Seto Kaiba
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One thing noted on that front in the Macross Frontier portions of the VF Evolutionary Theory article in Great Mechanics.DX 9 is that the VF-25's wings are used as heat sinks to dispose of waste heat after combat. I would assume that this is probably not a new feature... As far as FAST packs go... the VF-25's SPS-25S Super Pack leaves most of the wing surface exposed, so it can continue to be used to dispose of waste heat. The APS-25A Armored Pack is noted as having four armored heat sinks built into the engine pods (the "ribbed" portions on the top and bottom), and the TW1 Tornado Pack is also noted as having dedicated coolant systems for its heavy quantum beam gun turret.
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Some do, some don't. Isamu's VF-19EF/A is in the latter category, while SMS equipped its Frontier fleet VF-19EF Caliburn units with EX-Gear. Doesn't look like they were, no.
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Well, the VF-19 ADVANCE from Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa isn't actually a VF-19 first mass production type... it's a remodeled VF-19EF Caliburn export model. The full designation Macross Chronicle gives it is the VF-19EF/A "Isamu Special", because it's a one-off aircraft produced specifically for our Mr. Irresponsible by Shinsei Industry, pitched as a demonstrator for VF-19 service life extension. Still, I'd imagine we'd see a fairly similar path for updates... improvements to engine reliability, reinforcement of the airframe, adoption of improved materials, avionics improvements, etc. Isamu's VF-19EF/A actually had its flight control software downgraded to the original ARIEL system used on the YF-19, though. We'd probably also see the adoption of EX-Gear in the cockpit in the late 2050's, though Isamu apparently skipped that one too. Just aesthetic, IIRC.
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HLJ, CDJapan, HMV, amazon.co.jp, eBay...
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Eh... you could argue that. The YF-29 was probably NUNS property when SMS was had it, like the VF-25s that the Frontier branch of SMS was hired to field test under combat conditions by Frontier's government. The YF-29B is, most accurately, the improved YF-29 used by the NUNS special forces unit "Havamal". Uroboros had independent VF R&D facilities and a factory satellite, so the YF-29B may be (likely is) a local variant based on the YF-29 spec that was "made to order" for Havamal and isn't used anywhere else... or by anyone else. Though that could change.
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Science would have to unravel the low-level processing functions of the brain for us to do that... right now, we know just enough of how the brain functions at a high level to reconstruct very basic (often rather trippy) visual input from fMRI and EEG scans of brain activity. Even that is a HUGE leap forward for our understanding of the brain... we're not sure what kind of logical arrangement it's even running on. Are we really running on extraordinarily complex boolean logic trees, or does the brain's basic signaling operate with more than just two signal states? Perhaps we operate on balanced ternary, or something beyond that. (I'd love to find out... and not just because that Nobel prize comes with a big chunk of cash.) I'm not so sure... we've already proven in labs that we can use rudimentary implants to permit people to control things like a PC's mouse pointer or to stimulate sharper memory recording. With a proper functional map of the human brain and a sophisticated-enough interface, I think it'd be perfectly possible to introduce malicious "code" into the brain to cause unwanted changes mood or behavior. Something like a Ghost in the Shell-style virus that causes very specific behavior is probably out of the question though. Back before the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russians used to have a saying: Новости не истина и правда не новость "The News isn't the Truth, and the Truth isn't News." (It was a dig at the two main newspapers of the time... the Communist Party's sponsored newspaper Pravda (Truth), and the Soviet government's sponsored newspaper Izvestia (News)... but it's still pretty valid in general terms.) The testing they're doing is real, and it does demonstrate a potential threat... but to do the things they were doing, you need to get inside the vehicle itself and either physically compromise the correct CAN bus (most vehicles have more than one, some can have as many as four or five, separated and filtered by network gateways) or use a flash-capable diagnostic assistant (not normally available outside of dealerships) to re-flash module firmware or manually adjust parameters. It's possible, if you have an enormous amount of insider knowledge (CAN message maps are generally only available to suppliers under NDA for a reason), but it'd be hard to argue it was even remotely practical at this time. The news is jumping all over it because it can be made to smell of a scandal, and because it sounds scary if you leave out some important context. (Now, if some automaker were gormless enough to put unsecured over-the-air flash capability into a network device like that... it'd be a much different story...)
