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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    As far as we know, the only one of the lot who received a BCD invitation to leave was Ozma Lee in the Macross Frontier novelization. He was let go after he attempted some percussive behavioral correction on a member of the board of inquiry into the loss of the 117th Research Fleet for aggravating Ranka's severe PTSD. It turns out assaulting a really well-connected civilian during a military legal proceeding is a poor career choice even if they REALLY deserve it. The other ex-NUNS members of SMS are not indicated to have been forced out, such as Henry Gilliam Ford or Jeffrey Wilder. Mirage Jenius explicitly quit the New UN Forces of her own accord because she couldn't cope with the expectations of greatness that came with her family name, being a pilot of only average skill. Arad Molders is strongly implied to have quit the New UN Forces because of personal issues caused by the Windermere war of independence. Chuck... we're not really sure what his deal is, but he seems to have quit the New UN Forces for personal reasons too given his reaction to being asked about fighting humans. Messer seems to have gotten himself the spacefuture version of a Section 8 or AR 635-200 for SEVERE PTSD after the Alfheim Var riots.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... maybe? I mean, Zentradi ships are big in human terms, but they're not exactly big in astronomical terms. It'd be pretty hard to spot them with something like a telescope unless they're quite close. You'd be much more likely to spot them with a gravity wave detector, though since gravity waves propagate at or very near lightspeed you'd likely only find out a Zentradi fleet was in your backyard years or decades after it arrived and left. (Kind of like how Vrlitwhai found Earth... his fleet was lucky enough to be in exactly the right place to see the residual gravity waves of a defold event ten light years away ten years after the fact, and triangulate them to Earth's solar system.) Mind you, if your system has any kind of space fold-based traffic coming and going that'll produce noise that'll muddy any potential long-range detections. In addition to space folding being a pretty terrible way to get around, the other part of the double-blind that's keeping humanity quite safe in a dangerous galaxy is that the range of sensor systems is quite short in interplanetary terms. A really good, high-end cross dimensional radar has a range of about a light day (173.15 AU). More traditional options are a lot shorter-ranged. Master File mentions 4,000,000km is pretty well outside the operational detection range of a Zentradi fleet. That's enough distance to give a fleet literally DAYS to decide how to respond.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Komi Can't Communicate really is a well-done series. It's a reasonably sensitive treatment of the subject of social anxiety, and still manages to be quite funny and cute. It's especially nice to know this one's set for a second season next April.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Or, as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has it...
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Humanity, for its part, seems to have at least partly made peace with the fact that it's a big screwed-up galaxy (because of the Protoculture) and they just live in it. The fact that the galaxy is a STUPIDLY HUGE place and that space folding is an absolutely terrible way to get around it if you're looking for something and don't know where it is is a bit of a comfort too. The odds of running into the Zentradi, the Supervision Army, or someone else out there in deep space are vanishingly tiny. Sometimes you beat the odds, but if that happens you can usually just draw upon the Joestar Family's Secret Technique and run away. For everything else, there's indecent amounts of thermonuclear weaponry.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Like the Destroids, the SF-3A Lancer II space fighter wasn't a great fit for the realities of space warfare and didn't last long after the First Space War and humanity getting to grips with the "playbook" for space war. It was basically a manned missile. Its design intent was for orbital use, to get up to a very high speed and make a single hit-and-run attack on an enemy ship that exhausted all of its fuel and ammunition then await recovery when its orbit next intersected that of its mothership. Its weapons were extremely powerful for its size but its high-powered thermonuclear reaction pulse rocket engine only had enough fuel for one really hard acceleration burn (at about 15G!), after which it was at the whims of gravity and inertia. Understandably, not a great idea for deep space use.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    We basically know nothing about the current disposition of the Supervision Army. Just that they're out there.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Not that we know of... though it'd likely be difficult to tell at a glance, given that a fair amount of the Supervision Army would theoretically be using the same equipment the Zentradi forces use because of the way the organization was created by capturing and turning Zentradi forces. One would assume that, like the Zentradi, they would be hostile to anything that presents itself as a threat and ignore anything that doesn't. As to culture shock, it's hard to say. If their troops are still under the same brainwashing, they might actually be more vulnerable to it than the Zentradi.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    ... well, as far as how they're supposed to work... they don't. At least, not that way. It's possible they're articulated like the cat ears, tails, and claws Walkure and Delta Flight wore when they infiltrated Voldor, but they provide no empathic ability. The gaiden manga White Knight of the Black Wing has almost the exact scenario you describe occur when Roid and Keith meet an undercover Wright Immelmann, disguised as a Windermerean. They notice more or less right away that they can't feel anything from his runes and aren't quite buying his cover story of being a traveler, but because he was only asking for directions and their minds were on other things they initially shrug off the whole encounter. Trying to go undercover on a planet of empaths whose abilities only work with their own species is an admittedly terrible idea. Especially if some members of the team have their own anatomical oddities that'd give the game away immediately like Mirage's pointed Zentradi ears. To their credit, they seem to have been well aware their disguises wouldn't be convincing up close for exactly that reason and tried to keep their distance and let Freyja do any necessary talking in the hopes that they'd look the part from outside of the range of empathic communication. (Or at least hope that the locals in Freyja's village would accept her word that the Xaos crew had no intention to do anyone any harm.)
