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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Somehow, I think that would end badly for Messer too... emo boy literally lives to protect Kaname. "No, Messer. It wasn't a dream. You're still in high school, and this is the greatest misdirection play of all time." The next hour and a half of the movie are a generic coming-of-age sports anime. EDIT: At least it'd explain why he goes through the entire series wearing kneepads... ... I think he just wants to see her in the shower. Or maybe he wants to see Hayate in the shower. I dunno.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Brigadier General Bruno J. Global's name has, on a few occasions, been transliterated incorrectly as "Bruno J. Gloval" even in Japanese publications. ("Global" is the official/correct form.) Obviously the highest-profile example of this mistake is The-Show-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, but you can also find an example of it in This is Animation Special: Macross Plus. The Variable Fighter Squadron Marking section the starts at page 83 at the back of the book has, on page 92, a VF-11C from the SVF-41 Black Aces that is marked up as being from CV-339 B.J. Gloval. Other publications have affirmed that this is a misspelling and that the Uraga-class CV-339 is the Bruno J. Global. (Exactly why he merits two ships named for him is unclear, but may have something to do with the mass-produced Macross-class ships carrying the names of the UN Forces' top brass like the SDFN-1 General (Takashi) Hayase or SDFN-8 General Vrlitwhai Kridanik while the New UN Government carries on the tradition of the government's chief executive having carriers named for him e.g. ARMD-01 Harlan J. Niven and ARMD-14 Robert A. Rhysling. Global did go into government after retiring from the UN Forces.)
  3. Seto Kaiba
    ... and probably not even that. Delta's story was pretty fundamentally broken in that respect.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Personally, I'm inclined to disagree that the characters could cultivate interest... most of them are so painfully underdeveloped that their bios on the official website actually offer more detail than the show itself does. Most of them are playing to very simple cliches. Mikumo, instead, is simply a combination of two existing characters: she's Sheryl Nome by way of Mina Forte. IMO, both she and Makina could be removed from the story outright without changing a damn thing. They're both only there to tick off some arbitrary checkboxes on the standard fetishes checklist. They don't even live up to the minimal promise of their official bios on the website. Makina's allegedly the crew chief on the Aether, and yet the only time she's ever shown to do anything is the first OP and is otherwise just a transport and life support system for a pair of gag boobs (while somehow also managing to be even less plot-relevant than Nanase, who filled that role in Macross Frontier). Reina's supposed to be some kind of elite hacker, but the only times she ever succeeds at it are when the enemy wants her to break in. Every other time she gets busted right away, which is how she ended up working for Xaos in the first place. Their elite super-hacker couldn't beat a single electronic door lock and one dozy rent-a-cop. It's actually even less complex than that. She tried to hack Xaos for some reason, got busted, and was given the standard cliche "work for us or go to jail" ultimatum.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    I've never really been one for American comic books, but really? Most everything I've seen come out of both major publishing houses has every woman look like a lingerie model or porn star in spandex, where the men who aren't gonk all look like bodybuilders. Then again, I grew up in Liefeld's dark age, so you know what my first exposure to comics was like. Well... putting aside the fact that the military in question wasn't a navy in the original or the American adaptation this is based on... I do know a few who would if they thought they could get away with it. That was your first mistake, having high hopes for something that had the R-word on the cover. For all practical intents and purposes, the R-word is practically a warning label indicating the product is of depressingly poor quality, painfully stupid and/or lacking in originality. FFS, this is a brand with a "creator" whose name has literally become industry slang for screwing up so hard that the adaptation is a mockery of the original work. That was your second mistake, because Covers Always Lie. Robotech comics adhere to a very similar rule... usually it's "awful cover paintings, atrocious interior art". The few that bucked that trend followed the Dark Horse model you identified. As a rule, the content will ALWAYS suck. Never, NEVER underestimate the power of laziness. They weren't quite THAT blunt about it, but the meaning was absolutely there when they dismissed all the pre-2001 licensee-created works. They dismissed them on the grounds that the pre-2001 licensees were churning out poor quality work that was riddled with both internal inconsistencies and inconsistencies with the Robotech setting (tactfully omitting that they'd also frequently committed copyright infringement), and indicated that they would never have seen the light of day if the Harmony Gold staff at the time had been on the ball and exercising an appropriate level of creative oversight instead of ignoring the franchise