Requiem

Requiem
Requiem (レクイエム, Rekuiemu)
Usage
Designer	Earth Alliance
Manufacturer	Earth Alliance
Operator	Earth Alliance OMNI Enforcer Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty Kingdom of Foundation
Technical Specifications
Functional Purpose	Orbital All-Aspect Strategic Cannon Energy Beam Superweapon
Form of Discharge	Energy Beam
Last seen	May, 75 C.E.
Real World
Appearances*
Television	GSD: #44 - Episode #50
Movie	Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom

“	And now, Chairman Durandal. I shall play you... A REQUIEM FOR YOU AND YOUR KINDS!	”
—Lord Djibril

Requiem is a powerful super weapon introduced in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny.

Technical Information

Designated as an "Inter-Orbital Omnidirectional Strategic Cannon", the whole system used to make Requiem functional is composed of several parts, positioned over the whole Earth Sphere. The first part is the cannon itself, which is built at the Daedalus Lunar Base on the dark side of the Moon. The cannon itself is rather huge and fires a pale green energy beam. The second part are a number of beam deflecting relay stations positioned at important locations in the Earth Sphere. These relay stations were built from abandoned Island 3-type space colonies with their end caps removed and outfitted with large Geschmeidig Panzer arrays. These stations are controlled from the Daedalus base and positioned in every direction needed. If a beam is fired from the cannon, it enters one such relay which bends the beam to another relays and so on, until it hits it designated target. Using different combinations of these arrays, Requiem can be fired at targets anywhere in the Earth Sphere. Requiem has five relay stations in total, named "Station One", "Gounod", "Fauré", "Czerny", and "Fourier". The beam itself is so powerful that it can destroy anything in its path or be used as a giant beam saber to cut through whole space colonies.

Due to the importance of every part of the weapon, the relay stations are protected by a large number of Mobile Weapons, Positron Reflector-refitted Drake-class ships along with its reinforcement fleet. Following ZAFT's acquisition of the weapon, three Positron Reflectors were placed at the emitter shaft to protect the beam cannon.

When the Kingdom of Foundation reactivated the superweapon in C.E. 75, it created new, thinner relay rings- that can be transported, assembled, and replaced using modified Baldr- class Ships, both of which are equipped with Mirage Colloid Stealth Systems to make them difficult to detect.

FURTHERMORE (although this needs be confirmed yet on both future reference materials & the film’s creative producers themselves), Foundation’s version of the Requiem- fires rather a thin pale green beam, and is surrounded by energy surge (probably similar to the Earth Alliance Forces’ CYCLOPS Device OR ZAFT Forces’ GENESIS Gamma Ray Laser). Once fired and upon reaching its target: any human or organic life form in the targeted area will be burnt to a crisp by the intense radiation/energy surge emanating from the beam shot, then the actual beam will strafe through anything and everything it could strife- destroying them completely.

History

Second Alliance-PLANT War

Designated as an "Orbital All-Aspect Strategic Cannon", REQUIEM was the most powerful weapon in the Earth Alliance's arsenal. Built at an unknown point of time after the First Alliance-PLANT War, the system remained inactive until the latter phase of the Second Alliance-PLANT War.

The result of the Requiem's first shot

After Lord Djibril escaped from Orb to the Daedalus base, he intended to use this new superweapon to wipe out the PLANT Supreme Council along with the PLANT's capital Aprilius One. However, one of the relay stations, Gounod, was discovered by a ZAFT task force led by Yzak Jule shortly before Requiem was fired. Battle damage to Gounod slightly altered the trajectory of the beam, and as a result, Requiem missed its intended target. Instead, the beam directly hit and destroyed Januarius 1 through 4 and caused December 7 and 8 to collapse, leading to the deaths of over a million Coordinators. Afterward, the Joule Team destroyed Gounod, but Requiem's design was such that other relay stations could still be used to aim its beam at PLANT. In response, ZAFT launched a heavy attack on one of this relay stations (which was strongly protected by the Earth Alliance forces) while the Minerva attacked Daedalus in order to destroy the cannon itself. While Rey Za Burrel/ZGMF-X666S Legend Gundam and Shinn Asuka/ZGMF-X42S Destiny Gundam destroyed the Mobile Armors and Mobile Suit Forces that protected the base, Lunamaria Hawke snuck into the base with the ZGMF-X56S/γ Blast Impulse Gundam and destroyed the control room just before Requiem could be fired again.

