Originally posted by: MeroTZ
Originally posted by: gundamseed84
well the only damaged part of Gaia is that it has an opening at the cockpit...compared to the other 2 zakus it's damage is considered less..and the anime need not show u exactly that they are in the process of repairing Gaia to prove that it is repaired. The only Zakus available in Minerva is the red gunner and the blaze phantom..which both either lost their arms or worse in the previous battle against EA and ORB.
Hell, Athrun could take it out in the condition it was in. Sure, it might be unconfortable, and he'd be practically blind, but it would fly.

Much more likley, its been fixed up by now. They never explicitly said which ship the 3 gundams were going ot be assigned to, but it stands to reason that it could have been minerva....

Enter my next Crazy theory: Durindal set up the initial theft of the Gundams at the beginning of the series in an attempt to 'create' another Archangel...specificaly, by recreating the circumstances that caused Kira to put on the spot and become an influencial person, he hopes to turn Shinn into a very influencial pawn.

End Crazy Theory.

Anyway, its reasonable to assume Gaia has been repaired by now.
Personally I don't think that theory is crazy. I had been thinking along similar lines, except I was thinking he wanted to set up an excuse to take out the EAF. Then he had Junius 7 dropped, but sent the Minerva to desperately try to stop it so ZAFT would look good. Etc, etc.