entirely. They felt that made it Robotech in name only, and indicated it would not be counted as part of the official continuity in any way. In all honesty, having read virtually everything covered by that proclamation except Robotech: Clone, I felt that was a pretty good call. The vast majority of it WAS garbage even by the low standards of the day and the bush league comics publishers they were dealing with, and the copyright infringement by several publishers didn't help. I thought it showed a moment of rare integrity on their part when they admitted the root of the problem was Harmony Gold's brand management and pledged to change that aspect of their corporate culture in the hope that it would enable them to deliver a more consistent product instead of taking the Macek way out by laying all of the blame for ruining a perfect creative vision on their licensees and business partners.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    ... not sure I wanna know how you arrived at that theory. The impression I've gotten from the pages that've done the rounds as "teasers" and "previews" is that Titan Comics is doing an awful lot of tracing for this series, which would explain many of the awkward poses that look more at home in a fashion magazine, out-of-place facial expressions, and several characters seemingly having totally different faces panel-to-panel. I would assume her adaptational change in attractiveness is probably the result of whatever they traced her from. (Their take on her dress makes me suspect a wire-fu movie.)
  7. Seto Kaiba
    It's not like they're under any obligation to post the much greater number of reviews that say "this book is shite"... that's marketing. You pick and choose the bits that make you look good to customers and potential customers and refuse to acknowledge the rest, sometimes to the extent of sticking together unrelated sentence fragments of criticism to make them look like praise out of context.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    I'd kind of expected them to do that in the TV series... since she started going all crusty right before the end, I figured we were going to be left with a decisive Walkure victory at the expense of Freyja self-crystalizing into a statue. It would've been a more poigniant end than her short-lived romantic victory, but probably too dark for Macross. That's one of the show's problems. While it created this huge playground for itself in an attempt to out-Frontier Macross Frontier with its own rendition of what was basically the exact same plot, it neglected the hell out of said playground. Twenty-something inhabited worlds and we only see a handful of them, most of which look exactly the same. The setting development is wonderful, especially if you're in Macross RPGs which it almost seems to be for, but they could've made do with a less huge setting to give their story more focus. Kind of develops the Star Wars problem of "a million worlds, but only four that matter". In the case of Delta, it's Ragna, Windermere IV, Voldor, and Al Shahal.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Macross Delta's writers didn't seem to quite grasp that, if you want the audience to care that you've killed off a character, the character has to actually be somewhat developed and likeable first. Messer Ihlefeld was a flat, stock character in a series that was overrun by flat, stock characters on both sides. Worse still, the stock role he filled was the Broken Ace and it was almost impossible to like him in what little characterization he got because he treated everyone like dirt. His send-off in the episode after his death fell comically flat. "Oh look, Messer kept a secret diary of how much he thinks we all suck! See, he really did care!" My eyes just about rolled out of my head watching that shabby mess. The cast is packed with undeveloped stock characters the writers could kill with no more impact on the audience than knocking over a cardboard standee: Arad, Messer, Ernest Johnson, any member of Walkure who isn't Freyja Wion, Theo, Xao, Hermann, Uroh, and any among the multitudes of background characters on the Macross Elysion or in Darwent Castle. Maybe they can kill that bloody catfish from Ragna. He had more characterization than most of the characters I just named. ... ... ... the world can be a cruel place for one such as you. It'd help, but I fear we're in for another feeble attempt to pass a knockoff of Frontier's plot off as new. Maybe they'll mix it up by eliminating the pretense. Hayate will grow his hair out into a big ponytail, Freyja will dye her hair green, Roid will start wearing a skirt... this is veering dangerously into territory fangirls might actually go for. Oh sweet and salty machine god NO. NO NO NO NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO. This show already has SIX sodding "ace custom" machines, seven if you count Hayate converting Messer's plane into a second VF-31J, we do NOT need another one. Even covering the series mechanical designs has become a joke because the differences are cosmetic, making the different designs POINTLESS. They should've been different paintjobs on the same design, but even then it's pointless because the series shows Delta Flight sucks at its job. I'd call them "Prat customs" but it might get mistaken Pratt & Whitney's handiwork. The YF-29 was BS, but it was at least plot-critical BS that ended almost as soon as it began since Brera's plane outperformed Alto's. They don't have that excuse this time!
