Summary
From Operation British in the originalMobile Suit Gundamwhere the Principality of Zeon dropped a space colony onto Earth to a group of mercenaries called Dawn of Fold fromGundam: The Witch from Mercurywho infiltrate a highly secured base to assassinate the president of the biggest corporation in the universe, there are so many intense and terrifying military operation in the Gundam Franchise.
However, none of those military operations are as crucial as Operation Meteor fromGundam Wing.After all, the whole series basically revolved around the execution of this mission. So in this article, we’ll talk about the reason behind Operation Meteor, the details of the mission, and how it turned out in the end.
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What is Operation Meteor?
In the world ofGundam Wing,humanity is divided into those who live on Earth and those who live in the Space Colonies. The two parts of humanity are often at odds with each other. The colonies strive to be independent, while the people of the Earth want to unite humanity under the banner of the United Earth Sphere Alliance (UESA). In the year 165 AC, the colonies elected a man named Heero Yuy as the leader and the representative of the colonies. His message of peace and independence was highly popular among the people. Unfortunately, an organization called OZ, one of the military branches of the UESA, didn’t like it and decided to assassinate Heero Yuy.
Operation Meteor is the colonies’ retaliation for the assassination of Heero Yuy. The goal of this operation is not only to cripple UESA’s military forces but also to kill as many people on Earth as possible. It is a reckless plan that will cause untold amounts of damage and massacre more than half of the population of the Earth. The ones who orchestrated this operation are the two top aides of the late Heero Yuy, Dekim Barton and Quinze Quarante. Dekim is the one who created this operation while Quinze is the one who oversees the execution of Operation Meteor.
However, although these two men agree to execute this crazy plan together, the reasons behind their involvement are vastly different. As one of theclosest people to Heero Yuy,Quinze deeply admires Heero and considers him to be a close friend. Therefore, his intention is fueled purely by a thirst for vengeance. On the contrary, although Dekim was also quite close to Heero, his motivation behind executing Operation Meteor was to realize his ambition to be the sole ruler of both the Earth and the colonies.
Three Stages of Operation Meteor
Despite how much it affects the characters and the entirety ofthe two seasons ofGundam Wing,Operation Meteor is actually quite straightforward. The whole military operation can be boiled down to these three simple stages:
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Plan vs. Reality
So how did Operation Meteor turn out inGundam Wing?Did Dekim Barton manage to realize his dangerous plan? Fortunately, the answer is no. As soon as the five scientists and the pilots of the Gundams found out about what Dekim was actually trying to do,they refused to follow his plan.
They immediately realized countless people would lose their lives if Operation Meteor continued as it was, so they decided to alter it. Rather than blindly attacking densely populated areas, causing heavy damage, and killing innocent people,the five scientists and the Gundam pilotsdecided to focus their attacks solely on UESA’s military facilities instead.
To further disrupt Dekim’s plan, the five Gundams launched their revised version of Operation Meteor ahead of Dekim’s schedule. Not only that, the people of the colonies also found out about his plan to drop some of the colonies on Earth. As a result, Dekim has to abort his version of Operation Meteor. Because of that, no colonies are ever dropped on Earth till the end of the series.
Operation Meteor was on the path to being the most deathly military operation in the history of the Gundam franchise. But thanks to five brave scientists and their Gundam pilots, that massive tragedy could be averted. Not only that, it also kick-started the story ofGundam Wingwhere Dekim and his foundation tried over and over again to execute his dangerous plan against the United Earth Sphere Alliance whilethe Gundams firmly stood in the middleand fought against the two nefarious organizations at the same time.
Gundam Wingis available to stream onCrunchyroll.
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