OK, to pull something constructive out of the rant I went on yesterday:
While I am generally lukewarm on newtypes as a concept, I do prefer them to later AU iterations of the idea of an 'ascended' form of humanity. With the Coordinators and the Innovators, the difference is very much placed at a genetic level. An artificial or natural improvement that grants superpowers. This is why my criticism of SEED and 00 is so heavily focused on 'they say eugenics works'. Because they do. Whether knowingly or not, they suppose the perfectability of human beings as a baseline conceit.
Yet that's not how the original newtypes are presented. In Gundam 79, the theory is that by moving into space, people are unlocking greater potential within themselves. This plays into the themes of a younger generation achieving a greater understanding than their predecessors: it's not some inherent biological difference but a change in perspective that mark out this 'new type of humanity'.
And that's much more interesting, as a concept. We see in the original series that the whole White Base crew develops a greater connection over the course of events, such that they can all hear Amuro at the end, and they showcase a variety of minor abilities, nowhere near the ESP of the 'proper' newtypes we see piloting Gundams, but in the same ballpark. The most powerful antagonistic newtypes (Paptimus, Haman) are those who have travelled further out and seen the solar system from a greater remove, their actions and philosophies speaking to the double-edge within this idea. You might gain more insight by voyaging into the dark, but it isolates you from the very humanity you learn to read on a more fundamental level. Judau making that same journey at the end of ZZ is implied to be driven by wanting to understand what drove Haman, so that he can couple that greater perspective to his natural compassion, thus maturing more healthily than those adults who cut themselves off from the possibility of understanding others.
Which goes to the heart of why newtypes work as a metaphor and the genetic-superiority versions stumble, at least in my mind. With newtypes, there is the constant undertone that the 'oldtypes' who perpetuate unjust systems are making an active choice. You can't force the change into becoming a newtype - both Char and the cyber-newtypes prove why attempting to is an ultimately arrogant and destructive act - but you can embrace greater human connection irrespective of whether or not you already feel the stirrings of extra senses. In some respects, having the imagination to see that possibility is the spark that lights the fuse on various people's nascent abilities. Refusing and turning away from this future or trying to control it becomes an act of malice. Because the possibility of doing otherwise always exists. There's no biological barrier between you and them. If we could launch all the politicians into space, perhaps they too would admit the reality that lies above their heads. But they won't get on the rocket.
With Coordinators and Innovators, you either are one or you aren't and it's very obvious which is the case. Newtypes don't have that inbuilt distinction - to begin with. It gets a trifle fuzzy as things progress and expand, as we lose that nice, neat conceit where newtype theory and the reality we are shown don't entirely match. Amuro is earth-born: there never was a hereditary component here. It's not evolution in the sense of escalating levels generational superiority; rather, in the sense of an unfolding pattern. The potential lies in all of us, providing we are open to the right conditions.
I find it funny sometimes, the way Gundam X satirised both this and the later genetics routes in advance by making 'newtype' a thoroughly meaningless label, encompassing random mutation and political ideology. Yet in some ways, this remains a less powerful than the way the concept is treated in Tomino's first three shows.
Have you ever wondered about the objective truth behind the afterlife and its relationship to renewable resources in Gundam, as fact checked in this clip by Jackson GreatGundamProject? Here's your true answer.
“The Soul of Outer Space”: Quatre and the question of Newtypes in GW
Newtypes are a concept from the Mobile Suit Gundam series; the term refers to a generation of people who were born during the age of space habitation who have developed certain telepathic, telekinetic, empathic, and even precognitive abilities to widely varying individual degrees. They are considered a new phase of human evolution, better adapted to life in space because of their unique capabilities.
The precise details of what makes a person a Newtype are intentionally left a little mysterious. The most common Newtype characteristic seems to be the ability to sense the “pressure” of other Newtypes, though the exact identity of the other person is typically an unknown factor-- this is evidenced by the fact that whenever someone with Newtype abilities senses another, their first response is usually to try and guess based on vibes who the source of “pressure” might be. People frequently share a similar "feeling" that can be mistaken for someone else, particularly if they have personal traits or life circumstances in common.
Newtypes can usually detect powerful emotions and subconscious intent from anyone in proximity, regardless if those people are fellow Newtypes or not. Some especially powerful Newtypes develop the dangerous ability to invade or even alter the minds of other people, though this is very rare.
