Highlights
- Operation Meteor in Gundam Wing is a crucial military operation that aims to cripple UESA's military forces and kill as many people on Earth as possible.
- The operation consists of three stages: causing chaos and destruction on Earth, eliminating remaining resistance, and forcing survivors to immigrate to the space colonies under the rule of the Barton Foundation.
- However, the plan is altered by the Gundams' pilots and scientists, who refuse to blindly attack civilians and instead focus on UESA's military facilities, ultimately preventing the execution of the original Operation Meteor plan.
From Operation British in the original Mobile Suit Gundam where the Principality of Zeon dropped a space colony onto Earth to a group of mercenaries called Dawn of Fold from Gundam: The Witch from Mercury who infiltrate a highly secured base to assassinate the president of the biggest corporation in the universe, there are so many intense and terrifying military operation in the Gundam Franchise.
However, none of those military operations are as crucial as Operation Meteor from Gundam Wing. After all, the whole series basically revolved around the execution of this mission. So in this article, we’ll talk about the reason behind Operation Meteor, the details of the mission, and how it turned out in the end.
What is Operation Meteor?
In the world of Gundam Wing, humanity is divided into those who live on Earth and those who live in the Space Colonies. The two parts of humanity are often at odds with each other. The colonies strive to be independent, while the people of the Earth want to unite humanity under the banner of the United Earth Sphere Alliance (UESA). In the year 165 AC, the colonies elected a man named Heero Yuy as the leader and the representative of the colonies. His message of peace and independence was highly popular among the people. Unfortunately, an organization called OZ, one of the military branches of the UESA, didn’t like it and decided to assassinate Heero Yuy.
Operation Meteor is the colonies’ retaliation for the assassination of Heero Yuy. The goal of this operation is not only to cripple UESA’s military forces but also to kill as many people on Earth as possible. It is a reckless plan that will cause untold amounts of damage and massacre more than half of the population of the Earth. The ones who orchestrated this operation are the two top aides of the late Heero Yuy, Dekim Barton and Quinze Quarante. Dekim is the one who created this operation while Quinze is the one who oversees the execution of Operation Meteor.
However, although these two men agree to execute this crazy plan together, the reasons behind their involvement are vastly different. As one of the closest people to Heero Yuy, Quinze deeply admires Heero and considers him to be a close friend. Therefore, his intention is fueled purely by a thirst for vengeance. On the contrary, although Dekim was also quite close to Heero, his motivation behind executing Operation Meteor was to realize his ambition to be the sole ruler of both the Earth and the colonies.
Three Stages of Operation Meteor
Despite how much it affects the characters and the entirety of the two seasons of Gundam Wing, Operation Meteor is actually quite straightforward. The whole military operation can be boiled down to these three simple stages:
- The first stage is quite similar to Zeon’s Operation British. Dekim Barton plans to set several colonies off their course and hurl them toward Earth. The purpose of this plan is to cause as much damage and chaos as possible on Earth, therefore making it easier for Barton’s military forces to defeat the UESA. If this stage of Operation Meteor goes according to plan, more than half of the Earth’s population is projected to die in the initial impact alone. The upcoming natural catastrophe that will soon follow, such as tsunamis and rapid weather changes, is expected to kill even more people.
- The second stage of the plan will focus on taking out what little resistance is left on Earth after the colonies drop. For th plan, Dekim Barton and his Barton Foundation have commissioned five former OZ scientists who currently reside in the Colonies to develop the most advanced Mobile Suit in the universe. The result is five distinct mobile suits called Gundams. In Operation Meteor, the Gundam’s main objective is to obliterate various important military and civilian facilities and cause as much havoc and destruction as possible to any densely populated area on Earth.
- After the Barton Foundation received confirmation that the Gundams have seized control over critical military points on Earth and obliterated the Earth to the point of becoming uninhabitable, the third and final stage of Operation Meteor will finally begin. The Barton Foundation will force any survivors to immigrate to the space colonies and live under the rule of the colony's government. At the same time, since there is nobody left to oppose him, Dekim Barton will assume control over the entire Earth Sphere, effectively unifying entire humanity under his rule.
Plan vs. Reality
So how did Operation Meteor turn out in Gundam Wing? Did Dekim Barton manage to realize his dangerous plan? Fortunately, the answer is no. As soon as the five scientists and the pilots of the Gundams found out about what Dekim was actually trying to do, they refused to follow his plan.
They immediately realized countless people would lose their lives if Operation Meteor continued as it was, so they decided to alter it. Rather than blindly attacking densely populated areas, causing heavy damage, and killing innocent people, the five scientists and the Gundam pilots decided to focus their attacks solely on UESA’s military facilities instead.
To further disrupt Dekim’s plan, the five Gundams launched their revised version of Operation Meteor ahead of Dekim’s schedule. Not only that, the people of the colonies also found out about his plan to drop some of the colonies on Earth. As a result, Dekim has to abort his version of Operation Meteor. Because of that, no colonies are ever dropped on Earth till the end of the series.
Operation Meteor was on the path to being the most deathly military operation in the history of the Gundam franchise. But thanks to five brave scientists and their Gundam pilots, that massive tragedy could be averted. Not only that, it also kick-started the story of Gundam Wing where Dekim and his foundation tried over and over again to execute his dangerous plan against the United Earth Sphere Alliance while the Gundams firmly stood in the middle and fought against the two nefarious organizations at the same time.
Gundam Wing is available to stream on Crunchyroll.
