The ship Reid had Lacus go and retrieve was, in fact, a vessel built as a 1:1 replica based on the data for the Neo-Argama.
However, Reid found the name "Neo-Argama" a bit strange, so he internally designated it as the Heavy Armor Argama. As for what the ship would actually be called upon its debut, that was not for Reid to decide.
At this moment, although Lacus was feeling a little smug, thinking, So even you, Reid, don't leave yourself completely without an opening, she still spoke up while Athrun was present.
"Alright, I'll contact Andrew later to pick up the ship.
But Reid, I have one more question. Is it really that difficult for Coordinators to evolve into Newtypes?"
Reid knew Lacus was asking this question for Athrun. Once Athrun knew the answer, he would naturally take it back to PLANT.
Furthermore, Lacus was likely trying to gauge Reid's stance on Coordinators through this question.
Although the New Misurugi Kingdom had no policies that discriminated against Coordinators, all hospitals in the New Misurugi Kingdom refused to perform the Coordinator procedure.
If people from the New Misurugi Kingdom wished for their children to become First Generation Coordinators, they had to travel all the way to PLANT for the procedure before returning.
This, in fact, demonstrated the New Misurugi Kingdom's attitude: it did not discriminate against Coordinators, but it did not consider them to be naturally born life.
It was the absolute implementation of such detailed policies that allowed the Earth Alliance to accept the New Misurugi Kingdom—the nation with the second-highest number of Coordinators in the Earth Sphere—as one of the world's multipolar powers, rather than worrying it would become a second PLANT.
Therefore, Reid decided to tell the truth. He looked at Lacus seriously and said, "What I said at the press conference was the truth. Under the same conditions, it is indeed more difficult for a Coordinator to evolve than a non-Coordinator."
Reid's re-affirmation had a hidden meaning that Lacus picked up on. She pressed on, "Under the same conditions... which means there are indeed extra conditions that can accelerate the birth of Newtypes, right?"
For Reid to say any more would be to aid a potential enemy. So, he just smiled, changed the subject, and reminded Lacus to send people to retrieve the ship as soon as possible. If they waited until the Atlantic Federation actually started fighting, him giving Lacus a ship would be interpreted as a signal by those with ulterior motives.
After giving his instructions, Reid took the initiative and left the Hangar. He had already informed the military about the Justice Gundam; the Mobile Suit and Athrun would be secretly sent to space when the time came.
Athrun and Lacus were both intelligent people. Reid's words were a tacit admission that he knew of a method to accelerate the birth of Newtypes.
Both of them felt a sense of relief. If it were truly difficult for Coordinators to awaken as Newtypes, then Coordinators would be destined to become nothing more than dust in the annals of history.
In a decade or so, when Natural Newtypes began to emerge and lead the world, PLANT would have no choice but to allow intermarriage with Naturals to prevent its complete disappearance within one or two generations, slowly transitioning its society from one of Coordinators back to one of Naturals.
After leaving, Reid didn't concern himself with what Athrun and Lacus were thinking. After this great war, PLANT and the Earth Alliance would naturally discover that Newtypes had suddenly begun to awaken during the conflict.
According to Nanai Miguel's research, Minovsky Particles naturally aided in the awakening of Newtypes. Furthermore, individuals with Newtype potential who had long-term contact with actual Newtypes could easily awaken naturally.
Therefore, a potential Newtype like Mu, who had been in prolonged contact with Reid and had been piloting Mobile Suits equipped with Minovsky Particle Fusion Reactors for the past year, was very likely to suddenly self-awaken during a moment of intense emotion.
Moreover, the awakening of most first-generation Newtypes required some form of stimulus. The greater the stimulus, the stronger their abilities would be after they endured it. And in war, there was absolutely no shortage of stimuli.
Right now, Reid needed to consider other matters.
The Stage 5 main mission, "Prevent the colony wreckage from falling to Earth (mission fails if over 30% of the colony wreckage's mass falls to Earth)," was already complete.
But the Stage 6 mission the system gave him was, "Ensure PLANT invades Europe." The reward: 50 Merit Points, 10,000 G-Coins. Failure: a slight increase in world difficulty.
The reward for this mission was so meager it was comparable to the Stage 1 main mission of defending the Star Palace Colony Satellite.
Evidently, the system had determined that it was necessary for the Eurasian Federation to be on the brink of collapse after this war, unable to recover for several years.
But with Reid's current strength, completing this mission was far too simple, which was why the reward was as paltry as the Stage 1 mission that only required destroying a single battleship without a single casualty.
