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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    I couldn't say for sure without knowing exactly how both aircraft were loaded, but there's no doubt they'd used most of what they were carrying before the Ghost attacked. Isamu, in particular, was probably almost down to foul language before the fight ended... he'd expended 2 of his 3 GU-15 magazines, and lost the gun pod with the (fresh) third magazine in it and his rear-facing laser in a single attack. He'd shot off at least half of his micro-missiles and two CHM-2's, before he ended up losing the leg FAST packs. At most, he was down to the wing-glove laser guns and maybe two more CHM-2's. Guld, it's harder to say, but he definitely shot off most of his internal micro-missile count and probably most of his gun pod ammo when he engaged the Ghost, but that still left him with the bidirectional and rear-facing laser guns, some missiles, and the gun pods before he sacrificed the limbs.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Or a way to justify "new abilities as the plot demands".
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Yep... that's the problem with the later VF's that had modular internal armaments. You can have the same VF, with no visible changes outside, carrying two totally different weapons and you wouldn't know it until it starts shooting. This same issue also exists on the production model VF-22, the VF-171, and VF-25.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    The first time we see the YF-19 firing from the wing glove gun ports, the guns are twin-linked, firing bright red beams at about 120-180rpm... but we see Guld's YF-21 doing the exact same thing, which makes it likely that, for that test, the guns mounted there were the laser machine gun option. The YF-21 prototype's armaments never included the converging energy cannon option.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    It's hard to say for certain, since the weapon isn't discussed in deep detail in any source... the way Isamu uses it, it seems to have a very low rate-of-fire, maybe 60 discharges per minute, but that's pure guesswork on my part. As powerful as converging beam cannons are, one hit is probably all you need for most targets. On the other hand, the one laser weapon to have a stated rate-of-fire of 6,000 discharges per minute.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Based on the Macross Plus animation, I would guess that the rate of fire difference is probably more severe than that...
  7. Seto Kaiba
    That's an excellent question... one I don't really have a complete answer for. If the usual pattern holds, the one thing we should be able to say with reasonable certainty is that a converging energy cannon is going to do a punch quite a bit harder than a laser or particle beam weapon of similar scale. The trade-off for the additional stopping power would presumably be a diminished rate of fire and increased power requirements. (Possibly also some increased cooling requirements affecting rate of fire, since the gun is shooting a beam of extradimensional fusion plasma.)
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Looks like the web host suspended the account again... I wonder if it's just that time of year, or if it's a bandwidth overrun. If sketchley needs or wants somewhere to host his site in the meantime, it'll be our pleasure to make space on M3's servers for him.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    I've translated some of those parts myself, though I don't recall anything being said about Myung's post-Plus status in there...
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Well, yes... most of them are. The YF-19 and VF-221 are the first Valkyries mentioned with the option of having converging energy cannons as their fixed-forward internal guns and/or coaxial guns mounted on the monitor turret. 1. Specifically, the YF-19 prototype and VF-22 production model. The VF-19 production model and YF-21 protoype are not mentioned with this option.