Bloody Valentine War

The Bloody Valentine War is a conflict that features in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED.

History

The Bloody Valentine War

After a terrorist attack at a peace conference on the Moon wipes out the United Nations' leadership on February 5 (Tragedy of Copernicus), the Earth Alliance unilaterally declares war against the PLANTS six days later on February 11. Three days later, the Earth Alliance, specifically the Atlantic Federation, sends the Agamemnon-class carrier Roosevelt and its escorts to the Junius region of the PLANTs for a "show of force". However, Blue Cosmos members decide to change its mission to starving off PLANTs' food supplies, as the sector was entirely agricultural. The Atlantic Federation gives permission to use nuclear warheads aboard the Roosevelt. While ZAFT Laurasia-class frigates, Nazca-class destroyers and ZGMF-1017 GINNs fight against the Roosevelt's escorts, a group of Earth Alliance TS-MA2 Moebius launch to fire the warheads. One Mobieus crosses the ZAFT defense lines and makes contact with the Junius Seven colony, killing 243,721 civilians. This incident is dubbed the Bloody Valentine Tragedy and marks the beginning of Coordinator/Natural hostilities. The first major battle between the Earth Alliance and ZAFT is near the pre-war international space station Yggdrasil. The month-long conflict results in the total destruction of the space station.

In response to the direct nuclear attack on Junius Seven, ZAFT modifies N-Jammer technology, initially intended to be used against the Earth, as a countermeasure against nuclear weaponry in space. Unfortunately, due to a corrected production schedule, the N-Jammers are not dropped on the planet until April 1, as the first phase of ZAFT's Operation Uroboros. N-Jammers were deployed indiscriminately, regardless of whether if the nation was hostile to PLANT or not. The use of N-Jammers on Earth, and the subsequent energy crisis, is known as the April Fool Crisis, provoking mass human starvation and tens of millions of deaths, due to the heavy reliance of nuclear energy. The second phase of the operation is the actual offensive on the Earth's surface, where ZAFT seizes control of Africa, Australia and many Asian regions, including three of Earth's five major spaceports (locations of a mass driver): Victoria (Africa), Gibraltar (Europe), and Kaohsiung (Taiwan), leaving Porta Panama (Central America) in Earth Alliance hands and the Kaguya Mass Driver at Onogoro Island in the Orb Union control. One of ZAFT's earliest landings takes place in the friendly Oceania Union territory. The Earth Alliance Pacific Fleet attacks ZAFT's forces, but ends with a ZAFT victory two days later in the Battle of Carpentaria[8]. ZAFT immediately begins construction of the Carpentaria Base. The Earth Alliance ordered its 5th and 6th Fleets stationed on the Moon to attack the PLANTs on April 17 CE 70. They are intercepted by ZAFT forces and engaged at the resource satellite Jachin Due.[10]. Following the battle, the PLANT Supreme Council votes to convert the entire asteroid of Jachin Due into a defensive base.

he Battle of Endymion Crater occurs on the Moon, ending with the destruction of the resource base, when the Earth Forces activate their ice melting microwave-emission Cyclops System, destroying their own resource establishment, causing heavy casualties and damage on both sides. The 3rd Earth Alliance Fleet is wiped out, along with its elite TS-MA2mod.00 Moebius Zero corps, except for one Moebius Zero pilot, Mu La Flaga. ZAFT is forced to abandon the Endymion Crater and withdraws from the Moon. The Mediterranean Fleet of the Earth Alliance engages a ZAFT submarine carrier fleet near Casablanca. ZAFT achieves a victory and forces enter the Mediterranean, where they begin constructing the Gibraltar Base and advance further into Southern Africa. The Battle of Suez, won by ZAFT invading forces, ensures them the key Black Sea territories and the control of the Suez region, A huge linear tank corps, led by the Earth Alliance's Morgan Chevalier, is routed by ZAFT's Andrew Waltfeld at El Alamein, earning Waltfeld the Desert Tiger reputation, as a master of desert-based combat. ZAFT launches a drawn out series of raids against the Earth Alliance resource satellite Nova at Lagrangian point 4. Skirmishes between both sides last for nearly a month, with neither one ever decisively defeating the other. Ultimately, the Earth Alliance abandons Nova and ZAFT begins to move the station towards the PLANTs. Despite minor raids by Earth Alliance forces, Nova reaches Lagrangian point 5, where ZAFT converts it into the space fortress Boaz. By late August, a territorial stalemate on Earth is reached, with Northern Africa and Australia firmly in ZAFT hands, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eurasia, South Asia and the Americas in the Earth Alliance, and the majority of Oceania neutral.

