To Garfield's surprise, before he could even act, Patrick resigned as Speaker.
Patrick handed over all his responsibilities to Siegel while he himself focused entirely on developing ZAFT.
What a terrible teammate, Garfield thought.
Patrick did not even consider the consequences of his actions.
Garfield did not, like some villains in comics and movies, go and confront Patrick.
As a god, he would not concern himself with their petty thoughts.
Meer's situation would remain unchanged for now.
What Garfield did not expect was that although Siegel had obtained the Speaker position, he was still at a disadvantage in the number of council members.
The hawkish council members, led by Patrick, held a majority of seats.
Even with Siegel's efforts and Patrick's maneuvering, the PLANT council's resolution to gain full autonomy and trade independence remained ineffective.
The Earth Federation, unaware of the other side's true intentions, was deeply dissatisfied with the PLANT Council's resolution and threatened to use force.
Garfield had donated substantial funds and resources to Patrick for the establishment of ZAFT.
This led to a military standoff between the PLANT government led by Siegel and the PLANT military forces under Patrick.
Both sides understood that their current military strength was insufficient for immediate victory.
So while they engaged in verbal sparring publicly, they secretly expanded their own forces.
The organization behind Blue Cosmos seized the opportunity to sell large quantities of weaponry and cutting edge technology projects to the Earth Federation.
This resulted in numerous arms purchase contracts and weapons development projects, further strengthening Blue Cosmos.
Internally, Blue Cosmos used this conflict as a pretext to openly recruit members on Earth.
They continued their persecution of Coordinators, exacerbating the already serious conflicts between Naturals and Coordinators, and between PLANT and the Earth Federation.
To protect the Coordinators still living on Earth, Siegel and Patrick joined forces.
They used both soft and hard tactics to relocate those scattered across chaotic regions and countries to Orb and other initially more enlightened nations, gradually bringing them back to PLANT.
This conflict temporarily subsided.
Siegel Clyne secretly negotiated with the United States of South America and the United Nations of Oceania, signing agreements between PLANT and these two countries for food imports and industrial product exports.
Upon seeing these agreements, the Earth Federation realized that PLANT's development was heading toward self sufficiency and could no longer be controlled.
The Federation demanded the removal of Speaker Clyne, the dissolution of the council, and the complete relinquishment of autonomy.
Their aim was simple: to continue restricting the Coordinators from becoming a truly independent and autonomous space nation.
PLANT naturally refused, and a new round of competition began.
Siegel was incredibly busy, spending every night in his office dealing with various situations.
The only thing that gave him some peace of mind was that Patrick's ZAFT was powerful enough to handle the initial military threats from the opposing side.
At this point, Siegel had to acknowledge the foresight of Patrick's ZAFT initiative.
But he still needed to restrict and infiltrate it.
Old friend Patrick, Siegel thought, I hope you will not blame me.
PLANT needs peace, not war.
Patrick Zala, stationed at ZAFT, was deeply resentful of Siegel's infiltration of ZAFT, yet he felt helpless.
You can stop underhanded tactics by any means necessary, but what can you do about overt schemes conducted through proper channels.
Patrick had no reason to refuse such overt schemes.
He could only try to transfer those people to more remote locations and positions.
The Earth Federation's unreasonable demands naturally met with opposition from both the Zala and Clyne factions.
Knowing they could not achieve their goals, the council members, through Blue Cosmos's machinations, restricted food exports to PLANT, leading to the Mandelbrot Incident.
The Mandelbrot Incident was as follows.
A PLANT cargo fleet carrying food returning from South America was sunk by a fleet authorized by a region of the Earth Federation.
After this incident, Siegel attempted to resolve the tragedy peacefully, naturally neglecting the feelings of some PLANT members and the public.
Patrick seized this opportunity to poach some members from Siegel.
Little Pink Lacus expressed her worry.
Does Patrick not know there is a huge conspiracy behind all this, she thought.
He keeps pursuing force so relentlessly.
Sooner or later, war will break out.
She watched her father's powerless cries.
Although she had successfully become engaged to Athrun, her supporters within ZAFT were growing.
But these supporters were mostly low ranking soldiers and officers, unable to influence national affairs.
Subsequent events caught Siegel off guard and caused a significant shift in Little Pink's thinking.
All of this was thanks to their rival, Blue Cosmos.
Blue Cosmos, working behind the scenes, orchestrated a biohazard accident on the L4 colony named Mendel.
Their goal was to further sow friction and hatred between Naturals and Coordinators, and between the Earth Federation and PLANT, causing numerous casualties.
Fortunately, the powerful High Claw Corporation had previously manufactured a batch of biohazard resistant equipment, which was temporarily docked at Mendel Airport awaiting transfer.
After the accident, High Claw immediately deployed a large number of robots to handle the situation, allowing most of the personnel to survive.
Although the contamination was contained, the internal environment of the colony was damaged, making it uninhabitable.
The decision was made that High Claw would purchase the property at the original price and fund the relocation of all survivors.
After the relocation, Garfield dispatched robots to process and modify the interior, turning the colony into High Claw's own factory, a production base for some high tech equipment and robots.
Garfield did not hide his actions.
While there were some criticisms within the Earth Alliance regarding High Claw's actions, no major incidents occurred.
Within PLANT, there was no significant turmoil.
Patrick knew why Garfield did this.
After paying a sufficient price, High Claw upgraded some of ZAFT's ship defense and fire control systems.
Lacus felt her father was too focused on peace.
Through her studies, she had to admit Garfield was truly wise and knowledgeable.
She gained a new understanding, thanks to Garfield's teachings, of whether peace was built on mutual respect or on sufficient military force in the current chaotic social context.
So she went to Garfield's door with his favorite food.