Laplace Incident

The Laplace Incident was a series of military conflicts in UC 0096 between the Earth Federation and the remnant Neo Zeon group nicknamed the Sleeves, three years after the end of Char Aznable’s Second Neo Zeon War. The conflict revolved around each respective side’s quest to find the mysterious object known as Laplace’s Box and the battles fought over control of its key, the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam.

The incident was so named because it culminated in the public revelation of Laplace’s Box’s true contents—the original Universal Century Charter containing provisions for Spacenoid self-governance that had been hidden since UC 0001. The conflict marked the end of 17 years of intermittent warfare between the Federation and various Neo Zeon factions.

Prelude

Ever since the Laplace terror incident in UC 0001, the influential Vist Foundation had possessed and protected a secret that held the power to either create the future that was envisioned when the Universal Century was created, or simply destroy the world. This secret—Laplace’s Box—had created a precarious power balance in the Earth Sphere that had endured for almost a hundred years.

By UC 0096, most of the individuals involved with the box had died out, but the fear of its power and the expectation to maintain the status quo had remained. Three years after Char’s Rebellion was quashed, what remained of Neo Zeon continued a guerrilla campaign against the Federation with the covert support of some colonies, several politicians, and presumably even Anaheim Electronics. This group—nicknamed the Sleeves—was barely holding together and relied on the charisma and leadership of Full Frontal, who was widely known as the Second Coming of Char Aznable.

The Federation, similarly, was suffering from sheer attrition from its participation in the One Year War, the Gryps Conflict, and both Neo Zeon wars. Ever since the Second Neo Zeon War, the Federation had maintained a tight grip on space as they continued to hunt for Zeon Remnants in the Earth Sphere. During this time, little was done on environmental reclamation and Earth’s health had not improved over the years. These factors taxed the Federation to the brink of collapse and forced Earth’s economy and energy needs to completely depend on the seven Sides and the Moon.

Most importantly, both sides by this point had completely forsaken their founding ideologies and been reduced to shadows of their former selves, with the Federation content with simply ruling over the Earth Sphere and Zeon continuing to fight the Federation for its own sake rather than for a cause. With both sides beginning to wear themselves out and make their relationship eternally antagonistic, the Vist Foundation realised that as things stood, the Earth Sphere would not be able to continue. They concluded that the time had come to change the power balance the box had established and correct the inherent flaws of the Universal Century. But in order to do this, they had to give up the source of their prosperity and power—the box itself.

Passing the box

The Foundation started the chain of events leading to the conflict by secretly contacting the Sleeves regarding their wish to pass Laplace’s Box onto them. Unable to refuse the offer, the Sleeves agreed to meet at Industrial 7, a space colony owned by Anaheim Electronics at Side 4, and sent Suberoa Zinnerman and his ship Garencieres to Industrial 7 to lead negotiations personally.

An initial skirmish began when a Clop-class cruiser attacked the Sleeves ship whilst en route to the exchange with a small squadron of mobile suits. With the aid of its NZ-666 Kshatriya, the Garencieres was able to brush off the attack and continued on its way.

Meanwhile, at Industrial 7, the Vist Foundation prepared for the exchange by completing the development of the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam. The mobile suit was to be the ‘key’ to Laplace’s Box and meant to be given to the Sleeves as a test of whether they were worthy of the box’s contents. However, unknown to both sides, Anaheim Electronics executive Alberto Vist informed the Earth Federation of the exchange. In response, the Federation dispatched the Londo Bell taskforce and its ECOAS Special Forces to seize Laplace’s Box during the negotiations.

Battle of Industrial 7

The Federation waited as the Sleeves arrived and as the negotiations began, Londo Bell made its move. Whilst moving in, the element of surprise was lost when one of the Sleeve lookouts opened fire on the approaching Federation forces. The battle quickly escalated as the fighting between Londo Bell and the Sleeves began moving into the colony’s interior.

