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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been any mention of a VF-31D in any official setting materials. The only VF-31 variants mentioned in the official setting materials I've seen are the mass production A and B variants, the six custom Siegfried types seen in the Macross Delta TV series (C, E, F, J, J改, S), and now the VF-31AX Kairos Plus type from the second movie. Of those, all but the VF-31B have appeared in animation. The VF-31B is mentioned in connection with the VF-31A, but without any role described. Given the convention that several previous VFs incl. the VF-19 and VF-25 established, it's probably the first model conversion training variant.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    As much as I like Mirage, the series never really gave me a sense that she had significant untapped potential. She was the least senior and least experienced member of Delta Flight until Hayate showed up, and he surpassed her indecently quickly. Messer definitely ranks Chuck above her in terms of skill, and actually tells her to her face that Chuck is more skilled in front of both Chuck and Hayate in episode 6 when he's taking them to task for not going for kill shots in live combat. Mirage is probably my favorite character in the series - the only character for which I purchased any character goods - and for me it's actually part of her appeal that she's not the usual Jenius family untouchable top ace. That she's actually bothered by failing to live up to those lofty expectations and has to sort of reassess her life goals makes more a more compelling character than many of the others in the series. It's just a shame that she got benched halfway through the series in favor of focusing entirely on Freyja.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    The number of implicit asterisks in that one sentence is oddly impressive... Delta Flight is never presented as a prestigious assignment. It's a famous unit in the remote and sparsely populated Brisingr globular cluster, but that's because of its association with Walkure. At the time of Episode 1's events, it's still a relatively new and untested unit that'd only been formed a year or so before and had never fought an enemy on or above its own level. Depending on how you view Arad's departure from the NUNS, either three or all four of its members are pilots who couldn't hack it in the local defense forces. Their newest recruit is effectively a rando whose only prior experience was driving a giant robot forklift and who was admitted despite skiving off his training at every opportunity. The Xaos PMC division itself isn't exactly prestigious or exclusive either, being essentially the alternative for cost-conscious governments who can't afford SMS. Their elite-ness is also strictly relative... they're better funded on a per-soldier level because they can fall back on the capital of their parent megacorp in lean times. They have the latest gear for the same reason SMS did, they were hired to test the local government's next-gen fighter in live combat because they're contractually-expendable mooks that, in the event of their violent deaths, are legally recorded as having died in accidents rather than combat. In a rare "reality ensues" moment late in the series, they're also acknowledged to be unlawful combatants in terms of the laws of war because they are not actually soldiers. (That's right, our heroes are technically war criminals... not that Windermere's forces are any better, but these are supposed to be the good guys.) They come off looking good because the local NUNS is underfunded and using outdated equipment due to its local economic difficulties, being about ten years behind the rest of the galaxy... to say nothing of how their own efforts to defend the cluster were hindered by the interference of Lady M at key points. It's also really more of an aerobatics team than a proper fighter squadron. For its part, Walkure is also a very new group who've only been around for about a year and a half at the start of the series. They're not Galaxy Network chart-toppers like Sheryl Nome, Fire Bomber, or Sharon Apple. They're a new idol group with regional popularity in an incredibly remote and isolated star cluster that is as far removed from the rest of the New UN Government's territory as it is physically possible to get without leaving the galaxy, to the extent that it has difficulty sustaining its economy. They're also either the only Tactical Sound Unit in the cluster or one of a very small number (if Thrones are still operating in 2067). Not so much a big fish in a small pond as a small fish in a solo cup. Both Mirage herself and the unit's top pilot, Messer Ihlefeld, were pretty clear about her being a middling/average Valkyrie pilot whose textbook skills are adequate but nothing to write home about. She's also not considered one of the best in her unit. She's presented as competent, but otherwise the least proficient member of Delta Flight prior to Hayate joining... and he very quickly surpasses her. Even Hayate drags her about her lacking performance in their first face-to-face meeting in episode 2.