  10. Seto Kaiba
    I know you said you intended this as sarcasm, but there's some unintended hilarity in that their suppliers were absolutely already psychos... Remember, Xaos bought a lot of the equipment that wasn't on loan to it from the Brisingr Alliance New UN Forces through Epsilon Foundation subsidiaries... and you know what they're like. They one-stop shopped a worse war profiteer than Anaheim Electronics. At least AE could blame the divisions that used to be Zeonic and Zimmad for their covertly selling arms to Neo Zeon. Epsilon has no such excuse.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    It is noted to be possible to use a miclone system to turn a human into a giant. It's also been shown to work on Zolans, with the Zolan conservationist Graham Hoyly having used one to become a giant for the sake of hunting the white Galactic Whale. The implication being that it'll work on any sub-Protoculture species... though it's also noted that some individuals may experience complications with the procedure due to how it acts upon their genetic structure. The naturally-born Zentradi Klan Klan is obviously the poster child for this, with a genetic quirk that causes the miclone system to convert her to a child form when she becomes a miclone. Michael Blanc is noted to be unable to use a miclone system safely because his mixed Human-Zentradi-Zolan heritage causes issues for the system that could severely sicken or even kill him with repeated usage.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Crunchyroll only has Legend of Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These. That seems to be the only LoGH title the major streaming services have.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... I don't think it's quite that bad. After the Second Unification War, the New UN Government is letting the individual member governments manage their own affairs with a much greater degree of autonomy. So a scandal occurring at the level of an individual emigrant government isn't likely to impact them unless some bureau under the central government or its armed forces is involved in causing it. For instance, the Sharon Apple incident was a scandal for the New UN Government itself because the Macross Concern and Venus Sound Laboratory were developing the Sharon-type AI under a defense contract awarded to them by the New UN Gov't. Macross Galaxy's bad behavior, on the other hand, was confined to the Macross Galaxy fleet itself and its corporate government so the violations of interstellar laws and treaties by the Galaxy Executives didn't involve the central government except perhaps in terms of prosecuting the offenders after the fact. It's noted in Macross Delta that the New UN Government and the armed forces directly under its purview try to remain neutral in tiffs between the various local governments precisely to avoid ending up in politically difficult situations. Granted, that is what Xaos was hired for. The problem is that, once the Kingdom of the Wind made its formal declaration of war and the Aerial Knights began to operate openly under their nation's banner, Xaos's status as mercenaries and their continued participation in combat between the New UN Forces and Aerial Knights made them unlawful combatants. If they'd left the Aerial Knights alone to focus on protecting Walkure or avoided combat altogether to focus on security for Walkure's anti-Var live concerts they'd have been fine. Of course, participating in espionage is a whole other matter. Even if they were legally considered soldiers and not mercenaries, being caught in disguise and behind enemy lines would also void their legal protectons. In short, Xaos is remarkably blase about knowingly ordering its mercenary forces to violate the laws of war... and its forces are even more shockingly ignorant about the legality of the orders they're following. (Which is still not even in the top five stupid things they've done... nothing will ever top their repeated decision to send the most recognizable celebrities in the entire star cluster on undercover operations behind enemy lines. Especially since those people were also nigh-irreplaceable strategic assets. You'd think they were trying to get Walkure killed, as hard as they work to needlessly endanger them.) They seem to have no problem asking top-tier idols with biological fold wave abilities for their help without having to maintain a captive idol group to recklessly endanger... Of course, we should also note that the only members of Walkure who can actually accomplish anything are Mikumo and Freyja. The other members are repeatedly shown to be pretty useless.