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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    We'll see. As has been noted in other threads for Star Wars shows, measuring the actual performance of direct-to-streaming titles is difficult to do accurately since the only ones in possession of the complete viewership data are the first-party content creators themselves. Nielsen says it didn't chart in the top 10 on the basis of total minutes watched, though other streaming data agregators assert the series was pretty consistently in the top 10 in terms of the number of households watching in the US and Canada. 🤔 Disney, of course, are going to have their own criteria for judging if the series is a success or not. The bar may be a bit lower than The Acolyte's was, since Skeleton Crew's reviews have been broadly positive rather than overwhelmingly negative like its predecessor's and it cost $100 million less to make. Either way, Skeleton Crew seems set to be remembered as one of The Few Good Ones from the Disney+ Star Wars lineup.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    An especially aggressive one at that. Nobody tell Boimler. No kidding! 🤣 When I started watching Lower Decks I HATED Mariner. She reminded me a lot of Michael Burnham in all the worst ways. She was a mean-spirited, toxic, manipulative person in Starfleet and she seemed to enjoy preying on anyone who wasn't as bitter and hateful as herself. UNLIKE Michael Burnham, it quickly became apparent that she knew the kind of person she was and was still capable of being better. Lower Decks was a lot of fun not just because of the comedy, but because the characters still grow and develop in a fairly believable way for Star Trek.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Yep. I am 100% looking forward to the ending of Skeleton Crew's first season, and I wholeheartedly hope it gets the second season the showrunners have been hoping for.👍
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, a lot of people seem to be satisfied with Skeleton Crew. It's a light, fun, engaging little story that has a great deal of charm and is doing something new and different with the Star Wars IP. It doesn't have to be the best thing since sliced bread. It just has to be something people enjoy watching... and it definitely seems to be that. If anything, it's a solid argument that Star Wars can and should put more distance between itself and the "Skywalker Saga" since so many Skywalker-adjacent stories are trash.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    One detail I should probably check with toy collectors on... the name of the company that was responsible for "space metal" development and production in the oldest lore is, I think, a nod to a toy manufacturer or toy line from the 80's: Dyna-Metal.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Probably what we, the audience, already know. At Attin was hidden away from the rest of the galaxy A Long Time Ago (in a Galaxy Far Far Away!) because of its critical importance to the Republic's monetary system. The kids don't seem to know what the Great Work is, just that it involves a lot of analytics. Everyone wants a guaranteed paycheck... so yeah, I expect any showrunner working on a big-name property like Star Wars is hoping their series won't be a one-and-done. Not that I would be complaining if I got to see a murderous Jod take a paintcan to the bonce, wipe out on a pile of space Hot Wheels, and fall down an iced-over staircase. Because roughly 90% of Star Wars plots work like a JRPG fetch quest. "You must go to <location> and find <plot critical person who lives like a three-minute walk from wherever they happen to land>."
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Maybe! 😁 Having an established character pop out of the woodwork completely unforeshadowed to smack Jod down wouldn't be nearly as satisfying or offer nearly as much closure to the story as having the kids Jod's been looking down on outsmart him.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Nah... Jod's been so dismissive of the kids that he needs his arse handed to him by the kids. He needs to arrogantly keep assuming the kids can't do anything themselves, and get absolutely WRECKED by a trap the kids set up for him.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Mind you, I should note that even "hypercarbon" has since come to be an umbrella term for a whole family of specific carbon nanomaterial-based super-composites in material like Master File.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    It wasn't replaced so much as renamed. The name is a nod to Gundam's Luna Titanium, but from the outset the term "space metal" never referred to one specific substance. The original explanation of the term from the 80's is that "space metal" is an umbrella term for a broad assortment of OTM-based alloys and composites that were manufactured in space. It's called "space metal" because it's metal that's made in space. 🤔 Cunning wordplay, no? Macross's creators hadn't coined any names for specific super-materials yet, and wouldn't until DYRL? where Hikaru name-dropped "hypercarbon" for the first time. Official setting materials tend to stick to vague and generic terms like "super alloy", "structural materials incorporating OTM", and so on. Those generic explanations have gotten gradually more specific as time has gone on, with Macross Zero mentioning "carbon composite based on nanotechnology". They occasionally namedrop specific materials like hypercarbon and herculite, but not very often. Dedicated technical material like Master File, of course, wants to be more detailed and will name specific materials and such and it's those materials that have described VFs as specifically using hypercarbon composites for their structural frames. Master File also offers a meta sort of explanation for why the term "space metal" fell out of use after the original series era. Usage of the term in-universe fell off because "space metal" stopped being exotic after the First Space War. Most manufacturing was being done in space, and those advanced composites and alloys were being used in many basic everyday objects, so it was no longer exotic enough to warrant being treated as a separate category of materials. The same reasoning is applied to the diminished usage of the term "overtechnology". After enough time, the advanced technology reverse-engineered from alien technology was no longer special or exotic or beyond comprehension the way the term implies. It was simply "technology".
