Seto Kaiba
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Why does the Valkyrie II have intakes? Put simply, because it was originally conceived, both in-universe and from a production standpoint, as an all-regime fighter along the same lines as the original VF-1 Valkyrie. The original concept art for the VF-2, called the "VF-XS Valkyrie II" on the couple of occasions when it was trotted out for magazine promo pieces, was a more traditional design that had some distinctly atmospheric touches like air brake panels in the dorsal hull/chest plate. It was also designed with a set of Super Parts laid out like the VF-1's, with two large dorsal booster pack/missile launcher combo packs, forearm missile packs, and leg tanks. Later on, the designers introduced the concept for the VF-2JA (which inherited the "VF-XS" designation) and finished the design for the VF-2SS as what we're familiar with today... making it a space optimized Valkyrie with a less traditional set of space equipment. Four intakes are reaction engines. Can't tell ya what the intake lookin' things are in the bottom of the chest tho. According to the "VF History" piece and creator interview in B-Club 79, the VF-2 was originally designed and produced to be an all-regime Valkyrie (J and S variants are mentioned). The base VF-2S was modified for use as a dedicated space fighter, which was introduced in 2081 as the VF-2SS. The J-type was used as the starting point for development of a dedicated atmospheric VF, which became the VF-2JA and was rolled out in 2086.
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Actually, a good translator's aim is to preserve the meaning and format of the original work while also rendering it in such a way that it flows as naturally as possible in the target language. Simply picking the first entry in the dictionary doesn't always do the original work justice. <_< *cough* I'm reminded of a statement about pots and kettles here... Yes, it'd be a logical enough assumption that the Vajra reclaim fold quartz from their dead, though since it's tipped as being the means by which the Vajra communicate in the series, it feels like a bit of an understatement to say that the Vajra need it to "fully participate" in their society. As far as what we were shown in the series, it was one of the large, red, adult Vajra types digging in an asteroid for a fist-size chunk of glowing pink stone. (The reference to social insects wasn't general, it was specific to their resource-gathering behavior... we both know full well the Vajra society isn't organized along those lines.) I've seen it defined as such, that's why I brought it up. 'cept in the series... y'know, that thing that all the written material is subordinate to. (Bilrer tells Alto the Vajra collect raw fold quartz from stars and other stellar material in Ep23 of the Macross Frontier series.)
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VF-0 or VF-1 (includes variants) which do you like better?
Seto Kaiba replied to leading edge's topic in Movies and TV Series
Hrm... you've got a point there. I suppose the aesthetic beef with I have with it is mostly the cockpit interior... the block 6 type cockpit, with a nearly seamless wrap-around monitor of the sort we don't really see until decades later. Outside, it's pretty primitive by comparison. I still think I prefer the VF-1 tho. Very probably, yes... and a large part of that would be the affection Robotech fans have for Roy, and the way Robotech tends to exaggerate him to a Chuck Norris-y extent. I'll admit, I was slightly disappointed that the F-203 didn't make it into Macross Zero, but it wasn't a deal-breaker for me. -
Yeah, yeah... and I did too. Right now, I don't have the luxury of being able to consult my binders, and have to make do with the cropped and partially cleaned-up scans that I made last year to use as art stock for future M3 updates. (It's a long story... circumstances beyond my control.) Anyhoo, the sheet in question is the Vajra world guide sheet. The one with the diagram of the Vajra life cycle on it. (Erm... telling you the publication, issue, and page number is pretty much the polar opposite of obfuscation. That's a proper citation format. There's really no need to get snippy, I'm just trying to reconcile my findings from Chronicle and the series with what you've found in a publication that isn't part of my collection. You usually bring good info to the table, and with M3 updates in the works, I just want to make sure we have the most accurate data we can get for the "Macrosspedia".)