Nearly six months later, the Battle of Kaohsiung takes place on Taiwan, where ZAFT successfully attacks the Earth Alliance spaceport, located in the city of Kaohsiung. This is the first mass driver ZAFT captures from the Earth Alliance. To put an end to the Earth Alliance mobile suit development plans, ZAFT plans an operation to seize the mobile suit prototypes, secretly developed on the neutral colony of Heliopolis, which is owned by the Orb Union, and to destroy their prototype warship, the Archangel. Although ZAFT is able to hijack four out of five units and heavily damage the colony's harbor, the GAT-X105 Strike remains in Earth Alliance hands, and is activated in battle. The resulting Battle of Heliopolis between the Archangel, the Strike and ZAFT forces causes the complete destruction of the colony from collateral damage dealt by both sides, and is the first of a series of battles between the Rau Le Creuset Team and the Archangel crew. Fortunately, civilian casualties are kept to a minium, as hundreds of lifeboats are ejected prior to the colony's collapse. The Archangel, pursued by the Le Creuset Team, docks at the Eurasian Federation base Artemis. Here, the Archangel is taken into custody because of its lack of a friendly ID code on the ship, and partly due to the Eurasian Federation's rivalry with the Atlantic Federation, who built the Archangel and the GAT mobile suits. Soon after, ZAFT forces attack the base, when its defenses are disabled by the GAT-X207 Blitz, and the battleship is able to escape amidst the chaos. Artemis takes considerable damage, but remains somewhat intact, however pirates raid the facility days later whilst its defenses are still down. As a result, Commandant Garcia, the head of Artemis, hires mercenary group Serpent Tail to protect it. Following Serpent Tail's run-in with the Junk Guild's Astray Red Frame, Artemis is once again damaged, but as of June CE 71, remains a functional military outpost to the Eurasian Federation.

The Archangel finally receives reinforcements from the Earth Alliance's 8th Fleet and is ordered to bring the GAT-X105 Strike to OMNI Headquarters at JOSH-A. The Le Creuset Team attacks just before its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Earth Alliance Rear Admiral Lewis Halberton orders the entire fleet to defend the Archangel, and though the 8th Fleet is numerically superior to the ZAFT forces, its Drake-class escort ships and Moebius units prove no match for the stolen units and ZAFT's GINNs, as well as their heavily-armed Laurasia- and Nazca-class warships. Admiral Halberton loses the entire fleet and his own life, but the Archangel successfully descends to the planet. The battle also results in the deaths of several hundred Orb Union civilians, many refugees from Heliopolis, killed as they retreated from the battle in an Earth Alliance shuttle, vaporized by ZAFT pilot Yzak Joule. He is later tried for war crimes against civilians after the Bloody Valentine War. On the same day, Earthbound-ZAFT forces successfully captures the Victoria spaceport and its mass driver. After descending to Earth, the Archangel participates in the Desert Dawn resistance movement battles against ZAFT. It continues to operate with Desert Dawn until the defeat of the Andrew Desert Tiger Waltfeld on February 28.

