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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Eh... debatable, bordering on unlikely IMO. We see, in Ep.8, that Walkure brought their professional apparatus with them when they came down to Voldor's surface. So, presumably, the "sound stage" they usually use is what's providing the holographic costumes and mechanical amplification of the fold songs of those Walkure members whose natural fold receptors aren't powerful enough to do the job alone like Mikumo and Freyja's can. Implant technology is legal in most of the galaxy, but the kind of cybernetics sophisticated enough to convincingly imitate the appearance of the organs they're replacing are outside the reach of most civilians and require some fairly extreme surgery to install. Civilian market implant tech, as seen in Macross R, is more obviously artificial. Oscar Brauhitch's prosthetic arm, for instance, is a high-performance replacement for his lost limb but looks like something from the desk of Winry Rockbell in Fullmetal Alchemist. You'd think they'd have mentioned it if Freyja went in for serious, invasive surgery to install implants in her brain and/or a number of other places. I doubt any of Walkure's members have implant tech. Reina seems to need a visible holographic interface and physical gestures to do her hacking, which points to her not being a cyborg. Likewise, they wouldn't need visible displays from what I'm guessing are press-on fingernail computers if they had implants... then they would just project it directly to their optic nerve.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    My impression of Messer is the sort of stick-up-the-arse soldier boy who, like Sgt. Sagara from Full Metal Panic!, has no sense of humor and believes military ration packs are the very height of cuisine.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    In previous episodes, he seemed rather susceptible to the song that causes Var syndrome... which seems to work better against people who already have some manner of aggressive tendencies, like Zentradi.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    The VF-25 is hands-down the weakest of the 5th Generation designs thus far unless there have been some serious cutbacks in the VF-31's production... but it's also probably the most economical of the lot. The VF-25's two engines individually have more power than the VF-27's (1,620kN vs. 1,377kN) but the VF-27 has four of them offsetting its 43% greater mass to give it a thrust-to-weight ratio that's 19% higher than the VF-25's. The YF-29's main engines are significantly more powerful (+30%) than the VF-25's, and its two secondary engines are more powerful (+6.75%) than the VF-27's engines, which, combined with it being slightly lighter than the VF-27, give it a thrust to weight ratio that's 31.6% higher than the VF-27 and 56.4% greater than the VF-25's. The VF-27 with Super Packs is said to be roughly equivalent in performance to a YF-29 in stock configuration. The YF-30 has a refined version of the YF-29's main engines (a very slight 0.2% improvement in output), but a mass that's lighter than the VF-25 (by 4%), giving it a thrust-to-weight ratio that's 36% greater than the VF-25's, 14.2% greater than the VF-27's, and 87% that of the YF-29's. The inertia store converter technology on the VF-25 and VF-27 was rated for 27.5G loads, the improved models in the YF-29 and YF-30 were rated for loads of 30G or possibly more. In terms of generator output and defensive ability, the VF-25 has enough excess power to run a light form of energy conversion armor in fighter mode, while the VF-27, YF-29, and YF-30 can all operate their energy conversion armor at full power in fighter mode due to the excess output of four engines, fold wave system, or both. The VF-27 and YF-29 have also been confirmed to be capable of operating their pin-point barriers in fighter mode, and the YF-30 likely can as well. In terms of actual armor strength... well, it's off the hook here. The VF-25 and VF-27 seem to be roughly on par for armor strength, though the VF-25 has the light armor FAST pack option of the Super Pack and the heavy armor option of the Armored Pack, while the VF-27 only has the Super Pack. The YF-29's armor was said to exceed that of the VF-25 w/ Armored Pack thanks to improved materials, the fold wave system, frame reinforcement, and just plain doubling the armor's thickness. The YF-30 is supposedly comparable in defensive ability to the YF-29 as well... making both of them effectively more heavily armored than a typical cruiser-class space