Christina Mackenzie

Infobox animanga character
name = Christina Mackenzie
series = Mobile Suit Gundam


caption = Christina Mackenzie, as seen in ""
first =
last =
creator =
voiced by = Megumi Hayashibara (Japanese)
Wendee Lee (English)
alias = Chris
age = 21
born = UC 0059
death =
nationality = Earth Federation
relatives =
divider = yes
aux1 name = Allegiance
aux1 = E.F.S.F
aux2 name = Rank
aux2 = Lieutenant Junior Grade
aux3 name = Mobile weapons
aux3 = RX-78NT1 "Alex"

nihongo|Christina Mackenzie|クリスチーナ・マッケンジー|Kurisuchīna Makkenjī is a fictional character in the Universal Century Gundam Universe. She is a main character in "". She is voiced by Megumi Hayashibara.

Background

An Earth Federation Lieutenant (Junior Grade), Cristina Mackenzie is the mobile suit test pilot selected to test the NT-1 "Alex" Gundam due to her exceptional piloting ability despite being a new graduate from the Academy. Her hometown is Side 6's Libot colony, the site of a secret Federation mobile suit R&D facility.

Chris is the neighbor and friend of Alfred Izuruha, being the closest thing to a big sister for Al. At the beginning of "War in the Pocket", Chris just returns from Earth, and is assigned to collect field data for the new NT-1 unit, which is "designed for a pilot from "White Base"". One night, she sees a young man sneaking around Al's house, and thinking he's a burglar, she knocks him out from behind with a baseball bat. The man turns out to be Bernard Wiseman, who Al claims to be his "older brother". Despite the rocky start, Chris and Bernie get along well, and if the reaction of Chris' parents is any indication, their attraction to each other is fairly obvious.

In a tragic twist of fate, Bernie is actually a Zeon soldier and a junior member of a commando team sent to the colony to destroy the Gundam Alex. Chris manages to fight off the attack, leaving most of the team dead. Bernie, the sole survivor of the battle, later launches a surprise attack on the Gundam in a lone Zaku. Chris launches to fight and is drawn into an ambush site, sustaining injuries herself and heavy damage to her Gundam. When the two mobile suits charge each other for a final attack, Chris impales the Zaku's cockpit with her beam sabre and unknowingly kills Bernie. The resulting explosion also incapacitates the Gundam. Al, who comes in a rush to stop the fight, only arrives to witness the result of their battle.

After a brief recovery, she leaves the colony to head back to Earth. While farewelling Al, she asks Al to say goodbye to Bernie for her. Al keeps the fact that Bernie was killed to himself.

Little is known about MacKenzie's fate after the war. In Char's Counterattack a scene towards the end features a group of people on a beach watching remains of the Asteroid Axis burn up in the atmosphere, one of whom is a woman referred to as "Chris" by one of the other beachgoers (who may or may not be a full-grown Alfred Izuruha), but there is no official confirmation that this is the same person.

In other media

Chris is tragically best known for unknowingly killing her love interest, Bernie. This is a powerful image, as it is easy to see similar tragedies occurring throughout the One Year War. As a result, she and Bernie appear quite often in other media that involves the Universal Century.

She is among the Earth Federation characters that appear in the SD Gundam G Generation series of strategy games, and depending on which title it is in the series may a) kill Bernie as in the OVA, b) convince him to switch sides, or c) not meet him on the battlefield at all. She is also a rentable pilot (i.e. she can be hired to pilot one of the player's mobile suits for one battle).

In the Gihren's Greed series of games, Chris also appears on the Federation side. In the OVA Chris was implied as being an exceptional pilot, and that is reflected in her statistics. Her shooting stat, for example, is well above average. She appears once research on the Alex is complete, but may be temporarily unavailable due to injury (as depicted in Gundam 0080). On the Zeon side, it is possible for Bernie to successfully capture both the Alex and Chris. What becomes of Chris should this occur is unknown, but it is reasonable to assume she is held prisoner for the remainder of the war.

Chris also appears in the PlayStation Portable game Gundam Battle Universe. Should the player choose to play as a Federation pilot in the 0079 campaign, she appears as an allied ace pilot in the mission 'War in the Pocket', a mission based on the OVA episode of the same name. In the mission, the player must defeat several Zeon mobile suits to trigger the simultaneous appearances of Chris in the RX-78NT-1 "Alex" and enemy ace Mikhail Kaminsky in the MS-18E Kampfer. After the player has defeated Kaminsky, he/she must, with Chris, defeat Bernard Wiseman's MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai in a field full of large Santa balloons. After the successful completion of the mission, Chris becomes available as a 'guest pilot' (she can be assigned to pilot either the player or his/her partner's MS for one mission). Conversely, Chris is an enemy ace in the Zeon side mission 'War in the Pocket', whom the player and his/her partner must destroy with the aid of first Kaminsky and then Wiseman. Chris appears as an enemy for the Zeon campaign in the mission 'The Glory of Solomon', piloting a GM mobile suit alongside Yu Kajima, but only after the player has destroyed all of the Federation mobile suits in the first few waves. This seems to indicate Chris's reassignment as an active service combat pilot after her recovery, although this never occurs in the actual series or the OVA.

Because of Gundam 0080's generally weaker Mobile Suits than the powerhouses of other Universal Century series, Bernie and Chris do not appear very often in the Super Robot Wars. Chris is often part of the player's forces from the beginning, and Bernie usually joins during the course of the game. They last appeared in Super Robot Wars Alpha, where Chris aided Amuro Ray in testing new mobile suit technologies at Cheyenne Base, the Alex being written as a structural testbed for the Nu Gundam itself, and Bernie (if procedures were taken to recruit him during the game) becoming a playable character after the defeat of Haman Kahn in the later stages.

In many mecha games based on the Universal Century, such as Encounters in Space, Gundam: Lost War Chronicles or Gundam Climax U.C., Bernie and Chris often have special dialogue when opposing each other on the battlefield. For example, in Lost War Chronicles, Chris exclaims "Bernie?! You're a Zeon?!" while in Climax U.C. Bernie calls on Chris to stop fighting as he doesn't want to hurt her. In the final stage of Climax U.C. (where the player must battle the main Gundams of the U.C. Gundam series), Chris is notable as being the only female Gundam pilot (It can also be noted that she has the weakest stats of all the Gundam pilots).

She is also the unfortunate butt of many jokes in various 4-koma comics based on the Gundam and Super Robot Wars series.