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Quite a bit of in-series overtechnology taps into or otherwise uses the physics of super dimension space to function: Space fold systems/boosters Fold communications (incl. jamming systems like the Jamming Sound System) Song Energy systems (incl. sound boosters) Fold-wave/cross-dimension radar Pin-point and Omnidirectional barriers Thermonuclear reaction power systems (incl. heat pile systems, reaction furnaces, engines, etc.) Super dimension energy weaponry under its various pseudonyms- Super dimension energy cannons - Converging beam cannons - Converging energy cannons - Guided converging beam cannons - Guided assembled beam cannons - High-angle beam cannons - Heavy quantum cannons - Macross cannons - MDE beam weapons Thermonuclear reaction weaponry (in the trigger mechanism) Dimension Eater (and Micro-Dimension Eater) weaponry Gravity and Inertia Control technology Fold Wave and Fold Dimension Resonance systems (for VF performance enhancement on the YF-29 and YF-30) There's also another form of fold-based power generation that humanity doesn't use yet called fold dimension energy conversion, which appears to be what the Vajra, and possibly Birdhuman and Protodeviln use. The only one I've never heard is the SSL-9 Dragunov 55mm railgun using fold technology to dampen the recoil... Yep... though there are a LOT of weapons of that type in Macross. The smallest are guns that were mounted internally on the YF-19 and VF-22, the largest being the Grand Cannons and the big guns on Zentradi mobile fortresses.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    When they're extended, the antennae are freed up to broadcast the fold wave jamming signal or to receive and amplify fold song. Exactly how it ties into the fold wave system's enhancement of the engines, power plant, etc. isn't 100% clear, but it appears to simply amplify the effects of the system's efforts to optimize output.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    They're fold-wave projectors for jamming the Vajra collective mind... also allegedly used to amplify the fold wave system's ability to enhance airframe performance.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, that old thing... I've got a couple copies of that one on the shelves in my study.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Pretty much, yeah... though even the non-monkey model variants had some performance smoothing and stability fixes put in which were intended to make the VF-19 less like the unstable nightmare that put two test pilots in the ground and two more into intensive care. The Macross Chronicle entry for the VF-19EF/A, which the novelization and apparently toy makers call the VF-19ADVANCE, says that the arms export restrictions make it particularly difficult to deploy the VF-19. It's mentioned in a bunch of different sources, and in connection with a few different fighters too... there's some discussion of it in the Macross the Ride materials pertaining to the VF-19EF Caliburn, some more in the Macross Chronicle sheet for the VF-19EF/A, some in Great Mechanics.DX 9 related to the redections in the YF-24 spec that was sent to the fleets. There's also some stuff in Macross Chronicle's technology sheet 1P about the UN Forces being reluctant to export the VF-19 to the emigrant fleets as a result of its demonstrated ability to break through Earth's defenses circa 2040. There's a couple high-profile planes where there's an excellent, excellent case for a .5 generation. The Valkyrie Plus, for instance, which was the later production blocks that incorporated engine, avionics, and sensor enhancements from the VF-4... or the VF-17, which started out a 3rd Gen plane, and then adopted the same engine tech as the 4th Gen planes. The VF "family tree" leading to the YF-29 isn't super consistent, but they generally agree that's a YF-24 derivative, so it probably belongs to the same generation as the other YF-24 derivatives. Dimension weapons on VFs weren't a new feature on the VF-27, YF-29, and YF-30. It was just the first time they were deployed as gun pods rather than internal weapons. The VF-22's internal beam weapons were converging energy cannons as standard. Converging energy cannons were also an option for the gun port fixtures on the VF-19's wing glove. Actually, I put it on there because, while the YF-24 is official and all that, the VF-24 is only mentioned in Master File so far... it's not unreasonable to assume it'd be a thing, but it's not definitely a thing yet.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Before the First Space War, certainly... though English appears to have been the official language of the UN Forces, if not the UN Government itself, and the de facto everyday language seen in pretty much every series up until Frontier. We didn't really start seeing written Japanese in the series until around Macross 7 Trash, when Enika wrote a letter to Movado... the Frontier fleet seems to use as much Japanese as English. We see Sheryl leave a lipstick note in French for Grace, and some of the aerospace engineers at General Galaxy clearly know a bit of German... Officially (and by this I mean, "as far as the UN Government told its citizens") the UN Wars lasted from May 2001 to January 2007... about five and a half years. In actuality, the conflicts started before there was organized opposition to the UN Government in July of 2000 and the Chronicle chronology notes that the REAL end of the UN Wars wasn't until December 2008, a couple months after the nations backing the Alliance withdrew their support. Yep... all told, before there was organized resistance to the new government it was a series of little regional spats that started in the middle east.