Maybe you’re seeing it for the first time, maybe you’re returning to it as a fan of yore, maybe, like me, you’re trying to introduce it to a friend. Perhaps you are watching the English dub, or with English subtitles– doesn’t matter. There’s only one script for both. You’re trying to make it through the first episode, and oh baby, oh baby– What is this pacing? Who are these people? Why do they talk like that? What the fuck is a battle seed? Yes, the robots are cool, but the rest seems like a high-speed soap opera. You are understandably hesitant to continue.
This is normal.
Take my hand. Shh, shh, come to my arms. You are safe now. I’m here to help. Welcome, brave explorer, to a classic 90's anime that once took America by storm. It’s very good. No, really, I promise, it’s very good.
Now, I can’t promise that you’ll love it! If the Space Opera And Ethics Course With Hot People and Robot Fights genre isn't for you, that's fine, take some hummus and go in peace my friend.
But the rest of you… we are brothers now.
Gundam Wing was lightning in a bottle when it first came out in North America, but even if that particular explosive debut will never come again, I think there’s still a wealth of enjoyment to be had for new fans– especially if like me you love stories that have a lot of depth, a lot of crunch, a lot of rewatch value, a lot of iterative shipping possibilities.
I realize that we live in an era of total media saturation; the notion of investing time in ANYTHING new these days is a tough sell. There are infinitely many things to watch, read, play, listen to-- so how do you justify getting into something that’s kinda old and a little janky? With some parts that haven’t aged as well as others? Something that maybe takes a bit of extra participation to get into?
...As a spoonful of medicine to help ease the media-fatigue, let me share with you something that I've found true in my life: rough edges invite you to participate in creation.
Stories that invite (or demand, or beg) you to participate in them have their own unique value, completely distinct from the value of those that satisfy you immediately; they will reward you for investing in them your time, your creativity, your curiosity.
And I think this is one of those stories! I genuinely want more people to play in this sandbox with me! So, here I am, making a blog about it.
--This is my guidebook to getting into Gundam Wing. It is intended to be a sort of companion, a primer-- maybe an invitation? to this complex and juicy series.
This won't be a fan wiki-- those already exist, thank goodness, and people can check those out for themselves-- rather, I'd like to make this a repository of context and insight, and to fill in those troublesome missing pieces in the show that are big stumbling blocks to understanding what's going on!
I want to give you what I didn’t have when I started this series back in anno domini two-thousand-and-naught:
All the damn information.
Naturally, there will be more drawings, memes, crabs, very stupid gifs, and probably some crying throughout. And you have my word that I will try and present this in a comprehensive, inclusive, character-agnostic way.
...That said, I am not stealthy! I cannot possibly disguise the fact that I’ve given exponentially more thought to certain characters than to others. You will almost certainly be able to tell when you’ve encountered my Blorbos, my Special Interests--
--But! Look into my eyes. Here is an Absolute, Unwavering Truth about me:
I love, or at least love something about, Every. Single. Character in Gundam Wing. and I will do my absolute damndest to give them each their due diligence, because they're worth it, and so are you.
Thank you for coming, I hope you enjoy whatever you find here ♥
Hello. This is an essay and an otherwise a deeply autistic combing of dubiously intentional material from a robot cartoon. And some stuff about early computing, AI, chess, and Gary Kasparov.
Let me spin you a tale:
Deep in in the AI Winter of the 90's, when personal computers were becoming more common, and early neural network development was struggling to find commercial use, Gundam Wing made its debut. The controversial but enormously influential Deep Blue vs. Kasparov showdown was still two years away, the World Wide Web was two squeaks old, Google Search was barely a glimmer in Larry Page's eye, and The Matrix wouldn't come out for another four years.
AI-apocalypses weren't new; Skynet and WOPR and HAL were well embedded in the public imagination; cyberpunk anime was thriving in the same ecosystem as the "real robot" genre from whence Gundam was born. But Wing isn't cyberpunk, and it doesn't really lead with AI-apocalypse. The show's got a lot on its mind– most of it about Ethics and Ideals and Responsibility and Upholding Pacifism As A National Policy– but there IS an AI-apocalypse hiding there in the back. It's not flashy as AI-apocalypses go, and because this is Gundam Wing, it dwells not on time traveling cyborgs or murderous space stations, but on ethics and human integrity. Wing's fairly sparse world building didn't go so far as to predict social media, or the relevance of algorithms in online spaces, or the immediate saturation of AI into mainstream civilian tech, or oversight of civic infrastructures being gutted and left with a machine in charge– but it was weirdly prescient in other ways.
The deeper we get into our own increasingly messy, concerning, frustrating, and dangerous AI fervor, the more interesting I find Wing's take to be. For one thing, instead of dealing with the louder and more titillating concept of true machine intelligence (malevolent or otherwise), Wing’s autonomous robot scourge never once approaches sentience– there’s certainly a ghost in SOME of the machines, but the series stays remarkably grounded in depicting machine learning as strictly machine learning. It’s entirely unconcerned with the development of sapient computers, and instead dedicates itself to hammering home the message that the actual problem being faced by humanity is the absurd, incautious, self-destructive way we use automation against ourselves.
The story isn't telling us to be scared of AI or algorithmic machine learning– it's about being critical of systems that are designed to remove accountability from institutions of power and that vastly increase those institutions’ ability to do harm. It's not a warning about the dangers of progress, it's about the danger of removing people’s sense of investment, responsibility, decision making, and creativity from human endeavors.
And since this is a Gundam show, that means war.
MOBILE DOLLS IN CANON:
Mobile Dolls are the brainchild of one Bilmon Tubarov, a high ranking member of the Romefeller Foundation and Chief Engineer of OZ. He was one of the original leading developers of Mobile Suit technology, along with Howard and the five Doctors, J, O, S, H, and G.
(...I was sincerely hoping that would spell something funny.)
The first mention of the program that would become the basis for Mobile Doll System is in Episode 10: Doctor J tells Heero about the (still exclusively manned) Taurus suits' “ability to learn from accumulated data” and expresses worry that they might "override the pilot's commands and act on their own", which is something nobody wants from an 8-ton war machine– right?
What Doctor J describes is a simple machine learning program installed in the Taurus that takes accumulated data from past battles (in whatever way OZ’s technology gathers such things) and turns it into optimized tactical strategies. How it actually presents these strategies to the pilot is never explained, but by J’s comments, we can presume the system is tied directly to the controls of the mobile suit— and J isn’t willing to take chances on a buggy self-driving car with a gun the size of a tree.
(Now... as I've previously asserted, there's NO way the scientists who defected from OZ and designed the ZERO System didn't know about this program already, and it’s actually quite likely they were involved in its creation to begin with. The timeline of events suggests that Tuberov started developing the program at least from the development of the Taurus suits, and possibly even from his time working in mobile suit R&D along with the rest of the scientists.)
Obviously, in the long run the Taurus System isn't going to "accidentally" override the human pilot, it's going to replace the human pilot entirely.
"If anyone builds it, Heero, we all die."
After Episode 10, the topic of machine learning being used in mobile suits goes away for a bit (I'm using the term "machine learning" specifically because that's how J describes it– a machine that "learns from battle data"– and because there's really no discussion of mobile suits having actual artificial intelligence; at least not until the ZERO System appears). Mobile Dolls emerge again fully fledged in Episode 18:
During the period after OZ’s takeover of the Earth Sphere, the Romefeller Foundation is locking down its control of the Earth. As is the way of most violent revolutions, the previously useful regime-toppling forces are suddenly way less desirable than standard issue, order-following ones— and what could toe the line better than a whole programmable machine army? So why not replace human soldiers with AI, and hire prompters to give them orders?
Well, mostly because the aforementioned regime-topplers within the Foundation are violently against the idea, and in a scene I could watch all day, Former Gifted Child Treize Khushrenada objects to this proposal with extreme prejudice and a sword.
Chief Engineer Tuberov is given a good scare in the control tower, but he continues to rise in authority within Romefeller until he ultimately gains control of OZ; meanwhile, Treize is quietly sunsetted.
...I've always found the visual of the empty, pilotless cockpits lighting up to be wonderfully unsettling; it makes them seem undead rather than just automated. The later Virgo MDs understandably lack cockpits altogether, so it's just the early dolls that still have vestigial cockpits.
The proof-of-concept MDs on display are retrofitted Leos, crude enough that they have to be plugged into the command tower; but Tuberov clarifies that this isn't the case with the Taurus Space MDs, which come with the system built in. Duke Dermail seems to think MDs are for supplementing the troops, but Tuberov advocates for the replacement of all of OZ’s mobile suit forces with Mobile Dolls.
—Note: The official script contains an error here, where the line reads "we used an old model of the Leo so we're having to program them from a distance, but no such problem exists with the Space Taurus". The fan translation fixes it to "from here", as in "from the command tower", which makes far more sense, because they're literally plugged in.
The retrofitted Leo MDs are shown being able to 1) Identify targets– which in this case are: Tank, Paper Circle, and Angry-Leo-With-Treize-In, 2) reference schematics of the targets, and 3) run risk assessments (judging by the flashing "CAUTION" readout). The handlers in the tower seem to just be in charge of the On/Off switch.
