Howdy folks,

Since most of you here seems to be interested in the Gundam 00 side stories and what not, I figured you'd all be pleased to read this. This just came out in the December issue of Dengeki Hobby, so I'm pleased to present to you the story of the Gundam Astraea and the whacked tackular Marlene Brady. Yes I chose Brady over Bloody like Gunota had because it matched most of the names used in Japan. Until I see a Japanese official spelling (probably in the January issue), I'll stick with this.

Until then, you can download it here.

Any questions, comments and what not can be directed at me. Until then, please discuss away!

-- Deacky

That was fast; thanks Deacon.

Looks like it confirms several important details such as the date being 2292, and the existence of Krung Thep or whatever.

Fantastic work, Deacon! Thanks for sharing!

Its an interesting story that also gives us a lot of good facts that help pin down the history behind the animation we've seen so far. They seem to confirm that Aeolia Shenberg is dead. I figured if he was somehow alive, he would be on that colony.

The name explanation behind the Astrea is nice, a funny dialouge too. Its good to see Chall and Ruido getting along. It brings out their basic characteristics.

Marlene is going to be interesting. I got quite the picture in my head after reading the dialouge between her and Chall... she's a scary woman! Cold-hearted, almost forceful with her words.

Theres also interesting information of the plans for Gundams. A plan for 10? With only 5 Gn Drives complete... I wonder... since the Astrea exists in the same time the Exia does, is their plan for 10 Gundams include the 5 supposed prototypes? Or do plans change as time progresses.

The second image in that translation has me thinking... is that blurred unit in the background the Exia? You decide, but I think it's got the features of the Exia all over it.


Speaking of plans, Veda is mentioned again. They mention this in the episodes as well... interesting...

This is going to be a good side story! I can tell!

It definitely looks like the Exia.

All the other features match, from the perky front skirt armor to the GN Sword it's holding.

Well, if Schenberg is dead...

Does this mean that Celestial Being is acting alone with the guidance of Veda? Because Veda's definitely a bit more than a scenario generator for Sumeragi to consider, as we've seen from the previous episodes.

I have trouble buying Krung Thep being located at L3, for the simple reason that it would be easily visible from Earth, likely even to amateur astronomers, which rather eliminates it as a "secret" facility.

The 10 prototypes but only 5 GN Drives amused me. We know that nine years from the time this story begins one of those 5 GN Drives is still inside the 0 Gundam, and another six years down the road the remaining four GN Drives are accounted for, too...but there's that side story photonovel which takes place concurrently with the TV show, and has its own set of GN Drive-using Gundams. Evidently there are more than 5 GN Drives by 2307, which implies they can still be constructed shortly before the TV series starts, so we can rule out them being "Lost Technology", which really undermines any reasoning for Ptolemaios not to have been built with one.

Well, according to this, it is on the opposite side of the sun. It wouldn't be all that hard to set it into an orbit that it was constantly invisible from the Earth.

The O Gundam is a first-generation Gundam, therefore one of the GN Drives that Ruido is referring to is already in the unit and isn't in the one of the counted left.

There is an L3 point in Earth's orbit on the opposite side of the Sun, yes. Unfortunately, when Gundam shows talk about LaGrange points, they refer to the ones in the Moon's orbital path, not Earth's. Moreover, the text as you translated it states that Krung Thep's L3 point is "farthest from the moon", implying it is one of the Lunar LaGrange points, while "farthest from Earth" would imply it was one of the LaGrange points in Earth's orbit. (Image taken from High Frontier's article on LaGrange points.)

Even if it turns out that Krung Thep is at the L3 point in Earth's orbit, the interaction of the gravity of other planets would throw it out of direct alignment periodically, moving it into line-of-sight with Earth.

But, again looking at the wording you chose, "There are ten Second-generation Gundam units planned, but there are only five GN Drive units". The way that second clause is written can be interpretted as either "their are only five GN Drive units" for the 2nd Generation Gundams, or "there are only five GN Drive units" in existence.

Interpretting as you did, Deacon, simply means that GN Drives are even less rare than interpretting as I do, and therefore there is even less reason for Ptolemaios not to have one of its own rather than relying on a Gundam's.

It appears that in my haste at translating this, I forgot to include a blurb about the Lagrange 1 location (course staring at vertical text makes you cross-eyed):

Now, there are only limited number of colonies. The Union began colony construction in Lagrange 1 prior to the other nation states. Lagrange 1 is between the Earth and the moon, and it has it's advantages of convenience, which is high compared to other places.

Yeah, this a MAJOR point I flubbed up on... whoops @_@

Oh well, I'll add it into the next release. I'll be releasing each photonovel with the first one.

Don't worry about it. What you're doing is already quite the service. I would've been surprised if there weren't the occasional flub at the speed this came out!

It's not so much the speed... the issue came out back around October 25th or so... :x I worked on it for about three days... :D

Good job, Deacon! Do you intend to do 00F and 00V too?

