Seto Kaiba

Hmm... I'm now especially interested since it appears to include stuff Kawamori designed for non-canon Macross games.

As noted previously, Macross II's creators stuck with a more typical mecha anime level of detail when laying out the stats for the OVA's mecha. That unfortunately means we don't have concrete numbers for things like the firepower of different weapons. When it comes to the railguns, all we really get are relative statements of power like the VF-2SS's standard/medium railgun gunpod, Nex's custom heavy railgun, and the anti-capital ship railguns mounted on the Super Armed Pack and Defender-EX Destroid. Energy weapons aren't really commented on in the published stats except to note number and type. Both the UN Forces and the Mardook seem to have abandoned laser weaponry in its various forms in favor of more advanced and powerful beam weaponry in Macross II. The Mardook's improved Nousjaedul-Ger was the odd man out as the only mecha with other types of energy weaponry, having retained the original design's impact cannon and plasma cannon.

Well... in some ways, they are. In others, not so much. For instance, the progression of things like engine power in Kawamori's timeline is much more rapid with VF thrust-to-weight ratios shooting into the double digits from the 4th Generation onwards where it stays in the single digits in Yatagai's timeline. The usage of unmanned aircraft as wingmen and the widespread adoption of railguns in lieu of conventional cannons is way more widespread in Yatagai's timeline than Kawamori's.

There was no real announcement that they'd officially given it a designation... it just showed up with a designation one day on the old official Macross portal's Flash interface. I'm not aware of any source that gives an explicit statement of the thrust available from the sub-engines... though if the remarks about the VF-2SS having three times the output of the VF-1 apply here, it'd be around 8,900kgf or about 77% of the output of the VF-1's engine. We know the VF-2JA has lower performance than the VF-2SS as a result of being a lower-cost rear echelon planetary defense aircraft rather than a frontline main VF. Though it is helpfully noted to be non-trivially faster than previous-generation main fighters and sacrificed unneeded fuel capacity as a dedicated atmospheric fighter for further-increased armor. Admittedly, the pace of technological development in Macross II's timeline is slower than in the main Macross universe that came along after it. The Valkyrie II's "fully loaded" thrust-to-weight ratio with the Super Armed Pack is slightly better than the original VF-1 Super Valkyrie but that higher performance is more sustainable since it's not dependent on short-lived rocket motors to make up the difference. Performance-wise, they're about on par with the 3rd Generation VFs in Kawamori's timeline.

Eh... personally, I doubt it. We've seen - via Prometheus - that material from the Alien setting doesn't go over nearly as well with fans or with general audiences when it's divorced from the xenomorphs who are the franchise's iconic namesake. The Colonial Marines don't really have any story to offer that doesn't involve ending up as Weyland-Yutani brand Xenomorph chow. Similarly, we've seen how Predator fared poorly when its story tried to be something more than just "clicky bois on safari hunt the most dangerous game" and made an ill-advised effort to try to tie their activities into a less malicious motive. It'd also be facing competition from the aesthetically and thematically-similar, but more action and cast-survival-friendly TV series adaptation of Halo: Combat Evolved that is set to air on Showtime starting in Q1 2021.

... well, let's hope that's not true. Otherwise, it seems like they're about to Terminator: Dark Fate themselves out of a job.

