Find your tribe in a Sea of Creativity
Inspired by a recent Twitter discussion, I have decided to write up a brief summary of some points from the first half of the first Zeta novel, as pertaining to the connections between former-Zeon personnel, the EFF, and the AEUG. (There's also a couple of details about the Titans thrown in. Although, the more I write, the more I realize I'm mostly just summarizing the explanations for how Char has been operating under his terrible fake name.)
I think Japanese copyright law diverges from the "Fair Use" clause allowed in the United States, where I live, so I'm not comfortable quoting large amounts of the original Japanese text. Most of what I write will be summary, but when I quote the text directly, I'll also put the original Japanese below and cross my fingers while furtively glancing in the direction of the Kadokawa main office.
Book One, Chapter Two
At the outset of the novels, Char is in Granada working under the EFSF as Lieutenant Quattro Bajeena. He's with Kignan, who knew him as Captain Char Aznable previously, and has a hard time remembering to call him by his fake name, although they've presumably been working together in this capacity for some time. It's obvious the two are up to some shenanigans their employers disapprove of, as they're sending reports though back channels to hide the nature of their activities.
An exposition dump explains that the Earth Federation government and military had both lost extensive amounts of personnel records during the war. "Former residents of annihilated colonies or soldiers whose units were rumored to have been sunk in battle found that their applications for reinstatement were accepted easily. Since even basic military academy records had been lost, soldiers' pasts couldn't be confirmed, and whatever they said about themselves stood as the only evidence that existed." (そのために、全滅したコロニーの住人とか、全滅したとうわさされる部隊の軍人であった場合、その軍籍復帰申請は容易に受理された。士官学校の基礎データの消失は、一人の軍人の過去の追跡調査を不可能にし、本人の申告 が唯一の証拠になってしまったのである。) Because of this, it's easy for "formerly enlisted EFF soldiers" who are actually former-Zeon personnel, to just enlist under assumed identities.
It's explained that those who were found, outright, to have been previously associated with Zeon's military during the OYW would have been brought to trial, but, if I'm reading this correctly, "by the time anyone followed up on (these self-reports), it was easy to avoid detection because there were (other) former-Zeon personnel who had slipped by (previously, and embedded themselves within) departments of the Earth Federation Forces. This particular form of investigation was met with implicit forgery and adjustment of data. It didn't even require consultation (between parties) or collusion." (が、それらの追跡調査をするころには、もとジオンの軍人が、地球連邦政府の各部署に滑りこんでいるために追跡調査を回避することは容易であった。その種の調査については、暗黙のうちにデータの捏造が行われて、データ上の帳尻合わせ が行われたのだ。合議とか共謀というものではない。)
Char had an agent acquire the identity of Quattro Bajeena for him. (I hope the agent picked a soldier with that name just to mess with him.) The actual Lieutenant Quattro died at A Baoa Qu, and Char's cover story is probably that he was rescued by one of the surviving EFF friendly vessels, then eventually decided to properly reenlist a few years after everything settled down. (The narration doesn't say that's his cover story exactly, but it does note that this is the common tactic.)
Apparently the Earth Federation is so apathetic to Spacenoids that, former-Zeon or not, all of them are kind of second-class citizens as far as the government is concerned. Because they aren't paying any attention to what's going on in space, they don't even know enough about the people living there to sort out dissidents from average citizens.
Char connected with Blex four years before the main story of Zeta started. Blex was already working with the AEUG at that point, and in those four years the AEUG had gained a strong foothold within the Earth Federation government and military. Apparently, their influence began within Sides 1 and 2, and then spread throughout the colonies, both amongst Earth Federation employees and average citizens.
The Titans were formed in retaliation against the momentum of the AEUG. The text doesn't get into it, but it's doubtful that the members of Titans are introduced to the concept of the AEUG as being a problem internal to the EFF. More likely, they're simply told that they'll be fighting terrorists.
Book One, Chapter Five:
Melanie Hue Carbine, head honcho of Anaheim Electronics, is explicitly stated to be the financial backer behind most of the AEUG's fun toys. Blex diverted some money from other EFF projects to build the Argama, lightening the burden on Melanie a bit. Char is not a fan of being funded by a weapons' manufacturer. Blex thinks it'll be fine.
Blex is legitimately concerned that "there's a possibility that Hymem Jamitov might become a second Giren Zabi." (ハイマン・ジャミトフが、第二のギレン・ザビになる可能性があるのだ) He notes that, "Just the fact that, at present, without his name even getting out, he's managed to snap up the bureaucrats in charge of the Earth Federation government's finance department, proves he's got the kind of talent we should keep an eye on." (現在まで、彼が名前を出さずに、地球連邦政府の財政部門の官僚に食いこんでいたという事実だけでも、その才能は評価する価値がある)
At this point, we know the AEUG has lots of EFF personnel colluding against the larger Earth Federation government, and we also know that Jamitov is cleverly manipulating funding and shoring up power with the Titans. The Gryps conflict, from this perspective, really looks like an inter-department battle resulting from a lack of internal oversight on the EFF's part.
Char got the engineering specs on an improved metal alloy for building mobile suits from a former Zeon military engineer and passed them on to Blex. It's not stated whether he got that info while on Axis or after joining the EFF as "Quattro." Either way, the metal is called "Gundarium Gamma." If you thought Wing's "Gundanium" is silly-sounding, then, "Gundarium" is… Hm. Anyway, they can mass-produce Gundams now, although IIRC from the anime(? or was it the movie?) script, it seems the Mk-II isn't made of this new stuff yet.
I can't tell if Tomino's narration is an impartial observer or a reflection of the POV character's inner thoughts. (I suspect it's the latter.) Either way, the narration supposes that Char's usefulness in getting information on things like Gundarium is what's responsible for keeping his AEUG compatriots from looking too deeply into the details of his identity.
Char has a conversation with a mechanic aboard the Argama which goes as follows:
"Will you be deploying without doing a test flight?" (慣熟飛行もなさらずに出撃ですか？)
"Seems like it. It's just like back then…" (そうらしい。昔と同じだな……)
"Back then…? Ah…!" (昔……？ああ……！)
From the mechanic's reaction, Char intuited that this man was also formerly employed by the Zeon military. (そのメカニック・マンのリアクションから、シャアはその男もジオン軍出身と直感した)
He also tells the guy that he has more than 10k hours behind the seat of a mobile suit and that he's only 27 years old. I don't know how many 20 year old whiz kid aces Zeon had, but this probably amounts to the same thing as handing the mechanic an embossed business card reading "Char Aznable, Red Comet of Zeon" in bright red letters.
I'll stop here for now. I'm doing an incredibly, agonizingly slow read of the Zeta novels, so maybe I'll come back and revise this post in the future! I'm in the middle of chapter nine right now, but I hope to finish the book by the end of the year, at least. (A very modest goal, but I am a very slow reader in Japanese.)