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Yep... and many such areas are also subject to enormous stresses during transformation and high-g maneuvering as well. Even relatively simple acts like walking or running can put joints and panels under a considerable amount of stress. Like the rest of the Valkyrie, parts that you would think of as thin and potentially fragile are made from ultra-durable overtechnology materials (OTMat) far stronger than armor-grade steel. The structural frame is the super-durable spacemetal/hypercarbon and the composite armor skin covering the airframe is made of the same/similar materials and further reinforced with energy conversion armor. It takes an extraordinary amount of force to bend or shear that material, but subjected to enough force it will bend or break. Variable Fighter Master File, of course, goes into more detail. It naturally confirms the hypercarbon frame material is extraordinarily strong and that the composite armor skin of Valkyries contains hypercarbon itself and is reinforced with energy conversion armor that greatly increases its structural strength. One detail that Master File offers which is not explicitly repeated in official setting materials is a statement in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.1's general discussion of energy conversion armor. Therein, it says that one area where Humanity adapted the alien overtechnology beyond mere imitation of the technology they found was by applying energy conversion armor as both an armor enhancement and a momentary structural reinforcement system. Essentially, what it describes is the Valkyrie's control AI dumping additional energy into the energy conversion armor in moments of anticipated mechanical stress like transformation or high-g maneuvers to make the fragile parts under the most stress momentarily more durable. This is also mentioned in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix as something that can be done in response to events like a collision or a fall. Master File also describes the incredible durability of the "space metal" frame and composite armor as a bit of a double-edged sword. The incredible rigidity of the hypercarbon frame and functionally graded composite armor means that, if warping of structural members does occur, the material's incredible strength can actually prevent repair and make complete replacement of parts the only option. (How much of a problem this is varies from aircraft to aircraft, but is noted to be especally severe on the VF-25.) The VF-1 book also notes that this makes Valkyries hard to dispose of when they're retired from service. The structural materials are so durable that physical destruction of the aircraft is very difficult, and recycling the multilayer functionally graded composite of the armor is extremely expensive. In a way, the VF-1 Vol.1 book turns the explanation of armor strength into a backhanded explanation for why so many old-model VFs stick around and end up in civilian hands in the franchise. They're built so tough that normal boneyard methods aren't viable, so the military is stuck keeping them in mothballs until they can be properly diassembled and recycled... making selling disarmed old models off to civilians an attractive alternative disposal option.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective's third episode is out, and yeah... it's not good. I had a feeling after the first two episodes, but this is definitely confirmation. Ameku M.D. is that kind of lazy, badly written investigative "drama" where there's no real narrative flow and the story is just a string of random bullsh*t that ends in a vaguely plausible-sounding arse pull. The most recent episode has a case of a "cursed video" that causes people to commit suicide after they watch it. There's no buildup to a resolution of the mystery here. They meet with the surviving victims and act like this is either supernatural or total BS, and at the very end they the doctor announces "oh yeah they start spontaneously walking because epilepsy" and that's treated like a conclusion. The doctor also has to cosplay as a schoolgirl for some reason.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    For me, pondering these kind of things is part of the fun... so y'know I'm having a grand time regardless. 👍 When I looked into capital-O Old Republic and found that referred to a period like 1,000+ years before TPM, I had the same thought. But what I found was a reference to credits in that period being backed by precious metals, not made from them. Like how paper money in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was backed by the value of a set quantity of gold or silver.🤷‍♂️ It's possible At Attin is even older than that (I mean, paper starmap anyone?) and comes from an era when they really were minting credits like gold dubloons.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Yep... that's one of the key differences between Macross and Gundam. Macross is "it costs nothing to be kind". Gundam is "... like being a hater ain't free too".🤣
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Indeed... when I went looking into this out of my usual analytical curiosity, is that a bunch of prior titles (TPM, TLJ, Bad Batch) had said they aren't. Hence the confusion.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    The thing about Macross's writing, as noted previously, is that it generally depicts both sides of a conflict as being decent, reasonable people who are just trying to do what they believe is right. The conflict springs from a failure to communicate, and is ultimately resolved when that failure to communicate is resolved. The one case where that doesn't hold up is the Anti-Unification Alliance seen in Macross Zero and Macross the First. Probably because they're not one single cause, but a sort of catch-all for smaller causes opposed to the Earth UN Government and its peacekeeping efforts. A mixture of people who couldn't let go of paranoia, ethnic and sectarian bigotry, xenophobia, etc. and folks who depended on perpetuating conflict for their livelihood like career mercenaries. Not exactly folks acting in the best interests of others. (Even then, there are some side story type setups where focus characters ARE depicted as basically decent people in punch-clock villain territory, who even end up switching sides after the story proper ends.)
