Seto Kaiba

Very likely, yes. Based on what's said of the arms export restrictions imposed by the New UN Government in the wake of the Sharon Apple Incident in Macross Chronicle and Macross the Ride, it seems likely that any VF-19 or VF-22 outside those possessed by the central New UN Forces and VF-X Special Forces is at least technically a monkey model. Performance doesn't have to be reduced across the board for a design to be considered a "monkey model". There just has to be a noticeable reduction of peformance or omission of features in some areas. For example, the VF-19P that was provided to the Zola Patrol had its weapons bays replaced with fixed micro missile launchers and the fire control system had its target discovery rate dialed back. The VF-19E monkey model specification that became the Frontier fleet's VF-19EF Caliburn had limiters imposed on various systems and the provided spec either omitted information for the airframe control AI, sensors, and other parts or the Frontier fleet felt they were substandard enough to order them replaced by new versions developed locally in the fleet. So, even if the engine output wasn't dialed back there may be omissions or reductions in performance elsewhere in the aircraft that aren't mentioned (because the whole monkey model thing is a Frontier-era retcon).

Cromwell's goal doesn't really make sense in the greater context of Macross, though... Yeah, there's plenty of characters in previous titles incl. Frontier side materials who have cybernetics and experience no issues whatsoever. The only problematic cybernetics were the ones the Galaxy fleet developed for the specific purpose of mind control and perceptual manipulation. (The entire Galaxy fleet's civilian population was basically living in an extreme version of Augmented Reality permanently, tweaking their perceptions via implants to make the industrial hellscape of Galaxy a more pleasant vista and editing their sense of smell and taste to make the harsh synthetic foods taste like actual food.) But neither of those reasons you gave here are correct or relevant... The technology that caused the so-called "Sharon Apple Incident" was already illegal before the incident occurred. It'd been banned by the New UN Government precisely because its inherent unpredictability and inbuilt self-preservation instincts made it dangerously unreliable. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the person the Venus Sound Lab's directors chose to sample to create Sharon's computer model "brain" was emotionally unstable and had a lot of repressed psychological issues. They put an illegal processor that was known to cause crazy computers into a system running an uninhibited virtual emulation of the thoughts and emotions of a woman with more issues than National Geographic magazine. The rest of the AI technology involved works just fine. Both the Frontier and Galaxy fleets were able to field Ghosts with the same autonomous air combat AI software as the Ghost X-9 without issue (Luca's Ghosts, and the AIF-9V "Ghost V-9's" from Galaxy). Luca's family's company was also working out the issues with personality simulation as a way to make Ghosts more intuitive on the battlefield in the Macross Frontier audio dramas. It turns out, if you model the Ghost's artificial personality on someone who isn't squirting crazy out of every pore, it works just fine. Cybernetics have been used by the Zentradi for over half a million years without apparent incident. Humanity's been using them for things like limb and sense organ replacement for quite some time as well without issue. Implants only became an issue when the Galaxy fleet developed ones that were specifically designed for mind control and then put 'em to use in an attempt to hit some kind of human rights violation high score by trapping their citizens in sense-altering augmented reality or straight-up hijacking their bodies against their will. People living elsewhere have been able to use cybernetics to generally positive effect, providing functional limb replacements for amputees or even enhancing personal performance like Vanquish League champion Nicolas F. Berthier with his fiber-optic nervous system.

There's nothing stopping a fleet from building more Battle-class ships if they feel the need or desire to. The City type has docks that could support up to three of them. It may be an animation issue, but the Macross 5 fleet in Macross 7 appears to have more than one Battle-class ship in this scene from the series: http://www.macross2.net/m3/macross7/newmacross5/macross5-fleet.jpg

