Gundam and the Ideology of The Earth Federation 

Interesting video, well researched and argued. Two things I'd just like to bring up are how the federation is a stand in for the US in 0080 for a really interesting cold war commentary with zeon as a stand in for the USSR and side six for Japan being caught in the middle of it all. The other thing, in 0079 we see both the US and USSR occupied by Zeon. The most notable part of this being how we see upper class men in the Americas sucking up to their occupiers in one scene.

The theming I get from Tomino's federation at the very least is a "democracy is flawed" discussion that while elements of it are corrupt it's still a better alternative than the dictatorship that is Zeon and our heroes are still a part of it working to defend it and root out the corrupt parts.

It is my opinion that the manner in which the Earth Federation is portrayed in the early Tomino works has had undeniable ramifications on how both the Gundam fandom and other Gundam creators perceive the narrative of the Universal Century. It becomes difficult to blame people for rallying behind Zeon when their alternative is basically a memetic vacuum that has no overt values or ideology and represents nothing but the worst stereotypes of a neoliberal market economy that one could make. Corrupt, incompetent, self interested, greedy etc. That and any and all of the "good" Federation characters are usually portrayed as good in spite of, not because of, the Federation, with no character be it Bright, Judau or Amuro being capable of reforming its deficiencies.

The Victory Gundam depiction of the Federation is honestly my favourite, a bunch of old men past their prime trying to maintain peace for the younger generation with whatever power they had left.

I felt that in 0079 the WWII parallels were pretty strong. In a similar vein to how you put it, the earliest depictions of the Earth Federation are that of a stumbling and borderline incompetent governing force. Eventually, over the course of the original series, the Federation gets themselves together and reclaims the upper hand over Zeon. In my eye this is hugely indicative of the allies during the early war period of WWII, also known as the phony war. The French government displayed vast incompetence despite the extremely high troop morale and willingness to fight, and Britain spent far too long dragging its feet on political notions that Germany could still be reasoned with even after the invasion of Poland. Arguably the allies first true attempt to halt Germany was the defense of France ended in that retreating battle to the port city of Dunkerque with abject failure. Some easy comparisons can be drawn here with the Battle of Loum. The Earth Federation vastly underestimated the capability and tenacity of the Zeon forces, leading to a total defeat. It would take the allies a little over 2 years to make any willful attempt at an offensive. Similarly, things would get worse for the Earth Federation before they got better, with the destabilizing and dropping of Side 2 and the invasion of Earth. 0080: War in the Pocket carries some pretty obvious Cold War vibes with all the secrecy and neutrality. As does 0083: Stardust Memory, which while Zeon doesn't necessarily play a role resembling the USSR, the Earth Federation certainly plays a role similar to the mid Cold War United States.

Kai: I knew that rat must be one of the elites. Mirai: Living on on earth doesn't make you one of the elites! Note: Mirai is a Earthnoid heir to a corporate plutocrat.

It seems that the Federation will always be a stand-in for the bad (and some good) of our modern western world. I forget where I saw the quote, but the Federation was said to have been founded by "a Rich Man's club of countries". The original even had the Federation flag be a strange mix of NATO, the UN, and for some reason Brazil. The uniforms worn by Federation soldiers are also reminiscent of American uniforms from the Cold War mixed slightly with Imperial Japanese uniforms, and with the EF helmet looking very similar to the UN's own "blue helmets".

I thought how After War Gundam X handled their equivalents was neat. It was interesting seeing how both factions lost much of their political power after the war and mass colony drops. Both lost most of their power and are barely holding on. While Gundam X is an AU, it's feels like the closest one to commenting on the Universal Century.

One of my favorite aspects of the Gundam franchise, especially the Universal Century Timeline, is how blurred the lines are to who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" really are. I mean look at Zeta Gundam, the AEUG are the main protagonists but from any other perspective they would be considered an anti government armed guerrilla organization. The United Earth Federation is definitely portrayed in many varying lights throughout the U.C. timeline, many of which are far from flattering portrayals. That's what I love about the nuance of the Gundam franchise.

In the same "Zeon is exhausted" speech by General Revill, he acknowledges that the Federation government has flaws such as corruption and poor leadership. Spacenoid have legitimate grievances and the right to be emancipated from a government they don't feel represents them. But replacing that with a dictatorial monarchical regime like the one proposed by Zeon is just making a 180° shift. I would not depose the Federation to be taken over by a monarchical version of the Federation that wants to impose itself even against the interests of other colonies like Side 6.

