junior

Actually, no it's not. Given that the fleet completely disappeared, the most likely answer to what happened was, "They accidentally blundered into something dangerous (possibly a Zentraedi fleet) and all died before they could get a distress call off." Now one hopes that it was something more benign than that. But statistically speaking, the destruction of the ship with all (or nearly all) hands is the most likely explanation for why it just suddenly vanished.

Not really. The reason I guessed that Michael is going to use that method is because it's actually a somewhat common method of getting someone to do something for you. It allows you to make the individual more favorably disposed toward you, particularly if you went somewhere nice to eat and if you're a good people person like Michael can be when he wants to. The request that he's probably about to make isn't a normal one. And it'll probably need to take place "off the official record", so to speak, so the woman he's enlisting will need to do it in her spare time (both because he wants to keep it quiet, and because he's not paying her employer to have it done). So he'll need a small favor to get it done. And a dinner date at a nice restaurant (and ONLY a dinner date - there's a good chance that nothing further will happen that night) is an acceptable way to "pay" for that favor pre-emptively. Late in the meal, he'll swing the conversation toward his request and hope that she'll agree to help him.

Must have been within just the last half hour, since that's when I last saw the filler message instead of stills.

I suspect it'll be more of a "wine and dine her and then beg her to help out" sort of thing. The wining and dining will provide cover for his request as well as make her better disposed to help him out. So he'll still get a date, although it may not end the way that his dates usually end. And hopefully a perturbed Clan Clan won't decide to crash it... ^^;;

I suspect that seating area was reserved. If you look at the camera as it pans past the balcony areas right before closing in on Ozma and Cathy, you can see that there are multiple areas, and all of them that are shown are filled in with small groups of SMS personnel. We can clearly see Alto, Luca, and Michael in one section, and the two sections to the left have a number of people with the familiar dark jackets and pants. Best guess is that the seating was set aside for SMS since Ranka is well known to many of the members and the SMS organization has helping with the testing of her singing against the Vajra. It may not be front row, but it's nice and private. I'm sure Alto doesn't mind that, and Ozma and Cathy were definitely taking advantage of it.

It sounds as if someone *cough*Alto*cough* is inspiring her to work harder, and it's the first time that she's had someone do this for her. It's also worth noting that Alto is probably the only person that she knows who would be unimpressed by Sheryl simply sliding by on her fame. So there's the double motivation of the usual "wanting to impress the object of her affection" as well as the fact that she's not likely to impress Alto unless she's working hard. On the downside, that's got to make her stay in the hospital even more unbearable since she's not able to get anything done.

Sheryl still doesn't know that Grace is poisoning her. Sheryl's complaint to Grace is probably based on the fact that Grace has obviously been going around behind Sheryl's back and working to promote Sheryl's direct business competitor. The bit with the pills will have to wait on Michael. It's pretty obvious that the reason that he asked Clan Clan about her blond medical friend was so that he could have the pill that he picked up analyzed. He disguised the request as yet another amorous pursuit because he's probably not sure who he can safely talk to about the pill. While he probably believes that he can trust Clan Clan, each additional person that he tells about the pill is another person who might blab about it to the wrong person. It also protects Clan in the interest that someone gets wind of his interest in the pill, since that way she honestly has no idea that Michael's investigating it. So right now, the only person who suspects that there's anything wrong with the medicine that Grace has been giving Sheryl is Michael.

But what does Michael have to hide? Especially from Luca, of all people? Just because you don't trust someone doesn't mean that you have to automatically hide from them. Why didn't he want Luca to see him in that specific instance? Edit - Regarding Grace's "alternate" look, my guess is that her body has prosthetics that she can naturally remove. She has something similar to a wig for her hair (except that attaches much more securely). And her bust is detachable as well. And the end result is what we saw in episode 10 and saw again in Leon's office in episode 17.

One thing I was wondering about - why did Michael freak out when he saw Luca climbing into the limousine? There didn't appear to be anyone with Luca, but Michael insisted on keeping both himself and Clan Clan out of sight.

I'm glad to say I called it. But still... That was NOT NICE!!!!

But my primary point is, "So what?" What difference does it make to our plot expectations that we don't know until episode 6 that Galaxy is different from Frontier? Kawamori and company trying to deceive viewers about the nature of the Macross Galaxy fleet until the "big reveal" in episode 6 makes no sense because the viewer doesn't even know that there's anything to hide until episode 7 (i.e. when Brera shows up). After episode 15, we know that every fleet is at least a little bit different. Frontier, for instance, is unusual in that it completely bans implants (though it's apparently not unique in doing so). Intentionally concealing elements of Galaxy from viewers doesn't seem to serve any purpose.

