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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Macross Chronicle did briefly cover it. "Canon" is, of course, still a vague, nebulous, and not especially accurate term for Macross's official setting since Kawamori tends to go in for a more broad strokes approach.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    There are currently three volumes, Valkyries, Second Sortie, and Third Sortie. IIRC they're mentioned briefly in the This is Animation: Macross Plus book.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    No.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    A short-lived Macross stage musical that ran for like a week back in October 2012. The reason it came up in connection with the topic of fleet economics was that the setting (Macross-29) is a fleet in the midst of a huge economic crash thanks to having adopted a pacifistic national policy and abolished its armed forces.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, that's Tenjin's... page 21 of his Second Sortie book. I don't believe they identify the emigrant ship in the background.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    None that I'm aware of. I just have the various magazine, archived web articles, and other publications about the musical and its setting, story, and characters, as well as summaries by my friends who were able to catch it. It'd be nice if they'd put a DVD out or something. That's why I'm only commenting on the setting as it's relevant to the question of fleet economics, I can't well get into the details of characterization with the material I've got.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... I mean, you're right... but you're not actually contradicting what I said either. Regardless of his actual motives, Vigo was in a position where he had every reasonable expectation of being able to defeat Serge in the forthcoming election. He was primed to walk into the top job with the popular support necessary to address the underlying socio-economic problem that gave rise to the Neo-Zentran movement in the first place: the huge trade imbalance that caused the fleet's economy to collapse that resulted from the fleet's doormat approach to negotiations. He walks away from that, leaving the fleet in the hands of the same man whose leadership (or lack thereof) was the cause of the trade imbalance, economic collapse, the emergence of the Neo-Zentran movement, and the violent protests it engendered. It feels weirdly shortsighted for someone committed to curbing the movement's violent outbursts to stop so far short of tackling the actual problem. Yes, I know... see the previous posts WRT "Cultural Exports" as part of fleet economics. Superficially... it's actually kind of a really nasty downer ending if you stop and think about the implications. (Which, I know, we're not supposed to... but hey.) They resolve the hostage situation, but they don't actually do anything to resolve the status quo ante that caused the Neo-Zentran hardliners to take hostages or commit any of those other acts of violence. Serge's job is secure, the fleet's not going to be seeing any of the popular reforms that the Neo-Zentran movement sought as it transitioned to a legitimate political entity, and the whole plan to save the fleet's economy is pinned on the hope that cultural exports will get money flowing back into the colony despite it doing nothing to address the trade imbalance crippling every industry the fleet has. Yeah, that specific group of hardliners will not be hurting anyone else, but since the underlying problem hasn't been resolved more are going to emerge in the future. The fleet's still full of angry, unemployed people who aren't going to be distracted for very long by the Miss Macross Contest's attempt to be the circus in the metaphorical "bread and circuses". Now, I'd be happy to talk to you by phone or Skype as long as you'd like about the musical... but it feels more like what's actually got you frustrated is that I didn't take the Aesop at the ending at face value. That, as part of looking at the picture of fleet economics it plays a peripheral role in, I poked some holes in the happy ending and its message. I'm only looking at it in terms of what the setting shows about fleet economic relationships, so I'm not terribly surprised if distilling unfortunate implications into a single sentence doesn't capture the fullness of the story... summarizing the whole story was never on the agenda here.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Why would you DO that? I literally just told you he's a h-doujinshi author who specializes in lolicon porn! There is no part of that that's worksafe... or homesafe... or anywhere on this planetsafe.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    He's talking about Aki Uchiyama... the h-doujinshi artist who pitched the original series concept that eventually evolved into Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross to Tatsunoko Production. Uchiyama's niche as a h-doujinshi artist was lolicon porn and diaper fetish comic. Somehow, this failed to send up a massive red flag when he pitched a series concept about young teen girls based loosely on famous historical figures like Jeanne d'Arc and Cleopatra until AFTER he'd been brought on board and started turning out creepy creepy sh*t. (He's responsible for the creepy comic and lolicon art in This is Animation 10.) Fortunately, Tatsunoko realized their mistake and fired him fairly swiftly. The only parts of his series concept that survived into the final product were the protagonist's name (Jeanne) and that Jeanne and Lana's designs were further developments of his designs for Jeanne d'Arc and Cleopatra.
  10. Seto Kaiba
  11. Seto Kaiba
    It's been reported by a number of different news venues... apparently she had considerable difficulty getting to grips with the new Seven of Nine, and admitted to "freaking out" and "bursting into tears".