—
Right up next, we get Episode 19, which is the absolute best for showcasing the flaws in the MD targeting system:
Using a unique form of cabbage-based espionage, Heero breaks into a Colony prison to kill/rescue Duo (who is having his longest ever streak of no-good-very-bad-days), without a working Gundam between them. They're surrounded in short order, the whole Colony security complex is put on high-alert, and OZ sends out the Mobile Dolls to eliminate the intruder and escapee.
One of the MD handlers states that it would be "difficult to select targets inside the Colony", which suggests that the MDs are indeed analyzing and setting the targets themselves in some capacity, but with a degree of error that makes it dangerous to trust them in a complex setting with a lot of changing variables. This does not bode well for anyone involved. (Foreshadowing)
"Wouldn't target settings be difficult within the colony?"
"COME ON, WE'RE NOT BANGING ROCKS TOGETHER HERE, WE KNOW HOW TO MAKE AN AUTONOMOUS DEATH ROBOT".
In the mobile suit launch bay, Heero finds a bunch of MS carriers and empty Leos. He loads them up and launches all of them out the hatch, effectively creating a flotilla of ghost ships for the Mobile Dolls to target. He also shoots a gun at the surveillance cameras in the launch bay, thereby registering "guy in an OZ astro-suit" as a threat as well.
Back in the station, the OZ security crew are baffled as the dolls start firing on their own Leos. They dig into the logs to discover that the Leo suits were set as a target because they'd been seen escaping the Colony, and the dolls' standing orders were "don't let anyone do that".
This is followed by a brief moment of panic as the security staff realizes their OZ astro-suits have also been set as targets. The handlers try to cancel the “auto-command”, but before that can happen they're obliterated by the “cutting-edge annihilation machines” they’d trusted with the authority to decide who lives and who dies.
(I find it interesting that they do NOT give the doll verbal orders to stand down or stop firing– my theory is that a doll that’s running on automatic would not take orders from a target it had identified as an enemy.)
Duo and Heero meanwhile escape scot-free in a Honda Civic passenger shuttle that wasn't set as a target.
Turret voice: "Hello?" :) "Are you still there?" :) "There you are" >:)
The next good showcase of MD limitations is Episode 21:
While being escorted as a prisoner of OZ, Trowa (in the guise of an OZ officer) asks Heero to explain his favored tactic for destroying MDs. Heero's advice is simply: "Avoid their targeting system" and "get in close range". Zechs corroborates this shortly thereafter, and as a doctrine this basically holds true for everyone who doesn't have access to a buster rifle for the rest of the series. It holds doubly true of the later Virgo suits because of their energy shield.
In the same episode, Heero also states that the weakness of the MDs are that they have the same basic level of mobility and "reaction times" as the manned models– this struck me as odd, because everyone up to this point has made a point of saying how fast the MDs are (including Zechs who modestly reports "my reactions are a little slower than theirs"). (I went and double checked the script against two different translations and the line reads basically the same.)
In my own interpretation, the confusion here lies in the distinctions between speed/output, acceleration, and reaction time:
There's no doubt the top speed and rate of acceleration that MDs are capable of withstanding are greater than those of a human pilot for the obvious reason that they don't have one– but the perceived reaction time of a MD might well be the same as, or even slower than a human's. The MDs have to identify and select a target using their rudimentary software, which as we've seen is still reasonably clunky– they might be able to track a target and fire quicker than the average pilot, but if what Heero is observing is true, it's the actual hardware of the mobile suit base that's the limiting factor.
Interestingly, the only MD to have any close-range combat capability is the MD clone of the Mercurius. To me, this suggests that ranged weapons are significantly easier to program a machine to use effectively, while hand-to-hand combat is still beyond the system's abilities. (The only exceptions I can find are of MDs grabbing stationary suits and smashing them, or firing into them point-blank; so LITERAL hand combat in the crudest sense is possible.)
The cloned Mercurius and Vayeate dolls are also the only MDs of different models that attack cooperatively. Virgos and Taurus MDs are never deployed together despite being a potentially devastating combination (think rooks and bishops). Whether this is due to a limitation of programming or lack of innovation on the part of the handlers is unclear.
Getting Mobile Dolls to coordinate attacks based on high-level pilot simulations seems like it’d be a huge game changer, but it isn't– Duo spends maybe twenty seconds fighting them before ripping into them like a Quinze-opener. The MD System is just not advanced enough to be useful for anything more complex than varying forms of aim-and-fire; even when they’re programmed with more advanced tactics, they can only mimic maneuvers they’ve seen before without the ability to adapt them situationally.
Despite having the ability to “learn” from past battles in theory, the dolls are never shown adapting their strategy in real-time to deal with different enemies or even repeat encounters with the same enemy.
In Episode 34, Zechs makes a point of saying that OZ must have known he was going to attack because the Mobile Dolls came in a specific formation that seemed tailored to counter him, while the manned suits retreated; adding that this was a predictable strategy to use because of OZ’s reliance on Mobile Dolls; what he does NOT say is that the dolls themselves are predicting his tactics or countering them. Wufei expresses a similar amount of apathy towards the MDs repetitive tactics.
With tiring consistency, OZ’s main strategy for eliminating tough enemies with Mobile Dolls is basically just “send more Mobile Dolls”.
As any gamer who’s beaten the same enemy hundreds of times could tell you, humans tend to fine-tune their reactions based on experience and iteration– Mobile Dolls do not. The MDs may be able to "learn" from accumulated data in the sense that their database expands, but unlike the ZERO System, the MD System isn't capable of running complex predictions or data synthesis.
"Mobile Dolls show no mercy!" is a common refrain from Tuberov and his fellow MD enthusiasts— which functionally means they can only attack; they don't show "mercy" because they're not capable of making complex decisions about themselves or their targets.
They don't fire warning shots, or shoot to disable, or accept surrenders, or retreat from battle, or change objectives on the fly. They might have tactical programs uploaded to them which allow them to respond quickly to recognized enemy attack/defense patterns, but again unlike the ZERO System, they cannot process strategic objectives on their own.
Pictured: proud members of the OZ Mobile Doll Babysitting Corps, now deceased (except for the cute twink with the undercut, I think he makes it).
The degree to which the MDs in the show are truly autonomous is debatable. The Taurus MDs ALWAYS have a pilot in a manned suit supplying them with directives, and the Virgos ALWAYS have a command center of some kind nearby, usually in a plane, shuttle, or battleship. The pilot or handler in command usually gives the various doll units orders to adjust their positions or update their objectives.
As well as indicating the limits of their autonomy, this suggests that dolls can't operate effectively outside of short-range communication distance, so Romefeller can't just drop a bunch of MDs into a city center and leave them there as a permanent automated deterrence, for example. Dolls seem to just stand around aimlessly after battles, so it's possible that in the absence of new orders they simply go idle when they run out of things to do.
(And to be fair, so do people.)
"So, did you enjoy the holidays, Jan?" "You know Patricia, they just haven’t been the same since the divorce."
So in summary– as written and shown in the series, we can make the following assumptions about the (unaugmented) Mobile Dolls and the MD System:
-The system selects from pre-programmed targets that can be toggled by its controllers, but it can also self-determine targets in response to basic stimuli and threat analysis. It seems to have some capacity to interpret standing orders, though not with much nuance.
-Dolls receive their objectives and standing orders remotely from a nearby handler, usually in a manned suit or a command vehicle. This suggests that their autonomy is limited to targeting and using set tactics from their database.
-They do not appear capable of synthesizing data or adding to their databases directly, suggesting that these updates must be programmed, or compensated for by direct order.
-Close-range combat is the achilles heel of either the MD targeting system, tactical programming, mechanical capabilities, or a combination of the above.
-Unlike the ZERO System, which shows properties of being one or more neural networks, the MD System has the approximate sophistication of a search engine.
(...Now, if you wanted to give the Mobile Doll System a genuinely modern AI spin, you could say that the combination having the ability to self-select targets AND to potentially ignore or misevaluate instructions as one of the hazards of deep learning: the reason why the handlers can only hit the on/off switch when things go awry is because dolls cannot just be programmed to attack/ignore things, they have to be "taught" to attack/ignore things– necessitating feeding it more/different training data, then groping around in a black box trying to adjust variables that don't have any clear corresponding output, and praying it fixes the problem.
And, even if you don't need to fully retrain your AI-powered war machine, writing a "prompt" that you hope will be followed and interpreted correctly isn't a great fail-safe in an emergency.)
—
And now a very brief detour through the history of early chess computers and Deep Blue:
Gundam Wing debuted in 1995 when machine learning and neural networks were much more rudimentary and constrained by the technical limitations of the time. Probably the biggest story in computer sciences at the time was the ongoing race to build a chess computer that could beat a world champion, leading to the series of matches between then-reigning world champion Gary Kasparov and the computer designed by Feng-hsiung Hsu and his five-scientist team.