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"Derivation" would fit with the description and definition I've found (in Chronicle #49, pg23, etc.) that describes fold quartz as a rare but naturally occurring substance, which is gathered by the combat types (in a manner similar to social insects like bees) and reconstituted/refined/purified by Queen-type Vajra. That the Vajra are processing a naturally occurring substance to make this stuff is indisputable, because the gathering of the material is shown directly in the series. The way it's described, the Vajra are taking the crude ore they mine (which is described as having "many impurities"), and deriving the high-purity fold quartz material from it by having the Vajra Queen biologically process the ore. Calling the process "refinement" fits the description perfectly, even if it isn't used in the definition directly. I suppose "purification" could fit too, but "refinement" seems more appropriate, since they're referring to the raw material as ore. (As a side note, every definition I've yet found for the term "fold carbon" lists it as being a low-purity form of fold quartz.)
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Which, in short, is exactly the opposite of the definition for the term that I'm looking at... what source are you using for the definition?
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C'mon, be realistic... has GAGraphic ever released a Master File book on schedule? Give it a bit, if it's coming out it'll be late.
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That's... pretty much what's been said, yes. The one exception being that it's "dead" stars, not "dying" stars. See the above, but really... we're saying the same thing, and have been for a while now. The Vajra obtain the raw material (the low-purity form of fold quartz called fold carbon) and [refine/form] it into the high-purity stuff we see in neat, orderly crystalline form.
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's kinda hard to mistake it for anything else, as it's a rough fist-sized (for a Vajra) lump of the same glowy pinkish color as the refined fold quartz that we see in crystalline form at sizes both microscopic and suitable for jewelry. Kind of a no-brainer, esp. when the dialogue over the scene is about how the Vajra obtain fold quartz. (All told, I'm not sure when exactly the term "fold carbon" first occurred, but I get the feeling it was after the series. I think we can chalk this up as "the difference between ice and frozen water", because the definitions I've found for "fold carbon" make it the term for low-purity fold quartz. So, really, we don't appear to be dealing with a mistranslation, just the description of a thing vs. the official term for it.
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Ah, yeah... that's not a "missing link" between the VF-19 and VF-25. It's just a SMS-issue VF-19 equipped with the same wing Super Packs used on the VF-25. The novelization called it the "VF-19ADVANCE". Beyond that, there's precious little on it, the official complete book kinda glosses over it, and Great Mechanics DX doesn't really go into much detail.
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Erm... well, I dunno about that. I mean, we've seen one form of life that does live in super dimension space, but it was an energy life form (that would come to be known as the Protodeviln). Other lifeforms from this universe, such as the galactic whales, are supposedly "super dimensional life forms", though they live in the normal universe rather than the higher dimension(s) of fold space and merely possess the natural ability to tap into the super dimension for travel (and presumably self-defense). frothymug rather beat me to the punch here, but it's mentioned (and at one point, shown) in the Macross Frontier television series. It's in one of the last couple episodes. I'll get you an episode number and time index in a future post, at present I have no access to my DVDs due to a slight (recurring) minor family emergency.
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VF-0 or VF-1 (includes variants) which do you like better?
Seto Kaiba replied to leading edge's topic in Movies and TV Series
Call me old-fashioned if you like (and I'll cheerfully cop to it if you do), but I prefer the VF-1. It's a classic. I'm especially fond of the DYRL versions of the A/J/S, and the enhanced versions of same ("Refined Valkyrie") from the Macross II prequel games. While it's a nice design, and it looks damn pretty in Macross Zero, the VF-0 never really did much for me aesthetically. I know that it's meant to test new tech for VFs, and that by 2008 it's testing tech for the VF-4, but in trying to be visually impressive it came out looking too advanced for its period. -
More A's... or at least, best guesses. Can't be too picky when the questions are this specific. Well, as we know from the Macross Frontier series, travelling by zero-time fold is FAST! Regular fold travel is no slouch in the speed department, but the fold quartz-dependent zero-time fold method is supposedly an order of magnatude faster. I would guess that there was a Vajra hive somewhere within a couple dozen or a couple hundred LY of Earth... possibly one where it could go unnoticed by virtue of a dead star (that the Vajra could mine unrefined fold quartz from) or no inhabitable planets so humans would have little-to-no reason to go there. I don't believe there's any official answer, but consider that a "best guess". Assuming that diagram in the first episode is anything like accurate, I'd estimate somewhere upwards of 25,000ly, possibly as much as 40,000ly. That animated chart of the emmigration fleets showed both Frontier and Galaxy near the galactic core, so they're tens of thousands of light years away easily (the Milky Way's diameter being estimated at ~100,000-120,000ly). (On reflection, Macross Frontier's love of arc number-dropping would make 25,000ly seem particularly appropriate, no?) Your guess is as good as mine... supposedly there's more than one planet building them now, so they've probably passed the thirty mark already. If they ever do ascribe some final limit to that class of ships, it'll probably involve some kind of arc number shenanigans. *shrugs* Dunno why anyone'd get snippy over these... they're perfectly reasonable questions, IMO. the sticky point is there's really no definitive answer to any of them (at the present time).