Granted, a first-generaton Macross is essentially obsolete on its own... but properly equipped it's still enough firepower to be a fleet flagship or conquer a lightly defended planet on its own. That said, because megacorporations have already become involved in financially-backing emigrant fleets and those megacorporations tend to wield sigificant influence in the governments of those emigrant fleets, enabling them to do all kinds of questionable things. For example, in Macross Frontier the titular emigrant fleet was sponsored by SMS's parent company Bilra Transport. That is where Richard Bilra, its founder, derived so much of his impressive influence with the Frontier Government and how he was able to ensure his company's subsidiary SMS got a government contract and was hired to test the Frontier New UN Spacy's new 5th Generation VF (the VF-25) and prototype variable warship (the Macross Quarter). The Macross Galaxy fleet is a more extreme example, because the fleet was established as a kind of flying R&D facility for General Galaxy and was actually directly governed as a corporation by a General Galaxy subsidiary company.

My apologes for the confusion caused by my grammatical ambiguity.

OK, well that really leaves the matter vague then... if you'd answered the question in the affirmative then it would've been a reasonable conclusion that the VF-31AX was actually a less capable aircraft than the Siegfried, never mind the YF-29. The Fold Reheat system is a feature of the Sv-262 Draken III... ... which is essentially a poor man's version of the YF-29's Fold Wave System that provides only an increase in maximum deliverable engine thrust instead of bolstering the VF's reactor output with energy drawn from fold space and various other features. Variable Fighter Master File presented the version of the Fold Wave System used by Xaos on the VF-31 customs as being a less capable version of the YF-29's Fold Wave System, albeit with the benefit of using less of the ultra-rare high purity fold quartz. Battle Galaxy was said to have been destroyed in both versions of the Macross Frontier story, and she was destroyed fairly half a galaxy away from the Brisingr Globular Cluster in the vicinity of the galactic core. Salvaging the ship wouldn't be impossible, and the Epsilon Foundation absolutely has the necessary resources and connections to restore a ship like that. The Epsilon Foundation previously participated in restoring and modifying a first-generation Macross on Pipure in 2062, for it to be used in research into weaponization and amplification of fold songs. It even had a similar "ring" design to it.

Wait, the VF-31AX has a... If so, that would directly answer the question about its performance relative to the YF-29's.