Another common ability of Newtypes is an increased awareness of their environment in all directions. In some cases this is accompanied by minor telekinetic properties that allow them to guide or move objects in their surroundings, though this is usually limited to machines designed specifically to respond to brainwaves. This extrasensory capacity makes Newtypes exceptional pilots, able to feel the movements of their craft as if it were an extension of themselves and easily navigate through space.
However, what is of greatest importance about Newtypes is their ability to immediately understand and empathize with other Newtypes simply by making a mental connection with them. Communicating on a wavelength of pure emotion and thought creates an intimate and deeply personal connection between Newtypes without their needing to speak or even meet one another.
Newtypes connect to each other via their emotions, their memories, their minds, their selfhood– things that together one might describe as the soul of a person. When a Newtype dies, they leave behind an impression of this soul that can continue to be accessed by other Newtypes.
…So why the hell does anyone care about their psychic powers? Newtypes can literally transcend death--
--at least in a very animistic sense that assumes all things leave behind an impression. But Newtypes in particular seem to leave behind very distinct presences after they die, which can interact with other Newtypes and retain their individual identities for a long time before returning to the universe, presumably at will.
The idea of oneness and harmony underlies the concept of Newtypes and their role in the world: they can instinctively understand with each other because they are not different entities in the grand scheme of things; they persist after death because all things persist after death; they can connect seamlessly with their environment because they are not separate from their environment; they can grasp the future because all time exists simultaneously.
This ties in with the idea of a greater cosmic collectivism, or a pervasive animism in the universe that retrieves and emits the energy of life in perpetuity. It is not a force that is necessarily guided by some greater will, but is simply a natural principle, responsible for guiding people inexorably towards a more harmonious future if they are willing to stay in tune with it– and, being a part of nature, this guidance is lost when nature is not respected. This goes hand in hand with the idea that whenever things have been thrown off balance, because of greed or pollution or strife, humanity will be doomed to suffer.
It’s a concept that’s found across lots of Japanese media, to say nothing of the religions and philosophies across the world that feature similar concepts. It’s perhaps not the first thing that people think of when they think of the Gundam franchise, but Tomino’s creation wouldn’t be what it is without this incorporation of hope and spirituality at its heart.
This is why Newtypes are lauded as the “next phase” of human evolution– not because they have “superpowers”, but because they have the ability to transcend the human instinct towards violence and competition by virtue of their capacity to understand and empathize instantly with each other.
Newtypes are adapted to living in the stars, free from the “pull of gravity” which represents the limited and violent instincts of earth-bound mankind; attuned to a greater universal spirit, they are the harbingers of a peaceful utopia for future generations.
–At least, that is the hope for them according to the doctrine of those desiring independence for the emigrants in space.
The tragedy of Newtypes is that they are a generation of young people, uniquely endowed for exploring the potentials of space in total harmony with each other– and they have almost without exception been co-opted by competing military factions eager to exploit their latent talents as superior mobile suit pilots. Their abilities are forced out of them in combat; they are manipulated from infancy, brainwashed and conditioned to be easier to control by their handlers; their brains are studied and crudely adapted to create artificial Newtypes in labs whose sole purpose is to become elite soldiers. Even when they are not being actively abused by a military authority, Newtypes are still most frequently encouraged to use their potential in service of war before any other path they might choose.
What to do about the generational divide between Newtypes and “Oldtypes” within the bleak reality of a wartorn era where talented young people are forced into military pipelines to die for governments that fear them is a central dilemma of the Universal Century timeline, spanning many series.
…But you don’t have to worry about any of that! Because there are no Newtypes in Gundam Wing.
Oh sure, there are strangely Force-sensitive people like Quatre! But that boy’s just touched is all. And sure, people sometimes have mysterious premonitions that turn out to be correct even when all evidence points to the contrary, but that’s just a wacky coincidence! Do mobile suits sometimes start moving on their own because they “sensed” the will of their pilots? Don’t be silly– machines just do weird shit sometimes! Don’t worry about it. In this timeline, if you want to see the future and have a mental breakdown because people are feeling too loud, you gotta do it the old fashioned way by plugging into the ZERO system, or trying some of Howard’s special strain.
There are no Newtypes in Gundam Wing– that is to say, there are clearly some gifted individuals who have a set of undefined empathic and psychic abilities, but those people aren’t called “Newtypes”. They’re not called anything, because they’re not a thing, there is no in-universe explanation for them. We know Quatre has “the shine”, but other than him, we have no strong evidence that there is a new breed of space psychics emerging in the Colonies that will lead humanity to the next phase of its evolution (whatever that means).