Maybe. I still doubt that the other two VF-27s are AIs. If so, then you would expect them to have helped Brera defend the Koenigmonster. But Brera handled it by himself.

That doesn't make much sense, though. The fact that Galaxy was a chemical plant colony as opposed to a bio-plant colony was revealed in episode 5. And the shape of the colony ship was revealed in episode 6. You could argue that the chemical plant information was important in episode 15, but that's a full ten episodes after it was revealed. In short, there doesn't seem to have been any reason to hide that Galaxy was different.

Nah. It appears that one of the VF-27 pilots (a female) asks Brera why he's not attacking the Vajra during episode 16. His response is a cocky comment about how the operation would technically fail if he got involved, since they wouldn't have a chance to test Ranka's singing ability... So they don't appear to be AI driven. It happens more often among South and Central American females, as well. So the fact that your friend is part Peruvian might explain it.

He was looking at her after she turned her face back to look at his. There's a brief pause there with the two staring at each other between when she turns her head back to face him, and when Michael opens the door. I got the feeling that if Michael hadn't shown up right then, then they would have started with a slightly modified version of the conversation that they were having right before Alto spotted the earring. Luca can spot a fold generator using his plane's sensors, but I don't know that there's actually any indication that he knows anything about the quartz crystals themselves. He's seen Sheryl up close plenty of times at school, and hasn't made the connection. Whereas Alto recognizes the earring for what it is the very first time that he sees Sheryl after learning about the quartz. Because, to borrow Brera's cocky comment, using the Macross Cannon to immediately vaporize the Vajra would have meant that the experiment that was the entire point of the battle didn't take place. For an experiment like the one that was conducted, you would intentionally choose a Vajra nest that had a small group of Vajra that you could easily overwhelm with just your conventional forces. That way if the experiment doesn't work for some reason, then you won't find yourself horribly outmatched.

The problem with your theory about the Vajra attempting to use Ranka to communicate before Brera and Alto got her out of the hiveship and killed the queen is that the Vajra's actions don't match up with that. You don't arrive, ambush a fleet, and then fire massive cannons at their primary vessels if you want to communicate with them. The Vajra fleet does the following - 1.) Defolds in front of the Frontier fleet. The Frontier military forces move forward to intercept, but the two sides are fairly evenly matched. 2.) Additional Vajra vessels defold behind the Frontier fleet, and proceed to fire their energy cannons, punching a huge hole in the Frontier dome. Ideally, if the Vajra wanted to use Ranka to talk, then they would have prepped Ranka beforehand so that she knew what was going on and what was expected of her. They also would have kept the forward fleet out of weapons range of the Frontier fleet, making it clear that they weren't initiating hostilities. And they definitely wouldn't have defolded immediately behind the Frontier fleet and fired massive cannons at the colony vessels. The entire Vajra operation is a very basic "lure the enemy front line away and then sneak attack their vulnerable high priority targets" operation. It's not the kind of tactic that you use when you're trying to initiate diplomacy. It's the kind of tactic that you use when you want to wipe the other guy out. In short, the actions of the Vajra don't match up with the idea that they were trying to communicate with Frontier.

Not really. When you stop and think about it, Frontier's position is completely different. Frontier doesn't have anyone brought up as a Vajra among its ranks who understands how to speak to the Vajra. Ranka understands how to communicate with humans, but the only Vajra that she's been able to talk directly to so far is the Queen - and the Queen initiated the contact. Ranka and Frontier don't understand why her singing affects the Vajra the way that it does, and the only thing that they've been able to figure out how to do is to temporarily disrupt the ability of the Vajra to fight. It's imperfect at best and only lasts as long as she keeps singing. Further, the red and yellow Vajra don't appear to be intelligent enough to initiate any sort of real communcation with. The only Vajra that might be is the Queen. And we've only seen one of those. So no, Frontier can't be blamed for the lack of communication.

Except that, as mentioned, the Vajra have made no attempt to communicate so far as we can tell. Even when they had Ranka in their grasp, there was nothing to indicate that the Vajra wanted to use her to initiate peaceful communications with the Frontier fleet. That was the most telling thing, imo. Ranka could have been used to talk to Frontier. Instead, it appears that they used her to home in on Frontier's location, and then attacked it with the clear intent to wipe it out. As I stated earlier, I suspect that communications will be established with the Vajra before the end of the show. But the effort will *entirely* be on Frontier's side. On an unrelated matter... Episode 16 has some interesting dialogue from Sheryl. She indicates that she really doesn't like to be confined to a small area. Someone else has said more or less the same thing, though the scale was a few magnitudes larger... During the scene in Alto's cabin on the Quarter, I got the impression that Alto and Sheryl are, at some unconscious level, engaged in a proud contest of wills. Each is trying to get the other to admit that they love them. It looked like Sheryl was making progress in dragging some sort of confession out of Alto before the earring interrupted things... and Michael... and Cathy...

