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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, those were in the original Southern Cross... Robotech II: the Sentinels called them "pollinators", implying they were somehow connected to the magic flowers everything revolves around in Robotech. They were cat-sized in the original Southern Cross and Sentinels shrank them down to around the size in this comic. Given how devoted Robotech is to the One Steve Limit, he's probably "new" with sarcastic airquote emphasis. Since Remix is dropping a lot of references to Robotech II: the Sentinels, this guy's probably either this timeline's version of Robotech II's incredibly derivative B-cast protagonist Jack Baker or a previously-unmentioned sibling of same like Robotech II's Vince Grant was to Robotech's version of Claudia La Salle. Nah, that kid's guitar looks to be a fairly standard Gibson Flying V. Basara's everyday-use electric guitar looks to have been based on a Jackson Soloist, while the one in the Fire Valkyrie's cockpit appears to have been based on a Jackson Rhoads.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Assuming you had a transmitter that could actually handle that level of power without going up like a roman candle, yeah... the amount of power it'd take to induce disabling voltage spikes in a shielded military aircraft at a range of hundreds of kilometers would be incredible though. Way beyond anything we'd call ECM. Now that's an interesting thought... did the Vajra independently evolve their active electronic countermeasures in their natural environment as a defensive or offensive measure or did they evolve that capability later on after making contact with the Protoculture and/or Zentradi in order to be left alone? Actually, that's kind of a frightening line of thinking in its own right. The ancient Protoculture created a lot of their overtechnology based on what they learned from studying Vajra biology and bio-technology, which suggests the Vajra ALREADY HAD things like energy conversion armor and heavy quantum beam weaponry when the Protoculture discovered a space-faring intelligent species already existed. Why did the Vajra need such incredibly powerful combat capabilities? Did the Vajra evolve these weapons and defenses to prey on some other naturally spacefaring species in their native habitat? Is there some other species out there in the Vajra's natural habitat that's nasty enough to prey on the Vajra despite their incredible combat abilities? Do the Vajra occasionally fight each other the way rival swarms of social insects do? It'd make sense if the Vajra evolved their powerful ECM after making contact with the Protoculture and their Zentradi, who are dependent on things like radar systems to detect and track objects in space, though I do rather like the idea that there might be some naturally spacefaring species out there that evolved a biological radar system similar to how animals here on Earth use echolocation. Given what happened to Guld when he disabled the safety limiters in the YF-21's airframe control AI software, that's not even an exaggeration. Poor bugger turned himself into a flight suit full of chunky salsa in order to save the day. (Made somewhat less poignant by Macross Plus: Game Edition having Isamu run into another Sharon Apple-controlled, next-generation unmanned fighter on his way to the Macross not long after leaving Guld to take care of the Ghost X-9.)
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Well, my Private Warehouse on HLJ should be getting a workout soon.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Old news, mind you... and let's just say given what usually happens to Robotech titles that go "on hiatus" I wouldn't take it as granted that they'll actually resume publication. Normally "on hiatus" is Robotech code for "we cancelled it but don't want to admit we cancelled it yet because some people still care and it'll look bad". It's also worth noting their excuse for why it went on hiatus is a really blatant, easily fact-checkable lie. Remix #5 was already two months late and counting before the industry started halting operations due to lockdowns and before Brenden Fletcher got sick with what he presumes was COVID. Whatever delayed it, it wasn't the pandemic. One of the writers is an old fan. It's the only way HG can get anyone to cover their mostly burned-out dumpster fire of a franchise (short of releasing blatantly false "news").
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Well, yeah... the Vajra definitely wouldn't understand the basic concept. The Zentradi were shown to have some pretty effective communications decryption technology going for them back in Super Dimension Fortress Macross, but it's doubtful they would know how to apply it to something like hacking a remotely-operated vehicle. The Protodeviln would probably be the ones most likely to understand it since they had to have some pretty good understanding of the Protoculture's overtechnology given that they were able to fairly swiftly apply some to the tech captured in the Varauta system to produce their improved versions of the local VFs and warships, as well as all the spiritia-related gizmos they use. Yes, I know... the whole point of a stand-alone hardware firewall is to filter incoming and outgoing communications to make sure that any modules that have outward-facing network communication are isolated from the rest of the vehicle's data networks and authenticate and sanity-check any data that's being sent between the vehicle's outward-facing networks and internal network. I have quite a bit of experience with them from my day job. Yes, as noted the AIF-7 Ghosts used by the Macross Frontier New UN Forces are operating with a semi-autonomous AI system. Like their predecessor, they're dependent on the mothership to direct them to the combat zone and provide them with mission parameters. The jamming they encountered from the Vajra was extraordinarily intense, enough that it not only blinded the radars of the warships monitoring the action and severed communication links with the Ghosts headed into that area, it also caused visible electric arcing and disrupted or even disabled the Ghost's onboard systems. (That suggests this was closer to an EMP attack than actual jamming.)