Afterwards, ZAFT took control over Requiem and used it to destroy the Alliance's remaining lunar base at Arzachel as well as a vast majority of their space fleets. It was shown during this time that Requiem and its relay stations are now controlled from the ZAFT Forces’ Mobile Space Fortress Messiah, and its beam emitter was equipped with Positron Reflector units. Just before the next shot could be fired at ORB Union, Requiem was destroyed by the ORB-01 Akatsuki Gundam and ZGMF-X19A ∞ Justice Gundam when both units destroyed the main energy core. (Requiem's destruction in the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: The Edge manga is altered as Athrun would battle with Shinn's ZGMF-X42S Destiny Gundam before snagging the latter's "Arondight" Beam Sword and sending the sword and the ∞ Justice's Fatum-01 into the core to destroy the weapon.)

Foundation Conflict

After the war, although Requiem's surface facilities had been mostly destroyed, the underground power reactors at Daedalus were deemed impossible to dismantle safely. Instead, it was decided that PLANT would use them peacefully as power reactors. However, PLANT National Defense Committee Chairman Hari Jagannath placed those power reactors under military control, and secretly began reconstructing the weapon.

In C.E. 75, Requiem was reactivated by the Kingdom of Foundation as a weapon to obliterate any nation that refused to implement the Destiny Plan and to destroy Compass. Controlled first from the Foundation’s Satellite Base in Artemis, it was first fired against the Eurasian Federation's capital of Moscow, annihilating it completely. The Earth Alliance then dispatched a fleet from the rebuilt Endymion base to destroy Requiem, but met resistance from the ZAFT coup d'etat faction allied with the Foundation before Requiem destroyed them all in a single shot. When Foundation later learned of the LHM-BB03S Millennium's launch from the Orb Union and that its military was faking an intervention, Chancellor Orphee Lam Tao declared to Cagalli that ORB Union capital of Olofat would be the next target, but was redirected at the last second by Aura Maha Khyber in an attempt to destroy the Millennium, when Kira Yamato broadcasted that the destruction of Ishtaria was a Foundation's false flag operation. Thanks to Arnold Neumann, the Millennium successfully evaded the shot and launched to space.

Before Requiem could fire on Orb again, Mu La Flaga piloted the ORB-01 Akatsuki Gundam with the A-GXQ754/V2 Zeus Silhouette to destroy the First Relay Point and the Modified Baldr-class Ship that replaces the relay points; before using his mobile suit's Yata-no-kagami Composite Shield to reflect the beam back on the weapon itself, destroying several ZAFT ships in the process; although Requiem was protected by its Positron Reflectors, the reflected beam nonetheless temporarily disabled the superweapon. To resume their targeting of Olofat, Foundation forces desperately tried to dispatch another Baldr-class Ship that will place newer relay points into position, while conducting emergency repairs on the cannon.

After Foundation forces completed the repairs, Aura once again ordered to destroy Orb Union, as well as the remaining enemy fleet, with the superweapon. The Requiem was finally destroyed by Shinn Asuka using the ZGMF/A-42S2 Destiny Gundam Spec II equipped with the Zeus Silhouette, by firing a shot with its Large Linear Cannon.

Gallery

Requiem plan displayed on Djibril's monitor

A monitor showing the status of Requiem

Illustration of Requiem's range

Beam Cannon

View from above, through relay station Faure

Relay station

Relay station Gounod

Station One

Requiem firing

Requiem's beam being deflected

Requiem's beam passing through one of the relay station

Requiem's beam piercing through a PLANT

Requiem's beam slicing off the lower part of a PLANT

Requiem's Positron Reflectors

Requiem's Positron Reflectors blocking "Lohengrin" Positron Blaster Cannon blasts

Requiem control room at the Daedalus lunar base, moments before being destroyed by the Blast Impulse

Requiem's destruction

Notes & Trivia

• The names, given to four of the relay stations, are all from music composers who composed Requiem Masses, a religious music work for the dead, usually played during funerals.
• The relay stations are converted closed-type O'Neill I-3 colonies, similar to the ones used for Gryps 2 in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.

Appearances

Television Series

• Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
  • PHASE-44, Lacus Times Two
    • First Appearance
  • PHASE-45, Prelude to Revolution
  • PHASE-48, To a New World

References

Station Gounod Glossary Plus File (1) (Official Gundam Fact File 130)

This article is part of Project: SEED

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Project Leader: User:CD298