I read the Unicorn light novel 10-ish years ago and I never knew that the author leans toward the right. At that time, I really appreciated how the light novel fleshed out the beginnings of the Federation and how it was a version of our world if only men continued to go to space after the space race. There’s a part of me that wants to believe that the Federation is mostly to blame for the uprising of the spacenoid. Pretty much like how the US colonies rebelled against the British empire. But I can't ignore what the Zeon/Zabi did to billions of people. If anything, the recent Gundam animes have made the Universal Century more rough and gray.

Well in the original trilogy to Crossbone and Victory the EF has changes in personality because time passes. It's almost ironic that In Gundam the spacenoid factions that are antagonists are culturally stagnant and are threatened by earth. The common Zeon saying their souls are weighted down by gravity is emblematic of it. Unicorn is the odd one as the writer is a Zeon apologist. Look into Gundam Gaia Gear for the proper return of Char in that case. Gaia Gear is a novel Tomino wrote as part of the Char's Counter Attack novel timeline which is CCA Beltorchika's Children, Hathaway's Flash( original novel) and Gaia Gear. Neither is good nor bad but present different problems.

This is a great analysis, usually these types of talks were always been discussed in spacebattles forums or smaller or dedicated sci fi forums back in the day. Nowadays after the advent of social media being mainstream its nice to see some discussion of this still goes around.

I would like to see a gundam alternate universe that explores how the tools of warfare affect what kind of values for society are able to survive. Maybe have 5+ major factions rather than the usually 2-3.

Considering they did have their post 9/11 justification after Stardust, it does makes sense to see where the leadership of the Federation ended up at, and of course eventually where it will be in the next century.

Hathaway vs the can driver scene is definitely one of my favorites.

I found the federation to be most interesting in my opinion in 0083 since it shows a transition from how where the federation was nearing a fight for the elite but ultimately becoming to arrogant and careless as corrupted leaders like Bask Om took the helm by the end of the series with him sacrificing his own men to give out a message about how dangerous Zeon still is with the creation of the titans at the end of the series. It’s a perfect example of a military organization letting the wrong people slip through the cracks and then rising to power only to make something of what the original ideals weren’t into a nightmare.

In many ways, the original Gundam stories were about the dangers of autocracy: the idea that, even if there are blatant abuses in society, giving someone limitless power to fight those problems will always just make things worse, no matter how well intentioned. The Zabis are the obvious example, but you can see it even in something like Turn-A, where Diana trying to rush back to Earth starts most of the problems in the plot. As such, it's always felt like Gundam is worse off when it forgets that "wreck everyone until they all agree with me" is actually a bad thing. Maybe that's why something as weird as Gundam Thunderbolt feels more "right," since it's more sympathetic to the individualists than the people blindly drifting along with the war.

I still honestly don’t know if I’d go as far as to call Fukui a Japanese nationalist but people are right on the money about him being Japanese Tom Clancy from everything I’ve heard. In terms of his Federation I’m fine with him portraying it as a paranoid conspiratorial regime (even if Tomino already did that during Zeta) but him trying to retroactively moralize Zeon is extremely annoying considering they’ve historically been the absolutely worst between the two in every show

Another nice video someone who's been watching Gundam since the late '90s it's nice to see videos that are more about the actual world and factions than just straight multiple suits which I don't have a problem with love that

Another cool video. I have one completely irrelevant nitpick, which is that the star trek federation is not consistent at all in what it represents from series to series (and sometimes within series!). Post war American idealism sometimes, but also occasionally Soviet idealism, then a much more cynical but still sympathetic view of the liberal state by the time of DS9, and then war on terror America in Enterprise, and then new trek seems to want to go hard on portraying them as repressive and on the verge of total crisis but can't quite ever commit on that

The amount of depth there is to the UC Gundam is really staggering. Regardless of whose writing for it the amount of interesting stories that have come out of it are absolutely amazing.

I always find it hilarious that while the federation always shown to be corrupt in the end of the day people rather siding with them rather than whatever opposition force was against from Zabi's Zeon to Zanscare Empire

Thunderbolt is one of my fav series

That convo with Hathaway and the cab driver is so real tho. Very relatable in the context of climate change and the working class.

