What the heck is a Newtype?

Cyber-Newtypes

TKTK Zeta

• ep 14: mention of Cyber Newtypes.
• ep 35: explanation of Murasume Labs goal: to create real newtypes.

In the year UC 0096, Angelo Sauper, a member of the Sleeves faction of Neo Zeon, muses on Newtypes after Marida Cruz is deployed in NZ-666 Kshatriya, a mobile suit equipped with psychoframe for use by Newtypes.

There was a sense of presence that that was beyond electronic signals, engulfing the sensor screen. Angelo looked back at the “Unicorn” that looked bothered as he continued to retreat, and had the anger of a prey being snatched away reigniting within him as he looked forward and said, “Roger that.”

“…It’s a job for Cyber-Newtypes, huh?”

He accidentally blurted it out in his anger, annoying him. The Newtype Research labs were used to create artificial Cyber-Newtypes for military use. In the past, it was said to be used for research on ways to create Newtypes, but in fact, they were experimenting on lab subjects that would not offer any ill consequences—said to be mostly underaged war ophans—as they ignored the ethics of life.

Their research ranged from injecting drugs, forcing ideals on them, manipulating and rewriting memories to manipulating gene composition to improve their respiratory functions. The results of them manipulating the human mind and mental capacity were that they simply created a bunch of useless people who were addicted to drugs. They managed to obtain decent results in their research during the Neo Zeon war later on, but the emotionally unstable human-like weapons that were developed easily became double-edged swords. It had been a long time since the Federation and Neo Zeon ceased such research, and, looking at the significance of how official records did not leave any traces of this, it could be said that Cyber-Newtypes was a shameful history that was erased by Man after the war.

Most notable was Marida Cruz, who inherited the best gene samples that were ‘enhanced’ and specialized in high mobility combat. It was said that she was at a level where the other Cyber-Newtypes could never ever match. So we’ll let a monster handle a monster? Angelo glanced aside at the RX-0 that was becoming distant and mused to himself as he navigated the unit’s trajectory to the southern tip of the “Palau”.

Volume 4, Chapter 3, Part 9 of the Baka-Tsuki translation of Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn available on The Internet Archive, with my own deletion and insertion edits marked.