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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    You may laugh, but Rinko spends the better part of an entire episode crying and worrying that she's not the kind of pure maiden Takeo thinks she is... because she wants to hold hands. That's right boys and girls, Rinko is worried she's become a lewd woman because she wants to have consensual UNPROTECTED HAND HOLDING with her boyfriend! Fingers. Locked. *DUN DUN DUNNNN* No, that is not a joke. It is played absolutely laser-straight. A scene like that feels like it belongs in a parody, but this isn't one. That's just how ridiculously over-the-top pure and squeaky-clean this is. Takeo and Rinko are so damned pure and innocent that I feel soiled just watching them.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    To be fair, OG Cortana was so low-poly that she didn't have a hope of making to to the Uncanny Valley... Definitely feels like they left it too long, then... I half expect to see the Gravemind get a director's credit.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    The Macross was intended for long-duration operations in deep space... so presumably it was equipped with some fairly substantial onboard fuel reserves to support itself and its airwing's operations.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Started Ore Monogatari on a friend's recommendation... and I can't. I just can't. These people are TOO PURE. Too innocent. It tastes like diabetes!
  5. Seto Kaiba
    I've never really been all that invested in Halo as a franchise, but I feel like this is kind of... too late? Like, by a decade or so? This would have been an amazing idea back in 2007-2010 when Halo was a huge phenomenon and the franchise was riding high on the strong finish of the original trilogy. Now that Halo's heyday and period of peak cultural relevance is 15 years behind us and with the franchise's uniqueness having been heavily diluted by time, industry copycatting, and the departure of the original devs that took it from being THE killer app to just another AAA shooter sequel farm, it feels kinda like they missed their window of opportunity. Kinda getting it coming and going too, since the Halo series is going to have to struggle to distinguish itself from the other sci-fi action shows about growly gits in body armor and full face masks like The Mandalorean and The Book of Boba Fett. Cortana looks... awful. I hope they fix that. She's kinda got that same uncanny valley thing they had going for Alita in Alita: Battle Angel.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    There were no Destroids on the Prometheus, so that'll presumably take the numbers down a bit. Master File's contention is 150 Valkyries and ~30 various auxiliary craft including Ghosts, the old F203 Dragon II (which Master File insists on calling F/A-20N), the ES-11D Cat's Eye, LVT Avenger II, and Sea Sergeant helicopters. Onboard fuel storage should actually be SIGNIFICANTLY less than a conventional nuclear aircraft carrier since the VF-1 Valkyrie, QF-3000 Ghost, and ES-11D Cat's Eye are all using thermonuclear reaction turbine engines that are vastly more fuel efficient in atmosphere than the kerosene-based jet engines of conventional fighters.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    It wasn't my intention to criticize your math, and I apologize if it came off that way despite my intention. I was just affirming that, yeah, that's probably how the M.A.T. group arrived at their original number before using that as a springboard to jump into the more up-to-date details and why the linear scaling of the crew size doesn't quite work as TehPW had posted previously.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    That, or something very like it, is probably the math that M.A.T. used when they wrote the original spec for Sky Angels. Of course, when you think about it, it doesn't actually make sense for the size of the crew to scale linearly with the volume of the ship. After all, even if the ship gets bigger there are a LOT of departments that really would not require or benefit from increased staffing. The only areas it'd actually be 100% necessary would be the engine room, the carrier air wing (to support the greater number of aircraft), and the ship's mess. Revised versions of the stats published in Variable Fighter Master File keep a shocking amount of the details I gave previously, but scale the crew and aircraft complements back to more reasonable numbers... 2,700 crew for the Prometheus herself, 2,200 staff in the carrier air wing, and approximately 180 aircraft of various types (primarily Valkyries). Revised numbers put her about on par with a Gerald R. Ford-class supercarrier in terms of regular crew but with about twice the number of aircraft.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Good question... no firm answer? In Ep19 of Super Dimension Fortress Macross the Power-Up Glaug's debut appears to be on something like a catapult, but it's the only example I can recall and it's not clear if it's a catapult. A thousand light years at a time with months of down time inbetween? That's a VERY long drive indeed. Pack some snacks. One thing's guaranteed... Vajra.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    I'm not so sure... it wasn't until the Zentradi detected residual fold activity in the Sol system that anyone really sat up and took notice of Earth. If it hadn't been for that Supervision Army ship defolding and crashing on Earth in 1999, Earth could potentially have continued to fly under the radar for centuries. (Colonel Todo in Macross 30 certainly seems to have thought so, anyway...) There is a certain unintentional cosmic horror aspect to it in terms of just how insanely hostile the galaxy is thanks to the Protoculture's screwups, and how stupidly lucky humans are to have lasted as long as they have. (Like a near-miss with extinction when the Birdhuman activated for the first time before forcibly deactivating itself via decapitation.)