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    The series would disagree? A big part of why Mirage quit the New UN Spacy and joined Xaos's PMC division was because she's only an average Valkyrie pilot with textbook skills and couldn't cope with the expectations of piloting genius placed on her because of her family's reputation in the military.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    They look pretty conventional to me, TBH? Just, as an artifact of the transformation, they appear to be upside-down in that shot with the engine nozzle end pointing up. Wouldn't be the first time. Macross: Eternal Love Song was the first title to give the VF-4 a name - Siren, as it turns out - and (computer-controlled) funnels were among its available weapons. It also had a beam gunpod strongly reminiscent of the Zeta Gundam's beam rifle. Macross II: Lovers Again's VF-2SS Valkyrie II w/ Super Armed Pack had (computer-controlled) bits. It'll be interesting if this new Valkyrie is actually named Siren, since Siren was the original name of the VF-4 and remains an in-universe nickname for it.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    My rule of thumb for "is something likely Protoculture technology?" is as follows: Does it look like the output of a regrettable one-night stand between a Lovecraftian horror and an unattended houseplant or rock formation? It it at least partly biologically alive while still being technological in nature? Is it in some way an existential threat to sentient life? If the answer to all three of those is "Yes", then it's likely Protoculture technology. Let's be honest, when was the last time we saw a piece of confirmed Protoculture technology that didn't look like it was collecting child support payments from Nyarlathotep? What, you don't like your Valkyries riced out? This thing looks like it even has ground effects! (And the hangar we see it in in the trailer is so 2010's kpop music video...)
  7. Seto Kaiba
    I don't know how to put this, so I'm just going to blurt it out thoughtlessly. In the modern art style used in Hathaway's Flash, Gigi Andalucia looks like Lusamine from Pokemon Sun and Moon. It's really throwing me off.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Inasmuch as she was heavily involved in the development of the YF-30 Chronos technology demonstrator that the VF-31 Kairos was developed from. It's unclear if she was directly involved in the development of the economized, production-ready derivative version that we know as the VF-31.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    A lot of us have theorized that the new enemy Valkyrie is an unmanned unit... in this case, I'm increasingly drawn to suspect that it's being remotely operated by this new girl, who appears to be a cyborg of some description. Pretty sure the Labyrinth of Time short feature has been described as a separate project? Besides, wouldn't Mikumo come off rather flat and undeveloped sharing screen time with the character she's an expy of both in-universe and out? ... an interesting possibility. I suppose it's not impossible, if she went full-cyborg the way the Macross Galaxy fleet's executives did. What little we know about Lady M points to her being quite old by the time of the Macross Delta TV series (Q2 2067). She's said to have been researching the power of songs as a weapon since the end of the First Space War. Even if she were just 18 at the end of the First Space War, she'd be over 75 years old by the time this film is set. It'd be a hell of a plot twist if that's it, though... especially since Berger Stone would've effectively predicted it all the way back in episode 19 of the TV series! When he's explaining the history of music on the battlefield, he shares a rumor he heard that Lady M has been applying her research into the power of songs to the development of an ultimate weapon able to bring that power to bear at its fullest potential. The very next thing he mentions is that there are two conflicting rumors about its nature: one being that it's a living weapon created through genetic engineering, and the other being an android. Makina and Reina conclude this refers to Mikumo, who was revealed in the series and the first movie to be an illegal clone Lady M created for the Tactical Sound Unit program. What if both rumors were true? What if the girl from the trailer is the other Mikumo prototype? An android, rather than a bio-construct, programmed to do the same job as a Tactical Sound Unit by broadcasting fold waves both to manage Var syndrome and provide remote control to unmanned fighters? That much is expected, at least. The TV series and first movie both took care to establish that using her rune to boost her natural abilities came at the cost of shortening her lifespan and that the effects are cumulative. Prince Heinz is as bedridden and infirm as his 35 year old father was at the tender age of 9 due to abusing his runes to weaponize Var syndrome against the New UN Government, and Qasim basically killed himself by overclocking his reflexes with his rune until he aged to death in his cockpit. She's important to the merchandising, so I'm sure there'll be some copout at the end.