorting to some sort of shortage and massive demand for gold in UC 0093. By the way, I can't recall if you've seen it, but Turn A probably focuses on economics the best. We find out that the Moon's economy and infrastructure are incapable of supporting its entire population, and that the nations of North America are in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Unfortunately, it doesn't give us much information on how things would proceed after the events of Turn A. Quote:
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2007-05-18, 16:26 | Link #7 | ||
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There's a lot of man made stuff floating around space in C.E. It had to get there somehow. And yes there are space-borne production facilities, but there is a lot of stuff needed to make those colonies, space stations, lunar facilities, etc. which had to come from Earth. I think it's slightly wrong to say that space travel is shown quite well in SEED when, in less than 70 years, which technology growing all the time, that ALLLLLL that was created. I'm not disagreeing that space travel is difficult. I'm saying in the C.E., technology would have to regress in order to fit your bill. We've been working on the ISS for quite some time now. It's not easy to put together. How much has space travel really progressed since the space shuttle came into existence? In terms of C.E., to accomplish what they did, there needs to be some mighty advanced forms of travel that are relatively easy to use and efficient to contruct ALLLLLLL of that in under 70 years. At the start of SEED there's a whopping 120 colonies in PLANT alone. That requires quite a bit of time and resources. To outfit those colonies with certain things, you need a lot of material from Earth. I don't believe mining in space is described well in SEED, but consider the aggregate required for modern building materials. Certain materials alone cannot exist in space because space doesn't provide the conditions necessary to form certain rocks and minerals. I'm just saying, in order to build and outfit all those locales in space in C.E., there has to be a method of space travel that is fairly efficient, cheap, and easy to use. What you describe seems to be a regression from what I believe would be required. Yes, they may, in fact, have massive production capabilities, but you can't "produce" many of the materials they'd need to even manufacture the colonies, let alone outfit them. And outfitting them... Holy Hell! The dimension stone and aggregate needed to outfit the colonies is beyond my ability to calculate. SOME of the aggregate could come from space, as well as some of the minerals, but so much of the dimension stone and aggregate would need to come from Earth. NEED TO. And let's not forget the amount of people living in space. If it were so ridiculously expensive to travel to space, I'd be shocked if there really were millions upon millions of Coordinators in space. Unless they're breeding like rabbits, you can't just send up a few tens of thousands worth of people and then populate 120 colonies to hundreds-of-thousands of people each. America didn't grow to 300+ million people overnight. It took time. And it didn't require space travel.
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2007-05-18, 18:43 | Link #8 | |||||||
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I don't think that a lack of the proper types of metals are much of an issue. Just about all terrestrial substances can be found in space, and in both purer concentrations and easier-to-extract forms as well. The only exception would be substances that have an organic origin (such as petroleum). As a side note, if I recall correctly, most of the UC Gundam colonies were built using materials gathered on-site. In Seed itself, we can see that asteroids were used in the construction of quite a few structures: A Baoa Qu, Artemis, etc. Quote:
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By the way, if you're interested at a more detailed Gundam-like solar system, you might want to check out Dream Pod 9's Jovian Suns series of games.
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2007-05-18, 20:55 | Link #9 | |
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And I haven't seen Turn A yet, but I plan to as soon as I can find it. |
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2007-05-18, 22:03 | Link #10 |
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I hardly find CE's economics believable. As many have pointed out.
The devistating war, and the ability to go another consecutive round in only two years. i won't go into detail. I agree with 4tran on Gundam x's betrayal. Everyone spat how they didn't have the resources for another war, but it happened and they didn't seem to have any problems. in gundam wing, they put emphasis on oz utilizing the resources in outer space. Especially all of those asteriod mining facilites, as well as the moon. Oz used a lot of spaces resources, which was part of the reason for the artemis revolution. i can't speak much for uc, but i do know that by the time victory rolled around the earth it'self was lacking a lot of resources.
