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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    I got through episode 4 last night before turning in, and apart from that rough start and the weird fetish-y uniforms the girls wear it's been a thoroughly enjoyable series. I'm not sure if it's so enjoyable I'd pursue the light novels the way I did for Overlord or KonoSuba, but definitely enough that I'd watch more. (Though, weird fetish-y uniforms being what they are, it's sure as hell not a show I'll be watching at work on my lunch hour where someone might see.) Today's viewing material was Mobile Suit Gundam: the Origin: Advent of the Red Comet episode 11... the Battle of Loum. It's really well-presented, but I'm still a bit annoyed that they can't seem to decide if the Zakus used during the operation were the MS-05 Zaku or MS-06 Zaku II.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    ... really, I'm not sure why "hybridized with Zentradi tech" has to mean "ugly". Practically every VF built after the VF-4 uses Zentradi overtechnology to some extent and I wouldn't call any of them "ugly". The VF-2SS and VF-22 are halfway to being a Nosjadeul-Ger and Queadluun-Rau respectively and I'd call both of them quite beautiful. What it looks like is pretty immaterial to the matter though... except for the Robotech fans who were incensed that Titan Comics dared tamper with the sacred cow that is the "Macross Saga" designs, which is to say "most of them". That's substantially different from the story he was telling all over Facebook before the various Macross and Robotech groups had enough of him and banned him. He was claiming that Titan Comics somehow obtained his 3D model without his knowledge or consent AND without compensating him for it. The story he told was that Titan initially denied having appropriated his 3D model and only reluctantly admitted having stolen it and agreed to pay him for it after the threat of a legal action. If your version is factually correct, then your friend wasn't just operating in dodgy and probably-illegal territory commercializing a derivative work based on copyrighted material that he did not own or have permission to use for commercial purposes, he capped it with a days-long binge of actionable defamation all over Facebook. Titan could easily sue him over that in any court in the western world and expect to win handily, and Big West could easily sue him for commercializing a ripoff of the VF-0 design as well with every expectation of winning as he credited his "inspiration" right on his website. Your acquaintance (friend?) is not a smart man, to say the least.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    From what I saw him say on Facebook before the various Macross and Robotech groups I'm on kicked and/or banned him, he was claiming that Titan Comics had been using his VF-0-derivative CG model without his knowledge or permission and that Titan Comics only bought a license after he threatened to file a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Frankly, given how sh*t-awful the comic is, I'd argue he should be grateful to not have his name associated with it. TL;DR he claimed Titan Comics stole his work... completely unnecessarily since there was nothing stopping Titan Comics from using the original designs if they weren't lazy f*cks who just wanted to trace things. (They later turned to tracing photos of VF-1 toys.) Goodness... I appreciate quality irony, and it doesn't come much better than that. He commercialized a thinly disguised ripoff of someone else's work, only for someone with better PR to steal his ripoff and claim it as their own, leading to him being inundated with right-for-the-wrong-reasons accusations that he was selling thinly disguised ripoffs of someone else's work. Simply beautiful. He did a LOT to earn that hate by making a spectacular arse of himself on various Macross and Robotech Facebook groups... and, of course, reacting extremely poorly to having people point out how questionable it is to commercialize a CG model heavily based on someone else's copyrighted work without permission. Personally, I think his design skirts the edges of copyright infringement given that he was selling it while freely admitting it's heavily derivative of the VF-0. Also, IMO, it's ugly as sin... but taste is subjective.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    We haven't been told exactly how the YF-29B Perceval differs from the base YF-29 Durandal specs-wise, but it's explicitly a higher performance version of the YF-29. The base model YF-29 alone already had a pretty significant edge on the YF-30 in armament, engine power, and acceleration... the VF-27 Super Lucifer and YF-30 were the only models available to emigrant forces that could even get close to its level of performance. Yeah, those are approximately on par with the VF-25s.