While those familiar with the Gundam franchise know a lot of its series take place in the Universal Century timeline, a lot of landmark titles do exist in their own pocket continuities - with Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans happening in the Post Disaster timeline unique to them. In this Gundam timeline, something known only as the Calamity War led to the adoption of the Post Disaster calendar and with it an entirely new form of government.
Protagonist Mikazuki Augus and his friends at Chryse Guard Security eventually get fed up being hired as mercenaries and stage a coup, this time forming their own unit called Tekkadan where they all call the shots. However, there’s a lot more to the Post Disaster timeline than what Augus and his friends initially think. And understanding some of this background information remains vital in fully appreciating the Gundam series.
8 Enter The Calamity War
The source of the “Disaster” portion of the Post Disaster Era comes from what’s known as the Calamity War. This is perhaps the central historical event that separates this era compared to other timelines in the Gundam franchise. At its core, the rampancy and dependency of humanity on Mobile Armor prompted the over-evolution of AI, causing a full-scale interplanetary war between AI-powered Mobile Armors, and humanity’s factions on Earth and Mars.
Such was the extent of the damage in the Calamity War that it caused the deaths of 25% of the population, making it the worst war to have ever happened in human history.
7 Finding A Way To Fight Mobile Armors
Due to the sheer power and evolved intelligence of Mobile Armors, humanity proved incapable of fighting effectively tireless machines. However, in a seemingly-losing battle, humanity did discover ways of fighting Mobile Armors using new countermeasures.
This led to the popularity of Nanolaminate Armor which rendered beam weapons ineffective. In addition to this, humanity also developed the Dainsleif, which is a devastatingly-powerful electromagnetic projectile. It’s for this reason that a lot of Mobile Suit fights in the anime are often fought using conventional weaponry and even melee combat.
6 Creating The Gundam Frame
Of humanity’s technological advancements that aimed to fight the menace of Mobile Armors, it’s the development of Mobile Suits and particularly the Gundam Frame that ultimately made the difference in the war. At its core, Mobile Suits are high-powered humanoid weapons designed to be piloted by humans, in opposition to the previous belief that a non-supervised machine can conduct proper war. Thanks to Ahab Reactors, these Mobile Suits can perform exceedingly well compared to conventional human weapons.
Interestingly, a lot of Mobile Suit frames were developed and intended to be outfitted with various armors and weapons. However, it’s the Gundam Frame that proved to be the most tenacious of existing Frames. Unlike the fast-paced Hexa Frame and the flexible Rodi Frame, the Gundam Frames are built to make full use of the human-machine interface known as the Alaya-Vijnana System.
5 Gjallarhorn Saves The Day
Throughout Iron-Blooded Orphans, the military faction known as Gjallarhorn has a commanding presence to the point where others consider their intervention almost the point of tyranny. However, the overwhelming power of Gjallarhorn at the start of IBO has its roots: it’s this same faction that led humanity to its salvation in the Calamity War.
Courtesy of Agnika Kaieru and other like-minded individuals, Gjallarhorn spearheaded the development of the Alaya Vijnana System and the Gundam Frames that ultimately made the difference in the war. However, while their intent in watching over Earth’s four new economic blocs was to ensure war won’t happen again, their modern rule was described as using violence to maintain peace.
4 The Era Of Peace
After Gjallarhorn issued the Vingolf Proclamation, the Post Disaster Calendar was implemented and peace was attained once more. This peace came in the form of four independent power “blocs” that divided the current Earth Sphere. These blocs are the African Union, Arbrau, the Oceanian Federation, and the SAU.
At some point during the Malta Conference in PD002, these blocs created a treaty that allowed them to divide the territories of Mars and rule them individually. This prompted their request to Gjallarhorn to dispatch a fleet to make this treaty a reality - something Gjallarhorn obliged to do.
3 Mars Colonized
While the current era of peace had motivated the Earth Sphere’s economic blocs to start redeveloping human civilization through Martian colonization, it did come at a cost. After all, Mars already had its own leadership prior to the Calamity War. With the Malta Conference and Gjallarhorn’s intervention, the planet experienced a shuffle in its regional borders, transforming parts of the planet into territories shared by the Earth Sphere’s blocs.
Unfortunately, this process forced Mars to enter a period of colonization. While not a lot of colonies were introduced in the series, Chryse under the Arbrau Territories was a prominent territory featured in the franchise due to its strong opposition to outside rule.
2 The Montag Company
Given how the end of the war created the Earth Sphere’s new economic blocs, it also prompted the creation of various companies to capitalize on the opportunities to conduct business. One such company was the Montag Company, a trading company that established itself in PD123 and was led by Clive Montag.
The company initially entered the trading scene to help promote a better quality of life for Earth Sphere citizens. This meant dealing with current post-war construction efforts until they managed to enter the infrastructure scene. The company maintained a fairly stable presence, until recently under the leadership of the masked man Montag and his dealings with Tekkadan.
1 Martian Independence
It’s thanks to frequent revolts and oppositions that the Martian colony of Chryse was given limited autonomy by the Arbrau economic bloc. However, Chryse’s movements also inspired other economic blocs to slowly loosen their control over their respective Martian territories. This happened throughout the course of PD205 to PD236, after the African Union also recognized the autonomy of the Martian Union.
Despite the implications these have regarding Martian independence, the situation remains unfortunate considering harsh economic restrictions when dealing with Martians. As such, existing Martian organizations such as the Chryse Guard Security, take odd jobs as a private security firm to make do albeit not as economically-productive compared to other Earth-based businesses. It’s in Chryse Guard Security where protagonists Mikazuki Augus and Orga Itsuka would eventually lead the coup d'etat to create Tekkadan.