What appeared on the screen left everyone somewhat puzzled. Half of the mecha was covered in armor while the other half was exposed, which could be explained as a way to give a detailed introduction to its performance. But the assortment of objects of varying sizes arranged around it, with no obvious purpose, seemed utterly inexplicable to many.
MS were still relatively new weapons of war. Although the Federation had begun mass production, they had not yet been issued for deployment. Even with sufficient understanding of the Zeon Army's Zaku II, knowledge of MS themselves remained severely lacking. Among the more than one hundred people below the stage, there was no shortage of farsighted and intelligent individuals who could vaguely guess that the various things surrounding the mecha were attachments. Yet they could not determine their purpose from the images alone.
Surrounding the separated image of the M1 Astray were several backpack units and external armor components derived from the Astray Series. There was the Flight Pack for aerial use, the external armor and twin cannons of the Red Astray Full Equipment model, as well as the Blue Astray's aquatic assault equipment—the Scale System and G Booster equipment. Naturally, there was also no shortage of the standard weapons required by the Astray Series.
These had all been carefully selected by Xiao Ran as bait for this reception. The goal was naturally to make those attending today decide to purchase a batch of M1 Astrays from Anaheim Company. Once purchase orders came in, Xiao Ran did not care whether the M1 Astrays became showpiece units or Ace Units.
But once an Earth Federation order appeared, it would be an entirely different matter for Cardias and Xiao Ran. It would mean they no longer had to secretly manufacture only a small number