  6. Seto Kaiba
    To be fair, the OVA is pretty clear about the YF-19 having a pretty excellent claim to the title of "deathmachine" itself. Shinsei's YF-19 team had already lost two test pilots in fatal accidents, seen two more hospitalized with serious injuries, totalled one of their two prototypes, and seriously damaged the other even before Isamu was assigned as their latest victim test pilot. Depending on the version of the story, he became the third test pilot to sustain serious injuries. On Hayate's VF-1EX, the training support AI that was under the remote control of the instructor aircraft (Mirage's VF-1EX) was something that could be switched off from the trainee aircraft's side. That was a dedicated training aircraft, though. The remote control an EX-Gear suit has over a VF is noted to be pretty limited and pretty short-ranged. Presumably it's disabled if there's an EX-Gear suit already connected to the aircraft (with the apparent exception of a direct physical plug connection as in Frontier Ep7. I'd imagine there's also some pretty hefty cryptographic protections on that function as well to prevent unauthorized individuals from remotely operating a VF. Windermere hijacked the pilots themselves, not the controls... and Sharon never seemed to actually be in control of the YF-19 itself, just messed with the communication system's holographic displays. Ideally, you'd want to isolate the aircraft controls from outward-facing communications systems for exactly that reason. (Cars and other vehicles with connectivity to outside networks usually have a hardware firewall between the protected vehicle network and the outside world that is set up to filter communications from the outside world so that only legitimate data for very specific purposes is gated through to the protected network... unless you're Tesla, then you just leave your sh*t open to the goddamn world so that hackers can gain access to every car your company has ever sold.) The original QF-3000's AI was noted to be somewhat flaky and as a result the early Ghosts were run almost exclusively in semi-autonomous mode only. The Sharon Apple-based autonomous AI developed for the AIF-X-9 Ghost had its own issues, and government restrictions in the wake of Sharon's little psychotic break meant that an improved version of the QF-3000 Ghost's AI was used for most modern Ghosts. (Excl. Luca's, which used a version of the banned Sharon Apple AI in the form of the Judas System, and the AIF-X-8S prototypes from the audio dramas that used personality AIs modeled on Skull Platoon members Luca Angeloni, Alto Saotome, and Michael Blanc.)
  7. Seto Kaiba
    If Macross Delta is any indication, even single-seaters used for training purposes are replete with all kinds of instructor controls over the student's interface.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    It likely helps that the simulators we've seen in Macross Plus and Macross Frontier seem to be a bit more... extreme... than anything we currently have today. The one in Macross Plus is particularly terrifying, given that it seems to not only be on a fairly extreme armature but appears to be straight-up rocket propelled. All told, that level of obscene luxury seems to be fairly rare in Macross as well. There are very few dedicated training variants of VFs out there. Most VFs follow suit with that real world practice of having a variant with a tandem cockpit on an airframe otherwise identical to the single-seat main version. The VF-1 had dedicated model conversion training variants - the improvised VF-1D and production VT-1 - but that was justified in that the two of 'em were being used to train pilots on VF operation in general not just on a specific model of aircraft. From then on, you see mostly fully operational tandem variants like the VF-4B, VF-11D, VF-17T, VF-19B/D, etc. until optional second seats became a standard feature on the 5th Gen main VFs. Depends on the locale... I think a lot of the reason we DON'T see dedicated training variants for most models of VF is that it's only really Earth that has the benefit of massively over-the-top manufacturing capability thanks to its nearly two dozen factory satellites. Most emigrant fleets have to make do with more restraint via onboard factories or factory ships in similar lines to the Macross 7 fleet's Three Star.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Guld Goa Bowman was a General Galaxy employee and one of the designers collaborating on the development of the YF-21 in addition to being its lead test pilot.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    I got distracted by a few minor emergencies at work while I was researching the curriculum at real world military test pilot schools, so I meant to respond a lot earlier. While I was drafting my reply, it occurred to me the answer was actually coming from another direction entirely. Specifically, it's not about the needs of the test pilot school... it's about the military's habits regarding aircraft tuning. Barring a few isolated cases of "ace tuning" (like the VF-27γ) or built-to-order aircraft (like the VF-11MAXL), the military in Macross seems to generally stick to factory tunings or are inclined to detune hardware to improve reliability, reduce maintenance requirements, and extend the service lives of key parts (like the VF-171). Tuning for improved performance (at the implicit cost of durability/lifespan) is more a thing we see from irregulars like Sound Force and non-military users like SMS/Xaos. But is this aircraft from before or after Macross 7? Is it, though? From what I recall, the VF-11C was a mixed bag that offered largely identical or slightly better performance thanks to avionics improvements. The only area I recall it being mentioned as deficient vs. the VF-11B was that the omission of its bayonet made it less capable in close quarters combat. Wouldn't that be what simulators and training versions of the more ambitious aircraft are for? (e.g. the VF-19B?) If it operates anything like a modern military test pilot school, there is a separate course specifically for flight test engineers that covers that kind of thing in excruciating detai. We know that there are at least some software-based performance limiters built into the airframe control AI and other system software... though some of the tunings would have to be done manually, in the hardware.