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Sometimes, I'm not sure... does "engineer" count as a dialect or another language? Percussive maintenance... the great equalizer. (With solutions like those, I hope I don't become a problem...) Network security in general is an evolving field, and has been for almost as long as networked computing has been a thing (ARPANET in '69). Things like cars and other simple network systems are secured easily enough because there's a limited range of information they can actually communicate and they can easily check incoming data for consistency without getting bogged down. The more complex the system, and the more types of data it can process, the harder it is to secure. It's hard to hack a car because a car's communications are very orderly, regular, and restricted. It's a lot easier to hack a PC, which has to sort out for itself if that sequence of 1's and 0's is a picture, an abstraction of a sound's waveform, a representation of plain text, or instructions to perform a task. For a networked brain, we'd be able to apply a lot of lessons-learned from our efforts to secure mobile data networks and the internet. The human brain is the most monstrously complex computer we've yet discovered, that means there's probably a lot of potential attacks that haven't even occurred to us yet, but the potential gains for implant technology probably outweigh the risks in a lot of areas. Instantaneous access to the sum total of human knowledge. The ability to export a person's objective recollections of an event. Selectively disabling pain receptors instead of using painkillers. Moderating appetite or treating various mood disorders by stimulating changes in brain chemistry. The possibilities are endless... and so are the risks. The governments of various emigrant fleets in Macross are clearly very interested in the possible risks... like having to deal with soldiers that don't have the same performance limits on their bodies, who feel no pain and know no fear. Now THAT'S probably going to be the biggest obstacle to implant technology as a whole... figuring out the "language" the human brain uses to communicate with itself. If we ever figure it out, it'll turn the computing world on its ear. It'll probably make almost every modern programming language instantly obsolete. That'd possibly be enough to make a self-aware computer a practical possibility instead of pure science fiction. One has to wonder how much of human implant tech in Macross is modeled on human technology and how much is modeled on overtechnology. (Maybe that's what sets the OTM computers like the ANGIRAS system apart from modern computers... instead of using a Von Neumann load-store architecture like a modern PC, which can't fetch data from storage AND perform an operation at the same time, they might be using a fuzzy logic computer modeled on the complex brain of a sentient being?)
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To be fair, people have been complaining about improvements in technology "ruining" manners and/or polite correspondence going back AT LEAST as far as the telegraph. (I vaguely recall seeing some remarks in old newspapers complaining that things like using trains to speed the postal service was ruining correspondence by increasing the pace of delivery and thus reducing the consideration the letter-writer needed to put into his letter.) Speaking as someone with a fair amount of professional investment in the computer security field... in my experience, it's often more a matter of companies being massively overconfident in their security than not having a clue how to secure their systems. Apple's a poster child for overconfidence. Their small market share in the PC industry meant that their systems were less frequently targeted by malware developers and/or hackers, and they misconstrued that to mean their software was more secure. Cue the bragging on how MacOS doesn't need antivirus... and the malware devs responding to that thrown gauntlet with gusto. That's a really bad example... because it's not actually true. (We are now firmly into the territory of my day job, esp. in terms of my SAE obligations.) That Wired article is actually really, fantastically misleading and tries to make the (admittedly real) threat of hacker attacks on cars sound a lot scarier (and thus, more sensational) by omitting important context. Communications filtration is not only present, it's a fundamental part of how a CAN bus functions, as are various fault-checking methods that double as tamper-proofing. The author conveniently forgot to mention Miller and Valasek's 2011 experiment only worked because they chose a vehicle that didn't have a media hub system and installed a custom-made transceiver specifically designed to circumvent security and achieve that result. (In short, they cheated to show that it was theoretically possible under very specific conditions.) This thing about the Cherokee's uConnect head unit is a similar demonstration in which a number of security measures had to be bypassed beforehand to get the malicious firmware in place. The article even admits that, for their earlier 2013 demo, they had to be IN THE CAR and physically connected to the OBD II port with a legit scan tool to modify variables by hand. Believe me, the idea of the connected automobile as a potential target of external attack was most definitely something that all of the major automakers considered long before Bluetooth was even a thing... (we're talking ISO-11898 in 1986-1991). Obviously, it's still something being taken VERY seriously. To say nothing of the living components of the DYRL? Zentradi warships likely having their software burned directly into the part's genetic code... Though we know relatively little of how an overtechnology-based computer works. The description of the VF-1's avionics package makes it sound like they're not using a Von Neumann architecture like modern computers do. The security and stability implications of that alone are staggering.
