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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Not really, no... this just means that the Star Trek rights will be united under a single roof again. It won't do anything to fix the problems with existing developments like STD, Picard, or Lower Decks. It just means that, when Star Trek: Picard tanks like Star Trek: Discovery did, they can chuck them both (and Lower Decks in the bargain) and produce something that actually resembles real Star Trek again instead of Abrams and Kurtzman's watered-down sewage runoff. As opposed to Bad Robot, which is just a regular curse.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    None to speak of. Not clear if it has more firepower, but it has a lower rate of fire because it's recharging a capacitor bank off the reactors. I'm not sure it's more realistic, and official materials are pretty clear about the Strike Pack using particle beam cannons. It's just a thing they did for unclear reasons for the Master File books. It's a particle beam cannon on the VF-1's Strike Pack officially, the Master File book's description makes it out to be a gas dynamic laser cannon using a very toxic gain medium (unnecessarily, since the gain medium in question is one used for lasers operating in atmosphere and the cannon is solely for space use.)
  3. Seto Kaiba
    They weren't in any kind of salad form, were they? That can be terribly dangerous. Is it just me, or is what you've got there in Chinese instead of Japanese? Anyhoo, as you probably surmised from the fact that there are numbered captions on the art, yes there is some modest amount of info. From left to right they are an expanded capacity version of the standard NP-FAD-23 option pack with more propellant for its large boosters and the same missile capacity, a failed atmospheric-use Strike Pack concept, and two alternative takes on a traditional Strike Pack-like configuration #3 being internally powered and #4 being recharged off the engines. As per Master File's usual, it describes the guns as chemical laser cannons instead of the particle beam cannons that Strike Packs are in the official setting materials.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    TBH, Star Wars always felt like it had this problem to me. Almost every hyperspace jump in Star Wars seems to take less time than a regular commuter flight. Except for that first jump from Tatooine to Alderaan where Obi-wan apparently had enough time to train Luke in the basic rudiments of the Force, the Millennium Falcon always seems like it gets where it's going in the space of just a few hours or less. This speed of plot stardrive got even less subtle in the prequels where one-man Jedi starfighters were jumping all the way from the galactic core to the outer rim without so much as a potty break. If you can travel a galactic radii in only a few hours, space feels tiny because technology has MADE it tiny. The only other hyperspace jump that felt like it took a long time in the films was the one in Phantom Menace when the Queen's personal starship fled Naboo and flew to Tatooine. Jar-Jar Abrams did, at least, build a half-assed excuse for this into the Star Trek reboot movies by establishing that the unnaturally advanced tech was reverse-engineered from late 24th century tech... so their warp drives feel faster because they literally are faster than their Prime universe contemporaries (by more than double).
  5. Seto Kaiba
    There is that, yeah... the improved Inertia Store Converter on the VF-31 Siegfried customs insulates the cockpit from up to 29.5G, so the pilot isn't going to have an intuitive feeling for how much stress is on the airframe at any given time. It's kind of a necessary evil since otherwise the pilot would have almost no chance of withstanding the intense g-forces that the 5th Generation VFs are capable of producing with their monstrously high engine outputs. Hayate's unconventional dance-inspired fighting style is full of maneuvers that impose high asymmetric g-loads on the airframe. Not that many of them had much of a choice... it wasn't really until the 4th Generation's initial batch of prototypes (YF-19 and YF-21) that VFs finally reached the point where the thrust to weight ratios crossed the 10:1 point and loss of control due to high g-loads became an issue. Rolling that back a bit to the point where VFs could still benefit from the improvements made in the thermonuclear reaction burst turbines without pushing the fleshy meats in the pilot's seat to the breaking point was the main goal of the VF-171.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    If the rumors are true, less someone's fanfiction and more someone's incredibly clumsy attempt to write around characters George Lucas still gets paid royalties for the use of.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    They were introduced somewhere between Windermere IV's secession from the New UN Government in 2060 and their first offensive against Al Shahal in 2067, but beyond that it's not entirely clear. The White Knight of the Black Wing makes it seem like they were adopted only a year or two, maybe three at the outside, before Windermere launched its second war on the New UN Government. Their first use in actual combat, and the first actual combat sortie of most of the Aerial Knights in the series, was the Al Shahal operation. Less than two years, given that Arad Molders was using a VF-31A Kairos in ep21's flashback to Walkure's unsuccessful early operations in 2065. Arad's VF-31A was likely one of the very first VF-31s built, if not a prototype as alleged by Master File, given that the Kawamori indicated he envisioned the VF-31 