FC-YM-0101 Ex Nihilo

History
Unfortunately for Yit Carling, his faithful companion Mobile Suit the TACHI had been disabled prior to the Cataclysm, and the ships which had recovered him had lacked the capabilities to repair it. Only later, once the junk fleet had grown to include better-equipped vessels, was it able to be restored to an operational state.and even then it was jury rigged. However, once the Frontier Confederacy had begun to be established, he took time out to compare the technology from his home with that of the others he encountered, and found his Mobile Suit wanting in many ways. It was of no small interest to him that in other universes, the exact same mobile suits had been developed as in his own. Even more importantly, improved versions of many of then existed! In particular an alternative successor to his former Providence Gundam, the Legend, had been developed, as well as general improvements to the technologies concerned such as 'variable phase shift' and 'super-DRAGOONs'. Rather than commission a straight clone of these blueprints, he assembled the best teams of engineers and designers he could from the various disparate timelines and gave them a design brief: construct him a new mobile suit which combined the concept of the Tachi with improvements in mobile suit technology which had surpassed the former unit, with an eye to competing with the minovsky drives, GN particles, and similar which various different groups held up as the greatest advances in mobile suit development.

Design
Standing at nearly 20 metres head height, the Ex Nihilo is at once slimmer than the Providence in appearance, yet larger to contain various systems and weapons. The original Tachi's OCTUS system was redesigned into a system of 'striker packs' as was common to many related design families, and indeed the whole Mobile Suit was designed based on a core block system akin to the Impulse Gundam so that the top and bottom sections were as modular as that line. A Super DRAGOON system controls the remote weapons, as well as the individual sections of the mobile suit when separated. The individual remotes are another story; the recharging points for the four largest remotes are on movable arms, though somewhat simplified from the original Tachi; an SFR standard minovsky flight system effectively reduced the need for the backpack to function as a subflight lifter for use in gravity, allowing for the entire thrust system to be redesigned from the ground up. Akin to the Legend Gundam, the movable nature of the weapons allows them to be fired in atmosphere without needing them to be detached from the mobile suit. Two of them raise above the Mobile Suit's head, while the outer pair can swing down underneath the arms, all of then capable of utilising their beams as either shots or Legend-style beam spikes: whether by accident or design, it resembles the Dreadnought Gundam H when used in this fashion. The large remotes can also be used as verniers while still mounted (and indeed in atmosphere there would otherwise be no point in loading them with fuel). The four smaller units are capable of pivoting on the skirt armour joint to fire forwards, rearwards, or down as needed.

As Carling uses a DRAGOON system rather than the Psycommu one might expect of a Newtype, his use of the remote weapons is somewhat different to what some might think of as the norm. Rather than controlling a large number of remotes by intuition, he uses his acute spatial awareness and reflexes to allow him to guide a smaller number of DRAGOONs with greater precision. Thus, the Ex Nihilo has four large and four small remotes, each designed for a different kind of role. In a callback to the Providence, the hip skirt armour mounts a pair of smaller remotes on each side, with a single rapid-fire beam gun compared to the pair the Providence's larger units mounted. However, utility is added by the ability to generate a beam dagger sized blade at the tip, or penetrate beam shields and positron deflectors with the anti-beam coated bladed edge and point. The larger remotes represent a greater divergence from their predecessors; they are more akin to the 'Fin Funnels' of the SFR's various Nu Gundam variants (technically 'Bits'), in that they each mount their own onboard reactor. This allows them a longer operating time than their predecessors, as well as many other remote weapons. Their functionality is similar to Fin Funnels as well; they can generate a beam shield between a minimum of two units, though the shield width is limited to the length of the funnel if there are no additional vertices. The design and arrangement of the beam emitters along the length of the units allows then to either fire a spray of smaller beams along the one plane or a single beam of varying power and size, the highest output roughly equalling a 'scylla' type multiphased plasma cannon. There is no combined firing mode, but the manouvreability they possess combined with the scattering beam mode allows for 'beam hell' scenarios. Like the smaller units, the large ones can also form a beam blade along their cutting edge, and have an anti-beam coating for assaulting large-scale beam weapons, positron reflectors, etc.

The Ex Nihilo posesses various hand-held weapons in addition to the DRAGOON loadout. The standard beam sabers can be combined into a double-ended saber or beam javelin fashioned after Legend's weapons. The left arm normally mounts an improved version of the Providence's composite shield weapon system; it mounts a large beam saber and a pair of beam guns like the original, but in addition to this it has replaced the anti-beam coated surface with a refined version of the Akatsuki's beam reflection system, which glows a brilliant, pearlescent white rather than a shining gold. It was deemed far more cost-effective to mount this system on a shield than apply it to the whole body of a large mobile suit, though the body instead features variable phase shift armour. The hands of the mobile suit have lightwave shield emitters patterned after Legend, though these cannot be used if the composite shield is mounted over them. The Ex Nihilo can be fitted with a pair of these at once, with a unit existing for the right arm as well. The most important upgrade from the original composite shield besides the reflector system is the fact that it mounts to hardpoints on the arms and does not prevent the manipulators from being used for other purposes. In the hands of a skilled pilot (such as Carling himself) this can result in beam saber attacks on multiple vectors from a single swing. However, the lightwave shields cannot be used at all with this setup, without jettisoning or destroying one of the composite shield units. In addition, the "Fidelis" high-energy beam sniper rifle that can be equipped as a hand-held weapon is a longer ranged and more powerful weapon than the twin beam guns, and redundant equipment is extra weight to load the unit down. The "Fidelis" can also function as a beam machinegun, trading power for fire rate, at the pilot's discretion.

Like the Impulse Gundam upon which the core block system is based, the Ex Nihilo has optional equipment which is interchangeable with the modular backpack and top and bottom flyers. As an alternative to the extremely expensive METEOR system, the legs can be replaced with specialised unit fitted with additional thrusters and propellant, designed for high-speed insertion or long unsupported flight. Alternative systems are still in development, in keeping with Carling's feelings that modular Mobile Suits which can match the CEU's military are needed. This includes a flight pack unit which allows transformation into a Waverider type form, allowing for better controlled atmospheric descent and aerial combat. Similar to the Justice and Akatsuki units, this pack would also separate to be used as a remote unit for harassment, though it would leave the Ex Nihilo only handheld armament in its absence.