Been watching Reconguistia in G lately? Well, you should, if only for the great animation and fights. If you are, do you know what's going on? Let's just say "easy to follow" isn't exactly a common descriptor. Tomino's break-neck pacing and sporadic exposition haven't made the picture clear for a lot of folks. If you've seen Turn A, it's a lot like that, just turned up to 11.

Hell, I barely have a grasp of what's going on and that seems to fly out the window with the start of each episode. Hopefully this will help clear things up a bit...

As of Episode 5, here's what we know...

The Capital Tower is a collection of several space elevators (an elevator bank if you will) whose primary purpose is to transport Photon Batteries (fuel/energy) from where they are processed in space down through gravity for use on Earth. It appears to transport wealthy people to/from space as well.

The elevators themselves are called Crowns.

Between the start of the Capital Tower and the end of the elevator there are 144 "nuts" (named because of their resemblance to the type of nuts used with bolts). The one closest to Earth is called the Under Nut, but not counted as a nut, because it used to be a space station prior to incorporation in the Capital Tower. I'm not sure if that has any relevancy or was just a way to shoehorn in more UC connections.

The Capital Tower exists and works thanks to Minovsky mumbo jumbo.

Yes, G-Reco is directly tied to the UC era and Minovsky Particles are still a prominent part of how all the tech works.

Photon batteries are the only real source of energy on Earth. After they're made in space they're distributed in a limited fashion to countries over the Earth. Countries do not produce their own fuel and the supplies are deliberately limited to prevent bad things in the past from happening again (countries building up quickly, everyone going to war, essentially all the bad things of Universal Century).

The Capital Tower is located somewhere in the tropical region of Earth, probably in the Amazon.

The Capital Tower is treated somewhat as a sacred and religious place, ala the Vatican. This has likely played a large part in it's security over the years.

There's a taboo preventing the development of advanced tech (which is why the Capital Guard's mobile suits are so clunky). His Holiness, Capital Tower's religious leader/Gundam Pope, is violating that taboo to increase the Captail Army's forces.

The Rose of Hermes blueprints are assumed to hold technological and military secrets that've been long hidden away from the people of Earth. It's believed that their use brings about bad juju.

Whether you like the direct correlation or not (I don't) it's best to go along with the fact G-Reco takes place after Universal Century (just like Turn A). Everyone went to space, we had lots of battles, nearly all of humanity died, and the Earth got royally screwed up. Some folks decided the world would be better if it lived in a mandated dark age. Countries around the world are limited by the lack of fuel so wars are more costly, technology growth is stinted, stuff like that.

People have started to attack the Capital Tower because they want fuel, these people are space pirates! Dun dun dun!

For pirates they have quite a lot of resources, it's currently suspected that they're really a part of the Amerian army or at least affiliated/working with them. On staff with the pirates are prominent Amerians (Kilm Nick is the son of someone important and Aida is some sort of princess. They also appear to be getting mobile suits and resources from the Amerian Army.

Ameria is a country somewhere on Earth (I'm guessing the North America for obvious reasons) who is currently at war with another continent, Gondwin.

There's a continent known Izanellia (or at least, known as the Izanellian continent).

The Capital Tower folks, who've had enough of these pirates, have started to form an army, the Capital Army. Prior to that all they had was the Capital Guard, a much smaller and outdated defense force.

The dark skinned girl, Raraiya Monday, has brain issues relating from oxygen deprivation/high-altitude exposure. You did watch the first episode, right?

At this point no one really knows where the Gundam G-Self is from as the original pilot (Raraiya Monday) is still messed up. It has universal controls and connection points (such as to the flight backpack) but can only be piloted by certain people. This has yet to be explained. At this point they suspect the Gundam was created in a country/place called Towasanga.

Towasanga, according to an interview with Tomino, is a colony/city on the moon. There's also a settlement on Venus known as Venus Globe.

Ameria seems aware of a mysterious threat from space.

Kuntala is an insult dreamed up by Tomino. Generally speaking a Kuntala is someone who embodies all the negative traits humanity. Tomino may have said something about them being cannibals as well I'll wait to that shows up in the series.

Other Helpful Tidbits of Understanding

The dialog seems to feature a lot of nuance; insults that Tomino made up and don't translate directly to English, references to previous series, subtle self mocking jabs, and the like. Some of the subs we're getting are quick and dirty so that nuance is getting lost in raw translations. I imagine there's a bit lost akin to English translations of Russian novels.

What does "The world is not square," mean?

These episodes are worth a second viewing, to get a better look at the animation and to go through the character interactions and dialog a second time. It helps put the puzzle pieces together.

If you're not familiar with Gundam, and Tomino specifically, a lot of his quirks are going to be lost on you. They've just been exaggerated quite a bit. I like to associate Tomino with that age-old Old Japanse Man stereotype you see in anime. Intelligent but with a hearty doze of eccentricity, horniness, and a smudge of general insanity.

Speculation (as of 10/24)