In the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray manga the heroes actually help a neutral colony fix one to use for its intended purpose.
The Genesis System used at the end of the series was originally created as a laser propulsion/nuclear pulse hybrid engine meant to be attached to colonies to facilitate their exodus from the solar system & thus escape the conflict between Naturals & Coordinators, before Patrick Zara decided to repurpose it as a doomsday weapon & tried to use it to end the war in a more direct manner. We get to see the beginnings of this process in Gundam SEED. They wind up at war with a second generation ship of people who retained or developed a higher level of technology. The inhabitants think they're living in 1980s Tokyo, the 'best time to live' chosen by the computer that runs the ship.