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2007-05-18, 22:06 | Link #11 | ||||||||
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Do you realize the sheer amount of limestone required to make cement? Unless the Coordinators have found a replacement for something the Romans developed and we still use today (okay, so Portland cement is, admitedly, newer), I doubt there will be much in the way of buildings inside the colonies. And how about roads? If the Coordinators are smart, they'll be using concrete roadways in great thickness because they last far longer than asphalt. Per mile of 2-lane road there is over 20,000 tons of aggregate (commonly sand, gravel, and limestone) let alone the limestone required to make the cement used in making concrete. Let's continue with limestone. Suppose space-dwellers would like to, hmm.... Brush their teeth. String some fiber-optic cable. Maybe make some brake pads for their cars. Or, maybe they just want to make some glass for a coffee table. Guess what you need? Limestone. And a lot of it. Where are you going to find limestone in space when it needs to be formed by weather patterns, deposition of sediments, biogenic activity, and precipitation from solution? Last time I checked, there aren't rain storms in the asteroid belt or on the moon. It is possible that Mars and Jupiter have some forms of sedimentary rocks on them, but, as far as I know, that has yet to be proven. SEED, probably by accident, shows that Jupiter has sedimentary rocks by having that fossil thingy that they show in conjunction with George Glenn. But are the colonies really going to get all that sedimentary rock from Jupiter (if there is even the right kind)? Junius 7, would require, as an agricultural colony, immense amounts of dolomite (another sedimentary rock). And that would far surpass the construction phase. It would be required constantly for fertilization. Sandstone is a classic sedimentary rock that would be needed. And then there's shale, which eventually becomes the metamorphic rock known as slate. Slate is a key building material with uses from roofing to wall covering to floor tiling. Billards tables are almost always made with slate surfaces. Where are you going to find these rocks in space? Oh, of course space-dwellers are smart enough to change how it's been done for centuries because there is no other way to do it, right? Of course. I used to be a minining engineering student and have since moved into Supply Chain & Information Systems. I've spent most of my college life in mining engineering, and did an internship at quarry. The sheer volume of work we did at the quarry per day is staggering. To make the world run with quarried materials (it was a limestone quarry) is a massive job. Agrgregates such as limestone and dolomite cannot be found in deep space, though possibly on other planets. They'd have to come from the Earth. Without those rocks, the colonies cannot be outfitted with anything. The metals may be able to be mined and produced in space, but nothing required to actually outfit the colonies. And I would suppose the space-dwellers want things to look nice so they'll probably want some classic dimension stone, too, such as marble or granite. I doubt you'll be finding any marble in space because it comes from the metamorphism of, you guessed it, limestone. I cede that the colony can be easily built using materials from space, but outfitting the colony would be near impossible without massive imports from earth. You're not going to be finding much in the way of sedimentary rocks. Again, I suppose Jupiter, in C.E., has sedimentary rocks given that fossil found by Glenn, but what kind of rocks do they have? That appears to be a type of shale. Do they have slate? How about limestone or dolomite? These are all rocks required in unbelievably huge quantities to make the world run. Quote:
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But again, the "colony" may be built using only space-borne metals and production facilities, but to outfit any colony, you're going to need a lot of things only available on Earth, such as quarried rocks, dirt (otherwise known as "earth" ), people (hey, kids don't really grow up overnight though parents may think so), and many other things. Taking a quick jab at the people aspect. There are 120 colonies in PLANT alone. How many electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, carpenters, masons, welders, machinists, locksmiths, and Heavy Equipment Operators (HEOs) would be required to outfit a colony? Heliopolis (I know, not PLANT) seemed to me to be a rather sizeable colony. Can you imagine the amount of tradesmen required to install all the wire, pipes, door frames, and dead bolts in New York City from scratch? Now lets multiply that by 120. That is decades worth of work by a single crew, unless..... Thousands upon thousands of tradesmen were cheaply and efficiently moved up into space to work on multiple colonies at a time. Which, in a very round about way, makes me think of how the Coordinators ever kicked the naturals out of PLANT. I highly, highly doubt there are enough Coordinators, even in C.E. 70, who are in the aforementioned trades to outfit tens of colonies at one time. Now rewind to the early C.E. when the space colonies of all nations were being built. There is NO WAY the colonies of PLANT could be completed without massive Natural support. And then they finish the colonies and the Coordinators turn around say, "Get the **** out" and give the Naturals the boot. Kind of reminds me of that scene in Clerks where Dante and Randall are discussing the fate of the independent contractors on the Second Death Star when it blew up. ^_^ Quote:
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I cannot even fathom the amount of material required per person to build a colony, let alone the entire mass of the colony as a whole. Quote:
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2007-05-18, 22:26 | Link #12 | ||||
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Not to mention, Orb's national territory was TINY to begin with (smaller than Japan, even). How many serious industrial centers do they really have? Certainly not many. Quote:
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- Tak "800 years of war, famine, pillage and rape, and who did that to us? The English! And what do we Irish do as a people? We sail to their isle, lookin fer werk!"
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2007-05-18, 22:40 | Link #13 | |
WE ARE.... PENN STATE....
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"How Oil Won (or Lost, if you're Germany) the War in Europe." ^^; I remember that presentation. That was a tough one.
