On April 2, C.E. 70, taking advantage of the chaos of the April Fool's Crisis, ZAFT dropped base facilities from orbit into the Gulf of Carpentaria in the PLANT-aligned nations of the Oceania Union, and built the core structures of the Carpentaria base in 48 hours. The base was completed the following month, on May 20.

Carpentaria base itself straddles the Cape York and Arnhem Land peninsulas in Australia. It is the largest and most important base on the ground during ZAFT's operation of Earth.

With the base completed, ZAFT now has a strong foothold on Earth, and can proceed to the next of their Operation Ouroboros; capture all Alliance mass driver-equipped spaceports and lock the Alliance down on Earth.