The Memento Mori is a satellite particle beam cannon that was installed onto the lower orbital ring of the solar satellite system in season 2 of Mobile Suit Gundam 00.
Technology & Combat Charactistics
The Memento Mori has the destructive yield of a nuclear weapon, and is capable of instantly vaporizing an entire small country off the map. The weapon itself can fire downward to raze any target on Earth (relative to the side of the planet its facing) or upwards into space from where it's stationed. Unlike other particle weaponry that draws power from GN Particles, it draws power from solar energy gathered by the orbital ring, which in itself is a staggering amount of energy. However, Memento Mori has several key flaws that make it a strategic weapon rather than a tactical weapon. The weapon suffers from a limited firing angle (approximately 30-45 degrees from vertical) relative to distance resulting in a cone-like blind spot. The Memento Mori makes up for this by anticipating the movement of enemy targets and firing at the enemy from long-range before the enemy can reach their intended destination. Secondly, the satellite weapon itself is stationary, making it a very vulnerable stand-alone weapon without the protection of an A-Laws battle-fleet. Thirdly, although the Memento Mori is extremely powerful, the weapon itself suffers from a long charge-up time, thus making it unable to fire in rapid succession. In addition, because the Memento Mori is primarily an area bombardment weapon, it is unable to target rapidly moving targets accurately and is extremely ineffective against targets that are either fast or small enough to dodge the particle beam it fires.
It's greatest weakness is its "electromagnetic resonator", a component critical to firing the Memento Mori. Should the chamber be destroyed or damaged, the Memento Mori's energy systems will overload and will result in a chain reaction explosion; the chamber itself is built under the right side of its hull armor. It's very difficult to destroy and/or penetrate its thickly armored body without superior firepower. In Celestial Being's case, the quickest solution was to use 00 Gundam's Trans-Am Raiser to create an ultra-sized beam saber to cut down the weapon(s). It's unclear how many were intended to be made, but at least 2 were known to be made.
History
Development
It's unknown when the Memento Mori was designed or built, but Innovator's Ribbons Almark forwarded the technology to the Federation for development. Wang Liu Mei was Ribbon's sponsor for the project in their mutual beliefs to Aeolia Schenberg's plan for planetary unification and preparing humanity into space.
Unifying Earth
Destroying Middile East
To accelerate the unification of the world, Ribbons decided to activate the Memento Mori to test its capabilities and wipe out the Suille Kingdom at the same time. A-Laws successfully vaporized the Suille Kingdom instantly with a single blast, nearly destroying several nearby Federation Army units as well.Later,Memento Mori was seen to destroy the Kingdom of Richera in a single shot.
Assault on Memento Mori
The A-Laws had plans to eradicate any Katharon base they can find. At the same time, Katharon deployed their entire fleet to destroy the weapon. However during this time the Memento Mori showed that it was not only capable to fire on Earth but also into space. It used this ability to destroy half of the ships in Katharon's first fleet.
The remainder of the Katharon forces were decimated by the A-Laws mobile suits defending the Memento Mori, until Setsuna arrived in the 00 Raiser. While Setsuna diverted the defending mobile suits, including Hilling Care's Gadessa, the Ptolemaios 2 moved into position to attack. After using Arios's Trans-Am to dodge the Memento Mori's beam, Tieria uses Seravee GN Bazooka II to blast a hole in the weapon's outer bulkhead, allowing Lockon to snipe its light resonance chamber with Cherudim's GN Sniper Rifle II. This caused a chain reaction that destroyed the Memento Mori and Aber Lindt's command ship.
Aftermath
In the aftermath of the superweapon's destruction, the Federation Government publicly announced that it was a simple satellite in geosynchronous orbit. This gave the A-Laws the leverage to take direct control of the regular army to enhance security, prompting discontent over a small faction of the military, who planned a coup d'état.
Break Pillar Incident
Second Memento Mori
During the Federation Army's coup d'état attempt, in which the dissidents occupy the AEU's orbital elevator, the A-Laws unveil another Memento Mori to destroy the elevator's low orbital station. Setsuna and Saji sortied against the second Memento Mori in the 00 Raiser and tried to destroy it with the Raiser Sword. However, they failed to completely destroy it (only able to severely damaging the cannon) and it still managed to fire at the tower of AEU orbital elevator, causing it to collapse. It was put out of operation (at least temporarily). Repaired, it was destroyed four months later by 00 Raiser.
Boxed
With the death of Wang Liu Mei (the weapon's sponsor), the fall of the Innovators, and the ESF disbanding A-Laws, no more further versions of the Memento Mori were built. While the weapon was powerful, it was a costly weapon delivery system and publicly unfavored. The designs were "mothballed", but unclear were the designs salvaged for different or newer developments in the future.
Notes
- Memento Mori is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "Remember that you are mortal," "Remember you will die," "Remember that you must die," or "Remember your death". It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose, which is to remind people of their own mortality.
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