Quinze Quarante

Quinze Quarante (カーンズ, Kānzu, pronounced “Can-z”) was the original architect of Operation Meteor and leader of the White Fang colonial rebel group in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. A follower of the martyred Heero Yuy (politician), Quinze’s grief over Yuy’s assassination by OZ set him on a path of revenge against Earth as a whole. His extremism ultimately led him to attempt dropping the Libra battlestation on Earth, perishing when the Gundam Scientists stopped the operation on 24 December AC 195.

Overview

Quinze represented the darkest evolution of colonial grievance—from legitimate desire for independence to genocidal revenge. His transformation from aide to a pacifist leader into an architect of planetary destruction demonstrated how trauma and anger could corrupt even righteous causes.

Appearance

Quinze was an elderly man with white hair, his aged appearance reflecting years spent nursing his hatred of Earth. His stern expression and rigid posture conveyed the inflexibility of his worldview.

Personality & character

Quinze’s personality was defined by his unwavering commitment to revenge against Earth for the assassination of Heero Yuy. Where the original Heero Yuy preached pacifism, Quinze embraced violence as the only path to colonial liberation. His extremism blinded him to alternative solutions, viewing any compromise with Earth as betrayal of Yuy’s memory.

Quinze possessed strategic intelligence—evident in his orchestration of the original Operation Meteor—but lacked the wisdom to recognize when his methods betrayed the very ideals he claimed to honour. He viewed the Gundams in space as puppets of OZ and the Romefeller Foundation, demonstrating his inability to distinguish between genuine allies and enemies.

Biography

Aide to Heero Yuy

Quinze served as aide to colonial representative Heero Yuy alongside Dekim Barton. On 7 April AC 175, he was present when Heero Yuy was assassinated by Odin Lowe on OZ’s orders. This traumatic event transformed Quinze from a pacifist’s aide into a vengeful extremist.

Operation Meteor architect

Following Yuy’s assassination, Quinze orchestrated the original Operation Meteor. The plan called for dropping several colonies onto Earth before sending the five Gundams to seize control of the remaining Earth Sphere. However, the Gundam Scientists modified the plan, sending the five Gundams to Earth to eliminate only OZ rather than execute the genocidal colony drop.

This modification by the scientists enraged Quinze, who viewed their changes as a betrayal of the operation’s purpose. He believed that only total devastation of Earth would prevent future colonial oppression.

White Fang leadership

Quinze eventually appeared as leader of White Fang, a group of rebellious OZ soldiers and space colonials mostly descended from the Treize Faction. After successfully taking control of the Romefeller Foundation’s lunar base and the under-construction Libra space battlestation, Quinze handed control of White Fang over to Zechs Merquise (Milliardo Peacecraft) whilst staying on as second-in-command.

The justice-seeking Chang Wufei in his Altron Gundam sought to destroy all combatants in space. Though his Gundam was seriously damaged by Libra’s weapons, Wufei survived. Meanwhile, Quinze interpreted the presence of Gundams in space as proof they were puppets of OZ and the Romefeller Foundation, declaring war on Earth even though the foundation, under Relena Peacecraft’s direction and influence, was planning disarmament to ensure true peace.

Final battle

White Fang eventually engaged the Earth Sphere Unified Nation in battle after threatening to destroy Earth with the newly completed Libra. Once the two forces began fighting, Zechs left Libra to battle the Gundams and turned control of the battlestation over to Quinze.

Under Zechs’ will, Quinze set Libra on a collision course with Earth to realize the original Operation Meteor. However, their plan was interrupted when Peacemillion, an equally huge battleship on the side of the Gundams, collided with Libra.

The plan was finally stopped when the five Gundam Scientists boarded the crippled Libra and Peacemillion and engaged Peacemillion’s engines by initiating a series of explosions. Quinze faced off against the scientists in an attempt to stop them from interfering with his plans yet again.

He berated them for changing the objective of Operation Meteor, stating that if the original plan had gone through, mankind would have come to its senses much sooner. Doctor J acknowledged this as a possibility but stated that they held higher regard for mankind and Earth than Quinze ever did.

Quinze refused to hear anymore but was unable to stop the scientists from triggering the explosions. The detonations killed the five scientists and Quinze himself on 24 December AC 195, ending his quest for revenge and preventing the colony drop that would have devastated Earth.

Relationships

Heero Yuy (politician)

Quinze served the martyred Heero Yuy as aide and follower. However, Quinze fundamentally misunderstood or rejected Yuy’s pacifist philosophy. Where Yuy sought peaceful independence, Quinze pursued genocidal revenge. His claim to honour Yuy’s memory whilst attempting to drop colonies on Earth represented a complete betrayal of everything the colonial leader had advocated.

Dekim Barton

Dekim, Quinze’s fellow aide to Heero Yuy, shared his desire for revenge but pursued it through different means. Both men corrupted Yuy’s legacy, transforming a peaceful independence movement into violent extremism. Their parallel paths demonstrated how grief and anger could lead multiple individuals to betray the ideals they claimed to uphold.

Zechs Merquise

Zechs took nominal leadership of White Fang from Quinze, but both shared the goal of executing the original Operation Meteor. Their alliance represented a convergence of colonial resentment and aristocratic disillusionment with Earth’s power structures. However, Zechs’ motivations differed from Quinze’s pure revenge—he sought to force humanity to confront the consequences of war.

Gundam Scientists

Quinze viewed the Gundam Scientists as traitors who had sabotaged the original Operation Meteor by removing the colony drop component. His final confrontation with them represented a clash between genocidal extremism and faith in humanity’s potential. The scientists’ willingness to sacrifice themselves to stop Quinze demonstrated their commitment to protecting both Earth and the colonies, even at the cost of their own lives.

Behind the scenes

Quinze Quarante’s name derives from French numbers: “Quinze” means “fifteen” and “Quarante” means “forty.” This naming convention was common for After Colony characters.

Quinze served as a mirror to the Gundam Scientists, showing what they might have become had they not modified Operation Meteor. His character arc demonstrated the series’ recurring theme: that revenge and hatred corrupt even righteous causes, and that the methods used to achieve peace matter as much as the goal itself.

His death alongside the scientists he despised provided ironic symmetry—both died trying to execute their versions of Operation Meteor, with the scientists’ final act being to prevent the very plan they had once helped create.

Appearances

Quinze Quarante appeared in:

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (TV series)

External links

Quinze Quarante on the Gundam Wiki