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    More or less marathonned Ascendance of a Bookworm over the last two days... good show, albeit with kind of a difficult-to-like protagonist at times because of her singleminded obsession.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Strategic Military Services is a business rival of Xaos's PMC division, and we know both companies apparently have holdings on Sephira, which must be near the Brisingr cluster if Messer was to be transferred to a Xaos office there. Maybe SMS is moving in on Xaos's turf after Xaos bungled the whole Windermere thing so completely that the enemy were able to conquer the entire cluster. (Macross 30's plot starts with Reon Sakaki transporting a YF-25 from the SMS branch on Sephira to the one on Uroboros, and Messer was to be transferred to the Xaos branch on Sephira after his Var problem got out of hand.) FWIW, my read of this is that it definitely has General Galaxy's grubby little fingerprints all over it. I wonder how they'll do that iridescent sheen when it comes out as a DX Chogokin? I'm sure the plamodels will have holofoil stickers for that.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Now that'd be entertaining... SMS rolls up and is like "What up scrubs! Competent mercenaries are here to clean up your mess!" No, we've had a few previous examples like the VF-X3 Medusa from the FamilySoft Macross games (not official setting), the Feios Valkyrie that debuted in Macross Digital Mission VF-X, and the derivative Queadluun-Alma from Macross the Ride. Everyone is always way too quick to jump to assuming things are Protoculture technology... like they did when we got our first look at the VF-27. That's clearly a human-made Variable Fighter. Since this new enemy appears to have a heavily cyborged individual on its side, that kind of narrows the field by a huge margin to "Galaxy or someone connected to them". They're the only ones who had that level of cybernetic technology and cybernetically-reinforced soldiers were (and presumably still are) illegal. So is this the Cyber-Nobles having another go at galactic domination, or is this them selling their advanced technology to anti-government factions like Fasces to make ends meet now that they're on the run?
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Definitely interested to know what this about. The green hologram at the beginning of the trailer appears to be what this gal is inside of, and it's repeatedly marked with the words DE-124 SIREN DELTA SYSTEM.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Rather curious to know what this is about, too... This hologram is repeatedly marked DE-124 SIREN DELTA SYSTEM. Whatever it is, the cybernetically enhanced lady from the trailer appears to be inside of it. You can see the DE-124 part written clearly in in at least two parts of this frame:
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, the YF-29's Fold Wave System required four 1,000ct pieces of fold quartz. Mind you, that was the majority but not the entirety of the adoption of fold quartz in its systems. There was also the fold quartz used in its Inertia Store Converter, the fold wave amps, and if Master File is to be believed, all four of its engines. Not to mention the granulated fold quartz its canopy was treated with and the fold quartz used in its MDE weaponry. That's what made it so apocalyptically expensive that the Macross Frontier fleet could only build the one. One has to wonder, given that this is pretty clearly a YF-29 w/ Super Pack, what precisely this is and where it came from. The YF-29 is, as noted previously, an astonishingly expensive aircraft to build and the Brisingr globular cluster is BROKE AF. Doubly so now that it's recovering from the disruptions in trade and the damages inflicted during their brief war with the Kingdom of the Wind. Did the Brisingr Alliance just happen to have a YF-29 sitting around that went unused back during the war against Windermere? Did Xaos somehow obtain the plans for what is essentially a bleeding edge New UN Spacy VF-X Special Forces ace Valkyrie like the YF-29B? Surely nobody's got the capital to actually mass produce such an insane design. (Are we really coming to the point where the YF-29 is basically just the Macross universe's equivalent of a Gundam that you dust off every time there's a space fascist around, like how Banagher and Mineva keep the RX-0 Unicorn on ice in case its insane power is ever needed again?) While I couldn't make it out in the actual art, the text captions indicated its affiliation markings say "PARMENIDES"... though they declined to specify if Parmenides is the name of a ship or something else like a planet or an airbase. One has to wonder just how many illegal activities Lady M is involved in, that she seems to have such unlimited capital and influence. Between the damage and the potential loss of at least one, quite possibly two, VF-31 Siegfried customs in the war against Windermere it'd definitely be a big dent in Xaos's bottom line to replace them... especially given that they were already tossing around the idea of removing all of the Epsilon Foundation-provided technology from their systems during the series (and noted that'd take at least a full year's operating capital to do).