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Well, I'm ready to call it for one of the Winter '25 simulcast titles already. Bogus Skill <Fruitmaster> is genuinely a tedious, unimaginative exercise in blindly reusing the most common isekai tropes imaginable. It really is something awful. It's not quite Isekai Cheat Magician levels of bad, but it's GETTING THERE.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    You sure about that? Because The Bad Batch seems to directly contradict it, with the Republic credit being made worthless by nothing more than a decree.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    We know, via the scene we get with Maj. Malan and the commanders from the local NUNS general staff office that the New UN Forces were aware of the danger the ruins posed. Whether the Windermereans themselves knew at the time is unclear, but they absolutely figured it out in short order thereafter (if they hadn't already) and did attempt to weaponize the ruins exactly the way the NUNS predicted. Considering what happened the last several times someone went messing around in sealed Protoculture ruins, the NUNS's choice to destroy the ruins with the greatest possible prejudice rather than risk some idiot activating whatever lethally ill-considered gizmo the Protoculture left behind is less villainous and more dangerously genre savvy. Considering they seem to have believed he was trying to run off with the bomb and were likely contending with his attempts to disengage the remote override, there's plenty of blame to go around. Lady M wanted a weapon against Var syndrome, which had already been codified some years earlier and the normal people recruited for the Tactical Sound Units were just not cutting it. They basically built her to be a song supersoldier. It happens offscreen, but Lady M is said to have reached out to the general staff and challenged the New UN Forces plan already in progress to destroy the Protoculture ruins and Sigur Berrentzs with a tactical reaction weapon. The whole city was supposed to be evacuated to ensure that nobody was hurt, but because Xaos was interfering the work slowed down and people were still in the area when Windermere attacked and the trap was sprung. Yeah, they could definitely stand to do with the Prime Directive. Doing a more extreme verison of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is probably not something that's great for society as a whole, since quite a few mentioned worlds in the New UN Government's sphere of influence are described to basically have gone right from their feudal period or renaissance right to casual interstellar travel without all of the societal development inbetween. Variable Fighter Master File has a nasty incident in one of its story sections where a peaceful kingdom is invaded by a neighboring star system's not-so-peaceful kingdom because they were still mired in the era of altar diplomacy. Maybe... but it seems unlikely given that the lead researcher responsible for many of the discoveries was the son of a priest applying modern science to the relics of the gods his family had been charged with keeping safe for millennia.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    I liked it, but like B Gata H Kei before it that kind of comedy is definitely not for everyone so I completely understand if you nope'd out partway through. The main comedy comes from kids being stupid and awkward about relationships, which can be frustrating at times.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    The Macross Delta TV series initially mentions that the use of dimensional bombs in wartime is generally prohibited by an interstellar treaty enforced by the New UN Government. Both the series and the second movie go on to treat them not as banned weapons, but as restricted weapons that the military needs authorization from the New UN Government in order to use. It's not too different from how they present reaction weapons, which have conditions attached to their use and require authorization from the local government before they can be used. Yeah, the New UN Forces' original plan was to use a low-yield dimensional bomb to destroy the Protoculture ruins on Windermere IV in order to prevent the Windermereans from weaponizing the ruins. It's implied that the New UN Forces brass were at least partly aware of what the ruins could do and were trying to prevent the doomsday scenario that the main cast discuss later (a galaxy-wide "your head a'splode" from forced telepathy). It was definitely the lesser of two evils... damaging or destroying part of a city weighed against the possibility of a galaxy-wide mass extinction of all sentient life if the ruins were activated. Wright tried to run off with a weapon of mass destruction, resulting in the accidental obliteration of a heavily populated city instead of the dangerous ruins. That's not the New UN Forces or New UN Government, though... that's corporate villainy. In the Macross Delta TV series and first movie, it's said that NUNS pilot and special agent Wright Immelmann infiltrated Windermere's holy sites and stole the Star Singer relics to give to Lady M's company Xaos. Xaos then used those relics to create the illegal clone Mikumo and sell her services to the New UN Government member states in the Brisingr cluster. In the second movie, this is retconned into someone else (Sydney Hunt) having stolen the relics first and Wright having stolen some of them back. Sydney Hunt used them to buy his way into a position of power in the Epsilon Foundation and create the Siren Delta System, while Wright gave what he'd recovered to Lady M's Xaos and they used it to create Mikumo. The Macross Delta TV series clearly tried to achieve that effect by making the main NUNS representative look like a smug snake, but the story doesn't really bear it out if you think about it a little. A lot of the actual problems in the series are caused by Xaos fumbling the ball or interfering with the NUNS's work. Like how Lady M slowed down the evacuation of Barette City on