as being 2-3 years from adoption by the New UN Forces in the Brisingr cluster... in 2069 or 2070. It's not 100% clear why Keith's Sv-262Hs Draken III was having durability issues from his use/abuse of the fold reheat system since it was designed with it... and it'd be a really bizarre oversight if the Hs variant wasn't stressed for the greater output of its more potent fold reheat system given that it is also a production variant. The VF-31 Custom Siegfried units produced by Xaos Valkyrie Works for the Xaos 3rd Fighter Wing's Delta Flight had durability issues because they were modified from the stock VF-31A Kairos trial production units that Xaos was testing on behalf of the Brisingr Alliance NUNS. The VF-31's airframe was designed for the stresses imposed by the FF-3001A engines that its specs called for. The Siegfried customs swapped those FF-3001A engines for a detuned version of the YF-30's FF-3001/FC2 engines, which provided 14% more maximum instantaneous thrust in normal operation and 31.1% more thrust when the fold wave system was active. Between that and Hayate's dance-inspired combat style and wind riding, it put a LOT more stress on the airframe.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Either that or that they didn't have the resources necessary to destroy it properly... as was the case with the Protodeviln, and apparently the Fold Evil. (Or bringing sufficient force to bear would've been needlessly destructive, involving destroying planets or other potentially-showy and attention-getting methods that would otherwise attract the attention of the Zentradi and/or Supervision Army.) It'll be interesting, since the ship designs they're peddling are clearly General Galaxy designs that've been modified somewhat and they'd purchased the SV Works from General Galaxy. If it comes out that they've been involved in the Var crisis from the beginning and were originally working on ways to weaponize it, things could go poorly for them. It comes up at one point early in the series, when the Aerial Knights return to Windermere and Keith is told the power system on his Draken III is shot and he'll need to use a different aircraft while they repair it. The Siegfrieds have similar issues, as alluded to by Makina and Reina talking about how Hayate beats the hell out of his while Messer's more refined style puts less strain on the unit. ... Admiral Ackbar, paging Admiral Gial Ackbar... it's time for your line sir. (Seriously, I'd rather not see Macross go the Fate route and throw a trap into the mix. I'm not about to kinkshame anybody, but Macross is plenty weird as it is IMO.)
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Since anything insane is on the table thanks to creator dickery, I propose that Rey is Leia's illegitimate child via Chewbacca... Han did say she could use a good kiss.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Only to return as a massive troll trickster mentor to the hero of a new generation? An oldie but a goodie in mythology, but you can understand why Yoda's force ghost showed up to chew him out later... Luke was stealing his bit.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Really, I think that's not necessarily a contradiction. Luke went looking for the first Jedi Temple to find some hope for the future and succumbed to despair along the way because he didn't really find anything to boost his spirits since it contained proof that this kind of thing happens a lot.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    It would have been a pretty poor effort even if it were meant to be buried at the bottom of a programming schedule to fill time. It was Southern Cross all over again... an ill-conceived, poorly executed, sloppy mess of a mecha anime that was trying to succeed by blindly copying its contemporaries. They mainly ripped off Code Geass and Gundam, but there were Macross touches in there too. I'm not sure they stuck around that long. Tatsunoko's had relatively few standout original properties of their own, with most of their successes being coproductions (Macross, Megazone 23, Video Girl Ai, Neon Genesis Evangelion) or licensed properties (Mach GoGoGo, Fate/stay night, Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Transformers shorts, etc.). Seems like a lot of their more creative members went and founded their own studios, like Ashi Productons, JC Staff, Production IG, Xebec, and TNK.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    To be entirely fair to them, they did do everything in their power to make the planet they sealed the Protodeviln on uninhabitable via the entropy control field and on Uroboros they enforced their "keep out" sign by putting artificial fold faults around the entire planet that were severe enough to cut it off from the rest of the galaxy (the Uroboros aurora), having additional fold fault barriers around the place where they sealed the Fold Evil, and then filling the facilities maintaining the seal on the Fold Evil with self-replicating bio-technological insectoid living weapons to violently remove any potential intruders. They may just not have had the resources to put something suitably nasty around the Sigur Berrentzs, given that they were supposedly at the very brink of extinction when they were withdrawing to the Brisingr cluster. They did bury the entire Delta Wave System in fold space where no idiot should've been able to just dig it up. All in all, I'd say they got progressively better about their Keep Out signs and precautions. Well, these ARE the same people whose answer to wanting an army to fight their wars for them was "GIANT CLONES!". The godzilla threshold is inherently meaningless to them.