Home > MBF-P03 Gundam Astray Blue Frame
In the anime series Gundam SEED's manga side story Gundam SEED Astray , the Orb Union's Morgenroete corporation built 3 Gundam Astray prototype mobile suits at Heliopolis, the MBF-P01 Gundam Astray Gold Frame, MBF-P02 Gundam Astray Red Frame, and MBF-P03 Gundam Astray Blue Frame, based largely on data from the 5 GAT-X series Gundams that they assisted the Earth Alliance's Atlantic Federation in creating. They successfully copied the EA's beam rifle and saber technology, but Morgenroete did not have access to the Phase Shift armor design, and compensated by making the Gundam Astray units lighter and more agile than their EA counterparts. Unlike Gold Frame, Blue Frame was fitted with only Orb hand plugs, and thus could not not use Earth Alliance weapons.On January 25, CE 71, ZAFT's attack on Heliopolis to steal the Alliance Gundams also unknowingly interrupted the Astray project. In order hide their progress, Orb's military decided to destroy the Astray lab. Coordinator Rondo Gina Sahaku, an Orb nobleman, disagreed and attempted to save all 3 suits. He uploaded specifications into Blue Frame's computer for use of a variety of optional weapons and equipment, including a high-mobility booster and an enhanced head sensor. Blue Frame was soon located by another Coordinator, pilot Gai Murakumo of the Serpent Tail mercenary company, who had been hired to eliminate all evidence of the Astray program. After being double-crossed by his employer (having seen the suits, Gai himself had become evidence of their existence), Gai teamed up with Red Frame pilot Lowe Gear to defeat him. Gai kept Blue Frame for his onw use, and the two Astray pilots encountered one another several more times, sometimes as allies and sometimes on opposing sides.
Thanks to the uploaded data, Gai was able to equip Blue Frame with a variety of custom weapons and equipment to suit the needs of his jobs. When he was guarding the Eurasian Confederacy's Artemis space fortress , for example, Gai loaded Blue Frame with multiple bazookas and missile launchers of ZAFT. On Earth, equipped it with a "scale system" backback and leg units for underwater mobility. The latter proved itself in battle against Gold Frame, in which Gai killed Rondo Gina. Afterward, Blue Frame was severely damaged in battle against rogue "Combat Coordinator" Eleven Socius and his GAT-01D Long Dagger. Afterward, Gai, Lowe, and Orb engineer Erica Simmons collaborated to upgrade the suit to a form known as Blue Frame Second.
Blue Frame Second had a altered head design, and mounted retractable knife blades in the heels and toes, which could be used as kicking weapons or as anchoring spikes. It also had fin thrusters on the shoulders and stored six "Armor Schneider" folding combat kinves in its body. Erica Simmons' contribution was Phase Shift armor surrounding the cockpit area, and a two-layer armor for the rest of the suit, in which the inner layer's Phase Shift activated when the outer layer was breached. Lowe contributed the Tactical Arms system, which completed the first configuration, Blue Frame Second L ("L" for "Lowe"). Tactical Arms was a high-mobility backback equipped with a 90mm Gatling gun. Tactical Arms could detached and be reconfigured as either a hand-carried gun or a 20 meter huge sword. Like Red Frame's "Gerbera Straight", the Tactical Arms sword was very sharp and covered with anti-beam coating. The second configuration was Blue Frame Second G ("G" for "Gai"), which replaced Tactical Arms with the Full Armor Phase Shift (FAP) system. FAP could, like Tactical Arms, be used as a high-mobility backpack, and could also fold around to cover the entire mobile suit with additional Phase Shift armor.
In addition, both Blue Frame Second configurations could carry an additional weapon: a mobile suit sized version of the Archangel class assault ships' Lohengrin positron blaster guns. This weapon was stored in two pieces on Blue Frame Second's hips, and connected into a single gun for use. It was powered by its own ultracompact nuclear reactor (mounted on the rear waist armor), and was quite possibly the most powerful mobile suit weapon of the Cosmic Era. Unfortunately, Gai did not possess N-Jammer CancellerN-Jammer Cancellers are a science fiction technology in the Cosmic Era alternate timeline of the Gundam anime universe. ZAFT deployed Neutron-Jammers to disallow the Earth Alliance use of nuclear weaponry. ZAFT also invented this device to cancel this eff technology, so the utility of the gun was limited. It did, however, prove useful against the huge experimental mobile TSX-MA717/ZD Pergrande , when Gai closed to point blank range (bringing Blue Frame within influence of the Pergrande's own N-Jammer Canceller) and destroyed it with a single shot.