Thanks for the background detailing on the various author takes on the Federation. I recently watched Zeta and ZZ series recently and one thing that frustrate me is, why don't characters actually do something about the rot of the federation?! Besides just "Let's Genocide the Earth" Zeons?! Surely there has to be a middle ground between doing nothing vs wiping out all Earthlings. It's a frustrating habit in various media now-a-days to use social ills as motivation for villain's but never have the hero's actually deal with the issue themselves.

An excellent analysis. I've always been a fan of the more fluid social and political dynamics that can be found in a fiction's seemingly steadfast organizations depending on the author and era, in stark contrast to today's fandom obsession with canon this and consistency that, so it was a definite treat to see you take on the broad depiction of the Earth Federation in this way. Star Wars has for long time had a problem with people stanning and apologizing for the Empire, some going as far as to rehabilitate it as a "necessary" evil. Most in jest I'm sure, but many others seem dug in in the interest of providing essential contrast in perspective. Something I've noticed with entries such as Rogue One, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor recently, is Lucasfilm's determination to firm up the Empire as iredeemably evil, using the banality of evil as an effective narrative force - creating a spectrum ranging from absolute to mundane, ending up with a broad shade of grey. Another thing I've liked from Star Wars is how while the Republic was ultimately a good thing, the failings that brought about its demise were generally engineered and taken advantage of by means of bloat to make the idea of a centralized, "efficient", all-encompassing Empire more appealing.

I’ve unavoidably read my own opinions of western liberal democracies into the EF from the various parts of the Gundam universe I’ve seen. A top heavy bureaucratic and oligarchical state with authoritarian characteristics, some adopted from its adversaries. You could see the EF borrowing Zeon tech as its own operation paper clip, the Titans as the burgeoning peace time national security state, etc. The EF seems to be a democratic republic and as a result it is wholly unresponsive to and unrepresentative of its citizenry. We never really see any working class characters in Gundam celebrating the EF or feeling as though they’ve effectively participated in it, at most they’ve simply felt more threatened by an external force. It’s also pretty explicitly a colonial force. In some ways classically colonial though space colonies don’t hold the same connotations of conquest they do share the abstraction of power and extraction of labor. And also “neo-colonial” using economic and political force to erode and subvert the autonomy of regions both terrestrial and extraterrestrial. I think most of these traits tend to be found fairly consistently throughout the franchise.

I need to watch more Gundam

I've always viewed them as outdated. They feared newtypes as if they were some sort of mutants. Meanwhile the Zeeks just saw them as living weapons. The feds reminded me how in a post crisis DC comic, the kryptonian council feared the potential of their species under the yellow sun. Which is why they banned space travel and lived as recluse. Like how the feds held amuro in a house arrest and refused to give him any privileges despite his contributions. The feds in unicorn were similar to the zeeks somehow. A relic of the past but desperately trying to cling on the status quo on the colonies.

Good video man really well put together I loved watching it and had to share my appreciation. Thanks for the good content!!

I think Gundam Unicorn's post 9/11 themes actually makes a lot of sense when you take into account char's counterattack as the universal century's version of 9/11.

To me it kinda just seems to exist as some large polity creates Zeon and by extention the wars between them so the characters can duke it out with some decent motivations behind the. So this adds some light to it.

This is such a great video! A really good overview on the topic that I think is overlooked quite a bit, especially in comparison to Zeon. I'm still more of a fan of how classic gundam portrays the federation, especially when you get to stuff like hathaway's flash. Hope you make more gundam content in the future!

Glad I found your channel! Bandit Flower is an underrated movie, I personally like that Ohtagaki worked fanatical religious extremism into this world of sci-fi, it gave me the similar vibes to the Terraist Church plotline in LotGH adding another player to a war between two powers.

10:30 fukui also a famous blockbuster writer as his novel adaption into lived-action film such as boukoku no aegis which about japanese right winger conspire with north korean terrorist using american chemical weapon to threaten japanese government. so new york times was right to call him japanese tom clancy.

Thank you so much for doing this video. I did an analysis on what parallels we could draw for the future of space colonization. And the structure of the Earth Federation always alluded me when doing research. Its so good to hear all of its iterations explained in comprehensive video.

This is literally the best gundam content!!!