warship. Weapons-wise, things are a bit fairer. The VF-25 has very few built-in weapons, but everything's modular and it's got three or four pylons per wing (depending whose stats you trust). Its Super Pack and Armored Pack make it the ordinance leader of the 5th Generation by a VAST margin with a stonking insane missile capacity of over two hundred micro-missiles in either option, more than double what can be carried by the YF-29 or YF-30, while still leaving four other stations open for longer-ranged party favors. The YF-29 only carries 100 micro-missiles in its many internal launchers, and augments that with a couple dozen carried inside its Super Packs. The YF-30 carries an estimated 108 micro-missiles, has no known Super Pack, and just four under-wing stations (that we know of). In gunpod terms, the VF-25 might get the short end of the boomstick vs. the heavy quantum reaction, heavy quantum beam, and micro-dimension eater beam gun pod units available to the VF-27, YF-29, YF-30, and VF-31 though. It's unclear if the VF-31's can do beam grenade mode, but the others all can. The VF-25's Tornado Pack and YF-29's beam turret also give them a bit more punch in the gun department than the VF-27, YF-30, and VF-31. Oh my, no... the YF-29 Durandal/Percival, YF-30 Chronos, and presumably VF-31 Siegfried are a cut above the earlier 5th Generation Valkyries. This is due to improvements in engine technology (+30% output vs. the VF-25), inertia store converter technology (+9% vs. the VF-25), armor and weapons tech, and the introduction of performance-enhancing technology like the fold wave system and fold dimension resonance system. The VF-27's performance was significantly higher than the VF-25's, to the extent that a flesh-and-blood pilot cannot operate a VF-27 to its full potential even with an inertia store converter. The YF-29's performance is noted to be roughly comparable to (or slightly better than) the performance of a VF-27 with its Super Pack equipped. The YF-30 rivals the YF-29 in almost all respects, except the YF-29's superior thrust to weight ratio and the YF-30's superior fold wave system.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    As long as he brings the nosecone and that bit that becomes the front of the upper chest back, I think he's probably OK... that ought to be where most of the fold quartz is, if it's built anything like the YF-30 or YF-29. Whoever's in charge of ordering spares for the manipulators probably hates his guts though... he's lost how many arms now? 2? 3? Sitting perfectly still and trusting the pin-point barrier to take all of the beating is not paying huge dividends. (In musing on that, my brain is flashing back to DBZ Abridged with Piccolo bellowing "DODGE!") EDIT: Spelling...
  6. Seto Kaiba
    It's probably safe to say that, apart from Mirage, none of the characters are going to turn out to be relatives of any existing ones. Kawamori has a very admirable tendency as a creator to try to make every Macross series or story as stand-alone as humanly possible, even on those occasions when two stories are both set in the same location and around the same time.1 Even Mirage, the first of the Jenius grandchildren to appear, is the child of one of the Jenius daughters who hasn't appeared in a Macross story. That old "long-lost relative" twist is seriously lazy writing at the best of times... 1. Such as Macross 7 and Macross 7 Trash, which occur at the same time and in the same fleet, but there's almost no cast overlap apart from some peripheral involvement on Max's part and a brief cameo by Milia. Or the Macross Frontier and Macross the Ride pair, where there's basically no overlap in cast despite being set in the same fleet less than a year apart and more than one of the main characters being current or former SMS staff.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Thus far, we've got enough data to make some reasonably sound educated guesses about the VF-31's specs. They're almost certainly a Shinsei Industry product, given that they were developed from the YF-30 Chronos prototype that was a joint venture between Shinsei Industry, L.A.I., SMS Uroboros, and the Uroboros A.W.D.A.P. station. For physical proportions, I'd say we're looking at ~19m in length and a ~15.5m wingspan... possibly closer to 16m wingspan on the conventional delta-wing type. Empty mass is probably somewhere in the vicinity of 8,200kg. Seems a safe bet the engine's either the FF-3001/FC2 or some variant thereof, which would give it over 2,100kN of maximum instantaneous thrust per engine. There's also an excellent argument, based on last