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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    That'd be awful roundabout... softening up the New UN Government by waging a propaganda war against a corporation the New UN Forces think is an interfering pack of useless gits.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Smart money says that, as with the Macross Delta TV series, the writers have decided to copy Macross Frontier... in this case, Walkure will probably be accused of being spies or being behind the Var outbreaks they control.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Huh, a few mildly interesting things in the trailer... Χάος has multiple Macross Elysion-type ships, which I guess isn't surprising given that the Macross Frontier movies did the same thing to the Macross Quarter-class. Looks like we're also in for Walkure getting the same treatment Sheryl got in the Frontier movies. Messer's VF-31F Delta 2 equipped with Lilldrakens? (Odds on a Keith heel-face turn like fans thought would happen in the series?) Putting Hayate's battroid mode dance routine from the series' first episode in the movie with a VF-31 instead. Looking more like the twists in the Macross Delta movie will be the exact same twists from the Macross Frontier movies...
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, it goes back like 25 years... but he's never changed that stance. Like I said in my last post, the most recent indication that his position hasn't changed is from Mari Iijima just 2 months ago at Super Dimension Convention.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Yes and no. Kawamori-san's insistence that the story of the original Macross main trio is over and he will not revisit it is a stance that he has held for a long time now, and as far as we know he hasn't changed his mind any. At the Super Dimension Convention earlier this year, Mari Iijima herself noted that while she has somewhat recently changed her mind and is willing to return as Lynn Minmay, Kawamori isn't interested in revisiting the character or her story. As far as Kawamori has said, Hikaru, Misa, and Minmay's story is over. It ended with Macross: Flash Back 2012 when they sailed off into the metaphorical sunset together. There is no more story to tell where they are involved. He wants to move forward and tell new stories. Kawamori's only involvement with the anniversary commemorative events is attending them, and he doesn't have anything to do with the digital remastering of older Macross shows for home video release. Like I said, the story of the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross cast is over... its epilogue was the 1987 Macross: Flash Back 2012 OVA, which was material that was originally storyboarded for Super Dimension Fortress Macross's 36th episode. There isn't really a story to tell with those characters from that point on. Thanks to titles like Macross 7 Docking Festival we know what most of the cast did after the war ended and Megaroad-01 launched and it's not exactly exciting stuff. Most of them quit the military and went back to civilian life. The only ones who had any real excitement in their lives after were Max and Milia, who kept their commissions and went into the New UN Spacy Special Forces before being assigned to the Macross-7 fleet, and that's well-documented already in Macross M3 and Macross 7. The rest is not particularly exciting: General Global retired from the military in 2016 to go into government, Britai got Global's old job, Shammy got married and had 11 kids, Vanessa got married and has a club in Macross City that she and her husband run, Kim never married and works a desk job in the New UN Forces, the lolicon trio kept working odd jobs and at least one ended up as an alcoholic, etc. Having been MIA for half a century at this point, even the fate of the main trio isn't likely to be good material for a series either. If they aren't long-dead, then they've been living peacefully on some planet isolated by fold faults.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Kawamori-san has repeatedly said he's not interested in doing a direct sequel to Super Dimension Fortress Macross. There's no point in petitioning him to do something he's adamant about refusing to do.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, give our best to Gargamel. Well... we don't actually have the option not to. We're at the mercy of Crunchyroll's catalog of licensed titles, the only version of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny they licensed was the high-definition remastered version. At nine episodes into Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, I can definitely see why this show has such a bad reputation. Shinn Asuka's supposed to be the main character, at least on paper, and he's so thoroughly unlikeable that the show seems to want to focus on literally anyone who isn't Shinn Asuka. Mostly Athrun Zala, the man with the Earth sphere's worst paper-thin alias. What with Kira having become a hermit or something and a new secret Earth Forces unit faffing about doing shady stuff, this show is really feeling like the bargain bin version of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. I'm kind of amazed that, after all that happens, nobody has yet remarked "didn't we do this exact thing just last year?" when OMNI forces under the direction of Blue Cosmos uses a paper-thin excuse to launch a nuclear attack on the PLANTs and it doesn't work because the PLANTs have a new superweapon. Not!Azrael has much worse dress sense than Azrael did though, what with the silver-trimmed yellow suit with the mandarin collar and the purple lipstick. I have a feeling I might hate the obvious Lacus impersonator more than I hate the genuine article...
