Newtype

A Newtype is the next stage of human evolution in the Gundam universe. The theory behind this minor but groundbreaking metamorphosis is that in order to adapt to life in space, the human body evolved with heightened mental awareness. As such, Newtypes tend to appear among Spacenoids, although not exclusively (Amuro Ray, arguably the most famous Newtype, was actually born on Earth). Appearing in the Universal Century timeline (chronologically the first), they are also present in the After War timeline.

A very similar type of human being (called Coordinators) exists in the Cosmic Era timeline of Gundam SEED, although their evolution is artificial, obtained by genetic engineering. Coordinators' distinguished abilities are more physical as opposed to mental, but they have a similar heightened mental awareness as Newtypes. The series' director Mitsuo Fukuda identified some protagonists (like Mu La Flaga) as Newtypes, even though the term does not exist within the plot itself.

Another similar Newtype appeared in the Gundam 00 series. They are called Innovators and Innovades. Most of them are created by genetic engineering. However, there are innovators who are natural born like Setsuna F. Seiei. Innovators (or Innovades) could communicate with brainwaves. They are classified into quite a few types which allows them to be specialised in, for example, battle or information collection. There hundreds of them in the human society but most of them does not know they are different.

Distinguished Characteristics
Newtypes have an extremely high degree of spatial awareness, almost a sixth sense. They are capable of telepathically detecting other Newtypes, and are sensitive to the hostile intentions directed at them by others, allowing them to uncannily react to their opponents even before the offender carries out his intended action. Some Newtypes also exhibit telepathic abilities or use psychokinesis. Kamille Bidan, the pilot of the MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam was able to channel out sheer emotional rage, summon the spirits of his dead friends, and boost his unit's power for a brief but devastating attack.

The abilities of the Newtype are kept very abstract and treated as mysterious events much the same way the Force is treated in the original Star Wars trilogy.

Newtypes and Society
One of the Universal Century's greatest social conflicts is the exploitation of these advanced humans. Heralded by scientists and philosophers upon their discovery as a beacon of hope for the future of humanity, the various series of the UC timeline show that these humans have merely become cannon fodder for greedy politicians and violent militarists, creating even more war and destruction.

Various characters state that the exploitation of the Newtype is due to fear of them by the Oldtypes, as they represent humanity's next step of evolution and the Oldtypes are merely relics of the past. A great example of this is the signature Gundam pilot of the metaverse, Amuro Ray. Although he is the hero of the One Year War, the first great Mobile Suit war, he barely climbs the ranks in his entire military career and it is implied that this is because of the government's mistrust in his loyalties due to his Newtype status but this maybe due to equality for promotions. Many believe this to be an allegory for the newer generations taking over the previous generation, and the confusion and conflict which comes from this. Well into the very late incarnations of the Universal Century timeline, Newtypes remain as rare an occurrence as they were during the One Year War, facilitating a curious cycle of weapons development, in which highly specialized Newtype-use weapons are developed, and repeatedly phased out, as fielding people capable of using such weapons in significant numbers remains consistently impossible.

Notable Newtypes
The most famous Newtype is probably the legendary Amuro Ray, protagonist of the first series. While Amuro develops into a powerful Newtype, he relies just as much, if not more so, on his superb ability with machinery and his inherent piloting skill than on his Newtype abilities.

The Gundam metaverse's most beloved character Char Aznable is implied to not be a particularly powerful Newtype at all. Char, like Amuro, develops his formidable ability in combat only after years of experience. Char is first and foremost a planner and strategist, fields he excels at without any relation to Newtype capabilities. Although his Newtype abilities were not as powerful as Amuro's, Char was among the best Newtypes of the era, due to the fact that a lot of the previous battles were on the earth sphere.

Canon-wise, the most powerful Newtype pilot is often said to be Judau Ashta of Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, the pilot of the titular MS. Despite his inexperience and youth, Judau exhibits the highest amount of raw Newtype ability and energy of almost any UC protagonist. This is also due to the fact that the series was oriented to younger audiences and powerful abilities had precedence over credibility.

