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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, they're still staying up above 6,000 copies an issue. If a barely-there niche-within-a-niche-within-a-niche title like Robotech can still move 6,000 copies a month of a $4 comic, I don't doubt for a minute that you could move 10k or more volumes of a $30 artbook or tech manual for a better-regarded series like Macross.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    He likes to tell original stories each time... that's not necessarily the same thing as wanting to always move forwards in time. Maybe if they'd actually done something with the character arc they spent the first few episodes setting up vis a vis Mirage's feelings of inadequacy... Such as it is, she quit the New UN Spacy and she's working for a private military contractor that apparently can only muster a single squadron's worth of VFs from their flagship. Not a lot of room for advancement there even before you factor in the loss of contracts from their failure to defend the Brisingr cluster and having to drop over a year's operating capital on divesting themselves of Epsilon Foundation technology. If it weren't for Walkure, they'd probably have gone out of business.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, it varies massively... we're talking anywhere from zero to almost a thousand warships. The initial generation of emigrant fleets launched using the Megaroad-class emigrant ships in the wake of the First Space War only had a few dozen escorts. The only example I can recall to discuss fleet composition in explicit terms is in Master File, where 73 escort ships (9 carriers, 16 cruisers, 48 destroyers) was depicted as average-sized for an early emigrant fleet. The defense fleet for the New UN Government's colony in the Varauta system, established by SDF-14 Megaroad-13, was probably second-generation and must have been a very large fleet even before it was captured. Barely two years under Protodeviln control and it was an estimated 503 ships. The third generation of emigrant fleets, the first to use the New Macross-class (City-type) emigrant ships, seem to hover around a couple hundred ships. If you don't count the recreational ships and resource ships, the Macross-7 fleet had 186 warships (1 Battle-class, 45 Guantanamo-class, 20 Uraga-class, 120 Northampton-class)... 187 if you count the ARMD-class ship that shows up only in Macross 7 Trash. The fourth? generation emigrant fleet Macross Valiant (Macross-16) from Master File is noted to have led a fleet of approximately 900 ships. The fifth generation emigrant fleets Macross Frontier and Macross Galaxy both are noted to have unspecified, but large escort fleets spread out across dozens of light years of the ship's intended course. The only fleet of that generation that was explicitly identified in terms of escort fleet size was Macross-29... at zero ships, due to its idiot government abolishing their defense forces entirely (the consequences of which crippled their economy). Yes. Well, "both" is really the most accurate answer I suppose. Initially, the first generation emigrant fleets were making use of some classes of ship that were not fold capable. The fleet's fold-capable ships would have to carry the escorts that weren't independently fold-capable with them in their fold effects. Emigrant fleets commonly have small task forces of escorts scouting ahead to secure their intended course and make sure they don't accidentally fold into a dangerous region, an enemy fleet, or what have you. Those task forces, as well as any escorts that aren't operating in close formation with the emigrant ship would have to fold independently. There'll inevitably be some escorts operating in close proximity to the emigrant ship that can reasonably save some energy by riding along inside the emigrant ship's fold effect, but those are a small minority because the energy requirements for a fold increase both with the volume of space to be folded and the distance to be folded. Folding an enormous volume would reduce the effective range considerably, and folding a long distance would necessarily require minimizing wasted energy and keeping the fold effect as small as possible to reduce its energy consumption. Considering how absolutely colossal the Macross Frontier itself was between its gigantic dome and supplemental island modules, even an optimally efficient fold would have loads and loads of room in which you could park escort ships to conserve energy during a fold. The City-class is known to have had starship docks on its underside, but those were supposedly mostly for things like repairs, building new ships, and layovers to transfer personnel and equipment.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    What are you talking about? That's clearly a small moon. Just ask Obi-wan. He knows small moons.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Assuming they're going forward. They may go sideways or backwards, like they did with Macross Zero.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, it'd be a nice touch. I'm kind of surprised SoftBank hasn't started putting out English editions of the Master Archive Mobile Suit books at the very least, since Gundam does have a reasonably big following in the states. If they can get seven thousand-plus idiots willing to repeatedly pay money for a trash-tier atrocity like the recent Robotech comic... I think Macross would do just fine.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    You've piqued my curiosity. Care to share?