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Bringing the New UN Government to its knees probably wasn't in the original game plan. King Grammier VI's goal seems to have been to build his own New UN Government with blackjack and hookers in the form of Windermere's "Starwind Sector", encompassing the entire Brisingr globular cluster, and use that greater leverage in future treaty negotiations. Roid's delusions of manifest destiny don't seem to have actually included conquest either, but rather a less-evil version of Grace's instrumentality-esque plan to unify the minds of everyone in the galaxy to eliminate conflict. Given a few of the things he says, he also seems to have wanted to use it as a way to vicariously - or perhaps actually - lengthen the lives of the Windermereans. Barring actually using the Delta Wave System the way it was intended, I don't think there really was a realistic option for Windermere to defeat the New UN Forces. They don't have the manpower to handle even the relatively under-equipped and under-funded Brisingr Alliance local New UN Forces, never mind the ones that've already adopted 5th Gen VFs or that are better funded due to more active economies. Assuming, of course, that the ancient Protoculture technology didn't succumb to the expected failure mode of burning out a lot of brains across the galaxy. They've got some excellent dogfighting VFs, but they just DO NOT have the manpower to challenge the NUNS on a level footing when the average soldier's life expectancy for Windermere is 10 years or so vs. the 50 or so for a human. That's a pretty big difference in experience and training that we saw paying dividends when Draken IIIs were getting taken down by more experienced pilots in VF-171-II's. (That, I suppose, was one of the more satisfying moments from the New UN Spacy in Delta... they've finally reached the point where they take it as read that if the Protoculture had sealed and buried something, it's probably a stupidly dangerous thing they regret making and that the safest means of disposal are "crush it into a singularity and send it on a one way trip to another dimension". They're becoming genre savvy.) Yeah, it's probably not going to be great since King Grammier VI and King Heinz wasted a lot of manpower and resources on a futile attempt to conquer the Brisingr cluster, and in so doing got many of Windermere IV's brightest young soldiers killed and wrecked the planet's remaining interstellar trade relations. Kawamori being Kawamori we won't be subjected to seeing them face realistic consequences like being occupied by the New UN Government now that King Ketchup's one trick is not viable anymore, but they're not likely to be having a good time. They only had two marketable exports (fold quartz and food) and the market for one of them (food) dried up and died after it was discovered that was how they were triggering Var outbreaks and making the local New UN Spacy susceptible to mind control while the other is still heavily restricted by the New UN Government. Now that the Brisingr Alliance and New UN Government know the Epsilon Foundation was dealing with Windermere IV under the table, their ability to maintain their armed forces isn't likely to last all that long either since pulling out the Draken III's full performance seems to be rather damaging to the airframe. Since the little available material for Absolute Live has mentioned a new threat, I'm guessing Windermere will be Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Film.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Turns out I did recall correctly... the SVF--124 Moon Shooters were first mentioned as a VF-17 squadron in This is Animation Special: Macross Plus (OVA Ver.) on page 96. They were apparently split off from Apollo Base's Luna Guard and assigned to escort a long-distance emigrant fleet (but it doesn't say which).
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Lurching awkwardly back in the general direction of the topic we were on... Given that economics has come up a number of times in recent-ish Macross stories, I'd really like to see some story actually delve a little into how interstellar commerce works in Macross. Windermere IV was apparently upset enough about its economy to declare war on the New UN Government, Macross-29's is in the toilet and hoping cultural exports can save the fleet, the Brisingr Alliance is stagnating thanks to its isolated location and desperate for exports. It seems odd, in hindsight, for these theoretically self-sufficient fleets to have this kind of trouble... though I guess it would be a bit difficult to find work for tens of millions of people in a pure self-sufficiency environment. I must've had a heck of a head start, given that I wrote that one on my phone. My WPM on that POS with autocorrect on feels like it's somewhere south of 1. I'm hoping to be at SDCon again this year. Haven't booked anything yet, but hopefully will soon. It's been a weird year.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Hailed as a piece of junk by almost everyone in Star Wars who isn't Han, yeah... but as with there, any port in a storm right? It's not like anyone else is putting out a Bioroid kit. Presumably the expert modelbuilders here and on Facebook could make it a little less rubbish-looking, though it'll never not be a bad copy of the Zaku II.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Or how The Price of Smiles got greenlit despite being an obvious trainwreck.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    No.
  22. 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.
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
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