Macross II: Lovers Again actually did get a fair amount of detail... the problem, from the fan perspective, is that that the bulk of the information was never collected in any one publication after the fact. Like you'd expect for a sequel to a popular anime series, the Macross II: Lovers Again OVA got a fair amount of attention from the hobby press when it was in development and production. There were the usual creator interviews, the teased designs for various characters and mecha, the articles talking about various aspects of the story and setting, promotional tie-ins, and all the other odds and ends. Where that became a problem is that that information was never consolidated the closer they got to release. It was a series of exclusives for the various hobby magazines like Newtype, Animage, and B-Club. If one of those hobby magazines wasn't in your spectrum of interests - like a scale modeling magazine would be to a casual anime hobbyist - then you just missed the one and only publication that talked about subjects X, Y, and Z. And this was back before the internet, so the only way to know about that was to either be already subscribed or see some kind of advert, and the only way to get it if you missed it was to go do the crawl of your local stores for unsold back issues. The one that I think really put a dent in Macross II was that the one and only article to give in-depth coverage of Macross II's timeline and the development of its mecha was an exclusive in Bandai's B-Club magazine. Of course, even then, the level of detail behind Macross II's mecha wasn't as high as the obsessive level of detail Kawamori and Chiba put into Macross's original series. It was more in line with what was being done in the rest of the industry. Macross's creators aren't exactly aloof to the series... Haruhiko Mikimoto snuck several nods to Macross II into his later work for the franchise like Macross 7, Macross 7 Trash, and Macross the First. Some would argue Macross Delta was Kawamori borrowing its take on an alien foe who weaponized songs for mind control purposes. Macross II: Lovers Again was also ahead of the curve when it came to a number of trends that emerged in later Macross titles and setting materials like: Future generations of Variable Fighter after the VF-4 incorporating Zentradi overtechnology to improve performance and durability. (Incorporated into the main Macross setting starting in This is Animation Special: Macross Plus.) Next Generation main Variable Fighters based on Zentradi battle suit technology reverse-engineered from a captured factory satellite. (Incorporated into the main Macross setting via the YF-21/VF-22 in Macross Plus and Macross 7.) VF designs being optimized for usage in space or atmosphere. (Incorporated into the main Macross setting starting in This is Animation Special: Macross Plus.) VF cockpits with controls incorporated into a g-force resistant armature to help pilots maintain control under high g-loads. (Incorporated into the main Macross setting via Macross Frontier's EX-Gear.) VF designs with four thermonuclear reaction turbine engines. (Incorporated into the main Macross setting in Macross Frontier.) VF designs that leverage high generator outputs to replace conventional guns with railguns. (Incorporated into the main Macross setting in Macross Frontier, Macross R, Macross Delta.) VF designs with beam gunpods. (Incorporated into the main Macross setting in Macross Frontier.) As an unrelated point, the Metal Siren didn't have a designation for a very long time. It was just "Metal Siren". The "VF-1MS" thing is something that Palladium Books invented, which obviously doesn't work as it implies the Metal Siren is a variant of the VF-1 Valkyrie. The official Macross website finally gave it a designation of "VA-1SS" around the time production started on Macross Frontier, and that's the one that stuck ever since.

Yup... but it preserves more dramatic tension to have humanity be unable to kill the monster without having to resort to extreme measures like teaming up with the other monster (as in AVP) or just flat-out nuking the entire area (as in AVP:R). There's no tension left if Johnny Testosterone-Tits and nine of his best mates can just roll up with pulse rifles and convert swarms of the nasty buggers into piles of picante salsa verde with chitin chips in barely enough time to boil an egg. There's even less tension when the eminently bullet-absorbent monster feels compelled to stop and pose for the camera in all its mutilated glory every five minutes. "Where is it? Oh, it's over there posing impressively." I regret that I do not have an adequately strong way to express my approval of this statement. "QFT" will have to do, for now. Alien: Isolation understood what made the alien scary. That it is something unseen and unstoppable, hunting you with profoundly lethal intent but in no hurry to actually finish the job. If this new Predator movie can get back to Predator's roots by making the titular Predator into an unseen and decidedly malicious hunter that's messing with a crew of certifiable bad*sses for funsies with every expectation and ability to kill them without breaking a sweat, then it might be worthwhile.

Oh, that's an easy one... blame the villain decay caused by Aliens and Predator 2. Both the Predator and the Xenomorph derived most of their ability to frighten and intimidate from being unseen and unstoppable killers that were clearly in no hurry to finish off their prey. There was nothing the crew of the Nostromo could do to prevent the xenomorph from killing them all with impunity. Likewise, the Predator was able to slaughter a team of elite commandos with impunity and show off how tough it was by beating up a character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger without breaking a sweat. The threat level for both of them dropped significantly when sequels revealed they weren't actually all that tough. The Predator in Predator 2 was killed off by an ordinary cop in the Los Angeles of 1997, and the xenomorphs in Aliens were killed in droves by inept and overconfident colonial marines in 2179. The scary monster is much less scary when it's revealed that you can just shoot it dead. That's why they have to keep setting these movies in the present day... because that keeps the protagonists from having the kind of technology and firepower that levels the playing field too much for the monsters to be a credible threat.