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Yellow Belmont's official character bio identifies his place of birth as Mars Base, Mars... given his age (22) he was presumably born there in 2060 or 2061. The episode where his backstory is discussed/shown (#11 "Lullaby of Distant Hope") shows that he was part of the 1st Earth Recapture operation in 2080, and that Carla rescued him from the wreckage of his AF-03 Convert after it was brought down in the fighting. His rank and unit affiliation are unknown, though it is noted he was a reluctant soldier who joined because his father was a career soldier and one of the commanders of the 1st Earth Recapture mission. (Robotech's fans and, later, franchise staff assumed that he was part of the Mars 10th Battle Company because the Ride Armor he uses in the show has 10th Company markings, though it was likely salvaged in the original MOSPEADA.) That site's not even accurate for Robotech, never mind MOSPEADA...
  12. Seto Kaiba
    The name change only lasted about a year... they changed it in 1980 and changed it back in 1981. Maybe a little... but that was mostly Tatsunoko Production's desire for a Macross-like breakout hit of their own at work.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    They were the project's original producers/financial backers. Back in 1980, ARTMIC had changed its name to the Wiz Corporation and was sponsoring the development of a series concept pitched by Shoji Kawamori called Genocidas. When that failed to thrill potential investors, a more sponsor-friendly proposal for a Gundam parody anime called Battle City Megaroad was thrown together. That concept was what the pictured Breast Fighter and Megaroad were made for. Not long after Battle City Megaroad went into serious development, internal issues at Wiz Corp. forced it to withdraw from the project. It changed its name back to ARTMIC soon after, while Studio Nue shopped its orphaned project around and found a new backer in the advertising agency Big West.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    IMO, the most impressive bit is that such a small device has a transmitter with a 30km range. Modern technology has offered some of those features in similarly-sized packages. There are several different manufacturers of fingernail-sized UV radiation exposure sensors that are meant to be worn that way. MIT's done a lot with fingernail-mounted sensors for a variety of purposes, including fingernail-mounted biometric sensors meant to be an alternative for the skin-mounted sensors that occasionally prove problematic for patients with limited mobility and a fingernail-mounted trackpad called NailO. (My favorite is already in production, swallowable self-powered sensors with short-ranged wireless transmitters for measuring things like core body temperature small enough to fit into gelcaps.)
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... maybe to a viewer who wasn't paying attention, but even then it's strictly superficial. As in Macross 7, Macross Delta is quite upfront with the viewer that this is all strictly in the realm of science and technology and wastes no time explaining as much. Literally within a couple minutes of the first battle ending they get right into it.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    It's not really discussed in the show proper, but an episode of Delta Mini Theater from the Blu-rays does explain the technology. The model is "LF6se Multi-Device", a device the size of a press-on fingernail that includes a holographic display, vital sign and bio-fold wave monitoring, and communications functions with a 30km range.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    My apologies in advance for the potato quality, for my own lazy convenience I grabbed this screenshot from a fansub of Delta Mini Theater that a fan uploaded to Facebook a while back. Yes, there's literally an extra feature on the Blu-rays devoted to showing that this is purely technological... and not even that advanced, by in-universe standards. Like the vast majority of the tech Walkure uses, we've seen this before... (art taken from the Macross Frontier: Itsuwari no Utahime Blu-ray booklet) The "Black WD-200W Walkure series" stage costume and WD-120 undersuit that RsP35 nitrogen gas jet cluster is used with is functionally identical to Sheryl Nome's holographic undersuit that Sheryl was shown to wear for all her performances in the Macross Frontier TV series (art source: Macross Chronicle character sheet Macross F Citizen 02B "Sheryl Nome"). The Delta Mini Theater episode that discusses the suit and gas jet cluster even has an annoyed Reina refute the idea that it's "like magic" when Bogue thinks it. Given that holographic costume tech used for entertainment debuted all the way back in Macross: Do You Remember Love? on Hikaru and Minmay's date, and portable versions used for disguise and stage performances were first introduced in Macross II: Lovers Again, she's right to dismiss that idea. (Images sourced from This is Animation Special #5: Macross II) As I've said many times before, there ain't no magical girl stuff goin' on here... this is all technology, and all stuff that's been part of the Macross setting for ages.