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Less Walkure, more Valkyrie. Kinda pissing into the wind there... the only competent factions in Macross Delta are the New UN Forces and Epsilon Foundation, they're both background factions and they're the only ones in this bloody story who have a clue what's actually going on. Macross Delta's like a mecha version of The Mouse that Roared adapted for screen by Uwe Boll.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, this fanart is several decades too old to have any kind of connection to the VF-1G Valkyrie from Variable Fighter Master File. It's not clear why the writers who worked on Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.1 felt compelled to come up with a new variant to replace the official VEFR-1 Valkyrie from Super Dimension Fortress Macross, but that's what they did. That variant was a new (non-canon) introduction for the first Master File book in 2009, and didn't exist prior to that point. Based on the references made in this fanart, it seems to be from some point in the mid-to-late eighties, very probably from before the release of Macross: Flash Back 2012. It seems to describe an improved space-use version of the VF-1A. (And a VF-4A based on the VF-X-4 rather than the final VF-4 design.) That's something else entirely, an unofficial/fanmade variant.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    I'm kind of surprised you let the "Ramba Rommel" comment slide... @BlackRose and I just moments ago finished the final (48th) episode of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED's HD Remastered edition. I have to say, this being my first time actually getting past the 12th episode of the series, it wasn't actually that bad. Not my cup of tea, Gundam-wise, but actually not nearly as bad as I remember from my attempts to get through its broadcast cut on Toonami back in the day. That said, it feels like the Cosmic Era setting is an even bigger craphole than than the Universal Century. There is absolutely nobody on either main side outside the main cast who is in any way admirable, honorable, or not a frothingly insane genocidal bigot. These people are 5x10^f'ed up. I'd probably have rated Gundam SEED a lot higher if there'd been any sign on the OMNI and ZAFT sides that there were people who hadn't totally lost the plot. Even the Zabis had more class and restraint than Patrick Zala, and Azrael's so obviously axe-crazy and suspicious that the absence of any reasonable authority figure is the only reason he didn't spend pretty much the entire series in a padded room somewhere. You're right, I absolutely did not notice any musical cues that seemed jarring our out of place. Tomorrow, when we're not watching my younger brother go mano-a-mano with an unruly kitten, baby ball python, and a large and ornery monitor lizard, @BlackRose and I will be starting Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny to continue our holiday march through the new offerings on Crunchyroll.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Smaller than the old Expanded Universe, where the same double-handful of jerks were at the center of absolutely everything?
  12. Seto Kaiba
    I confess that after watching The Last Jedi the other night, I came away with this weird impression that this latest Star Wars trilogy was a Tite Kubo-esque "Take that!" aimed at the fans who'd criticized the hell out of the prequel trilogy. Not just that every character from the original trilogy has now moved into the same role as a supporting character from that same trilogy1, but also that so many of the new characters have bios that read like they're right out of a fanfic. Thankfully, they proceeded to mercilessly subvert the hell out of the expectations that arose from that... but it does kind of feel like they've twice now thrown the baby out with the bathwater in the process of subverting those expectations. Feels like character development of important characters is too thin on the ground at present. Quite a few events and characters2 lack the impact they're clearly supposed to have because they're not developed.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    There's been a bit of on-and-off lag lately, it doesn't seem connected to anything in particular...
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, there are still a few areas in Macross's mechanical setting where things haven't been properly explained yet. The fold wave system and its big brother, the fold dimensional resonance system, are one example of something where all we know is that they "just work". I live in hope that my translations, or those of the far more prolific sketchley, will stumble upon the answers to a few of those unanswered questions in time. Rion being assigned to a YF-25 Prophecy at the start of Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy has a lot to do with the fact that the YF-25 in question was destined for disassembly. He was sent to Uroboros from the Sephira SMS branch to deliver that YF-25 Prophecy to Maj. Aisha Blanchett of the Uroboros SMS branch so that she could part it out, with the semi-clandestine goal being to use said parts to repair the damage the YF-30 Chronos prototype had sustained in an earlier testing accident and bring it closer to completion by adopting the YF-25's ARIEL II "Brunhilde" airframe control AI system. (That's why Aisha wasn't too put out that Rion managed to wreck his YF-25 fighting Havamal up there in orbit... the bits she wanted most all survived the crash: the cockpit, the airframe control AI, and a pilot to replace the injured test pilot her prototype had hospitalized.) (This is actually acknowledged in the VF-31A's spec, in which the ARIEL II airframe control AI used is noted as Brunhilde+, a more refined version of the same Brunhilde used by the YF-25 and YF-30.)
