Beneath the Surface (Gundam/TF crossover)

[Darth Fanboy]

The re-released, new and improved version of a very old fic I used to work on. Hope you enjoy the reworked first two chapters, combined into one full chapter.

BENEATH THE SURFACE

0079 UC Calendar, relentless fighting between the Earth Federation and the breakaway colonies of Side 7 now known as the Principality of Zeon has led to the deaths of over half the human population. Billions of lives were snuffed out after mere days of fighting. Although the atrocities committed by both sides forced the creation of the Antarctic treaty, lives are lost every day to the war with no end in sight.

Despite their initial disadvantages in military strength and natural resources, the Principality of Zeon gained a quick upper hand in the fighting with the development of the first military models of mobile suits. Although humanity had failed numerous times in the past in scaling up mecha technology, the Principality of Zeon managed to make key technological breakthroughs well in advance of the Earth Federation with devastating results. The Zeon’s Zaku mobile suits rampaged across the Earth Sphere unchallenged by anything the Federation military could throw at them. Federation scientists worked feverishly to develop a countermeasure to the growing ranks of Zeon Mobile suits, and the answer finally came as the top secret “Project V” finally gave results.

The culmination of Project V was the RX-78 Gundam, a mobile suit that far surpassed Zeon’s mobile suits in combat performance. Along with other prototype mobile suits such as the Guncannon, the Gundam would form the basis for the Earth Federation’s infant mobile suit corps. Production for a less powerful, but less expensive version of the RX-78 would begin soon at the Federation stronghold known as Jaburo in South America.

Zeon soon discovered the existence of Project V, located in Side 7, and attacked. But a young boy named Amuro Ray managed to defeat the Zeon by piloting the RX-78 on his first attempt, beating back the Zeon Zakus with little more than luck and an excellent technical aptitude. The news of the battle eventually reached Zeon Headquarters, were it was not well received…


Side 3, Beneath the Zabi Residence


Degwin Sodo Zabi, Archduke of Zeon, had only recently received the reports of the battle at Side 7 and frustration had immediately set in. His cohorts had promised him a quick end to the war, an irresistible offer given the mounting death toll and seemingly impossible without the use of chemical or nuclear weapons. The decision to form an alliance had come quickly, in exchange for the technology to create the powerful weapons known as mobile suits, the benefactors of Zeon would enjoy a share in the spoils of war, which would come from the resource rich Earth. The technology was supposed to be exclusive to the Zeon though, the Federation’s mobile suit was entirely unexpected and Zabi knew that if the Federation began mass producing these suits, the war would not end any time soon.

Privately, Zabi wondered if he was dealing with demons. Although he risked upsetting his benefactors, the implications of the battle were too great to ignore, and so the Archduke set out to get the answers he desperately wanted. The beings he had allied with had taken up residence in a series of large bunkers beneath the Zeon’s own military headquarters, bunkers originally designed to shelter the population from a poison gas attack but now off limits to the public.

The limousine and its accompanying convoy of bodyguards navigated the dimly lit series of passageways and elevators, deeper and deeper until they arrived at the entrance to their destination. The large chamber door was adorned with the deep purple logo of those responsible for Zeon's mobile suit development. All of the research and development came from behind these doors. The logo itself was a great representation of this, as the hard angles seemed to form the face of the devil himself, a combination of monster and machine that sought to destroy all who would oppose it. The doors slowly opened and the monster’s face parted to reveal a room filled with large machines resembling mobile suits. These machines however moved under their own power, and hand minds of their own.

Seated on a large throne in front of several tactical displays that Degwin Sodo Zabi could not even understand was Megatron, the architect of the One Year War. Zeon had discovered the Decepticon warship carrying Megatron and his retinue drifting lifelessly before the start of the war. The seemingly derelict vessel was brought to side 3, and its crew inadvertently reactivated during an examination by Zeon scientists. Realizing the potential effect that alien technology could have on the balance of power, Degwin Zabi forged an alliance with the Decepticons, negotiating directly with their leader. Megatron and his Decepticons began teaching Zeon how to build operational and functional mecha based on Cybertronian concepts. Megatron had assured Zabi that the war would come to a swift end, with Zeon supplanting the Federation as the dominant power.

Megatron noticed the arrival of the humans and acknowledged them, standing up and moving closer to them to create a larger and more intimidating presence. "Ah, if it isn't my favorite flesh creature. How goes the process of organic decay this week?"

