Jump to content

Seto Kaiba

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    13136

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Seto Kaiba

  1. Seto Kaiba
    There are a few interesting wrinkles to fold space... other than it being the 10+ dimensional sub-universe adjacent to conventional reality that plays by a different set of physics. Perhaps the most interesting of them is that fold space is a realm in which a person's mental energy is a measurable quantity and can exist separately from their physical body. Apparently this disconnect between the body and mind can result in a variety of ailments. In many, it causes a sort of intoxication or mild high which results from the separation of body and mind. For the unlucky like our gal Sheryl, that can manifest instead as an ailment not unlike a bad case of motion sickness. For the VERY unlucky, that sudden separation between body and mind can be permanent and leave the body in a persistent vegitative state. Yep... it's not well-explained, but the fold wave system (or its big brother, the fold dimensional resonance system) use fold quartz to produce fold waves that interact with systems that use super dimension physics to enhance their performance. Putting together some superficially unrelated remarks, what one such optimization appears to be is that the fold wave system provides energy from fold space to power the fighter while the entire output of the reactors inside the engines is used for thrust production. The inertia capacitor already uses fold quartz, though. It was fold quartz which allowed the development of a more advanced version of the fold carbon-based inertia vector control system from the Queadluun-Rau and VF-22 to take place and achieve a level of performance that enabled it to protect a pilot from the insane g-forces VFs of the 5th generation can pull. Fold quartz itself is rare, yes... but not ruinously so. What makes the YF-29 and other fighters with fold wave systems and fold wave amps so expensive is the size and purity of the fold quartz required to make those systems. Small crystals like the ones in Sheryl's earrings of Hayate's pendant aren't too hard to come by, but the YF-29's fold wave system needs a super-high purity 1000 carat fold quartz crystal. Normally, the only way you can get something like that is from a Vajra queen or semi-queen... or maybe from a really REALLY big cache of the stuff in a Protoculture ruin somewhere. (If you think about it, that's like finding a rough diamond of gemstone level quality big enough to make a baseball-sized cut stone.) It's also possible the Windermereans didn't realize the value of the stuff at the time it was sold, since they don't need fold quartz to send and receive emotions. It's also possible the stones, which appear to have been cut and polished by the time the Nome family passed them down, were jewelry-grade stones left by the Protoculture for some reason. The novelization of Frontier puts it around 2043, shortly after first contact with the Vajra... and puts Critical Path Corporation as the potential innovator who discovered its applications.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Whoo... HobbyLink Japan just billed for the Nex Gilbert VF-2SS, the Faerie Platoon VF-2SS, and the Super Armed Pack for the Sylvie Gena VF-2SS all at once. Considering I was down for a Nex, three Faerie Platoon units, and SAP systems for the two Sylvies I already have, that HURT.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    At best, they're usually on the periphery of the battlefield... and focused entirely on fold songs to negate Var syndrome in the afflicted and protect Delta Flight from the obset of Var syndrome. They don't take any kind of direct role in combat except to defend themselves when attacked. Walkure makes relatively limited use of holograms... in fact, for most of their performances on the battlefield the only thing they use holograms for is costumes. They don't seem to use any kind of active or large-scale holograms when they're operating in close proximity to the battlefield, and the reason is probably the very one you just named: it's not something that they can target just the enemy with. The chances are equal or better that they'll distract a friendly pilot and get them killed. There's no in-story justification for it... it's JUST fanservice, nothing more.