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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    This one lost a bit of its context when I got merged into the thread. It was originally a standalone post. IIRC @Swann was comparing it to the cover of the KISS album Dynasty? Not quite a weirdest places reference but more a weird reference in Macross.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    So... "What is Starfleet?" Huh, so the specs of the Constitution-class appear to have been definitively revised. They've decided to go official with the idea that the Enterprise was the Federation flagship even in Pike's time. Previously the first Enterprise to be actually established as the flagship was the Enterprise-D. They've also radically enlarged her. She's 442.6m long now instead of 289m. Pike's Enterprise is about the same size as an Excelsior-class ship now. We get to see Lt. Ortegas's quarters. Seems she's a bit of a gearhead. There's what looks like a small model turbine engine on her desk, a partially disassembled motorbike behind her, and her room is dominated by what looks to be a totally unmodified Husky heavy duty brand 52" wheeled toolchest from Home Depot. I am about 13 minutes into "What is Starfleet?" and this may be the first episode of Strange New Worlds to lose me. This episode's framing device is just plain unpleasant. You'd think a Federation news reporter would be above this kind of painful-to-look-at yellow journalism. Especially about his own sister's ship and career! Ending the episode's A-plot on a threat feels kind of off-message... There's a deep deep cut at 37:11. We see Number One tucking into a tray of those memetically infamous cubes of what look like play-doh from the ambassadorial reception in TOS "Journey to Babel". Definitely the weakest episode of the season so far... and a strong contender to unseat "The Serene Squall" as the worst episode of the series to date IMO.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, some of those deliberately-alien spellings are downright awful. Probably not. The original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series had a much wider array of sizes for Zentradi soldiers, but it wasn't super great at keeping them in scale with each other. A lot of the background Zentradi seen near VF-1s tended to get drawn around 12-13m tall instead of the 10m they were supposed to be. They were much better about it in the movie. They run the gamut from Milia at a humble 8.55m all the way up to Vrlitwhai at 13.54m and Boddole Zer standing a full head taller than him (~16-17m?). Scale 'em down to Human size the same way they do Milia, and the Commander-type Zentradi are still giants. Quamzin would be 237cm (7'9"), Vrlitwhai would be 271cm (8'11"), and Boddole Zer would be around 320cm (10'6"). If basketball is still played in the Macross universe, there has to be a Zentradi-only league because that's just plain unfair.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    One of the many details that changed between the first Star Trek pilot "The Cage" and the series proper was the size of the Enterprise's crew. Captain Pike mentions the Enterprise's crew as being 203 people (excluding himself) in "The Cage". When the subject of the size of the Enterprise's crew comes up in the first season episode "Charlie X", Captain Kirk's Enterprise is said to have a crew of 428. They stuck with that number for the rest of the series and most of the movies. Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ran with the numbers from that original series pilot episode as the normal crew of the Enterprise during Pike's era.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Sanity check... I somehow missed that among all the things going on in the episode, and it seems like a fairly important point that probably should have been obvious to the viewer.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Hm... it depends on what LEDs they've chosen, but in theory a stack of 8 AG4s should be able to run LEDs like this for maybe a week or so of continuous operation. I'd assume most collectors won't leave the LEDs on continuously, so it hopefully shouldn't be a problem.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    After a bit of poking around Pose+'s website, it looks like it takes LR626 or AG4 button batteries. CollectorsBase's website says it takes eight of them. (A ten pack's like five bucks on Amazon, so not too bad.)
