Top 5 Penultimate Coordinators

There are people that exist who are not Kira Yamato.

Contains spoilers for Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ASTRAY.

At the beginning of Gundam SEED we are given the backstory.

Genetic engineering happened and that it created a new form of human called Coordinator, who were designed from the womb to be superior to the ordinary human.

Think as if they naturally were on the NZT pill from Limitless and Performance Enhancing Drugs by default.

Until it wasn't. Now everyone is a Super Saiyan..

Despite the fact that Coordinators are superior to normal humans, the only one that ever seems to suffer any consequence of being a Coordinator, or do anything appropriately amazing before the viewer's eyes, is Kira Yamato.

But there are other Coordinators.

Like, in general.. There are other Coordinators.

And they do things...Besides make stuff go boom.

5. Erica Simmons

Don't worry, I'll explain and it will keep you awake at night.

Unbeknownst to nearly everyone except for like....... 3 people and 1 person who was high when they realized this, Erica Simmons has indirectly played a role in nearly every major world changing event in Gundam SEED.

At the beginning of Gundam SEED, Earth was losing a war that it started against the Coordinators. Basically, because we were mad that they were better than us.

Adding to the cringe, on top of that the ousting of them from Earth made them work together against us. So... how did we get to playing even with them if we're not as smart?

Where Erica Simmons works. Kinda important.

The Coordinators absolute advantage in war led the Naturals to collude with Morgenroete Inc, a weapons manufacturer based in ORB.

ORB is a neutral nation consisting of both Natural and Coordinator populations, you know, all that freedom stuff. They will be...not neutral if you ask them real nicely and don't tell mom.

The G-Project was the plan that Morgenroete created for the Earth Alliance that led to the development of the GAT-X series, Earth Alliance's first mobile suit prototypes and the most advanced mobile weaponry type of that era going forward, with the original prototypes consisting of Aegis, Blitz, Buster, Duel and Strike Gundam.

Who was the mastermind that created 5 different Gundam prototypes with 5 different revolutionary weapons? You guessed it.

Erica Simmons is the godmother of Gundam in Gundam SEED.

Under Erica Simmons' leadership, her teams introduced not only the Gundam but also the technologies that were part of the Gundam - Phase Shift Armor, Volture Lumiere, STRIKER Packs, Beam Sword, Beam Saber.

Which in turn shocked ZAFT enough to not destroy, but steal them for themselves to reverse-engineer, leading to the infiltration of ORB - the first episode of Gundam SEED.

But that's not even all. Erica Simmons by nature also created the ASTRAY series, which was a split-off from the GAT-X series. When she discovered some noob was flying ASTRAY Red Frame, she pulled a few tricks and used the data to mass produce the M1 Astray, ORB's mainline mobile suit defense force and the first mass produced variable multi-purpose mobile suit.

Without Erica, Orb = No Mobile Suit Army

In short, the development of the most advanced mobile suit archetype, the creation of near-perfect stealth technology, the creation of phase shifting armor that grants near immunity, the creation of multi-purpose mission packs and the first mass produced variable mobile suit all could be credited to Erica Simmons, making her a revolutionary Coordinator of history.

Oh, and she also created Strike Rouge with spare parts.

Oh and she briefed the Three Ships Alliance about how the super weapon GENESIS works and how to defeat it, which led to it's destruction.

Oh and since she's ORB's lead engineer that means she also created Akatsuki Gundam which was data from Strike, Strike Rouge and Astray.

Oh and since Freedom Gundam and Justice Gundam were reverse engineered from data from the stolen GAT-X series she created......

Erica Simmons, folks.

Putting the C in Coordinator.

4. Selene McGriff

When we talk about Coordinators, generally the divide happened because it was nearly impossible to keep up with their talents, regardless of the field but especially in intellect.

Coordinators were creating some of mankind's breakthroughs on a level that was unprecedented and Selene McGriff is probably a textbook example of a Coordinator due to her mastery of multiple talents.

Selene has aptitude in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer programming and physics at 28 years of age and works for DSSD, basically the equivalent of NASA and is one of the lead engineers/scientists working on the Stargazer Gundam, which possesses self-learning automated intelligence and a self-propelling propulsion system.

Selene's assistance in the development of the Stargazer's Artificial Intelligence for outer solar system exploration will bring benefit to all of mankind and potentially the military if the artificial intelligence is embedded into mobile suits, which nearly happened.

In that conflict, Selene still stopped the battle with a weaponless mobile suit and a starbase without a defense line. Just tactics. With no military training.

Selene may not blow stuff up by at the age of just 28, she's making living mechs and making impulse engines for interplanetary travel. No big deal.

3. Gai Murakumo

Gai Murakumo of Serpent Tail is a different type of Coordinator referred to as a Combat Coordinator - Coordinators with proficiencies specifically tailored to combat, more so than say logistics.