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No biggie. I think I may have sourced your thing about the Dragunov and the ISC tho. Could it have been in the Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah book? IIRC, there's a section in there (however brief) on weaponizing the inertia store converter. (I feel your pain tho, I'm getting ready to go back to school for my PhD.)
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You said "dude" twice. Also, remember... I quite readily admitted that my "one isolated incident" evidence was not 100% reliable either. There isn't any double standard at work here, I treated both cases as "isolated incident, needs confirmation/corroboration". I'm trying to be fair to both sides of the issue as much as possible. According to Macross Chronicle, they're workin' on it... whether they've had any success or not, that's for the next Macross title to tell us.
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At some point in the very near future, I expect we'll see McKeever and co. trying to pass the annual PowerPoint presentation itself off as a new Robotech release... or is that already a thing? I've been out of touch with the crazy for so long... Well, if you really wanted to get technical about it... the Robotech fans DO have options. Kind of. In a sick, twisted, entirely unsound sort of way. It's something I've run into quite often during my time on Palladium's Robotech sub-forum. Y'see... what Tommy ultimately wants to do is refashion the Robotech story into what he thinks it should've been all along. This, he does because he believes his version of Robotech will be a huge success rather that meeting an unremarkable end the way Carl Macek's did, thus transferring the (wholly undeserved) "visionary creator" plaudits from Carl to him. The problem with this, other than that it could only happen in the Twilight Zone, is that he's trying to recreate the Robotech universe over the frequent objections of the few long-time fans keeping the franchise limping along. So he's stuck in this weird Schrodinger's Cat situation where he's simultaneously trying to pin down a narrowly-defined official continuity AND claim that everything that went before is still good to avoid hacking off the old-timers who don't like his sh*t. As a result, the more active Robotech old-timers tend to treat the universe as less of a coherent story and more of a big bucket of set pieces and disjointed plot fragments from which they can each weave their own Robotech story. Remember, we're talking about a fandom that's been lied to so often, and is so desperate to validate its faith in a dead property, that its constituent fans can no longer tell the difference between reality and the veil of fictions and elaborate moon logic they've woven around Robotech so they don't feel like they're wasting their time. If they stick with the pattern, once they fire Tommy for being an inept tit who can't make good on his promises... they'll hire an entirely new creative staff and start all over again with another reboot. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
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Glad someone got something outta this mess...
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Only in that one isolated case, really... and even then, the change in engine size isn't something that was really a function of the internalized micro-missile weapons. IINM, the VF-5000's engine isn't all that much smaller than a VF-1's, nor is it any better than the higher-tuned version of the FF-2001 in the VF-1S. As to the miniaturization of the engine tech, that's hard to say whether it's been done or not in the Macross II universe. If they'd given the thrust rating and/or energy output for the Valkyrie II's sub-engine systems (the two smaller, dorsally-mounted engines) then we could say something. It's been implied that their output is roughly comparable to that of a VF-1, but I have yet to find a source that either corroborates that lone implication or says it flat-out, so I'm unwilling to treat it as entirely reliable. Who was making that argument? Has that actually been established somewhere, about the Dragunov? If so, I'd dearly love to know where. Throw a writer a bone? Also, the ISC system doesn't, IIRC, actually dissipate the g-forces into super dimension space... it just temporarily displaces the g-forces beyond a certain safe level and returns them to the airframe in a controlled manner that won't turn the pilot into a tight bag full of chunky human soup like what happened to Guld.