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Neat. I'll be sure to listen for it when I get to DYRL in my re-watch. Thanks.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Comparing the overall performance of the VF-19's main variants against the "monkey models" built for export is rather difficult... as much of the reduction in performance seems to have been in areas other than raw engine performance. Take, for example, the earliest of the monkey model variants... the VF-19P. Its engine output is marginally lower than the VF-19's 1st mass production type, but the real reduction in performance is said to be the result of limiters put into the avionics, the control software, and the weapons. The VF-19EF compares favorably to the VF-19A/C in engine power, but it's not as good as the other 2nd mass production variants and there are those naggingly non-specific limiters built into a lot of its systems. The only one which is explicitly said to compare favorably to the production model is the one-off VF-19EF/A "Isamu Custom", and that's more in terms of maneuverability than engine output (and only then because it was designed and built by Shinsei Industry's design team instead of by a fleet's arsenal, with one specific batspit insane pilot in mind). It's not like they were doing it for yuks... one of the primary sources of trouble for the UN Forces in the 2030's and later was having advanced weaponry from the emigrant fleets and planets ending up in the hands of terrorists and other anti-government forces, to say nothing of the occasional civil war. The government decided to restrict arms exports to the emigrant fleets and planets after a spate of particularly problematic fights with enemies wielding AVF-tier equipment, to ensure that if trouble starts the troubleshooters from the core UN Forces will have a technological and tactical leg-up on the potential hostiles. The weapons the emigrant fleets are getting are still quite equal to the task of defending the fleets from rogue Zentradi branch fleets and worse. All told, based on applied technologies, production timelines, and the charts in Chronicle, there look to have only been 5 generations as of 2059... (considering some of the terms they use, making the most recent generation the 5th is definitely intentional). Generation 1 (Initial VF generation) VF-0 Phoenix SV-51 VF-1 Valkyrie SV-52 Generation 1.5 (Late VF-1 blocks and SLEP variants) VF-1 Valkyrie Plus VF-1P/X Valkyrie Generation 2 (Regime optimization, VF's for emigration) VF-4 Lightning III VF-5 VF-3000 VF-5000 VF-9 V-BR-2 Generation 3 (Emergence of specialist craft, VF-1's true successor) VF-11 Thunderbolt VF-14 Vampire VA-3 Invader VB-6 Konig Monster VF-17A Nightmare Variable Glaug? Generation 3.5 (Gen 3 + some AVF tech) VF-16 VF-17D/S/T Nightmare VF-11MAXL Generation 4 (Advanced Variable Fighter) VF-19 Excalibur VF-22 Sturmvogel II VF-171 Nightmare Plus Feios Valkyrie? Generation 4.5 (AVF + Gen5 Tech) VF-19EF Caliburn VF-19ACTIVE Nothung VF-171EX Nightmare Plus Generation 5 (Evolution's children, fold quartz tech, "The Last Manned Fighter") YF-24 Evolution (VF-24?) VF-25 Messiah YF-26 VF-27 Lucifer YF-29 Durandal YF-29B Percival YF-30 Chronos Looking at it, I don't think we'd necessarily end up with the same number of generations as actual fighter designs... I could see maybe 3 generations, possibly organized around the final cockpit orientation. The first generation designs that have it smack in the middle of the torso (VF-0 & SV-51 right up thru the VF-11), ones where it ends up high in the airframe and/or on the back (VF-14, VF-17, VF-19, VF-22), and lastly ones where it ends up sandwiched in armor layers near the back of the torso, closer to the hips (YF-24 derivatives). Officially, the answer to your question is "Yes"... if the SV-52 Oryol is anything to go by.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    ... Portuguese? My curiosity is well and truly piqued. Where in Macross did we get written or spoken Portuguese?