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Macross 7.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    To be fair, the VFs in Macross Frontier and Macross Delta are all directly linked designs from the same generation and base model. It's somewhat less than surprising that they all look similar. That's from FamilySoft's Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Remember Me for the NEC PC-9801... one of a trio of Macross strategy games FamilySoft made. That said, it's not a post-First Space War Destroid. FamilySoft's Macross games were all side stories set during the First Space War. Remember Me used a mixture of events from the TV and Movie versions, while its sequels Skull Leader and Love Stories used Movie version events in their stories. The original mecha introduced in FamilySoft's games - the VF-X3 Medusa, LDR-04 Maverick, and SDP-1 Stampede Pack - were presented as original/improvised developments by the Macross's onboard factory similar to the SDR-04-Mk.XII Phalanx Destroid in the official setting. You had to unlock 'em via the resource management mechanic in the games. The Maverick was the long-ranged missile counterpart to the Phalanx meant to work in concert with the Monsters for long-range suppression attacks. (In an entertaining coincidence, the remarks in the game manual imply that its full designation also ends in Mk.XV same as the later Super Defender.) Yeah, all of the designs in Palladium's Absolutely Not The Sentinels Sourcebook (AKA the UEEF Marines Sourcebook) were either Imai Files designs used basically unaltered or this kind of "frankenmech" (Palladium's own term) standing in for the Sentinels designs that had been deemed too close to the original Macross ones to safely use. If you look, most of 'em are made from a combination of Legioss, TLEAD, and Auroran parts that are wildly out of scale with each other.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, it's gesture control... they've got some kind of mini-computer terminal embedded in their press-on fingernails.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    ... but that's demonstrably not true. Macross 7 was, and still is, absolutely the apex of "glowy" for the franchise. Nothing in Macross before or since comes close to a rock band fighting space kaiju and their vampire army thanks to being given the ability to fight by weaponizing The Power of Rock with tokusatsu-esque VFs, what might as well be DBZ-style power levels, glowing battle auras, and energy beams made of pure emotion. They took it right down to frigging zero immediately thereafter in Macross Dynamite 7, which is about the main character from Macross 7 traveling to a remote planet to be a wandering space bum and accidentally getting caught up in a fight between the a taciturn conservationist, the local cops, and some space whale poachers with nothing but an acoustic guitar, his wits, and whatever VF was left unattended. There was nothing particularly outlandish in Zero or Frontier except Sara Nome's fold songs having the power to restore the Birdhuman because her entire lineage were created for that one specific job by the Protoculture. Delta's Tactical Sound Unit Walkure is just a pale shadow of the shenanigans Sound Force got up to in 7... the only thing remotely unconventional about Walkure is that they use song to counter a dangerous disease. Their equipment is all stuff we've seen before, and even using songs to counter mind control is right outta 7.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    We've seen a lot of hyperbolic nonsense on this score, and it is exactly that... nonsense. Macross has always been heavily involved in selling the music used in the anime. This isn't new. This isn't even any more extreme than what was done in Macross 7. It's just this time it was a girl group instead of a rock band. Even the tech that some lambasted as "magical girl"-esque was not new by any means. It was well-precedented tech from previous shows. Kawamori and co. like to experiment with Macross, approaching its core concepts from different angles and viewpoints. That's why we've had such a diverse body of stories, and why we really shouldn't waste our time trying to predict what Kawamori will do next. He's going to put together some bizarre combination of concepts and it'll work suspiciously well. In the past, we've had stories that de-emphasize mecha, and stories that emphasize mecha over the rest. Macross's creators mix things up to keep it fresh. Been there, done that... in Macross 7, actually. The show's principal antagonists, the Protodeviln, were energy beings from higher-dimensional space that were accidentally trapped in the bodies of bio-tech superweapons the ancient Protoculture created during the height of their civil war. The only way they could survive in three-dimensional space was to harvest higher-dimensional energy (spiritia) from the minds of living beings, and created the Supervision Army to help them not starve to death. The titular emigrant fleet discovered that certain rare individuals could produce a lot more of that higher-dimensional energy and even unconsciously control it to a certain extent, and invented a way to weaponize it by collecting, amplifying, and focusing it. (You could grossly oversimplify the series by saying a rock band fights emotion-vampires by blasting them with the emotional high of rocking the f*ck out.) Technically, we've also seen songs create force fields in Frontier and Delta as well. The Vajra communicate and manipulate fold waves by "singing" (albeit not anything humans would recognize as song) and can use those fold waves in manners identical to purely technological solutions humanity uses to do things like warp spacetime into an impassible barrier. The Protoculture ship Sigur Berrentzs in Macross Delta had a similar capability.