Ragna so that there were still civilians in the area when Windermere attacked and the Spacy tried to set off its trap to destroy the Sigur Berrentzs. Or how, during the main trio's trial on Windermere, the series briefly acknowledges that Xaos's involvement in the war is literally illegal because they're mercenaries and that as a result they can't claim prisoner of war protections under the spacefuture version of the Geneva protocols. That one I'll agree to... the New UN Government letting emigrant fleets colonize planets with native sentients is definitely a bit dodgy. Megaroad-04 didn't really have a choice since she was damaged by the fold faults around Windermere IV, but the New UN Government seems to have a pattern of trying to uplift primitive civilizations instead of leaving them to develop on their own. Their heart's probably in the right place, in terms of making sure sub-Protoculture species aren't wiped out by the Zentradi, but a lot of those cultures almost certainly were not ready to acknowledge extraterrestrial life... most seem to have still been feudal societies. That said, Windermere's discontent with the treaty is revealed in the gaiden manga to be essentially just an economic problem. The whole Brisingr globular cluster struggled due to its remoteness, but Windermere was unhappy with its economic growth because they had a valuable resource they couldn't exploit to get rich quick because of New UN Gov't trade restrictions meant to slow the proliferation of dimensional bombs.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    I know I sure as hell will. I went into this one expecting I wouldn't like it, and boy did it ever grow on me. One of the only good things to come out of Kurtzman-era Star Trek.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Not s'much, in fact. The Earth UN Gov't only really has the one questionable decision on its record: not trusting the crew of the Macross about the size of the Zentradi fleet. It didn't change the war's outcome at all and there's really nothing they could have done differently if they hadn't made the error. It's just unfortunate. The New UN Gov't had some growing pains but the few screwups that can be attributed to it directly are, in Macross tradition, well-intentioned moves that panned out badly. Like giving the military more autonomy in the name of peacekeeping and anti-terrorist security, only for them to get a bit too fond of their new authority. Or the attempt to make living aboard emigrant ships less stressful that turned into a big public incident with a crazy AI singer. In 7 and Frontier we're mainly seeing emigrant governments making their own whoopsies independent of the central government, and in Delta their involvement is mainly just the trade restrictions Windermere's upset about that are actually in place for very good, very sound reasons the Windermereans don't like due to a difference in perspective.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    "We're gonna be in so much trouble" is an apt, if somewhat overdue, title for an episode of this series. So, who had SM-33 is adding "rules lawyer" to his CV alongside "space pirate", "droid", and "Disney film reference"? SM-33 is such a scene-stealer... best new droid since K-2SO. Apparently the Onyx Cinder was more special than just being legendary pirate Tak Rennod's personal ship for his last, doomed mission... I have to admit, I am definitely disappointed by the big reveal. The great treasure of At Attin really is just... Very good episode. Very action packed. Jude Law and Nick Frost (SM-33's actor) are kind of running away with this one... but 33 always has been a scene-stealer. It's kind of starting to feel like Jaleel White's character Gunter is an advertised extra and has no real importance to the story. I remain convinced Skeleton Crew is going to stick the landing and finish as one of The Good Ones. That's a common joke fans make... but I don't believe that's canon. Per Lucas, the concept of Balance in the Force meant the absence of darkness. Anakin theoretically brought Balance to the Force when he turned back to the Light, chucked the Emperor down a pit to his death, and then died from his injuries leaving 0 dark side practitioners. Rey technically stole his thunder there, since Palpatine somehow walked it off and came back, only to for Kylo Ren to die saving Rey and Rey to destroy Palpatine for good this time(?).
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, it was the course of his career that did that. He wasn't about to give up and let the military push him into a desk job. I'd say Sharon Apple is not so much a victim of circumstance as a culmination of several "it seemed like a good idea at the time" bad ideas. A virtual idol singer is a harmless idea on its own. An AI computer that's designed to use music and imagery and subliminal effects to manipulate people's emotional and mental states (aka "mind control") in order to reduce stress and prevent rioting among emigrant fleet populations is already headed into dodgy territory. An autonomous military AI that's able to assume complete control of an emigrant fleet's defenses if its Human population is somehow incapacitated or unable is... well... surely someone working on this project in the Macross Concern, Palo Alto II research center, or Venus Sound Factory had seen Terminator, right? Combining the virtual idol singer with those two very dodgy ideas was already a terrible idea in and of itself. Hiring a failed idol singer with a boatload of repressed trauma and emotional baggage to supply the thing's emotions was practically in Too Dumb To Live territory. Sharon would probably have been pretty harmless if all she'd been was a virtuoid idol. The Venus Sound Factory might've been in the unenviable position of wondering how they send a computer to therapy, but without access to the mind control technology and military command and control interfaces she was designed with she wouldn't have been very much of a threat.
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