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Bless you for your diligence. 😁 He's a good head shorter than Vrlitwhai and the VF-1 Valkyrie even in the original TV series: The statistically average Zentradi soldier is supposed to be around Exsedol's size in this image at ~10m, though that's a round order average cited in a bunch of different titles and quite a few of the ones listed are actually shorter (with Milia being a mere 8.55m) or taller (e.g. Klan, our poster child for inconsistently rendered height). DYRL? does a much better job of drawing the rank-and-file Zentradi in correct scale to the VF-1 and it also made several characters explicitly shorter. Look at how sharply Vrlitwhai closed the size gap between himself and Exsedol, who stayed the same height in the movie version: It wouldn't be at all surprising if he got a bit shorter in the movie version the same way Vrlitwhai did. Even if he has probably been downgraded from the stuff of basketball legend to merely taller than average, his bios in the Macross: Do You Remember Love? Data Bank, This is Animation: the Select #11, and Macross Chronicle all still describe him as being a Commander-class Zentradi though.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    That happens a lot in Star Trek for some reason. Presumably a symptom of The Main Characters Do Everything. It's been particularly egregious in Kurtzman's Trek though, with just a handful of baddies somehow capturing a ship with a crew of hundreds effortlessly. EDIT: In hindsight, this is probably borderline excusable in Star Trek: Discovery since the ship is both very large and literally larger on the inside after the 32nd century refit and has a crew of less that 150 compared to the 200+ on Pike's Enterprise, the 400+ on Kirk's.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    In Japanese, his name is written ブリタイ・クリダニク (lit. Buritai Kuridaniku). "Britai" is a viable romanization of that. From long (bad) habit, I tend to mostly default to the official "alien" romanizations that were used in Do You Remember Love? since those are used in a lot of product packaging and artbooks. Most of those spellings are "close enough" though some are truly just "alien for the sake of looking alien". The banner in DYRL? when they have the ceasefire agreement spells "Zentradi" as "Zjentohlauedy" if you translate the alien text. The Robotech versions of a lot of the romanizations are often just straightforward slightly tweaked literal readings of the Japanese text that try to make them less tongue twister-y. For example, the Robotech name for the Queadluun Rau battle suit is "Quadrano", which is a lightly tweaked version of the Japanese クァドラン・ロー (lit. Kwadoran Rou). Considering the much improved armor, actuators, and generator capacity of those Gen 3.5 and later machines like the VF-17, VF-19, and VF-22 and the fact that they were several generations on from the understanding that the Zentradi use mecha too, I'd assume that a Zentradi soldier might put up a fight but would probably be outpowered by the sheer torque those superconducting motors can produce when you throw a couple gigavolts at 'em. Quamzin's a commander-type Zentradi in most versions of the story, yeah. He's a good head taller than the normal soldiers under his command.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    In an extremely halfhearted and apathetic defense of the show's writing on this one point: Really? Well, color me VERY surprised.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    All right, episode 3 is out... Not an inspiring start. This is one of the more erect dick moves on the writer's part. Once again, the actual action is all offscreen... and not in the horror movie gory discretion shot kind of way. As in, "there was a fight, but it's happening offscreen so we don't have to choreograph or shoot it". Little bit of meta commentary there... underground truly is a dumbass place to put a spaceship. Well, I think we now know for sure how this incident stays contained. "Welcome, to Jurassic Holocene Park" Well, this definitely doesn't seem like a bright idea. In the final analysis, "Metamorphosis" is a pretty weak episode with some serious writing problems. Its main flaw is that it clearly wants to commit to the horror bit but doesn't seem to know how. They try to build some tension by keeping the Xenomorph offscreen for a while and show some evidence that It Can Think, but they can't bring themselves to stick to it so it has to poke its head into the frame and ask the cameraman to get its good side before it'll do anything. It wants to go the route of the scientists experimenting getting in over their heads, except that it's already shot itself in the foot by revealing the scientists know what they're getting into from the start and are just too dumb to live. They're trying to build anticipation for a human villain, but the delivery is so ham-handed that feels like accidental self-parody. Every twist and plot point is telegraphed so aggressively that there's no potential to build suspense. A lesser problem is that it also wants to do action, but it seems to be afraid to actually show action. I wonder if it's because the Xenomorph is a purely CG construct. They cheat and have the climax of the confrontation happen offscreen and only let us see the aftermath.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Another random question for anyone who might have flirted with this tech... Has anyone out there tried, or had any success with, using a wireless HDMI adapter to plumb a TV into your PC for conference room-type stuff, streaming, or gaming?
  14. Seto Kaiba
    To be fair, the distinction between a PC and a game console has been shrinking for a long long time now. I remember when the PS3 dropped and half my friends were excited not for the games but because they heard you could load Linux on it and use it as an ad hoc PC. 😆 (We're engineers, it's just how we're wired.) Proprietary dev kits and licensing hassles aside, developing for a console at least offers some stability in terms of the limitations of hardware and hardware variations so I can definitely see the appeal. Especially after years of working with embedded control systems that wish they had even a fraction of a current gen console's oomph. From what I've heard, it sounds like there's a shakeup in the games industry itself that's driven some developers into corners. Mainly the AAA envelope-pushing and live service model isn't paying off like it used to, though since I haven't had a ton of time for gaming I've mainly heard it secondhand in the form of grousing games journalists. Maybe a bit... it really depends on your needs. As I understand it, a lot of the FPS "esports" types favor 240Hz monitors in the 24-27" size range because it's easier to see the whole screen without needing to turn your head. I know a lot of folks who still run monitors in that size, though either because of space constraints on the desk or because they're running a multi-monitor setup. (I'm running three 27" 1440p ROG Swifts in my home setup, for instance, with the outer two on gas shocks so I can spin 'em around as needed.)
