GN-001 Gundam Exia

GN-001 Gundam Exia (aka Gundam Exia, Exia), is a mobile suit featured in both seasons of Mobile Suit Gundam 00. The unit is piloted by Setsuna F. Seiei.

Technology & Combat Characteristics
Exia, also known as the Gundam of Seven Swords is the close quarters combat specialist of Celestial Being's armed intervention team consisting of Dynames, Kyrios, and Virtue/Nadleeh. Although Exia and Dynames are closely related designs, the final results are worlds apart. The Gundam that would eventually fall to Setsuna F. Seiei was built to be the tip of Celestial Being's spear. While its fellows operate in primarily supporting roles, Exia takes the fight to enemy. Setsuna would repeatedly use the speed and stealth granted by the GN Drive to rapidly close with and decimate enemy forces, but speed and stealth alone would be useless without offense.

The Seven Swords System refers to the wide array of Blade-derived weapons that was designed and used on the Exia. While redundancy and flexibility were built into the weapons selection for multiple scenarios and specializations in close combat situations. The development of the solid swords was mainly fear in the that a scenario where battles against other machines with similar capabilities like traitorous Gundams was taken into account. The sheath of GN Particles surrounding the blade interact, interfere with, and ultimately cancel out the particles of a GN Field.

As a whole, the Exia was designed as mobility specialization mobile suit to greatly supplement it's close combat role. In order to maximize it, it was thought that it's legs were to be given the best articulation as possible to improve its AMBAC. The trade off from this goal requires the reduction of some armor parts in several joints that reveal it's internal frame which reduces its overall defense. However, this has served Exia's dutifully as it has the lowest "being hit" rate of the four Gundams.

Exia's GN Drive extension cone chassis possess an ability that can temporarily increase the output of the equipped GN Drive and the ability of the suit temporarily in "burst"-like mode. However, this ability was rarely used as it is considered unstable however it was seen used in its upgraded form, the Exia Repair II.

GN Sword
A solid GN blade attached to a miniature forearm shield, which serves as the Exia's primary weapon -- the longest and largest blade amongst the Seven Swords. The cutting edge is lined with GN Particles, allowing it to easily split MS armor. The GN Sword can be vertically folded along the forearm, exposing the muzzle of a short-range, high-speed GN Beam Rifle concealed behind the shield.

GN Blades
Named as GN Long Blade and GN Short Blade respectively. These are Exia's customized solid swords that differ in size from the main GN Sword. Because the GN Sword has difficulty doing damage without a certain amount of swing and space due to it's size, these were designed in order to give the Exia solid blades that can be used in a variety of situations that the GN Sword has difficulty with. It possess the ability to cut through 2 meters of conventional E-Carbon armor.

GN Beam Sabers
Mounted on the back of the arms. The beam saber is a hilt with the ability to activate beam blade by generating a positron field filled with GN Particles. While they are generally stronger than GN solid blades, one disadvantage is their performance varies depending on the surrounding atmospheric conditions.

GN Beam Daggers
A variant of the beam saber. It possesses the same power output as the beam saber but was designed to generate a smaller and more concentrated beam that is harder to diffuse. This weapon type became obsolete in the future as the ability to manipulate beam saber length blades was achieved.

System Features

 * Optical Camouflage
 * Trans-Am System

History
The Exia's history & exploits can be found on Setsuna F. Seiei's page.

Variants

 * GN-001 + GNR-001 GN Arms Type-E
 * GN-001/hs-A01 Gundam Avalanche Exia
 * GN-001/hs-A01D Gundam Avalanche Exia`
 * GN-001RE Gundam Exia Repair
 * GN-001REII Gundam Exia Repair II