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    I'm not aware of any translation patches for those PC Engine SuperCD games... but then, I haven't exactly looked very hard for one either since I can read enough Japanese to get by. I suspect a lot of it may be that you didn't watch all of Macross 7... since that sets up a LOT of the later stories, but is also one huge expansion on the backstory of the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series that explains how the Protoculture civilization fell and why, and introduces us to those directly responsible for it as the show's principal antagonists. It's also what set up a lot of the nature of in-universe dramatizations of the First Space War, since it introduced the idea that DYRL? was a movie in the universe (at least, within a show, the concept was also explained in print media) and had the main characters be involved in filming another TV docu-drama based on the First Space War during the course of the story. (There's also the vague implication that Macross II is a work of speculative fiction in-universe, since almost the entire OVA soundtrack seems to be the galactic billboard Top 40 and the Minmay Attack Girl has some brief cameo appearances.)
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Sort of... Macross II: Lovers Again is officially classified as a parallel world story, but like the main continuity it does kind of cut a dash between the two versions albeit in a way that draws far more heavily in DYRL? than the TV series. You could argue that it's technically drawing more on the novelization of DYRL?, as the Macross is shown to have had the Daedalus and Prometheus as its arms during the First Space War in Macross 2036 and Macross: Eternal Love Song, as well as in some promotional material made for the OVA itself before its release. (It has some distinctly TV-esque bits, like Quamzin not dying fighting Roy, and instead living on Earth briefly before acquiring a ship and fleeing into space... albeit only to return as an antagonist in Macross 2036 and Eternal Love Song.) It's just Kawamori being auteur... he doesn't want to end up in continuity lockout the way some properties (e.g. Gundam) have done. He wants to be free to tell the stories he wants to tell, so his attitude towards continuity is a "broad strokes" one when it comes to the TV shows. Other materials, like light novels, manga, games, artbooks, and so on tend to do a bit more with actual continuity because they're marketed to fans who are naturally inclined to want that kind of thing. It's kinda like how Gundam has the AU stories for folks who want just a standalone story and the UC for die-hard fans who are into continuity porn. Yeah, Kawamori has indicated directly or indirectly on a number of occasions that he's not keen on direct sequels and the like. His attitude towards the Hikaru-Misa-Minmay situation is that their story arc had a natural conclusion, so it's best to let it be. They've sailed off into the metaphorical sunset. The stuff about not wanting to feed HG is just fan conjecture AFAIK. HG never had any rights to Macross's sequels apart from the merchandising rights to DYRL? it got in '01, so it's not like they can do anything even if Macross went on a TV series referencing spree. Nope... it's just the author's personal preference, and as we've shown his preference changes on a case-by-case basis. Eh... the official Macross timeline essentially takes the TV series version of the story as gospel and the entirety of Macross 7 is one long explanation of the mentioned-only Supervision Army from the TV series version of the story and all references to the ancient Protoculture are built on that. It's just that they seem to prefer to use the more visually impressive DYRL? designs to be used in subsequent animated works that are set after it. It's explicitly not the case, though. Later titles perceptions of history may be muddied somewhat by the many, MANY in-universe docu-dramas about Lynn Minmay and the First Space War that were filmed using later versions of real ships and mecha like Do You Remember Love? using postwar VF-1's and having a West Point-class training ship with a holographic camouflage applied to it stand in for the Zentradi mothership. Many characters are more familiar with and connected to those dramatizations than the actual history, esp. since Do You Remember Love? was one of those films that defined a generation when it came out in 2031.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    So... fun thought, I think this might actually be the first time we've seen art of a VF-11D being used for its intended purpose as a training aircraft. We've seen the ELINT/AWACS conversion the VE-11 Thunder Seeker, the modified VF-11D's used by the Jamming Birds and the Thunder Focus camera aircraft used to film Vanquish Races, but I honestly can't recall ever seeing a VF-11D in regular military markings being used for its intended purpose. Source is the Hasegawa 1/72 Thunderbolt Test Pilot School type kit: https://www.hlj.com/1-72-scale-vf-11d-thunderbolts-test-pilot-school-hsg65866
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