RGX-780 Gundam Unit Alpha

The RGX-780 Gundam (aka Unit Alpha) is the titular mobile suit of Mobile Suit Gundam Alpha. Part of the Galactic Federation's Project V, it was built in secret on Earth and then transported to the space colony Shangri-La for field testing. Alongside its brethren, the RGX-780 Gundam "Unit Beta" and RGX-780 Gundam "Unit Gamma", Unit Alpha would turn the tide of war in favor of the Galactic Federation during the First Galactic War. The unit was primarily piloted by Amuro Ray.

Appearance
Generally looks like an even more futuristic of the original RX-78-2 Gundam (Hajime Katoki Version). Colors are originally grey with navy blue highlights, but are soon replaced with pure white with red highlights. Amuro's trademark red "A" is stenciled into the left shoulder.

Technology & Combat Characteristics
The Gundam was incredibly advanced for its time. Designed as a high-mobility close-combat mobile suit, which was a contrary stance to the Federation's original ideal on mobile suits being artillery and fire support units, it was incredibly fast and mobile, capable of outpacing a ZMS-006 Zaku with ease. Beside this, the Gundam was also the first to feature several new technologies, as well as major innovations of already existing technologies, developed by the Federation. While its armor and construction were generally standard practice, it carried a large and varied weapons loadout, all of which gave the Gundam great offensive capability.

The Gundam would engage in most battles with its Hyper Beam Rifle, making it the first Mobile Suit to have firepower equivalent to a battleship beam cannon. In addition, it made use of two Beam Sabers, blades of focused beam energy which could cut through any metal with ease. The beam sabers' blade length was also variable, allowing pilots to wield them as daggers if necessary.

For heavy artillery, the Gundam could be equipped with a Beam Bazooka, a weapon reverse engineered from Zeon technology. In addition, its head was outfitted with a pair of small Beam Vulcans, providing it with a last resort weapon as well as a way of attacking light-armored craft without wasting energy from its more powerful armaments. Lastly, it wielded a pair of high energy Beam Shields in its forearms, which would offer it a defense against enemy attacks that its armored chasis could not.

In terms of technology, the Gundam was the first mobile suit equipped with the revolutionary Psi System, giving it a huge edge against conventionally controlled units, though the system could only be utilized by a Newtype pilot. In addition, its joints were given a special Magnetic Coating, which granted the Gundam the extraordinary reaction time required for its intended controller.

Armaments

 * M242 Beam Vulcan: Standard weapons for Federation mobile suits descending from the Guncannon line, beam vulcans were miniature beam machine guns stored on the sides of the Gundam's head. Having the greatest rate of fire of all the Gundam's weapons these are primarily used to ward off advancing enemies, shoot down missiles or hit other fast moving targets. They also made good use as an anti-spacecraft and anti-personnel weapons. The vulcans however had a hard time piercing heavier armor (though they had shown the ability to do severe damage to mobile suits if fired at close range) and thus were not often used against larger, more heavily armored foes. Still the vulcans were useful in preserving energy for the Gundam's more powerful weapons such as the Beam Rifle.


 * MI98 Beam Gauntlet: Unique close-range weapons mounted within the Gundam's palms. Essentially hand mounted beam cannons, the beam gauntlets release powerful energy discharges, which can either act as a beam shot or be directed across the Gundam's hand manipulators to superheat them, giving them the destructive power and defensive measure of a beam saber. As such, they are either used as one shot striking weapons against targeted units or used as back up melee weapons in case the beam sabers are otherwise unavailable.


 * MSD900 Beam Shield: Though beam shields have long since become standard weapons among mobile suits, the Gundam is the first MS to be equipped with two of them at once (each mounted in both forearms). These weapons are self-explanatory as their main function is to generate a plane of energy over the Gundam's arms, similar to the blade of a beam saber. They are powerful enough to deflect most types of attacks, though higher powered weapons, such as warship cannons, are more than capable of overwhelming and breaking through the shields.


 * SS892N Beam Saber: The Gundam was the first mobile suit to ever use a full beam-oriented melee weapon. The sabers are stored on the backpack. When activated, the hilts generate a focused blade of beam energy; this is revolutionary compared to standard melee weapons at that point (namely the Zaku's beam axe), which could only generate a beam "edge" over a designated area. The blades can be shortened or lengthened at the pilot's command, allowing them to be utilized as daggers when necessary. Once activated, beam sabers do not rely on the mobile suit's reactor and can be thrown or discarded as decoys. The beam saber is most often used for close range combat or as an emergency weapon once all others have been depleted or lost.