So, Reid really only needed to complete this mission when the opportunity arose. If he couldn't find a pretext, he could always go looking for trouble with Phantom Pain. He had intentionally left the Extended Person laboratory that Shinn Asuka found in the original story intact, precisely for the purpose of using it as a justification when he needed to stir up trouble later.
However, the G Invasion missions that refreshed this time were quite interesting.
P.D. 325, Mars MA Subjugation Campaign.
U.C. 0093, Second Neo Zeon War.
A.C. 195, OZ's Libra Subjugation Campaign.
In two of these three campaigns, the original protagonists' final goal was to stop a foreign object from falling to Earth. Reid figured the system must think he hadn't pushed enough rocks this time and wanted him to push two more for fun.
Of course, pushing rocks was just a joke. G Invasion missions had always only required Reid to destroy one protagonist's Mobile Suit to be considered complete. Even if he went and pushed the Axis and Libra wreckage, he wouldn't get any extra rewards.
However, the G-Coins for blowing up Axis and the Libra would surely be substantial, so Reid would definitely take care of them along the way.
These three campaigns were still valuable to undertake.
The P.D. 325 Mars MA Subjugation Campaign featured Hashmal, an automated Mobile Armor that was active during the Calamity War three hundred years ago.
That thing was a pure killing machine. After all, its lore stated that its sister units, during the peak of human technology in the PD universe, had wiped out a quarter of the human population in one fell swoop, turning the PD universe from a golden age into a post-apocalyptic one.
Reid was very interested in the large Ahab Reactor used by the MA, as well as its internal factory system that could recycle metal and rapidly produce a large number of small drones, the Plumans.
U.C. 0093, the Second Neo Zeon War. This one needed no introduction—the final battle between Amuro and Char, the two absolute protagonists of the Universal Century.
For Reid, the Mobile Suits from this campaign could mostly only serve to supplement his tech tree.
But the chance to fight against Char and Amuro at their strongest was something Reid greatly looked forward to.
Reid was very eager to use this campaign to test how much of a gap there was between himself and those two.
He didn't know about other things, but he was certain that Amuro's and Char's piloting skills in their final battle would be rated as Master-level by the system—and two cunning, old-fox Master-levels from the UC timeline at that.
Reid was also very much looking forward to the skill drops from defeating the two of them.
As for the possibility of him being unable to win and losing, Reid thought, If I win, I'll eliminate them both and get their skills. If I lose, then I can't let it go either. I'll have to call in my people for a group beatdown to eliminate them and get their skills.
In any case, Reid had checked the restrictions for this campaign. It was still limited to one ship entering, so there was nothing to fear. If he couldn't win a one-on-one, he would just gang up on them.
Finally, A.C. 195, OZ's Libra Subjugation Campaign. This was another place to farm points. This battle featured a massive number of Mobile Dolls, and the White Fang side was full of high-value units like the Virgo II.
In terms of Mobile Suits, he could finally retrieve the Wing Zero Gundam and its original Buster Rifle this time.
As for the battle itself, this final war of the AC universe had only one theme: fighting, and more fighting.
Of course, while these three campaigns were all good, Reid didn't plan to start them just yet. Their priority was lower than the "Earth Federation Anti-Government Forces Prison Assault" mission in his assessment tasks.
The reasoning was simple. No matter which campaign he went to, Reid felt he should first go to the AD universe and get the mature Pseudo GN Drives that would be ready in four years. That thing was low-cost, easy to produce, and could even be used as a one-time explosive. It was truly an essential item for home, travel, murder, and robbery.
Unfortunately, now was not the time to go to the AD universe. The battle between the Atlantic Federation and PLANT was about to erupt, and the New Misurugi Kingdom also had to prepare for war.
Although the possibility was low, there was no telling if the Atlantic Federation and PLANT might, in a moment of madness, disguise themselves as the other side and take a shot at him to drag him into the war.
Therefore, as the situation grew increasingly tense, the New Misurugi Kingdom's military had long been mobilized.
Towards the Atlantic Federation, with Orb as a defensive anchor point, the New Misurugi Kingdom used the pretext of reinforcing the defenses of the Minovsky Particle Fusion Reactors it had lent to Orb for research. It replaced all the original Assault GM Dominions with Ghost Jegans, and at the same time, doubled their numbers.
Cagalli had opposed Reid's sudden doubling of the garrisoned troops.
But as far as Reid knew, her opposition was suppressed before it even left the government conference room.
The reason was simple. Any country with an intelligence system could guess that the Atlantic Federation was about to go to war.
