EPISODE 1: JONAH
The obsidian-hued Geara Doga mobile suit twists and fires its beam rifle. Already fatally the damaged, the Doga nevertheless manages to score a direct hit through the center of the gray-colored Zaku III whose Heat Hawk had damaged the Doga. Both mobile suits explode into thousands of pieces of titanium alloy shrapnel.
Elsewhere, a gray-colored Dreissen MK-II of the Imperium of Deimos rips into a black Gellond with its beam tri-blade, bisecting the ebony-colored Phobos Principality mobile suit with a three gracefully violent motions of its weapon.
The same Dreissen MK-II is then blasted from behind by the beam rifle of a Phobos Jagd Doga mobile suit.
The Jagd Doga dodges incoming missile fire from a pair of Gaza-G mobile suits, only to fall prey to the beam rifle of a grey Geara Doga with Imperium of Deimos markings.
And the scene is repeated dozens of times over in local space: sixty black-colored mobile suits belonging to the Principality of Phobos versus fifty grey-colored mobile suits from the Imperium of Deimos. Neo Zeon versus Neo Zeon, in the name of supremacy…in the name of “turf” (or as close as the domination of space can come).
Of the many mobile suits deployed in combat this day, the pilot of one of them takes particular relish in the battle. Many emotions course through the mind of a mobile suit pilot in combat: terror, remorse, hatred, anger…even complete numbness.
For General Alexander Miguel, Prince of the Principality of Phobos (Neo Zeon), however, there is only the sheer ecstasy of bringing death and suffering to his enemies, whom Alexander considers all those who stand in the way of his goals.
During the past five years, the Principality of Phobos and the Imperium of Deimos have struggled over the control of Mars and Marsspace. Mars’ vast mineral resources and strategic location represent a rich and juicy fruit that both Miguel and his counterpart from Deimos, Imperator Konrad Von Bach, salivate over and for which they are willing to send hundreds, if not thousands of men, to their deaths. Moreover, Mars will prove an invaluable touchstone for the conquest of their rivals farther out in the Solar System…in the Asteroid Belt and the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, and eventually, to the Earth Federation-dominated Cislunar Space, where the sourcepoint and birthplace of Zeon, Side 3, remains occupied by the Federation.
These long-term ambitions are never far from the mind of Alexander Miguel. In fact, they represent the core of Alexander’s life…the reason for which he lives. During combat, however, he can set aside, at least for a short interval, these considerations and simply live for the moment…the sheer thrill of crushing the life out of his enemies, and watching the weak and degenerate die as they are meant to.
General Alexander Miguel does not tolerate weakness…not among his own people, and certainly not among his enemies. The Neo Zeon units under Alexander’s command are brutal, but also well-trained. Within several minutes, they have their enemies from the Imperium of Deimos in full retreat.
But one does not escape from Alexander Miguel so easily.
Alexander’s mobile suit is a black-colored MSN-04S Nightingale, a development from the MSN-04 Sazabi project that provided Colonel Char Aznable his final mobile suit. The Nightingale had originally been intended for Colonel Char’s use should the Sazabi prove insufficient to handle the Earth Federation Forces’ RX-93 Nu Gundam (piloted by Captain Amuro Ray). After Colonel Char’s demise, the then-Colonel Alexander Miguel seized the experimental mobile suit for himself, and has had his crew of engineers and technicians continually upgrade it since.
Alexander fires a spray of shots from the Nightingale’s arm mounted beam-cannon, riddling an enemy Zaku-III unit full of holes. The enemy mobile suit is disabled, but the pilot lives. Alexander does not wish for his enemy to die so quickly: first, he must experience the terror and pain that the Prince of Phobos relishes to mete out.
Alexander drives the armored hand of his Nightingale into the chest cavity of the disabled Zaku-III, directly into the mobile suit’s cockpit. The Nightingale’s hand wraps itself around the terrified pilot.
Slowly, gradually, Alexander increases the pressure of his mobile suit’s hand around the pilot.
Opening communications to the enemy pilot’s helmet receiver, Alexander says to his foe, “This is happening to you because you are weak. The weak aren’t worthy to live. Nature determines that the weak must die, in pain…and in terror…”
The hand of the Nightingale squeezes around the Zaku-III pilot, crushing every bone in the man’s body and causing his internal organs to implode. Alexander takes perverse satisfaction in hearing the enemy pilot’s screams of terror and pain in his horrific final moments.
And then, it is over. There is silence, and a bloody, fleshy mass in the hand of the Nightingale.
The sight of the blood, quickly freezing solid in the cold of space, causes Alexander’s mouth to water.
His bloodlust sated, at least for the moment, Alexander opens communications to his mobile suit pilots, “This is the Leader. Good hunting today, men. Let’s return to the Lair.”
“The Lair” is code for Phobos Fortress, the enormous Neo Zeon military base built into the Martian moon of the same name. Not only does Phobos Fortress house the Phobos Forces’ 500-plus mobile suits, 800-plus war spacecraft, and 50-plus space battleships (as well as the facilities for manufacturing and maintaining them), but it is also the seat of government and civic life for the Principality of Phobos Neo Zeon. Within the moon is Phobos City, home to one million Neo Zeon citizens living under Alexander Miguel’s protection and rule.
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Phobos, one of two large moons of Mars. Within this massive asteroid is the Neo Zeon military complex commanded by General Alexander Miguel. The hollowed-out asteroid also contains a self-sufficent city state of several million people, including one Jonah Miguel.
It cannot be said that General Alexander Miguel is defined entirely by hatred, cruelty, and sadism. These aspects of his personality, though dominant, are generally directed only towards his enemies and those whom he considers weak. To the people of Phobos, General Miguel is a hero…one who cares about them as a father would care about his children. When Miguel brought his people to Phobos in the early U.C. 0090s, they were a mass of desperate refugees, eating each other’s flesh to survive, surrendering their minds to madness in the emptiness of space, resigning themselves to the slow, agonizing death of oxygen-depletion and asphyxiation as what little oxygen remained in their escape vessels dwindled away.
Those who surrendered and those who resigned were those whom Alexander considered unfit to live under his protection, and they were left to die or, more commonly, dispatched by Alexander and his forces to the Great Beyond. Those who persevered and stood by Alexander during those difficult early days became his Chosen People…the strong ones whom no amount of suffering could break…whose loyalty to him was unquestionable. Those were the ones who would benefit from Alexander’s largesse. Those are the ones who would have the privilege of living and the honor of continuing to stand beside him. To those who have proven themselves strongest and most loyal, Alexander has shown great generosity, and the wealth and power that they have helped Alexander to accumulate in battle is shared with them. From this wealth and power, a great metropolis has been built within Phobos Fortress, a city-state run by a culture of brutality and fear.
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Phobos City, the city-state that is the center of the Principality of Phobos Neo Zeon. Jonah Miguel grew up here, and at age seventeen, escaped its oppressive, militaristic society.
But this is a universe that abhors absolutes. Within even the most extreme darkness, there must yet shine the tiniest flicker of light. And so it is that in the militaristic, authoritarian society of the Principality of Phobos, and in the cold, dark heart of Alexander Miguel, the light that shines brightest is one young man…his younger brother, Jonah Miguel.
Episode 1 to be continued...