BTW, does anyone found Chall's deduction of Gundam's number amusing? Twenty four Gundam, for god's sake! :P That, and other Gundam's name are definitely not based on tarot cards (ie. O Gundam, third generation Gundam) makes that spectulation even way off (and funnier.)

I dunno, I thought she made a reasonable assumption given her inexperience and the information provided to her.

I think that, given Krung Thep's small size and the availability of GN technology, it would be no problem for CB to maintain its position relative to Sun & Earth (solar sails or high-efficiency ion thrusters would probably suffice).

Krung Thep being located at the L-3 point does appeal to me (partly because of its 'Counter-Earth' connotation), although the logistics of its construction must have been enormous if so, and would imply a source of raw materials other than the Earth, such as comets & asteroids.

I'll conceed the point about size, I suppose, and at the opposite end of Earth's orbit it would at least be too small for amateur astronomers to pick out.

However, with Deacon's addition of the bit about Union's colony at the Earth/Moon L1 point, I think it's pretty conclusive that Krung Thep, rightly or stupidly, is at the Earth/Moon L3 point, rather than the Sun/Earth L3 point.

Whether or not GN technology can explain how the colony is "secret" would depend, I think, on when exactly in the timeline GN technology was developed. 2nd Generation Gundams have beena round for 15 years as of the start of the TV show. I'd find it very hard to believe that GN technology existed before 2200, and so if GN technology is how Krung Thep is currently being hidden, it begs the question of how the colony was hidden before GN technology was refined to a useful point.

:o
how does the location of the Union's colony at the Earth/Moon L1 point prove anything about which L3 the CB colony is at?!

If I had to guess at which one it's at I'd probably guess it's at the Earth/Moon L3. Until we know for sure though let's not resort to faulty reasoning.

It's quite simple, really. It's like pronouns and antecedents.

The blurb about Union's colony obviously fits somewhere on the second page; thematically, probably after the paragraph about Krung Thep, which ends "There are no neighbors", which would still make sense with the following line, about how completing the orbital elevators will completely change the nature of space exploration.

Also, there's no other option for the Union colony other than the Earth/Moon L1 point; that much is clear from the text. This clarity also implies that Krung Thep is at the Earth/Moon L3 point, rather than the Sun/Earth L3 point, because if the latter were true it would have to be explicity mentioned in order to avoid confusing the reader. The mention of Krung Thep as being farthest from the Moon, however, easily points to the Earth/Moon L3 point, as the moon is essentially irrelevant to the Sun/Earth L3 point.

This topic has been split. Please continue any further discussion of the Ptolemaios and its phantom GN Drives in this thread.

thanks Darkstar.

Veda gets mentioned in here too and even though we have a discussion of Veda already going on, I can't help but wonder if theres any more information on Veda in this episode that we missed.

Actually, why would the GN drive be necessary to hide the colony?

The last time I checked, we aren't in the habit of scanning large portions of space with radar signals or radio...

However, would it be beyond their technological capability to produce a sort of active camouflage, and lens the light of the stars behind them for Earth-bound observatories? That seems the simplest way to hide the entire colony.

What I want to know is how the hell you gather that much material and personnel without anyone noticing. Especially with whatever the the heck their construction is...

They were seen leaving Earth; but then they disappeared. In that situation, you can bet that someone was indeed attempting to figure out where they went, and so would have been attempting to follow their path through space, which is one of the reasons the Earth/Moon L3 point is such a bad spot for CB's "secret" colony; it's way too close to Earth. I was hoping Krung Thep would be somewhere exotic, like the Sun/Jupitor trojan points, where there actually are asteroids (indeed, that's why L4/L5 points are called trojan points). This would've been far enough away to hinder observation from within the moon's orbital path, but still close enough to peroidically intervene on Earth.

Someone on /m/ translated the first volume of 00P. Overall, the translation seems to be much worse than Deaky's translation, but at least there are now four more chapters translated. I'm posting the first chapter for completion's sake.

Alright, I'll state this. I am a member of the translation team of this project. ^ This was an accidental release. This is actually the (Alpha) version if you would put it that way, about two runs through editing and checking and a layout check that accidentally got mistaken as the release and put out there. It at this point is still under the grammar/checking/reviewing stage, and triple checking the translation...

Though as you can see, we do intend to release it in each of its collected volumes Vol 1. Ch 1-5, Vol. 2 Ch 6-10...

However higher quality scans of File's 14 - Sp 5 are being nearly impossible to track down, so if anyone can assist it would be greatly appreciated.

Fancy seeing you again, Fizz. :)

Would like to say thank you for translating this. It is vastly appreciated as long text translation of anything Gundam 00 is quite few and far between. You guys interested in doing 00N in the far future? Because it's the most kickass 00 sidestory; information wise though I guess 00P plays this role before it. But thanks for doing this.