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Considering how Freyja reacts when Hayate touches her rune, it's pretty clear those ain't normal tentacles... they're henticles.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    With a military pilot and military-issue fold booster? Seems unlikely. Apart from a vague similarity in wing structure there ain't much VF-4 there... this looks far too different to be derived from a VF-4.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    A tentacle. They seem to enjoy braiding hair around it, though in Freyja's case you can clearly see said tentacle whenever her rune perks up.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, we got nothin'... this one's not covered in any depth in any Macross publication. Even Macross Chronicle ignores it. You'd think it would've at least landed in an Extra Report on a quasi-related sheet like a Mechanic Sheet, History Sheet, or Timeline Sheet, but no dice. All we know is that it's manned, it's approximately fighter-sized, and like every other craft in its size class it needs a fold booster to travel interstellar distances. Presumably it's got a BDI system cockpit, since the canopy is covered by an armored shield like the VF-27's. If the streamlined design and canards are any indication it was an all-regime craft, and its pilot identifies as a member of the Macross Galaxy corporate army (NUNS), but it has no obvious weaponry. It's too small to be a shuttle or courier craft, there's no reason for an escape pod to be equipped with wings and a fold booster. All I can think of is it must be some kind of two-seater VIP transport aircraft or a reconnaissance plane.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Almost certainly not the ones outlined in the Master File book. The individual missile on its own is the Bifors AAMM-05D medium-range anti-air missile. The triple rack is three Bifors/L.A.I. AAMS-02A short-range high-maneuverability anti-air missile. The pod is a micro-missile launcher pod like the VF-1's, equipped with Sentinel FXA-60A high-speed armor-piercing rockets (presumably an evolved version of the VF-1's Grenade Crusher type). You could've checked our M3 articles for it... we've got pics of the Destroid mode there. lol It's almost the VB-6's best kept secret, since you could only use it in one level in Macross VF-X2, and it takes a dog's age to unlock the unwieldy-to-the-point-of-uselessness VB-6 in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy, while it otherwise only gets used in the final episode of Macross Frontier and in the first movie's promo for the second movie.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    The missiles in Master File either aren't the same ones as the ones on the toy, or are painted a different color in the book.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    All three Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheets for the VB-6 Konig Monster are in agreement that, of the three modes the VB-6 was designed with (Shuttle, GERWALK, and Destroid) the humanoid Destroid mode is mostly useless because it's principally meant for use in close quarters combat... something an artillery piece habitually deployed to shell enemy ships and fortifications doesn't do much unless something has gone horribly, HORRIBLY wrong. It is noted that the use of Destroid mode does not prevent the unit from bringing its railguns to bear though. They're shown as basically monochrome dark gray on the CG models for Macross Frontier and Macross Frontier's two movies... the missiles have little colored blisters on the nose and a band of red or yellow (I can't tell which) near the tail, but otherwise they're not marked at all that I can see. That six-tube micro-missile pod is just a flat gray.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Probably not much more than it could already carry with the legs present. That bay is not very large, and at best can hold two RMS-5 thermonuclear reaction missiles. Sort of... the legs were removed from Maj. Immelmann's VF-22, but only after it'd crashed, been restored, and placed on permanent display in Darwent Castle as a reminder of the events of Carlyle's Black Storm. When it was deployed to drop the bomb in the first place, the legs were still fitted. The one camera angle provided in Windermere IV's recording of the incident doesn't show us the underside of Maj. Immelmann's VF-22, so it's hard to say if the dimensional warhead was dropped from the internal ordnance bays or if it was slung under the VF on a pylon or conformal mount. It doesn't seem to be a very large missile, so I'd assume it was probably internally carried.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    It says an awful lot about the brand that this disasterpiece is being touted as a huge step up for the brand... I'm just going to step into this corner and scream for a bit, do let me know when the horror has ended.