Shadow Mirror
| Shadow Mirror | |
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Shadow Mirror was a group which came from a shadowy mirror universe where things had turned out very differently. They had originally allied with the Aerogaters, but when that group fell they splintered into their own faction, in the Earth Cradle. After being sometimes allies but often antagonists to Asgard, Shadow Mirror finally fell to a three way battle with Asgard and Unischtbar, and their reliance on the dangerous super weapon, the Devil Gundam.
Overview
The Shadow-Mirror are a special unit of the Earth Federation forces. The kanji for their official name translates into "Special Task Maneuver Squad." They are an elite group similar to the Titans in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. They exist in a parallel dimension, wherein several events happened differently in their continuum compared to the one they are invading. They serve as the primary antagonists in Super Robot Wars Advance, and also appear in Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation 2.
In Advance, for example, Vindel Mauser refers to Amuro Ray as a master sergeant, when in the game he is a lieutenant. The Vanishing Trooper Incident, wherein SRX Team pilot, Raidiese F. Branstein lost his hand, also happened in the Shadow-Mirror "homeworld," scaring the Personal Trooper developers there from designing anything resembling a Huckebein.
In both games that they have appeared in, the goal of the Shadow-Mirror is to plunge the world in eternal war. Vindel, their leader, believes that war brings about change and the best in humanity, so there is no reason to desire for peace. He defines peace as the stagnation in between one war and the next, causing man to become corrupt and weak, and is thus undesirable.
Operations
The Shadow-Mirror modus operandi is chilling in its simplicity: scout out any war-ready organizations in the dimension they wish to invade next, infiltrate the organization with sleeper agents, strike an alliance with said group, and steal their technology. If stealing their technology proves impractical or impossible, the Shadow-Mirror will attempt to use them as pawns to achieve their own goals. Ultimately, when they have gotten all they could from their victims, they turn against their former "allies."
The Shadow-Mirror are masters at copying technology, often building exact replicas of the units from blueprints, and at other times are able to craft original creations based on combat data gathered from their opponents. In the final level of Advance, Londo Bell is met with an army composed of mecha from the various enemy factions that the Shadow-Mirror have allied with and/or stolen designs from (nearly all enemy series in the game are represented in the last stage). In Original Generation 2, combat data on the Alt Eisen, Weiss Ritter, Wild Wurger, and Wild Falken were used to create the Rapiecage, an Assault Dragoon with weapon systems and capabilities common to all of them.
Shadow Mirror Forces
The bulk forces of Shadow Mirror had many elite pilots instead of several grunt units, and made the best of what they had by an eclectic and diverse core group of soldiers. However, after the fall of their bases, these groups have splintered off into the following new ventures, or into death.
Deus Ex Machina
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| Axel Almar |
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Mercenaries
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| Beside Pain | Nena Trinity | Canard Pars |
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Personal Motive
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| Fasalina |
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Returned Home
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| Dorothy Catalonia | Leonard Testarossa | Master Asia |
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Unknown
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| Corin Nander | Hildegard Reinhardt | Jessica Liao | Quamzin Kravshera |
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Asgard
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| Karen Dwight | Mister Bushido Now Graham Aker |
Wodan Ymir Now Sanger Zomvold Deceased |
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Dead
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| Gauron | Lemon Browning | Vindel Mauser |
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Technology
In Advance, in the dimension the Shadow-Mirror are invading, the Federation's mech of choice was the Metal Armor Dragoon, which was outperformed by, but less expensive than the Gespenst MK II. This was the opposite of the situation in the Shadow-Mirror's original dimension. In the dimension the game takes place in, the original Metal Armors D-1 through D-3 were saved from destruction by Ken Wakaba and his friends, whereas in the Shadow-Mirror dimension, they were destroyed; the data gained through the D-Team's piloting of D-1 through D-3 in the main dimension allowed for a vastly superior Dragoon to be built than in the Shadow-Mirror dimension, making them more cost-effectiveness than the Gespensts. They were still, however, highly inferior to the Shadow-Mirror's Gespensts, but the Shadow-Mirror universe seemingly had Gespensts in mass production for quite some time, considering the number the Shadow-Mirror had access to and also the existence of the Gespenst MK III, while the main dimension's Dragoons only began producing midway through the Shadow-Mirror's invasion.
In Original Generation 2, the mass-production Gespenst MK II M of Earth is an obsolete unit currently being replaced with mass-produced Huckebein MK II Ms. The Shadow-Mirror's mass-produced versions of these Gespensts, however, come equipped with Tesla Drives, a powerful, cheap propulsion system that grants increased speed and flight, and are generally superior in all areas.