EXCEPT: along comes the White Fang, and its self-appointed representative of the Colonies, Milliardo Peacecraft, spouting some extremist fringe theory about how people born in space are inherently superior to people born on Earth because they’ve transcended their inner chimp and are destined to carry on the species when the old breed of earthlings die out.
…If this sounds like some radical Zeon-pilled podcast nonsense, that’s because it is. There is NO established basis for these claims in AC 195. It is pure manufactured conspiracy theory horseshit. It’s a scare tactic, designed to sound like the deranged manifesto of an absolute maniac who NO ONE agrees with, and NO ONE wants in charge of a planetfucker-class space battleship pointed at earth. And that’s the point.
For more on this topic, see the entry on The Char Aznable Problem.
…But hold on, what IS up with Quatre then? Are there empathic space psychics or not? There’s obviously at least one, but does that mean there are others?
Maybe. There’s definitely SOMETHING going on that’s making people just a little bit special, a little bit faster and more durable with better reaction times, who are extra in tune with their surroundings, or have a heightened ability to sense the emotional states of other people. It’s not limited to people from space either– Zechs seems to have inherited a suite of enhanced reflexes, and increased physical endurance that allows him to fuck around with G-forces that ought to turn his brain into soup; meanwhile Relena got all of the personal charisma and the ability to sense people’s intentions that her brother lacks.
But way more significantly, the most perceptive characters seem to have a kind of future compass pulling them in the direction of a particular future that they sense is “correct”. While it’d be tricky to prove that this is distinct from regular old fashioned intuition, what IS certain is that this intuition plays a significant role in the universe of Gundam Wing.
This strong intuitive pull towards connectedness and (just wild beat?) communication does seem to suggest that there could be a distant, animistic cosmic force at play that the more empathically gifted characters can sense to varying degrees, just like there is in the universe of Mobile Suit Gundam.
That would mean Quatre isn’t the only one of… whatever he is, it's MOST of the cast!
Again, what exactly constitutes a Newtype is mysterious; it’s more than a set of abilities, it’s the attunement to a collective human spirit and the universe. The Newtype-equivalents in Gundam Wing may be what they are simply because they have an awareness of it.
So what’s “the soul of outer space” that Quatre talks about? Well, that distant, cosmic force that’s drawing people together and towards greater harmony, I’d say!
And the person who finds themselves acting as an inciting catalyst for a cascade of events drawing everyone forward would be at the center– the heart, one might say– of all those connected destinies converging in space.
…Or maybe that’s just the open puncture wound talking.
Quatre, sweetie, you’ve lost a lot of blood, let’s get you to bed.
I know Gundam X isn’t the most watched gundam show but people should at least see this scene. 3 people, 2 newtypes required to shoot one shot. It’s one of the coolest and most powerful examples of Newtypes I’ve ever seen. The entire show is honestly worth it for this scene.
Amuro's meeting with Lt. Matilda Ajan gave me a couple realizations.
Between a messy bedroom, being an anti-social genius, a strained paternal relationship, and now a fondness for redheads, Miorine Rembran is never ever beating the Amuro Ray allegations^. If these two ever meet in a crossover, any attempts at friendship will entirely depend on whether either is feeling a bout of self-loathing at the time.
I was also reminded that, it is a good idea to double-check conventional fan wisdom, because I have been informed several times in good faith that the Newtype space magic that Gundam's become famous for came out of left field in the original, but this scene seems to contradict with straightforward foreshadowing: Amuro's not denying the existence of espers here, only the possibility that he might be one, thus implying that there is probability that they exist in this setting (and since esper is a reasonably common term in Japanese science fiction in general, it makes sense that the audience would be expected to understand this without explanation or disbelief).
In addition, Amuro's denial feels like a callback to the conversation between Char and his lieutenant, Dren, in episode 01, where Dren is not denying that the Federation might be developing more advanced mobile suits, but merely expressing his disbelief that they would be doing so in this particular location.
And since Dren was proven wrong earlier, this gives precedent for the audience to consider, well, what if Amuro is wrong too? What if he is a psychic like Matilda says?
I don't know yet if the show offers any foreshadowing beyond that, but between this scene and genre conventions, I don't think bringing psychic stuff later into this story is as unreasonable as I've seen some people claim.
^With one notable difference being that her love life goes in a much happier direction than poor Amuro's.
