Space colony

''Side 3 redirects here. For the album by The Raspberries, see Side 3 (album)'' In the fictional Gundam anime series, space colonies play a pivotal role in ever-changing stories. Below is an explanation of the colonies in each of the Gundam timelines.

Universal Century
For a list of known colonies and asteroids in the Universal Century see Universal Century Locations. In the Universal Century timeline, space colonies are placed at the five Earth-Moon Lagrangian points. In most cases, a Lagrangian point is home to more than one group of space colonies. Individual colony pairs are known as Bunches, and a group of colonies that occupy a Lagrangian point are known collectively as a Side. Because Sides sometimes share a single Lagrangian point, it is possible to have two Sides in close orbit to one another. All colonies in the Universal Century are O'Neill "Island 3" type colony cylinders, except for the "close-type" colonies of Side 3. Side 3's colonies are identical in size and shape to the Island 3 design, but doubled the habitable area by removing the large window strips of the Island 3. Instead, close-type colonies were lighted through numerous smaller windows. Following the One Year War, in which the Earth Sphere's population was reduced by more than half, close-type colonies fell out of favor, as the smaller population could easily be maintained in standard Island 3 cylinders. A unique case was the Sweetwater colony at Side 3, which was composed of a closed type fused with an open type. The design was only used once, as it proved unstable, and was simply a means for the Federation to contain Zeon refugees. Sweetwater Colony features prominently in the UC motion picture Char's Counterattack as a Neo-Zeon base.

The first 50 years of the Universal Century were spent building the various colonies and placing them at the Lagrangian points, as well as colonizing the moon. By UC0050 9 billion of the 11 billion people in the Federation live in space colonies or on the moon. In UC0051 the Federation froze plans for additional colony development, and in UC0084 reorganized the remaining Sides into different Lagrangian Points. With the re-organization of the Sides completed, the Federation announced that the status quo would be maintained. In the latter half of the Second Universal Century the construction of new colonies was restarted.

Some colonies were also maintained in orbit around Jupiter, as part of the Jupiter Energy Fleet's Helium-3 mining operation. These colonies were also of the O'Neill Island 3 type. (Mobile Suit Gundam - V Gundam)

Future Century
FC space colonies are created as artistic representation of the culture of the sponsor nation, rather than being based on proposed real-world colony designs. For example, Neo Japan is made of four modules in the shape of the four main islands of Japan, Neo France is supported on a bouquet of roses, and Neo America is a five-point star with replicas of notable American landmarks on the surface. (G Gundam)

After Colony
The colonies in the After Colony Timeline (Gundam Wing/Endless Waltz) are generally based on the Stanford "Island 2" type layout, and are also located in gravitationally stable areas around the Earth. Colonies in the A.C. Timeline are identified primarily by Lagrange point, although travel time between colonies (even to L3) appears trivial.

The first colony of the A.C. timeline was completed in A.C. 001, and colonial development continued peacefully until A.C. 040, when the fighting on earth spread to the colonies, many of which were uncompleted. Several of these uncompleted colonies were damaged by the resulting war. Colony funding was reduced to a trickle in A.C. 060, and disputes over the theft of materials in A.C. 070 prompted the Middle Eastern nations to step in as mediators for other nations, and to help with the colonial construction, they also began mining the asteroids. By A.C. 102 Colony L1 was completed, and 15% of the Earth's population moved to the Orbital Village at L1. The rest of the colonies were completed soon thereafter, resulting in mass emigration to space. (Gundam Wing/Endless Waltz)



After War
Space colonies in the After War timeline (and those dropped on Earth at the end of the 7th Space War) are identical to the O'Neill "Island 3" type colony cylinders seen in the Universal Century timeline. (Gundam X)

CC (Seireki)
To date, this is the only Gundam calendar timeframe not to have Space Colonies. Most of CC's space colonies, except those on the moon, whose population eventually became known as the Moonrace, were destroyed long ago when the Moonlight Butterfly destroyed all technological remnants. The remainder left for interstellar space. (Turn A Gundam)

Cosmic Era
For a list of known colonies in the Cosmic Era see Cosmic Era locations.

A small number of colonies in the Cosmic Era are designed on the O'Neill Island 3 design (such as Heliopolis at L3) or the Bernal Island 1 (like Mendel at L4), however, the most common space colonies are titanic, thirty-kilometer long hourglass shaped colonies called PLANTs (Productive Location Ally on Nexus Technology), each of which has a population in excess of 240,000 Coordinators (virtually no Naturals live in the PLANTs). The PLANTs are arranged into "cities" named after the months of the year and located at and around L5. Each city has a particular group of scientific specialties (for example, Martius City specializes in aerospace technology and shipbuilding). After CE 72, ZAFT dropped the "month" names in favor of names that clearly state the purpose of the colony - for example, the Minerva was constructed at the Armory One PLANT.