There were three matches between Kasparov and Hsu's computers, the most famous of which was the controversial rematch in 1997, wherein Deep Blue beat Kasparov 3.5/2.5 in a highly publicized and much anticipated showdown. (Deep Blue | Down the Rabbit Hole by Fredrik Knudsen is a very thorough documentary on this whole matter.)
—But that all happened in 1997, and Gundam Wing came out in '95. The hot topic of the day THEN was the 1989 match between Kasparov and Deep Blue's predecessor, "Deep Thought", named after the supercomputer from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
(Fun fact: they renamed it "Deep Blue" because people kept misremembering "Deep Thought" as "Deep Throat". I report these things to you because I am above all committed to quality).
That first match consisted of two games, both of which Kasparov won handily; this was widely reported on in both the chess world and the mainstream press (for example: LA Times archive, NYT archive).
Deep Thought could examine five hundred million potential positions per move, it could think 10 or 11 moves deep, and it could beat a grandmaster– but it couldn't beat a world champion, not in 1989.
"Anti-Computer Chess" was already a known play style, designed to capitalize on the flaws of chess programs and algorithms. Chess computers could brute force their way through the tactical playbook, but struggled with long term strategy. The conventional advice for beating them was to play slow; use long term strategies that led to gradual advantage that the computer was less able to detect or counter. This also gave the computer more time to screw up– early on, machines would often encounter errors that would lead to random or sub-optimal plays. Early chess computers were powerful yet predictable, and put too much focus on the numerical value of the pieces:
"An early machine learning algorithm was applied to the task of learning chess; its creators fed it hundreds of thousands of grandmaster-level games, hoping it would find patterns that would lead to victory. In its first game against a human opponent, it played a relatively normal opening, and immediately blundered its queen. After some consideration, programmers realized what had happened: Typically when a grandmaster sacrifices their queen, the purpose is to gain a winning attack; the machine learning algorithm, however, hadn't found the connection between attacks and sacrifices, and so it assumed the best way to win was by sacrificing its queen as quickly as possible." —Fredrik Knudsen, "Deep Blue: Down the Rabbit Hole"
–So, let's begin by imagining this as the frame of reference for someone in the early 1990's writing a sci-fi story about autonomous war machines running on algorithms.
This is NOT an artificial intelligence; it is a brute force calculation machine that can outpace the average human on a mechanical level, but not a strategic or a creative one. You can use its own systems against it, trick it, learn its patterns, and eventually out maneuver it.
A human pilot with a superior mobile suit can run circles around the Mobile Dolls with a little practice. In fact, everyone with a superior mobile suit seems to get bored of destroying dolls in short order. Basic enemies you grind between boss fights. Learn their movesets and get good.
OZ's increasing use of Mobile Dolls becomes an embarrassment.
Over-reliance on dolls is seen as the hallmark of weak people who want power but are too cowardly to put themselves at risk or take responsibility for their actions; dolls are a cheap shortcut that devalues life and death, a tool for the incompetent and lazy to make up for a lack of skill, guts, ingenuity, dignity, and a moral compass.
...Unfortunately for everyone who isn't a borderline Newtype and doesn't have a Gundam or a buster rifle handy, the dishonorable machine scourge is still no laughing matter. They are deadly, they can be mass-produced, deployed in large numbers, and they’re exclusively controlled by the worst people in the universe.
And then cometh this asshole:
Tuberov's first exclusively unmanned model, the "spare no expense" Virgo I, is first introduced in Episode 25, hot off the assembly line of the Lunar Base manufacturing facility. The Virgo’s design is based on the Vayeate and Mercurius suits built by the Gundam scientists, and it is quite simply beyond the capability of almost all the older model Zodiac suits to defeat; even the non-upgraded Gundams struggle with facing down a hoard of Virgos.
Virgos appear directly after Treize steps down from OZ and is taken into confinement, and Lady Une is relieved of her position via bullet wound. With the old guard of OZ officially gone, all opposition to Mobile Doll production within Romefeller ceases. In the next episode Operation Nova commences, and Virgos are deployed on Earth. For the dispersed and under-prepared forces of the Treize Faction and everyone else resisting Romefeller's rule, the arrival of Virgo shock troops is a death knell.
Some Technical Aspects of the Virgo I:
1) The energy shield isn't a perfect system; it can only absorb so much energy before frying out, and you can always physically force your way through it.
If you can get around the energy-shield, Virgos are heavily armored but manageable: a Taurus cannon is enough to take them out if it hits their weak points– mostly that's the head and/or the sensor, but the lower left side also does the trick. (...Hey Gundam Wing, what IS up with that left-side kidney shot that makes all mobile suits explode?? WHAT ARE THEY KEEPING IN THERE???)
A high-powered laser can get through the energy shields and melt the armor, but these aren't common; I think they're only seen on the OZ supersonic transport jet.
They can also be Punched To Death if you're really dedicated.
2) Beam weapons are the only things that can reliably take down a Virgo, with the possible inclusion of heat weapons. Epyon with its evasive speed, versatile heat whip, and the beam-sword-from-hell is a perfect doll killer; so are Deathscythe and Altron, and TallgeeseII is no slouch either. (And, of course, the Wing Zero is the Wing Zero– show me something the Wing Zero can't obliterate.) Of the standard Zodiac models, only the Taurus seems well equipped to take out Virgos.
...But if you throw ENOUGH Space Leos at them, you do get somewhere eventually.
*(We never get to see how any of the aquatic models fare against them; I assume Virgos don’t function underwater, so a squadron of Cancers barraging them with missiles from under the surface might actually be fairly effective in the event of a shore-adjacent battle.)
3) The V1s can pick out Leos in cover at a far range, which seems like an improvement from the Taurus MDs that struggled with target identification. They clearly have infrared vision, and probably the same thermal imaging as other MS. However, in a setting where it's necessary to stealthily target dispersed, non-MS enemy personnel in deep cover in a really complex environment, i.e. thick forest with underbrush, OZ sends in manned suits to get the job done. Even with better sensors, enterprising Treize Faction members are still able to use the same basic tactics to defeat the V1s that Heero used on the Lunar Base: get them to set false targets, and lure them to a suit that's rigged to blow. While enormously wasteful, a surefire way to take out a Virgo is to detonate a mobile suit on top of it.
Unfortunately for the Treize Faction holdouts stranded at the Luxembourg Base, it seems like either their resources or their creativity ran out, because this was their ONLY tactic: single-use Leos with single-use pilots.
4) Like the Taurus MDs, Virgos work better in packs. Tauruses deploy in groups of three from their carriers, and coordinate with each other to zip around the enemy with their superior speed and corral them in with fire. Virgos... mostly just march forward in a line and fire continuously until whatever was in front of them stops twitching. (Later when the ZERO System is being used to up their tactical game, they use a variety of more complex formations.)
The Virgo 1 isn't a flight model, so being deployed from the air seems like it would make them vulnerable; but Virgos dropping into enemy airspace fall in groups to form a defensive cluster with their shield-generators, thus keeping them protected from all sides while they fire in multiple directions. This makes attacking them with Aries while they're falling less of a viable strategy.
—
After this point in the series, the only upgrades made to the Mobile Dolls are ZERO System enhancements derived from Epyon.
This is what actually changes the game for Mobile Dolls: not hardware or programming advancements, but the integration of a system that allows for an augmented human consciousness to coordinate the machines directly.
Based on the mental input of a pilot or handler using the ZERO System, MDs can finally be used strategically; whole squadrons of dolls can be networked together, individual and group movements can be controlled with precision, and their strategies can be updated in real time.
Like everything else about the ZERO System, how this is accomplished mechanically isn’t really explained beyond “brain waves” and biometrics. Ancillary and subsequent works released for Gundam Wing provide various explanations via retcon (nanomachines, digitized housecats), but in the series none of this is shown or talked about– all we see is the evidence of some kind of non-invasive neural link between the computer system and a human that responds to biometric feedback and sensory input while crunching astronomical amounts of numbers to provide algorithmically optimized predictive responses.
ZERO is a neural network, but it still hasn’t tipped the boundary into what could be called AI– even though there’s definitely a ghost wafting around in that machine. (Not the cat. There’s also the literal ghost of a cat in the machine but we aren’t talking about the cat ghost right now. This is a different, metaphorical ghost.)
Metatextually, the ZERO System is Wing’s technological substitute for almost everything that could be explained by Newtype abilities in the rest of the Gundam franchise (though as I’ve written about previously, Gundam Wing ALSO has Newtypes). In Universal Century terms, the Mobile Dolls have basically become the same as the funnels, connected to the pilot via the ZERO System rather than by innate (or implanted) psychic abilities.
In the final quarter of the series, the tone suddenly changes: pilots who had previously only expressed contempt for the dolls take notice when they’re being utilized effectively, and battles become more and more difficult. The dolls aren’t just real threats again, they're a terrifying example of what can be done by combining human flexibility with mechanical efficiency.
Even as the ZERO System imbues them with new horror, in a strange way this shift in attitude feels almost like a redemption for the Mobile Dolls– even their strongest detractors start remarking on how this is the "appropriate" way to use MDs.