As a result, the negotiations between the Sleeves and the Vist Foundation collapsed and whilst the Sleeves fought to escape what they saw as a trap on the Vist Foundation’s part, the Foundation raced to secure the key and destroy all traces of it. High numbers of casualties and massive destruction ensued as the battle continued to unfold.

Ultimately, the key would wind up in the possession of Banagher Links, a student at the Anaheim Electronics Technical School with links to Laplace’s Box. Banagher would take the Unicorn and battle against Marida Cruz, the Kshatriya’s pilot, eventually forcing the latter to retreat after the Unicorn transformed into its Destroy Mode and overpowered the Kshatriya. As Zinnerman and his crew successfully escaped Industrial 7, Marida received instructions to retreat, effectively ending the battle.

Off the battlefield, the Foundation’s leader, Cardeas Vist, was killed by his son Alberto during the battle. This caused leadership of the Foundation to be passed on to Martha Vist Carbine, and under her, she began reversing Cardeas’s actions to pass the box onto Neo Zeon and began working with the Federation to preserve the box’s secrecy and maintain the current power balance.

Battle of Palau

After the Battle of Industrial 7, Londo Bell, along with ECOAS, took possession of the Unicorn after the Sleeves retreated. Whilst hiding in an asteroid field, the Nahel Argama was found by the Sleeves and came under attack. This time, the Sleeve attack force was led by Full Frontal, who was believed to be ‘The Second Coming of Char’, and his Royal Guards led by Angelo Sauper.

The Nahel Argama struggled to defend itself against Frontal’s MSN-06S Sinanju as Frontal easily defeated the ship’s mobile suits in battle. The battle was quickly halted when ECOAS commander Daguza Mackle revealed to the Neo Zeon forces (and to the Nahel Argama crew) that Audrey Burne—a civilian they rescued from Industrial 7—was in fact the Princess of Zeon and the last surviving member of the Zabi family, Mineva Lao Zabi.

Daguza offered to return Mineva in exchange for safe passage to Von Braun. However, Frontal did not believe that Audrey was actually Mineva and demanded everything the Nahel Argama had that was related to Laplace’s Box, including the Gundam. Failing to comply within three minutes, he threatened to destroy the ship unless his demands were met.

Eventually, negotiations broke down and with little choice, Banagher launched in the Unicorn to battle Frontal and give the Nahel Argama time to escape. Aided by Riddhe Marcenas in a RGZ-95 ReZEL, the two were able to push back Frontal, but when Marida and her Kshatriya intervened, the Sleeves managed to disable the ReZEL and capture the Unicorn. With the Unicorn in their possession, the Sleeves withdrew and returned to their fortress at Palau, a mining asteroid at Side 6.

Operation Billiard

With both the Unicorn and Banagher taken to the asteroid base of Palau, Londo Bell in conjunction with two ECOAS teams devised a rescue mission to recover both. The two ECOAS teams led by Daguza Mackle covertly landed on the surface of Palau and planted explosives on Palau’s connecting bridges. A disguised soldier infiltrated Palau to hand the captive Banagher instructions to head to the 14th space gate, where the rescue team was waiting.

After the explosives were detonated, the two halves of Palau were separated. The SCVA-76 Nahel Argama then fired its main cannon at the base to push the two disconnected halves together in a billiard effect. This effectively sealed off Palau’s military base and damaged much of the Sleeves’ forces. The operation was successful when Banagher and the Unicorn escaped, as well as capturing Marida and the Kshatriya in the process.

Clash at Laplace

After rescuing Banagher and the Unicorn, the Nahel Argama made its way to the ruins of the Laplace space station in hopes of finding Laplace’s Box there before the Sleeves did. Daguza suspected that the Unicorn’s La+ program would unlock the box once it reached Laplace at Midnight Greenwich Mean Time, at which time Laplace would pass through 0 degrees latitude and longitude.