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Well, at the time (2060) the Earth New UN Forces had only decided to approve the YF-24 Evolution for production three years ago and it would still have had to go through a year or two of operational evaluation prior to the true start of mass production and the widespread adoption of the VF-24 as the next main fighter of the Earth New UN Forces. Basically, there were probably only a few squadrons of VF-24A's in service when the Vajra attacked Earth in late 2059. A VF-X Special Forces unit based way out in the sticks like the 815th Independent Squadron "Hávamál" was wouldn't be a priority for transitioning to the VF-24, and the New UN Government wouldn't have wanted to transmit the unredacted specifications to an emigrant government's factory satellite because that would risk losing the Earth/Central New UN Forces' strategic advantage for settling disputes between New UN Gov't member worlds. What Hávamál did have access to was the specifications for the YF-29 developed by one of the emigrant fleets, a local emigrant government with its own factory satellite that wasn't about the question them because of their vast authority, a planet loaded with high-quality fold quartz, and a VERY generous expense account. So the solution to not having the VF-24 was to throw excessive amounts of money and fold quartz at the problem by building a superior quality version of the YF-29 and handing them out to the squadron's top aces like Rod Baltemar... neatly sidestepping the entire problem of not having VF-24s since the YF-29B outclassed pretty much everything an emigrant force could field including Shinsei, LAI, and SMS's YF-30 technology demonstrator being developed in secret aboard the SMS-owned Northampton-class stealth escort carrier Gefion. That's an interesting question with no easy answer since we don't actually know what the specs of the YF-24 Evolution and VF-24 look like... all we know is that it exists, roughly what it looks like in Fighter mode, and that all these super high-spec 5th Gen VFs in the last decade or so of Macross materials are watered down knockoffs of it.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Started watching Akashic Records of the Bastard Magic Instructor the other day while I was getting my new gaming rig set up, and confess I'm not sure what to make of it yet. The visual design of the anime is appealing and appalling in equal measure, the latter mostly being the result of the uniforms for the girls at the Alzano Imperial Magical Academy which look better suited to a particularly racy cheer squad than the late 19th century-esque fantasy world everyone else is dressing for. First episode was kind of meh, but the second episode was actually rather enjoyable until the [...] Seems to be headed in a vaguely Negima!-like direction if Negi were an adult and a massive troll. Unwelcome sexual content aside, the second episode's story actually seems to be developing in an interesting direction, so I think I'll give it a further shot.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    There is that, yeah. The YF-29 is described as being an attempt to surpass the YF-24 Evolution prototype's performance. Long story short, Earth has The Best Toys. The VF-X Special Forces units that are part of the central/federal New UN Forces have sufficient clout and funding to do insane things like limited production of an improved version of the YF-29 (the YF-29B Perceval in the Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy story) and YF-30 (mentioned and shown in Master File as the YF-30B in a fetching shade of Barbie pink for some reason.)
  8. Seto Kaiba
    So... would it be better to call it "stubbly" instead of "gritty" in recognition of Minmei's five o'clock shadow?
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, when it comes to comics (which are legally merchandise not derivative works) they don't really have any obstacles to using the original Haruhiko Mikimoto designs. The reason the art looked so f'ed up in the Titan Comics was Titan was trying to do their gritty reimagining of Robotech. If they lost the rights to Super Dimension Fortress Macross then even reworking the character designs wouldn't save them as long as they were visibly based on the Mikimoto designs.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    That it was Lal was my suspicion, initially... esp. since she has been brought back to life in other Star Trek media in the past. Must be something about the hairdo.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    While it's questionable what use a minimally-armed VF-25A is going to be on the battlefield, this FAST Pack setup would be totally reasonable if all you were looking to do was extend the range of the fighter by adding some extra fuel slush as coolant/propellant for space operations. I can't think of any reason they wouldn't be able to just add the conformal tanks and leave the remainder of the Super Pack off. (Variable Fighter Master File alleges the VF-1's initial-type FAST Pack was basically this... just some conformal fuel tanks on the legs and an extra fuel tank fitted at the front of the engine.)