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We need someone who actually has a copy of the English Fire!! album. I've found a whole bunch of details of the people who did the arrangements and the composition of the English lyrics... but the only 2 members of Fire Bomber American who have artists associated iwth them are Dennis Gunn (who "voices" Rak Nabekasi) Dawn Moore (who "voices" June Ley Miles). No word on who did the drum and keyboard parts for real (just credited to the characters Kcool V Realy and Five Fads).
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I know... and, believe, the writers of those series know too. It's still probably going to happen in reality, because as a species we've never really let potential security problems in implementation keep us from adopting new technologies that have the potential to be life-improving or just darn cool. (e.g. THE INTERNET) Eventually, the security problems get sorted out, but no implementation will ever be perfect from the word "go". In my own lab, there are multiple technologies that are absolutely too dangerous or finicky for "prime time" now... but that doesn't mean they can't be made safe enough for consumer use in the future. Far from ignoring the risks, Macross and Ghost in the Shell make rather a meal out of the potential problems of that kind of implant technology. Ghost in the Shell in particular is fond of the "someone hacked my brain" thing, though Macross Frontier-era Macross titles (incl. Macross the Ride) make no bones about the possibility of this happening on a societal scale. Macross Galaxy's civilians and military are supposedly being mind-controlled through their implants, and they've demonstrated the ability to withdraw the free will of their soldiers and even putting alternate personalities into their heads to turn civilians into battle-ready troops (Maris Stella in the Macross the Ride series), and they were planning to turn all of humanity into a distributed intelligence via cybernetics. That's a part of why some fleets still outlaw implant technology... and why the military has elite anti-cyborg soldiers (as seen in the Frontier movies). With our technology, certainly... that's one of the areas where Macross's setting is advantageous to this kind of thing. They can use overtechnology to produce more robust, durable, and possibly even self-repairing implants. The standard of technology is just that much higher... though outside the Macross Galaxy fleet, all but the most minor implant work seems to be relatively rare. (WRT Ghost in the Shell, the prohibitive costs involved in preventative maintenance on cybernetics is one of the factors the setting acknowledges as keeping all but the super-rich, the government's elite servants, and those for whom natural healing is not a viable option from ditching their flesh-and-blood bodies altogether. Implants that ape both the look and full range of functions of a human body are just too expensive.) By all indications, the Protoculture built their technology to last... they can't repair battle damage, but there's no indication that the undamaged technology doesn't run as well now as it did 120,000 or even 500,000 years ago, like the computers on Uroboros and Lux, or the entropy control field in the Varauta system. Some of their more complex creations are known to have had self-repair and even self-improvement capabilities. The biggest hit the Zentradi took, militarily, was the loss of factory satellites that produced some of their weapons like thermonuclear reaction ordinance or the Glaug battle pod.
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You can't do that with a lot of heat... it works for rocket motors, but we're talking about a pair of thermonuclear reactors here. That's a clever alternate use for the wing heat sinks... probably not a common usage, since most VF's are operating in space or in the relatively temperate regions of inhabited planets where human settlements are raised. Many do ignore the issue... though a lot of the ones that put serious thought into how the technology works do manage to throw an acknowledgement to addressing it somewhere in their work. (e.g. Macross, Gundam, Star Trek, Five Star Stories, Full Metal Panic!) Eh... it crops up more often than you give it credit for, though it didn't really start to become a prominent issue until Macross Plus's technical specs established that the YF-19 and YF-21's more powerful engines had a serious heat-exchange problem. Much more ink is expended about how to make more efficient use of the heat for practical purposes than there is about disposing of the waste heat... though the issue has become progressively more prominent as time has gone on. The BLCS sub-intakes are used for a lot more than that... but disposing of waste heat though that system isn't much different from disposing of it via engine thrust.
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As an addendum to Mr March's answer, Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix has a similar cutaway diagram... but it's facing the wrong way to get a good look at the AN/AWG-12 radar.