Most Natural-occupied space colonies (the ones built on traditional designs) were destroyed early in the Bloody Valentine War by ZAFT forces, and the primary moonbase of the Earth Alliance was destroyed by the G.E.N.E.S.I.S. laser at the end of the war, so virtually all of the humans living in space as of Cosmic Era 73 are Coordinators. This had disastrous consequences for the human race when the remains of the destroyed space colony Junius Seven (250,000 dead) were dropped on the Earth with the intent of causing the extinction of all Naturals (and subsequently, as the fertility of Coordinators drops off sharply with the third and subsequent generations, the extinction of the entire human race). (Gundam SEED/Gundam SEED Destiny)

Colony drops
It is impossible to discuss space colonies without discussing colony drops. The average space colony, no matter which universe it may reside in, has a set of dimension that are measured in miles or kilometers, which easily makes the space colonies the largest ballistic weapons ever built, and it is not uncommon to see space-born armies (like the Principality of Zeon) capturing or commandeering the colonies to drop them on the earth.

A colony drop of any sort has massive consequences for the earth, usually drastic changes in climate and weather, and the loss of land due to the impact. Because of the tremendous damage caused by colony drops, any type of drop operation is usually viewed as the use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Universal Century

 * Operation British: Zeon forces capture a depopulated cylinder and attempt to drop it on Jaburo, the Earth Federation's subterranean headquarters. The Federation intervenes, and the colony's  course is altered, resulting in 16% of Australia's land mass to be destroyed, including Sydney.
 * Operation Stardust: The Delaz fleet captures two colony cylinders, forcing one off course. Originally thought to be targeted at the moon, the cylinder was reprogramed to fall on the earth.  An attempt to destroy the cylinder with the Federation's Solar System II failed, and the colony landed in the American Midwest.
 * Operation Apollo: The Titans attempt a colony drop on the lunar city Von Braun. The drop was unsuccessful after AEUG forces intervene.
 * Haman Khan's Neo-Zeon forces drop a colony on Dublin, Ireland in Double Zeta Gundam.
 * Char Aznable's Neo Zeon drops the asteroid 5th Luna on to Lhasa, Tibet. An attempt by the group to drop the mining colony Axis fails after the Neo Zeon are intercepted by Londo Bell forces.

After Colony

 * AC195- (early in year): Operation Meteor: The original Operation Meteor called for many colonies to be dropped in order to create chaos on Earth for the five Gundams to take advantage of; however the orders to drop were ignored by the scientists who were charged with the construction of the Gundams, as they believed the Gundams alone to be enough and that they wouldn't have to commit mass murder.
 * AC195- Eve Wars (December): The colony-sized space battleship Libra, after losing its primary beam cannon due to enemy action, was ordered to collide with the earth. Swift action undertaken by the Gundam pilots on behalf of Earth eliminated Libra in the upper atmosphere.
 * AC196-AC197- Operation Meteor: Dekim Barton's plan's involve dropping the 13-mile wide colony X18999 onto the earth, and seizing control of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation. Swift action undertaken by the Preventers and the Gundam pilots; Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, and Trowa Barton were able to foil the plan before it could come to fruition.

Cosmic Era

 * The remains of the P.L.A.N.T. colony Junius Seven are seized by an ultra-radical ZAFT unit loyal to Patrick Zala, with plans to drop it onto the Earth. Upon hearing of the plan, ZAFT chairman Gilbert Durandal sends the Minerva to stop them. At the same time, a strike team led by Dearka Elsman and Yzak Joule executes an EVA to plant a set of drills to plant charges with the intent of shattering the remains into smaller pieces. The strike team was ambushed by the radicals, and were ultimately defeated by the Joule Team, and forces from the Minerva, led by Athrun Zala. However, the ambush was successful enough that the colony was only split into 2 pieces, forcing the Minerva to descend into the atmosphere to fire its Tannhauser heavy positron cannon to break up the colony as much as possible before the ship had to start proper reentry procedures. The Minerva succeeded in reducing the size of the fragments, but many pieces impacted the earth causing the destruction of many areas, including Rome, what appears to be Shanghai, and other metropolitan areas.

After War

 * The 7th Space War results in the largest colony drop ever as the devastation wrought by the drop spares only 1% of the Earth's total population.