February 3, CE 71.
It had been more than a full week since the major diplomatic incident in which the ZAFT Army had brazenly invaded the colony satellite—Heliopolis.
Although the supposedly neutral nation of Orb had always denied that Dawn Company was developing new warships and MS units for the Earth Alliance, the recovered G Project units were more convincing than any words.
After all, while Gundams and Ginns were both MS units, they belonged to two completely different technological paths.
PS Armor technology in particular was unique to Orb Dawn Company. Anyone who was not blind knew exactly what had happened.
But the Earth Alliance, composed primarily of Naturals, and ZAFT, which represented the Coordinators, had long since fought each other to the point of true hatred.
Neither side cared about the truth anymore. Their media outlets unleashed full firepower, stopping at nothing to slander and frame the other side.
They even deliberately downplayed and concealed the fundamental cause of the war, instead trying to portray each other as inhuman demons and telling the public that they need not feel any psychological burden over physically exterminating the enemy, even if those being slaughtered were civilians.
In such an environment, aside from a very small number of people who could barely remain rational, most had become a rabble controlled by groupthink, capable only of blindly following the majority.
As expected, the destruction of Heliopolis ultimately turned into a diplomatic war of words.
The ZAFT Army and the Earth Alliance accused each other, while Orb, which had violated its neutrality, was left standing off to the side.
It has to be said, it was practically a classic black comedy.
It was clearly a war for profit, power, and dominance over humanity's future, yet both sides tried to seize the moral high