  12. Seto Kaiba
    I've been getting them as ebooks... the occasional long test cycle at work means I can shoot through one in an afternoon and not die of boredom watching a 480V battery pack charge at 10 amps. I'm probably not going to spring for the Star Trek: Picard tie-ins though, I don't want to encourage CBS's bad behavior... especially as the news from the set gets worse and worse. Jeri Ryan having breakdowns and crying fits? Something is emphatically NOT RIGHT.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Kindly explode, at your earliest convenience.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    I'm not thrilled with it either... especially the number of shows that have shockingly poor quality like Isekai Cheat Magician.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    The worst part of the plot in Macross the Musiculture is that the protagonist - a political activist advocating fixing the problems actively hurting the fleet - ends up being dissuaded from taking any actual action because a group of hardliners in his political movement that were largely unrelated to him resorted to violence that didn't affect the actual election in any way. Well, Frontier is also only running at 10% of its nominal maximum capacity and the vast majority of what we see in the series is the most affluent neighborhood in the fleet... Island-1's topside. A lot more of the population lives in the Deep levels underneath that, which were seen in the movies as more of a downtown urban area full of highrises rather than the more suburban atmosphere directly under the dome. Of course, it's also partly a reflection on the government's attitude towards its constituents. Macross Frontier is a representative democracy that handles its population pretty well and gives a damn about their wellbeing, even allowing Zentradi to live at giant size if they want. Macross Galaxy is just as wealthy if not wealthier, and the fleet is basically one huge slum district because Macross Galaxy is run by a corporate monopoly that treats its citizens as employees and sees anything that doesn't earn them a profit as a waste, preferring to rely on augmented reality to create a pleasant place to live rather than actually making the fleet a nice place.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Not that I've seen... AFAIK the last time he's referred to by rank is as "Major Isamu Dyson of the New UN Spacy Reserve".
  17. Seto Kaiba
    No, that's just the peyote talking. Nothing like that ever happened. Ever.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Fleets are mostly designed to be self-sufficient but trade in natural resources, processed materials, technology, luxury goods, food, and various cultural exports (movies, music, etc.)... and some fleets like Frontier also have tourist industries. Frontier ended up as one of the wealthier emigrant fleets thanks to its tech sector and tourism. It's a fleet sponsored by one of the biggest interstellar shipping firms in the galaxy (Bilra Transport), it has major presences from Shinsei Industry and LAI (the latter of which has a presence not just in the defense industry but also in consumer electronics), and it's a bit of a tourist trap thanks to the fleet being a 5th Generation bioplant ship designed to resemble a mixture of several different prewar Earth cities including SF. The Macross Frontier novelizations and Master File both imply that the Macross Frontier fleet made serious bank on exporting the VF-25 to its allies as well... and sitting on the former Vajra planet they're going to get even wealthier thanks to possessing a huge cache of the rare and currently impossible-to-synthesize fold quartz. Macross-29, a fleet that adopted a policy of total pacifism and conflict avoidance, ended up in a state of economic collapse thanks to becoming a doormat in trade negotiations with neighboring fleets and planets. At the end of Macross the Musiculture, the fleet's leaders decided to attempt to revive the fleet's economy through cultural exports (entertainment). The YF-29's design requires some extremely sophisticated technology and, most importantly, rare natural resources which cannot be synthesized (fold quartz). The design is so massively overengineered that it's significantly more expensive than a regular VF in that respect alone... but it also requires four super-high purity fold quartz (1000ct class) chunks of fold quartz for its fold wave system and more super-high purity fold quartz for its fold wave amplifiers. Some are... fold navigation has only gotten "faster" and more reliable as time has gone on, so a "neighboring" fleet might be 500ly away and still involved in regular trade via cargo flights. Macross Frontier, Macross Galaxy, and Macross Olympia were partners in codevelopment of 5th Generation VFs (if you don't count Macross Galaxy's bad faith participation for espionage purposes), due to their close proximity to each other. Variable Fighter Master File had it that the VF-25 had some parts manufactured by Macross Olympia due to their ability to provide higher quality fold carbon composites for armor and structural material.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Only because jumping out of a moving plane into a warzone full of rampaging insane giant aliens is a completely ordinary day for Walkure.