Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is set in C.E. 71, when war between the Naturals of OMNI and the Coordinators of ZAFT reaches the neutral colony of Heliopolis. Kira Yamato, an Orb civilian Coordinator attending the colony's technical college, is caught in the attack when a ZAFT unit hijacks four of the Earth Alliance's five newly developed mobile suits. To save his own life and the lives of his friends, Kira takes control of the last machine, Strike, and boards the Earth Alliance ship Archangel under Murrue Ramius. The battle is made even more painful by the return of Athrun Zala, Kira's childhood friend and a fellow Coordinator who now serves as a ZAFT soldier and one of the hijackers at Heliopolis, leaving Kira in despair at becoming the enemy of both his friend and his own people.
From that point, the series expands from a single raid into a wider conflict shaped by soldiers, civilians, and political heirs on every side, including Cagalli Yula Athha and Lacus Clyne. Mobile suit warfare, divided loyalties, and the growing cost of the Naturals-Coordinators war drive the story as Archangel crosses an increasingly unstable world. An HD remaster began broadcasting on December 23, 2011; it cut two recap episodes and introduced new and updated animation, a 16:9 conversion, and updated music.