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Actually, it's always been everywhere... practically every major system that was on the SDF-1 Macross used super dimension physics in some way. Why d'you think she was called a Super Dimension Fortress?It isn't all the same form of energy, though. Most of the more common examples of overtechnology like thermonuclear reaction generators (AKA "fold reactors"), fold drives, gravity control systems, barrier systems, super dimension energy weaponry, thermonuclear reaction and dimensional weaponry, etc. use a form of exotic matter that is produced by excitation of a special crystal resonator called "heavy quantum". (The resonator is made from a synthetic material called fold carbon in most applications... though some use a purer, more effective alternative refined by the Vajra and once synthesized by the ancient Protoculture called fold quartz, which would be familiar to you as the pinkish-purple crystals in Macross Frontier and Macross Delta. The higher-purity fold quartz produces heavy quantum and fold waves with different properties to those of synthetic fold carbon.) Heavy Quantum has a few unique properties... it exists simultaneously in both 3-dimensional space and 10+-dimensional fold space, and its mass is such that it would collapse upon itself and auto-ignite in a fusion reaction if not for that mass being almost entirely situated in fold space where physics plays by different rules. That intense mass and the gravitational force it exerts gets leveraged in the above-listed overtechnologies. The gravitational force which heavy quantum exerts is used to provide compression and containment of fusion fuel in fold reactors, and manipulated to change the curviture of space or to collapse a volume of space into fold space in gravity control systems, a fold drive, or dimensional warheads. Its tendency to fuse with itself when totally drawn into 3-dimensional spacetime is used in beam weapons, where that fusion explosion is simply focused and contained to form a beam of fusion plasma. Fold Waves are a different animal entirely... you could think of them as fold space's equivalent of the electromagnetic spectrum. Fold waves are the key to faster-than-light equivalents of radar and radio systems. Fold carbon or fold quartz are used to produce energetic excitations in one of the native spectra of energy which travel not at all unlike radio frequencies do here. The other forms of overtechnology that also manipulate fold space for their effects (in the list above) do also produce fold waves as a consequence of their function which can be detected. Where it gets a bit weird is that fold waves are also emitted by biological life forms... as it appears that living beings are in some way connected to higher dimension space, and their mental/emotional energy is measurable and quantifiable as a distinct spectrum of energy in 10+ dimensional space. The inevitable result is that some individuals can actually produce a fold wave strong enough to be not only detected technologically but to have an effect upon people or other life forms nearby. The discovery of song energy by Dr. Gadget M. Chiba was the first quantification of this effect, along with the discovery that some people could control the polarity of that energy (anima spiritia) and thus the polarity of the mental energy generated from it. The Vajra hive mind communicates through fold space using this principle (via a fold quartz helping hand). Some special individuals produce distinct fold waves that can have even more dramatic effects, like producing growth or healing in biological organisms... or cause injurious effects and manipualte behavior. Var syndrome is caused in part by a bacterium that increases a person's receptivity to biological fold waves, which can be used to manipulate them. Heinz, for instance, is able to produce biological fold waves by singing and those waves (after mechanical amplification) cause either mind control or uncontrolled hostile behavior. Walkure's members use similar means, but a different emotional content in the biological fold waves they transmit, to reverse the symptoms of Var syndrome. EDIT: Dammit Google Keyboard... stop autocorrecting me!
