I wasn't dead, just dead to the world. Hibernation is an important daily part of my existence, Onarax. You know this. =P

I'll leave the funnel queries to Onarax, as he seems to have them well in hand, but I can tackle the Newtype issue; simply put, we haven't worked out what they'll be like here. It's an original setting, and while we're borrowing mobile suits, most other aspects are being created by us. We've discussed Newtypes, and concluded that we will eventually have their equivalent for this universe, but we haven't yet worked out what abilities they will manifest, what they'll be called, and why they'll exist. Obviously there are other aspects we'd need to work out as well, but those are the big ones.

TL;DR They'll exist later, after we've finalized all of their details. =P