The Unicorn arrived at the coordinates at the proper time, but instead of opening the box, the program began broadcasting the UC inauguration speech made at Laplace in UC 0001. In the meantime, the Sleeves had tracked Londo Bell to Laplace and saw that all of the Nahel Argama’s forces had left for Laplace. Zinnerman’s team on the Garencieres decided to take advantage of this to attack the ship and rescue Marida. Gilboa Sant volunteered to lead the raid and the attack was launched.

Banagher sensed the impending attack and tried to hold off the raid whilst the Nahel Argama’s forces hurried back. However, Full Frontal and his Royal Guards soon arrived and fought Banagher to get the Unicorn’s NT-D to activate, believing that doing so would unlock the Box. During the fight, Daguza was killed by Frontal and as Banagher and Frontal battled each other, Laplace began to disintegrate and enter Earth’s atmosphere around them.

The raid eventually ended in failure as Nahel Argama’s forces returned, and Gilboa was redeployed to recover Frontal’s team. As the battle between Banagher and Frontal reached its peak, Gilboa took a shot meant for Frontal and whilst Frontal escaped, Banagher fell to Earth along with the remains of Laplace.

Third Battle of Dakar

The Third Battle of Dakar was a decoy to distract the Federation from noticing the Garencieres’ descent to Earth. The attack was spearheaded by Earth-based remnants of the Principality of Zeon, led by Loni Garvey piloting the mobile armour AMA-X7 Shamblo.

The attack force was mostly wiped out by Federation forces guarding the capital, but most of those forces—including several buildings and the senate capital—were wiped out themselves by the Shamblo’s mega particle cannon. The battle ended before the Londo Bell ship Ra Cailum could arrive, with the end result being a death toll upwards of 40,000. The Garencieres was also able to land on Earth safely and successfully made contact with the Zeon remnants.

Second Battle of Torrington

After the attack on Dakar was completed, the Zeon remnants met with the crew of the Garencieres. There, after hearing about the next coordinates set by Unicorn’s La+ program—Torrington Base in Australia—and Loni’s suggestion to attack, Full Frontal eventually agreed with the suggestion and gave the green light for a full-scale attack.

The commander of Zeon’s remnants on Earth, Yonem Kirks, gathered all Zeon remnants left behind after the One Year War and the First and Second Neo Zeon Wars through an old, One Year War era radio code, predating the 3rd landing operation.

When the attack began, Torrington base was completely caught by surprise as the base itself was considered non-strategic and was only protected by a few ill-equipped defence squads. Whilst the Zeon forces enjoyed much success initially and overwhelmed much of the initial patrols, the Ra Cailum arrived as the Tri-Stars—an elite trio of pilots—and a RX-160S Byarlant Custom stationed at Torrington began to decimate Zeon’s mobile suits.

This situation was not helped by the fact that the Shamblo, their supposed trump card, had gone off on its own to attack Torrington itself rather than support the Zeon forces attacking the base. The lack of support from the Shamblo eventually allowed the remaining Federation forces to reorganise and turned the battle into one of attrition that ultimately wiped out all the Zeon forces.

The Shamblo itself was confronted by Banagher and Riddhe in the Unicorn and the MSN-001A1 Delta Plus. Although Banagher was initially successful in convincing Loni to stand down, Kirks’ death at the hands of the Tri-Stars caused her to begin attacking again in a fit of anger and grief. Despite Riddhe continually encouraging Banagher towards killing Loni, Banagher was unable to bring himself to shoot her, forcing Riddhe to kill her himself.

Battle on the Garuda

Some time later, Marida, Riddhe and the Tri-Stars were to escort Banagher and the Unicorn to the Garuda, where the Vist Foundation, now under the control of Martha Vist Carbine, would take both the Gundam and the captive Princess Mineva Lao Zabi into space.

Before this happened, Londo Bell commander Bright Noa became aware that General Staff HQ was planning on dispatching the General Revil to destroy the Nahel Argama waiting in orbit, so as to eliminate all witnesses to Laplace’s Box. Thus, he had a fellow comrade and One Year War veteran Kai Shiden contact the Garencieres and inform them of the plan. Bright also sent a message to the Nahel Argama, instructing them to aid in the Garencieres’ rescue mission.