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, though when all is said and done the difference between the two seems to mostly come down to the quality and professionalism of their troops. Xaos is amateur hour. They're unprofessional. Uncooperative. Even sloppy. Their recruitment standards are low and their forces are full of troops whose personal problems led them to quit the New UN Forces. They even tolerate downright insubordinate behavior and unnecessary risk-taking from their troops. They don't properly vet their equipment. By comparison, SMS are consummate professionals. Their soldiers are well-drilled, efficient, and motivated. Recruitment standards are high, with troops recruited away from the New UN Forces, who quit the New UN Forces on principle, or who were drawn from top level pilot trainees in vocational programs. They work well in concert with the New UN Forces and on their own. They get better results than Xaos with less powerful or expensive equipment because the quality of their soldiers is so much higher. Basically, you get what you pay for... if you cheap out, you suffer the consequences of having cheaped out. IMO, it's worth more in the long run to spend more and have the peace of mind of a job done well instead of cheaping out and having to clean up the resultant mess.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    The irony in this statement is that for a fair number of those, the show indicates there are/will be consequences... and then just forgets. But yeah, it's bloody awful writing... though looping pack to the question that prompted this, if you were choosing between hiring Xaos and SMS, would you really want to hire the one that's on the wrong side of the law so often? It's not exactly implied that these things are secret... or at least, that the Windermereans are going to go public and condemn Xaos for the illegal clone operation they have going.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah... I can understand wanting to have a morally complex protagonist that isn't simply a White Knight (lol) boldly charging down the Forces of Evil from a position of total moral superiority, but the way Macross Delta handles it is just WEIRD. The writers will bring up something heinous Xaos did, then immediately sweep it under the rug and never mention it again. It's probably most blatant when Hayate, Mirage, and Freyja are put on trial on Windermere in episode 24. Mirage tries to invoke the spacefuture version of the Geneva Conventions regarding treatment of prisoners of war and is told flat-out by the tribunal that because they're mercenaries they're unlawful combatants not legally eligible for prisoner-of-war protections. Even after they escape, none of the three bring that little point up with their superiors... or anyone else. You'd think that'd be something pretty damned important to discuss, that your entire organization is participating in a war illegally. In hindsight, it's actually really surprising that's the first we hear of it. You'd think someone - and whatever their faults, the Xaos staff are not stupid people - would've had enough presence of mind to point out that mercenaries can't legally participate in a war like that. (That wouldn't have been a new development either, by the time the series is set that was a on the books as a part of the laws of war for 90 years.) Strategic Military Services at least gets a pass in that the Vajra neither knew nor cared about the laws of war.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... we're basically in the gap between Return of the Jedi and the point where the novelists felt compelled to address the point by explicitly and on no uncertain terms stating that that outcome absolutely would've happened had the Rebel fleet not put in a herculean effort to contain the damage in the wake of the battle. Xaos has explicitly been involved in a lot of explicitly shady BS... and they don't have an out like that (yet). The writers explicitly put them in those positions, and then just expected the audience to forget the heroes are keeping Mikumo as a slave, that her creation was illegal, that Xaos's involvement in the war is illegal to the point the protagonists were tried for it and only escaped execution for it via jailbreak, etc. ten minutes later at most. I understand TV Tropes likes to call this kind of a thing a "karma houdini"...