Instead of replacing human engagement, through the ZERO System they're creating a new vector by which a human mind can interact with the universe– an expansion of the relationship between human and machine. In other words, they've become tools again– man's first best friend since we came down from the trees. Weapons are tools after all, and as tools they share unequal agency with the user; even with degrees of automation, it is a human who lends intentionality to the actions of the machines, a conscious node supplying the impetus to achieve a given outcome, a source of authorship, ideation, and accountability.
—
As I have said elsewhere in this essay series: Gundam Wing, like the rest of the franchise, is a war story– but from a personal perspective, I’ve always found that Wing isn’t so much a story about war as it is a story that uses war as a medium to explore the intersection of competing human values and struggle.
In Wing, the actual, material causes of war take a backseat to the ideological reasons for conflict and oppression, which in turn are used to examine the ways people struggle to find meaning IN ideology and conflict.
(…Now, if you’re craving a version of Gundam Wing where the material realities of war are violently, cynically, and tragically returned to the narrative, I highly recommend Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, which is all that and much more. But that’s not what Wing is about.)
Wing is, at its core, allegorical– but allegory at its best is an extension of truth.
In Gundam Wing, the practicality of using exclusively semi-autonomous weapons in war is solely a concern of the oppressor– they’re very quick to point out the benefits of giant war machines in general.
Tuberov, the creator of the Mobile Dolls, makes many cogent points about their reliability and utility compared to human soldiers. “You can’t go into a war expecting to lose it” sounds like a fairly reasonable assertion on the face of it, FAR more reasonable than the lofty notion of OZ’s old-guard that winning or losing a fight is immaterial because the value lies in the struggle, and that automated weapons are the refuge of those who are afraid to die.
–That’s an absurd claim to make about war in the material sense; wars aren’t fought for personal betterment, and the vast majority of human soldiers who fight in wars are afraid to die. Taken literally in regards to war, almost everything OZ has to say is nonsense. Tuberov certainly thinks so. Tuberov is also 100% fanatically devoted to the idea that Mobile Dolls have transcended death and have granted him immortality by proxy.
The Romefeller Foundation frantically ramped up mass-production of Mobile Dolls the instant they realized they no longer had the safety and benefit of hiding behind the Alliance Military, and that their revolutionary forces were far more loyal to each other than they were to Romefeller. When they lose Treize as the source of cohesion, OZ’s ranks are permanently weakened by the resulting schism, making them easy prey for the next opportunistic revolutionary power.
The Mobile Dolls are, absolutely, the product of fear– the last resort of the powerful and rich minority who are over-extended and despised by the masses they seek to dominate. They are, absolutely, the violent tools of those who take no personal risk in the violence they’re enacting– that doesn’t change for those in power whether it’s machines or soldiers they’re deploying, but it certainly changes the balance of resources, effect, and attribution.
The various rebel fighters for independence, including the Gundams, do largely view the Mobile Dolls as material threats– one that can be overcome by fighting them on multiple fronts, using a combination of political and public pressure, strategic retaliation, and absolutely dogged commitment to fighting despite loss after humiliating loss.
For the Gundam pilots, it makes no difference if the enemy is a machine or a human being; an enemy is an obstacle to be overcome, no more, no less. They’re trying to get a job done or die trying.
But for the ideologically motivated OZ elites, their job IS to die trying; the Mobile Dolls are a direct threat to their code (*cough*Bushido*cough*) as well as their livelihood. The OZ elites have values– violent, narrow, fatalistic, exceptionalist, suicidally self-deterministic ones, but values. They are beholden to something, and while that’s not nearly sufficient to exonerate them, they can be trusted within that framework. In the end, all of the OZ old-guard, including the fragmented rebel faction, undergo significant change when faced with the inescapable reality that the institutions they served held nothing sacred, and end up joining the resistance in one way or another (...and for better or worse).
—
In the series, it takes both the material and ideological components to end the conflict (if perhaps not War Itself), but the solution to the Machine Scourge is simply removing the institutions that were inclined to use them.
Mobile Dolls take their orders from humans; they’re built by humans, and are used within the context of human needs. The machines stop running when you turn them off. Even the ZERO System only works when you plug it in and have a human interact with it. The frantic rush to replace humans with automated constructs is frantic because it is motivated by greed and fear, and in some cases, a genuine quasi-religious belief that machines are superior and immortal.
Of course, the more reliant you, or your society’s infrastructure, become on such processes, the harder it is to simply switch them off without causing calamitous disruptions– the same is true of most things people rely on.
"Maybe we can do that if we work together, Dave."
In reality circa 2026, we’ve been pumping ML and automation into our war machines for many decades. As of writing this, battles of resistance have been won using entirely unmanned machines.
We have vehicles that go so stupid fast now that putting a human pilot in them seems like a liability– modern jets are full of automated systems that self-correct, engage safety measures, and target much, much faster than human reflexes could. There are dedicated divisions of air forces for unmanned drones, sometimes piloted remotely by kids fresh out of school (predictably to the chagrin of actual pilots, even if the jets they’re piloting are more than half automated themselves). We don’t need to wonder what the military would do with this technology, because they jumped on the AI train at the first stop; they’re showing us in real time what they’d use it for.
It feels futile to try and speak about AI and the future when the state of things is advancing at such an outrageous pace; writing this in the beginning of 2026, anything I could say could become outdated and hilariously naive a month from now.
Strangely, I’ve found a surprising source of comfort and insight in Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion who played against Deep Blue in those pivotal man vs. machine games, whose relationship with computers and machine learning and AI has evolved continuously in a surprisingly chill way.
I am always reminded that knowing more about a subject is often the best way to stop being uselessly anxious about it, even if there are very real threats involved. I find it useful and hopeful to listen to people who are close enough to the technology to understand its effects, but not so deep in the weeds that they are overwhelmed by the development process and insularity of tech culture. I find it useful and hopeful to listen to people who can identify where the nuances lie, what outcomes besides catastrophe could arise, and who are not afraid. There is even an intriguing new horizon of augmented game play developed by the former world chess champion himself involving multiple teams of players coordinating with chess computers against each other, called “advanced chess” or “centaur chess”, the aim of which is:
“[...] increasing the level of play to heights never before seen in chess producing blunder-free games with the qualities and the beauty of both perfect tactical play and highly meaningful strategic plans; offering the public an overview of the mental processes of strong human chess players and powerful chess computers, and the combination of their forces.” -from the wiki article
Finally, I will end this essay, which is entirely about fictional anime robots, with some relevant quotes from Gary Kasparov (whose career has extended far beyond chess and deep into anti-Russian resistance):
Garry Kasparov: “We make a mistake in misunderstanding the nature of computers by adding human qualities to them. Machines know the odds but always work within the parameters that have been originally installed. There’s a fine line where machine intelligence begins and human creativity ends.”
[...]
“Since 1998, I’ve been talking about humans working with machines, how we can get the best out of them. How can we merge human intuition and human creativity with machines brute force and memory? How can we make the most effective cooperation between humans and machines? What is the human’s role in the future?
We have to start realizing that we should not have such high expectations for computers to solve all the problems. We need to add elements that could compensate for machine deficiencies, because every computer could be put to solve a specific task but it will require certain human intervention to make them most effective.
Transferring the knowledge from the closed system to open ended system will require human assistance. Machines will never recognize the moment when they enter diminishing returns. Machines can ask questions, but they don’t know what questions are relevant. So there is still plenty of room for humans to strategize and guide these machines. Machines are covering bigger and bigger territory but it will never be one hundred percent.”
[...]
“Humans still have the monopoly on evil. The problem today that we’re facing is not the Terminator. The problems today are bad humans, the evil that exists in this imperfect world, using technology invented in the free world to undermine the very foundation of the free world. That’s a real problem.”
-Interview with FastCompany, 2019
Hello. This is an essay and an otherwise a deeply autistic combing of dubiously intentional material from a robot cartoon. And some stuff about early computing, AI, chess, and Gary Kasparov.
Let me spin you a tale:
Deep in in the AI Winter of the 90's, when personal computers were becoming more common, and early neural network development was struggling to find commercial use, Gundam Wing made its debut. The controversial but enormously influential Deep Blue vs. Kasparov showdown was still two years away, the World Wide Web was two squeaks old, Google Search was barely a glimmer in Larry Page's eye, and The Matrix wouldn't come out for another four years.
AI-apocalypses weren't new; Skynet and WOPR and HAL were well embedded in the public imagination; cyberpunk anime was thriving in the same ecosystem as the "real robot" genre from whence Gundam was born. But Wing isn't cyberpunk, and it doesn't really lead with AI-apocalypse. The show's got a lot on its mind– most of it about Ethics and Ideals and Responsibility and Upholding Pacifism As A National Policy– but there IS an AI-apocalypse hiding there in the back. It's not flashy as AI-apocalypses go, and because this is Gundam Wing, it dwells not on time traveling cyborgs or murderous space stations, but on ethics and human integrity. Wing's fairly sparse world building didn't go so far as to predict social media, or the relevance of algorithms in online spaces, or the immediate saturation of AI into mainstream civilian tech, or oversight of civic infrastructures being gutted and left with a machine in charge– but it was weirdly prescient in other ways.