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, my primary concern was whether the 285K was going to be another RMA queen... and my secondary being whether it'd be inferior to the 13th gen chip it's replacing. Nothing on the bleeding edge has really grabbed me, but in the event something does I'm hoping the 285K will at least not be horrendously underpowered.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    According to Macross Chronicle, Commander-type Zentradi like Vrlitwhai are engineered to be larger, stronger, and more durable than the far more numerous "General Soldier-type" clones who make up the bulk of their forces. That said, it's hard to say if one would be up to the task of taking on 4th or 5th Generation Valkyrie the same way due to the improvements that've been made in armor and structural materials since then. The Mechanic Sheet for the 3.5th Generation VF-17D/S Nightmare claims that the improved energy conversion armor of that model gave it durability on a level rivaling an Armored Valkyrie. Exactly how tough the Armored Pack is is a whole other matter. The most authoritative sources generally decline to put specific number and usually go for vague statements like "significantly" or "several times". A few older sources like Sky Angels have put the improvement in defensive ability at anywhere from about 2.5x to 10x the defensive ability of the Valkyrie's own armor. It's likely that that level of durability is beyond what someone like Vrlitwhai could mess up by hand... or if it isn't, they'd really have their work cut out for them.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    So at least a modest improvement over the 13900K without the tendency to die messily? That sounds A-OK to me. "Not going to self-destruct" is definitely a strong point in its favor... I've gone through the tedious RMA process for the 13900K before, and when the second one died despite having the microcode fixes I figured it was time to upgrade since the loss of a calendar quarter's productivity to the glacial Intel warranty process just wasn't in the cards. It's kind of a 50-50 between gaming and work, with the latter now involving some software development, network performance simulation, multiple concurrent virtual machines, and some nonsense with LLMs because it's trendy so management wants it involved somehow even if it makes zero practical sense. I'm kind of expecting the LLM stuff and embedded network performance simulations to bottleneck the CPU as hard or harder than any gaming I might be doing. Most of the games I play are pretty old... aside from Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis, Overwatch 2, and such I've mainly been replaying much older games like the Dishonored trilogy, Bioshock trilogy, and the RTX upgrades of Quake and Quake II for nostalgia's sake... the latter of which are practically in pocket calculator territory these days.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Random Q for the performance/gaming aficionados here... have you any thoughts on the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K as a processor for a gaming rig? I know Intel's kind of on the outs with that community due to the issue with the 13900 and 14900, so I was wondering if that chip has any major drawbacks.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Regardless of your conclusions, this is all off topic to the comparison of the Macross Quarter and Macross Elysion based on their official setting info so let's leave it there please.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    That would certainly add an unexpected dimension to the threat the Xenomorph poses to Weyland-Yutani. I can imagine little else that would strike as much fear into the executives as this slavering unknowable horror from beyond the stars stalks their halls and... audits their corporate tax returns. Miss Yutani would probably dry up and die like she'd taken a hit from the wrong grail. 😆
  21. Seto Kaiba
    An internally consistent argument that does not depend on assumptions, unofficial sources, etc. is obviously the ideal. Observation from the animation is of course very good. The animation model sheets even better. Descriptions from official media are also fine. Authoritative official sources are in general preferred. Based on the animator's model reference produced by Macross Quarter mechanical designer Junya Ishigaki which may be found in his personal artbook ROBO no Ishi as well as the Mechanic Sheet for the Macross Quarter in Macross Chronicle, this appears to be approximately 1/2 of ARMD-L's main hangar. The bow end, based on the design of the back wall there and the lack of the large double airlock to the Super Parts installation are and elevators. The full length of the hangar as drawn is eleven of those segmented wall panels long (plus approximately one VF-25 length from the emergency shutters at the rear), and there are I think five sets shown in this shot, suggesting this is approximately the middle of the hangar facing toward the bow. With thirteen planes fitting neatly into that space, the Macross Quarter's primary hangar should hold approximately 26 VF-25-sized aircraft, not counting the 2+ machine capacity of the Super Pack fitting area and the 7 machine capacity of the Battroid maintenance area at the rear. That puts the interior capacity of the ARMD-L at 35 machines based on the animation and animator's model reference. This does not account for the other maintenance areas that we see VF-25s being stored in in the series and movies. EDIT: (We're not really concerned with the CG model... but rather how the visuals of the series line up with each other. Artistic license is a thing, after all... nobody's expecting perfect veracity.)