  11. Seto Kaiba
    I know you were motived by nothing but the most earnest desire to help, the factoid wasn't correct or really relevant to the question... and it's not a case of newer material, it's that Google Translate still kinda sucks. 🤣 To hopefully lend some clarity to the matter, the "Supervision" in "Supervision Army" is written 監察 (Kansatsu). The header on that page in the This is Animation Special: Macross 7 book says 査察 (Sasatsu) and 臨検艦 (Rinken-kan). "Investigation - Raid(ing) Warship".
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... yes and no. The Supervision Army began as an improvised military force the Protodeviln created using the Protoculture and Zentradi they captured, drained of their spiritia, and brainwashed to fight for them. There were miclones among them because part of the force was made up of brainwashed Protoculture civilians, but much of their force was composed of Zentradi soldiers who'd been unable to fight back against the brainwashed Protoculture due to their primary directives prohibiting interference with the Protoculture. The Supervision Army gunship that became the Macross is not small because it was intended for a miclone crew... it was just a small class of ship to begin with, a medium-scale gunship analogous to the Zentradi medium-scale gunship. Since much of their force consisted of captured Zentradi, most of their equipment is Zentradi in origin. It's probable that they are in the modern day, they weren't initially. At no point is it referred to as a rare class... a low encounter rate is justified given that the Supervision Army withdrew from the region of space around Earth in the 1960s. ... because, when the original series was made, the lore hadn't been fleshed out yet. It's not a competing theory, so don't cite it like one. No, it was a ship from the Varauta system NUNS. ... and none of what you wrote after this has anything to do with the question! Stay on topic!
  13. Seto Kaiba
    It certainly explains where the UN Forces got the idea to blame South Ataria island's disappearance on the Anti-Unification forces... they were actually expecting, and actively prepared for, an attack on the Macross launch ceremony. (Makes you wonder how big of an attack they thought the AUN remnant could pull off... with hundreds of Valkyries and Destroids on station, at least one supercarrier and massive assault ship on station and battened down in anticipation of a tactical reaction weapon strike, and in Macross the First a SECOND supercarrier... (The Asuka II's sister ship CVN-100 Graf Zeppelin II.)
  14. Seto Kaiba
    My completionist tendencies are showing, so here's a summary of the Daedalus-class section from the Sky Angels book as well. PLEASE NOTE, THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS LORE THAT IS NO LONGER CURRENT/CORRECT Development of the Daedalus-class semi-submersible amphibious assault ship began around the same time as that of the Prometheus-class, intended for use by the Navy/Marines. In order to address economic policy issues in Japan following Japan's substantial/overwhelming investment in the UN Government's Sea Lane Defense Plan, the planned construction of the Daedalus was moved to Japan's Yashu Heavy Industries shipyard. Key American-manufactured components including the ship's reactor and waterjet turbine engines were built in America and sent to Japan for installation. Construction began in November 2003, with the Daedalus originally scheduled to enter service in mid-2007. Completion was delayed due to design changes from the Macross strategic system and the introduction of OTM. The class was originally conceived as a Marine Corps LPH (Landing Platform, Helicopter) intended to deploy infantry by helicopter but was reworked into a landing ship for Destroids after the introduction of OTM. The Daedalus-class's design with two islands mounted on an airfoil-like structure was a design concession intended to increase the depth the main deck could submerge when the ship operated in semi-submersible mode. The base of the port bridge contains a collection of phased-array radar modules (Aegis Kai type) with an Integrated Tactical Amphibious Warfare Data System installed to facilitate command and control operations over the embarked Destroids. The Daedalus's flight deck can accommodate 22 normal-sized helicopters, 12 Sikorsky Super Sea Stallion heavy lift helicopters, or 12 VTOL aircraft concurrently. The hangar deck is approximately 400m long and 55m wide, with a two-layer structure able to accommodate over 200 MBR-04 or MBR-07 series Destroids and 2-3 HWR-00 series Destroids. There are two large and two small elevators on each side (loading capacity 300t and 100t respectively) and the entire bow functions as a ramp. The amphibious dock well is below the hangar and is four decks high, with enough space to support 20 landing craft. There are also quarters/living facilities for approximately 12,000 marines aboard. During the Macross launch ceremony, the Marine Corps along with the Destroid battalion embarked were protected by multiple layers of watertight bulkheads and radiation shielding in preparation for a possible attack by the remnants of the Anti-Unification Forces. Due to this, the embarked troops were able to survive the unexpected fold jump and the ship finding itself in the vacuum of space. The Daedalus's keel was laid on 12 November 2003. She was launched on 20 January 2008, and commissioned into UN Forces service on 10 June 2008. Her fully-loaded displacement is 570500t. Like the Prometheus, the Daedalus is powered by four Westinghouse A7W nuclear fission reactors providing 520,000 horsepower for 8 waterjet turbine engines. Her top speed is 32+ knots on the surface and 18+ knots submerged. Her normal crew complement is 21,000... including 12,000 marines.