Those with better intelligence could even find out that the East Asian Republic and the Eurasian Federation were also preparing for war.
In a world that was like a powder keg, ready to explode at the slightest touch, what was there for Orb, a tiny nation, to be dissatisfied about when a major power sent more troops to help defend it?
The New Misurugi Kingdom didn't meddle in Orb's internal affairs at all, nor had it ever forced Orb to sign unequal treaties to harvest its assets. It even allowed Orb to re-enter the arms market through a rebranding strategy.
With such a sugar daddy that one couldn't find even with a lantern, Cagalli wanted to rebel? The other four noble families of Orb were not to be trifled with.
So, considering that in the original story, Cagalli was so cornered that she couldn't even decide her own marriage, it was understandable that her voice of opposition didn't even make it out of the government building.
But even if Reid had heard Cagalli's protests, he wouldn't have stopped his actions. To put it bluntly, although Orb was nominally a neutral nation, if a census were taken on joining the New Misurugi Kingdom, Reid dared say that over 90% of the population would not oppose it.
If only the government was surveyed, probably the only person in the entire upper and lower houses who would object would be Cagalli.
However, Reid really wasn't that interested in annexing Orb. He'd let Cagalli mess around with the place. Unless the Atlantic Federation itself ceased to exist, it was good to have it as a buffer.
With Orb as a buffer to establish a defensive line, there wouldn't be much of a problem with the eastern defenses.
To the west, or rather, the northwest, the New Misurugi Kingdom bordered the Equatorial Union.
The Equatorial Union itself lacked the strength to threaten the New Misurugi Kingdom. It would most likely act as it did in the last war, like a public space where the Earth Alliance and PLANT could come and go as they pleased.
So, what Reid had to guard against was the Earth Alliance and PLANT suddenly hitting him with a wave of "friendly fire."
Reid did not want to participate in the early stages of this war. His main goal was to see how the war would unfold now that Minovsky Particle-related technology was in the mix.
It was important to note that the East Asian Republic seemed poised to join the war this time. This nation had been incredibly low-key for the past year, but Reid would not believe that this country was truly weak.
The East Asian Republic's intelligence work was excellent, not a single piece of information about their MS development had been leaked. But Reid was certain that their military had long since completed the development and deployment of MS meant to counter the Windam and Zaku Warrior. They were just hiding them for now, preparing to make a stunning debut.
As for the New Misurugi Kingdom's overseas bases, Reid had also reinforced them, but he had sent Mobile Dolls.
Reid planned to use this great war to expend all the Mobile Dolls that needed to be phased out, saving him the trouble of scrapping them himself.
That was the plan for ground defense for now. In space, the Balkis was stationed above the New Misurugi Kingdom, making it invincible in its geosynchronous orbit. Anyone who caused trouble there would be asking for it.
On the moon, Reid had routinely reinforced the lunar base on the far side. He had also dispatched Las Winslow, Ya Otto Kiyo, and Ken Nolan Sousse (all three were members of Noin's Delta team from the first great war) to garrison the lunar base. Coupled with the overt Cyclops System underground, no army out of their minds would go looking for trouble there.
As for the Star Palace Colony Satellite in the L3 Colony Cluster and the series of industrial satellites assigned to the New Misurugi Kingdom, they were protected by the Artemis Fortress forces. The Satellite Cannon, still disguised as an unfinished project, was also near the Star Palace Colony Satellite. Furthermore, the Star Palace Colony Satellite had now been completely converted into a military factory colony, capable of independently producing Mobile Suits and warships.
That area was a place where a small force wouldn't be enough to defeat the defenders, while a large force would have to face the surprise of the Satellite Cannon. There was really no need to worry too much.
The Atlantic Federation was truly in a hurry this time. Before the New Misurugi Kingdom had even finished deploying its defenses, the Atlantic Federation's forces, under the banner of the Earth Alliance, were already marching majestically towards the PLANT homeland.
Because Durandal insisted on resolving the conflict through dialogue during the exercises, the Atlantic Federation fleet encountered almost no resistance and advanced to the space just before the PLANT homeland.
And now, in front of the PLANT homeland, there was only a cluster of military base structures that had replaced the function of Yakin Due.
However, this time the ZAFT space fleet was completely intact. Although the Atlantic Federation fleet had reached the space before the PLANT homeland, they were blocked outside the danger line by the 1200-meter-long, super-large heavy space carrier Gondwana-class, leading dozens of warships.
The two sides immediately engaged in a brutal battle of offense and defense in the border space zone of PLANT.
(End of Chapter)