... "Not at all" would be the politest way to put it. Palladium Books claimed that they brought in someone to research Macross II: Lovers Again in order to get accurate information for the RPG, but that person either didn't exist or they got conned bad because they somehow managed to get almost every single detail of the OVA's setting and story wrong. They didn't even list the right year for the events of the OVA. The list of details they actually got right is painfully short (we're talking single-digits). Funny story, the top of the slippery slope that led me to translating was realizing there were inaccurate bits in the RPG and looking to Japanese publications to try and houserule fix 'em. I didn't realize how deep the rabbit hole of inaccuracy went at the time. It may only be "simple" compared to other Mardook-built mecha too, given that the Mardook are indicated by Macross II's creators to have overtechnology superior to that of the Zentradi or Meltrandi. (I'm undecided as to whether or not the battle suits would have it, since they're not shown to hover without an engine providing thrust the way the battle pods are.) I wouldn't even say "flaky" given that it's mass-produced for the Mardook's most common mecha... it's probably just basic (by their standards) because it's something intended for use by the rank-and-file Zentradi grunts who've been subjected to mind control.

Right now, there are eleven volumes of Variable Fighter Master File. In order, they are: Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie (Vol.1) Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie (Vol.2) Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix Variable Fighter Master File: SDF-1 Macross VF-1 Squadrons Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II Variable Fighter Master File: VF-4 Lightning III Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31 Siegfried Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Battroid Valkyrie Variable Fighter Master File: VF-11 Thunderbolt There is also a Red Herring of sorts... an in-universe volume that is mentioned (with an image of its cover) in VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.2 that doesn't exist in reality, which focuses on the VF-4, VF-3000, and VF-5000.

Not at this time.

Yeah, they do work better when they're inside the ship. It occurred to me that there's one other high-profile case of reactionless drives being used for flight in-series... http://www.macross2.net/m3/macross2/battlepod/battlepod.gif The Mardook's version of the Regult battle pod... which on several occasions is shown hovering or flying at very slow speeds without using the thrust from its thrust-vectoring engine pods to do so.

Well, at least it's ignoring The Predator... that's an automatic point in its favor. Still, I have a hard time imagining they'll be able to put a new and interesting spin on the idea that more clicky bois are coming to Earth to hunt The Most Dangerous Game. The Predators suffered too much villain decay in previous sequels to ever be properly scary or intimidating again, now they're just fishnet-wearing serial killers with bad teeth and no compelling motive. Like Alien Isolation, they need to go back to Predator's roots to have any hope of making this one worth a damn.

Yup... reactionless flight using gravity manipulation is pretty useful.

Also, many MANY cases of inexplicable floating rocks e.g. Macross Zero and like... 2/3 of the local geology on Uroboros. It's also probably how the Protoculture-created insectoid bioweapons known as the Dyaus get around. Pretty much every ship built using overtechnology is capable of reactionless flight using gravity control too so there's that as well.

Size, I would assume... the Vajra's bio-gravitational field propellers are almost 2/3 as long as a VF in fighter mode.

There are some that are similar, though they're almost exclusively a fixture of VF models and variants that are optimized for service in space and are mounted farther back around the engine nozzle to take best advantage of the peak turbine pressure south of the thrust production stage. Mostly they come in the form of the "vernier ring" feature that was first seen on the VF-14 and carried over onto the VF-17, VF-11MAXL, VF-19, and VF-171. That is essentially a thrust reverser on steroids, a 360 degree collar of verniers around the engine nozzle that draw engine exhaust for propellant. Then there are more traditional examples like the VF-19A/B/C/D type's LHE-10B verniers which are designed like other high-thrust verniers but which similarly divert engine exhaust for propellant.