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Their reluctance to simply re-issue the Comico stuff probably has something to do with the company denouncing all of the pre-2001 licensee-made material as low-quality garbage back in 2006.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Whether he'll stay that way is another matter entirety...
  12. Seto Kaiba
    They used to be much better, but GA Graphic seems to have totally phoned the last couple books in... the VF-22 book was kind of lazily done but still workable, the VF-4 book was an utter mess that ignored most of the official info outright, and the VF-31 book is basically only good for the pictures. The VF-31 book may have suffered from the relatively anemic writeup on the VF-31 in official sources. All we're really told about the Howard LU-18A beam gunpod is that it's a high-powered (heavy quantum) beam gun that can be deployed as a turret or handheld. Then again, we haven't been given explicit outputs for the other heavy quantum beam gunpods so this is only frustrating instead of surprising. For the weapon that's used the most in the series, the railguns are actually the least detailed. Master File outright skips them in the armaments section, and the official specs only mention caliber, model number, and manufacturer. The production model uses a LM-27s 27mm railgun while the Siegfried custom uses a LM-25s 25mm railgun. Given the presence of a conspicuous ejector port on the gun itself in the art and CG models, I have little recourse but to assume it's the same kind of "railgun" that the SSL-9B Dragunov is... namely, a chemical propellant machinegun with a railgun "assist" to further accelerate the round while it travels down the barrel. Half or more of the forearm seems to be a box magazine feeding the gun. The ROV-127E beam machinegun on the monitor turret hasn't changed much from the ROV-127C the VF-25 uses, so I'd assume it's still ~10MW-class. The six Bifors CIMM-3B missile launchers (3 per nacelle) have a total missile capacity of 36 micro-missiles (so 6 missiles per launcher). The nacelle bays are given over to a pair of multidrone racks, each leg bay's rack holds 8 MDP-001W Cygnus multidrones able to maneuver at up to 200kph while onboard power lasts. The SPS-31A Super Pack has some reasonably good data, but only for its flight performance. It's got a mass of about 12,600kg on its own and when fully fueled and armed and docked with a VF-31 that's likewise fully fueled and armed the craft weighs ~38,000kg. The main booster packs each contain 2 Bharat SLE-6B booster rockets for forward thrust, 1 Bharat SLE-3B rocket for braking, and 6 Bharat SLE-1F rockets for maneuvering. Each booster is armed with five Bifors CIMM-5A micro-missile launchers. The leg packs each have 3 Bharat SLE-1F rockets for maneuvering and two Bifors CIMM-5A micro-missile launchers. The shoulder pack array has a pair of Bifors HMM-7C CIWS missile launchers each holding 15 micro-missiles. The last two packs on the dorsal body are standalone SLE-3B booster rockets. The combined output of the four Bharat SLE-6B boosters is 2,194kN (or 548.5kN/ea), providing 15.75G of acceleration at full combat loading approaching 30G on propellant and armament exhaustion. It can sustain that maximum thrust for 125 seconds before fuel depletion. (These are all throttleable hybrid or liquid rocket motors, so they can dial the output power up or down to conserve fuel.) I'd assume anywhere up to 6 missiles per CIMM-5A, so that's potentially 102 micro-missiles. Not as much as Master File alleged were in the incredibly capacious VF-25 launchers, but hey... these packs are also a lot smaller. Master File provides art but not specs for alternative Modular Multipurpose Pack configurations including an extended range pack with extra fuel for the SLE-6B's, and two different Double Strike variations. It feels like they have the labels backwards on those last two, since the one that is very clearly a converging beam cannon or heavy quantum beam cannon is marked up as a laser and the one that looks like a laser cannon is marked up just as a beam cannon.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, I don't recall anything where it's like that the entire time. Usually for drama's sake they cut back and forth between the cockpit and external view. Can't say I've ever found the official explanations of what the mecha were for any impediment to enjoying them as display pieces. I didn't especially like Macross Delta, and I still have a DX VF-31J on my desk at work alongside my VF-2SS, VF-4G, VF-171, and VF-25F. Still, I can completely understand the disappointment with the explanation. The first set of specs we got made the VF-31 look like a huge step forward for 5th Generation VFs instead of no improvement at all, and having five different ace customs in the same series kind of dilutes the special-ness of the ace custom idea... even if Macross doesn't usually do ace custom fighters. It really was a bad idea to have five ace customs dramatically different from the actual production model. (Especially when the actual production model is better looking than all five.)