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, yes it is... which is why I'm amazed anyone would want to try to reference it. There is NO editorial oversight over there, fans just write whatever and nobody fact-checks it.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    The VF-25 Messiah was a joint development by the Macross Frontier fleet arsenal, Shinsei Industry's Macross Frontier fleet branch, and L.A.I. for the Macross Frontier fleet New UN Forces, based on the Earth Shinsei Industry YF-24 Evolution prototype spec which was shared (in redacted form) throughout the New UN Government as per galaxy law. Not sure where you got that designation for the Tornado Pack... it's officially the TW1 Tornado Pack No, the original YF-24 was a joint development program between Shinsei Industry and General Galaxy's respective headquarters on Earth. After the project was suspended due to the ISC technology being insufficiently mature, Shinsei later revived the project on its own and created the YF-24 Evolution prototype that the Earth New UN Forces decided to adopt as the next main fighter in 2057, the VF-24 being the mass production version of that. A redacted version of the YF-24 Evolution spec was shared throughout the New UN Government as mandated by galaxy law, with a number of fleets and planets opting to use it as the basis for developing their own next-gen VFs like the YF-25, YF-26, YF-27, YF-29, and YF-30. Some fleets would have built their own local versions of the VF-24. Others are noted to have gone all-Ghost for their air forces. The Macross Frontier fleet used it to develop the YF-25 that was further developed into the VF-25 as well as the YF-29. Macross Olympia used it to develop their failed YF-26. Macross Galaxy used it to develop the YF-27 that was further developed into the VF-27. Uroboros's government partnered with SMS to develop the YF-30 from it and the YF-29 spec, and later Shinsei's branch office in the Brisingr Alliance refined it into the cheaper, far lower spec, mass produceable VF-31 Kairos. Some of the YF-24's tech was also used in the creation of the Sv-262 Draken III that was adopted by Windermere IV's Kingdom of the Wind. Within the Macross Frontier fleet's New UN Forces... Master File and Macross 30 imply the VF-25 design was shared with Macross Frontier's close allies and economic partners like Sephira and Macross Olympia. It was not a replacement for the VF-171 galaxy-wide. There is no more "one VF to rule them all"... and there really hasn't been since the 3rd Generation Project Nova competition where a bunch of fleets decided to adopt the VF-14 anyway even though it lost out to the VF-11 (like the Megaroad-13 colony in the Varauta system, whose VF-14s later became the basis for the Fz-109). No, the VF-24 was adopted as the next main fighter of the Earth New UN Forces and the central/federal New UN Forces under the direct authority of the New UN Government in 2057. Within the Macross Frontier fleet and any of its close allies and economic partners who opted to adopt the VF-25 themselves. Other local governments are adopting other 5th Generation fighter designs or alternatives like next-gen Ghosts, Macross Galaxy's VF-27, and the Brisingr Alliance's VF-31. Only the five we already know about in official media... the Super Pack, Armored Pack, and electronic warfare Aegis Pack seen in the Macross Frontier TV series, the TW1 Tornado Pack seen in the Macross Frontier movies, and the Paladin Pack seen on the YF-25 in Macross R (which is a Super Pack variant). Variable Fighter Master File has multiple Strike variants of the Super Pack as well, but those have not appeared in any official media as of yet. It's pretty good.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Nothing like that is EVER said in that episode... it was ONE ship they defeated, not the entire collective. They were pretty damned clear about there being LOTS more Borg out there. (Hell, the only reason the Borg didn't defeat the Federation is they were too lazy to send more than one ship to do it.) That's... also not correct. First Contact literally had a moment where Picard freaks out because the Borg Queen he thought died at Wolf 359 was on the Enterprise, and she tells him flat out that she's basically death-proof because she's an embodiment of the will of the Collective not a person. Killing her body won't kill her. The crew of the Enterprise-D didn't upload a virus, Data tapped into the Borg collective's low security communications via Locutus's implants and ordered all of the Borg aboard it to simultaneously go into regeneration mode. Data's instruction accidentally caused the cube to self-destruct when its power systems overloaded. They thought about uploading a de facto virus (an impossible topological equation) into the collective in "I, Borg" but they never did it. Unlike the relaunch novelverse, where Future Janeway's intervention just convinced the Borg the Federation were enough of a real threat to justify sending hundreds of cubes to deal with it, Star Trek: Picard seems to be leaning towards Future Janeway having up and actually disabled or destroyed the Borg Collective thanks to the Borg Queen having assimilated that pathogen Janeway used. From what we've heard, individual Borg are still alive but whether the Collective exists... that's another matter. Hugh, the drone from "I, Borg", is apparently going to be appearing. Sisko's in the wormhole with the Prophets... he's not dead. (In the DS9 relaunch he doesn't even manage to stay gone nine months.)