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Strictly speaking, given what's been established in prior Macross titles about the relationship between the human mind and higher dimensions this is not "magic" per se... what's going on here is arguably advanced and unconventional clinical psychiatry. Walkure is using the human(oid) mind's natural connection to higher dimension space as a means to deliver treatment for an artificial, biologically-induced mental disorder that causes extreme aggression. The treatment is nothing more than introducing an external brainwave that neutralizes the factor triggering the Var syndrome outbreak. I suppose, in a way, it's like shooting someone in the grip of depression with a dartgun full of uppers. I'd argue that, in order to be "magic" it would have to 1. defy technological detection and scientific measurement and 2. defy physics in some way (e.g. to violate conservation of matter and energy by producing a fireball out of thin air). This is doing neither, as the biological fold waves are traveling via a means that is well understood and scientifically quantified in the setting of the series, and it's operating entirely within the bounds of the physics that have been established for same. "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology" as the inverse of a statement Clark made about sufficiently advanced technology. The number of authors who've cited the inverse is significant, so I don't know who precisely posited it originally... The problem with this rationale is that it doesn't fit with Walkure's tactics even slightly. This is the sort of thing you'd use against the Zentradi, that would play on existing culture shock tactics and their standing orders not to mix genders. Walkure doesn't intervene in combat directly like that. Their entire strategy is to neutralize Var syndrome via their fold songs. Their physical appearance has zero effect on the matter... it's all about the biological fold waves the girls transmit. They could be dressed like nuns and it wouldn't matter to the actual Var-neutralizing impact of their songs. There's no tactical advantage to what you're proposing, becuase people who're suffering from Var syndrome are too lost in their murderfrenzy to give a toss what Walkure are wearing. Plus, the only member of the Aerial Knights who has shown any adverse reaction to seeing Walkure is Bogue, and that reaction came not from seeing them practically naked... but seeing them, period. In show it has no impact, it's JUST FANSERVICE. Well, yeah... to those who didn't pay attention in Macross 7 and Macross Frontier it would be. To those who did, it's not even sufficiently advanced technology. It's just sci-fi technology. See my above explanation of why it's not.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    That's the part that annoys me... there's no reason for the bodysuit to be transparent, or for the harness to look like underwear. It's pure fanservice. If the holographic technology can produce the appearance of bare skin through an opaque suit and a projector that appears to be no bigger than a cell phone jogging armband, why does the Walkure version need to look like underwear and have a clear bodysuit? It's not like this is effing Dirty Pair.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    IIRC, we see the bottom of one that someone's set against the locker room wall in a later episode and it has two lift fans on the bottom.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Thus far, we haven't seen any applications of gravity control technology small enough to be worn or even ridden. Personal hover or flight gear like Air Blades or EX-Gear stay aloft by thrust the same as any modern hovercraft or airplane. Those chemical rockets are likely the most compact way to get the necessary thrust they could find...
  9. Seto Kaiba
    "Rule of Cool" is probably a pretty heavily player there... but as all the recent examples of that particular trope (RVF-171, RVF-25, VF-31E) have fold-wave radar systems in their radomes instead of conventional ones, the size and/or cost of a fold wave transmitter/receiver system may have a lot to do with the choice of a rotary radome. We know the radomes of the 1st Generation AEW/ELINT VFs were conventional. It's not clear if the radomes seen in Macross 7 are conventional or fold wave, but they don't rotate if I remember correctly. (The only radome I recall being identified explicitly as AESA instead was the one on the VF-19 in Variable Fighter Master File.) They do all use AESA layouts for their conventional radar systems though.
  10. Seto Kaiba
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Well, the ultracompact hologram tech goes all the way back to DYRL? and Macross II: Lovers Again... but this is exactly what I didn't want to see in Macross Delta. It's pure fanservice of the most shameless variety. Like Makina, you can tell this was done pretty much entirely for the professional cosplayers and h-dojinshi artists to exploit.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, I'm sure someone... most likely several someones... got read the riot act. We know the Venus Sound Factory and Macross Consortium took one on the chin as a result, what with Sharon Apple's music being legislated off the shelves for a few years and a ban being instituted on sentient/responsive virtuoids. Indications are, via Macross Frontier, that the dome is protected by some kind of low-level energy shield most of the time to compensate for it being less tough than the rest of the hull. I can certainly understand the RPG implications... my usual players treated the anti-ship cannons on the Strike Valkyrie and Super Valkyrie II as a "portable hole". This tendency found its fullest expression in an experimental MOSPEADA game late last year, where they seemed to be a bigger threat to brick or masonry walls than the Kool-Aid man. Considering there only appear to be a few hundred Aerial Knights at most... that would end badly for them without Heinz being able to Var everyone before the fight really begins. Windermere's military seems to be about the size of the typical emigrant fleet military thirty years ago. Even a medium-sized fleet like Macross-7 would outnumber them four or five to one. All told, it looks like Windermere's plan is to avoid doing anything that might lead to a direct confrontation with the Federal New UN Forces... they wanna mind-control the entire galaxy before the big guns can show up on their doorstep and demand an explanation. Let's be honest... having the Federal New UN Spacy wade in would make this show over.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    You buy your tickets through the Ticketleap website and print 'em off... then present the printout at the door. Couldn't be simpler. The different ticket levels only really affect the convention swag you get when you show up.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    On the perimeter security front... limited access points aren't necessarily limited. We've got plenty of examples of weapons on Valkyries and other things that are perfectly capable of making a new impromptu "access point". (I think our earliest example of this was Hikaru and Minmay reboarding the Macross via a hull breach...)