The deeper we get into our own increasingly messy, concerning, frustrating, and dangerous AI fervor, the more interesting I find Wing's take to be. For one thing, instead of dealing with the louder and more titillating concept of true machine intelligence (malevolent or otherwise), Wing’s autonomous robot scourge never once approaches sentience– there’s certainly a ghost in SOME of the machines, but the series stays remarkably grounded in depicting machine learning as strictly machine learning. It’s entirely unconcerned with the development of sapient computers, and instead dedicates itself to hammering home the message that the actual problem being faced by humanity is the absurd, incautious, self-destructive way we use automation against ourselves.
The story isn't telling us to be scared of AI or algorithmic machine learning– it's about being critical of systems that are designed to remove accountability from institutions of power and that vastly increase those institutions’ ability to do harm. It's not a warning about the dangers of progress, it's about the danger of removing people’s sense of investment, responsibility, decision making, and creativity from human endeavors.
And since this is a Gundam show, that means war.
MOBILE DOLLS IN CANON:
Mobile Dolls are the brainchild of one Bilmon Tubarov, a high ranking member of the Romefeller Foundation and Chief Engineer of OZ. He was one of the original leading developers of Mobile Suit technology, along with Howard and the five Doctors, J, O, S, H, and G.
(...I was sincerely hoping that would spell something funny.)
The first mention of the program that would become the basis for Mobile Doll System is in Episode 10: Doctor J tells Heero about the (still exclusively manned) Taurus suits' “ability to learn from accumulated data” and expresses worry that they might "override the pilot's commands and act on their own", which is something nobody wants from an 8-ton war machine– right?
What Doctor J describes is a simple machine learning program installed in the Taurus that takes accumulated data from past battles (in whatever way OZ’s technology gathers such things) and turns it into optimized tactical strategies. How it actually presents these strategies to the pilot is never explained, but by J’s comments, we can presume the system is tied directly to the controls of the mobile suit— and J isn’t willing to take chances on a buggy self-driving car with a gun the size of a tree.
(Now... as I've previously asserted, there's NO way the scientists who defected from OZ and designed the ZERO System didn't know about this program already, and it’s actually quite likely they were involved in its creation to begin with. The timeline of events suggests that Tuberov started developing the program at least from the development of the Taurus suits, and possibly even from his time working in mobile suit R&D along with the rest of the scientists.)
Obviously, in the long run the Taurus System isn't going to "accidentally" override the human pilot, it's going to replace the human pilot entirely.
"If anyone builds it, Heero, we all die."
After Episode 10, the topic of machine learning being used in mobile suits goes away for a bit (I'm using the term "machine learning" specifically because that's how J describes it– a machine that "learns from battle data"– and because there's really no discussion of mobile suits having actual artificial intelligence; at least not until the ZERO System appears). Mobile Dolls emerge again fully fledged in Episode 18:
During the period after OZ’s takeover of the Earth Sphere, the Romefeller Foundation is locking down its control of the Earth. As is the way of most violent revolutions, the previously useful regime-toppling forces are suddenly way less desirable than standard issue, order-following ones— and what could toe the line better than a whole programmable machine army? So why not replace human soldiers with AI, and hire prompters to give them orders?
Well, mostly because the aforementioned regime-topplers within the Foundation are violently against the idea, and in a scene I could watch all day, Former Gifted Child Treize Khushrenada objects to this proposal with extreme prejudice and a sword.
Chief Engineer Tuberov is given a good scare in the control tower, but he continues to rise in authority within Romefeller until he ultimately gains control of OZ; meanwhile, Treize is quietly sunsetted.
...I've always found the visual of the empty, pilotless cockpits lighting up to be wonderfully unsettling; it makes them seem undead rather than just automated. The later Virgo MDs understandably lack cockpits altogether, so it's just the early dolls that still have vestigial cockpits.
The proof-of-concept MDs on display are retrofitted Leos, crude enough that they have to be plugged into the command tower; but Tuberov clarifies that this isn't the case with the Taurus Space MDs, which come with the system built in. Duke Dermail seems to think MDs are for supplementing the troops, but Tuberov advocates for the replacement of all of OZ’s mobile suit forces with Mobile Dolls.
—Note: The official script contains an error here, where the line reads "we used an old model of the Leo so we're having to program them from a distance, but no such problem exists with the Space Taurus". The fan translation fixes it to "from here", as in "from the command tower", which makes far more sense, because they're literally plugged in.
The retrofitted Leo MDs are shown being able to 1) Identify targets– which in this case are: Tank, Paper Circle, and Angry-Leo-With-Treize-In, 2) reference schematics of the targets, and 3) run risk assessments (judging by the flashing "CAUTION" readout). The handlers in the tower seem to just be in charge of the On/Off switch.
—
Right up next, we get Episode 19, which is the absolute best for showcasing the flaws in the MD targeting system:
Using a unique form of cabbage-based espionage, Heero breaks into a Colony prison to kill/rescue Duo (who is having his longest ever streak of no-good-very-bad-days), without a working Gundam between them. They're surrounded in short order, the whole Colony security complex is put on high-alert, and OZ sends out the Mobile Dolls to eliminate the intruder and escapee.
One of the MD handlers states that it would be "difficult to select targets inside the Colony", which suggests that the MDs are indeed analyzing and setting the targets themselves in some capacity, but with a degree of error that makes it dangerous to trust them in a complex setting with a lot of changing variables. This does not bode well for anyone involved. (Foreshadowing)
"Wouldn't target settings be difficult within the colony?"
"COME ON, WE'RE NOT BANGING ROCKS TOGETHER HERE, WE KNOW HOW TO MAKE AN AUTONOMOUS DEATH ROBOT".
In the mobile suit launch bay, Heero finds a bunch of MS carriers and empty Leos. He loads them up and launches all of them out the hatch, effectively creating a flotilla of ghost ships for the Mobile Dolls to target. He also shoots a gun at the surveillance cameras in the launch bay, thereby registering "guy in an OZ astro-suit" as a threat as well.
Back in the station, the OZ security crew are baffled as the dolls start firing on their own Leos. They dig into the logs to discover that the Leo suits were set as a target because they'd been seen escaping the Colony, and the dolls' standing orders were "don't let anyone do that".
This is followed by a brief moment of panic as the security staff realizes their OZ astro-suits have also been set as targets. The handlers try to cancel the “auto-command”, but before that can happen they're obliterated by the “cutting-edge annihilation machines” they’d trusted with the authority to decide who lives and who dies.
(I find it interesting that they do NOT give the doll verbal orders to stand down or stop firing– my theory is that a doll that’s running on automatic would not take orders from a target it had identified as an enemy.)
Duo and Heero meanwhile escape scot-free in a Honda Civic passenger shuttle that wasn't set as a target.
Turret voice: "Hello?" :) "Are you still there?" :) "There you are" >:)
The next good showcase of MD limitations is Episode 21:
While being escorted as a prisoner of OZ, Trowa (in the guise of an OZ officer) asks Heero to explain his favored tactic for destroying MDs. Heero's advice is simply: "Avoid their targeting system" and "get in close range". Zechs corroborates this shortly thereafter, and as a doctrine this basically holds true for everyone who doesn't have access to a buster rifle for the rest of the series. It holds doubly true of the later Virgo suits because of their energy shield.
In the same episode, Heero also states that the weakness of the MDs are that they have the same basic level of mobility and "reaction times" as the manned models– this struck me as odd, because everyone up to this point has made a point of saying how fast the MDs are (including Zechs who modestly reports "my reactions are a little slower than theirs"). (I went and double checked the script against two different translations and the line reads basically the same.)
In my own interpretation, the confusion here lies in the distinctions between speed/output, acceleration, and reaction time:
There's no doubt the top speed and rate of acceleration that MDs are capable of withstanding are greater than those of a human pilot for the obvious reason that they don't have one– but the perceived reaction time of a MD might well be the same as, or even slower than a human's. The MDs have to identify and select a target using their rudimentary software, which as we've seen is still reasonably clunky– they might be able to track a target and fire quicker than the average pilot, but if what Heero is observing is true, it's the actual hardware of the mobile suit base that's the limiting factor.
Interestingly, the only MD to have any close-range combat capability is the MD clone of the Mercurius. To me, this suggests that ranged weapons are significantly easier to program a machine to use effectively, while hand-to-hand combat is still beyond the system's abilities. (The only exceptions I can find are of MDs grabbing stationary suits and smashing them, or firing into them point-blank; so LITERAL hand combat in the crudest sense is possible.)
The cloned Mercurius and Vayeate dolls are also the only MDs of different models that attack cooperatively. Virgos and Taurus MDs are never deployed together despite being a potentially devastating combination (think rooks and bishops). Whether this is due to a limitation of programming or lack of innovation on the part of the handlers is unclear.
