Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - A New Novelisation

Prologue - U.C 0087

Across the beautiful sea of stars, a lifeless body drifted aimlessly. Clad in a Zeon uniform from the One Year War, the corpse had rotted away and been reduced to mere bones, leaving no sign of the being who once inhabited this shell. It had been eight years since the end of the deadliest war in human history, which saw over four billion people lose their lives as the Earth Federation and Principality of Zeon laid waste to each other over the course of one hellish year. Mothers lost their children, women lost their husbands, the youth lost their friends. It seemed like there had not been a single soul left alive who hadn't been affected by the bloodshed one way or the other, and the incomprehensible amount of suffering had left a scar over both Earth and the space colonies that refused to heal. This lifeless vessel, forgotten by time and without a place to rest was testament to that.

On the green planet called Earth, the burgeoning population found themselves at a crossroads. If they continued to reproduce at such a rate and take from the place they called home, Earth would not be able to sustain itself. A plan was made for the construction of space colonies: massive cylinders that could house an unprecedented number of people. Those who bore the burden of moving to the stars were christened Spacenoids, while the rich and privileged remained on the planet, themselves dubbed Earthnoids. For years, the ruling Federation controlled everything in the Earth Sphere, dictating the lives of both those who stayed on Earth, and the billions who had been pushed off the planet and into the colonies above. However, as time went on, the tides shifted and it became apparent that the clusters of colonies, dubbed "Sides", desired to govern themselves. While some power was given out, the Federation still held a majority control and suppressed those who attempt to fight back. This unsure political landscape finally erupted into frenzy. In the year 0079 of the Universal Century, the cluster of colonies furthest from the Earth: Side 3, proclaimed itself the Principality of Zeon and launched a war of independence against the Federation. The fighting that arose from this conflict was the largest scale war humanity had ever faced, as humans adapted to the cold vacuum of space by developing piloted mechanical war machines called Mobile Suits. This machine dominated battleground only saw the death toll rise higher and higher, as both sides committed atrocities that could never be wiped clean from the collective conscious.
Eventually, the fighting ceased with the Federation standing as the victor. As the year drew to a close, the Federation sought to make sure such a conflict would never happen again, by any means necessary. It is the year 0087 of the Universal Century. The tears of time have begun to fall once again.