  8. Seto Kaiba
    What little is said on the subject of stealth technology for space warships in official Macross sources like Macross Chronicle is predominantly about passive stealth. The Northampton-class stealth frigate, Guantanamo-class stealth carrier, and many other types of stealth warship in Macross are designed to minimize the possibility of detection using a combination of passive stealth coatings that absorb radar and fold waves, and structural shaping that deflects incoming radar and cross-dimension radar pulses away from a sending station. Presumably they also incorporate technologies to reduce detectable radio, electromagnetic, infrared, and fold wave emissions. Various things that might disrupt their passive stealth like beam turrets are typically retractable and stored inside the ship when not in use. Electronic countermeasures like radar and radio jamming are also used to preserve stealthiness at times. There are a few isolated mentions of active stealth technology, though the dominant active stealth technology in the Macross universe is the complex and energy-intensive method of active cancellation. This method involves near-instantaneous analysis of an incoming radar pulse and transmitting a corresponding pulse of identical frequency and amplitude but an opposite phase back to effectively zero the net amplitude of the radar return received by the enemy radar via the wave superposition principle. The main drawback of this system is a dramatic loss of effectiveness the more powerful the enemy radar is. The emigrant fleets dispatched into the greater galaxy by the New UN Government are absolutely set on avoiding confrontations with rogue Zentradi fleets and other hostiles whenever possible, and being stealthy helps to a degree. The fact that the galaxy is a REALLY BIG place and space fold technology is inherently a pretty crappy way to explore the galaxy when it's essentially folded subspace teleportation that deprives the folding ship of the ability to observe anything occurring in the space between Point A and Point B until it emerges helps a lot too. Without following each other's fold communication, the chances of two fleets running into each other by accident is astronomically low. Even if you're right there when a ship folds, it's very difficult to track a space fold to its destination. Stealth technology for warships wouldn't have come out of how Vrlitwhai and Exsedol's branch fleet detected the Macross... that was a total accident when they just happened to be in precisely the right spot to detect the residual gravity waves of a defold event 10 light years away that occurred 10 years prior. (The Zentradi are shown employing a form of active stealth in the original series episode "Burst Point".)
  9. Seto Kaiba
    The New UN Forces seem to have had more than one layer of cover stories for the Black Storm at Carlyle. Publicly, their official story was that Windermere's Aerial Knights bombed Carlyle to wipe out the New UN Forces base and New UN Government colony there. The surviving troops from the Windermere IV New UN Spacy garrison force seem to have a different understanding of the events, which may have been an early cover story or maybe it's just the New UN Spacy's working hypothesis from their official investigation of the disaster. They know that the one who dropped the bomb was Major Wright Immelmann. What they believe happened was that Wright Immelmann was a Windermere sympathizer who betrayed the New UN Spacy and tried to win the war for Windermere and cripple the NUNS's chain of command by destroying the NUNS garrison HQ in Carlyle with a stolen dimensional warhead. The truth, or at least as much of it as was revealed to the audience, is that Wright Immelmann was fond of the Windermereans and balked when he was given a top secret mission to drop a dimensional warhead on the Protoculture ruins near the planetary capital of Darwent. Wright tried to sabotage his own mission by loitering and making a variety of excuses to not advance to his target, to ensure that he would be detected and intercepted by the Aerial Knights. HQ tried to force him to proceed by overriding his controls, but due to his interference he was intercepted and the warhead was accidentally deployed over the city of Carlyle, wiping it off the map. Well, yes... but not underneath Darwent. "With a scenic view of the valley including Darwent" might be more accurate. Wright's VF-22 Sturmvogel II was armed with that dimensional warhead by the New UN Spacy airbase he was operating out of. His mission was to use that warhead to destroy the Protoculture ruins and Sigur Berrentzs to prevent the Protoculture System from falling into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, he screwed the pooch so hard the WSPCA had to intervene on behalf of a strictly metaphorical canine. Presumably because remotely operated aircraft are as vulnerable to jamming in 2060 as they were in 2059. Windermere IV's Aerial Knights were probably smart enough to know that seeing an incoming Ghost meant time to turn up the ECM to max, whereas a human-piloted fighter would not lose control because of that.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, I did see episode 25... but did you watch episode 11, which shows us where the Sigur Berrentzs was buried. It's not under the Kingdom's capital of Darwent or even particularly close to it. It's buried in the mountains at least a couple dozen kilometers away from the capital. When we see it launch, the entire capital and castle are in the background at a fair distance away. It's discussed in more detail in the gaiden manga The White Knight of the Black Wing, which I highly recommend as it's about the only time the Aerial Knights get proper character development. His sounding board for Windermere's casus belli? None other than Ernest Johnson. (The manga shows us more of Grammier's reasonable leader side, even being kind of enough to dismiss Ernest from his service so he won't have to fight his own countrymen.) Regardless of the facts, that's clearly the intention the writers wanted the audience to get, so I can't argue it too strongly. They gave poor Major Marin about the most untrustworthy weaselface they could. Yep... which is why I'm not going to get my hopes up until or unless I see the Delta movie #2 has a different writing staff from the previous installments.