Unfortunately, it failed to answer my main question with respect to the railguns used by the VF-31 and Sv-262. Specifically: are the railguns "true" railguns that use purely electromagnetic force to launch projectiles or are these like the VF-25's "railgun" where there's an electromagnetic assist to a chemically-propelled conventional bullet. The YF-29, not the YF-24. It's not entirely clear what the Macross Frontier Fleet Arsenal and local branches of Shinsei Industry and Legodt & Angeloni Industries had in mind for future applications when the YF-29 Durandal's development kicked off. Maybe it was originally intended to be a Special Forces fighter like the VF-19EF Caliburn or VF-22S Sturmvogel II. Either way, the frankly impractical amount of ultra-high purity fold quartz needed to manufacture the all-important Fold Wave System that made the YF-29's incredible performance possible also left the fighter impossible to mass produce due to its scarcity. There are several interesting notes in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31 Siegfried about the Fold Wave System. It's indicated that the originator of the theory behind the Fold Wave System was none other than Lt. Col. Gadget M. Chiba of the Macross 7 fleet. It was supposedly an outgrowth of his Sound Energy hypothesis that joined it up to unified fold theory involving using dimensionally-resonant crystals (fold quartz) to amplify fold waves. Some guidance is also offered with respect to the claim made in the extra features of the Macross Delta blu-rays that asserts the VF-31 Custom "Siegfried" is considered to be a Generation 5.5 Variable Fighter. Master File's assertion is that the YF-29 and its completed Fold Wave System constitute a 6th Generation VF. The 5th Generation VF-31 Kairos's retrofits to include that system in the Siegfried type supposedly made it Gen 5.5. Also of interest is a note that the VF-31 Custom's Fold Wave System is said to be of a somewhat different design than the YF-29's. It's said that the design of the Siegfried's Fold Wave System requires less of the ultra-high purity fold quartz needed to make a fold wave system, theoretically without sacrificing the system's performance but at the cost of it being less practical because the system cannot activate and maintain operation without an external fold wave oscillator (aka a suitably powerful biological fold wave source). It would appear that this is the reason the VF-31 Custom Siegfried type uses its fold wave system so sparingly in the series. The YF-29 is said to be able to "brute force" activate it without an external fold wave source. It's Earth's 5th Generation Main Variable Fighter, their replacement for the VF-171 Nightmare Plus. Your summation is quite correct. I just want to add one tiny note to that last sentence. Macross Galaxy began development of the YF-27 based on the YF-24 spec, but completed the project using development data from Frontier's YF-29 leaked to them by LAI. Unlikely, IMO... but I'm waiting to see actual specs rather than vague claims in potentally unreliable spoilers. Back in the Macross Delta TV series, it was noted on several occasions that the modifications Xaos made to the trial production VF-31's in Delta Flight's care were already pushing the limits of the airframe's durability. Expert handling was able to mitigate that issue, but Hayate's rougher style resulted in his VF-31 Custom Siegfried sustaining damage just by how he was flying it. Though there is some evident frame reinforcement on the Kairos Plus around the wings, I doubt that the stock VF-31 airframe could actually reach the YF-29 performance-wise without suffering a fair amount of damage from stresses beyond the design limit. There's also been a fair amount said about differences in Fold Wave System design that make the YF-29 superior as well, and the claim made in the Macross Delta series material that the YF-29 is a generation ahead of the Siegfried series and others. ヴィヴァスヴァト would be read Vi-Va-Su-Va-To (ヴィ - ヴァ - ス - ヴァ - ト), so Vivasvat should be the correct transliteration, I'd assume. My grasp of Hindu mythology is unfortunately quite sparse. This is, I think, the fourth Hindu mythology reference in Macross's technical setting. The first was ANGIRAS, the name of the original generation of airframe control AIs used in VFs. Then there was the Vajra, Surya Aerospace (makers of the VF-31), and now Vivasvat. Feels like the Macross II references are coming to a head... the Metal Siren in that OVA also had a fourth mode that deployed all of its engines for high-mobility space dogfighting. We already had the Star Singer who is basically just an Emulator, and Var syndrome which works almost exactly like the Song of Death from Macross II. My burning question is where the hell the Battle Astraea came from... because, as others have noted, that's clearly a Battle-class under all that garbage and it appears to be what remains of the Battle Galaxy.

The rest of the Japanese Delta media did, so I hope so.

When a long-running work's author(s) decide to reveal the truth of one of their story's great mysteries, it's go big or go home. They either have to dazzle the audience with a brilliant explanation or leave them so baffled by bullsh*t that nobody has the wherewithal to raise a grievance. It's not a time for half-measures, and half-measures are what we got. If the spoilers are legit, Delta's writers really just massively dropped the ball in a way that undermines earlier, and far better-written, stories without making any meaningful change to justify it. It's like discovering that one character in a story knew every plot-relevant detail in advance but never told anyone because "you didn't ask".

Both Shoji Kawamori and Masahiro Chiba do like to try to parallel real world developments and the state of jet fighter technology in Macross where possible. The phrase "Last Manned Fighter" has cropped up in discussion of 5th Generation VFs the way it crops up in discussion of 5th Generation fighter jets. That's one reason that I'm curious to see what the deal is with the Sv-303. If it just looks like an unmanned fighter, or it actually is one... and whether it's truly autonomous or simply remotely operated like the Galaxy fleet occasionally did on the VF-27. I could see someone going all-in on something like the Butterfly Master setup from Ace Combat, remotely operating multiple drones from a secure location. That's the other thing I was worried about WRT the mecha action sequences in the 2nd movie. Max is THE ace. He's going to make everyone look inadequate by comparison except Milia. He's like the YF-29 itself... too awesome to actually use, so if you intend to use him you had better be on the wrong side of the Godzilla Threshold or you'll be left wondering why they call anyone else. That will, hands down, be the film's biggest mistake.

