Gundam Seed- Alternate Plot twist

The Suspicious Colony

It is the distant future, and it once seemed bright. Mankind has finally expanded out into space, living in colonies scattered around the Earth like so many fans at a particularly poorly received concert. Colonies were also established on the Moon, but the general lack of proper gravity left it mainly to amusement parks and assembly plants for horrible weapons of mass destruction that would obviously never be used except if war was somehow declared between some of the many governments that had cropped up across the large sprawl of Humanity.

Most of the less-reputable political publications have been taking bets on which governments that are most likely to get into a fight. Even numbers tend to place it on the Earth Alliance and PLANT.

The Earth Alliance really isn't a government per se. Instead, it's a collection of different governments scattered around the Earth, while the central government sits around their headquarters in Alaska and generally pretend to be in charge while doing nothing of importance at all. Business as usual for a multi-nation leadership on Earth, really.

PLANT, meanwhile, is often called a fancy Member's Only club filled with hipsters and douchebags. While this seems a bit rude, perhaps, one only needs look at what the acronym PLANT happens to mean. Productive Location Ally on Nexus Technology. Not a single goddamned person outside the central government happens to know what exactly that means, and the central government isn't talking either. Indeed, the few times the question was raised in an interview, the leader of PLANT simply adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses and said that the reporters "just didn't get it, man, and [he] shouldn't have to explain it."

And honestly, the fact that the leadership is the stereotype that so many people claim isn't the only reason tensions have been rising so harshly between PLANT and the Earth Alliance. Another rather smallish factor is that of genetic manipulation.

In a scene that looked like it was ripped directly out of a really, really bad romance anime, two youths can be seen standing amidst a proverbial ton of cherry blossom trees. And true to bad romance anime formula, it's spring of some unidentified year in the past, and those cherry blossoms are in bloom, casting the entire grove in a shade of bright pink as a light breeze drifts through the trees, bouncing the loose flower petals so they slowly drift to the ground.

And deep within this grove, a boy and a girl are meeting for the last time before life tears them ap-

....

Ok, I've just received a brief correction from my copy editor. A pair of boys, who are best friends, are meeting for what seems like the last time. One of them, a boy with brown hair and purple eyes, was dressed in your average pseudo-Japanese school uniform. The other, the one I could have sworn was a girl, was dressed in what looks for all the world like a Girl Scout. But with pants. He even has that kicky little beret that the Girl Scouts have, this one a shade of green to match his uniform that didn't do much to cover the deep black hair on his head. Indeed, the green of his outfit actually matched his eyes, making him look a little creepy.

"Athrun," the brown-haired lad spoke up first as the cherry blossoms swirled around them, "...you really do look like a damned Girl Scout. This is seriously what they're making you wear?"

Athrun Zala sighed heavily, palming his forehead and closing his eyes in exasperation, "...yes. Apparently, my father's decided that Heliopolis is too rough a neighborhood for his precious son. So he's enrolled me in the ZAFT military academy."

Athrun's friend paused at that, "...soooo..."

"Yes, Kira," Athrun finished his friend's thought, realizing what he was about to ask, "I'm pretty sure my dad's crazy, too."