-D-

I haven't changed my mind about the original Mobile Suit Gundam; I still think it's overwrought, underanimated nonsense. Ditto for a good many of its dozens and dozens of spawn. I can only take so much rumination on The Inhuman Horror Of War, and if I want to do that at all, then quite frankly I'm not going to turn to giant robot space opera to do it, not when I have my copies of We Were Soldiers and Black Hawk Down.

(I also haven't changed my mind about Gundam Wing; I still think it's overwrought, overanimated nonsense. :)

Basically - not counting G Gundam - there are two Gundam shows I like. One is Mobile Suit Gundam: 08 MS Team, which, being set on the ground, is more of a proper war movie, and as such I can stand more reflection on the nature of war from it than I can from the ones that are also trying to be space action shows. (Also, it doesn't suffer the original series' complete lack of likeable characters.) The other is Gundam 0083, which is basically a straight-up sci-fi action piece - pretty fluffy by Gundam standards, really, but what the hell, I liked it for some reason.

But here's the thing - as I noted in another thread recently, I don't necessarily have to like something to steal from it. Gundam's got some nice mecha designs, and those designs aren't (in the case of everything but Gundam Wing, anyway) necessarily predicated on the aspects of the shows that I think are lame. So why not? If you're looking for a good, solid lightweight Destroid with advanced space maneuvering capabilities, the Gundam series is hard to beat.

>The fact that Chuck Keith (from 0083) referred to
>himself as a 'space destroid' pilot and Sylvie responded by calling
>him a 'Gundam jockey' would seem to indicate at least a modest growth
>in popularity of said style of mech. Is this so?

Sorta.

If you hunt around in the forum archives, you can find a couple of threads from back when Symphony of the Sword No. 3: Arena came out which outline the basic chronology of the Gundam-series Destroid's history in the UF universe, so I'm not gonna get into that so much here. What I will note is that by the early 25th century, the Gundam series has been around for a long time and is largely looked on as the go-to platform for most light/medium space-Destroid roles. There are other space Destroids out there - hell, even the much-loved Warhammer, which is the quintessential groundpounder, can be fitted with a thruster/vector unit that makes it into a surprisingly capable space attack vehicle - but the Gundam is what people think of when they think of elite space-based Destroid units.

In fact,