Yeah, I know that feeling. Macross's writing is usually really solid, character-driven stuff. Delta kinda bucked that trend and left me feeling like it was trying to go style over substance with a cast too big to properly develop 90% of them and an ending nicked wholesale from Frontier. My expectations were already low, and the spoilers really are not doing anything to help that. This right here is what I was afraid of most, though... that the story would end up skewed really heavily towards the concerts again and kind of leave the mecha and characters out in the cold. Walkure had some great songs, but without the strong character development and the mecha action reduced to an afterthought it didn't really pull me in the way that the franchise usually does. After Frontier rekindled my love of Macross, it's so weird to have a new movie come out and... just... not really care much because I'm not invested in the fates of the characters. (Well, except Freyja... she's actually pretty great.) On this, I disagree. To me, the Sv-303 is basically the one point of mechanical interest here. It looks for all the world like an unmanned Valkyrie and it's clearly a more advanced and powerful version of what the SV Works were trying to do with the Draken III. I suppose I'm more curious about what the design's details will imply about the future of Valkyries than I am about seeing them in the film itself.

Gettin' back on 'em. Looking into availability of the movie guide booklets and other promotional materials for those of us outside Japan is nice and relevant, yes? 😉 Found what looks like a couple on Yahoo Japan Auctions so far.

Duly noted. I'll head there via my preferred proxy to see if I can't score a few for archival purposes.

I have had generally positive experiences dealing with Mandarake, barring one incident where my credit card flagged the international transaction as suspicious (which wasn't their fault, obviously). None that I have seen. The Kairos Plus appears to be another custom job like the Siegfrieds, albeit with a designation along similar lines to the VF-19EF Caliburn's suggesting it may be a more formalized custom spec based on a true production aircraft. (This is purely speculative, pending detailed information.) Smart money says the Sv-303 is another one of those models like the Sv-262 sold to non-New UN Forces customers by third party arms dealers.

Looks like Dirty Pair is available on Crunchyroll now, for those who are interested. I have to admit, I was not expecting that. I found myself feeling too bad for the protagonist to keep going.

Nice. Where'd you score it? eBay? YJA Auctions? I doubt they've hit Mandarake yet.

I think this difference of opinion may stem more from you having missed a few key details watching the series, and flat-out ignoring gaping plot holes. In the series, the New UN Forces actually knew about the danger and tried to preemptively deal with it... only for Lady M's fanboy Wright to screw it up. They're not corrupt or evil, they're just bureaucratic and officious. The end up being presented as mean-spirited because the show's Designated Heroes have to rebel against authority even if it puts all the people they're supposedly protecting at risk. I'm a very detail-oriented person, so I notice these things very quickly and it tends to puncture my immersion a bit. The Frontier short is its own thing. All I said with respect to that is that what's been said sounds incredibly depressing, and that I vastly prefer the implied or explicit happy endings from other versions of the material. THAT'S THE PLOT HOLE. Macross material has been consistent for decades on the topic of there having been no communication with the missing Megaroad-01 fleet. It's mentioned directly on the official encyclopedia entry for the Megaroad-01, along with the fact that the government covered up their disappearance for fear that the news would crash the plans for future emigrant fleets. Richard Bilra's secret agenda was developing the tools he needed to go looking for the missing and never-heard-from-since Megaroad-01. For this film to suddenly decide they've been in communication with Earth the whole time running a megacorporation that's engaged in all kinds of questionable shenanigans and generally undermining the New UN Forces? That's just... a gaping plot hole. (It's really problematic since, if Megaroad-01 had been in communication with the New UN Gov't and running a megacorp Richard Bilra would've certainly known it as a seriously influential megacorp CEO... which would've meant no reason to launch the Macross Frontier fleet and no reason to develop the YF-30 that became the VF-31 used in Delta by its protagonists.) ... that doesn't really make sense either, since fold faults are supposedly stationary phenomena. The more you tell me, the more it feels like the writers really did not think this one through at all.