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Not just the variant monitor turrets, it treats the Xaos Custom Siegfried configuration as an alternate production version of the VF-31 Kairos also destined for NUNS service. The bits that aren't simply copied from the VF-25 Master File put a lot more emphasis on the Siegfried than the Kairos, and make the Siegfried out to be a lot more than the aftermarket custom job it actually was in the official setting.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, it definitely felt like Macross Delta often forgot that there was more to the war than Walkure's singing... and occasionally seemed to forget that Walkure and Delta Flight achieved the square root of bugger all for almost the entire series, and only made gains at the very end when Heinz was out of the picture. They weren't the heroes because they were saving the day... they were heroes because the story said "this is the designated hero". That said, the music from Macross Delta was exemplary so at least they didn't drop the ball after making music almost the exclusive focus of the series.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    I don't doubt that the reactions here have a fair amount of built-in bias because we're all Macross fans... but if the independent reviewers are any indication, bias didn't result in a different conclusion. The independent, non-fan reviewers seem to be mostly united in saying this is at best a thoroughly mediocre comic with a disjointed narrative that assumes that the reader is already familiar with the Robotech story and thus is making little-to-no effort to be an ambassador to the non-fan. Thus far, the only difference I've seen between non-fan and fan unpaid reviews is that the fans seem to think all the things that were dealbreakers to the non-fan are positive traits, and that the lack of innovation is something laudable. The few gushingly positive professional reviews reek of bought-and-paid-for. The general consensus on the current round of Harmony Gold legal actions against Piranha Games, Catalyst Game Labs, and their various partners is rather dangerously close to spurious. I got the chance to have a friend of mine who is a corporate lawyer specializing in patent and trademark law look over Harmony Gold's filing and claims. He did ask that I indicate that he was not acting in any official capacity on this and his impressions should not be interpreted as legal advice. That said, his impression of Harmony Gold's filing against Catalyst et. al. given the publicly-available documents was that there is very little chance of a judgement in Harmony Gold's favor unless Catalyst/Piranha/etc. did something incredibly foolish like using Unseen designs as the starting point for the new designs in their development process (and retained papers showing they did that could be subpoenaed). He reckons they're hoping Catalyst and co. will panic - either because those designs are illegal derivatives of the Macross designs or because the project can't afford the litigation - and will opt to settle out of court on Harmony Gold's terms. (It's likely a "brand protection" lawsuit, since Harmony Gold thinks the Robotech brand is worth something again and want to put the kibosh on anything that looks similar, possibly to show Sony they're taking custodianship of the series seriously.) Legally speaking, no... the comic is not representative of what a Sony-made movie would entail. Harmony Gold USA cannot use or authorize the use of the Macross designs and various key terms and story elements from Macross in new animated or live-action cinematic works. They can only use those things in merchandise, comics, novels, and video games all being merchandise. A movie by Sony would look nothing like this, for reasons of copyright. Well, there are still fans of that nonsense who will pay for overpriced trash, which is how the monstrously expensive Kitz Concepts stuff sells out of its ultra-low volume limited editions. Well, if they're targeting anyone who reads comics boy have they cocked it up...