Corrupt bureaucrats Vs terrorists, the epic showdown continues

You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain. basically EFF after the One Year War or way before.

Great video, you have gained a new subscriber!

Love the video, Nice kotor background music!

A pretty alright video, but two main things: 1. Text needs to be onscreen for more than the one to two seconds you did here, which made it really difficult to actually read 2. If you're going to put music in your video essays, you NEED to improve your audio leveling, pick low key music, and keep the music volume low. I've got really good audio drivers that allow me to improve dialogue clarity, and during the Thunderbolt segment, there were moments I could barely make out what you were saying because the music was overpowering your voice.

well EF was quite anti spacenoid but at least 'democratic' federation until UC0079~UC0092 but after UC0093(CCA) when main threat(zeon) became weak, they no more care about spacenoids.

Really good video, dude. Though now you gotta do one on Zeon as well

Thank you for making this! I always felt some discomfort with the premises and framings of things in Gundam media, and this really helped contextualize some of that. Instantly subscribed!

In my view, the Earth Federation in the original 0079 series represents the worst manifestation of liberal capitalism. That being said, their goals are implied near the end of the television series, as to retake side 3 because they want to monopolize mineral trade with the Jupiter Fleet. I interpret this from episode 38, or 39 (depending on the translation), The Newtype Chalia Bull, where the Jupiter Fleet is introduced selling weapons and minerals to Zeon and possibly the Federation. Hence, this makes the Federation out to be more of a petty despot. Plus, with the Federation being a liberal capitalist state, it's prone to falling into fascism when liberal politicians fail to govern and grant free reign to fascists to retain power. We can see this with how the Federation allows the Titans to rise to power in Stardust Memory and Z Gundam. Plus, I can't help but notice that it's almost like Tomino and the staff of Gundam are saying both capitalism and fascism are two sides of the same coin.

I always seen the universal Century as a conflict between American style democracy and European style hereditary royalty

Loving the use of KOTOR 2 music.

Outside of Zeon there really isn't any ideology in Gundam, even the Zeon are vague. They're more like representations. Federation being the Status Quo. Zeon representation Revolutionary Action and seem to borrow from Fascism, Nazism and Marxism whenever the franchise's plot deems fit. For example Zeon Zun Deikun is basically Gundam's Karl Marx. And the Newtype Theory has a lot in common with the Soviet New Man theory by Trotsky. The Zeon's Oppressed vs Oppressor also comes from the Marxist Class Theory of History which has morphed within Feminism to be Men vs Women or CRT Black vs White. In the Context of Gundam, Earth vs Space. However the Zeon are also given a Fascist/Nazi veneer on top of it all. Interesting enough the Gundam franchise takes a huge dump on Zeon beliefs constantly. With most Famous Newtypes coming from Earthly origins, and Earthnoids also being quite poor while showing a lot of wealthy and well off Spacenoids. Showing Zeon Deikun's theories to be built on a bad perception of the world.

Love the video, nearly leapt out of my chair when I heard music from KOTOR 2

This is why UC is better than others alternate universe of Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. Nice content. Looking forward to late UC timeline

The movie version of MSG will always be more canon than the TV show. There are officers who were definitely jealous of white base and given that Bright Noa gets sidelined to transport captain shows that they were successful in politically removing him from any responsibility when he should of made full captain after the OYW. The earth federation has no good people in the higher echelons of command after General Revil, only leaving those who were resentful of zeon after the war to continue holding power. I felt like after Zeta, the only think that changed was by that time, most of those people had died either during the 0083 nuclear attack or had joined the titans and died during the conflict. Just having people die doesnt mean a change in policy.

Good video dude and I must say your voice is similar to Aaron Dismuke who played Al in Fma 03 but your voice is like his voice has he got older.

The problem with the Earth Federation is that it's conditioned as the protagonist's fraction, meaning that even if the main characters are fighting for their own purposes, they're still supporting EFF's flawed bureaucracy against post-humans that only get more and more corrupted as time pass by. Worse off, Characters like Bright Noa, who's capable of fixing the feds from within, retires by self-loathing because of Hathaway's strings of stupidity. Regardless, the feds are still considered better ideology than Neo Zeon's or Zanscare's forms of dictatorship, which only care of subjugating others through iron fists, manipulating and using Newtypes as if they're super weapons, and scapegoating anybody not cooperating with them as enemies. EFF ends up as the lesser of the two evils. People can take the third route and form their own fraction like in Gundam SEED, but even then they're aren't immune to developing senses of self-righteous moral grandeur as seen in SEED Destiny. No ideology is perfect.