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Well, yeah... that's true. I don't think anyone here has suggested otherwise. The chief advantage(s) of a railgun are that accelerating a kinetic round using electromagnetic force frees the weapon from the limitations imposed by conventional technologies like chemical or pneumatic propellant. With a railgun, you can accelerate a kinetic round to much greater velocities, the practical upshot of which is that (all other things being equal) you get longer effective ranges, greater stopping power, and tighter accuracy. As a side benefit, the materials requirement to produce ammunition are decreased, as you only need the actual projectile... not the projectile, a chemical propellant, a primer, and a cartridge case to hold it together, which is accompanied by a reduction in the weapon's mechanical complexity since it wouldn't need to extract and eject spent cartridge cases. The downsides to railgun tech (in the real world) are the sizable energy requirements needed to one-up chemical propellants (not an issue in this case) and the need for a suitably high strength material for the accelerator rails so they can stand up to repeated high-energy firings (also probably not an issue in this case). EDIT: There's also the question of greater recoil forces generated by those higher velocities, but the defense industry in Macross II seems to have that under control too. Sources for Macross II: Lovers Again don't describe the ammunition used in the ubiquitous railguns of the series, though the SSL-9B Dragunov rifle from Macross Frontier is described a using an ultra-hard metal-jacketed alloy bullet.
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Naturally. All I said was that the presence of internal launcher systems and/or ordinance stowage space is not, in and of itself, representative of any sweeping technological advancement. It can, as you've pointed out, be a function of technological advancement in other areas (passive stealth, for instance), but it can also just as easily not be a factor at all... like how improvements in active stealth on the VF-19 eliminated the need to keep the plane's weapons close to or completely inside the airframe (the Super Pack being the particular focus of that remark). (In general terms, you're absolutely right... I'm just being very specific.) Oy... now that is a tall order. I've been trying to corner him for a while now to talk updates, but we keep missing each other like ships in the night. I'm loathe to do any updates without him, since my art-fu is weak and M3 is his baby. I know the 2092 thing is up there, and has been for a while, but I've got a boatload of material for the Macross II section and I'm slowly accumulating a pile of art stock and material to go into the Macross Frontier movie area and a little stuff that's tentatively for Game and Advanced Valkyrie. It's just a matter of catching him. (Anyone wanna loan me a really big net?) Macross II... yeah, that's a timeline that wildly diverges from where the main timeline is. The influence of Gundam is much stronger and rather more overt and conspicuous there. I had a couple LOL moments reading B-Club 73 and seeing that some of the technological advances which were built into the Valkyrie II family (VF-XX, VF-2A/J/S, VF-2SS, VF-2JA) would probably sound suspiciously familiar to our boy Amuro Ray. No doubt it has lots and lots to do with Macross II's mechanical designers having largely come from Gundam projects like Zeta Gundam and Char's Counterattack. (It's even more blatant if you look at how Chronicle dates it, with Macross II set in what would be "New Era" 0079-0080.) You'd be absolutely bang-on accurate with your counterargument here if it weren't for one little thing... you're assuming that these railguns are using internal batteries as their power source. True, a railgun is going to need huge amounts of energy to achieve a level of accuracy, range, and lethality exceeding that of a more conventional cannon, but energy is one commodity that the Valkyrie II has in spades. It's one of only two VFs in Macross to have a stated reactor output, the other being the VF-1, and that output is huge. Each of its two main reaction turbines has a power output that's just shy of 2,000MW... and since the Valkyries in the "DYRLverse" are armored with ersatz-Gundarium instead of a combination of composite armor and energy conversion armor*, all of that output is free for things like flight and weaponry. So, when your power source is external and frankly excessive, you can achieve the greater destructive potential without having to make the gun pod unmanagably large or aggressively curtailing the magazine capacity to make room for large capacitor banks. EDIT: * It occured to me to clarify this only after I had posted. Macross Chronicle's glossary section asserts that energy conversion armor doesn't exist in the Macross II universe. It's not that they're voluntarily not using it, it's that it flat-out doesn't exist. As a brief aside, the notion of supplying power from an external source for a particularly energy-intensive gun pod isn't unique to Macross II's parallel universe. IIRC, that's how the VF-0's gun pod motor was powered, and the equipment for the YF-27-5 prototype from Macross the Ride makes it look very probable that the VF-27's gun pod is also powered by a tap into the mecha's four engines. (In that case, it's also highly probable that the SSL-9 railgun used by the VF-25 is powering its linear driver off the mecha's engines too.)
