FFMH-Y101 Eternal

The Eternal class is a support ship in the Cosmic Era timeline. As it was extremely task-specific, only one such vessel, the classes namesake, was ever produced.

Combat Abilities
Compared to other battleships, the Eternal is lightly armed, with only a single heavy beam cannon, a few CIWS guns, and a battery of defensive missile launchers. Eternal's primary battery, however, are the two heavily armed METEOR units and the mobile suits that use them. The METEOR units can either be used by mobile suits or mounted externally on the ship as fixed turrets to increase the Eternal's firepower.

Beam cannon
The only beam weapon (besides the optional METEOR units) of the ship is a single heavy beam cannon, mounted on the front side of the ship.

CIWS
The largest type of armaments installed on the Eternal are its CIWS guns. The ship features two 2-barrel CIWS guns and additional 12 single CIWS. As with most other ships, these guns are primarly used as defensive weaponry used to shoot down incoming missiles.

Missile launchers
A large number of missile launchers are mounted accross the hull of the ship. As with the CIWS guns, these launchers are used primarly for defensive purposes to intercept incoming missiles.

History
The support ship Eternal is a space warship in the ZAFT forces designed specifically to support the advanced ZGMF-X09A Justice and ZGMF-X10A Freedom mobile suits. In addition to hanger space for them, the Eternal also carried their heavily-armed METEOR units on a pair of external docking clamps. Soon after completion, the ship was stolen by Lacus Clyne and Andrew Waltfeld and used by the Clyne Faction during the rest of the war. Together with the Archangel and the Kusanagi, the Eternal formed the Three Ships Alliance, an independent force who seeked to end the first Bloody Valentine War. The Eternal eventually took part in the Second Battle of Jachin Due, the last big battle of the war.

After the war the Eternal was hidden within an asteroid, and Andrew Waltfeld and Lacus Clyne secretly immigrated to the Orb Union. Later during the Second Bloody Valentine War, after Andy and Lacus returned to space the two reunited with some of the remaining members of the Clyne Faction, including Martin DaCosta, who had been commanding the Eternal in their absence.

In CE 74, a ZGMF-LRR704B GINN Long Range Reconnaissance Type located the Eternal, forcing it to flee its asteroid base in order to draw ZAFT forces away from the mobile suit factory also concealed within the base. The Eternal approached Earth and launched with Andy fighting the pursuing ZAFT forces in the stolen ZGMF-X88S Gaia, until Kira Yamato arrived in the MBF-02 Strike Rouge to assist. The outdated Strike Rouge however was badly damaged, resulting in Kira coming aboard the ship and being presented with the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom, which he used to defeat the Eternal's pursuers. After the Earth Alliance was more or less defeated by ZAFT, the Eternal, together with other ships of the former Three Ships Alliance and Orb, tried to stop PLANT chairman Gilbert Durandal from taking full control over the Earth Sphere. Eventually the group successfully stop him and bring to the end to second Bloody Valentine War.

Notes and Trivia

 * The default captain of Eternal in Super Robot Wars J is Andrew Waltfeld, with Lacus Clyne as a swappable sub-captain, and Martin DaCosta as a supoort character. In this game, the Eternal does not have the CIWS, nor is it able to deploy, link with or store the METEOR units. In other games such as Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 and installments subesquent to J the Eternal does retain these features.