  16. Seto Kaiba
    There is the hypothesis that the new enemy Valkyrie is unmanned, and we've seen someone in the trailer who looks pretty damned cybernetic. Maybe we're Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere-ing this one?
  17. Seto Kaiba
    So... a Valkyrie needs a name, and we finally have it. VF-31AX Kairos Plus That definitely raises at least as many questions as it answers. While Macross's New UN Forces have not always used designation systems consistently, since Frontier the two-letter variant code has been used mainly to identify a local derivative of a particular VF variant such as the Macross Frontier fleet's VF-19EF or the Macross Galaxy fleet's VF-22HG. This, I would assume, identifies this as "VF-31A Xaos spec". That raises the odd prospect that, for the first time, Macross protagonists are receiving an equipment downgrade rather than an upgrade. If this really is what it appears to be, a minimally-modified military spec VF-31A Kairos that's been given the Main Character treatment, then that would go a long way towards fixing the issues Xaos had with operating the Siegfried customs that the Ragna 3rd Fighter Wing Delta Flight was having. The fold quartz insets for the fold wave system are missing from this new model, which suggests it may not possess the (incredibly expensive) fold wave system that caused such durability issues for the VF-31 during the Windermere conflict. The increased size of the railguns suggests they've uprated, rather than derated, the firepower of the railguns too.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    So we now have a name and a designation to go with this art of a new VF-31 derivative used by Xaos... VF-31AX Kairos Plus. That, I suspect, lends some support to the theory that this is a downgrade from the Siegfried type rather than an upgrade. They did appear to be less heavily modified versions of the VF-31A from the outset, and I guess this seems to confirm that suspicion. Given the designation and the name, it's possible that the fold quartz that was fitted to the Siegfried type is no longer present and has been replaced by something else like sensor systems.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Even more so than last season, this feels like they're trying very hard to sell this on the basis of nostalgia... ... and didn't we do pretty much this exact plot back in "All Good Things"?
  20. Seto Kaiba
    I'd heard it was kind of a coda to Unicorn, wrapping up the nonsense with the Sleeves via a rejected Char candidate and a third Unicorn Gundam to explain why this setting breaking bullsh*t isn't present after that story.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    That bad? Really?
  22. Seto Kaiba
    It's definitely on my to-watch list, along with Narrative, but I have a hard time working up enthusiasm for UC Gundam these days. The real word is already unstintingly grim and depressing enough, y'know?
  23. Seto Kaiba
    'bout a year? They turned off the upvotes and downvotes entirely, leaving only the "Like" button, and removed the display of the upvotes/downvotes on posts that had them. You still get notified if someone likes your post, but you can only see it on your profile page.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    It was an extremely unconventional design for the period, both because of its lack of GERWALK mode and being a synthesis of Variable Fighter and Zentradi Battle Suit technology... a few years before Kawamori rolled up with Macross Plus and introduced his own take on the same concept in the YF-21. Macross II's developers seem to have felt they owned fans a GERWALK though, so while the VF-XX Zentradi Valkyrie lacks one they added another design that is JUST GERWALK. Even that probably isn't strictly necessary, since the VF-1 has some very powerful verniers meant for those sort of braking maneuvers. The goal of those unseen 2nd Generation emigrant-use VFs was comparative low cost... but some of those expensive components would be effectively mandatory in order to meet the basic operating requirements of a Valkyrie. Among the non-official setting materials like Master File, there is at least one alternate take in the VF-1L. That was, according to its writeup in Master File, a postwar low cost VF-1 variant that reduced complexity by outright eliminating the variable system in order to maximize the onboard propellant capacity for space operations.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    They turned that one off deliberately a while back.
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