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Star Trek: Deep Space Nine itself was essentially its creators rebelling against Gene Roddenberry and his creatively stifling hard rule that the Federation was so Utopian that even individual Starfleet officers couldn't have conflicts with each other unless one or both were the victim of a Grand Theft Me or had gone insane for some reason. Right from the outset they set out to make it clear that this was not the soft-touch Star Trek of Roddenberry's era, revealing that Ben Sisko hated Picard's guts because he was a veteran of Wolf 359. It was done with a lot more grace than the attempt to imitate it in the Star Trek: Discovery series via Burnham descending into paranoid hysterics, and will probably also turn out to be done with a lot more grace than Picard going off the reservation in Picard. With the talk of this new series as essentially post-Borg, implying that future!Janeway's stunt cripped if not effectively defeated the Borg collective, it feels like they're desperately reaching for the one real enduring animosity that Picard had... his hatred for the Borg.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    That wasn't a joke... almost every panel in this sh*t-awful mess seems to be traced from somewhere. Titan apparently doesn't think this series is important enough to bother actually drawing the characters themselves, they just trace over shots of models and stills from movies and TV shows, which seems to be why there are so many unnatural-looking poses and facial expressions. Honestly, the face she's making there kind of reminds me of the laughing Tom Cruise meme.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    It was season one DS9... the show hadn't really found it feet yet. I think it was kind of an attempt to demonstrate that it wasn't going to be just TNG with a new cast. It wasn't even really a Q episode, it was a Quark/Vash episode... Q was just sort of there.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Five'll get you twenty the picture they traced to do that panel was a dude.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Forever cementing his reign as the most badass Starfleet captain. Picard quoted Shakespeare at Q. Janeway complained at him. Sisko? Knocked Q on his ass and never had a word of trouble from him afterwards. Kind of a defining moment for Sisko too: "I'm. Not. Picard." My earnest hope is that a Tarantino Star Trek film never comes to pass. Star Trek tried being dark and edgy under Jar-Jar Abrams and Alex Kurtzman's Bad Reboot crew and it didn't f*cking work. We need Star Trek written for people who actually like Star Trek, not for the edgelord crowd and people who want HBO to remake Game of Thrones's last season.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    I wish I could claim credit for the thought, but this is something a group of players in a session of the Macross RPG I was running actually did a couple years back. They were part of a rescue team storming an anti-government group's base to rescue an official from the Barnrose Authority and, to cover the hostage's escape, decided the best way to get the enemy's attention and create a diversion was to go stomping down the corridors of the base in suits of EX-Gear while loudly singing With Cat-like Tread. To their credit, it worked perfectly until the actual shooting started and the dice decided that everyone was a graduate of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Ja... it's the reason Hakuna Aoba is interested in the prospects of the story's protagonist, Chelsea Scarlett, who was a Varauta colonist he rescued during the Protodeviln conflict. Aoba and his former CO, the story's big bad Naresuan, were both NUNS Special Forces pilots for the Macross 7 fleet. Angers 672, the other main antagonist, was Chelsea's mentor of sorts and also the first test pilot for the YF-25.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Or something like this, just with giant robots... Yes, it would... unless you were a phenomenally good pilot. Hakuna Aoba is, as it happens, a phenomenally good pilot. So much so that he's known as the Uncrowned King in the league because he performs well but his VF is so problematic that it keeps him from winning races. (Why he's such a good pilot comes out in the course of the story... he's one of Milia's students, a former elite Macross 7 fleet Special Forces VF pilot, and a member of the squadron Max personally tapped to provide the advance reconnaissance in preparation for Operation Stargazer. The man is a Jenius-approved ace twice over.) Macross R makes little secret of the fact that Hakuna Aoba's skill is about all that's keeping his VF-1X++ from ending up as a carbonized smear on the side of the track. A lesser pilot would likely find the thing completely unflyable.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, they've tried once before... but, as was revealed by folks on the side, it wasn't so much an attempt to bring Macross over as a laughably ill-considered attempt to extort Macross's owners into selling the franchise to them. Harmony Gold will never willingly let Macross into the states unless they can profit from it, which would lead to them shelving their own franchise if the profit picture turned out to be better. I get the feeling Tommy would actually prefer it that way, he seems to like the originals a lot more than the Robotech versions and I know he's a fan of at least a few Macross sequels.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    The US is also the one key market where Big West would be at a distinct disadvantage unless Harmony Gold went under, since the US trademark laws are written to counterintuitively favor the first user of a mark over the actual owner of the brand/property. The vast majority of the rest of the world takes the vastly more sensible opposite view. I expect the trademark law situation to resolve itself around the same time we switch to metric.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Pretty much, but I get a chuckle out of the idea of a bunch of giant robots tiptoeing around. Ja, though since the only spec we've had is for a further-customized racing plane we don't know by how much. Hakuna Aoba, being a reasonable man and a model of restraint and moderation, decided his VF-1X++ wasn't competitive enough so he swapped the engines for a pair of LAI-made engines meant for an unmanned fighter with comparable power to a VF-22 and then strapped rocket boosters to the sides. Nothing says safe sport like an almost totally uncontrollable mess that's forever breaking down and always one twitch away from being a slowly dissipating fireball, right? (It says something that league champ Nicolas Francois Berthier flies a VF known for its habit of SPONTANEOUSLY EXPLODING and Hakuna Aoba's VF-1X++ Custom is considered less safe.)
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