Requiem

Requiem, designated as an "Orbital All-Aspect Tactical Cannon", is the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the Earth Alliance in the Cosmic Era. Located at the Daedalus lunar base on the dark side of the moon, Requiem is a huge cannon that fires a pale green energy beam. Numerous relay stations, built from abandoned O'Neill cylinder space colonies with their end caps removed, use large Geschmeidig Panzer arrays to alter the beam's trajectory. Using different combinations of these arrays, Requiem can be fired at targets anywhere in the Earth Sphere.

After Lord Djibril escaped from Orb to the Daedalus base, he intended to use this new weapon to wipe out the Supreme Council in PLANT's capital Aprilius One. However, one of the relay stations, Gounod, was discovered by a ZAFT task force led by Yzak Joule shortly before Requiem was fired. Battle damage to Gounod slightly altered the trajectory of the beam, and as a result Requiem missed its intended target. Instead, the beam directly hit and destroyed Januarius 1 through 4 and caused December 7 and 8 to collapse, leading to the deaths of over a million Coordinators. Afterward, the Joule Squadron destroyed the Gounod relay station, but Requiem's design is such that other stations can still be used to aim its beam at PLANT. So ZAFT launched a heavy attack on one of this relay stations (which was strongly protected by the Earth Alliance forces) while the Minerva attacked the Daedalus lunar base in order to destroy the cannon itself. While Rey Za Burrel and Shinn Asuka destroyed the mobile armors which protected the base, Lunamaria Hawke sneaked into the base with the ZGMF-X56S Impulse and destroyed the control room just before Requiem could be fired again.

Afterwards ZAFT takes control over Requiem and uses it to destroy the Arzachel lunar base of the Earth Alliance as well as a great part of their fleet. Also it is shown that the beam emitter is equipped with positron reflector units. However it is unknown if this is part of the original EA design or if it is a new addition by ZAFT. Just before the next shot could be fired at Orb, the Requiem was destroyed by the ORB-01 Akatsuki and ZGMF-X19A Infinite Justice when both units destroyed the main energy core.

The Requiem has five relay stations in total, and three of them are named "Gounod", "Fauré" and "Czerny". Gounod is named for Charles François Gounod, a French composer who best known for his opera Faust. Fauré is named for Gabriel Urbain Fauré, a French composer, among the most noteworthy of his works are his Requiem, the opera Penelope, the orchestral suite Masques et Bergamasques (based on music for a dramatic entertainment, or divertissement comique), and music for Pelléas et Mélisande. Czerny is named for Carl Czerny, an Austrian pianist, composer and teacher. He is best remembered today for his books of etudes for the piano. He also composed a very large number of pieces (up to an op. 861), including a number of Masses and Requiems.