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    For giggles, I threw some old lore details for the Prometheus-class in the Super Macross Mecha thread for those who are curious.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Since there was a Newbie thread question about the Prometheus, here are some fun facts from one of the oldest versions of the Prometheus's lore in Sky Angels. PLEASE NOTE, THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS LORE THAT IS NO LONGER CURRENT/CORRECT Development of the Prometheus-class was originally a US Navy project intended to develop an OTM-based next-generation supercarrier for the US Navy, and transitioned to being the planned main aircraft carrier of the UN Navy once the UN Forces were established. Prometheus's keel was laid 18 June 2003 at the Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Newport News, Virginia. It took five years to complete her construction due to modifications made as part of the Macross strategic system and the introduction of OTM. She was finished and launched in 2008. Prometheus's sister ships CVA-102 and CVA-103 were completed at the Newport News shipyard on 11 December 2009 and 30 January 2010 respectively, but both were destroyed in the orbital bombardment of Earth in February 2010. The Prometheus-class and Daedalus-class were the last class of ships constructed using conventional nuclear fission reactors, due to pushback from the military who opposed using more OTM than was necessary at the start of construction. OTM advocates won out regarding the adoption of waterjet propulsion and the Prometheus-class and Daedalus-class are the first navy vessels to adopt the technology. The Prometheus's reactor complex houses four Westinghouse A7W pressurized water reactors, an improved version of the A4W reactor used by the US Navy's Nimitz-class. The lower portion of the "island" contains a set of phased array radars for the Aegis Kai system, a SPS-12 search radar, SPS-48 3D anti-aircraft radar, SPN-44~49 air traffic control radars, and landing guidance radars. Its defenses include 4 20mm Phalanx CIWS units, 3 Mk.41 10-round missile launchers for Super Sea Sparrow missiles. Plans were underway to replace the Phalanx units with ROV-20 laser cannon emplacements, but not completed at the time the First Space War broke out. The ROV-20s were installed after the Macross's return to Earth in November 2009. Original launch equipment included 4 catapults on the main deck and 2 on the angled deck, all Mk.15 Mod 1 steam catapults. Later retrofitted to a linear (electromagnetic) type. In addition to the six main catapults, there is another launch-only deck directly beneath the bow. The Prometheus-class's armor-plated main deck is designed to withstand a direct hit from a kiloton-class thermonuclear reaction weapon or a short-range detonation from megaton-class thermonuclear reaction weapon. This heat resistance is also used to support VTOL launches of Valkyries from the main deck. There are nine elevators, each outfitted to take two Valkyries at a time. The firing-and-reset interval for the six main catapults is approximately 18 seconds. The double set of arresting gear allows for arrested recovery of two aircraft every 35-40 seconds. The expected endurance of the nuclear fuel in the reactor system is 30 years, or 2-3 million miles. Due to soaring production costs during the Unification Wars and the introduction of initial generation OTM, the total production cost of the Prometheus was $15.002 billion. Original launch date was given as 21 September 2007, and commissioned on 5 May 2008. Standard displacement 456,000t, maximum displacement 511280t. Her four A7W reactors power eight main waterjet turbine engines. Her total output was 520,000 horsepower, acheiving a top speed of 35+ knots on the surface or 16+ knots submerged. Her original listed crew complement is 22,000. Her original listed airwing size is 450 aircraft.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, it is... the Prometheus was designed and built as an overtechnology-based next-generation supercarrier to support large-scale operations involving Variable Fighters. It had quite a few unusual characteristics, like the ability to submerge almost the entire ship and run with only the island containing control tower and bridge above water for stealth purposes, and submerge the entire ship for brief periods. (The Daedalus could do the same thing, and in the manga Macross the First uses that capability in an unconventional way... to ram an Anti-Unification Forces submarine pursuing it.) The UN Forces intention behind building such a large aircraft carrier is not touched on in depth in official setting material. Variable Fighter Master File offers its own explanation in the form of the Prometheus and Daedalus being intended to be the lead ships of their respective classes, with each of the UN Navy's five fleets theoretically having a pair as a heavyweight rapid reaction force in the event of an alien invasion of Earth's surface. Not half as strange as it looks in some fan art pieces that give it Space Battleship Yamato's Yamato and Arcadia of my Youth's Arcadia for arms.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Can't be that bad... it's got almost 5,000 reviews on Steam and an overall Very Positive: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1167450/DAEMON_X_MACHINA/