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Yes, I know... the problem is that it never had any bearing on the matter at hand or any effect on the evidence. Seven branches are mentioned, in total... the UN Army, UN Air Force, UN Navy, UN Marines, UN Spacy, UN Spacy Air Force, and UN Spacy Marines. I don't recall seeing anything to that effect. The official profiles for the bridge operators of the original series have always used the Army/Air Force ranks... even in the liner notes from the Animeigo DVD release. Some of the very early official translations were, yes... and fan subs being hit and miss is just the nature of the beast. I don't really think Kawamori needs to weigh in on this any more than he already has through his work. He's repeatedly shown us, right there in the animation itself, how those ranks are supposed to be translated... going all the way back to the original series. There isn't any mystery here, the matter was settled in December 1982... so I'm not gonna belabor the point any further.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    I'll do one better, here's a screen capture and the production art that goes with it. Like I said before, there are a lot of things you can do in the Navy, but holding the ranks of First Lieutenant or Staff Sergeant are not in the cards. That's 18:46 in "Blind Game". There are others, but this is the earliest high-visibility one. What the Navy calls anything is immaterial to the translation of shotai... in an aircraft context, it's a level of organization neither the US Navy nor the US Air Force use... being that it's below a Flight, organizationally. Platoon vs. Team is purely a matter of preference. The term can be read either way in the exact same context, but the Macross creative staff have demonstrated a preference for "Platoon", Gundam's for "Team". (As an aside, Mikimoto uses "Team" for the apparel that Skull Squadron apparently has...) Not wishing to be rude, but this isn't about etymology. This is about how Macross's creators intended for the neutral Japanese rank terms to be translated/interpreted... especially into English, since there's a lot of evidence to point to the actual in-universe language being spoken being English most of the time. All evidence is that it's meant to be Army/Air Force-style ranks in English... to such an extent that the UN Forces have a rank that the Japanese don't use (Brigadier General, which more than one character has held.) There may be some evidence to support this view in Isamu's personnel file in Macross Plus. (The same one that, in English, gives his rank as First Lieutenant... helpfully reprinted in a more legible form on pages 27 and 28 of the Macross Plus Archives booklet in the blu-ray release. Isamu is noted as having joined the UN Spacy, and holding the rank of First Lieutenant therein, but having an assortment of assignments ranging from deep space patrols to UN Air Force bases and even a stint on a UN Navy carrier. Shin Kudo also seems to have transferred from the Navy to the Spacy, though from his bio it appears he lost seniority doing so... though the record's a little sketchy on whether he lost rank doing it or not. It's far and away the most plausible explanation given the evidence... the reasoning behind it goes: For the previous twenty-odd years, Macross's creators have presented the UN Spacy's ranks in English as Army/Air Force ranks in the animation. The multiply-late Mr. Tim Baker (poor sod snuffs it at least four times by my count!) is the only who whose aircraft displays a rank marking at all on its canopy stencil... the pilots whose affiliation is explicitly the UN Spacy just have "PL" and then the pilot's name. That marks him out as being different from the other pilots. We know that the UN Spacy pilot trainees on the Asuka II were sharing space and training alongside members of other branches of the UN armed forces... including the UN Marines (whom Shin spars with, badly). Other sources like Master File helpfully assert that UN Navy pilots were in fact flying VF-0's from the Asuka II at the time, and we know that other branches did operate VF-0's at the time (the UN Marines even had their own variant, the VF-0C). It does matter... for two reasons. The first being that, if we're going to provide accurate translations, we should follow the demonstrated intent of the show's creators to that end. The second is that all indications are practically everyone in Macross is, beyond the translation convention, speaking English... and in English, y'don't call 'em shoi... you call 'em 2nd Lieutenant or Ensign, depending on what branch they're serving with.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Smart money says the YF-29... the "Strike Pack" cannons are, depending on whether you believe canon spec or Master File, either particle beam guns or laser cannons (respectively). The guns on the VF-25's Tornado Pack and YF-29 are dimension weapons... which are a megadeath nastier (esp. when they're MDE beam weapons). That's exactly what they did... the restrictions were imposed around the time the VF-19 and VF-22 entered production in many of those emigrant fleets, so they developed their own variants to meet their specific needs and cope with the legally-imposed power restrictions. That's how we got the VF-19EF, VF-19EF/A, VF-19C/MG21, VF-25, VF-27, YF-29, and YF-30. The VF-19's are obviously local attempts to make lemonade with the stripped down VF-19 lemons they'd been given, and a few fleets and planets developed their own specific riffs on the YF-24 Evolution to meet their particular needs as well. The AVF genie was already out of the bottle, though, esp. after the VF-171's introduction in the late 2040's, so there probably wasn't much in the way of incentive to attempt upgrades to older craft... especially considering the amount of reengineering required to make it work, and the profound instabilities it tended to produce.
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
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