Oh no! Commander, your warship's been stolen again?

P.L.A.N.T. was a nation founded by Coordinators. The enormous funnel-shaped colonies established in the L5 orbit, and the nearly hundred colonies along the ecliptic, were the Coordinators' home—and the place Patrick Zala had sworn to protect!

In C.E. 68, Patrick Zala used the Mandelbrot incident as an opportunity to establish ZAFT, a military organization ostensibly created in self-defense to prevent Natural rioters from continuing to persecute Coordinators. In just two years, thanks to the efforts of countless P.L.A.N.T. citizens, it had transformed into a military force capable of matching the Earth Alliance: the ZAFT military!!

On February 18, C.E. 70... With the support of ZAFT's formidable military strength, P.L.A.N.T.'s elected chairman, Siegel Clyne, issued a declaration of independence and formally established the nation of P.L.A.N.T... It had been more than a year since then!

And yet,

Who could have imagined that so much would happen in little more than a year? The Clyne faction had completely broken with Patrick, plunging the entire nation of P.L.A.N.T., ZAFT, all twenty million Coordinators, and their homeland in L5 into an extraordinarily difficult situation?

Although Siegel Clyne had been killed by the military police after resisting arrest, and the Clyne faction had been suppressed and gradually faded from view, the damage they had caused and their influence were profound and lasting. If he'd had a choice, Patrick would never have wanted things to come to this!!

"Sigh..."

And so, in the chairman's office at ZAFT headquarters, Patrick Zala sat at his desk and thought about the past, about the days when he and his old comrades had fought together, and about the positions they now held. He let out a heavy sigh, tossed the intelligence report his adjutant had just handed him onto his redwood desk, then leaned back in his chair and pressed