Gundam Lore - Is the Augusta Newtype Lab the Missing Link?

One of the most interesting bits of Universal Century history is the arms race within Zeon, between the Zeonic Corporation and Zimmad Company. Both companies competed to design and develop mobile suits, and while Zeonic ended up having more “wins”, some of Zimmad’s designs were among the best in the war. If you dig deep to look at who made what, a narrative takes shape, one in which Zimmad arguably made more impressive technical achievements, but struggled to make them cheap enough (or safe enough) to be viable for mass military use. While the end of the One Year War brought both companies to dissolution, one gets the sense that Zeonic would have knocked out its competitor sooner or later.

Now let’s get to the real topic of this post - did you know that there was a similar arms race within the Federation? It’s true!

Or rather, it is maybe true. Or not. And if it is true, it isn’t quite the same situation.

Okay, okay, so the details are still a bit fuzzy to me, but just let me tell the story.

During the One Year War, most (if not all) of the Earth Federation’s mobile suits were developed in-house. Afterward, they began to increasingly outsource the work to Anaheim Electronics, a corporate conglomerate that scooped up the Intellectual Property (and much of the staff) of both Zeonic and Zimmad, and began making mobile suits for anyone willing to pay. There is a span of several decades in the Universal Century in which almost all of the major mobile suits from all factions were coming out of Anaheim.

However, there was another entity designing mobile suits - the Newtype Research Labs. This is where things get extremely fuzzy. I can’t quite figure out if these were simply Federation research labs stationed at Federation bases, or if the Institute(s) was/were spun off into their own independent entities that continued to do work for the military. Whatever the case may be, it appears that the Newtype Labs designed some mobile suits in addition to their work on Newtype research. One of the earliest examples is the Gundam Alex, which was initially designed (and partly manufactured?) at the Newtype Lab in Augusta, Georgia before being shipped off to an Arctic base and ultimately transported to Side 6 for completion.

Coincidence?

Another early batch of mobile suits to come out of the Newtype Labs were the Blue Destiny units which like the Alex were an attempt to take advantage of Newtype abilities (albeit in a much more horrifying and psychologically damaging manner).

In subsequent years, the Newtype Labs (particularly the one at Augusta) continued to work on mobile suit designs. In particular, by UC 0083 they had developed a number of prototypes as part of the Federation’s effort to establish the next generation of mass production units. This included the GM Custom and the GM Quel. Both of these units were produced in limited numbers¹, mainly for data collection and field testing, and presumably under the assumption that more would be built if the Federation (and later the Titans) fancied them.

In the end, however, the mainline Feddies would rely largely on the GM II, while the Titans on the Hizack (as well the seemingly endless list of one-off prototypes that pop up in Zeta Gundam).

Still, these units out of Augusta are important components in the history of mobile suit design. The GM Custom was allegedly inspired by, based on, and may have even used spare parts from the Gundam Alex (which, remember, was the genesis of the panoramic cockpit). The Custom was then the inspiration for the Quel, which used a new design for its arms that would eventually inspire the Moveable Frame system.

And what was the first mobile suit to be built with a full Moveable Frame? You guessed it - the Gundam Mark II. So while Anaheim may have sold more designs, some of the most important technological advancements of the era came out of the Augusta Lab’s designs.

As time went on, and the Titans rose to power, the Newtype Labs continued to work on a few other designs, including the Asshimar, the Gaplant, and the Psycho Gundam. Their last major creation was the Banshee in 0096, (though by that point in time the Newtype Labs may or may not have been a puppet/extension of Anaheim).

Conclusion

The thing about Gundam lore is that it is impossible to know the truth about a lot of it. There are all sorts of contradictory sources, which in turn may be mistranslated or misinterpreted by English speakers. I can’t say for 100% certain that any of the above information is accurate. The best I can do is list my sources:

If any of it is true, then I will say that I find it fascinating to see how big (but quiet) an influence the Augusta Lab had on mobile suit design.

This is definitely true of the Custom, any maybe true of the Quel. Both units are described as being “mass produced”, but there is no real evidence of this being true. Neither shows up all that often in mainline Gundam stories. In regards to the Quel, it appears as if it was used as a mainline unit by the Titans very early on, and then later as a test bed for all sorts of weird stuff. But there’s no evidence that it was ever mass produced on the level of the Hizack or other GMs. ^[return]