Thereabouts, yeah. But the existing material says there was no communication with them at all. Fold communications, like fold jumps, can be traced. If they were sending frequent communications, they should have been found easily even if they themselves didn't know where they were. It's just bad writing... which is about all I expect from Delta.

So... since we're in a bit of a Delta frenzy today anyway with last night's theatrical debut of Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!!, I decided to go and tackle a few of the questionable areas in the Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31 Siegfried to satisfy my curiosity. The first one is a remark in the VF-31 development history section that mentions an aircraft we've never seen or heard before: the YF-30B Chronos. In an interesting contrast to Macross 30's YF-29B Perceval, the YF-30B is a reduced-capability version of the YF-30 instead of an enhancement. The YF-30B removed the FF-3001/FC2 Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines and the proprietary and poorly-understood Fold Dimensional Resonance System. Several units were produced for testing via SMS or other affiliated security services and performed well enough that Shinsei pinned its hopes on the YF-30B as a contender for an inexpensive, but highly versatile, mass produced main Variable Fighter for emigrant governments. (Apparently being able to put the arms outside the engine nacelles instead of between them was a real watershed moment for durability in Battroid mode.) Perhaps my happiest find is an explanation for the inexplicable color-changing paint used on the Siegfrieds and Draken IIIs. Where the VF-25 (and VF-171EX) used an ablative anti-beam coating that doubled as radar-absorbent material for passive stealthiness, the VF-31 is described as using a separate anti-beam coating that comes in an adhesive sheet form that's bonded to the airframe. The sheeting is a smart material that can also function as a display surface for still images and also video, allowing it to function as a kind of optical camouflage. Apparently the reason both the VF-31 and Sv-262 adopted medium-bore railguns in place of beam machine guns as their primary fighter-mode gun is in response to the increasing efficacy of ablative anti-beam coatings, which are able to dampen 30-40% of a typical beam machine gun's fire. No useful info on the function of the LU-18A beam gunpod, but there is oddly a mention of a conventional rotary cannon option not depicted which is considered useful for cases involving things like combat with Zentradi.

So, from what little I was able to glean from that five minute roadshow teaser, it looks like the Sv-303 is equipped fairly similarly to the Sv-262. Especially the presence of what seems to be a variant of the 262's Fold Reheat system. Definitely gonna want an explanation for how/why the enemy ship in the film appears to be the Battle Galaxy... given that Macross Frontier materials indicate she was destroyed over the Vajra home planet in the TV version and destroyed in the Vajra attack on the Galaxy fleet in the movie version. Really hoping the other unconfirmed spoilers about the film are false though.

Now that is some very fine news indeed.

No, I did not. That all contact with Megaroad-01 was lost in July 2016 and that the New UN Government covered up the fleet's disappearance to avoid negative consequences for the humankind seeding plan has been a part of Macross chronology for quite some time. You'll even find it mentioned in the official Macross encyclopedia Macross Chronicle's Mechanic Sheet for the SDF-2 Megaroad-01. No such story regarding a rogue NUNS agent is told in the movie. Roid only mentions the New UN Forces having stolen the Star Singer genetic material and handed those stolen materials over to Lady M. Arad also specifically mentions that Lady M intervened to delay the timetable for the use of a reaction warhead to destroy the ruins, slowing the evacuation already in progress. It doesn't matter that it didn't achieve the intended result, the point is Lady M's intervention put people at risk needlessly and ultimately gave the enemy a strategic advantage that they wouldn't have had otherwise. Max probably doesn't know about Lady M's... questionable... activities, or he'd probably join the forces attacking them just as he clandestinely backed Vindirance in the Second Unification War.

Kind of out of character for Macross as a whole, which tends to favor optimistic or outright happy endings. I know I definitely prefer the happier TV series ending of Frontier and the implied happier movie ending version in Variable Fighter Master File where Sheryl is touring in the Macross Olympia fleet c.2064 and her SMS bodyguard detail contains a nod to her and Alto's birthdays.

Now that's just depressing.