  18. Seto Kaiba
    *looks askance at several companies he works with on a daily basis* ... you sure? My own professional experiences suggest to me that it's quite possible for a company that's objectively terrible at what it does to stay in business and even thrive if the customers are gullible enough, locked into a difficult-to-escape contract, or the company in question doesn't have any serious competitors in the target market. Comcast and AT&T are the usual whipping boys for topics like that in terms of geographical market-monopolization. There are plenty of others I could point to (e.g. Tesla) that are wildly inept and kept afloat by a small group of hardcore fans and large government subsidies. There are a few outfits I've worked with where I know full well they're kept afloat by the difficulty of replacing them despite the issues caused by their poor quality. ... I mean, even if Delta wasn't a farce the results of Xaos's work and the manner in which they conduct themselves speak for themselves. Putting aside the funny bits, quite a bit of that list is factual: Xaos's forces were, in legal terms, unlawful combatants in the declared war between Windermere IV and the Brisingr Alliance. This was actually mentioned in the series, and the characters failed to refute it. Xaos's leadership all but completely refused to work with the local New UN Forces staff, which directly led to the New UN Spacy defense forces of multiple planets falling under Windermerean mind control and ultimately led to the loss of the entire globular cluster. Xaos conducted illegal cloning experiments in violation of interstellar law to create Mikumo. Xaos coerced Reina Prowler into working for them with the threat of criminal prosecution, which is itself a crime. Xaos's Brisingr Globular Cluster regional commander, Ernest Johnson, is notorious in-universe for being a failure as a commander. His reputation/nickname is literally given as 百戦百敗・無冠の名指揮官 ("Hundred Battles, Hundred Defeats - Uncrowned Commander"). That Xaos's forces are broke is the crux of an entire plot after they get run out of the Brisingr cluster. That live concert they hold is explicitly to raise funds because they can't even afford ammunition and fuel. The paramilitary organization Heimdall was created to hunt down Xaos's leader, Lady M, because of her extensive interference in government and military affairs. I phrased a lot of it in a joking manner but yeah, Xaos is a mess compared to SMS. Would you hire a company you knew was involved in criminal activity? Would you hire someone for a security job when it was a matter of record they were tried and convicted for breaking the laws of war? Would you work with a company you knew was complicit in slavery? Or whose leadership's reputation is so dire that they're mocked as incompetent or wanted dead for their involvement in flagrant corruption? Seriously. Even if you want to put some of that purely on the Ragna branch, some of that goes right to the top because it was ordered by Lady M... e.g. the slavery, the illegal cloning, etc. Even if it's just the one branch, that it's allowed to continue operating like that is a glaring, glaring problem that reflects poorly on the company as a whole.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    I wanted to work in a line about the quirky teammate... but Xaos doesn't really have one unless you count the seacat who's constantly giving Hayate sh*t. Bobby Margot is, of course, awesome not just for being an openly gay character who isn't portrayed as a joke or used purely for fanservice... but for being both a delicate feminine flower who's accepted by the girls and a veritable buffet of manliness at the same time.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    It's anime... even the chillest of health nuts has eighty gallons of blood at 500psi. Eh... a comparison between the two is so hopelessly one-sided that it reads like a "Virgin and Chad" meme. Xaos PMC Division Founded by Space Comcast. Works mainly in the space boonies. (Or maybe Space Doordash, given how many jokes they make about delivering pizza.) Main duty is protecting an idol group. Constantly puts them in danger. Parent company is a source of so much corruption that a paramilitary force is formed to hunt them down. War criminals on the payroll. Multiple arrests and convictions for being unlawful combatants in a declared war. Recruits are local New UN Forces washouts, and a forklift driver. Massive core competency issues. One "elite" pilot narrowly avoids causing a major accident and failing training. "Super hacker" and alleged top-tier mechanic can't manage a single electronic door lock in an undercover operation. Labor law nightmare scenario... one employee is kept as a literal slave (illegal clone soldier) and another was coerced into accepting employment there to avoid prosecution for criminal activity. Can't perform without an ultra ace custom version of the latest next-generation Variable Fighter. Scornful of the NUNS and doesn't cooperate with the local New UN Forces until it's absolutely necessary and way too goddamn late. Constantly playing into the enemy's hands. Repeatedly gets rolled