Connection (Gundam Wing)

[edonohana]

Title: Connection
Words: 1700
Rating: G
Synopsis: It wasn't the first time Trowa had held Heero's life in his hands.
Spoilers: Through episode 21
Author's note: I swear that the next in the series "A Boy Loves His Gundam" will not be set in a repair bay.

Comments

SPOILERS FOR LATER EPISODES, BEWARE

[edonohana]

Yeah, I think you're right about Heero and Wing. Unlike every other pilot, I don't think he ever talks to it. Wing Zero, now, he does say was talking to him. (He probably means the Zero system, not Wing Zero per se, but close enough.)

I have been trying to figure out what Zero is supposed to do, and what it really does. It's supposed to increase the pilot's reaction time and tactical abilities by enabling the pilot to see the whole picture of the battle and how your decisions might play out, right? And that includes a rather glitchy anti-friendly fire capability in that it points out who your enemies are? ("YOU'RE ALL MY ENEMIES!")

Except what it mostly seems to do is make pilots hallucinate, go berserk, glow, decide to kill everyone in sight, and, occasionally, fix them up mentally if they were already crazy when they got in.

And then Epyon is supposed to show you your own personal future, but seems to mostly just make you go insane while your eyes spin like pinwheels.

Am I missing anything?

maybe you could write it from Zero's POV?

I thought of that! But there's something oddly attractive to me about writing Heero's POV.

Re: SPOILERS FOR LATER EPISODES, BEWARE

[poilass]

My understanding of Zero is that it makes predictions based on the data available (from the Gundam's sensors but maybe also from the pilot, so if the pilot is not thinking that clearly, it's Garbage In Garbage Out?), and has a direct interface with the pilot so they can act on Zero's predictions without conscious thought, thus speeding up their reaction time.

Unfortunately, acting without conscious thought means nothing goes through the 'is this a good idea?' filter first.

Also, Zero doesn't seem to have any sense of proportion; all possibilities are presented as equally likely -- 'that guy will jump left', but also 'everyone will turn on me', 'i will miss and hit the colony and accidentally destroy it'.

In an infinite universe everyone, potentially, really *could* be an enemy, and Zero is usually in the hands of fairly paranoid people.

If you can maintain your focus it really works pretty well -- it's worth remembering that Heero and Quatre both use Zero without going crazy later in the series (and Wufei doesn't go crazy at all I think? long time since I watched it) -- but if you happen to think to yourself, "I wonder what would happen if the colonies were destroyed" or something, well, Zero will *tell you*. And maybe the answer is, "peace! peace for everyone!", who knows. Maybe Zero knew what it was doing all along!

As for Epyon, I came across a theory - I don't think it's canon - that he made it for Une, so maybe it works great if you have a split personality.

Re: SPOILERS FOR LATER EPISODES, BEWARE

[rachelmanija]

OK, I have a take on Zero now. Watch this space!

PS. That is hilarious that Epyon might have been designed for Une. There's a story in that somewhere...