Gundam Timelines, Explained

Universal Century

The be-all and end-all for many Gundam fans, this is the continuity of the original Mobile Suit Gundam and its follow-ups. The most popular and most dominant of the Gundam timelines, it’s where the bulk of the franchise is set, from the original show all the way to last year’s movie Hathaway.

The Universal Century is defined by the rise of the Earth Federation—the unified governmental power on a post-space-expansion Earth being ravaged by climate change, wealth disparity, and population crises—and its conflicts with various factions of interstellar colonial secessionists. The most notable, of course, is the “One Year War” in U.C. 0079 between Earth and the Principality of Zeon—a group of the farthest-flung space colonies rebelling against Earth’s control, usurped by the rise of the fascist Zabi family. This is the conflict in the original Mobile Suit Gundam that sees mechanized infantry, Mobile Suits, begin to dominate warfare, and a brutal event that sees half of all humanity made extinct in the opening months of the war that virtually every other story set here will deal with the lingering generational ramifications of.

Series and Films Set Here:

Mobile Suit Gundam

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory

Mobile Suit Gundam F91

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

G-Saviour

Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt: December Sky, and Thunderbolt: Bandit Flower