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Um, the Macross II: Lovers Again OVA is set in 2092, not 2089. I've been trying for a while now to track down which American-side entity originated the 2089 thing, and thus far the finger seems to be pointed squarely at US Renditions. Anyhoo... I'm not denying that the Valkyries in the main Macross universe are, in most respects, more advanced than those of the Macross II parallel universe. What I'm saying is that engine power isn't the only metric for measuring technological advancement, and that the Macross II valks did have certain areas where they were more advanced than the VFs in the main universe. Both universes had integrated beam weapons turn up at the same time and on the same plane (the VF-4), while things like internalized micro-missile launchers aren't an indicator of technological progression so much as they're an indicator of simply having a larger airframe and thus more internal space. Things like pinpoint barriers, fold wave radar, and all of that jazz... heck yes, that's more advanced than what's on the Valkyrie II. Then again, there are areas where the Macross II valks have a leg-up on their counterparts: like the widespread use of railguns in place of conventional guns, every Valkyrie II being able to act as a mothership for drones rather than just recon variants, the much earlier emergence of those drone-support and beam rifle technologies, etc.. Skipping right to the moral of the story, the question of which timeline's Valkyries are superior depends largely on what criteria you're applying when you're judging what superiority means. As a result, it can easily go either way. Well, let's examine this in detail... the YF-29 has a beam rifle, two machine guns, two beam cannons, its internal micro-missile launchers, and a big damn knife. On the other hand, the VA-1SS has a pair of railguns, two laser cannons, two beam cannons, its internal micro-missile launchers, and what's essentially a big damn energy spear on one arm. All told, they're on pretty level ground in terms of dakka except for the question of missile capacity (the Durendal's lead is by about 36 missiles). Heck, their armament is surprisingly similar in terms of where it's placed on the airframe too, 'cept for the gunpods. Talk about a failure of context... Macross II is a six-episode OVA about a war, while Macross Plus is a four-episode OVA exclusively about the development of new variable fighters, and Macross 7 is a 49+ episode TV series. That's not exactly a fair comparison to make. Macross II does discuss certain aspects of the technological improvements (e.g. railguns) in the published material, the same as Macross Plus and others do.
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Oh, absolutely it does. Just for starters, the practical advantages of railgun technology over conventional guns is an area being avidly explored by real national milities including the US Navy. It's also been a factor in the program histories multiple Macross mecha like the Monster destroids, the Defender EX, and was a factor in the (re)design of the Valkyrie II platform as a space-optimized variable fighter. In a limited fashion, it also comes into play in the VF-25G's choice of armament. (In the last case, the particular emphasis is on the increase in ballistic velocity over what chemical propellant can make possible and the resulting improvement in accuracy and penetration power, whereas the Valkyrie II's case is focused more on the excessive power that made it possible for a Valkyrie to pose a real threat to enemy ships without resorting to reaction ordinance.)
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Oh, absolutely... we've never seen a gun pod in the main Macross universe that could do what the gun pods in Macross II do. Even the railgun on the VF-25G needs a propellant of some description to get the bullet moving, and almost all of the gun pods in the main Macross universe need a cartridge case to keep the whole affair together. Macross II's railguns need neither, reducing the materials requirements to manufacture ammunition and letting them operate without the limitations of a conventional gun... and opening up possibilities like significantly greater velocities than what can be achieved with chemical propellants, faster rates of fire, etc.
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*cough* Um... remember that thing I just said about the VF-4 doing it first? Yeah, the Valkyrie II's weird in that it goes against the usual convention of the battroid being shorter than the fighter is long. The Valkyrie II's 14m in battroid mode, and only 13.5m in fighter... a full 14m if you factor in the Super Armed Pack's big damn railgun.
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So, in short, nothing has changed and there's been no progress whatsoever for Robotech, yes? It gives me a sense of great peace and stability to know that there are certain universal constants, and that Robotech's inability to produce anything remotely resembling success is one of them.