So... first things first, "nuclear energy" isn't a separate and distinct form of energy. The term refers to the heat and particle radiation produced by the fission or fusion of atomic nuclei. Only a small amount (~0.645%) of the fuel's mass is converted into kinetic energy as alpha particles and so on. The rest of the fuel mass is converted into heavier elemental nuclei like helium, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc., though in the plasma state at a VERY high temperature due to the massive amount of kinetic energy released. The heat from that plasma is the energy harnessed by the VF's thermoelectric generators to produce electricity to power its systems. In an atmosphere, trace amounts of that extremely hot plasma are used to flash-heat the air passing through the engine in lieu of burning jet fuel in order to produce thrust. In space, the plasma produced in the reactor is used as propellant to generate thrust. The VF's fuel consumption increases exponentially in space in order to have the reactors create enough plasma to produce the required amount of thrust. This exponential increase in fuel consumption is the reason for things like FAST Packs, which contain rocket motors to take more of the burden of acceleration off the main engines and additional fuel tanks to extend the maximum operating time of the engines.

Accidents like that are the reason behind the well-traveled engineer's aphorism "the safety regs are written in blood". Every one of those seemingly obvious safety rules in any field or work site exists because it wasn't obvious to some idiot and they got hurt or killed. Not very... that's why Arad cautions Hayate to keep a sharp eye on his propellant levels when he's about to set out on his first space sortie early in Macross Delta. One way space-optimized VFs tried to mitigate this was with the vernier ring that General Galaxy pioneered on the VF-14 and which later made its way onto the VF-17, VF-171, and VF-19 space types, which diverts main engine exhaust into a sort of sectored-off thrust-vectoring thrust reverser. Pretty sure that only has one setting: well done. Smoking is generally inadvisable these days.

Well... if they work anything like their description in Variable Fighter Master File, then probably not. Both the high-thrust verniers used for braking and roll control and the low thrust verniers used for minor attitude control are described by Master File as thermal rockets. They rely on power from the compact thermonuclear reactors and the high-energy capacitors elsewhere in the airframe to power lasers or high-voltage electrical arcs that heat propellant to produce thrust. Without that power, the propellant is inert and comes out at much lower pressure. It might knock you on your butt or frost your eyebrows, but it's unlikely to toss you across the room unless you're foolish enough to be standing in front of a vernier that's being tested under power. Someone unwise enough to be standing directly in front of one of those verniers being tested under power will have more immediate concerns like being hot exhaust gas akin to a blowtorch setting them on fire. (While fire retardant coveralls are almost certainly standard issue, nobody really wants to be the one to test just how fireproof they really are.) Given that automotive diagnostic tools can do everything from clear fault codes to manually actuate everything capable of moving without direct connection to the engine... it'd be something more or less guaranteed to exist. Luckily, it's not hydrazine. Survey says it's probably gaseous hydrogen.

Yeah, it wouldn't take much to just detach the entire section you need to work on and leave the rest of the aircraft in place. We've seen a few cases, esp. in Macross Frontier, where aircraft in hangars were shown missing parts as if in the middle of a service visit or overhaul. They do rotate... but not for that reason. Put simply, they're thrust-vectoring nozzles for the verniers. I'd lay odds there are probably specific commands that can be sent to a VF's transformation system using a diagnostic test stand tool to only move a particular set of transformation joints for easier maintenance access. Yeah, we do have a few scenes in Macross Plus and Macross Frontier of them being serviced while in Battroid mode instead of just in Fighter mode.

It probably helps that VFs are made from materials much more durable than anything available today thanks to the reverse-engineered OTM advancements in material science. From the sound of it, a lot of the articulations outside of the hands are fairly simple stuff that doesn't require a lot of attention.

... and then there's me just going "WANT!" at the prospect. Assuming the date doesn't get pushed back, two weeks until the book drops... I'm glad I got my preorders in in the first wave. I'm surprised and slightly gratified to know it has English text. It'll save me some time.

Wait, we need a reason to get multiple copies?