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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    I would assume that the Vajra would be impossible to "possess" because they're not sentient in a conventional sense, being a hive-wide or species-wide distributed intelligence. That'd be at odds with their description in official chronology materials and Macross Chronicle... both of which assert that the Supervision Army (or Inspection Forces, whichever one rubs your rhubarb) was a force the Protodeviln founded using the brainwashed Zentradi and Protoculture from the planet where they'd been created.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    How? That guy dies at least twice in Macross Zero and his VF-0A is destroyed both times. (In fact, I think he actually dies twice in the same episode... #2.) (The late Lt. Commander Tim Baker is presumably a UN Navy pilot aboard the Asuka II there for VF adoption training on the VF-0 alongside the UN Spacy and possibly UN Marine troops as well. The name stencils on the UN Spacy pilot canopy frames don't put their rank, just "PL Pilot Name", as seen later in episode 2. You can see this on Shin's VF-0D in Ep.2, and his VF-0A and Roy's VF-0S in Ep.5.) Actually, there's no cause for confusion there... it's all explained right in the Macross Frontier series itself (in Ep.22-23, IIRC). After Leon Mishima became Frontier president with the death of Howard Glass, the order came down from above that SMS's forces in the Frontier fleet were going to be absorbed into the fleet's New UN Forces. The SMS Macross Quarter's crew, who suspected a good deal of foul play was involved in the change of power, chose to desert and take the ship with them. Alto and Luca did not, and made the transition from being NUNS-endorsed private contractors to NUNS fighter pilots. Alto got promoted and was appointed to lead a platoon of his own. Actually, there's very little about this that's subjective. We know the official translations of the UN Spacy ranks are Army/Air Force ones, because it's literally right there in the animation in perfectly legible English. We know the approved translation of shotai used in Macross is "platoon" rather than "team" thanks again to the copious use of English in the official merch and so on. While IJAAS and IJNAS squadron organizations were similar, the number and organization of aircraft presented is more consistent with being an Air Force layout (and modern Japan doesn't have any aircraft carriers anyway). Also, that it spun off an Air Force after Space War One kind of gives the game away... There's evidence of some limited adoption of Naval traditions... like referring to the ship's commanding officer as kanchou (often translated "Captain", probably better rendered "shipmaster"), the nod to the VF-84 Jolly Rogers, and the use of Navy-style hull classification symbols and squadron designations... but it pretty much ends at those cosmetic details.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    The Protodeviln are energy beings that are native to super dimension space... they were accidentally drawn into the bodies of the 7 Evil-series bio-weapons when the experimental bio-technological power plants intended to fuel the Evil series' combat abilities using energy from super dimension space overloaded during testing. The nature of their existence was such that they couldn't survive in lower dimension space-time without harvesting life energy (spiritia) from nearby sentient life forms (the Protoculture and Zentradi). Consequentially, they went on a bit of a rampage, brainwashed the spiritia-drained scientists who created them and the population of the planet the Evil series was built on, and launched an invasion of the Stellar Republic as the Supervision Army. They wiped out the vast majority of the Protoculture before individuals known as anima spiritia managed to capture them and lock them away in stasis. Yeah, as far as we know the mind at work is the energy life form's... the body is a high-mobility Evil series prototype intended for search-and-destroy operations. Whether or not the body had a mind of its own before it was "possessed"? Hard to say... they were definitely functioning before their possession, but we don't know if the trial-production Evil series was actually sentient or not on its own.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    ... not really. I'm just pointing out fairly obvious pieces of information from the production art and the shows and the occasional historical tidbit, the sort of stuff that would barely merit a "Related Matter" entry in Chronicle. Dunno, man... the radio call signs aren't really based on anything real-world, but the platoon-level stuff and squadron organization is based on real-world military organization. The UN Spacy has a mix of military traditions from Japan and the West. On the one hand they're shown to use a US-style Army/Air Force rank system with ranks that aren't used in Japan (the UN Spacy has an OF-6, Japan doesn't). On the other hand, their OF(D) is treated more like an actual officer along the Japanese model than a USAF OT, and their squadron organization is based on the IJA Air Service/JASDF traditions. It's not 100% realistic, but it's every bit as detailed as you'd expect from a military sci-fi show by a military otaku with a particular passion for aviation (and a particular love of Air Force prototypes).