Wait...Gaia Gear is finally animated? I had known about Gaia Gears since the 1990s, but I didn't know it was part of the Gundam universe until a few years ago. ( I knew it was a novel, or maybe at best a manga, but there was so little info on it in the states (pre-internet) that there was little to go by.

I like the inversion of the rich living in space for a change. If you consider being absurdly wealthy, who wouldn't purchase space real estate?

Do you have any other favorite Gundam factions? Also great vid!

Ah the original movie dub, IMO it had it's problems but I think its still the best.

U gonna do a video on Zeon?

In a certain way I think one of the main point of uc gundam is "every government is dangerous and can become a totalitarian state ran by warmongers"

Totally off topic but does anyone else get reminded of the bgm sound track of peragus station from kotor 2 around the 9 minute marks mood music?

Nice Peragus music playing in the background :P

@Pyramid Inu Any chance of covering the SEED equivalents and how they compare to the Universal Century?

Just by seeing other comments, i think gundam fans are either hardcore nerds or just smart in politics and economics

This is why I prefer something like Votoms where its much more clear cut.

This was interesting and refreshing even as a person who knows nothing about anime

Jollibee , Milo etc... hahahah i love the easter eggs in this video.

What's the song used for Vietnam?

Glory to the Federation!

I had your video "Gundam and the Ideology of Newtypes" pinned to watch next, but I see it got taken down by Bandai a few days ago... any chance to bring it back up or reupload to another website? I really would like to hear what you have to say on that topic...

It is somewhat depressing how those that could bring change are often killed off. Which is often true with how those who are truly good are too good for this world.

Only thing I hate more than Unicorn is how big of an impact it has

The federation are based on the Allie powers from World War 2. Every side story of the OYW be based on other powers such as the Soviets and UK such as using penal troops, spies, and in fighting. Post OYW we have most stories based around American imperialism and western neoliberal colonialism. The federation could also be a stand in for the League of Nations and UN since they are all western liberal democracy and oligarchy projects to settle conflict amongst western colonizers over land and resources, but failing to do so spawned the 2 world wars and a bunch of proxy conflict of the Cold War followed by regional conflict for power in the war on terror era. Yas when writing Gundam the origin invoke that WW 2 imagery and the Federation as that corrupt democracy run by a rich man’s club thru the pollution of the planet ,thus creating a refugee crisis that led to more people sent to space. The federation is heavily dependent on their space colonies for resources which was indicated during events leading up to Zeon’s Dawns Rebellion. Even unicorn’s writer invoke this idea of resource dependency by colonizers in the Side Co-prosperity Sphere presented by full frontal, which is based on Imperial Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere that failed miserably. As a person of Vietnamese descent and having family members who were war survivors, Thunderbolt setting with the South Sea Alliance was interesting with the Vietnam war era imagery. South Vietnam during the war was backed up by the Americans and ran by a pro-western Catholic minority. This religious minority was in charge of a country that was about 80 % Buddhist and were the privileged favorited group by French colonizers. After the French failed to take back their colony, their business partner that is the American gave it a shot and divided the country in 2 with a puppet government ruling the very resource rich areas of the South. The South Vietnamese government was extremely corrupt and mistreated the Buddhist majority to the point of mass protest of self immolation of monks and bad global public relations gotten the Americans to do regime change by executing one anti-Buddhist Catholic and putting in charge another. The South Sea Alliance Buddhist nation seems to be what happened if the Buddhist were in charge and the Federation being a stand in of the U.S. not liking that. Plus the New-type idea could be a metaphor for a genuine progressive communist and socialist in this context.

I always prefered the federation over zeon in terms of aesthetic but also in ideas, its a sort of: the lesser evil of the two

Would you make a video on the thunderbolt earth arc?

Sad that Witch from Mercury did pretty much nothing with it's setting.