Getting Mobile Dolls to coordinate attacks based on high-level pilot simulations seems like it’d be a huge game changer, but it isn't– Duo spends maybe twenty seconds fighting them before ripping into them like a Quinze-opener. The MD System is just not advanced enough to be useful for anything more complex than varying forms of aim-and-fire; even when they’re programmed with more advanced tactics, they can only mimic maneuvers they’ve seen before without the ability to adapt them situationally.
Despite having the ability to “learn” from past battles in theory, the dolls are never shown adapting their strategy in real-time to deal with different enemies or even repeat encounters with the same enemy.
In Episode 34, Zechs makes a point of saying that OZ must have known he was going to attack because the Mobile Dolls came in a specific formation that seemed tailored to counter him, while the manned suits retreated; adding that this was a predictable strategy to use because of OZ’s reliance on Mobile Dolls; what he does NOT say is that the dolls themselves are predicting his tactics or countering them. Wufei expresses a similar amount of apathy towards the MDs repetitive tactics.
With tiring consistency, OZ’s main strategy for eliminating tough enemies with Mobile Dolls is basically just “send more Mobile Dolls”.
As any gamer who’s beaten the same enemy hundreds of times could tell you, humans tend to fine-tune their reactions based on experience and iteration– Mobile Dolls do not. The MDs may be able to "learn" from accumulated data in the sense that their database expands, but unlike the ZERO System, the MD System isn't capable of running complex predictions or data synthesis.
"Mobile Dolls show no mercy!" is a common refrain from Tuberov and his fellow MD enthusiasts— which functionally means they can only attack; they don't show "mercy" because they're not capable of making complex decisions about themselves or their targets.
They don't fire warning shots, or shoot to disable, or accept surrenders, or retreat from battle, or change objectives on the fly. They might have tactical programs uploaded to them which allow them to respond quickly to recognized enemy attack/defense patterns, but again unlike the ZERO System, they cannot process strategic objectives on their own.
Pictured: proud members of the OZ Mobile Doll Babysitting Corps, now deceased (except for the cute twink with the undercut, I think he makes it).
The degree to which the MDs in the show are truly autonomous is debatable. The Taurus MDs ALWAYS have a pilot in a manned suit supplying them with directives, and the Virgos ALWAYS have a command center of some kind nearby, usually in a plane, shuttle, or battleship. The pilot or handler in command usually gives the various doll units orders to adjust their positions or update their objectives.
As well as indicating the limits of their autonomy, this suggests that dolls can't operate effectively outside of short-range communication distance, so Romefeller can't just drop a bunch of MDs into a city center and leave them there as a permanent automated deterrence, for example. Dolls seem to just stand around aimlessly after battles, so it's possible that in the absence of new orders they simply go idle when they run out of things to do.
(And to be fair, so do people.)
"So, did you enjoy the holidays, Jan?" "You know Patricia, they just haven’t been the same since the divorce."
So in summary– as written and shown in the series, we can make the following assumptions about the (unaugmented) Mobile Dolls and the MD System:
-The system selects from pre-programmed targets that can be toggled by its controllers, but it can also self-determine targets in response to basic stimuli and threat analysis. It seems to have some capacity to interpret standing orders, though not with much nuance.
-Dolls receive their objectives and standing orders remotely from a nearby handler, usually in a manned suit or a command vehicle. This suggests that their autonomy is limited to targeting and using set tactics from their database.
-They do not appear capable of synthesizing data or adding to their databases directly, suggesting that these updates must be programmed, or compensated for by direct order.
-Close-range combat is the achilles heel of either the MD targeting system, tactical programming, mechanical capabilities, or a combination of the above.
-Unlike the ZERO System, which shows properties of being one or more neural networks, the MD System has the approximate sophistication of a search engine.
(...Now, if you wanted to give the Mobile Doll System a genuinely modern AI spin, you could say that the combination having the ability to self-select targets AND to potentially ignore or misevaluate instructions as one of the hazards of deep learning: the reason why the handlers can only hit the on/off switch when things go awry is because dolls cannot just be programmed to attack/ignore things, they have to be "taught" to attack/ignore things– necessitating feeding it more/different training data, then groping around in a black box trying to adjust variables that don't have any clear corresponding output, and praying it fixes the problem.
And, even if you don't need to fully retrain your AI-powered war machine, writing a "prompt" that you hope will be followed and interpreted correctly isn't a great fail-safe in an emergency.)
—
And now a very brief detour through the history of early chess computers and Deep Blue:
Gundam Wing debuted in 1995 when machine learning and neural networks were much more rudimentary and constrained by the technical limitations of the time. Probably the biggest story in computer sciences at the time was the ongoing race to build a chess computer that could beat a world champion, leading to the series of matches between then-reigning world champion Gary Kasparov and the computer designed by Feng-hsiung Hsu and his five-scientist team.
There were three matches between Kasparov and Hsu's computers, the most famous of which was the controversial rematch in 1997, wherein Deep Blue beat Kasparov 3.5/2.5 in a highly publicized and much anticipated showdown. (Deep Blue | Down the Rabbit Hole by Fredrik Knudsen is a very thorough documentary on this whole matter.)
—But that all happened in 1997, and Gundam Wing came out in '95. The hot topic of the day THEN was the 1989 match between Kasparov and Deep Blue's predecessor, "Deep Thought", named after the supercomputer from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
(Fun fact: they renamed it "Deep Blue" because people kept misremembering "Deep Thought" as "Deep Throat". I report these things to you because I am above all committed to quality).
That first match consisted of two games, both of which Kasparov won handily; this was widely reported on in both the chess world and the mainstream press (for example: LA Times archive, NYT archive).
Deep Thought could examine five hundred million potential positions per move, it could think 10 or 11 moves deep, and it could beat a grandmaster– but it couldn't beat a world champion, not in 1989.
"Anti-Computer Chess" was already a known play style, designed to capitalize on the flaws of chess programs and algorithms. Chess computers could brute force their way through the tactical playbook, but struggled with long term strategy. The conventional advice for beating them was to play slow; use long term strategies that led to gradual advantage that the computer was less able to detect or counter. This also gave the computer more time to screw up– early on, machines would often encounter errors that would lead to random or sub-optimal plays. Early chess computers were powerful yet predictable, and put too much focus on the numerical value of the pieces:
"An early machine learning algorithm was applied to the task of learning chess; its creators fed it hundreds of thousands of grandmaster-level games, hoping it would find patterns that would lead to victory. In its first game against a human opponent, it played a relatively normal opening, and immediately blundered its queen. After some consideration, programmers realized what had happened: Typically when a grandmaster sacrifices their queen, the purpose is to gain a winning attack; the machine learning algorithm, however, hadn't found the connection between attacks and sacrifices, and so it assumed the best way to win was by sacrificing its queen as quickly as possible." —Fredrik Knudsen, "Deep Blue: Down the Rabbit Hole"
–So, let's begin by imagining this as the frame of reference for someone in the early 1990's writing a sci-fi story about autonomous war machines running on algorithms.
This is NOT an artificial intelligence; it is a brute force calculation machine that can outpace the average human on a mechanical level, but not a strategic or a creative one. You can use its own systems against it, trick it, learn its patterns, and eventually out maneuver it.
A human pilot with a superior mobile suit can run circles around the Mobile Dolls with a little practice. In fact, everyone with a superior mobile suit seems to get bored of destroying dolls in short order. Basic enemies you grind between boss fights. Learn their movesets and get good.
OZ's increasing use of Mobile Dolls becomes an embarrassment.
Over-reliance on dolls is seen as the hallmark of weak people who want power but are too cowardly to put themselves at risk or take responsibility for their actions; dolls are a cheap shortcut that devalues life and death, a tool for the incompetent and lazy to make up for a lack of skill, guts, ingenuity, dignity, and a moral compass.
...Unfortunately for everyone who isn't a borderline Newtype and doesn't have a Gundam or a buster rifle handy, the dishonorable machine scourge is still no laughing matter. They are deadly, they can be mass-produced, deployed in large numbers, and they’re exclusively controlled by the worst people in the universe.
And then cometh this asshole:
Tuberov's first exclusively unmanned model, the "spare no expense" Virgo I, is first introduced in Episode 25, hot off the assembly line of the Lunar Base manufacturing facility. The Virgo’s design is based on the Vayeate and Mercurius suits built by the Gundam scientists, and it is quite simply beyond the capability of almost all the older model Zodiac suits to defeat; even the non-upgraded Gundams struggle with facing down a hoard of Virgos.
Virgos appear directly after Treize steps down from OZ and is taken into confinement, and Lady Une is relieved of her position via bullet wound. With the old guard of OZ officially gone, all opposition to Mobile Doll production within Romefeller ceases. In the next episode Operation Nova commences, and Virgos are deployed on Earth. For the dispersed and under-prepared forces of the Treize Faction and everyone else resisting Romefeller's rule, the arrival of Virgo shock troops is a death knell.
Some Technical Aspects of the Virgo I:
1) The energy shield isn't a perfect system; it can only absorb so much energy before frying out, and you can always physically force your way through it.