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Given what a mess the TV series turned into, unless they have different writers attached my only reaction is "DO NOT WANT". The director's commentary on the Blu-ray better be two hours of Kawamori apologizing for this awful mess.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    I'm going to reserve pre-judgement until I find out who's writing this. If it's the same clowns who made a complete pig's ear of the Macross Delta TV series, then I want none of it.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    In hindsight, considering that the multidrone racks are one of the major areas where the Siegfried deviates from the base Kairos design, it's really REALLY weird that the Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31 Siegfried book flat-out ignored them. I have a few fun theories about how they hover like that without seemingly producing any visible thrust, the main one being that since we know they're already storing enormous amounts of energy there's a high probability that they're ionocraft lifters. Yep... that's how I figured out it was "crashed" that I couldn't read in the first picture. It was in a section devoted to talking about the YF-19 No.1 prototype, and one of the few factoids we've been given about that prototype is that it was damaged beyond repair and its pilot died when it crashed in the middle of its second flight test. From what Jan Neumann said, team Shinsei had had a nasty run of testing accidents that culminated in the deaths of two test pilots and hospitalized two others with serious injuries. Various sources have given 6 names for the 7 people to pilot the YF-19 during testing. One of the dead men is yet unnamed, the other is Juuso Grennan. The other named test pilots are Ken Grasshunt, Ludmila Blackwood, Rick Nieven, Isamu Alva Dyson, and Amy Cunningham. 1st Lt. Grasshunt and Lt. Col. Nieven were the two who ended up hospitalized, while 1st Lt. Dyson, Ms. Blackwood, and Cpt. Cunningham all came out of it unscathed. The gunpod mountings I've seen point to the gunpod being retained by a retractable bolt or bracket that extends between the arms in fighter mode and is counted as one of the fighter's weapons stations same as the underwing pylons. I would assume, especially on 5th Gen VFs, that there is some electromagnetic support helping keep the gunpod aligned properly during the transformation. The process of getting the gunpod from the arm mount to the hand seems to be either "catch it" or a handoff from one hand to the other. (It's one of those things that either happens too fast to see or falls under the header of "anime magic". The toys are kind of lousy about it, since there are a number of design concessions to making the toy more durable (or transformation easier on the purchaser). The arm-mounted anti-projectile shields are on a kind of sliding mount. You can see this most clearly in the VF-11 and YF-19 transformation line art. When the arms are stowed back in fighter mode, the shield slides on that mounting so that, while still physically bolted to the left arm, it's aligned with the centerline of the airframe. During transformation, once the arms separate the shield slides so that it's centered on the forearm and then locks itself in place again. 1. "Auxiliary propellant tank and atmospheric reentry fairing" is the description I have. Basically, it's a fuel tank with an aerodynamic shape. 2. The heavy quantum beam cannon assembly has a dedicated thermonuclear reactor powering it, the extendable cooling unit is noted to be mostly for space use to increase the radiating surface. It's noted that its coolant loop services both the reactor and the beam generator itself, but I would assume a key reason they need such a large surface is because the reactor is not expelling its reaction plasma the way the ones in the VF's engines are. Macross Plus did that, didn't it? Guld demonstrates the agility of the BDI-driven YF-21 No.2 by evading, rather than intercepting or outrunning, an Itano Circus of HMM-111CS missiles launched by target drones by diving straight through the barrage so quickly that the proximity fuses didn't have a chance to go off. Well, I have some news on that score that may improve your outlook on it. Y'see... there is only one production VF-31 unit in the Macross Delta series. The VF-31C, VF-31E, VF-31F, VF-31J, and VF-31S are not production variants of the VF-31, they're officially all one-of-a-kind aftermarket conversions of the VF-31A Kairos with informal designations. The actual difference between them is mostly cosmetic, because Delta Flight is every bit as much a performance unit as Walkure is. There's a dozen or so kilograms of mass one way or the other, and the number of ROV-127 beam machineguns, but that's about it. Master File goes and doubles down on it, as its version is that they aren't