  15. Seto Kaiba
    They inherited their VF tech from humans, sure as sure... There's a lot I could say about the awful things large groups of gullible people can do when they believe they're "the chosen" of some higher authority... but the specifics of some of those examples would be stepping over a line, rules-wise. Windermere's a small provincial world with a population who are smarting from a war 7 years ago and probably an economic downturn resulting from same are being whipped into a fury by demagogues who are pushing a war of manifest destiny as the galactic "master race"... they're a little bit Space Germany circa 1939.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Apparently it's no worse than today's... but then, based on my day job experience as a network security expert I have to say I don't find it anywhere near as unreasonable as the "Hollywood hacking" on Voldor. That virus that Reina apparently cooked up was distributed through a civilian netcom infrastructure, and that kind of thing is distressingly common in this day in age. How many tens of thousands of smartphones ended up as part of a botnet because their owners downloaded Pokemon GO from an untrusted source? There are MILLIONS of infected smart phones in Asia with rootkits that are driving porn ad clicks that were accidentally installed because of unsafe web browsing habits. If the virus has the ability to jump from network to network as some modern polymorphics do, then someone connecting their smartphone to the "office" WiFi on a military base could conceivably spread the virus to a lightly defended military system (and from there it could conceivably propagate into more sensitive systems). You would be surprised and depressed by just how plausible what happened in the last episode really is... people can be dumb as hell sometimes. That's not information security though... that's a physical intrusion into an emigrant ship, and it's DAMNED hard to secure something that size in two dimensions today, where the emigrant fleet needs to worry about three. Sharon doesn't count, because some dumb cluck decided it was A-OK to plug her into the Macross's main computer systems... giving her direct or indirect access to not just the city-wide holographic systems, but everything else the New UN Forces Command had access to. That's almost a social engineering attack rather than a netcom security breach. The Var thing... well... tracking that down may have been a bit more difficult since it sounds like it was somewhat difficult to secure live Var syndrome sufferers, and there were plenty of incidents where Windermere applies and ruins water were not directly connected (because those incidents were caused by biological fold wave transmissions instead).