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Rude... and demonstrably incorrect given the subject matter. ... your fan theories, yes. As I've gently reminded you many times now, this thread is mainly discussions about the information in official setting materials and other official publications. Your theories, no matter how convincing you may believe them to be, are still just fan theories. They're borderline off-topic in a discussion of what's said in official media, especially where they contradict the official material. Bearing in mind that 80 mecha is listed as the maximum capacity not the standard operating capacity and that that figure is inclusive of Valkyries, Ghosts, Battle Suits, and Destroids which may be stored in places other than ARMD-L... we don't actually know what the Macross Quarter's normal operating capacity is. If it's anything like a normal aircraft carrier, it's probably around 1/2 of the maximum... so about 40 machines in total. That's inclusive of Valkyries, Destroids, Battle Suits, and Ghosts, not all of which are stored in ARMD-L's main hangar space, so that doesn't seem like an unreasonable number to me. EDIT: At least five specific VF platoons are mentioned (Skull, Apollo, Blue, Purple, and Vermilion) as well as the one Battle Suit platoon (Pixie), suggesting the Macross Quarter's fighter complement included at least 20 VF-25s and three Battle Suits. Maximum capacity on an aircraft carrier usually means measures like leaving craft out on the deck, stashing them in the elevators, the maintenance spaces, and what have you so an ordinarily unsustainable amount can be carried. We do see VF-25s being stored in places other than the main hangar at a few points, though it's not clear where. Much about the Elysion is vague and poorly documented, as we've touched on previously. That said, I don't disagree that the Elysion's supporting carriers should theoretically be able to manage ~20 fighters apiece given that we know that in normal operations they have fifteen VF-31As stationed on the Hemera. Theory and practice are two different things, however. They actually seem to operate with far fewer aircraft than that in practice. All the available info in-series and out suggests the Elysion is home to just twenty combat aircraft (plus at least two trainers and one shuttle).
  23. Seto Kaiba
    On reflection, this may be a poor choice of example on my part. I had quite forgotten that Halloween implies Michael Myers was unnatural/supernatural as early as the first movie and its novelization. Jason's a better example, since he's tough but not "shrugs off gunfire" tough until after he's implicitly (if not explicitly) turned into an undead monster. A fair point! That's a question with no right answer because, as you say, doing the same thing over and over again will inevitably result in diminishing returns. IMO the best thing that a horror property can do is pace itself. Turning your monster into grist for the sequel mill and churning out a new sequel every few years is how you dilute the special-ness of the monster and burn out its narrative potential quickly. After the first few movies, Jason and Michael had to both be explicitly supernatural to explain how they soak up so much punishment and keep coming back and the already supernatural killers like Freddy or Chucky devolved into cartoon characters spouting one-liners. In either case, the movies quickly cease to provide true horror and instead are simply gore porn where audiences aren't turning up to feel scared but rather to see how the monster kills off the latest crop of generic movie teenagers. Declawing your horror movie monster by turning it into a more family-friendly action movie antagonist is a pretty decisive way to kill any prospects for future horror storytelling, though. Once you've made your monster less scary, it's very hard to make it truly scary again. Alien and Terminator both got hit with this hard after their actionized sequels with unsuccessful attempts to pivot back towards horror with their badly diminished monsters. That it did... but to the detriment of what came after. The studio has been desperately and unsuccessfully trying to recapture the fear that Big Chap evoked since Alien 3 and generally failing to get there because they keep treating the Xenomorph like the dangerously aggressive and territorial animal from Aliens and not the obviously intelligent, patient, and cruel hunter from Alien. I mean c'mon, you can't tell me you felt any tension at all watching that xenomorph fail to negotiate an ordinary 90 degree turn in a hallway during its at-best walking speed chase with Alex Lawther's character. (Made worse by how it's animated scrabbling around on all fours like it's hauling *ss instead of moving at the leisurely walking pace it's actually going.)
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Almost certainly not, IMO. There are a few countries that have laws and/or media regulations that restrict or outright prohibit the depiction or use of certain national flags in media, but the US flag is not typically one of them. Especially not in the countries where an American-made series like Star Trek is aired or streamed. There wouldn't really be any other reason to go to the expense and trouble to change the flag in the scene except to avoid a Top Gun: Maverick-type situation. Multiple prior episodes of Star Trek incl. TNG's "The Royale" and VOY's "One Small Step" had already pretty well established that the Americans led the rush to other planets and into extrasolar space too.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Which serves to illustrate how thoroughly the studio missed the point back then. Asking how the military would deal with a (non-supernatural) horror movie monster is a fundamentally tension-destroying premise. Would the likes of Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, or Leatherface be able to generate any real tension or fear if they were up against a platoon of heavily armed infantry instead of a bunch of teenagers and camp counselors? No, they wouldn't. If everyone's got guns and your monster ain't bulletproof, then your monster's not scary anymore. If you try to make it scary again by having a ton of them, all you've done is make your monster into just a dangerous animal and that's just not as scary. 😆 My friend, note that I'm holding Isolation up as the exception that tests the rule there... as the one time the people working on it understood the assignment instead of mindlessly indulging in fanservice like Alien: Earth, Alien: Romulus, etc.
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