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, all I can tell ya is that in Macross Chronicle there's no blue on that airframe... it's all light and dark grays. I kinda like the blue though, breaks up the monochrome feel a bit.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, and that's the real world... but in Macross, we clearly and repeatedly see radio call signs are rarely not indicative of how many aircraft are in a particular unit. It's that fun little fictional touch common in a lot of sci-fi. Take Frontier's SMS Skull Platoon for an example... its members are, respectively, Skull 1 (Leader), 2, 3, and 4 even though their modex numbers are SMS001, SMS003, SMS004, and SMS007 respectively. The same thing is in Zero, where the numbering is evidently arbitrary, and based only upon the number of pilots in the unit and their respective seniority. It doesn't seem to have any connection to the aircraft they're flying either... Alto's Skull 4 despite going through at least two VF-25F's. To be frank, it doesn't look like any Macross title followed a real-world callsign convention... That's not how it's done in Macross though. We consistently see that platoon callsigns when they're deployed as stand-alone units are in the form "Platoon Code - # based on the number of people in the platoon". When Hikaru was promoted to platoon leader at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, he became Vermilion 1, and his wingmen were Vermilion 2 and Vermilion 3 when not operating with the rest of Skull squadron. There's really very little in the way of uncertainty here... the UN Spacy has never been presented as a "space navy", and there are very few, largely cosmetic references to Navy traditions and operations there. They use Navy-esque squadron designations and hull symbols, but in organization they're modeled a lot more closely on the JASDF or old Japanese Army Air Service at the squadron level.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Um... there's a problem with your reasoning... Recall, if you will, that the one and only org. chart we've seen for a Variable Fighter squadron has 15 planes on it. Also recall that, when Hikaru is given his first combat assignment in the original series, he is Skull 23. In Macross: Do You Remember Love?, the former Vermilion Platoon trio of Hikaru, Kakizaki, and Max are numbered Skull 11, Skull 12, and Skull 13 before Roy dies. So... if a normal Navy squadron is 10-12 aircraft and a normal Air Force squadron is 22-24, all roads do kinda lead to Air Force on this one. They do, however, use a pseudo-naval squadron designation system for the UN Spacy's fighter squadrons... the designation given for Skull squadron is usually SVF-1. What applies to a carrier deck on a planet does not necessarily apply to a recovery of a space fighter by a spaceship... especially those that do not use carrier decks or arresting wires for recovery like an ARMD. EDIT: Also remember that the original intent for the ARMD-class was to be a "space airstrip"... Respectfully, you can believe it... but that isn't the same as it being true. There's a good amount of evidence that Kawamori and the other Macross co-creators put a terrifying amount of thought into how this supranational military was going to work, and accompany that with a large number of hints that everyone is actually speaking English... and included the appropriate English Army/Air Force ranks in print in the show.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Okay, yeah... I was definitely on the wrong tack there. I thought you meant the dorsal stabilizers. The colored line art for Macross Chronicle on the aforementioned sheet shows that the ventral stabilizers are definitely two-tone... the body's white/light gray color and the same dark "cool gray" as the feet.
  9. Seto Kaiba

    The BDA sure made it hard to take screencaps from Blu-Ray discs...

  10. Seto Kaiba
    Super dimension space doesn't exactly play by the same set of rules as the material universe... so it's possible that there might not actually be a food chain in that reality either. All evidence of the series suggests that, under normal conditions, the Protodeviln were probably not at all malevolent... or, rather, that their ancient malice was a malice born of desperation. Gepernich's big evil plot was basically an effort to turn spiritia into a sustainably-farmed resource instead of going on another galaxy-wide rampage like the one that obliterated the Protoculture. They're not malicious by nature... but the same can be said of the whales and the Vajra. They have enough power to seriously mess an attacker up in realspace, but they're technical pacifists.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    We really don't know much about the life cycle of the space whales from Macross Dynamite 7 to know what they eat (if anything)... there are allusions to the Vajra sustaining themselves by pulling energy from super dimension space, so it's possible they might become accidental predators of the Protodeviln, if nothing else.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Based on this screen capture, the center of the tail is supposed to be the same color as the center fuselage... there's a blue tinge to the entire scene, but it looks like Macross Chronicle's coloring is right on.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Do they need one? The ones encountered thus far were perfectly benign energy lifeforms until they were accidentally trapped in realspace by the Protoculture's folly.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    It's either "Space Army" or "Space Military"... "Space Navy" would be written 宇宙海軍 (Uchuu Kaigun) instead of just 宇宙軍 (Uchuu-gun). Not wishing to be rude, but please re-read the post you quoted. The Spacy uses Army/Air Force ranks. Bruno J. Global's title is 艦長 (Kanchou), which translations almost invariably render as the word "Captain", but that is not a rank. It's a title that denotes someone who has overall command of a ship, much like the tradition that a person in command of a ship in the West is referred to as "Captain" regardless of his/her actual rank. It would be like calling someone "Shipmaster" or "Skipper". Global's rank as given in the dialog is 准将 (Junsho), a non-standard rank in Japanese that equates to Brigadier General. You say the SDF-1 should have been commanded by a Brigadier General, and, in point of fact, it was. We had capital space ships commanded by officers with Army/Air Force ranks, carrying fighters piloted by pilots with Army/Air Force ranks. There are a lot of things you can do in the navy, but holding the ranks of Staff Sergeant or First Lieutenant aren't among them. Seems perfectly logical to me, since the US Air Force Space Command is responsible for, among other things, testing and usage of reusable developmental space flight assets like the Boeing X-37. Unless there were a significant change in the organization of the military, we would expect a space fleet developed today to fall under the supervision of the Air Force.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Hey now, I thought everyone knew you had to say my name 3 times... like Beetlejuice. On consultation of Macross Chronicle, which has color line art of the VF-0A on Macross Zero mechanic sheet UN 02A, the center of the stabilizers are supposed to be the same mid-gray as the body... with the control surfaces the same light gray as the wing's control surfaces. EDIT: It's a "cool" gray... so there's a tiny amount of blue tone to it, but not enough to make it actually look blue.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Lucy's kinda... minor... for such a major plane. The exact specifics of how EX-Gear improves piloting control precision are unknown, but a brief explanation of the basic mechanism is given in Macross Chronicle (Technology Sheet 17B: "EX-Gear") and in Great Mechanics.DX 9. Apart from the suit providing the basic controls (pedals, throttle, stick), there's learning computer in the system that combines the input from the conventional controls with input from electromyographic (EMG) sensors which track impulses in the pilot's muscles and recorded data of the pilot's particular style of flying to improve responsiveness and ease of control while also providing some tactile feedback through the controls to the pilot so the pilot can "feel" the airframe response directly (providing the feel of the aircraft being a direct extension of the pilot's body).
