Seto Kaiba

Yup... according to Jasonc, the image(s) that MEMO is making such a fuss over were originally "leaked" by him in the first place: Yeah... we had a brief discussion about this supposed Robotech "side story" they're working on back when the news first came to light via Twitter and that grainy, off-angle cell phone snapshot of Tommy's promo art. There wasn't much to actually talk about except how horrible the art was and how ridiculous it was for Tommy to get bent out of shape over having a grainy photo of his top secret promo art show up online. There were a couple theories about what it would be, mostly revolving around it being a dub of the Mospeada wrap-up OVA entitled Mospeada: Love Live Alive. Nothing confirmed, of course, because Harmony Gold seems to be afraid having the fans (or their detractors) find out what it actually is will put people off of it... rather a likely outcome, given the usual quality of their work. I'm not sure if anyone here is actually going to translate Macross the Ride... Gubaba and sketchley have their own things goin' on, and I'm up to my eyeballs in Macross Chronicle still. Here's the MW topic about it though: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=34229

Easy... it's coming from the same source as everything else Rhade says... his ass. The guy is a massive phony who, like many vocal defenders of Robotech, is long on rhetoric and short on actual fact. He knows very little about Robotech and even less about Macross, but tries to appear well-informed by passing off his wild guesses as fact and parroting things he's heard from people who actually know what they're talking about. In fact, he once posted a warning about a six year old computer virus as though it were the next big threat and then tried to cover his ignorance by claiming it was so new that none of the major antivirus providers had posted anything about it, that he's gotten samples of the virus's source code via MSDN, and that he was a freelance data security engineer employed by Microsoft, McAfee, and Symantec simultaneously. (His real profession is a mid-level hotel manager) That should give you an idea of what kind of guy you're dealing with and the reliability of his information. Welcome aboard, Rich... long time no chat! Yup... the second Macross Frontier movie, Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye, is due out this coming February. There's also a Macross Frontier prequel called Macross the Ride that's coming out as a serialized novel, and a few manga titles besides... and that's just the stuff relevant to Macross Frontier. There's more beyond that, like Macross the First. Because it's an easy opportunity to vilify Macross fans, and Jasonc in particular... and to cover his ass because he's the one who originally gave out those images.

Yes, I know... everybody knows those idiots have less of an influence on Robotech than the coffee stirrers in the Harmony Gold employee break room. It's just that since Tommy seems strangely reluctant to address concerns about the franchise himself, he relies on that idiot brigade to do it for him... usually it works, but empty promises and placating remarks have been losing their effectiveness of late, which is a good barometer for measuring the mood of the fanbase. The "shallow internet games" are, amusingly enough, pretty much Harmony Gold's primary form of public/customer relations. They're catching flak from all sides these days, so they were probably quietly thankful for the distraction Jason provided.

Granted, that usually seems to be their position... though at this point, with even the more loyal fans growing increasingly disgruntled with the lack of forward motion on Shadow Rising and the live action movie and directly challenging the word of MEMO, Maverick, and even McKeever himself, I guess they're thankful for whatever good (distracting) press they can find... even if it does come from "the adversary". The more I see of what Shadow Chronicles might have been, the more I think that a policy of "no news is good news" could be taken more literally than the remark ought to be. For many of the old-timey Robotech fans, the lack of news basically means that Tommy won't be raping Carl's legacy any further in the foreseeable future. For the newer fans, it just means they're not going to have to suffer a Shadow Chronicles sequel anytime soon. In a way, no news is the best thing for Robotech right now. I am kind of amused how, on chatting with several old-timey Robotech fans the other day, they have a tendency to refer to Carl's series as Robotech and the franchise as it stands today as "Robotech" (with quotes)... guess their contempt for Tommy runs so deep that they'll disown the franchise as a whole before admitting that Tommy's done anything that improved its situation.

Yeah... it was 1st Border Red Devil, though it looks like he removed the images a while ago for some unexplained reason, I assume Palladium got on his case for posting them since they're on that "don't covert other people's stuff to our game system" kick.

Eh... I'll second that emotion, though to be entirely fair the specific thread you mentioned is actually in violation of the site's Rules & Guidelines. I really don't see the harm in it, but for whatever reason the "powers that be" consider "VS" threads to be a form of spam. That'd be why your topic got the lock. If you want to pick up that discussion over PM or instant messenger, I can think of several people who'd be more than happy to indulge you (myself included). I do agree that there has been some excessive moderation stifling discussion here and there, like in the Macross R thread, but your case ain't one of 'em I'm afraid.