episode, that the VF-31 units employed by Delta Platoon are equipped with either a fold wave system (off the YF-29) or the YF-30's more refined version (fold dimension resonance system) given the way it reacts to the fold quartz pendant Hayate's wearing and Freyja's song. Maybe it's just this recent episode practically shoving the gun barrel into the camera, but the VF-31's forearm guns seem to be a VERY high caliber. It looks almost like Freyja could fit her entire fist down the barrel. Probably somewhere in the 50-60mm class. Since it forfeited the missile container off the YF-30, I'd guess the leg launchers probably hold around 6-8 missiles apiece (that's approximately how many the YF-29's held, averaged per port, depending on whether the shoulder bays factor into this). Yep... active optical camouflage for Valkyries first appeared (chronologically) on the YF-27-5 Shahar-F in 2058.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Apart from that first episode, Roid seems to be supervising from headquarters when he's not obviously somewhere else. Safe bet it's something custom-built specifically for Walkure's use in the event of a Var encounter in space.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    I'll be honest... after Bogue's behavior today, I totally want Freyja and Bogue's next meeting to be her kicking him in the d*ck and him spending the entire rest of the episode on the ground foaming at the mouth.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Oh my... here we go.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, this is an existing technology... it's not used very often, but the YF-27-5 Shahar Female from Macross R had this same capability. Macross Galaxy's army used it on the YF-27 for similar reasons to the Aerial Knights of Windermere: to operate clandestinely under circumstances that would be patently illegal.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    That's what the videogames do... Macross M3 gave the VF-4, VF-5000, VF-9, VF-11, and VF-14 some much-needed spotlight while filling in several gaps between Flashback 2012 and Macross Plus; Macross Digital Mission VF-X and Macross VF-X2 did it for the period after Macross 7; and of course Macross 30 for after Macross Frontier (which also gave the VF-11 some more love by making it the ride of one of the game's main trio).
  13. Seto Kaiba
    We see all of the Drakens coming from a single fold effect... so I'd assume that there's a carrier there that we just don't see emerge. If the fighters each had their own fold booster, we should've seen six smaller fold effects instead.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Actually, apart from being mentioned in a cutscene where the YF-30's developer (and head of SMS Uroboros) is rhapsodizing about the new fighter's features to its new test pilot, there really isn't much acknowledgement of the system in-game until just before the final boss... when the YF-30 gets stuck in a forming dimension fault (a fold fault pulled into realspace) and it's the fold dimension resonance system amplifying Basara's song that breaks it out to start the fight.I didn't use the YF-29s much, but IIRC or two of them may have had the fold wave system as a BOX-3 weapon, that provided a temporary performance buff. It probably didn't help the smoothness of the ride that Diamond Force was pushing their fold boosters beyond the rated limits of the design. The FBF-1000A fold booster was only rated to do one fold jump of 20 light years or less. Later designs naturally improved on that, but at first the fold booster was a painfully limited thing. Isamu's ride was relatively smooth, as he was only travelling the 11.7 light years separating Earth and Eden.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    What gave you that they could fold on their own? No VF in Macross to date has an internal fold system, that's why fold boosters are a thing. They can ride along inside a ship's fold effect (as has happened by accident and by design many times in prior shows) or they can travel on their own with a booster, but they can't fold on their own. The YF-29 and YF-30 did not have built-in fold boosters... the YF-29's fold-wave system and YF-30's fold dimensional resonance system are fold wave amplifiers that, among other things, operate as performance-enhancing technology that improves the effectiveness of other devices on the aircraft that use super dimension physics in their operation (like the engines, pinpoint barrier, some of the beam weaponry, etc.). The VF-17 was not developed with native support for fold boosters... that functionality was patched in in a later upgrade. The YF-19 and YF-21 were the first VFs designed to natively support the use of fold boosters.