Newtypes in the Universal Century
The word Newtype first came into being when Zeon Zum Deikun, the founder of the space colony-based Principality of Zeon, created his philosophy: mankind was destined to leave the Earth for space, where they would evolve into a new stage of evolution, called the Newtype.

This philosophy was accepted by many people to the point that it became superstition, and it became a name for those with strange and exceptional abilities. Hence when enhanced psychic potential manifested in certain individuals in the One-Year War, the idea that Newtypes were evolved humans with psychic abilities as a result of the movement to space began to stick. Unenhanced human beings, by opposition, became known by the retronym Oldtype.

As time passed, the number of new naturally occurring Newtypes remained fairly stable. However, as their destiny had been transformed from the "future of mankind" to living weapons forced to fight in war, artificially created Newtypes began to outnumber them. So by the time of the Second Neo Zeon War (Char's Counterattack), it was doubtful whether these Newtypes were the same as the legendary ones found in Daikun's theory.

Newtypes as soldiers
Not long into their discovery, the combat potential of the Newtype is quickly exploited by various military factions. Various technologies allowed these Newtypes to control remote weapons known as "bits" and "funnels", and other psychically controlled weapons. Some systems even allow Newtypes to control entire Mobile Suits or Armors just with the power of their mind, although this would take an exceptionally powerful Newtype to make possible. Many types of interfaces have also been designed for Newtype use, such as the cinematic Psycoframe.

Artificial Newtypes
Several research projects tried to artificially expand Newtypes' abilities or to bestow them on ordinary people. The Flanagan Institute has a prominent role in these research projects, and successfully deployed several artificial Newtypes in combat missions. The results of these projects were ultimately flawed, however. While many of these Enhanced Humans did have powerful abilities, they frequently suffered from extreme mental instability. The best example of this phenomenon is Four Murasame. Other known Artificial Newtypes include Rosamia Badam, Gates Capa, and Gyunei Guss.

In all English translations, the term Cyber-Newtype is used rather than Artificial Newtype.

ja:強化人間

Psycommu system
A Psycommu is a device connected directly into the user's thoughts, through which the user can manipulate it by using his/her mind. The name derives from psychic and communicator.

The research into psycommu started when it was discovered that brainwaves can bypass radio interference created with Minovsky particles. The Duchy of Zeon began researching the newtype power, and developed the psycommu system to be used exclusively by newtypes.

In essence, a psycommu system works by passively scanning the brainwaves of newtypes, amplifying them in order to send the brainwave signal out long distances, and then translating these brainwaves into raw machine codes upon being recieved by the selected object. Since brainwaves are not affected by the radio interference property of Minovsky particles, at first it was mainly used to mentally control remote weapons, usually mounted with a single beam gun. This enabled the resurrection of BVR engagements, with bits and funnels being the first weapons able to engage targets without visual contact since the development of the minovsky particle. Later on, the psycommu system was also used to increase response times.

In UC 0087, the psycommu system was designed to interface the newtype pilot with a mobile suit, called a bio-sensor. The bio-sensor amplified the power, speed and strength of the mobile suit for a short period of time, and in some cases used the psychic power as a weapon, when the pilot was mentally and emotionally distraught, usually when angry or upset.

ja:サイコミュ

Anti-funnel System
The Anti-funnel System was used by the mobile suit REON (Robotic Environment Operating-system Nucleus) Ver.5.7 Gundam Zephyr Phantom Mark II "Reon", in the manga of the same name. The AFS worked by blocking Psycommu waves from a Psycommu System of any sort and thus disrupting any use of remote weapons such as bits or funnels.

Psycoframe
Appearing in Char's Counterattack, the Psycoframe is a technology that builds the brainwave-to-machine code translator known as Psycommu into the atom-level of the metal frame of a Mobile Suit. This allows a Newtype pilot to control the mobile suit as if it were his/her own body Traditional psycommu systems require a large subsystem, and are typically mounted on larger Mobile armor platforms. With the development of the psycoframe, it became possible to implement a psycommu system into a smaller mobile suit.