In a word, "yes". Oh ho! Yeah, that would certainly explain why MEMO is so eager to point fingers, he wants to take advantage of the uproar to get in good with Tommy by vilifying Tom and making this out to be some kind of conspiracy to undermine Tommy's "new Robotech". Really... knowing that MEMO is doing this to cover his own (perceived) indiscretion makes everything fall into place. Barhopping with a guy like MEMO is kind of a horrifying prospect... especially after knowing how the guy behaves when he's sober. Who knows? I might be able to exert the ominous influence MEMO says I have over Harmony Gold's legal dept. to get them to fork over those papers. After all, according to him I have enough clout there to get them to send cease and desist notices to any Robotech fan project that displeases me. Oh, I'll grant you that Tommy's resume wasn't exactly remarkable when he was hired on by Harmony Gold, and that it's gotten progressively less remarkable since, but I do think there was one factor that made him stand out in the sea of nobodies whose minimal/nonexistent design talent, lackluster writing ability, and lack of originality made them eminently qualified to serve as Robotech's creative director... he actually wanted the job. He claims, on his HG staff bio, that Robotech is what inspired him to attend art school instead of entering UCLA's School of Engineering. Tommy was a fan, and that was probably his main motivation to apply for the creative director job. Knowing Robotech's history, I doubt it was a highly sought-after position... what with the previous creative director having presided over a string of embarrassing failures that further blackened the franchise's already-dire rep as a relic of the obsolete rewrite process.

Granted, we know that Harmony Gold's main sources of income are their film distribution business and the rental properties they own in California. If the rather anemic-looking catalog of licensed films on their official website is anything to go by, I doubt their other licensed titles are earning enough to keep the doors open. It's a safe bet their hideously overpriced rental properties are what's paying the bills. Oh, it's not that hard to understand. You see, real estate is an unreliable industry with more ups and down than the knickers of an indecisive whore, so it certainly wouldn't hurt to have an extra source of income that you don't have to put in much work to maintain. Robotech is that low-effort, moderate-return source of income for them, as they peddle it to regional distributors in countries progressively further down the human development index. It's a small source of income, but one that requires almost no actual work on their part. All the dubbing work falls on the regional distributor, and the official Robotech merchandise is low-quality crap produced as cheaply as possible and then sold as "limited edition" goods at a substantial markup by a cheap fulfillment house. They might not be making a lot of money doing that, but they're definitely bringing something in by cutting all those corners. If they're telling the truth (and that is a BIG "if"), then Shadow Chronicles turned a profit all on its lonesome... they didn't need the money from Maguire to make up for shortfall. This, of course, is much less of an impressive feat when you realize the movie was made on a budget confirmed by Tommy himself to be under US $1 million. Again, it's a lot of profit for not a lot of work, since they made the movie on a shoestring budget and priced it like a competently-made movie. They're makin' money on Robotech... it's just that they're doing it by cutting corners and peddling garbage to their fanatic fanbase at obscene prices.

Ironic, isn't it? The one website out there where people are talking about real Robotech news instead of the pet theories of fanatical fanboys and the Harmony Gold company line is a Macross fansite where Robotech is basically persona non grata outside of a single thread. Oh, come on... if the idiots at Harmony Gold were actually capable of making an interesting Robotech show, they wouldn't be in the mess they've been in since 1986. It's just not fair to mark them to the same standards you'd use for a competent studio staffed by professionals.

This made me IRL. You've constructed a circular argument that requires you to believe what you're trying to prove in the first place. You're basically citing your unfounded assumption that the Zolans are a designer sub-Protoculture species to support the idea that only a manufactured sub-Protoculture species can use a micloning machine, and then claiming that because we've seen one example of a Zolan who's used one that must mean the species was created by the Protoculture. For one, there's no evidence to support the assertion that only a genetically-engineered sub-Protoculture species can use a micloning machine. For all we know you could chuck a standard poodle in there and have it come out the size of an elephant. It would certainly explain why we've seen hydras in sizes ranging from "common housecat" all the way up to "Bengal tiger" (house cat size... for a Zentradi). So, really, that Graham Hoyly could use a micloning machine to become a giant doesn't prove that Zolans are a sub-Protoculture designer species. In fact, there's no hard evidence to suggest that they are... the question of Michael Blanc's unclear heritage notwithstanding. For all we know, they could be the descendants of the actual Protoculture (ala the Mardook), or just a coincidental quirk of convergent evolution (see many examples).