They're actually just inside the dome. We saw the interior of one of the stations in episode 5, when Alto and Sheryl look through the telescopes at the ground below (and Alto just happens to see Ranka and Michael boarding another tube at the ground level). The tubes themselves (with their attachments to the inside surface of the dome) were shown in the scene just before that (roughly 10:15). Every now and then a sky shot will show a tube with a gleaming spot in it that's presumeably the transport inside that tube.

No matter why the Vajra are coming into contact with Frontier, the fact still remains that they're dangerous creatures that are hostile to everyone (except apparently Ranka) and attack on sight. The only fully-grown non-combat Vajra that we've seen so far is the queen. We don't have all of the answers yet, but the Vajra don't appear to have shown much interest in interacting peacefully with any member of the NUNS other than Ranka. If a peaceful co-existance with the Vajra is achieved (which, given Alto's constant "there can be only one race" comments, will probably happen), then the only way that it's going to come about is if Frontier successfully initiates communication. The Vajra haven't shown any interest in talking so far. For instance, when they were led to Frontier in episode 14, the first thing that they did was drop out of Fold Space and launch an attack on the fleet.

Of course, keep in mind that the domes themselves aren't constructed from glass. Though you can easily see into the domes from outside, they aren't necessarily transparent from the inside (except in the odd location, such as the observation dome outside the SMS headquarters). They're obviously translucent, since we can see things going on outside. But from what I can tell they're not fully transparent and obscure the view somewhat. With the proper setup, they could be arranged to keep a certain amount of light from escaping the dome and the islands.

There's an easy enough experiment to resolve that question. Wait for the sun to rise in the morning. Then look the other direction. Does the sky look dark? Get enough light in play, especially in an atmosphere (which the light will reflect off of), and it makes things bright no matter whether you're looking toward or away from it. You can also see something similar in just about any city, where the glare from the lights that are always on make it difficult to see all that many stars.

I would imagine that it's because Brera's tried to kill him a few times by now, and interfered in otherwise straightforward SMS operations. And then suddenly he swoops in, grabs Ranka from the Vajra after Alto clears the way, and gets treated as a hero. And he gets assigned as bodyguard to one of Alto's friends (i.e. Ranka). Would YOU trust the guy? Unfortunately, without some handy asteroids to blow up and confuse the cyborg, Alto currently appears to be outclassed. He's pushing her back out of sight so that Cathy doesn't see her on the monitor. You're not supposed to sneak civilians onto a military warship without permission from the captain (which generally doesn't include taking them to your private quarters). And if it were known that Sheryl were in his room (as will almost certainly be the case after this episode...), then he'd attract all the wrong kinds of attention from everyone who found out.

It could be the same voice. They are similar. But since we only see the VF-25 at the start of the episode (and specifically not when that screen grab with Antares Squadron takes place), I personally doubt it. Has anyone checked the list of characters in the VA credits yet? After watching the episode preview at the end of 16, I'm inclined to believe that the title is a reference to Ozma deciding that he's not able to watch after Ranka anymore. I believe the title is a reference to that. He's spent a good portion of his life looking after her and protecting her. And why is he not able to look after her anymore? She's growing up. She's begun her career. She's no longer a little girl. And the NUNS is pushing him aside (and therefore more or less taking things out of his hands). The title is Ozma's acknowledgement that it's time to start letting Ranka look after herself. I'm fully confident that she's coming back. You don't kill off one of the three members of the love triangle that the series is based around when the series is only 2/3 done. But that doesn't mean that you can't put her through Hell... And I think things are going to get worse for Sheryl before they start to get better... At the moment, I'm guessing that the bottom will be reached in episode 18, and things will start to get better for her after that. And no, I don't have any particularly substantive reason to base that on... Just a gut feeling. There's one thing that bugged me about this episode. We see the scene at the beginning with Alto fighting the Vajra accompanied by the VF-25 extra (I'm reluctant to call it cannon-fodder, since it IS a VF-25 after all...). But there's no sense of when he's fighting in relation to anything else that happens in the episode. The scene just kind of seems to be "there" without really fitting in well with the continuity of the rest of the episode.

Actually, one of them has a single line of dialogue during the scene in the screengrab. Don't have a name yet, and no idea what the pilot looks like, but it sounds as if one of Brera's wingmen is a woman.