The first mobile suit equipped with the psycoframe was the Neo Zeon MSN-04 Sazabi, built for Char Aznable by Anaheim Electronics. Hoping for a good battle with his long-time rival, Amuro Ray, Char secretly allowed the psycoframe technology to be leaked to the RX-93 Nu Gundam production team -- also at Anaheim Electronics.

In addition to psycommu capabilities, the psycoframe is said to have the ability to take brainwave input and increase the output of the mobile suit beyond its designed capacity. The psycoframe absorbing the intense emotions of the mobile suit pilots and the Earth's inhabitants is often listed as the explanation for the mysterious power that prevented the large asteroid base, Axis, from dropping to Earth.

NOTE: In the novel version of Char's Counterattack, entitled Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack - Beltorchika's Children, a third Mobile Suit, the Psyco Doga, is also equipped with a psycoframe. The Psyco Doga, which served as a prototype for the powerful mobile armor Alpha Azieru, was never animated.

ja:サイコフレーム

Quasi-Psycommu
The Quasi-psycommu system was developed to extend the capabilities of remote control to non-newtypes. This system can actively scan the pilot's brainwaves, no matter how weak they are, and then let the computer translate the thoughts into commands to be issued to remote weapons. Using the quasi-psycommu even non-Newtypes and normal humans can control simple wire-guided remote weapons, such as incoms. Incoms, unlike funnels or bits, still have to be tethered to their control unit by wires because the electrical signals to the incom would be otherwise disrupted by Minovsky Particles.

The quasi-psycommu system was first developed in the AMX-002 Neue Ziel by the Axis Zeon in 0083, only known as "half-control computer system". Later, the Titans, in Universal Century 0087, developed their own miniaturized version, which appeared in several units such as the ORX-013 Gundam Mk-V, and the MRX-010 Psyco Gundam Mark II. When the wreckage of the Psyco Gundam Mark II was retrieved by the Neo Zeon they reverse engineered it and used it in several of their own units such as the AMX-103 Hamma Hamma and AMX-114 Doven Wolf.

Neo-Psycommu
The Neo-psycommu system took the quasi-psycommu system a step further, allowing a pilot to control the suit with just his thoughts, without any manual controls. The only example of this was the huge mobile armour XMA-01 Rafflesia, in which the pilot's helmet contained numerous neural receptors and connected to the mobile armour through fiber optics wires.

Bio-computer
The bio-computer was developed in U.C. 0123, first employed in F91, and then also incorporated in the Crossbone Gundams (F97) during U.C. 0133. In essence it was a reverse psycommu system: instead of reading the brainwaves of the pilot, it analyzed the data observed from the sensors, and then fed it directly to the pilot's brain. This system could even be used by non-Newtypes but a Newtype would bring out its biggest potential.

EXAM system
The EXAM System (Blue Destiny) was quite similar to the Bio-computer, except that it worked using the soul of Newtype Marion Welch, embedded into the system. Due to the fact that it contained a soul, it sometimes went berserk and could not be controlled by the pilot, with sometimes fatal results. To counter this the operation time was limited to 5 minutes.

ja:EXAMシステム

Angel Halo
Angel Halo was a psycommu fortress, basically a giant circular structure with a control ship in the middle. While the other psycommu systems merely read brainwaves and translated them into machine code to control the weapons, the Angel Halo harnessed the power of hundreds of newtypes (controlled by one single newtype in the middle) and used them to "devolve" the human mind. It would literally force an adult mind to think like a baby and even further back. It was used to attempt to mind wipe all inhabitants of Earth.

Angel Halo had no outer defenses, it was only guarded by a Zanscare fleet. However, the effect of the structure's systems prevented potential attackers from getting close.

ja:エンジェル・ハイロゥ