  11. Seto Kaiba
  12. Seto Kaiba
    ... what? Nothing like that was EVER in Macross Delta. Where did you even get an idea like that? Windermere IV willingly joined the New UN Government in the late 2020s after they made contact with the 4th Long-Distance Emigrant Fleet. They were a proud member world for thirty years, and their agricultural economy fed a number of other worlds in the Brisingr cluster. The Aerial Knights participated in the defense of several other member worlds, and IIRC in the novels King Grammer himself was held in high regard because he fought for the NUNG in the Second Unification War. The reasons were principally economic... Windermere IV was one of the most isolated worlds in the already-isolated Brisingr globular cluster, so it was having trouble growing its economy. They were doing a brisk trade in foodstuffs, but their only other major commodity was fold quartz. They were unable to fully exploit it due to restrictions the New UN Government assembly imposed on it as an attempt to slow the proliferation of dimensional weapons. King Grammier VI was unsuccessful in his attempt to renegotiate his planet's trade agreements, so instead of trying again to reach a negotiated settlement he jumped straight to declaring secession from the New UN Government and trying to force the Megaroad-04 colony the previous king had invited to settle there off the planet by force of arms. (I guess having such a short lifespan makes the scale of patience a bit different...) Var syndrome was already a known concern before the first war with Windermere started. The New UN Spacy garrison on Windermere IV was involved in clandestine efforts to contain its spread even before the war. (Which, unfortunately, irked the locals a bit since some of it involved inventing not terribly good cover stories like training accidents for destroying tainted crops.) Weaponizing Var syndrome and weaponizing Var syndrome for mind control are two very different propositions. We don't know when they hit on the idea of weaponizing Var syndrome itself, but if the gaiden manga is a fair indication it was probably the Epsilon Foundation who clued them in to the possibility of using it for mind control following their 2062 experiments on Pipure. ... generally speaking, if you're trying to get as far away from populated areas as you can, holding a course directly over a major population center is not the way to do it. TBH, you seem to be doing a fair bit of headcanon-ing to vilify the NUNS here. Even Xaos comes to the conclusion that the NUNS dropped the dimensional warhead to prevent an ultimate weapon from ending up in enemy hands near the end of the series, based on Wright's own log recorder. Berger Stone's explanation that it could wipe out the galactic population kind of puts the cherry on it. The difference between protecting the globular cluster and keeping an apocalyptic superweapon of galaxy-ending proportions out of the hands of a deranged xenophobic cargo cult hopped up on delusions of manifest destiny is pretty much purely semantics. (Which, it must be admitted, finally got Xaos on the same page as everyone else since virtually all of the NUNS's exposition was basically that.) (Considering the NUNS's past history with the ancient Protoculture's abandoned weapons projects, the decision to blow it to smithereens with maximum overkill straightaway rather than risk it being activated shows remarkably genre-savvy thinking on their part.)
  13. Seto Kaiba
    CD Japan, Amazon Japan, HMV Japan... all the usual suspects. (CD Japan was so swift in delivering mine I got it the same day it came out in Japan.)