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    They might be able to get away with it in the Frontier fleet, since SMS's parent company Bilra Transporation has a LOT of clout with the government there... or they may get a pass on it if the Master File stance that SMS's OPEVAL VF-25's were partly built with inferior materials due to supply chain problems and didn't have that second seat due to extra test hardware is valid.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Whether they use ISC or their superior physical abilities let them tank the intense g-forces of their maneuvering is not established at this point. As far as beam weapons go... it's only MDE beam weaponry that uses fold quartz. If they're using a normal heavy quantum beam cannon like the VF-27, YF-29, YF-30, and (presumably) VF-31 then they would almost certainly be using the cheaper, damn near ubiquitous synthetic fold carbon instead. For that matter, we're still not sure if this so-called "unequal treaty" is actually not equitable or they're simply coming up with excuses that they think the other worlds in the Brisingr cluster won't immediately laugh out of town. The Voldorans certainly weren't impressed. Redshirts.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Actually, in Macross 7 the weaponization of song started before the series... though it took about 22 episodes for it to actually work. The VF-1 Valkyrie was "in focus" for most of the story, but it wasn't the only type of fighter the Macross carried... and, mind you, it wouldn't be a stretch to argue that the VF-1S was a "hero mecha" too, given its superior performance, special paintjob, and the existence of special optional gear in DYRL? that other fighters didn't get. You've got it backwards, actually... the VF-171 was created because Kawamori didn't want the background mooks distracting from the action, so he created the Nightmare Plus to give them a blander fighter than what the protagonists were flying. The VF-25 was there for the rival pilot and Vajra plot, the Nightmare Plus was the one added for reasons not directly related to the story. It's worth remembering that Chaos is not a military force. They're basically a security detail for Tactical Sound Unit Walkure... and despite the claim that Macross Elysion is the size of a first-generation Macross-class, the Aether seems to be AWFULLY small as a result of its transformation. Their tactics make slightly more sense when you account for the fact that it was Walkure, not Delta Platoon, who were the ones actually expected to turn the tide of the battle... Delta Platoon's involvement was mostly just a skirmish screen to distract and disorient the Var closest to Aether, while Alpha and Beta Platoons were supposed to protect the carrier. They were reacting to a Var outbreak, not attempting a military intervention after all... (Mind you, I strongly suspect that the Aether's transformation's implications WRT its internal volume probably limits its carrying capacity to at most two squadrons worth of fighters... say, ~30 planes. Probably half of those would be drones.) What if I want to get you started on them? What then, eh? We've seen something associated with their forces that looks a lot like the Dulfim-class carriers previously employed by Macross Galaxy, so there's that... or they might be flush enough with fold quartz to equip their fighters with zero-time fold boosters to cut travel time. Those cut fold faults out of the equation and improve efficiency to the point that our last example of them turned a day-long trip with a week's fold-related time losses into an hour's direct jaunt with no time loss. (Personally, my money's on them having a ship... probably named Tarnhelm, since we're apparently doing Nibelungenlied in Space this year.) EDIT: They're squatting on Protoculture ruins... I wonder if they have some kind of interstellar version of the fold stones on Uroboros?
  19. Seto Kaiba
    There's a mention in the novelization of Macross 30 that the YF classification was a calculated and technically-inappropriate move on SMS Uroboros' part, meant to allow them to defer their legal obligation to disclose the aircraft's specs to the federal New UN Government. They did it to keep their experimental tech under wraps for as long as possible. (In a reverse of that same situation, the federal New UN Forces consider the Macross Galaxy VF-27 to officially be YF-27 because its specs were not disclosed as required by law.)