Ironically they are created by the Earth Alliance to fight the Coordinators on level ground.

Combat Coordinators are usually psychologically conditioned to keep them loyal to the Earth Alliance and not turn around and become a threat. They are generally deemed to have an advantage over normal Coordinators in combat.

Gai was able to resist the combat coordinator conditioning and was deemed a failure. He escaped and became a mercenary to make his way through life.

Gai becomes the pilot of Gundam Astray Blue Frame, largely a close quarters combat unit.

Gai has shown precise ballistic targeting not too dissimilar from Kira Yamato, able to hit just weapons or areas of mobile suits with no sweat whatsoever.

Gai has also been able to find countermeasures very quickly against units with far superior hardware by switching to defense, testing their response, patterns and reactions until he can find a weakness to exploit.

While all Coordinators who are trained in combat are good, such as Athrun Zala, Yzak Joule, Dearka and Andrew Waltfeld, Gai works with extreme efficiency and proficiency and he works patiently to defeat his opponents with tactics, time and focused skill, rather than intense one on one assaults with superior weaponry.

In fact, Gai generally is equal or lesser weaponry wise than many of his opponents and has been shown to still overwhelm multiple enemies with relative ease, similar to Kira, despite having hardware similar to a base Strike with some extra weapons and minimal long range weaponry.

While other Coordinators play checkers, Gai plays chess defeating his enemies with cold tactics and precision attacks.

2. Athrun Zala

Coming in at #2 is our failed villain but excellent Robin, Athrun Zala.

Before Gundam SEED, though Athrun is the son of the leader of ZAFT, he showed great combat leadership potential on his own, ranking at the top of his training in the military, sparking some intense jealousy from Yzak.

Athrun is also already leading search and destroy teams before the age of 21, working behind enemy lines to achieve black ops objectives, showing excellent reconnaissance and warfare competence as well as exerting excellent mobile suit piloting skills.

In situations where Athrun fights on the battlefield, he brings a controlling and tactical element that even Kira listens to - Though Kira is the Ultimate Coordinator, he does not have background that exceeds Athrun's leadership and military know how.

Athrun is typically the flight team commander regardless of where he is stationed and most of his tactics are sound and execute successfully.

Athrun later becomes a hero when he stops the super weapon GENESIS from destroying Earth inspite of his father's leadership, displaying excellent sense of duty and integrity and even attempts to guide the fallen hero Shinn Asuka to a proper perspective throughout Destiny, knowing when to assume the mantle of leadership.

What makes Athrun good is not that he is the Vegeta to Kira's Goku but that his experience excels or is equal to older soldiers such as Andrew Watfeld and nearly every captain seems to defer to Athrun's orders on the battlefield.

1. Canard Pars

Ah.............Who?

During the time of attempting to create the Ultimate Coordinator, with funding provided by Al Da Flaga, they realized that they needed to create an artificial womb to allow more predictable modifications to happen.

Before Kira Yamato happened, many of these prototypes failed and ceased to, y'know..... stay here and stuff. But one of them did: Canard Pars.

Canard Pars was tested to his limits during his development stage in order to confirm if any of his abilities were higher than normal Coordinators, which they were but not what they were aiming for.

Disappointed, they called Canard Pars a failure, which technically, he was in regards to creating an Ultimate Coordinator. And so he developed an obsessive and totally predictable clone complex.

Kinda like uh...........nevermind.

At some point, someone who was not Gilbert Durandal or Quattro Bajeena suggested that Canard Pars should simply kill the only other record of an Ultimate Coordinator, Kira Yamato and since he is second best, Canard can simply be the Ultimate Coordinator. Kinda makes sense.

Throughout the course of this journey to kill Kira, Canard shows extreme combat aptitude and ruthless strategy, precisely disabling multiple mobile suits with ease, or simply destroying them by being a far superior pilot.

Other times, he sets complex traps and leads his opponents into them.

Other times, he brutally murders them.

Regardless of which tactic he chooses based on whatever his hormones are doing that day, it's clear that Canard Pars, despite not being an Ultimate Coordinator like Kira Yamato, is at least a partial Ultimate Coordinator - and far superior to any other human except for Kira.

Canard has a mirror image of Kira's rivalry with Rau Le Creuset, only Canard Pars is the villain and Prayer Reverie, an Al Da Flaga clone, is the good guy. Canard also wins his rivalry against his failed clone opponent, who also used DRAGOON.

Runner up: George Glenn but he's like, not really here right now.

Whether they changed the face of war itself, pushed for revolutionizing space travel, the good of science, or simply are the best at blowing stuff up, everyone on this list here impacted their time in Cosmic Era in far reaching ways.

Without being Kira Yamato.