  14. Seto Kaiba
    It won't be so much a "relinquishing" as a "expiring"... it's not really something they control. I've been following a few series through Yen Press, including Kugane Maruyama's Overlord series... I haven't seen precise numbers for the sale of the translated edition (if such a thing is even published as a matter of course), but the publisher has indicated continuing strong sales... enough to justify a pace of 2-3 new volumes per year.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    "Right next to" is a fairly substantial exaggeration... the ruins were a good distance outside town and away from Darwent Castle, and the dimensional warhead deployed was a low-yield tactical model. ... what? When the New UN Forces approved the plan to attack and destroy the Protoculture ruins and Sigur Berrentzs, the Kingdom of the Wind had been at war with the New UN Government for 8 months. I would call declaring war on the New UN Government and then spending eight months shooting at the New UN Forces reasonably clear evidence of hostile intent. As noted in the preceding paragraph, your contention that it was an unprovoked attack is false... the Kingdom of the Wind had declared war on and attacked the New UN Forces on Windermere IV over 8 months before and had been in a state of open warfare ever since. As to the illegality of the dimensional weapon. Treaties prohibit their transportation and use in the normal course of operations, but as we see later in the series the New UN Forces may deploy them under extraordinary circumstances with the appropriate approvals. (The bit about it being illegal is from something Arad said, before the cast learned the truth about the op. Arad was a junior officer, so naturally he wouldn't have had any way of knowing the NUNS internal cover story that Wright'd stolen an undocumented warhead was a cover for an approved mission to destroy the ruins.) Also, as noted in my previous reply, the only reason the dimensional warhead was detonated over a population center was that Wright Immelmann disobeyed orders and deliberately loitered in a city's airspace while carrying a WMD. His orders were to proceed to an unpopulated location and bomb that. Whether Wright Immelmann actually stole the Star Singer DNA or simply found it before the locals did while investigating the ruins is unclear. It would hardly be the first time that anti-government forces made a claim like that to vilify their opposition in Macross.1 Given that we're shown that the ruins/ship can conceal or reveal information selectively, that he simply found the system that DNA was kept in first seems reasonably likely. The NUNS plan was to detonate the ruins using a reaction warhead to hinder Windermere's plan to establish their fold network. Collecting as much data as they can before withdrawing in the face of an enemy fleet that outclasses your own is pretty basic strategy. Also, what weapon program? The only thing the NUNS is ever depicted having developed because of the study of the ruins is the fold jamming system to protect their ships and troops from the bio-fold waves Heinz was projecting. 1. D.D. Ivanov and Nora Polyansky in Macross Zero claimed that the UN Government stole the variable system behind Variable Fighters from their homeland... Macross Chronicle refuted this claim, indicating the technology was shared
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Thanks to the block on exports, Macross is one of the most-pirated anime titles whenever a new one comes out. These days, there's ample evidence that most would rather purchase legitimate product and support the creators rather than resort to piracy not just in the Macross fandom, but among the anime hobbyist community in general. (It's basically Crunchyroll's entire business model...) Macross is, I think, more mainstream than you're giving it credit for... especially since Frontier. There has always been a fairly significant underground fanbase, and one of the biggest obstacles to them has always been the huge markups that come with buying media direct from Japan. Lately, the industry has picked up to the point that even light novels are more routinely ending up translated into English and selling rather well.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    No, plenty of people who were paying attention think Delta's attempt to paint the NUNS as shady or villainous fell pretty flat. (We were pretty clearly supposed to think that, but it doesn't fit with what's actually said and shown in the series.) It's all there if you pay attention to the bits that don't have Walkure in 'em. You're right. Sorry. I wrote that last one from memory while I was being bored to tears in a Skype meeting.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Very little is said about it. All we really get from Macross Chronicle, for instance, is that it was a test article for an optional part of the YF-19's FAST pack that had high attack power and that it was not typically included. Why the pack was dropped from the final configuration is anyone's guess. It had one large-bore beam gun, two small-bore beam guns, and five missiles IIRC. Officially, the bits that dangle off the sides of the shoulder are only referred to as "Shoulder Armor", and the Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet that describes them identifies them only as being there for protecting the shoulder. (Kind of a "shaped like itself" statement, really.) Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur finesses this a bit on page 062, and adds the wrinkle of that armor piece also being a small conformal fuel tank designated NP-FB-FA07. About all that the book says about its merits is that its mounting location enables it to be fitted in addition to booster packs and the larger conformal tanks on the legs. There are two micro-missile launchers in each of the leg packs. There are a few reasons for that: The YF/VF-19's engines arguably didn't need the help. Its thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engines offered a significant improvement in fuel efficiency vs. previous generation engine tech, and the larger airframe meant more room for onboard fuel storage. IMO, this is right about the point in Macross history where FAST packs started to be less about extending range and more about minimizing the impact of adding scads of extra firepower. Likewise, the YF/VF-19's existing defenses were likely enough that the extra mass of the bolt-on armor was judged detrimental. Its armor was comparable to or better than a VF-17's, and that had ballistic resistance rivaling the Armored Valkyrie. Plus it had a pinpoint barrier system and anti-projectile shield made of layered energy conversion armor for additional defense. It preserved the airframe's passive stealth properties. 