  20. Seto Kaiba
    So far, the organization of Chaos's private military contractors seems to be similar to that of SMS's forces in Macross Frontier. They don't seem to bother with any level of organization above the most basic one... the flight platoon. We've been introduced to three of their platoons so far: Alpha, Beta, and Delta. Unless they've got more aircraft up their sleeves that we don't know about, that's up to 5 aircraft per platoon times three platoons... so a theoretical ten VF-31A grunt units plus the five Delta platoon units. Probably fewer now that several Alpha and Beta platoon pilots have been shot down. We know almost nothing of the fighters in Macross Delta at the present stage, besides from some details of their weaponry... so we can't say if Chaos is evaluating the VF-31 for Ragna's New UN Forces garrison, if it's a fighter they bought for their own use, or if a different scenario is in play. We've seen neither hide nor hair of Ragna's NUNS at this point. Didn't I answer this one in my previous post? The New UN Spacy is using the VF-171 Nightmare Plus because it was the last "next main fighter" mandated by the federal forces, and because the various regional commands either haven't seen a reason to upgrade or are still in the process of upgrading to the 5th Generation VFs. That's the result of the aforementioned decentralization of the government and military. Instead of being a single, monolithic organization with bases in various regions, the New UN Forces in each system are more like a state-level militia or national guard force now. They're concerned solely with the defense of their home fleet or planet, which is also responsible for financing and equipping them. It's the federal New UN Forces that are the "true" military, and consequentially there are even more restrictions and political ramifications involved in mobilizing them. It was mentioned in the briefing scene after Roid made his public declaration of war that the federal New UN Forces were unlikely to intervene in the Windermere conflict at present because they likely saw it as just another minor tiff between emigrant worlds. Now that Chaos has discovered evidence that it was Windermere behind the entire galactic pandemic of Var syndrome, the chances of a federal intervention are better. Of course, it'll likely only come at or near the end, since the federal forces are said to exceed the capabilities of the local NUNS forces by a quite significant margin. A curbstomp battle where Windermere takes it on the chin from a force dozens or hundreds of times its size so early in the series would take most of the fun out of it. Ozma touched on exactly why private contractors are so popular in the 2050's and beyond when he introduced Alto to SMS back in the Macross Frontier series. It's advantageous for the local governments to contract the service of mercenaries because, legally, it involves a lot less red tape to mobilize a private contractor than it does the state forces. It's also easier on the government from the liability viewpoint: a contractor who dies in the line of duty is legally considered to have died in an accident. SMS in Macross Frontier was operating newer fighters than the local New UN Spacy garrison because, as Ozma explained, they'd been hired to test the VF-25 in live combat before its adoption by the Frontier NUNS forces. Same reason as above... if someone attached to SMS snuffed it as the result of equipment failure or getting shot down, it's no skin off the NUNS's back. It's unclear if a requirement to return their low-rate initial production VF-25's after testing ended exists though. SMS may end up in the position of having to once again make do with a reduced-capability "monkey model" version of the military VF after the VF-25's adoption. Sort of... we don't know how much of the YF-30's experimental technology made it into the production version. We know the VF-31 has an ordinance container system, but we don't know if it has a fold dimension resonance system or any of the other new tech the YF-30 was evaluating. There's that too, yeah... though the restrictions on the harvesting and distribution of fold quartz were aimed mainly at restricting the construction of dimension eater warheads, on top of laws restricting the usage of such weapons. Whether Windermere's flush with the stuff the way the Vajra homeworld or Uroboros are isn't clear yet... I personally doubt that it's the motivation for their claims of unequal trade, since the leadership of the Aerial Knights seem to consider the ruins on their world cultural treasures and/or symbols of their manifest destiny.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Almost certainly during her brief tenure at the New UN Spacy.