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Looking down the barrel of the big 3-1... probably starting to look a little crusty around the edges by that point.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Sorry chaps, I meant to reply much earlier... but this has been a week of unpleasant surprises. As a brief aside, "watered down" is something of a relative matter here. The VF-25s used by the Macross Frontier fleet NUNS in the 2060s are weak tea compared to the full spec YF-24 Evolution or VF-24A, but they're operating at the peak of the aircraft's designed capabilities. Their export version, like export versions of other Valkyries and most real-world fighters, are reduced capability versions "watered down" from the full-spec VF-25. (It's not clear if Macross Olympia, as a codevelopment partner on the YF-25, received the full-spec VF-25 or a reduced capability export model. I would assume their VF-25s are full spec as well.) Performance-wise, the YF-30 Chronos sits between the VF-27 and YF-29. It has the same engines as the YF-29's main engines, VERY slightly uptuned (seriously, just +5kN) and a mass more in line with a VF-25 or similar... so its thrust-to-weight ratio is 53.085, almost exactly equidistant between the VF-27's 46.493 and YF-29's 61.164. No data has yet been provided to explain how the YF-30 spec was disseminated and used to build the VF-31. I would assume, based on known facts from the development of other programs, that Shinsei, LAI, and SMS Uroboros weren't able to keep it on YF status forever and were forced to give the government the specs under galaxy law. Given the available art, the YF-24/VF-24 appears to an arrangement similar to the VF-25. The original YF-24 and YF-24 Evolution were both testbeds for Inertia Store Converter technology, so that's a resounding "Yes". Any 5th Generation Valkyrie uses at least some fold quartz (because that's what's the core of an inertia store converter). Whether it has a fold wave system of some description... it's certainly possible. The YF-30's fold dimensional resonance system was entirely internal, and apparently so too was the YF-29's fold wave system (the fold quartz on the exterior is for fold wave amplification), so not seeing big chunks of fold quartz on the exterior is no guarantee of the system's absence. They don't compare favorably, to say the least. The lowest performance of the 5th Generation VFs, the VF-25, has 2.85x the thrust-to-weight ratio of the VF-22 and 2.13x the thrust-to-weight ratio of the best mass-production VF-19 variant to date. They also have better armor, more efficient and powerful engines, significantly increased generator output, etc. etc. Really it's a "no contest" thing for the most part. Well, to a certain extent the detuning seems to be enforced by legally-mandated limiters that must be present in a fighter's components and software... as with the VF-19P Excalibur or VF-19EF Caliburn export models. In the YF-24's case, the limitation seems to be partly a case of refusing to disclose the essential technologies to achieve that level of performance. There are, obviously, cases like fold wave systems where the scarcity of materials and the cost involved are the chief obstacles to implementation. The VF-31 is no slouch... performance-wise, it sits between the VF-25 and VF-27. It should outclass the VF-19 or VF-22 by at least 3x. I've never seen anything to suggest that the YF-24 was only a speculative production unit. Official sources mention that plans to adopt the YF-24 Evolution as the next main fighter of the Earth/Federal NUNS were approved in 2057. Master File also makes repeated reference to a pre-mass production manufacturing verification model. Exactly why the YF-24-3 was employed in repelling the Vajra attack on Eden is unclear, other than that perhaps New Edwards test flight center threw everything they had sitting around at the enemy for want of a sufficiently large body of 5th Generation fighters. It was, of course, only two years on from the decision to adopt the VF-24, so Eden may not have adopted it yet. Masses are missing, but we have engine spec. Pretty much everything tops out at or near Mach 5 at 10km these days, simply because that's where the friction heating of air resistance starts to damage the airframe. If the masses haven't changed much, the Sv-52 is in the same general thrust-to-weight ratio class as a VF-11C and the VF-19ACTIVE should be around that of the YF-19 No.2. It's using a FF-2550E, which several other fighters in the series also use... those are rated at 660kN, which is pretty much the same output as the YF-19 No.2's engines. The VF-19 Custom was pretty much the most overtuned VF-19 out there, with a thrust-to-weight ratio around 5% higher than the VF-19S.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Master Dex is essentially correct.The reason that Strategic Military Services had the VF-25s in the first place was that the Frontier fleet government had contracted their services to carry out the operational evaluation on the VF-25 prior to its adoption as the next main fighter of the fleet's local New UN Forces. Whether they would have been allowed to keep them after is unclear, but they were military spec. VFs built as part of the low rate initial production blocks. Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah gives a slightly different view of the state of the low rate initial production VF-25s given over to SMS for field testing, however. The version Master File puts forward is that some of those OPEVAL units were built with slightly different specs from the final production intent design. For instance, it contends the VF-25A was a limited-production variant whose initial (SMS-used) units had some of its parts (such as the wings) built with inferior-grade armor from the VF-171 due to a supply issue, and that its back seat was removed and replaced with analysis gear for performance testing. The variants used by Skull Platoon had been built to the full military spec, though it also suggests the VF-25A and VF-25F variants of the VF-25 were used mainly by SMS and that the military has its own variants for the fleet defense and strengthened attack roles (the VF-25C and VF-25E) which have some slight performance improvements to thinks like the data links and engine stability. There's also an allusion in the VF-25C writeup to VF-25 export models sold to other fleets for NUNS service being reduced-capability versions. (It isn't clear if this extends to the VF-25's development partner, Macross Olympia, from whose perspective the book is written.) The VF-25s seen in New UN Forces livery in the VF-25 Master File are fighters belonging to the Olympia NUNS rather than the federal forces. Per Great Mechanics.DX 9, the YF-24 specs that were shared out to the various emigrant fleets and worlds did not disclose all of the technological advances that went into the fighter's design. Earth withheld some stuff from the specs that were shared with the emigrant forces to ensure federal New UN Forces troops would have a technological leg-up on the emigrants (and ensure that its own influence in the New UN Government would go undiminished).