3rd Generation Active Stealth was still in development at the same time as the YF-19, so a lot of features of 4th Gen VFs were designed with passive stealthiness in mind... hence the internal ordnance bays, stealth gunpods, and the conformal FAST packs. It didn't really become ubiquitous technology until the VF-171's second production block. The default configuration being micro-missile pallets meant that the internal bays in the engine nacelles could be given over to larger ordnance like medium and long-range missiles that would increase drag and diminish passive stealth if hung on the wings. It meant that the FAST packs could be operated with equal ease in space or in atmosphere.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    What corrupt NUNS officer? The Macross Delta TV series sort of halfheartedly tried to make Major Valan look evil or at least duplicitous... but the actual story undermines that pretty thoroughly with the repeated reveal that the local NUNS brass are just way better informed about the scope of the threat than Xaos is and kept it close to avoid causing a panic as they worked on countermeasures. Even their shadiest move, deploying that dimensional warhead during Windermere's first war with the New UN Government, turned out to be a well-intentioned and strategically sound move which only became a controversial disaster because they didn't realize that the elite pilot selected for the mission had been compromised. (Incidentally, manually setting your text color to black makes it hard to read when the default board style has a very dark grey as the background color.) I'd bet against this one, though a new FAST pack seems to be almost a given. They haven't finished doing DXs for the TV series designs yet. (It'd be hard to explain Xaos getting a new VF the way SMS did, since the Brisingr globular cluster's whole schtick is that they're broke and economically underdeveloped. The whole reason the VF-31 was developed was to stimulate their economy by keeping development local instead of buying an export model 5th Gen VF. Maybe if Xaos hadn't already been flying Ace Customs...) With who, though? Macross Delta: Passionate Walkure ended with the Kingdom of the Wind's forces retreating from Ragna and proposing peace talks. Maybe the New UN Forces are going to come knocking now that they know Xaos and Lady M have broken interstellar law by creating and weaponizing an illegal clone (Mikumo). Maybe better drones... their ethos is all about the aerial dogfight and close-quarters combat, so I can't see them going in for a heavy Armored Pack. Maybe something along the lines of the YF-25 Paladin Pack, which focused on a lance for close combat? There are few bets safer than that one. Didn't she say in the series and movie that her parents are dead? (IIRC it's the village mayor of her hometown who was trying to marry her off when she skipped town and the planet on a cargo ship.) The novelizations will scratch that itch for you, that I can guarantee... We'd all like that, yes. Seems unlikely, IMO. She's only really valuable to the story as a one-woman Omniscient Council of Vagueness that dispenses exposition by proxy. Macross Delta's creators never determined an identity for her either, and Berger Stone's whole story doesn't fit with other info about her, so it's unlikely she'll be anyone we already know. If she does put in an appearance, I'm betting on a "remember the new guy?" like Millard Johnson, Timothy Daldhanton, Naresuan, or Richard Bilra... a new character whose backstory puts them as present for the events of the original series. She'll be back to her VF-31C.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Eh, I'd call some decent art or scenes of the Sv-154 Svard a nice consolation prize.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, I know five or six volumes of Variable Fighter Master File already have been fan-translated into Chinese.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, I'm definitely not getting my hopes up until I see some news of actual substance. IMO, Macross Delta's concept and cast weren't bad... they're just badly presented. If we get different (read: "better") writers, this movie could be something worth getting interested in. Bring back Hiroyuki Yoshino to clean up Toshizo Nemoto's mess and you'll really have my attention.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    It's not unheard of... they did it in '94 with Macross Plus and Macross 7.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    We're almost certainly headed down the recycled design rabbit hole. Maybe a new FAST pack, but I wouldn't count on anything else.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    That's just the way new Macross project announcements are... we usually don't get any meaningful information until the second or third event where the project is teased. That's what I kept pointing out WRT a new series... that the pattern from the last few meant that we wouldn't expect them to even admit they were working on one until late September, reveal the title in October, and we wouldn't actually see anything substantial about it until November or December. Since a new Delta movie is about the most disappointing announcement they could possibly make, I'm really hoping this topic is not mistitled and there will be a new (non-Delta) series developed in parallel. Given that Walkure is the real money spinner and Macross Delta itself seems to be mostly a footnote to the group's self-promotion, the concerts are probably to keep the gravy train going.
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