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, there is... but it's kind of a bear to explain. You see, even before the UN Government and UN Forces were reorganized into the New UN Government and New UN Forces, the individual emigrant fleets and planets weren't under any serious obligation to use whatever the bigwigs on Earth decided was going to be the next main fighter. Some fleets, like Megaroad-13, opted to pass on the designated main fighter in favor of something else (the VF-14 instead of the VF-11). Once the government and military reorganized and became more decentralized, the VF-171 was essentially the last of the mandated main variable fighters. The New UN Government's federal forces pursue their own contracts to develop bleeding edge new fighters, while limitations on arms exports leave the emigrant fleets and planets with a couple different choices. They can... ... build/buy an export version of an existing variable fighter currently or formerly used by the federal forces, like planet Zola's fleet of VF-5000G's and VF-19P. ... develop their own local version of an existing variable fighter, with some government-imposed limits on performance like the Macross Galaxy fleet's VF-19C/MG21 or Macross Frontier fleet's VF-19EF. Some fleets and planets likely built their own local versions of the VF-24 using the limited/censored specs shared by the federal forces. ... develop their own new variable fighter using the limited/censored specs shared by the federal forces as a starting point, like the Macross Frontier fleet's VF-25 and YF-29, Macross Galaxy fleet's VF-27, Uroboros's YF-30, and Delta Platoons VF-31 are all examples of this approach. The VF-25 Messiah was slated to become the next main fighter of the Macross Frontier fleet's local New UN Spacy garrison, and in 2059 it was already in low rate initial production and operational evaluation. In addition to adopting it themselves, various unofficial sources suggest they also sold it to other emigrant fleets and planets whom they considered allies... but its adoption wasn't galaxy-wide or anything like universal. Some fleets may have already employed the VF-25 in significant numbers. Some may only have a few, either because of the price or because they're still transitioning. Some may have decided to pass on it in favor of another fighter design like the VF-27, YF-29, YF-30, or VF-31. Some didn't bother with manned fighters at all and have air forces composed entirely of Ghosts. Nah, it's just one of several 5th Generation variable fighters being adopted by the various emigrant fleets and planets around the galaxy... Yes and no. The VF-25 is, as I mentioned previously, tipped to become the next main fighter of the Macross Frontier fleet's New UN Forces... but that's one planetary/fleet government among many. Some other New UN Government member worlds/fleets will adopt other fighters as their next main VF... and the federal forces have their own fighter that's implied to be even more advanced. We don't know what the VF-31's circumstances are yet. The YF-30's kind of a special case, as it was developed more as a technology demonstrator and experimental technologies testbed than a proposed next main fighter. Actually, the YF-30 was developed by SMS... or, rather, by SMS Uroboros branch's Major Aisha Blanchett (in partnership with Shinsei and LAI).
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Kawamori shot down the idea that it was motivated by military concerns in his Otona Anime #9 interview. Essentially, he said it was because of the UN Government's constituency becoming too spread-out for it to govern the emigrant worlds effectively. He notes that, prior to that statement, it had been assumed that the event that prompted the change to the New UN Government was the 2051 hijacking of Battle-13 as part of an attempted coup by Latence. The exact time at which the New UN Gov't and NUNS became a thing is really unclear, in part because of flashbacks like Ozma's that put VF-171's with NUNS markings at events in the mid-2040's.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    The full name of the Zola Patrol is the Zola Galactic Patrol Corps. Coverage of Macross Dynamite 7 in Macross Chronicle is fairly clear on the subject of the Zola Patrol's standing as a non-military law enforcement organization operating under the authority of planet Zola's autonomous government. (Thank for you getting me to look, though... while I was checking, I found the answer to an unrelated question relating to VF space propellant storage.) The New UN Government Space Forces logo and the Zola Patrol's logo do look a little similar... though the only place we've seen a VF-5000 in UN Forces livery is video games (Macross M3's VF-5000B). Exactly when the UN Gov't became the New UN Gov't isn't clear, but it was sometime in the late 2040's or 2050's. Oddly enough (in hindsight), Zola seems to be the only planet we've seen that made contact with the UN Government that doesn't seem to have a military garrison force kicking around. I wonder how much of that is the local microorganisms making the planet's environment unsuitable for humans, and therefore limiting Zolan exposure to human technology and the UN Government's need for a garrison to protect its interests there, and how much is the Zolan desire for nonviolent (or at least non-lethal) conflict resolution? Every other planet with a human-suitable climate and sub-Protoculture species now seems to possess (or in Windermere's case, possessed) a military garrison force.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Zola had the "Zola Patrol", which was their local police force... equipped with export model VFs and purely non-lethal weapons. The UN Spacy Galaxy Patrol was/is something different.
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