Mirage Colloid

In the Cosmic Era, Mirage Colloid is a sythetic particle first discovered by the Earth Alliance's Atlantic Federation, which can be used for a variety of military purposes.

At the end of the Bloody Valentine War, the Treaty of Junius was signed by representatives of the Earth Alliance and ZAFT. One of its provision banned the use of Mirage Colloid technology, seemingly putting an end to further development of this highly versatile particle.

The Mirage Colloid technology has many similarities to the Minovsky Technology of the Universal Century.

Mirage Colloid stealth system
The first use discovered was as a stealth device, and this technology was incorporated into the GAT-X207 Blitz. With the Mirage Colloid system activated, the mobile suit was covered by the particles, which bent light and RADAR waves around it, rendering the Blitz invisible to both visual and electronic detection. This application of Mirage Colloid was later incorporated into the MBF-P01-Re Astray Gold Frame Amatu, which used the severed arm of the Blitz, and was eventually repeated on a much larger scale to conceal ZAFT's huge superweapon GENESIS.

Although Mirage Colloid was banned, in CE 73, the top secret Earth Alliance battleship Girty Lue used its illegal Mirage Colloid stealth system to launch a sneak attack on ZAFT's Armory One base and steal three prototype Gundam mobile suits.

Geschmeidig Panzer
The next development of Mirage Colloid was the "Geschmeidig Panzer" energy deflection armor, employed by the GAT-X252 Forbidden and its descendants, the GAT-X255 Forbidden Blue and GAT-706S Deep Forbidden. This system utilized different Colloid particles to bend energy beams away from the mobile suit], providing excellent defensive capabilities. The "Geschmeidig Panzer" pods can also deflect water for use as a propulsion system.

The Earth Alliance later loaded extra-large Geschmeidig Panzers in abandoned O'Neill type space colonies for use with the Requiem beam cannon. While the beam cannon is located at the Daedalus lunar base, it is possible for the Requiem to freely aim at any target by changing the positions of the colonies and bending the beam between each point.

Mirage Colloid Virus Spreader
While the initial advances in Mirage Colloid technology were made by the Atlantic Federation, a more novel development came from another source: the Mirage Colloid virus spreader, created by the defense conglomerate Actaeon Industries and utilized in their prototype NMS-X07PO Gel Finieto. This system used Mirage Colloid particles to access the operating systems of nearby mobile suits and infect them with a computer virus, unimpeded by Neutron Jammer interference. However, the Gel Finieto was otherwise lightly armed and generally unremarkable, and there was little military interest in the mobile suit.

Wings of Light
The Wings of Light (Hikari no Tsubasa), used by ZAFT's ZGMF-X42S Destiny, are the most recent technology to incorporate Mirage Colloid. While their primary function is as a propulsion system, which gives the suit acceleration superior to any contemporary mobile suit, they also incorporate a Mirage Colloid holographic system. This system spreads Colloid particles, leaving a trail of visible after-images that can confuse enemy sensors. However, the power requirements of the Wings of Light are very high, and even Destiny's hyper-deuterion nuclear reactor cannot sustain them for more than brief periods.

Another form of the Wings of Light can be found on the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom; they can only be activated when its DRAGOON pods are deployed. Other than a cosmetic feature, however, they serve no other known purpose, and do not cause immense drain on its nuclear reactor unlike Destiny's. Rather, they are simply due to the fact that the thruster layout on Strike Freedom's "wings" is similar to that of Destiny.