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Yes, we know. The point was that there is no demonstrable link between the Zentradi or Meltrandi cybernetics seen/mentioned in the Macross: Do You Remember Love? movie and either human implant technology or the BDI system. The Queadluun-Rhea is, after all, a Queadluun-Rau redesigned by human engineers and enhanced with human overtechnology. That would have made it very difficult for the DYRLverse versions of Max and Milia to start a family... which they did. Eh... I think we'll be seeing it in the real world sooner rather than later. (Well, we already have on a trial basis... but I mean on a large scale.) There's just too much potential application to use cybernetics for prosthetic applications and organ replacements to treat injuries and illnesses that would otherwise be impossible to treat. As far as military applications go, it'll be a long time before we start seeing cybernetics for combat troops... but Macross has that whole "overtechnology" thing to lean on. The tech the Protoculture designed for the Zentradi (and Meltrandi) was IMPOSSIBLY robust by modern standards. Right now, we can't even build a car that'll run for six months without preventative maintenance to sustain performance... the Protoculture built computers and starships that were still working fine after hundreds of thousands of years without maintenance. (Also, they had a rather cavalier attitude towards the whole "Casualties" thing...)
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That's heat from the reaction itself though, not from the coolant loops keeping the core at a safe temperature or the other systems in line.
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I fear I may become a perpetual source of aggrivation... as I'm not about to stop citing sources in favor of guessing wildly. It's just not my style. Eh... actually, there's a straightforward explanation for that difference in length. The VF-171EX's nose section changed shape (the nose tips down slightly) to make room for the improved visibility of the "bubble" canopy. The reduction in length is due to that minor change in angle, the nose is otherwise pretty much the same dimensions. It's hard to tell in the animation, but looking at the art or physical models of the craft makes it very easy to spot. Officially, the redesign of the arms to remove the bi-directional beam cannons was not an end in and of itself... it was a necessity of the simplified transformation. As noted previously, the path would've been considerably smoother starting from the VF-17 than the VF-11 in light of the fact that the VF-17's design was already stressed for an AVF-tier engine and was renowned for its exceptional durability and defensive ability. In the redesign process, they wouldn't have to reevaluate every aspect of the design to see if it would stand up under considerably greater stresses than it was originally designed for. At the time the VF-11 Thunderbolt was developed, thermonuclear reaction burst turbines were still a ways off... so the only way to achieve a similar thrust rating to an AVF would be to build an excessively large and consequentially fuel-intensive engine, scaling up output by scaling up input. You're missing a crucial difference here... possibly the most obvious crucial difference of all. SIZE. The VF-11 and VF-25 may have roughly similar masses due to improvements in materials and design, but the VF-25 is SUBSTANTIALLY larger. Not only does it have more efficient and powerful engines, it also has a good deal more internal space in which to store fuel. The same can be said for every other AVF which has shown up thus far. (Size is a noted asset for the nearest neighbor to AVF territory before the VF-17, and the VFs that've been upgraded to AVF levels... the VF-14 is even bigger than a VF-17, and the VF-0 and SV-51 are some of the biggest VFs ever built.) VERY limited... the MAXL is a build-to-order aircraft, supposedly only a dozen or so made and no two truly alike. 's probably a question of cost and availabilities... with the Special Forces already using the VF-17 and the VF-19 tentatively penciled in as a successor craft, why bother upgrading the VF-11's to MAXL status? For most pilots, the regular variant is more than sufficient and for those who need more powerful craft, just give them the latest toys that are scheduled for mass production. There are several known typographical errors in Macross the Ride. The FF-3600J number is one. The printed stats block for the SV-52 also asserts that the VF-17 uses the FF-2010X, rather than 2100X.
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You can clearly see buildings and the Macross in the background... that would tend to indicate the Ghosts are launching from South Ataria island. They literally ascend right past the Macross's bridge in that scene. The only official org. chart ever published for VF squadrons suggests 15 is the most likely answer. Minoru Inaba.
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Only via implant technology... and, as far as we've seen, only on the VF-27.
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Ach, that's a shame. We've lost a man whose work brought joy to millions.
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The kana for "Earth" is アース. The kana for "Alus" in Macross II is アルス. So, no... the spellings are similar, but アルス is not an alternate kana spelling of "Earth". The Macross II manga has a translation that is, at its best, rather spotty and of indifferent quality. (It also really doesn't have any bearing on the story of the animated series.) -
... pretty much impossible to tell from a thumbnail the size of a postage stamp. EDIT: Looks vaguely like a Beechcraft Starship... though that seems unlikely, since that design didn't go into production until 1983.
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No.
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Well, it's not the exact same engine... the VF-17 used the FF-2100X, while the VF-171 uses the FF-2110A. Still, it wouldn't be a tall order to either tune up the new engines or drop in a different, more powerful engine to make a command spec. model or something along those lines. WRT the capacity of that launcher... I would assume that it's the same as the VF-17's, but nothing is actually said about the number of missiles carried inside of either launcher system, so that's a great big question mark. As far as why the forearm beam guns were axed, Macross Chronicle's VF-171 Nightmare Plus mechanic sheet points to it being the result of the changes in the transformation system... specifically, the elimination of the "high speed GERWALK" configuration the VF-17 was so fond of using.
