ZGMF-X09A Justice Gundam

The Justice is a mobile suit featured in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. It is piloted by Athrun Zala.

Combat Abilities
The armament of the Justice is conventional and consists of two hip-mounted beam sabers, beam boomerangs, head-mounted CIWS guns and a high-energy beam rifle, which is the same model used on the ZGMF-X10A Freedom. In addition, the Justice carries a large detachable Fatum-00 sub-flight lifter, which is also well-armed with a pair of beam cannons and multiple machine guns. For defense the Justice is equipped with a single physical shield on its left arm.

Armaments

 * Beam blades
 * For close combat, the suit is equipped with two hip-mounted MA-M01 "Lacerta" beam sabers, which are of the same type as the ones used on its sister unit, the ZGMF-X10A Freedom. Athrun is usually seen combining both beam sabers into a double-bladed beam saber (reminiscent of the twin beam sword used by the MS-14A Gelgoog). For added ranged combat the Justice also carries two RQM51 "Bassel" beam boomerangs, which are usually stored on the shoulders.


 * Beam Rifle
 * Like the Freedom, the Justice usually uses a MA-M20 "Lupus" beam rifle, which, besides its two beam cannons on the Fatum-00 backpack, is the only ranged beam weapon of the Justice.


 * CIWS
 * As with most other suits, the Justice features two head-mounted CIWS guns of type MMI-GAU1 "Sagittus" 20mm, which are used to shoot down incoming missiles or close enemy units. These guns, foreshadowing what would later become standard practice, are much smaller in caliber than those of contemporary mobile suits.


 * Fatum-00 Subflight Lifter
 * The most unique feature of the Justice is its Fatum-00 backpack, which can be remotely controlled or used as a subflight lifter. The backpack mounts two MA-4B "Fortis" beam cannons, which are mounted over the shoulders when used on HiMAT mode, two M9M9 "Cervus" turret machine guns and lastly four GAU5 "Volucris" machine guns.

System Features
As with the other four Gundam units produced by ZAFT at its time, the Justice is equipped with a Neutron Jammer Canceller, which counters the effects of the ubiquitous Neutron Jammers and allows these suits to be powered by nuclear reactors. This gives them almost limitless combat endurance, even with Phase Shift armor activated.

Like the Freedom, the Justice can dock with the powerful METEOR weapon platform, granting it powerful thrusters and an even more powerful armament of battleship-caliber beam cannons, large beam swords, and dozens of heavy missile launchers.

Justice also mounts a tall sensor spine on the top of its head, similar to that of the GAT-X303 Aegis, indicating that it was likely also intended as a commander-type mobile suit.

The Justice uses the operating system Generation Unsubdued Nuclear Drive Assault Module complex.

History
In mid CE 71, ZAFT created a series of advanced mobile suits based on technology reverse-engineered from the captured Earth Alliance G Project suits. Like their EA predecessors, the ZAFT Gundams are armed with advanced beam weaponry and protected by Phase Shift armor. One of these suits is the Justice, which can be considered the sister unit of the Freedom. Most of the Justice' and Freedom's systems were tested on the YFX-600R GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type.

Late in CE 71, Athrun Zala, former pilot of the Aegis, is assigned the Justice with the mission to either recapture or destroy its stolen sister unit, the Freedom. Instead, however, Athrun joins forces with his old friend Kira Yamato, in defending neutral Orb from an Earth Alliance attack. Later he met up with the support vessel Eternal which carried both METEOR units. Athrun and Kira used the METEORs' firepower to thwart an Earth Alliance nuclear missile attack on the PLANTs on the final day of the war, and Athrun also destroys the GAT-X131 Calamity with his METEOR's beam sword. Afterward, Athrun flies the Justice inside the gamma ray laser GENESIS and self-destructs it, preventing his father's doomsday weapon from firing on the Earth.

Over two years later, a more close-combat-oriented advanced version of the Justice is built by Terminal, called the ZGMF-X19A Infinite Justice, which is again piloted by Athrun

Trivia
Justice's head crest displays the text "X-09A NOVE", which means "Nine" in Italian and is a reference to it's model number.

The Justice is often confused with the ZGMF-X19A Infinite Justice


 * Oddly enough, Athrun Zala refers to the Infinite Justice as "Justice"