Gundam 00 Early Design Concept

 Hey guys,

I stumbled on some interesting but ooooooold news yesterday and want to share it with you. It’s some rumours from back in 2008 and sounds pretty believable when you think about it.

Apparently, in the extremely early phases of development, the Gundams were subtly different; the names were also based on chess. Specifically, rather than being called “~Gundam” during play they would have been called by code names like “pawn,” “knight” and so on.

The names of course are different but, these early stage design Gundams’ abilities and designs didn’t change very much, even when they became the later official designs. In accordance with the common knowledge, the official designs of the Gundams that appear in the series were created by multiple designers, this was something that was decided from the planning stages. 

During the planning stages, from the scenario idea of “surveying a war situation and fighting” the concept of using the Gundams like chess pieces developed, thus, using chess pieces as a model, each unit’s primary use and so on was roughed out and solidified so to speak. Finally, in order to sum up the work for Gundam 00, these are the names that changed from the initial creation:

Exia / Pawn Gundam
Dynames / Knight Gundam
Kyrios / Bishop Gundam
Virtue / Rook Gundam
Nadaleeh / Queen Gundam
0 Gundam / King Gundam

Pawn Gundam = Exia

With close-range combat as its forte, it was designed as an advanced guard, like a pawn, with light-weight equipment for combat amidst a group of enemies. The idea of giving the unit just a small shield and dagger-type sword to make it biased toward extreme close-range combat was conceived.However, the pawn has another special ability, which will be discussed later.

Knight Gundam = Dynames

A Knight can jump around the battlefield, and can access places that other units can’t access; almost like sniping an enemy. The Knight Gundam was originally supposed to command the other Gundams as a leader unit on the front lines, given orders by the King Gundam himself. However that was dropped and Haro was put in its place. Dynames’ spear-like sniper rifle is equivalent to the Knight being able to make a decisive strike on a point.

Bishop Gundam = Kyrios

Possessing a transformation capability, in line with the bishop's movement, a high-mobility type can slice through the battlefield and deliver a surprise attack. From the concept of a "split personality pilot," in order to express the gentle and brutal two-sided nature of the pilot, the idea of having an MS/MA mode transformation was developed.

But at the stage in which it was being considered as Bishop Gundam, it was quite different from Kyrios. MA mode was a fiendish design supposedly more animal-like, with talon and scissor weapons. Obviously, they changed the design completely, but left some traces of the “brutal” past design with Kyrio’s claw shield.

Rook Gundam = Virtue

The rook is all about defence and offence, and so is Virtue. Among the ideas developed during the planning stages was for a "castling* system" according to which "King Gundam would have a guard stored inside it", that became the prototype for the hidden armour cast off system of Rook Gundam's successor, Virtue/Nadaleeh.

The parts which constitute the Virtue that protects Nadaleeh is all just armor, but this idea was different from the one in which Rook Gundam had another unit stored inside it. The Rook Gundam also was going to have the ability to resupply other units, but that idea was dropped (and given to Trinity’s Gundam Throne Drei) and they gave the Virtue an abundance of GN particles instead.


*Castling: In chess, there is a rule that, in the early stages of the game, the king and rook have a move in which they can switch places once. Strictly speaking, there are various more specific rules to executing the castling move.

Queen Gundam = Nadaleeh

Like the queen who has no blind spots, it has an extensive attack capacity, above the board (battlefield) this type dominates the MS below with its special grabbing capability.Originally with something like a "Psychomu-like ESP enabled Gundam" ability to grasp other MS units (not limited to Gundam types) as well as being equipped with wireless weapons which could be used as attack and defence tools (funnel[s]).

It doesn't participate in normal battles, but on the occasion that the King Gundam in the command centre is threatened and other times of emergency it materialises as this guard, even against countless enemies this powerful unit is able to annihilate them all. Like Nadaleeh it was arranged to have a regal entrance around the half way point and Nadaleeh inherited the Queen Gundam’s “hair” and feminine physique.

Initially, the Rook and Queen were entirely different units. However, when the scenario changed, the Rook and the Queen became one unit. The MS grasping capability was limited to target control, and was inherited by Nadaleeh as the "Trial System" and her wireless weapons were giving to the Gundam Throne Zwei as the “Fangs”.

King Gundam = 0 Gundam / Veda

The King piece is weak in chess, but it is the most important piece in the game; not something you want as a frontline piece. Loaded with a quantum tactical computer, this type is a command unit that predicts battle conditions and assembles strategy and tactics. It was planned as a “Gundam which has no offensive abilities whatsoever”.

Later, the war and tactical forecasting roles were delegated to Ptolemy's command system and the quantum computer aspect developed into "Veda," it was also established that the unit itself was an old type which wasn't active anymore in the story. However, it's an important unit in the story's beginning, 0 Gundam helped Setsuna in the beginning of the anime when he was a little kid, but disappeared to anonymity later on.

Alternate King Gundam = 00 Gundam

In chess, if a pawn travels all the way to the end of the board it can become any chess piece, except the king. However, Gundam 00 changed the rules by turning the pawn into the king; thusly you have the 00 Gundam. Incidentally, a trace that remains is that 0 Gundam’s name is derived from “Ou” (王) in Japanese that translates to king, so the 00 Gundam can be thought of as the King of Kings Gundam.


Finally
So there you have it! Well I don’t know if you knew it earlier than I did, but it’s still pretty interesting and new to me considering it’s more than 2 years old lol. But it is still from 2ch so it might be someone’s speculation but I find this info very believable! O:

Thanks for reading guys as always! Do subscribe you like the stuff I post :D

Sources: Here (main) and here.

~Fox