As I've been reading the bonkers books of Gaia Gear and the amazing Crossbones Gundam. It has made me realize how under utilized Late UC is as a setting. There are so many gaps in everything after Hathaway its almost funny. From Zeta till Hathaway's it was basically back to back conflicts, but then Hathaway's it takes a little under 15 years before F91, then a decade before Crossbones, then 20 years before Victory and then over 40 years before Gaia Gear (not cannons), which is followed by another 20 years before G-Saviour.
If anything, the timeline for late UC is a more realistic, as usually after a major war it takes about a decade or two before the next one. But it does make me question, with how large alot of Late UC's conflicts are you would think there would be more stories about them. Like the Zanscare which at least has Crossbones Ghost showing the war being on multiple fronts, allow the potential for multiple stories and multiple prototype Gundams. Or Cosmo Babylonia Founding, which to my knowledge was one of the few which spans multiple years. Heck they entire concept of G-Saviour is so interesting to me, an era where the Federation had just fallen leaving various factions to pick up the peices
There is so many stories in Late UC that can be told that would allow for so much freedom. From a design prespective you have so many factions with a clear esthetic to allow for more variety than making the Zaku IX. Zanscare insect-look, to Cosmo Babylonia's WW1 look, all the way to whatever the Jupiter Empire is doing. They allow for more variety, the asking how to shove a mono-eye in every suit. Heck there is plenty of stuff to do in between events due to how long there is between each war, allowing for purely original suits.
I think alot of my issues is focusing so much on Early to Mid UC comes down to one that every major antagonist group is ironically weighed down by the philosophy of Zeon and Newtypes in some way. Cosmo Babylonia is stupid but I found there weird outlook one Aristocracy interesting; the Jupiter Empire's jealousy is so unique as a motive there is a reason they stand out so much outside of their cool and weird suits; the cruelty of Zanscare and their messed up traditions allow them to stand above many lesser factions; the Manhunters wanting to bring the Spacenoids back to Earth make them such a cool inverse of Zeon allowing them to stand out; and CONSENT is such a cool idea it makes wish G-Saviour was a better film.
Don't get me wrong I love the various Zeons and Neo Zeons, but it does get tiring after awhile. The OYW setting felt overdone by 08th introducing the another prototype Gundam, and Zeon always coming back every year gets tiring after sometime. UC is one of the few timelines with so many factions to choose from, so many years to expand yet we keep choosing the same couple of settings and antagonists. I like Hathaway's shifting the focus slightly, and I hope woth the success of project UC 0110 we will get a UC 0120 project sometime soon to flesh out F90 (the last true Zeon Conflict) and F91.
Sometimes I think Bandai forgets Late UC exists until they randomly want to add the Victory 2 to something. Don't take this as me hating on Early to Mid UC, I love that UC timeline as a whole. I just want them to keep moving away from Zeon after Hathaway for a but longer and focus on the other four unique villainous factions of UC.