If you can get around the energy-shield, Virgos are heavily armored but manageable: a Taurus cannon is enough to take them out if it hits their weak points– mostly that's the head and/or the sensor, but the lower left side also does the trick. (...Hey Gundam Wing, what IS up with that left-side kidney shot that makes all mobile suits explode?? WHAT ARE THEY KEEPING IN THERE???)
A high-powered laser can get through the energy shields and melt the armor, but these aren't common; I think they're only seen on the OZ supersonic transport jet.
They can also be Punched To Death if you're really dedicated.
2) Beam weapons are the only things that can reliably take down a Virgo, with the possible inclusion of heat weapons. Epyon with its evasive speed, versatile heat whip, and the beam-sword-from-hell is a perfect doll killer; so are Deathscythe and Altron, and TallgeeseII is no slouch either. (And, of course, the Wing Zero is the Wing Zero– show me something the Wing Zero can't obliterate.) Of the standard Zodiac models, only the Taurus seems well equipped to take out Virgos.
...But if you throw ENOUGH Space Leos at them, you do get somewhere eventually.
*(We never get to see how any of the aquatic models fare against them; I assume Virgos don’t function underwater, so a squadron of Cancers barraging them with missiles from under the surface might actually be fairly effective in the event of a shore-adjacent battle.)
3) The V1s can pick out Leos in cover at a far range, which seems like an improvement from the Taurus MDs that struggled with target identification. They clearly have infrared vision, and probably the same thermal imaging as other MS. However, in a setting where it's necessary to stealthily target dispersed, non-MS enemy personnel in deep cover in a really complex environment, i.e. thick forest with underbrush, OZ sends in manned suits to get the job done. Even with better sensors, enterprising Treize Faction members are still able to use the same basic tactics to defeat the V1s that Heero used on the Lunar Base: get them to set false targets, and lure them to a suit that's rigged to blow. While enormously wasteful, a surefire way to take out a Virgo is to detonate a mobile suit on top of it.
Unfortunately for the Treize Faction holdouts stranded at the Luxembourg Base, it seems like either their resources or their creativity ran out, because this was their ONLY tactic: single-use Leos with single-use pilots.
4) Like the Taurus MDs, Virgos work better in packs. Tauruses deploy in groups of three from their carriers, and coordinate with each other to zip around the enemy with their superior speed and corral them in with fire. Virgos... mostly just march forward in a line and fire continuously until whatever was in front of them stops twitching. (Later when the ZERO System is being used to up their tactical game, they use a variety of more complex formations.)
The Virgo 1 isn't a flight model, so being deployed from the air seems like it would make them vulnerable; but Virgos dropping into enemy airspace fall in groups to form a defensive cluster with their shield-generators, thus keeping them protected from all sides while they fire in multiple directions. This makes attacking them with Aries while they're falling less of a viable strategy.
—
After this point in the series, the only upgrades made to the Mobile Dolls are ZERO System enhancements derived from Epyon.
This is what actually changes the game for Mobile Dolls: not hardware or programming advancements, but the integration of a system that allows for an augmented human consciousness to coordinate the machines directly.
Based on the mental input of a pilot or handler using the ZERO System, MDs can finally be used strategically; whole squadrons of dolls can be networked together, individual and group movements can be controlled with precision, and their strategies can be updated in real time.
Like everything else about the ZERO System, how this is accomplished mechanically isn’t really explained beyond “brain waves” and biometrics. Ancillary and subsequent works released for Gundam Wing provide various explanations via retcon (nanomachines, digitized housecats), but in the series none of this is shown or talked about– all we see is the evidence of some kind of non-invasive neural link between the computer system and a human that responds to biometric feedback and sensory input while crunching astronomical amounts of numbers to provide algorithmically optimized predictive responses.
ZERO is a neural network, but it still hasn’t tipped the boundary into what could be called AI– even though there’s definitely a ghost wafting around in that machine. (Not the cat. There’s also the literal ghost of a cat in the machine but we aren’t talking about the cat ghost right now. This is a different, metaphorical ghost.)
Metatextually, the ZERO System is Wing’s technological substitute for almost everything that could be explained by Newtype abilities in the rest of the Gundam franchise (though as I’ve written about previously, Gundam Wing ALSO has Newtypes). In Universal Century terms, the Mobile Dolls have basically become the same as the funnels, connected to the pilot via the ZERO System rather than by innate (or implanted) psychic abilities.
In the final quarter of the series, the tone suddenly changes: pilots who had previously only expressed contempt for the dolls take notice when they’re being utilized effectively, and battles become more and more difficult. The dolls aren’t just real threats again, they're a terrifying example of what can be done by combining human flexibility with mechanical efficiency.
Even as the ZERO System imbues them with new horror, in a strange way this shift in attitude feels almost like a redemption for the Mobile Dolls– even their strongest detractors start remarking on how this is the "appropriate" way to use MDs.
Instead of replacing human engagement, through the ZERO System they're creating a new vector by which a human mind can interact with the universe– an expansion of the relationship between human and machine. In other words, they've become tools again– man's first best friend since we came down from the trees. Weapons are tools after all, and as tools they share unequal agency with the user; even with degrees of automation, it is a human who lends intentionality to the actions of the machines, a conscious node supplying the impetus to achieve a given outcome, a source of authorship, ideation, and accountability.
—
As I have said elsewhere in this essay series: Gundam Wing, like the rest of the franchise, is a war story– but from a personal perspective, I’ve always found that Wing isn’t so much a story about war as it is a story that uses war as a medium to explore the intersection of competing human values and struggle.
In Wing, the actual, material causes of war take a backseat to the ideological reasons for conflict and oppression, which in turn are used to examine the ways people struggle to find meaning IN ideology and conflict.
(…Now, if you’re craving a version of Gundam Wing where the material realities of war are violently, cynically, and tragically returned to the narrative, I highly recommend Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, which is all that and much more. But that’s not what Wing is about.)
Wing is, at its core, allegorical– but allegory at its best is an extension of truth.
In Gundam Wing, the practicality of using exclusively semi-autonomous weapons in war is solely a concern of the oppressor– they’re very quick to point out the benefits of giant war machines in general.
Tuberov, the creator of the Mobile Dolls, makes many cogent points about their reliability and utility compared to human soldiers. “You can’t go into a war expecting to lose it” sounds like a fairly reasonable assertion on the face of it, FAR more reasonable than the lofty notion of OZ’s old-guard that winning or losing a fight is immaterial because the value lies in the struggle, and that automated weapons are the refuge of those who are afraid to die.
–That’s an absurd claim to make about war in the material sense; wars aren’t fought for personal betterment, and the vast majority of human soldiers who fight in wars are afraid to die. Taken literally in regards to war, almost everything OZ has to say is nonsense. Tuberov certainly thinks so. Tuberov is also 100% fanatically devoted to the idea that Mobile Dolls have transcended death and have granted him immortality by proxy.
The Romefeller Foundation frantically ramped up mass-production of Mobile Dolls the instant they realized they no longer had the safety and benefit of hiding behind the Alliance Military, and that their revolutionary forces were far more loyal to each other than they were to Romefeller. When they lose Treize as the source of cohesion, OZ’s ranks are permanently weakened by the resulting schism, making them easy prey for the next opportunistic revolutionary power.
The Mobile Dolls are, absolutely, the product of fear– the last resort of the powerful and rich minority who are over-extended and despised by the masses they seek to dominate. They are, absolutely, the violent tools of those who take no personal risk in the violence they’re enacting– that doesn’t change for those in power whether it’s machines or soldiers they’re deploying, but it certainly changes the balance of resources, effect, and attribution.
The various rebel fighters for independence, including the Gundams, do largely view the Mobile Dolls as material threats– one that can be overcome by fighting them on multiple fronts, using a combination of political and public pressure, strategic retaliation, and absolutely dogged commitment to fighting despite loss after humiliating loss.
For the Gundam pilots, it makes no difference if the enemy is a machine or a human being; an enemy is an obstacle to be overcome, no more, no less. They’re trying to get a job done or die trying.
But for the ideologically motivated OZ elites, their job IS to die trying; the Mobile Dolls are a direct threat to their code (*cough*Bushido*cough*) as well as their livelihood. The OZ elites have values– violent, narrow, fatalistic, exceptionalist, suicidally self-deterministic ones, but values. They are beholden to something, and while that’s not nearly sufficient to exonerate them, they can be trusted within that framework. In the end, all of the OZ old-guard, including the fragmented rebel faction, undergo significant change when faced with the inescapable reality that the institutions they served held nothing sacred, and end up joining the resistance in one way or another (...and for better or worse).
—
In the series, it takes both the material and ideological components to end the conflict (if perhaps not War Itself), but the solution to the Machine Scourge is simply removing the institutions that were inclined to use them.
Mobile Dolls take their orders from humans; they’re built by humans, and are used within the context of human needs. The machines stop running when you turn them off. Even the ZERO System only works when you plug it in and have a human interact with it. The frantic rush to replace humans with automated constructs is frantic because it is motivated by greed and fear, and in some cases, a genuine quasi-religious belief that machines are superior and immortal.