As the escort squadrons ascended into the stratosphere, the Garencieres emerged from the clouds and attacked the Garuda. The Garuda launched its RAS-96 Anksha squadron in response. The Tri-Stars declined to participate in the battle, deciding to escort the Unicorn. However, Banagher took the opportunity to escape and commandeered a Base Jabber. Marida then began to attack him, eventually grappling with Banagher atop the Garuda, creating a psycho field that threatened to destroy the Garuda.

Listening in on the radio chatter, Riddhe soon realised what the Garencieres’ true objective was and boarded the Garuda, intending to take Mineva from Martha’s custody. However, Zinnerman had boarded the Garuda with a Base Jabber provided by Shiden and laid down cover fire for Mineva to escape. However, an Anksha came too close to the Unicorn and Banshee’s psycho field and exploded, causing damage to the Garuda and separating Zinnerman and Mineva.

Mineva willingly chose to fall from the Garuda, calling for Banagher to catch her. Banagher sensed her call and diverted from the battle to catch her, bringing Mineva back aboard the Garencieres before going back for Zinnerman and Marida.

At this point, the Nahel Argama launched a tow cable at the Garencieres in order to pull the ship into orbit and thus escape the battlefield. Unfortunately, the Garencieres suffered engine trouble, causing it to lose altitude. The Unicorn and two AMS-129 Geara Zulus attempted to use their thrusters to boost the ship’s altitude but it was not enough. The Unicorn managed to grab the Nahel Argama’s cable, but it couldn’t make a direct connection to the Garencieres. The stress threatened to tear the Gundam apart when the Unicorn’s Psycho-Frame suddenly started to glow green and extended a psycho field around both ships, similar to the one that stopped the fall of Axis, enabling the Garencieres to make orbit.

A brief interlude

It being apparent that the Laplace’s Box conspiracy wanted all who knew of it dead, the crew of the Nahel Argama was forced into an alliance of convenience with the Sleeves. The crew of the Garencieres abandoned ship to join the Londo Bell ship, leaving theirs as a decoy to draw off any pursuers.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Nahel Argama slowly became antagonistic towards the Zeons slowly occupying their ship to the point where they threatened to force them off the ship. Captain Otto Midas was briefly able to assuage their anxiety. He and Frontal then discussed the final coordinates to find Laplace’s Box to be in a shoal zone, in the wreckage of the Battle of Loum. They only had the general location, but because Banagher had locked the Unicorn’s La+ Program, the Sleeves were unable to get the precise location.

Midas then inquired as to Frontal’s intentions for the box, suspecting that they might not revolve around reviving the Principality of Zeon, a sentiment that Mineva shared. With Mineva turning on the intercom for all on the ship to hear, Frontal explained that the Federation would never grant the Spacenoids their freedom, for they were too dependent on space for energy and food production. But if all the Sides economically boycotted Earth, they would force a mass migration, causing the collapse of the Federation government. From the fallout, the only functioning government would be the Republic of Zeon.

To do this, Frontal planned on forming a Side Co-Prosperity Sphere that would include the Sides and the Moon. However, the Federation planned to revoke the Republic’s autonomy by UC 0100, putting a chink in their plans. Therefore, he would use the box to prevent the dissolution of the Republic, giving him the time to create the Side Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Mineva deplored Frontal’s vision, for he intended to exclude Earth from the Side Co-Prosperity Sphere. Instead of demanding change from those who had resisted reform, he would ostracise them. She declared it different from Zeon Zum Deikun and Char Aznable’s ideals and would only lead to a cycle of repetitive conflict as future generations of Earthnoids would rebel against his world and further divide the Earth Sphere rather than uniting it.

After Frontal claimed this to be the will of the Spacenoids and dismissed Banagher’s belief in human possibility, Mineva declared that Char was truly dead, before announcing that the final coordinates were at Industrial 7, specifically the colony builder, Magallanica.

