To Steal a Gundam

by Ben

August 11, 2005

A fan of Mecha Musings pointed out a rather untouched subject in the
world of Gundam, and with few exceptions it holds true. Why is it that
in 99% of high end military equipment, especially with the incredible
amount of theft that occurs in the Gundam universe that mobile suits
require no key, login, access codes or other form of security to prevent its unauthorized use? You wouldn't simply leave your tank in the middle of the battlefield with the keys in the drive would you? It seems that mobile suits are incredibly easy to just get in, get out and run amok.

In the UC era, Gundam pilot Amuro Ray jumped into a prototype military
weapon and with only an instruction book to guide him took it for the
equivalent of a four month joy ride. No one thought to make some kind of
lock? It was ok to just have a giant, humanoid robot at anyone's disposal?

Take another example of poor planning, the horrible amount of information that simply leaks out in the Gundam universe. On no less than 5 or 6 different occasions, the plans to top secret military weapons not only get out to other top secret organizations, but also manage to make their way gradually to the grunts all across the planet. Look at the wonderful example in Gundam Wing, when the first production line of Taurus MS are lined up and annihilated in transit by five rather rouge, and poorly connected solo pilots. So the long and short of it is, all of this information was conveniently leaked to all of them, yet up until a point, none of them knew about each other?

Now the truth is, this isn't a universal constant. We do have one great example of planning on the part of someone in the Gundam universe. Somewhere along the line in the After War universe, the satellite cannon, a microwave cannon of massive power was developed for use on the GX-9900 Gundam X. Someone along the way realized that this would be really… REALLY dangerous in the wrong hands, and was smart enough to require the entire control stick of the X to be removable, and make it a required component in its use. In addition, the satellite cannon could only be fired by a Newtype, making the chance of its misuse even less likely. Whoever that person was, I give them props. They thought ahead, unlike a million other people. Lets not forget that the Turn A even included a remote control.

We still however don't have an answer as to why suits and equipment
are so easily stolen. No key? No pilot specific biometrics? No life
sign sensors? What gives? I've come to a single conclusion – MS designers (in the Gundam universe, not the real life writers) came to the assumption that either one pilot would hold onto the unit for the entirety of its lifespan, or the suit would get blown up. They just assumed, they go out once, either the suit gets busted up, or they won't have to worry about it any more.

I mean, give the poor guys a break, they're mechanics, not loss prevention. No one expects them to protect things, just build and fix
them. If they had to worry about not getting it stolen/broken/damaged they wouldn't have jobs anyways. Without midseries upgrades, there would be no point for genius mechanics that are 15 years younger than their peers to be on board ships.

So on the same note as my single in story conclusion, I give you my
single conclusion as to why the story writers chose to do this: simply
because they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the chances of
two opposing sides designing almost identical looking weapons with
similar abilities at the exact same time are about the same chances as
I have of winning the Michigan state lottery. Instead, it's easier to
just steal someone else's stuff and use it for 20-30 episodes.

Gundam's are you ready???? On your mark……… get set………. STOLEN!

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