Throughout the Second Alliance-PLANT War, the Three Ships Alliance had been investigating the activities of PLANT Chairman Gilbert Durandal in order to determine his true motives. As they kept digging into Durandal, they slowly realized that Durandal was far more dangerous than they initially thought. The most alarming discovery concerned notes detailing Durandal’s vision of the future. This future, which Durandal called his Destiny Plan, outlined a new system in which people would be assigned roles they were best suited for based on their DNA. Durandal saw the Destiny Plan as the definitive way to achieve everlasting peace, but the Three Ships Alliance realized that in a world dominated by genetic determinism, Durandal would be its undisputed master.
When Durandal announced the Destiny Plan to the world following the death of Lord Djibril, nations reacted with shock and alarm upon realizing the implications. The Orb Union and the Kingdom of Scandinavia refused to go along with the Destiny Plan. Even as world leaders attempted to contact Durandal, the Atlantic Federation was already mobilizing its forces at Arzachel Base, the Earth Alliance’s last stronghold, for a counterattack. Durandal responded by firing Requiem against Arzachel, wiping out the base along with much of the Atlantic Federation’s leadership and its forces.
Fearing Orb could be next, the Three Ships Alliance led a multinational offensive to destroy Requiem and stop the Destiny Plan, only to face ZAFT forces loyal to Durandal as well as another super weapon known as Neo-GENESIS, a smaller version of the infamous GENESIS cannon built into ZAFT’s mobile fortress Messiah.
And so began the Battle of the Messiah, the final battle of what history would later call the Destiny Conflict.