  19. Seto Kaiba
    From the picture and description, it was damaged to the point of being inoperable... but was still able to be restored. It was the No.3 VF-1 production model that had been sent on an unmanned solo flight to Saturn to confirm the durability of the VF-1 and its engines. It was initially believed that it'd been damaged by a Zentradi attack, but was later concluded to have suffered a LOT of micrometeorite impacts passing near Saturn.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Whether they're actually Protoculture or some kind of bio-android is a bit of an unresolved matter... Not that I recall? Master File had a story about an unmanned VF-1 that was launched on a flight thru the solar system before the war that returned after, to the surprise of all.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Macross II: Lovers Again toyed with the idea via the Mardook, who were implied to be the descendants of Protoculture refugees who had been living a semi-nomadic existence like the Protoculture computer in Macross: Do You Remember Love? mentioned. I've often wondered if they were meant to be descendants of that very same group of Protoculture, since their culture had a myth/prophecy about a blue planet that where they would find peace. Whether that's a good thing or not is a YMMV sort of thing. For the main Macross continuity/metaseries... Kawamori's going to do what Kawamori wants to do. I doubt he's going to back down from the position that the Protoculture are gone, though. Not after going so hard on the Cold War allegory in Macross 7, Macross Zero making a big deal out of wanting their creations to not repeat their mistakes, and both Frontier's story and Delta's story making a huge deal out of their legacy, unrealized societal ambitions, terminal decline, and who was meant to inherit their legacy. It'd suck all the wind out of the sails of those story arcs if someone one day just stumbled across a bunch of Protoculture blithely going about their business. It's like finding the Megaroad-01... some mysteries are better left unsolved, because the sheer mundanity of the answer means it'll never live up to the myth built on the question. The legend has outgrown the reality to the point that the reality would only be disappointing.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    No more than to any other piece of Zentradi equipment, really. They have a pretty consistent design aesthetic.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Not that I'm aware... there's basically nothing written about the Recovery Pod. Even its coverage in Macross Chronicle is minimal and mainly limited to statements of the obvious.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, they've been at that for a good while now. It's a fairly safe bet humanity has been studying the Vajra since first contact was made in 2040, or from shortly after that point. The first major study of the Vajra that we know about was the 117th Research Fleet's expedition into Vajra space in the mid-to-late 2040s. That expedition featured prominently into Macross Frontier's backstory as that was where Ranka contracted the V-type bacterium in utero that made her the "Little Queen", where Grace developed the implant network theory, where Ranka and Brera were orphaned in the Vajra's attack on the fleet, and what led the SDFN-04 General Bruno J. Global to end up a decaying wreck on Gallia IV. In 2059, Macross Frontier's Island-3 had a xenobiology lab where the Frontier fleet's xenobiology experts studied the Vajra carcasses recovered during the first battle (and probably others). Current official setting material describes the Protoculture as extinct for hundreds of thousands of years. (And the Fulbtzs Berrentzs-class seems to have been largely replaced in continuity with the Boddole Zer-type mobile fortress from the movies.)
  25. Seto Kaiba
    At the very least, the Galactic Whales have to have some kind of fold carbon in their bodies and a biological means to contain and manipulate it given that they use fold navigation to travel interstellar distances. They spend their lives soaking up radiation from stars, so it's possible they don't actually need a dedicated power system like a reactor to produce energy for a fold jump. (IIRC, they're described in Macross Chronicle as being a sort of halfway point between a plant and a mineral life form.) Macross Chronicle goes so far as to suggest that as the origin of Overtechnology... the Protoculture coming into possession of Vajra carcasses, studying them, and reverse-engineering their biotechnology. (It's an interesting possibility that even their genetic engineering technology may be derived from the Vajra's control over their own evolution.) I'm not sure that's really conceit... the Protoculture were the first conventionally sentient race in the galaxy and the first ones to develop their own culture. The Vajra absolutely predated them as a spacefaring species, but Vajra are not individually intelligent and show no sign of anything beyond basic biological drives. There is one factoid that suggests the Protoculture originally took a direct hand in controlling the Zentradi. Macross Chronicle mentions that the Fulbtzs Berrentzs-class Zentradi fleet mothership has an area that replicates the environment of the Protoculture homeworld. There wouldn't be any functional reason to have something like that unless the ships were originally designed to have Protoculture living aboard them as well.
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