Normally Zabi could tolerate Megatron’s insults, but he was in no mood to tolerate them now. "Megatron! I demand an explanation! You said that the technology you were giving us could not be duplicated by the Federation, and that we would win the war in just a few short weeks!”

Megatron's sadistic smile turned into a scowl. "I always deliver on my promises Archduke, what concern could you possibly have that would lead you to doubt me.”

Zabi motioned to an aide behind him, who procured a pair of disks. "I have here in my hand evidence that the Federation has developed its own mobile suit technology. Technology that was supposed to be OURS alone! Have you been dealing behind my back Megatron or is your technology not as advanced as you claim!”

The Decepticon Commander turned his head towards his trusted lieutenant Soundwave was standing. Soundwave walked over towards the humans and took the disks. He analyzed the data, confirming its authenticity, and then patched the data through to a display at Megatron's throne console. The Decepticons in the room all watched as the Zaku mobile suits they had created were destroyed by a White Mobile Suit that none of them were familiar with.

Megatron looked at the face of the White Mobile Suit known as Gundam, a face he had not seen for millions of years. Yet the familiarity of the face was as clear to him as it had ever been, and although he knew that this Federation mobile suit wasn't his old adversary, he knew that it was his doing. Somehow the Autobots had survived the same catastrophe the Decepticons had, and were now managing to interfere with his plans yet again.

"PRIME!"

Megatron shouted the name out loud, causing the Humans in the room to cover their ears in pain. Silently, the Archduke wondered how a mechanical face could look so angry.

“It would appear Archduke, that your adversaries are receiving technological assistance as well. How fortunate that you had already consulted with us or perhaps it would be your nation on the brink of defeat.”

Zabi clenched his fist tightly. “We have an agreement Megatron, you promised us a victory. Can you even still make that promise?!”

At any other time in his long life, Megatron would have brought his foot down atop the small organic below him and flattened him into an unrecognizable smear. But for the time being the Decepticons needed the security and secrecy than only Zeon could provide. Still, the attack on his credibility could not go unanswered.

“It will take more than Autobot meddling to stop us Archduke. Decepticon military might is far superior, I will order the developments of more advanced mobile suits for your forces, your rivals on Earth have not yet begun mass producing any mobile suits yet. I would suggest that you take the weapons we give you, strike them quickly and eliminate their production capability before they become an actual threat.”

Events had progressed to far to turn back, but that did little to dissuade Degwin Zabi’s fears that his gamble would cost the Principality dearly. "If the Federation is successful in pushing us off of Earth, then we will no longer have the resources that you require Megatron!"

"That is enough you insolent flesh creature!" Megatron snapped. "Your engineers have already modeled an upgraded variation on the basic version of what we first gave you and don't think for a moment that I am unaware of your Gouf project! What's the matter Zabi? Surprised that you were unable to conceal your secrets from me? You thought you were comissioning a moble suit capable of matching wih a Cybertronian, and you have made more improvements than I gave you organic wastes of gas credit for. But know this, the power of a Decepticon warrior far exceeds anything you will ever be capable of!"

Zabi stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow, and without a word, returned to his car. When the entire convoy had departed, Megatron returned to his throne, activating the inegrated communicator. "Starscream, the Autobots have just entered the picture. Find them and report back to me immediately."

"But of course mighty Megatron! By chance will this mean the end of your cowardly proxy war and the begining of real fighting?" Starscream mocked.

"My tolerance for you is at an all time low Starscream. Do not test it now, find the Autobots and perhaps you shall be rewarded. Fail me and I shall have your alternate form converted into that of a Zeon Dopp!"

Starscream shuddered, as much as a robot could. "By your will Megatron..."

As the transmission ended, Megaron turned towards Soundwave, the more loyal of his top subordinates. "I think it's time we acelerated our plans for this war. Bring in the Zabi known as Gihren, and do it quietly without his father's knowledge. If our analysis of him is correct then perhaps he is more suited to our agenda."

Federation HQ, Jaburo, South America

"We couldn't have asked for a better result General Revil. The RX-78 steamrolled the enemy, once we get this technology into production we'll be pushing the Zeons off the earth so fast they'll wonder what happened to the gravity."

Revil nodded his agreement, but did not allow the good news to distract him from his task at hand. "It seems our new allies have come through for us as promised. Have our engineering teams completed Operation Archon?"

