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EP. REVIEW: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury

Both stasis and cloning are options (I vaguely think something said about the spare Elan's implied they were in stasis?), as is time dilation as suggested by Covnam (though most space travel sci-fi ignores those effects for convenience, it'd be a pain in the ass to track it through everyone's travel arrangements).

Possibly. Though making Prospera about 9 years older than Suletta doesn't exactly resolve the timeline issues, unless Suletta is actually a lot younger than we think (which would explain some things) and just physically more developed (either artificially or as a result of living on Mercury). But that wouldn't be entirely consistent with the prequel short story.

Both stasis and cloning are options (I vaguely think something said about the spare Elan's implied they were in stasis?), as is time dilation as suggested by Covnam (though most space travel sci-fi ignores those effects for convenience, it'd be a pain in the ass to track it through everyone's travel arrangements). Or something else entirely (Prospera could be Dr Cardo's daughter for all we know). She's (almost) certainly connected to Vanadis, and that is the threat Delling hasn't fully recognised yet though.

We know that, barring cold sleep or time warp shenanigans, Suletta is not Eri and is to old to realistically be Eri's daughter.

That leaves me with the following possibilities currently:
She is her actual younger sister.
She is in some way an artificially created copy of Eri. Be it actual cloning, artificial insemination, a situation like Elan's, or something else.
She is Eri and was put on ice so she'd still be fresh when Prospera was ready to use her for the revenge plan.
She has no actual relation to Eri and her appearance is a red herring. I think that is unlikely just because that would be very narratively unsatisfying.

So far I think the most likely theory from that list is the 2nd one. This then begs the question of why was she created. I would guess that Eri had something unique that needed to be recreated to realize Aerial's full potential.

Since the GUND format was apparently originally created as a system for seamlessly melding humans with machines, and the Lfrith was built to be the ultimate realization of that goal, it's not a huge leap to guess that Eri ended up irreversibly merged with it. Maybe her "sister" was the best choice to synchronize with the real Eri inside the machine.

I guess my problem with the "fused Eri" theories is that it feels unnecessary. I don't think Aerial needs a human core in order to be sentient, to be special to Suletta, or for Prospera to describe it as her daughter. I'm more inclined to believe Eri is simply dead.

"Our bodies are far too fragile for us to venture into space. Just as an infant has to put on clothes, humanity must don the GUND to truly go out into space."

Maybe Eri did just die off screen for unrelated reasons, but then I would say it was unnecessary to have her be a separate character from Suletta in the first place. Whatever happened to Eri has to be directly related to Suletta if they are different people. Even if she was just an attempt by Prospera to replace Eri emotionally. Otherwise the writing just wouldn't make sense.

I don't like how broad of a definition they're making Gundam for this series. Gundam inc's business plan is more about altered humans not Gundams. I guess Sunrise couldn't figure out how to make Gundams interesting non militarily so they're lumping other things in.

It's not broad, it's just that there many similar terms being used here.

Gund Format - The new technology used for prosthetics and cybernetic augmentation meant to help people live in space.
Gund-Arms - Gund adapted to be used in Mobile Suits.
Gundam - Nickname for the Mobile Suits who use Gund-Arms.

What Miorine was saying is that she plans to walk this road in the reverse direction, that is, using the technology of the Gund-Arms they have to restart research of the Gund Format in its original role.

Prospera is as cold hearted as all the other adults and is clearly lying and manipulating Suletta. They made that clear with this latest episode and Miorine picked up on it. So she wasn't a attempt to replace Eri emotionally.

I was thinking more of an "I tried to recreate my daughter, but this thing I made isn't her so I hate it." set up with that line of theorizing.

Another theory is that that Suletta could be Eri with a fully perfected Gund body. That could also explain the apparent age discrepancy. That would mean that Prospera likely isn't her actual mother though.

MagicianMan wrote:

I was thinking more of an "I tried to recreate my daughter, but this thing I made isn't her so I hate it." set up with that line of theorizing. Another theory is that that Suletta could be Eri with a fully perfected Gund body. That could also explain the apparent age discrepancy. That would mean that Prospera likely isn't her actual mother though.

I don't think Prospera hates Suletta. It's doubtful that "love" properly describes the relationship either, and she's obviously not got a issue with manipulating her and lying to her. But there's quite a big grey area in the middle there. Prospera's thoughts on her "daughter" are likely pretty complicated.

Wouldn't Suletta have to know if she was entirely cybernetic? Prospera's arm has been shown to have issues with battery life. Suletta tends to just believe whatever her mother tells her, but you'd notice if you had to plug yourself into a power outlet on a regular basis to avoid malfunctions. And Miorine would definitely have noticed that night Suletta stayed over to study.