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Working there. Beyond that, we cannot say... because we don't know. He left the NUNS for SMS because he wanted to fly rather than let his rank chain him to a desk (a trajectory that was his "reward" for his one-man assault on Earth) SMS doesn't really handle development of new fighters... the Frontier fleet used them as test pilots for the VF-25's OPEVAL process because they were, legally speaking, expendable. (As civilian contractors, any fatalities - including combat fatalities - were legally accidental deaths and thus they weren't eligible for any kind of compensation.) As much of a loose cannon as he is, I'd expect he was probably allowed to go it alone.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Well, specs-wise, it's the kind of aircraft that would only really be a credible threat in the hands of a completely insane adrenaline junkie like Isamu Alva Dyson. By gutting the limiters, rolling back the airframe control AI to the YF-19-3 prototype build without the stabilization that Shinsei spent almost twenty years refining, and generally doing everything he could to make it as unstable and uncontrollable as possible, it's INSANELY maneuverable. It's also so cruelly unforgiving that he's about the only one who could ever fly it safely. He'd probably be pretty terrifying in a YF-24 Evolution or a YF-29 (he sure was in Macross 30)... but I'd expect he'd probably find the VF-25 or VF-31 pretty boring, since they're heavily stabilized, insulated against high g-forces, and generally as safe as Shinsei or LAI can make them. Thus far, the (and this is multiple guess) - VF-19 (SMS Ver.) VF-19ADVANCE Excalibur Advance VF-19EF/A Excalibur (Isamu Sp.) - has only been covered in the Official Complete Book for the film, Macross Chronicle, and the movie novelization. Frustratingly, each one chose a different name for it, though the EF/A one seems to be the explanation that stuck for merchandising purposes.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Really, the only point where Harmony Gold would probably have been willing to let go of the Macross/Robotech license would've been at that brief period between the disastrous first screening of the Robotech 3000 trailer at FAnimeCon 2000 and the announcement that Robotech 3000 had been cancelled at the 2000 San Diego Comic Con. Macek's refusal to let Robotech 3000 go, and his fool's errand of trying to negotiate its production as a traditionally animated series after his folly drove Netter Digital to bankruptcy, was what convinced Harmony Gold that Macek's "vision" was unworkable and led to the decision to chuck it all (him included) and start over. An enterprising soul could've stepped in at the point between the failure of Robotech 3000 at FAnimeCon and the decision to bring in a new staff to reboot the franchise to buy it from them instead since, at that point, it was deader than dead.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    The VF-31 straight up divided it into a "hero" version (the Siegfried) and a "everyone else" version (the Kairos). Personally, I feel the time has come for Macross to get back to where it was with SDF Macross, DYRL?, and Macross II, where the only difference between the ace pilots and everyone else is a paintjob. The excuses for the protagonists having better mecha than everyone else are getting a little careworn and reusing the idea of PMCs having better gear than the military is not sweetening it.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    I got nothin' from my sources... the only hits I'm coming up with for Macross Delta-relevant games are Macross Delta Scramble, an android app I've never heard of with a limited time collaboration, and Super Robot Wars X-Ω.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    That's up to the individual discretion of the New UN Government's members. Even before the New UN Government decentralized to grant more autonomy to the individual member governments, the local governments had a great deal of autonomy in deciding how to equip their defense forces. For instance, the VF-14 was widely adopted despite having lost the Project Nova design competition to the VF-11. The Varauta colony was one government that opted for the VF-14 over the VF-11, before being taken over by the Protodeviln who improved its VF-14s into the Fz-109 and Az-130. Windermere IV passed on the VF-171 Nightmare Plus in favor of an alternate aircraft that better fit its combat ethos (the Sv-154 Svard). Some emigrant governments are noted to have adopted all-Ghost air forces. Macross-29's government opted to abolish its armed forces entirely and adopt a policy of total pacifism. The matter of the VF-171's replacement will be no different in that regard. Earth's government opted to adopt the VF-24 as its 5th Generation main VF. Some governments will adopt "monkey model" export specifications of the VF-24 as their next main fighter. Others will adopt the Macross Frontier fleet's VF-25. Still others may adopt the Brisingr Alliance's VF-31. There may be other, as of yet unknown 5th Generation concepts floating around unseen as competitors to those designs the way the Sv-262 was. Unmanned air forces will likely stay an option that some pursue. Then, of course, Macross-29 will continue to plod towards economic self-destruction with its policy of total pacifism. Some may attempt to bridge the gaps with Generation 4.5 VFs like the VF-19EF Caliburn and VF-171EX Nightmare Plus and skip the 5th Generation entirely.
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