The Colonel nodded and handed Revil a disk. "Lt. Commander Marsh contacted us less than an hour ago and most of the key components from the Ark have been successfully transferred to Jaburo. The facilities required to begin mass production of the new GM should be up an running by the end of the month, although it would be sooner if our allies would contribute more than just technical knowledge."

"Colonel, the Autobots are not soldiers under our command, and they have already given us the key to building the weapons we desperately needed to keep the war from getting out of hand. The Earth Federation has made a bargain with them and I intend to honour or side of the agreement without pressuring our potential saviors for more."

The Colonel raised his voice to respond but decided against it. Revil had been the chief representative of the Federation military during the talks and had helped shape the treaty between the Autobots and the Earth Sphere. Arguing against him would prove both difficult to win and detrimental to his career. The last thing he wanted was to be in command of the ground forces fighting in northern Russia.

The Autobots had pledged technical assistance in weapons development in exchange for the Federation's help in repairing their damaged spacecraft and what little Federation intelligence existed related to the Decepticons. At first Optimus Prime had refused to share any weapons technology, but his hesitation was replaced with cooperation once the Zeon moile suits deployed, using what could only have been Cybertronian technology. With all of hisAuobots accounted for, Prime concluded that the Decepticons were responsible. Obligated to restore the balance their wayward cousins had destroyed, the Autobots were now involved for the duration of this conflict.

The Autobots themselves were busy adapting to their new surroundings at Jaburo, as Federation excavation teams began moving the equipment from the once carefully concealed wreckage of the Ark. Optimus Prime's most trusted lieutenants provided the escort in their new alt-forms, disguised as Federation military vehicles.

Overseeing the transfer remotely from a fortified cavernous bunker beneath the South American Landscape were Optimus Prime, and his chief technician Wheeljack.

"But Prime, it wouldn't take much longer than a week to have these war factories up and running, we could have this war over in two months, tops." Wheeljack urged.

"I have no doubt that your technical prowess could help the humans become a very powerful fighting force indeed." Prime spoke in a calm and controlled voice as he watched several cranes gingerly lower computer equipment onto a large loader. "However, if we start giving them more help than what we think Decepticons are giving the Zeons, then this war will escalate further, and more lives will be lost. Megatron will stop at nothing to win, I suspect that even if we manufactured better war material he would step into the fighting himself to ensure victory, just like on Cybertron."

Wheeljack cringed, the last time he had seen Megatron personally step into a battle had been back on Cybertron. Over one hundred of his comrades had been torn asunder and their sparks extinguished by Megatron alone. n the Decipticon Leader detonated energon bomb that had decimated the civilian population of the city, killing tens of thousands of neutral Cybertronians, as well as hundreds of combatants on both sides. "If that is the case Prime, then why are they holding back so much now? These sparkless automatons we're building aren't half as strong as your typical Cybertronian."

It was a question Prime had been asking himself for the past several days. "So far the Decepticons are holding back what they give Zeon, most likely so that when they turn on them later they will still be fighting with inferior weapons. We'll continue to match whatever Megatron throws at us as closely as we can while we expand our efforts to locate their stronghold. Our best chance for that to happen is if somehow the humans can come to peaceful terms."

Wheeljack tried to supress a sarcastic laugh, and failed. "You really think that the humans have it in them to settle this peacefully? It's not like we were able to solve anything back on Cybertron. For all we know this could be the start of a million years of war for the Humans."

Prime hung his head solemnly, regarding the Cybertronian Civil War the most monumental failure of his predecessors, whose legacy he now carried. "I sure hope not Wheeljack, I would hate for another civilization to suffer as we have."

[Sidewinder]

Awesome! I like the extra sight into Megatron's mind, and the dig at the Dopp, possibly the stupidest-looking military vehicle in fiction.

By the way, will you address the stupid lack of gun turrets on the UNDERSIDE of UC-era warships? It's hard to take space battles seriously when enemies don't take advantage of such a fucking obvious Achilles heel.

[Satori]

Awesome! I like the extra sight into Megatron's mind, and the dig at the Dopp, possibly the stupidest-looking military vehicle in fiction.

By the way, will you address the stupid lack of gun turrets on the UNDERSIDE of UC-era warships? It's hard to take space battles seriously when enemies don't take advantage of such a fucking obvious Achilles heel.

Didn't the much (unfairly, IMHO) despised Salamis class in fact have a gun pointing "down"? It had guns top, port, and starboard at the very least.