 * M500BR Hyper Beam Rifle: A revolutionary weapon for its time, the hyper beam rifle is the primary weapon used by the Gundam. Though beam gunnery weapons had long been utilized by mobile suits, the hyper beam rifle, as its name suggests, contains an enhanced power system not previously seen among such weapons. As such, the hyper beam rifle possesses firepower equivalent to that of a battleship's main cannons, alongside the range to match. And as a bonus feature, the HBR contains a special "Buster Mode", in which the rifle's entire energy supply is focused onto a single shot; the result is a huge blast like that of a beam cannon, which measures out at 150 meters in diameter and also an electromagnetic field effect. This mode is especially useful against multiple attackers or larger targets such as warships, but once the shot is fired, the beam rifle must go through a recharge period (provided that it can siphon energy from the Gundam's onboard Apollo Reactor) before it can be useable again.


 * M571K Beam Bazooka:Similar to the Zaku's Beam Bazooka, the the Gundam's Beam Bazooka was a heavy weapon meant for long-range artillery. Technically a large beam cannon, it could fire several blasts to attack targets at long range. While very powerful the beam bazooka had a slow rate of fire and could deplete its energy supply in only a few shots. Most often used to take out slow, heavily armored targets, as well as large obstructions such as asteroids or debris.

System Features

 * Psi System Mark I: The Gundam was one of the fastest and most powerful MS ever created thanks to its innovative control system: the Psi System. Rather than a direct, manual system, the Psi System is a technology that absorbs the brainwave of a pilot and transforms them into machine code for controlling the mobile suit, which is accomplished through a number atom-sized receptors built into the of the metal frame of a mobile suit. This allows a pilot to control the mobile suit as if it were his/her own body, though with some limitations.
 * Beside this "basic" ability, the Psi System has another power: by absorbing the intense emotions of the mobile suit pilots, the Psi System is capable of manifesting these emotions into the physical plane as raw physical energy. Referred to as a Psi Field, the energy can be used in a multitude of ways by the pilot, from greatly enhancing the Gundam's base capabilities to functioning as offensive and defensive weapons to even warping physical space itself. As such, Psi Field is a phenomenon that greatly deviates from the laws of physics, such that even the Psi System's designers at Augusta Labs are unable to provide an explanation on it.
 * But despite the effectiveness of this design, it is not without flaw: the Psi System can only be utilized by a Newtype pilot, as Newtypes are the only human beings capable of broadcasting their mental energies past their physical forms. Despite this however, it is possible for "normal" Oldtypes to utilize the Gundam itself as a baseline mobile suit, albeit the Gundam's great performance still requires superior reaction time and mental strength to handle the physical stresses, thus making it almost impossible for most pilots to utilize anyway.

History
From the onset, the Galactic Federation created four Gundam prototypes, each designated by a letter in the Greek Alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. All four prototypes generally share a similar design and capabilities, but at the same time each have unique features that made them discernable from each other. The first prototype, Unit Alpha, was assigned to the son of Project V's director Thomas Ray, Lieutenant Junior Grade Amuro Ray, who worked with his father in Project V as a test pilot. After completing preliminary testing on Earth, Amuro and Unit Alpha were sent to the Shangri-La mining colony at the Outer Rim to field test the Gundam in mock combat, alongside Units Beta and Gamma.

However, the Zeon would catch word of three new Federation mobile suits being tested at Shangri-La, and so deployed a cruiser force led by Commander Char Aznable, aka the "Red Comet", to either capture or destroy them. While the force desolated the Federation garrison there, Amuro managed to fend off the attack and was soon transferred to the fleet carrier Ark Royal. Amuro Ray would continue to serve as Unit Alpha's pilot for the remainder of the war, joining the 105th Mobile Suit Squadron "Shrikes" of the Ark Royal''s 13th Carrier Assault Group, in which Amuro served as Shrike Three. Eventually, the combat data collected from Unit Alpha and its siblings would lead to the Federation to develop a new frontline mobile suit series: the GM.

As with its siblings, Unit Alpha's service record - and that of Amuro Ray - would continually draw the attention of the Zeon Empire - namely Char Aznable - all the way to the end of the war. At that point, Unit Alpha would finally be destroyed at the Battle of Zeon (the planet) in a dual against Char, who was piloting the prototype Newtype oriented mobile suit ZMSN-001 Zeong, though both Amuro and Char would survive that fight and the battle itself. As fate would have it, both Amuro Ray and Unit Alpha would become legends during and after the war, with Amuro earning the nickname "White Devil" by the Zeon forces for both his Gundam's unique color scheme and his great power.