Final battle

To prevent Full Frontal from getting Laplace’s Box, Mineva, Banagher and the combined forces of the Nahel Argama and Garencieres crew launched an attack to break through the Sleeves’ fleet at Industrial 7. When Riddhe finally found the Nahel Argama, he attacked Banagher aggressively with the intent to kill him. Marida launched to support Banagher but was killed in the ensuing dogfight.

Despite being outnumbered, the defence teams led by ECOAS field commander Conroy Haagensen successfully defended the ship until the Unicorn returned. Using Zinnerman’s strategy, the Unicorn went on the offensive and crippled the bulk of the remaining Sleeves’ mobile suit force, whilst the Nahel Argama sent its EWAC Jegans to act as spotters for its hyper mega particle cannon. After Banagher disabled Lieutenant Angelo’s YAMS-132 Rozen Zulu, the Nahel Argama destroyed several warships in the blockade, forcing the enemy to withdraw.

With a small mobile suit squad, Banagher and Conroy raced to the Magallanica to recover Laplace’s Box. After meeting Syam Vist, the founder of the Vist Foundation, Mineva decided to release the contents of the Box to the world—the original copy of the UC Charter which contained the peaceful intentions of the nations of Earth to allow Spacenoid self-rule. However, they were intercepted by Full Frontal, still doubting the potential of humankind to ever change its ways.

Although Full Frontal was eventually repulsed, he still had a trump card, the mobile armour NZ-999 Neo Zeong. Banagher and Riddhe then joined forces to defeat the leader of the Sleeves once and for all. After experiencing a powerful Newtype vision during the battle, Full Frontal allowed himself to die, entrusting the future to Banagher and other Newtypes.

In the Gryps 2 control centre in Cheyenne, the order to fire was issued, and Banagher and Riddhe jointly used the power of their Gundams to defend the Magallanica from the attack. In a flash of light, the Gryps 2’s powerful beam was deflected, accomplishing a true miracle and bringing an end to the war. Standing with pride, Mineva Zabi revealed the content of Laplace’s Box to Earth and the space colonies, believing wholeheartedly in a new start for the bloodstained Universal Century.

Aftermath

The war ended with the Earth Federation victory, thus ending the 17 years of war with Neo Zeon forever. In UC 0100, the Republic of Zeon retired their independence and rejoined the Earth Federation. With the Earth Sphere entering an era of peace for the next 23 years, the peace was shattered and conflict restarted again when Mars Zeon stole the F90 Gundam F90 in UC 0120.

The Earth Federation leadership was given back to the hands of civilians following the end of the war, and the Spacenoids were given administration of the government by the late UC. The Earth Federation government decided to decrease military spending but maintain the same amount of force due to the time of peace.

The revelation of Laplace’s Box contents—specifically Article 9 of the original Universal Century Charter, which stated that ‘In the future, should the emergence of a new space-adapted human race be confirmed, the Earth Federation shall give priority to involving them in the administration of the government’—fundamentally changed the political landscape of the Earth Sphere. This clause, which had been suppressed since UC 0001, acknowledged the rights of Newtypes and Spacenoids to participate in Federation governance.

However, as later events would show, the revelation of Laplace’s Box did not bring about the immediate transformation that many had hoped for. The deep-seated issues between Earth and the space colonies persisted, and new conflicts would emerge in the following decades.

Behind the scenes

The Laplace Incident was originally conceived by author Harutoshi Fukui for his Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn novel series, which began publication in 2007. The story was adapted into a seven-episode OVA series by Sunrise from 2010 to 2014, directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi.

The incident serves as a bridge between the earlier Universal Century conflicts and the later events depicted in Mobile Suit Gundam F91 and Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, explaining how the Federation evolved from a militaristic organisation into the more civilian-led government seen in later UC entries.

Appearances

External links

Laplace Incident on the Gundam Wiki
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn on Wikipedia