  17. Seto Kaiba
    It definitely wasn't the most sound design choice ever made... esp. since those were supposed to be atmospheric-use packs. IIRC, it was Sheryl Nome who got made into a YF-19 mecha musume in Macross Chronicle.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah... definitely not a favorite of mine either. I shed no tears at their exclusion from Macross 30. Oh, yeah... as pictured in the picture I posted, it's the same YF-19-style FAST pack arrangement but with the boosters added.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    M7-style "shoulder kibble" would be my guess... it's in the same section as the M7 FAST pack. But yes, it does look to be the exact same booster model used on the VF-11B (not the economized model used on the VF-11C).
  20. Seto Kaiba
    I was able to get a decent-ish pic of the image in the book, to give you an idea.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah. They only do that in Master File, and it looks weird as hell... (pages 60-62 of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur)
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Unless it's fan-made, we probably won't see them until such time as they actually appear in some official Macross show or game. (The more I consider it, the more I'm miffed that they didn't use the VF-19EF/A in Macross 30 as Isamu's upgrade plane instead of the YF-29.) That location's where the VF-11-style FAST packs attach on the Master File version, among other things. They appear to be pretty much identical to the initial YF-19/VF-19 FAST packs, and those held a B-7 pallet of 12 HMM-20e's each.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Huh... if the toy is any indication (thank you Andras) the count is higher, with 23 missiles in each shoulder instead of the fuel tanks that normally occupy that position. That'd make it a nice round 250 plus whatever's in the leg bays. I really, REALLY wonder how in line with Kawamori's intent that toy is right now... I'm not a toy collector myself, so the details of the toy passed me by completely. The official information is painfully sparse. The Official Complete Book for Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye is says nothing of value about the plane, and declines to even give it a proper identification. Great Mechanics.DX 17 identifies it only as "VF-19 SMS Version", and gives useful info about performance or armament. Macross Chronicle gave it a shared mechanic sheet that gives it a designation (but not the one that's used to promote the toy) and talks about its development, but says nothing whatsoever about its FAST packs. I'm giving serious thought to seeking out the novelization in the hope that it'll have some firm details there (IIRC that's where the "VF-19ADVANCE" designation actually comes from... Macross Chronicle identifies it only as VF-19EF/A "Isamu Special"). On the toy, that certainly appears to be the case. Thank you for sharing that, I genuinely had no idea that was like that there. The pack looks almost identical to the existing one on the YF-19 that was a fuel tank.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Sorry, I quoted this but forgot to reply to it in my first reply. As far as the relative strength of the micro-missiles... the OTM-based explosives used in missiles would blow conventional munitions into the weeds. The VF-1's AMM-1A Arrow multipurpose medium-range missile had a 20kg warhead equivalent to 200kg of TNT, based on the one source to actually describe it in depth. Missile technology in Macross has improved a lot since the AMM-1 as well. Those HMM-25 micro-missiles are probably at least as powerful as the AMM-1, and very likely significantly more so (designed, as they were, to be used against something far tougher than even a VF-1).
  25. Seto Kaiba
    The VF-19EF/A Excalibur ADVANCE's payload with the Super Packs it's shown with would be 204 (90 in each booster, 12 in each conformal leg pack) plus the contents of the internal bays in the legs. My hunch would be that, since the packs on the wings block off most or all of the pylons (I haven't seen the physical model up close, and it's too hard to tell from the CG model), the internal ordinance bays inside of the legs would be used for longer-ranged missiles the way they were in Macross Plus. (Isamu kept the leg bays full of CHM-2's when he took the YF-19 to Earth.) (The VF-25 has less of a problem on that front.... the NP-FAD-23 leaves 2 or so pylons on each wing clear there.)
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