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2007-05-19, 01:19 | Link #14 | |||||||||||||||
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If we assume that the Federation lost 20,000 mobile suits worth the equivalent of $100 million USD each over the course of those 14 years, then that's equal to $2 trillion or $143 billion per year. In comparison, the US military budget for 2007 is $439 billion - not counting the funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (they're covered by supplementary spending bills; the amount for 2007 is supposed to be $124 billion). Quote:
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In comparison, the Ruhr was being bombed by thousands of heavy bombers on a daily basis from 1943 on. You can't be serious in trying to claim that the former inflicted more economic damage than the latter. Quote:
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2007-05-19, 04:32 | Link #15 | |||||
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Which is something I disagree with. Quote:
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Moreover, despite Orb's underground manufacturing capabilities, they are still tiny compared to EA or Zaft, and where the hell are they going to acquire their raw materials? Logically, they'd require massive imports to be able to maintain their level of productivity in Destiny. Quite difficult when most of the world turned against Orb. Quote:
As I stated earlier, the EA had no problems attacking Orb's population centers, and they did. Quote:
- Tak
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2007-05-19, 09:35 | Link #16 | ||||||
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The EA's goal in attacking Orb was to capture it's mass driver and all attendant support structures intact. Why then would you assume that they would target either the infrastructure or population centers? The only reason to attack either is to deny them to their enemy. However, the OMNI forces were sent there to occupy Orb, and they had an overwhelming military advantage, so why would they need to resort to such tactics? Quote:
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Uzumi only destroyed his assets when they had completely run out of military options - i.e. the Orb had nothing left to fight with. Why would OMNI continue attacking at that point? Quote:
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2007-05-19, 14:59 | Link #17 | |||||||
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So why would they need to resort to such tactics? You tell me. As they did exactly what you thought they wouldn't do. Quote:
As for it never been much of an issue? Wrong. They were indeed issues to Orb. They retreated to space during the first war (and second) because they knew they couldn't hold any longer on the ground, and had to resort to hit-n-run tactics in order to bid their time. Well, they were highly successful in that, instigating major battles between EA and PLANT. And "most of the world turned against Orb"? Lets see, besides a handful of neutral countries and Plant friendlies, most of the nations on Earth belonged to EA. Quote:
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You pretty much answered yourself with "Orb had nothing to fight with". You are right. So if you said this, I do not know why you would insist on Orb being a major center of influence after the second war, even if it was to be a politically one. Political influence without a military institution to enforce it (even during peacetime) is a pretty useless one. - Tak
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2007-05-19, 15:26 | Link #18 | |||||||||
WE ARE.... PENN STATE....
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Limestone is used because it of its versatility, but most importantly because it is so key to the cement and concrete making processes. I happen to live in the Cement Capital of the World (the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania). I can say for certain that not a single one of the 10 competing cement plants in the Valley use something other than limestone to cut cost... Because nothing does the job the way limestone does. The space-dwellers are going to need limestone from Earth one way or another. The Lehigh Valley is the Cement Capital of the World because it also happens to have large limestone deposits. I remember in high school you could feel the ground shake ever so slightly as charges were set off in the local quarries. Having lived amongst the quarries and cement plants my entire life, having been a mining engineering student, and having worked in these fields, I can say with the utmost confidence that this material is JUST THAT IMPORTANT to civilization as we know it. And that's just one material. I keep on limestone, but I've previously mentioned things like slate, dolomite, sandstone, marble, etc. that are just as important in other ways. Making limestone.... Um.... Hmmm...... >_> Yeah..... Check back with me when they figure that one out. Quote:
Roman structures are still standing 2,000 years later. Why? Because they had a darn good idea and it worked. They, unthinkably, developed hydraulic cement in their time. That's astonishing. We still use that today in the form of Portland Cement, which is only minorly different that its Roman ancestor. Why? No one has thought of a better idea. Quote:
Show me a machine that think for itself and string 12-2 Romex cable for an entire house and I'll concede the point. But we need something even more advanced that a Star Wars droid for that job. I spend my summers working construction (though not this summer as I have a job at the University now) and I've helped remodeled two homes as well constantly working with my dad to work on our current house. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, HVAC technicians, locksmiths, and all those trades and more cannot be reasonably replaced by robots and machinery. It is an incredible job to do those things. Even if you could program a robot to string Romex, I'd love to see it be able to think for itself enough to critically think of solutions to the plethora of problems that arise in construction of structures. No two jobs are ever the same. Some things can be pre-fabbed, I'll admit. Plumbing is one of the easier things to prefab, but it can't be done in nearly all situations. Jobs the size of a colony would require thousands upon thousands of human workers to complete. Quote:
To do HVAC or electrical alone a machine would need great problem solving skills. And how do you give a robot experience? You obviously become better and are more reputable as you gain more experience in the trades. Quote:
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I have read up slightly on him for this and I can tell that these thoughts didn't cross his mind, or at the very least he never consulted anyone with experience in construction. It's all well and good for him to imagine colonies. We're still waiting for those flying cars and houses with Robot Maids we were promised back in the 1950s. But concept and practice are two greatly different things. Quote:
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In order for the colonies of the Gundam series to be feasible, there needs to be an efficient and relatively cheap method of Earth-to-space transportation and a massive human workforce well versed in the manual trades. Without that, nothing in the Gundam series are possible. At all. Quote:
It was one of my better works, if I do say so myself. ^_^
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2007-05-19, 19:37 | Link #19 | ||||||||
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2007-05-19, 19:52 | Link #20 | ||||||||
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By the way, Robot Maids are quite possible within the next couple hundred years, but flying cars aren't. Quote:
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