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Nothing of significance, no. They are... and the answer is "if you have a planet literally covered in wrecked ships that are structurally sound but not salvageable, why not use them for building materials?". The UN Spacy of Macross II was eyebrow deep in secondhand Zentradi warships, and more were being captured every time a rogue Zentradi fleet blundered into human-controlled space (once every 10 years or so...). The Macross Cannon-class gunships are another example of using captured Zentradi warships to build something new... each of them was built around four captured, retrofitted Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class fleet command battleships. No, they can't... they're just convenient structural building material. The emigrant fleets of the Macross II universe use the Macross-class SDFs and Megaroad-class ships well into the 2050's. Unless I missed something in Variable Fighter Master File, we don't know how many VF-19's were made... and from other, official materials like Macross Chronicle we just know that the VF-19 was deemed unsuitable for extensive deployment. The reasons given for the VF-19 being passed over for widespread adoption are: The high performance of the VF-19 and VF-22, both in engine output and maneuverability, exceeded the tolerances of a human body to such an extent that pilots frequently lost control of the aircraft during training. Various attempts to fix the problem were made (e.g. the VF-19F/S's control refinements), but no viable permanent solution was found. The VF-19 and VF-22 are extremely expensive. Isamu's little stunt with the YF-19 proved that the VF-19 and VF-22 were capable of independently penetrating Earth's defensive sphere, so the UN Forces officials were unwilling/reluctant to deploy it to emigrant fleets as-is (which, later, resulted in "Monkey Model" VF-19's like the VF-19P and VF-19EF. Unmanned aircraft demonstrated capabilities exceeding that of the VF-19 and VF-22, though they had their own issues and did not become the new main fighter either. (Based on Chronicle's descriptions, it sounds like they ended up being one of two main fighters alongside the VF-171.) Those dates are a bit misleading... you're citing dates of first flight or introduction, not actual adoption of the main fighter role. The VF-1 Valkyrie was the main VF from 2008-2020, the VF-4 from 2020 to "after 2030" (and shared it with the VF-5000 for part of the period), the VF-11 from some point after 2030 to ~2050 (and technically shared it with the VF-14), and the VF-171 from ~2050 to the "present day" (2060). (Mind you, having a new fighter become next main fighter doesn't mean the existing ones just disappeared... they were still using VF-1's alongside VF-4's and VF-5000's, etc. etc.) Just because the VF-19 didn't become main VF of the (New) UN Forces doesn't mean it wasn't used in significant numbers... the Macross Galaxy fleet is known to have equipped their defense forces with a locally-produced version of the VF-19C, the Macross Frontier fleet had their own local variant that they built over 150 of (the VF-19EF), and so on. Yes. The Mistral is sitting on the airstrip in episode 1. The MiM-31 Karyobin, a completely different aircraft that link you found was for, is NOT present in that episode.
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Nope... the VF-171 design changed a LOT of stuff from the original VF-17 design it was based on. The redesigned (simplified) transformation resulted in the bi-directional medium-bore beam guns in the forearms being cut from the design entirely. Also, the internal micro-missile launchers in the wing root had their number of exit ports reduced from 2 to 1, those laser cannons on the head and alongside the cockpit were replaced by beam cannons, it got a new gun pod, and wings gained six new pylons for externally-carried ordinance. The engines weren't unchanged either... they got a less powerful version of the VF-17's engine with 17% (93.5kN) less output than the VF-17D and gained 300kg of mass. On the plus side, it did gain improvements in avionics, active stealth, aerodynamics, etc. Nah, the Mistral is a completely different aircraft... it's just that link you found to Nanashi's defunct website would've taken you to the wrong aircraft. We have info on the MiM-31, which isn't at that airshow, we don't have anything for the Mistral because it's just part of the scenery. Pretty much, yeah... there's a caricature of Kawamori in the background of one of those crowd shots tho.
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That link probably wouldn't have taken you to the right plane anyway... the MiM-31 was the Anti-UN Alliance fighter from Claudia's flashback episode in the original series. http://www.macross2.net/m3/sdfmacross/karyovin.htm Apart from one or two pieces of art, there isn't really any coverage of the Mistral.