The Battle of JOSH-A, or Operation Spitbreak, is ZAFT's plan to seize JOSH-A, the Earth Alliance's Atlantic Federation headquarters. ZAFT counterintelligence allows the majority of ZAFT and Earth Alliance Forces to believe ZAFT's next target is Porta Panama and its mass driver. Thus, OMNI transfers a large contingent of its forces to Panama. However, this leaves JOSH-A open to an attack, yet through the leaking of information by rogue ZAFT commander Rau Le Creuset, the Blue Cosmos came to know beforehand ZAFT's operation, thus sets a trap for both ZAFT and the Eurasian Federation. The base is primarily staffed and defended by Eurasian personnel (as well as other unwanted forces, such as the Archangel), while the Atlantic Federation quietly slips away with its own personnel elsewhere. When ZAFT attacks, the Eurasian defenders put up a fierce resistance, but are effectively wiped out in the face of overwhelming enemy numbers. ZAFT's attack force is then lured into the central bay of JOSH-A, when the base's Cyclops System is activated, killing a majority of ZAFT and any surviving Eurasian defenders, in addition to leveling the installation and everything else within a 10-mile radius of JOSH-A. Fortunately, the Archangel escapes, along with other ZAFT and Earth Alliance Forces who heeds Mu La Flaga's warning of the detonation, after he discovers the Cyclops System beneath JOSH-A. The battle alters the balance of power within the Earth Alliance, leading to an Atlantic Federation majority among its allies. With the Atlantic now mostly in control of the Earth Alliance and its military, the Blue Cosmos are able to ensure its focus of the war changes to the extermination of not just PLANT, but all Coordinators. Following the fall of JOSH-A, the Atlantic Federation begins forcing all neutral nations not allied with ZAFT to concede to the Earth Alliance.

Nearly two weeks later, ZAFT retaliates by attacking the Panama mass driver with a heavier attack force. While the Earth Alliance introduces their mass-produced GAT-01 Strike Daggers, ZAFT deploys the Gungnir EMP weapon, disabling all Alliance military equipment in the area, resulting in an overwhelming victory for ZAFT. Porta Panama, the last mass driver in Alliance hands, is thereby destroyed, cutting off the Earth Alliance space forces from Earth-based resources. With the destruction of their last mass driver in Porta Panama, the Atlantic Federation turns its interest to the Kaguya mass driver in the neutral Orb Union, one of the last mass drivers operating on Earth. The Earth Alliance's chief "negotiator" and leader of the Blue Cosmos Muruta Azrael delivers an ultimatum: either Orb joins the war effort against "humanity's evil enemy: the Coordinators" and submit its government and military to the Earth Alliance or be declared a PLANT supporter and face military takeover. With both sides knowing the terms are totally unacceptable, the Orb Union deploys their recently completed MBF-M1 Astray units at its defensive lines, while the Atlantic Federation sorties mass numbers of Strike Daggers for the unavoidable battle. According to Rau Le Creuset, ZAFT did offer military assistance, but Orb declines their offer of help. In the first phase of the Battle of Orb, Orb holds their own against the Earth Alliance with their Astray's superior performance over the Strike Dagger, as well help from the defected Archangel and its mobile suit complement. But the Atlantic forces push Orb to the breaking point with overwhelming numbers of Strike Daggers and three newly completed prototypes: the GAT-X252 Forbidden, the GAT-X131 Calamity and the GAT-X370 Raider. Fortunately, under his own volition, ZAFT's Athrun Zala volunteers to assist Orb with the ZGMF-X09A Justice (he was originally sent to recover the hijacked ZGMF-X10A Freedom from Terminal), prolonging the battle and prompts a short halt in the Earth Alliance's advance. In the final phase of the battle, Orb's Representative Uzumi Nara Athha orders the evacuation of all Astray units to the battleship Kusanagi. The Archangel follows suit, via the Kaguya mass driver, using the Kusanagi's spare boosters. Immediately after the launch, Athha activates Morgenroete Incorporated's self-destruct mechanism, completely destroying its factories and the mass driver. Athha, alongside other Orb politicians who do not wish to surrender to the Earth Alliance, die in the blast. From the first shot fired in the battle to the mass driver's destruction, Orb falls in less than 24 hours of combat.

Participants

•  :

Notes

• The Bloody Valentine War was created by Mitsuo Fukuda and Chiaki Morosawa where it featured in the setting of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED.

Appearances

• Gundam SEED:

External Link

• Wikipedia Entry

This article is a stub. You can help Multiversal Omnipedia by expanding it.