The Musai was purely idiotic though. Powerful main battery, but with a pathetic arc. It only functioned because of the central role of mobile suits- so long as you can point at the enemy from far away, that's a nice support fire "alpha arc".

Take away the MS, and in a close fleet engagement (and with Minovsky particles, engagements have to be close), a Salamis fleet that maneuvered competently would crush a formation of Musai.

In space you have attacks from all sides. The limited arc on the Musai's weapons (or those of some of the bigger EF carriers) is okay for a MS carrier that stayed out of fleet actions, but I note that was not their designated role in the series.

In short, the Salamis, is, for it's intended role, one of the MOST competent designs in UC. The way they died like mooks just goes to show that Gundam rapes military science as well as physics.

The Dopp is a aero-physical impossibility, but it's cockpit design actually makes a twisted kind of sense in the radar-impaired setting. Though why they didn't die in droves to the higher performance (well they should have been, anyway, given basic aerodynamics) Fly Mathas, TIN Cod, Toriares and Sabre Fish is a mystery (in setting only the first two have clearly superior performance). Come to think, they did die in droves. the question is why they were combvat viable at all. The Feds ditched the Toriares real quick after realizing that it lacked the firepower to kill anything but Dopps (and TIN Cod did it better) - why didn't Zeon replace the incompetent Dopp? And how Dopps carried the anti-ground ordinance they canonically had on their minute frames is well beyond me.

In short, the problem is not the dopps themselves, but WHY Zeon, which changed units like American consumers, never replaced the useless things.

[Sidewinder]

In short, the Salamis, is, for it's intended role, one of the MOST competent designs in UC. The way they died like mooks just goes to show that Gundam rapes military science as well as physics.

Tell me about it. I liked 'Gundam SEED' because it had characters I could actually sympathize with (Kira was indecisive over whether or not he wanted to be a pilot because one of the enemy aces was a close friend who threatened the friends he had aboard the Archangel, while Amuro Ray was just a fucking prima donna who deserted the White Base because Bright Noa dissed him, and then complained that Noa was dissing him when the ensign threw him in the brig after he returned), and I thought it was bullshit.

Case in point: the official website states, "However, [heavy fighters, classified as mobile armors in 'Gundam SEED'] have become hopelessly obsolete with the introduction of ZAFT's revolutionary mobile suits. The initial expectations of the Earth Alliance, that the combat strength of one ZAFT mobile suit would be equivalent to only two or three mobile armors, have proven to be dramatically wrong; in practice, it typically requires at least five of these machines to take down a single mobile suit."

Yes, mobile suits are more maneuverable than heavy fighters, but they must devote a LOT of mass and volume (both premiums in any military vehicle) for this extra maneuverability, e.g., actuators for moving the arms and legs in AMBAC. That means they have less mass and volume to devote to powerful engines, fuel supplies, long-range sensors (radar may be useless, but infrared and LIDAR should be useful), long-range weapons, armor, electronic countermeasures like the DICM, and other defenses.

Aerospace combat shouldn't look like dogfights between the unbeatably agile Mitsubishi A6M Zero (which the mobile suits are analogues of) and the leaden Grumman F4F Wildcat (Earth Alliance/Federation fighters). Besides, American pilots often negated the Zero's superior maneuverability by using American fighters' superior speed (heavier fighters can outrun lighter ones in a dive) to avoid combat unless they have the advantage, and then launch hit-and-run attacks on enemies that were sitting ducks in comparison.

[SAMAS]

Awesome! I like the extra sight into Megatron's mind, and the dig at the Dopp, possibly the stupidest-looking military vehicle in fiction.

You take that back!

As long as the Gattle exists, the Dopp will be forevermore "not that bad".

By the way, will you address the stupid lack of gun turrets on the UNDERSIDE of UC-era warships? It's hard to take space battles seriously when enemies don't take advantage of such a fucking obvious Achilles heel.

Mostly because of the whole Space Is An Ocean thing. That said, most EF ships at least put turrets on their sides that could angle under them, and most post OYW-era designs did have some underside-mounted turrets.

[Darth Fanboy]

I always thought the lack of underside gun turrets in at least some cases had to deal with landing or docking issues. No sense putting guns down there if they would just be crushed upon landing, and perhaps internal space ins't sufficient enough for retractable weapons. *shrugs*

And god the Gattles are horrible...