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    That conclusion is: Pretty obviously contradictory when you consider the Protoculture's own stated intent, relayed by their technological works, was for their remaining creations to live in peace with themselves and each other. They didn't even want them leaving their homeworlds until they'd eliminated all internal conflict. An incredibly poor fit for their biology. The Windermereans are a species that doesn't even reach physical maturity until 2/3 of the way through their average lifespan. If you're creating an army of designer soldiers, you don't want 2/3 of their service lives spent growing up, and their reaching maturity and combat-worthiness marked by only a few years of peak ability which are followed by a rapid deterioration. You especially don't want your soldiers to have a built-in empathy system that causes them to read each other's emotions constantly. All told, the Windermereans were almost certainly an attempt by the ancient Protoculture to create a sub-Protoculture species who had the best possible chance of achieving the Protoculture's ambition of a unified society free of internal conflicts. They have very short lives to slow their technological progress to the point that they'd be stuck as an agrarian society for a long time, giving them the chance to develop a peaceful society before achieving spaceflight. Their superior physical abilities shorten their lifespan if it's overused, meaning anyone who gets it into their head to get combative will die sooner and leave less of a mark on society. Their runes are a built-in forced-empathy system that makes it all but impossible for them to NOT understand each other by making the sensing of each other's emotions a basic part of communication. Berger was pretty obviously spinning a yarn when he claimed the fold bacteria that cause Var syndrome came from the Vajra... Not superweapons, no. If you paid attention to Macross Zero, the last thing the Protoculture wanted was for humans to become a hostile, aggressive species. So much so that they created the Mayan priestesses to maintain the apocalyptic weapon to wipe out humanity if they didn't develop into a peaceful species. Anima spiritia doesn't seem to have any connection to genetics, it's something mental. The biological fold waves the priestesses give off are different, though Macross Chronicle indicates the song energy in Macross 7 is a type of fold wave too. Almost certainly not, for the reasons outlined above. Quite the opposite, when you think about it. The Windermereans aren't immune to Var syndrome, they've formed a symbiosis with it to the extent that they literally can't live without it. Their very lives seem to be tied inextricably to the fold receptors in their runes, to the point where overusing the rune such a boosting their fold wave transmitting ability or physical abilities (ala Var syndrome sufferers in other species) causes an accelerated aging effect that can shave months or years off their lifespans with each use. Whatever role those fold bacteria in their runes play in their metabolism, it's so essential that they start mummifying if those fold bacteria die off from stress. (When you think about it, that might explain their great love of Windermere apples... a fruit that naturally contains compounds that, when combined with dissolved solids in the groundwater near Protoculture ruins, accelerates the growth of fold bacteria. That's a potential disturbing case of "an apple a day keeps the reaper away", when you think about it. Their planet is rife with ruins and the major settlements seem to all be near ruins. If their lifespan is tied to the bacteria they carry that cause Var syndrome, seidznol in their diet from drinking the groundwater and eating the apples could be an essential part of their diet to stave off premature aging.)
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Grace O'Connor actually serves up a fairly sunccinct explanation of exactly this in the Macross Frontier TV series. I'll summarize. Mihoshi Academy is not a traditional high school. It's not a general education or college prep school, it's more like a consolidated set of vocational schools and specialist prepatory programs aimed at meeting the needs of the emigrant fleet's hard-to-fill jobs in the aerospace, technology, information science, fine, and performing arts industries. The Space Navigation major that Alto, Luca, Michael, and Sheryl are all enrolled in in the Macross Frontier TV series is basically a no-obligation ROTC program for the New UN Spacy. They get a modest gen-ed courseload and three years of flight school, graduating as fully-qualified pilots. (The novels are more explicit about the training involved, indicating that the Space Navigation students train not just on EX-Gear that matches the specs of the military's latest, but also on civilian-market VFs.) As Luca notes, the only real options for someone in that major are flying commercially (presumably for Bilra Transport or one of its rivals) or joining the armed forces. The actual dedicated military training the cast had to go through was considerably reduced as a result of their having had several years of training already. Considering SMS's parent company literally bankrolled the construction of the entire fleet, owns most of the government, and also has a near-monopoly on the fleet's interstellar shipping... who's going to argue? Her tenure with the New UN Spacy was very short, likely lasting less than a year given her age. She probably enlisted via special entry like Gamlin Kizaki did, joining the military underage with parental permission contingent on her being legally an adult by the time her training was finished (as is also possible in the real world). Whether she finished training in two years like Gamlin, or took the full three like everyone else, is unclear. (The age of majority under the New UN Government is 17.)
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