by the Aerial Knights, who have never taken part in actual combat before... losing the entire war and causing the collapse of the Brisingr Alliance. Gets rolled again by Heimdall thereafter after Windermere takes its ball and goes home. Regional commander is notorious for his ineptitude. Organizationally broke and almost literally begging for money after being defeated. Joke-tier security, their entire system is compromised top-to-bottom by Epsilon Foundation hardware and backdoors despite a "super hacker" on payroll. Totally upstaged in their own movie by an ace pilot guest character. Top ace is a simp for, and creepy stalker of, Walkure's least useful member and an incredibly toxic coworker to boot. Dead team member is mercy-killed by the enemy (or dies needlessly) after violating orders while hardcore simping for the least useful Walkure member... gets her and the rest of the group captured anyway. Strategic Military Services Founded by one of the biggest interstellar shipping concerns to guard their cargo. Hired by the wealthiest emigrant governments to supplement their local New UN Forces. Main duty is evaluating the NUNS's next-gen main fighter in live combat. Parent company is a major intestellar shipping firm whose sinister ulterior motive is... finding Minmay and the Megaroad-01? Highly principled staff rejects unethical orders an investigates a suspicious transfer of power in their client government, uncovering and foiling a coup d'etat. Recruits are elite troops poached from the NUNS, top students from an elite vocational school that normally trains pilots for the NUNS and commercial service. New inductees so good they have to set the simulator difficulty up way above normal to prevent them from clearing it too easily and getting arrogant. No known labor issues. Uses totally unmodified production-intent versions of the next-generation Variable Fighter they were hired to test. Operates well in support of the local New UN Forces, despite being critical of them. Realizes they're being played when the enemy's plot kicks off, goes rogue to foil it. Repeatedly fought the Vajra to a standstill and achieved minor victories, then rescued the Vajra from the real threat once they uncovered it all on their own. Regional commander is a respected veteran. Organizationally sound, able to manage extended independent operations in the field. No known security issues. Ace pilot guest character has a small cameo without distracting from the action. Top ace is a certified badass who eats pineapple and doesn't afraid of anything. Dead team member dies valiantly protecting the woman he loves, buying her time to join the fight and save thousands of civilians. Let's be honest... which one of these would you want to hire? I'm pretty sure it's not Xaos.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Considering they're always outraged about something, I prefer to think karma is turning those salty buggers into actual salt.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Modern medicine alone seems to have done a fair bit... the average Windermerean life expectancy is 30 years, and at least two of the Windermerean characters in the series have exceeded that by a decent margin. Hermann Kroos is still physically fit enough to not only fight on the front lines but serve as a top ace at 33 (10% over) and King Grammier was said to be over 35 at the start of the series, meaning he beat the average by 20% by the time he was murdered. (It's not an exact comparison, but in Japan if you beat the average life expectancy by 20% you've made it 101.) I suppose extending the Windermerean lifespan would probably depend on what exactly their aging process does that causes them to seem to crystallize or whatever that is. It seems to be connected to their runes too, since overusing them accelerates the physical deterioration to a potentially incapacitating (e.g. Prince Heinz II) or lethal (Qasim) point. You can hardly blame Keith for being a bit salty toward the Protoculture for their decision to give the Windermereans such short lives. Well, we already had Hathaway's Flash-style funnel missiles in Macross II on one of the Mardook mecha...
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Most of the time, the way it's drawn is with the UN SPACY marking oriented so that it's right-side up when the gunpod is attached to the underside of Fighter mode... so upside-down when it's handheld, as in the box art.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    One and a half pages worth... not enough to justify buying the book for it, I think.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Finally got around to watching Lupin III: the First. It definitely hits all the major plot beats of a typical Lupin III red jacket story. The computer animation is even better than it looks in the trailer too, and it still manages to capture the slightly manic expressions the characters often had in conventional animation extremely well. It could've been a little better if the plot had fewer leaps of logic (esp. regarding how Lupin the 1st was involved), but it was still a great movie.
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