Of course, the more reliant you, or your society’s infrastructure, become on such processes, the harder it is to simply switch them off without causing calamitous disruptions– the same is true of most things people rely on.
"Maybe we can do that if we work together, Dave."
In reality circa 2026, we’ve been pumping ML and automation into our war machines for many decades. As of writing this, battles of resistance have been won using entirely unmanned machines.
We have vehicles that go so stupid fast now that putting a human pilot in them seems like a liability– modern jets are full of automated systems that self-correct, engage safety measures, and target much, much faster than human reflexes could. There are dedicated divisions of air forces for unmanned drones, sometimes piloted remotely by kids fresh out of school (predictably to the chagrin of actual pilots, even if the jets they’re piloting are more than half automated themselves). We don’t need to wonder what the military would do with this technology, because they jumped on the AI train at the first stop; they’re showing us in real time what they’d use it for.
It feels futile to try and speak about AI and the future when the state of things is advancing at such an outrageous pace; writing this in the beginning of 2026, anything I could say could become outdated and hilariously naive a month from now.
Strangely, I’ve found a surprising source of comfort and insight in Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion who played against Deep Blue in those pivotal man vs. machine games, whose relationship with computers and machine learning and AI has evolved continuously in a surprisingly chill way.
I am always reminded that knowing more about a subject is often the best way to stop being uselessly anxious about it, even if there are very real threats involved. I find it useful and hopeful to listen to people who are close enough to the technology to understand its effects, but not so deep in the weeds that they are overwhelmed by the development process and insularity of tech culture. I find it useful and hopeful to listen to people who can identify where the nuances lie, what outcomes besides catastrophe could arise, and who are not afraid. There is even an intriguing new horizon of augmented game play developed by the former world chess champion himself involving multiple teams of players coordinating with chess computers against each other, called “advanced chess” or “centaur chess”, the aim of which is:
“[...] increasing the level of play to heights never before seen in chess producing blunder-free games with the qualities and the beauty of both perfect tactical play and highly meaningful strategic plans; offering the public an overview of the mental processes of strong human chess players and powerful chess computers, and the combination of their forces.” -from the wiki article
Finally, I will end this essay, which is entirely about fictional anime robots, with some relevant quotes from Gary Kasparov (whose career has extended far beyond chess and deep into anti-Russian resistance):
Garry Kasparov: “We make a mistake in misunderstanding the nature of computers by adding human qualities to them. Machines know the odds but always work within the parameters that have been originally installed. There’s a fine line where machine intelligence begins and human creativity ends.”
[...]
“Since 1998, I’ve been talking about humans working with machines, how we can get the best out of them. How can we merge human intuition and human creativity with machines brute force and memory? How can we make the most effective cooperation between humans and machines? What is the human’s role in the future?
We have to start realizing that we should not have such high expectations for computers to solve all the problems. We need to add elements that could compensate for machine deficiencies, because every computer could be put to solve a specific task but it will require certain human intervention to make them most effective.
Transferring the knowledge from the closed system to open ended system will require human assistance. Machines will never recognize the moment when they enter diminishing returns. Machines can ask questions, but they don’t know what questions are relevant. So there is still plenty of room for humans to strategize and guide these machines. Machines are covering bigger and bigger territory but it will never be one hundred percent.”
[...]
“Humans still have the monopoly on evil. The problem today that we’re facing is not the Terminator. The problems today are bad humans, the evil that exists in this imperfect world, using technology invented in the free world to undermine the very foundation of the free world. That’s a real problem.”
-Interview with FastCompany, 2019
It’s never really brought up all that much but this is peak character design. If you showed me this picture before I knew anything about Gundam and asked me who I thought these guys were, I’d definitely say “mad scientists who build some kind of insane super robot weapon.”
Also, a heck of a narrative device. Five old dudes who shuffle around the solar system building robots and committing war crimes, only to slip away and do it again. Effervescent.
2002 Viz comics English adaptation of the mangaMobile Suit Gundam Wing: Episode Zero. Translated and adapted by Mark Simmons and Lillian Ols
I scanned and uploaded Episode Zero! The only other version that's available on Internet Archive is deep fried to hell and half of it is a re-typed dubious fan translation. Since this is such an important part of GW canon, I felt it my duty to provide a copy that people can actually read!
...And do you know what I discovered? Not only is the English copy of Episode Zero that we're familiar with flipped horizontally from the original, it's been cropped and resized. The Japanese version of Episode Zero is bigger, printed on better paper, and it's gorgeous. It's a work of art. The screen tones are subtle, the lines are crisp, the sound effects don't intrude on the artwork, the panel compositions actually makes sense. Viz did this comic *so* dirty.
Like, imagine the amount of psychic damage flipping one of your drawings horizontally causes-- now imagine drawing a whole comic and having someone flip the entire thing horizontally and cropping it by a few centimeters on all sides. If I were Akira Kanbe I'd have these people tried in the Hague.
Anyway, look how beautiful the originals are: (more under the cut)
Tokyopop's 2002 English translation of the Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Technical Manual, first published by Sunrise in 1996 before the release o
I scanned my old copy of the GW technical manual and put it on ye olde Archive dot org.
This is an interesting time capsule! It came out a year before Endless Waltz and Episode Zero, so some of the information doesn't match up with those later installations. Some of the English spellings hadn't been standardized yet (see: "Cinq" sometimes being used instead of "Sanc"), and the character descriptions are all over the map.
This manual also features some world building details about After Colony that I have never seen anywhere else-- either because we simply didn't get that many English translations of GW ancillary material to compare them to, or because they were made up specifically for this manual and aren't corroborated in later publications (...and sometimes because they're just straight up translation errors or typos). I love this, because it was branded as the ultimate fan guide to Gundam Wing canon (we didn't have fan wikis back then), and a bunch of the facts listed are strictly [Source Needed].
Also, the splash artwork by Hideo Okamoto is incredible and it's a crying shame they were printed so poorly.
(Scans from: @CharaSoon_ken )
Janky translation and dubious canon compliance aside, I find the history of events and nerd lore here to be really intriguing, even when it sometimes clashes with other sources; like the idea that Gundanium takes so long to refine and produce that the Gundams were in development before any of the pilots were born-- a very cool and grounding concept that would make a lot of sense! If only they'd used it in the series!
Under the cut: the timeline cutout from pg 60-61 so you don't have to tilt your head 90º to read it:
I am finally FINALLY getting somewhere with the transcription project!
Had to pay for a proprietary subscription service to go with the pedal, which sucks, and also the program sucks, and also I have to put timestamps in on my own if I want to turn these into subtitle tracks.... BUT WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!
The Dragon and the Knight of Rose
- R.Wesley Nipper 2025
Because I am a madman, I have rendered into verse the duel(s) between Wufei and Treize, with a medieval twist. Tallgeese II has likewise been transformed into a destrier of draft-horse size, complete with Gundam Barding.
While the poem was done last year by Christmas, the illustration took me, appropriately, one year and a day to finish. I promised myself I would get it done by New Year's, and here at 8pm on December 31st, I have kept that promise by the skin of my teeth.
My rendition was inspired by the original 14th century poem, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", but it owes its modernized ballad format solely to Peter Pringle's incredible musical rendition of the Green Knight, which is much more familiar for those of us who are unaccustomed to Middle English alliterative bob-and-wheel verse.
Some other influence included in the poem are Twa Corbies ("his hawk and his hound and his lady faire"-- which in this case I'm interpreting as Zechs and Lady Une), and a touch of The Highway Man ("Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat"), which I confess has always reminded me of Treize.
Technical Notes:
• "The fifth of five" is doubly relevant, as Gawain is known for having a pentacle, or five pointed star, on his shield, and Wufei of course is 05.
• "A lion Or" on a field of azure is heraldic terminology, indicating a golden lion on a blue background. (aka. The OZ logo.)
• Wufei's sword has what I hope are the correct characters for "Shenlong", or "rising dragon".
• The "shameless hunting horn" here is in place of the foghorn that blows when the OZ command ship circles around to challenge 05 to a duel.
• Tallgeese is known for two things: being ludicrously fast and ludicrously huge. Unfortunately, horses are sort of constrained to being one or the other, so I picked Hugeness over speed to represent its main features.
• No authors were beheaded in the making of this poem.
--Detail shots because tumblr insists on compressing the jpgs in a sausage grinder
Daytime Editing reblog!
Change Log:
•Realized too late that I'd posted the wrong version of the first picture (the important picture) which had some truly egregious compositing errors in the background. This has been corrected.
•Rewrote the commentary to be less like I wrote it on -18 hours sleep.
•Changed first line on page 7 to be "Christmas" instead of "New Year's" because that's what it ought to have been in the first place, and I don't know WHY I wrote it as New Year's.
You can find the full text of the poem over on AO3! :) And whole bunch of progress shots and extra details are up on my art blog.
A happy new year to you all! 🌹 God as my witness, I will never draw horses again.
