In the days before the Armory One incident, the air in the United Republic of Orb was thick with an oppression more suffocating than battlefield smoke. As Orb's representative, Cagalli Yula Athha sat in the PLANT Supreme Council's assembly hall, her icy fingertips resting against the table as she listened to the factions trade verbal blows. Every sentence landed like a hammer on the "neutrality" she fought to uphold. Outside the window lay the clear blue sky above Orb's artificial islands, but beneath that clarity lurked currents powerful enough to swallow this small nation whole-ZAFT's relentless probing, fierce confrontations between domestic hawks and doves, and the Earth Alliance's covert pressure. As a young representative who had only just shouldered the burden of her country, she could do little but cling to the final teachings of her father, Uzumi Nara Athha, and struggle to hold on between opposing forces.
Cagalli had never imagined that "neutrality" could become such a heavy shackle. She was not incapable of compromise, nor was she indifferent to the cruelty of war. She had seen the wreckage of Bloody Valentine, experienced the humiliation of the Earth Alliance forcing Orb to surrender its Coordinators, and watched countless innocent people lose their homes to war. She longed for peace more than anyone. Yet Orb's circumstances made it impossible to truly stand apart. At the time, the war between PLANT and the Earth Alliance was growing ever fiercer. Although ZAFT publicly professed "respect" for Orb's neutrality, it secretly sent spies to infiltrate the country and test its military limits. Some radical factions even advocated taking advantage of Orb's unstable footing to seize complete control of the technologically advanced neutral nation and strengthen ZAFT against the Earth Alliance. Meanwhile, though the Earth Alliance's pressure remained unspoken, it followed Orb like a