  20. Seto Kaiba
    No kidding. I'd settle for a detailed set of specs on the thing, but a story would be even better. So far they've avoided doing anything but mention what kind of beast the YF-24 was, and how the YF-29 was the result of the Macross Frontier fleet's efforts to make a fighter that one-upped the YF-24. Not the production model... the YF-29 was an effort to build a fighter that exceeded the YF-24. The prototype whose monkey model spec they built the YF-25 from. That thing must be a legit MONSTER. It certainly puts the politicial difficulty of sending the federal NUNS to put a stop to regional conflicts in perspective... sending them in to sort out the forces of two bickering emigrant worlds would be like using a sledgehammer for shelling walnuts. When a fight is just plain wrong, we all sing the curbstomp song... And how!
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Got my volume 1 today!
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Based on what was said near the beginning of the series when Windermere first moved openly to oppose the New UN Government, the troops getting Var'd or massacred all over the place belong to the local New UN Forces raised and maintained by the emigrant world governments which make up the Brisingr Alliance. As Arad and Mirage put it, the federal forces were unlikely to take any direct action in the conflict with Windermere because it was politically difficult to get them off the dime. The official web site and magazine coverage of the mecha also points to the khaki VF-171s in the series being a local "frontier region" specification... not a federal forces version. It would, on that basis, be replaced by an emigrant-developed fighter like the VF-25 Messiah or VF-31 Kairos, not the federal forces main fighter. (Unless they sprang for a monkey model of the VF-24 or something). It would be extremely unusual for the military to go in for a second main fighter inside of one generation... and, remember, the emigrant forces 5th Generation VFs are all derivatives from a monkey model of the 5th Generation federal forces VF. The few tidbits dropped on the subject of the YF/VF-24's performance point to its closest emigrant-built performance rival being the too-expensive-to-mass-produce YF-29. That would already put it at or above what a YF-30 could do. That would imply a much greater production/development rate on the part of the federal forces than the emigrant fleets... and that ship kind of already sailed with the YF-26 attributed to the Macross Olympia fleet's rival to the YF-25 and YF-27, and Ride and the Macross 30 game putting YF-28 and YF-30 on the heads of emigrant fleets as well.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    All indications are that most of the dogfights occur in the subsonic regime... considering one of Kawamori's favorite aesthetic touches in choreography is to have one fighter try to break away and "floor it", which leads to both of them having a straightline or curved chase with a pair of supersonic vapor rings to show they've jumped to supersonic speeds. The explanation given in Macross Chronicle's Technology and Mechanic sheets gives the following points: Storm Attacker mode greatly increases the ship's maneuverability. Enables the ship to resort to giant-size fisticuffs if the situation calls for it (such as the loss of the gunship). Enables all armaments to be brought to bear, including ones normally kept stowed to preserve stealthiness. Modular design decentralizes vital systems like thermonuclear reaction furnaces, gravity control, fold systems, etc. and allows individual limbs to operate as separate ships in a pinch.