Ha... yeah, I'm kind of surprised that the Robotech lunatic fringe is getting this worked up over a single piece of concept art. I'm not surprised in the least that certain individuals are rushing to lay the blame on Tom Bateman for "leaking" it though. They've never been shy about trying to demonize anyone who criticizes Tommy Yune or his handling of Robotech in the most ridiculous ways... like claiming that all the people who took issue with the blatant lies those same people were telling about the Macross legal issues were a sinister army Tom and I had assembled to destroy Robotech from within, or that I use my mysterious influence to clout Harmony Gold's legal department into shutting down Robotech fan projects for fun. Clearly they do... though if you put it in perspective, it's not exactly hard to see why they're so worked up over this. Not to put too fine a point on it, but having you "leak" this one piece of rejected concept art is the only bit of actual production news Robotech fans have had since early 2007. Even though it's a rejected concept for an already-released movie, it's still something new and tangible that the fanbase hasn't seen before... and that's BIG NEWS for them. To us it might seem trivial, but we're spoiled by having high-quality Macross shows coming out on a semi-regular basis, accompanied by many detail-rich publications and myriad products. To them, your "leaked" concept art is literally the first new conversation topic they've had in years. Unlike the consistent and empty assurances that "we're working on it" and that "great things are happening, but we can't talk about it", this rejected Ark Angel concept piece is something tangible that proves that Harmony Gold was actually trying to do something with Robotech in the not-too-distant past. Well, yeah... that's what guys like MEMO do. If something makes Tommy and/or his version of Robotech look bad or otherwise upsets Tommy, you can bet they'll be looking for someone to blame. Particularly on RT.com, vocal Robotech fans have a bit of a persecution complex... they're determined to see any implicit or explicit criticism of Robotech as an attack on them and the fanbase as a whole by Macross fans... often regardless of whether the person making the criticism is a Macross fan or has even seen Macross.

Or... since Macross's creators still keep DYRL in some kind of Schrodinger's canon, it's also possible there was a long-term Protoculture presence on Earth and that the Birdhuman was left behind during their evacuation some 20,000 years before Space War 1. Radiocarbon dating has been known to be somewhat imprecise if conditions at the sample site are less than ideal... it seems all too possible that exposure to alien materials and whatever weird radiation an alien mecha might give off could skew the sample date. ... if there was actually any hard evidence to support the idea of a Protoculture intervention there at any point in time, let alone during the fall of their civilization. It's plausible, but that doesn't make it fact. Bad choice of example... Michael Blanc's heritage is disputed at best. Try as I might, I've been unable to turn up anything related to the animation that explicitly calls him part-Zolan. On the other hand, 2059:Memories labels him part-Zentradi... so I would be extremely reluctant to cite him as proof of Human-Zolan genetic compatibility. There is also the well-known and oft-referenced line in Macross Dynamite 7, but that seems more like an anatomical quibble related to child-rearing than a question of whether conception is even possible. Or, to play it more closely to what's actually said... they were banking on one of the sub-protoculture species they created solving their problem after they were gone. After all, they went to a lot of trouble to leave behind an enormous combat mecha to wipe humanity out if they went to space without solving their internal conflicts first, and a record on Lux that would only activate in the presence of a Zentradi hybrid.

Huh... if that were true, I'm not sure if I would have a good laugh at his expense or just shake my head at the folly of Harmony Gold's staffing decisions. Since he kept getting work, I'm inclined to suspect that he did in fact graduate. I can't see DC putting a dropout to work on one of their flagship titles, however briefly. He's no mechanical designer... but if he can be said to excel at anything, it's drawing cheesecake. If he'd stuck with his draft designs, the Shadow Chronicles movie might have only been a profound disappointment instead of an embarrassment to Robotech and Mospeada fans alike. I won't even talk about his writing "skills", since that'll lead to a tirade that'll make The Lord of the Rings look like a short story. The flat-out astonishing part is that in terms of his success rate, he's a marked improvement over Carl Macek. Oh, of course... the various boot-lickers, toadies, and assorted hangers-on who comprise what remains of the "hardcore" Robotech fanbase are always keen to find conspiracies in anything that makes Tommy look bad. I'm not surprised in the least that Tom's name has cropped up there... nor would I be surprised if my own showed up as well. It's best just to ignore them, doing anything else will only egg them on to greater heights of idiotic behavior as they attempt to defend a failed SF franchise most of the world stopped caring about back in 1986. Well... that's not entirely fair either. Doing nothing at all will also egg them on to greater heights of idiotic behavior, because some of them are stupid enough to believe someone actually cares what they think, despite all evidence to the contrary. The upshot of ignoring them is, I guess, that it will egg fewer idiots on.

