Badass Mecha of the Week # 3: Stark Jegan

I've been thinking of what to put here this week, and mobile suits and a single mobile armor came into my mind. You guessed it, this week's featured mech came from the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, and again from the Universal Century (see summary here) timeline. A prototype mobile suit actually and we call it the Stark Jegan.

The RGM-79S Stark Jegan is a prototype mobile suit based on the RGM-89 Jegan, the standard mobile suit of Earth Federation's Londo Bell Task Force, a unit formed to replace the Titans, which later fought against Char Aznable's Neo Zeon faction in what was known as the Second Neo Zeon War, in reference to the First Neo Zeon Movement led by Haman Karn.

The Stark Jegan is designed as a mid-range fire support unit, armed with a giant bazooka, two shoulder-mounted three-tube missile launcher, a beam rifle, grenades, beam sabers and four optional large missile launchers. To top it off, the mobile suit is equipped with some extra armor which allows it to take some beating while spamming missiles — oh, did I tell you it can fire one that spams what looks like beams? — and a set of three thruster-containing binders at the back to maintain mobility.

Of course, all these equipment makes the Stark Jegan a little slower than the standard Jegan, so all the missile launchers and the armor are all completely ejectable. With the binders still around, this makes the Stark Jegan highly mobile.

The Stark Jegan appeared in the OVA series Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, where it proved itself a badass. In the very first battle of the OVA, the mobile suit appeared leading a Londo Bell squad of Jegans engaging Neo Zeon's ("Sleeves" in this case, a continuation of Haman Karn's faction) powerful Kshatriya. The battle saw the destruction of the Jegans, leaving the Stark Jegan in a one-on-one match with the Neo Zeon mech. This is where I saw for the first time a grunt prototype piloted by a faceless Feddie fight well against, take note, a Newtype mobile suit. With funnels. The battle turned out an awesome match with the Stark Jegan evading the enemy's random beams while putting pressure into it with missiles and beams.

The battle culminated with a beam saber duel, and the Kshatriya only managed to defeat the Stark Jegan when it pulled off a little I-field trick.

The lovely mobile suit was finally hacked by a beam saber into two.

And that's the story of why the Stark Jegan is such a badass mobile suit. Well the unnamed pilot gets most of the credits though.


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Badass Mecha of the Week # 1: Kampfer

I'll be starting this weekly topic from here on to keep my blog updated, apart from the other fact that I simply feel like sharing an interest.

So to start off, let me introduce you to my favorite hit-and-run mobile suit of all time, the Kampfer from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080.

Before I proceed in telling you how badass this mecha is, let me give a brief history of the original Mobile Suit Gundam universe. In the near future, in an era dubbed as the Universal Century (UC), mankind started to colonize space, living in clusters of Island 3 colonies known as Sides (e.g. Side 7, Side 6, etc.). Over time, those who live in space became paranoid of those who live in Earth, a schism giving rise to the labels spacenoid (space colonists) and earthnoid (the regular Terran). Soon in the year UC 0079, colonies in Side 3 known as the Principality of Zeon declared a war of independence from the Earth Federation, the one-world government ruling Earth. This conflict is known as the One Year War.

So late in the War, the Principality developed the MS-18E Kampfer, a mobile suit designed for hit-and-run attacks. This MS sacrifices armor for multiple powerful thrusters all over its body (not excluding the head) which allows great maneuverability and speed. Why take hits when you can dodge 'em eh? The drawback however is that the Kampfer consumes way too much fuel with all those thrusters working in sync, thereby shortening its operational time.

Now its standard weapons loadout includes a couple of giant bazookas on its shoulders, a couple of huge versions of the classic panzerfaust on its waist, two head vulcans you'd usually see in Gundams, a shotgun and a chain of mines it has used once to strip a Gundam itself nude of armor. Yes that's a badass enough combo even if you have no knowledge of how the Kampfer took down an entire Feddie mobile suit garrison in Side 6 single-handedly.

Unfortunately, the Kampfer was developed too late to change the course of the War, a months-long stalemate which has finally gone in favor of the Federation. In Dec. 20, UC 0079, Mikhail Kaminsky, a member of Zeon's elite Cyclops Team, is deployed in the Kampfer in Libot Colony, Side 6 to neutralize the Federation's latest prototype, the RX-78NT-1 "Alex" Gundam. He and the rest of the Team failed, and the only Kampfer known in history is shredded by a three-barrel 90 mm Gatling.


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