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Sort of. What I understand from the plot summations that've been published in magazines and so on, it wasn't so much the absence of that military-industrial complex that ruined Macross-29's economy as it was the socio-political fallout of the fleet government's unarmed neutrality policy. They made themselves into a nation that could be bullied pretty darn easily by other fleets or planetary governments and had few, if any, allies. Basically, their economy went to hell because they had no way to protect their interests. That's a little different... the Anti-Unification Alliance was PO'd because it saw the uneven distribution of overtechnology as a sign that the UN Government was a NATO old boy's club. That kind of problem is (mostly) solved by the New UN Government's mandated technology sharing. Kawamori has compared the New UN Government to the European Union in a couple interviews, so I'd assume on that basis that the member states all honor some common, centrally-mandated intellectual property laws (and possibly a central copyright, patent, and trademark agency for registering it all). We know that Nyan-Nyan is a popular interstellar restaurant chain, so Chuck's family's restaurant is probably just a local Nyan-Nyan franchise like the one Ranka worked at on Island-1. The Macross-11 fleet's unauthorized Fire Bomber cover band is probably is one that's less clear. One of the few things that's said about it is that it's an utterly unauthorized cover band run by Lynn Kaifun that's despised everywhere that isn't Macross-11. As to why Fire Bomber doesn't sue... that could be the result of Basara just being stoked about people liking his music, or it could be because Fire Bomber American is hopelessly unpopular outside of its native emigrant fleet. No sense suing someone who's too broke to pay out, right? Maybe... the emigrant fleets don't fold on short notice unless there's been an emergency situation, but fold systems have gotten progressively better as time has gone on. There are often YEARS between long-distance fold jumps, so unless someone is abroad for a really long time it probably won't be an issue. Longer trips may call for the larger, more cruise ship-like transports instead of the smaller, jet airliner-style commercial spacecraft... especially if the trip is likely to take multiple fold jumps and require days (experienced time) of fold travel. It seems like most jumps of a couple hundred light years aren't any worse than a long-ish international flight.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Sort of... the dominance General Galaxy suddenly gained after the NUNS scrubbed plans for the VF-19 to be the next main fighter seems like it's destined to be an all-too-fleeting triumph. The painful irony (for General Galaxy) is that while they were resting on their laurels with the contract for the last standard main variable fighter of the New UN Forces, Shinsei's top designers achieved a design coup of even greater scope. They went back to the formerly-joint development YF-24 program that General Galaxy had abandoned and finished it... and thanks to the technology-sharing mandates of the New UN Government and the newfound autonomy that many emigrant fleets found in arming their forces under the reorganized government, Shinsei's new prototype became the basis for every locally-developed 5th Generation fighter we've yet seen in Macross. Talk about a coup and a black eye for General Galaxy... not only did Shinsei comprehensively recapture the main variable fighter role, they did it in such a way that even the new VF the General Galaxy flying laboratory (Macross Galaxy) produced was based on a Shinsei design. Macross Chronicle unhelpfully says almost nothing on the matter... noting the emigrant fleets launched in the aftermath of the First Space War made use of cloned personnel due to a shortage of people with the essential skills. (Of course, as a good percentage of the Earth's population was made up of cloned humans during that period, it means very little.) In practice, it seems like the only real requirement to join an emigrant fleet is to have a level of mental stability such that you can handle being locked in an overlarge bottle cast adrift in space for an unspecified period of time. That most of the fleets seem to be quite nice places to live (Macross Galaxy being the exception) seems to help a fair bit. The city ships seem to be just like any other municipality... if you don't count the hypercarbon and herculite walls, and the way it's hurtling through space on a plume of fusion plasma. Fleet authorities probably try to keep a balanced economy going, so we likely won't see any ships setting sail with 10 million telemarketers aboard (unless they're en route to the nearest star).
×
×
  • Create New...