Interesting I haven't seen somone do the Philosophy of one of the famous Gundam Faction

Honestly my only complaint is that everyone bands behind Zeon like they somehow aren't super genocidal, and infected with a philosophy that basically calls for the forced relocation if not outright extermination of everyone living on earth. Hell even the Titans in secret with their core leadership and the AEUG openly profess that second ideology. And that right there you can bitch and moan about the Federation all you want...but I'll stick with the guys who don't want to genocide me just because of where I was born and live all over not politics, but because they have a ideolized vision of a planet they refuse to even step foot on.

Earth Federation 🇧🇷

what happens when a democratic gov't becomes complacent and loses an enemy to fight

Humanity is corrupt. No matter what platform you have, hierarchical power games will be played till a handful controls all of it.

0:45 And that’s what I love about the federation. I is BOTH that. It’s both and the existence of one doesn’t mean the other isn’t true. Which is an accurate representation of modern liberal democratic states.

I’m not the kind of person who tends to dislike ambiguity and stuff in my media, but I gotta say, I’m really fucking upset that Zeon had been so whitewashed to the point where now it’s generally seen as Zeon always being right, when this is just factually untrue. I don’t give a damn how corrupt or unequal the federation were, Zeon as a movement has caused so, so much worse, for their own people as much as those on Earth, and Hack authors like Fukui and the fanbase in general have gone out of their way to paint Zeon as completely correct.

The video analysis was alright but damn, you have a very pleasant voice.

Do you have any opinion on the factions of G-Reconguista? The final compilation movie was recently released though I'm unsure of the home release. Since all the different factions and their individual nuances play such a big role in the story. It's also interesting in that it shows Tomino's most recent world views and is completely bereft of a Federation or Zeon counterpart.

We were about to have a problem when I thought you were calling southland tales cringe and not amazing. It definitely is both. Best movie ever made

Power hoarding Malthusians but ones unwilling to be first in line for any of their social engineering projects. (Basically all the factions in Gundam are Malthusian misanthropes though. Some are just willing to be part of their own proposed solutions rather than forcing them on others.

to me both they portrayed the federation and the zeons both as bad guys. two sides of the same coin, even during the original series. the feddies were using amuro and his group even though they were just trying to escape and survive. after the original's war the feddies started scooping up zeon assets and shmoozing more with big corpos like Anaheim to further its own interests. even though in the end (Victory) they're mostly erased.

Infinately more fascinating than Zeon.

Gundam reminds me of Fallout games, every Gundam series is like "War Never Changes".

What happened to the ideology of Zeon video?

What happened to your newtype video?

I refuse to believe Thunderbolt is the same universe as what we know of Universal Century.

Yeah; that sounds about just right. ;-;

And Hathaway is very much just the latest version oF ALL HUMANS NEED TO MIGARATE TO SPACE TO SAVE THE PLANET!!!! REEEEEE Taxi Driver: Dude we just want to live our lives without being extorted, we have enough fish and other stuff you say is disappearing. Hatahway: BUT all humans must move to space to SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT! Taxi Driver: Did you now hear what i just said? In short: Hathaway is a Wok ECO Terroist who lives in a bubble where saving the earth means ignoring that people like the taxi driver clearly state that the only real problem they have is the EFF being pricks and extorting them. Hathaway really was a nieve person who has happy to use terrorism to stop terrorism without thinking about all the normal people he just assumed don't mind to have MS battles smashing their their neighbourhoods or being forced into space by his own "save the planet" wokism. That conversation with the Taxi driver makes it clear most people could care less about the the EFF or Zion or Newtype idealism and just want to be left to lead their normal lives. Sure they don't mind if the Evil Manhunter Cops that make their lives a misery get a black eye but they also don't want to live in a warzone forever stuck between two extremist factions.

0:53 *COUGH TITANS COUGH*

I came for the critical analysis, stayed for the KotOR music.

14:01 of the US in Vietnam right? That's what Goerge Lucas meant at the time... Whhich while I like the UC 's federation as it is I don't think t's written well at all due to all the US hate the writers put in... Like they could have written it like what the US is not what some people think it is.

Honestly I like to think the UC Federation cracked after the OYW and never recovered. UC Gundam never really delves into the sheer destruction the OYW caused, specifically the one week war and the colony drop, probably because it would make Zeon look horrible and we can't have that in modern Gundam. Instead we need games with cute female Zeon soldiers, but I digress. I can't imagine the economic strain that was put on the Federation post OYW and that it was never really allowed to recover after that due to the constant conflicts.