even converted from production-intent VFs... they're converted from early prototype VF-31s. (Which oddly contradicts the series, as it shows Arad operating a production-intent VF-31A in support of Walkure in flashbacks.) The only things I've seen that suggest there is any kind of difference at all between the various custom VF-31s apart from monitor turret differences is in Macross Delta Scramble, which asserts that the VF-31C and VF-31S are equipped with the same kind of command and control software as the VF-25S, that Messer's VF-31F has its control software optimized for use in atmospheric combat, and Arad's has all the limiters turned off. The VF-31A Kairos is the only production variant to appear in Macross Delta, though there is mention of a VF-31B which is in Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film territory.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    The first paragraph is super blurry, can we get a cleaner shot of that? I'm transcribing most of it, but there are a few kanji I can't make out because of the focus. EDIT: Swinging blindly seems to pay off... one of the unreadable pairs of kanji was in a sentence about the YF-19-1, so I started randomly looking up terms I'd associated with it and got "crashing" (墜落), which does appear to be what's written in the unreadable space
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Sort of, yes. People associated with the Robotech creative staff - I wouldn't call them "friends" of the staff because they're more like disposable suckups and lackeys - have indicated that the sudden spike in the brand's output of crap merchandise is an attempt by Harmony Gold's management to raise Sony's confidence in the brand's marketability. They seem to be hoping that if they can show that the brand moves merchandise, even if the merchandise itself is trash, it'll make the execs at Sony Pictures more likely to greenlight the movie out of development hell. I suspect that's wishful thinking of the most hilarious kind. Sony's not likely to be fooled by a another lousy comic book reboot that even its publisher is uncertain about, and a bunch of super-expensive limited edition garbage rolling out of Hong Kong. I'm personally inclined to suspect the reason they feel the need to hit merchandising hard and fast is because they still have the albatross of Robotech RPG Tactics hanging 'round their neck courtesy of Palladium Books' incompetence. The level of ill will that seemingly inextinguishable dumpster fire produces is oddly impressive, and would've made any company uneasy about a business relationship even before it narrowly avoided accruing a death toll resulting from bad PR.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Should we petition the publisher to add a Surgeon General's warning to the cover?
  23. Seto Kaiba
    No problem, mate. I appreciate the chance to work on a bizarre and obscure bit of Macross lore. Mr March and Talos will probably get a kick out of this as well. I'll hop on this momentarily, I'm waiting for a few software updates to finish before I get cracking. Vector GmbH doesn't seem to quite get the whole "update in place" schtick, so every time there's a new version it's a clean install. Because, even though the material strength of those composites is around 100x what you get from straight steel, the power of weaponry in Macross is absolutely NUTS. We bag on the VF-1A's coaxial laser cannon because it's the weeniest weapon it's got. That is a FIVE. MEGAWATT. LASER. That is legitimately five times the firepower of the laser cannon that the US Air Force developed to shoot down IBCMs from tens of kilometers away. At a fraction of that power, lasers can set fire to steel like it's paper... and this is arguably the weakest weapon in the series. Remember those one-and-done little space fighters the ARMD-class carriers launched in Ep1? Those are armed with a pair of 750MW-class beam cannons and a half dozen 0.5kt thermonuclear reaction missiles. On a per-second basis, the GU-11A 55mm 3-barrel rotary gun pod is putting 6.84x as much energy on the target as the A-10A Thunderbolt II GAU-8/A 30mm 7-barrel rotary cannon... and that's just kinetic energy BEFORE you factor in the superior armor-piercing shell materials and explosive charges. From available numbers, a first-generation OTMat warhead filler like what was used on the AMM-1A Arrow medium-range multipurpose missile was 8.5x as energetic as modern warhead fillers used in the AIM-120D AMRAAM or AIM-7 Sparrow. No word on detonation velocity or temperature spike on the reaction, but those are probably a good deal nastier as well. That's the LOW end of the spectrum. That's where we START. It goes up from there, and IT. IS. GLORIOUS. Variable Fighter Master File declines to cite a specific output for the RO-X2A 180mm dual-action beam cannon on the VF-1's Strike Pack, but it's described as having an output of "dozens of megawatts". By the time we get to actual beam gunpods, we're looking at a minimum of several dozen, and potentially several hundred megawatts per shot. The YF-27-5's beam rifle was SO high-powered the twin-engine prototype needed a separate reactor module hung on the opposite wing from the gunpod just to drive it. A reactor that size could easily be putting out a gigawatt. The VF-1's CTRs were a hell of a lot smaller and they were good for 650MW (1,700MW if you believe Sky Angels) apiece. The amount of energy being casually thrown around in this metaseries is a little terrifying... these gunpods are chucking rounds downrange at speeds upwards of 2km/s. The VF-25G's "sniper rifle" is doing it at over 7km/s. There are reaction warheads in this setting that are rated at 10,000 megatons apiece. THEY ARE PART OF A MULTI-WARHEAD MISSILE. That missile has 24 warheads. Some absolute madman at General Galaxy or Yaesu or whoever said "let's put a civilization-ending amount of thermonuclear ordinance on this missile". Not satisfied with having built the very largest death-willy in all creation, he concluded one good turn deserves another and said "Let's put eight of those on one ship, just to see what happens". I don't even want to think of the amount of energy that something like a Macross Cannon puts out. Sustaining a continuous thermonuclear explosion so intense that the plasma's moving at nearly relativistic speeds for tens of seconds? A beam with a diameter of several hundred meters? We're into a scale of energy release where you need to have a good mnemonic device to remember the order the less-used SI prefixes go in. (Personally, I favor Karl Marx Gave The Proletariat Eleven Zeppelins, Yo... for Kilo, Mega, Giga, Tera, Peta, Exa, Zetta, and Yotta. It's not offensive like the one I prefer for the names of the planets, but it's still pretty good.)
  24. Seto Kaiba
    I concur wholeheartedly... though I'd suggest a corollary that, when we get a proper love triangle, there should be an actual winner from among the participants. I don't mean a "Babies ever after" ending or anything saccharine like that, just that there has to be actual closure on it or it's a total waste of effort. Having one party in the love triangle inexplicably frak off to parts unknown for a indeterminate span of time like that complete prat Basara did is not a resolution. Attempting the One True Threesome or Tenchi Solution in either its romantic or platonic forms like that utter berk Alto did in the Frontier TV series isn't workable either. Leave that one to the harem shows. I dunno, I thought within certain bounds Hayate and Freyja managed to actually be more likeable than Alto and Ranka. Maybe that's just because Freyja was actually a participant instead of a spectator and Hayate was a bit more mature and actually seemed to enjoy life. (Alto always felt like he was going through life looking for something to be angry about... which is perfectly realistic for a teenage boy, but not all that interesting in the bargain.)
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Star Trek lavishes most of its realism on propulsion systems, which are detailed with the kind of loving care that only a physics researcher could deliver. Macross tends to spread the love to the other systems, but propulsion is also probably the single most detailed section. I'm not aware of any existing translation of the box text for the Yamato YF-19-3, but I would be willing to take a whack at it this weekend if you can provide me with either scans of the text you want translated or some good, up-close, glare-free pictures of the text. (Not being a collector, I don't have one myself.) To the best of my knowledge, the Yamato YF-19-3 is rather different from Master File's YF-19-3, which was the ARIEL airframe control AI testbed built to the same spec as Isamu's YF-19-2 and piloted by Ludmila Blackwood. ... really? Well, OK. From what I've gleaned on the subject, the application of overtechnology materials and metallic composite manufacturing techniques to the design of threaded fasteners like bolts provided the same dramatic increase in material strength and wear resistance that the moving parts of giant robots benefitted from. They also enabled them to manufacture the threading on bolts to a far higher level of precision. That precision enabled them to use a threading design that was more along the lines of a precisely cut, slightly flattened half-hexagon profile instead of the somewhat rounded triangular profile of a normal bolt threading. As a result, they have a near-perfect pitch diameter, pitch, and angle match between bolt and nut, or screw and hole, providing an almost impossibly snug fit since the entire thread on both sides are engaging each other, instead of leaving small gaps.
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