Eh... mind you, it's not like Harmony Gold hired just anyone who put in for the post of Creative Director. Tommy might be a self-righteous hack on an epic ego trip, but he's not completely without credentials. He's supposedly from a good art school, though admittedly that's no guarantee of talent. He also had prior experience in (badly) imitating a manga aesthetic. The biggest problem with making Tommy the creative director is that he has pretty much no experience with mecha and SF. Prior to getting involved in Robotech, his one specialization was making cheesecake-heavy action comics. That's not exactly an ideal skill set to have when your task is to try to salvage a terminally-mismanaged mecha/SF franchise that only ever met with lukewarm success after its inept "creator" spent the better part of 15 years finding new and interesting ways to run it into the ground. Tommy's no mechanical designer, and he's certainly no writer... but that he's actually managed to do what his predecessor couldn't and overcome incompetence and a crippling lack of originality to squeeze out a sequel is oddly impressive...

Granted, but isn't that more or less exactly what we're dealing with here? Instead of a F-15D built in Japan for the JASDF, we're talking about an export-specification VF-19E (presumably) built on Frontier for the fleet's New UN Spacy garrison and the attached SMS forces. This does take place like fifty years after whatever was left of NATO went up in smoke, so it's not like they're wedded to the NATO designation system... and I'm pretty sure there's not a lot of precedent for "改" as a variant letter under NATO's guidelines either.

... the hell? Was that a VF-25 in Brera's colors?

Eh... the use of a double-suffix may be more common in Macross II's parallel world continuity, but it's not like it's unique to it. In the confines of Macross II's official setting, the second suffix letter denotes either a unit carrying special purpose equipment (VF-1xR, VF-4S[P/T]), or the operational regime it was designed for (VF-2x[A/S]). The use of second suffix letters is far less consistent in the main continuity and sources based on it. The use in this particular case is consistent with some versions of US fighters built either for experimental purposes (F-16XL) or under license by foreign powers (F-15DJ). No, it actually doesn't... at least not entirely. There's always the VF-5000T-G, the VF-11MAXL, VF-171EX, etc... or non-canon customs like the VF-19ES and VF-25Gu. One would assume that, as with the F-15DJ and the still-in-testing F-16IN, the atypical use of a second suffix letter denotes that it's a VF-19E is either being built for, or under license by, (and to a somewhat different spec) what is technically a foreign power (from Earth's perspective)... the Frontier government.

Uh, no... to expand on what sketchley has already said, the VF-19EF Caliburn and its "leader" variant are not a replacement for a preexisting design. The Dengeki website for Macross the Ride explains the VF-19EF as being a stripped-down export version (a "monkey model") of the VF-19E. As the "Master File" books apparently aren't part of the official setting, this is actually the first halfway-reliable mention of the VF-19E's existence. Even if the Master File books were part of the official setting, the VF-19EF wouldn't be replacing anything... the VF-19EF and Basara's VF-19改 would presumably just be variations on the stock VF-19E. Personally, I'm hoping for a model kit... or at least directions for kitbashing your own.

That's a question for another thread, but the short version is that it's nowhere near as secure or capable as the major third-party alternatives. It enjoys a large share of the web browser "market" because it's a pre-installed component of every modern Microsoft Windows OS, which accounts for a little over 83% of the world's personal computers. There are plenty of reasons to dump on IE, but that's a matter for another thread... On the note of cell phones, one of my other pet peeves cropped up today... most phones these days try to get you to buy custom ringtones and whatnot from the service provider, and go WELL out of their way to stop you from just putting some music clips on your phone's memory card manually and using those. Every new phone I've gotten in the last half-dozen years has required some kind of firmware crack or other trickery to get it to let me load my own custom backgrounds and ringtones onto it without a fuss.

Likewise... it's a stylistic clusterf*ck of elements from several different previous VFs that just do not work well together. I'd much rather see Alto stick to flying his VF-25F Tornado Messiah or the VF-171EX Nightmare Plus than have that horrid thing take center stage. There's ugly and then there's ugly... and being a mishmash of conflicting design elements from the SV-51, VF-19, VF-25, and VF-27 firmly puts the YF-29 in the ugly category, IMO. I have a sneaking suspicion that the YF-29's the main Macross continuity's answer to the Metal Siren... a painfully ugly and painfully overpowered prototype pressed into combat in extremis at the climax of the movie. I'll second that emotion...

Eh... this is literally the first we've seen or heard of the bloody thing and the movie won't be out for another 2 months, so we're not going to have an answer to that question. The piece describes it as being Alto's, but the movie is still forthcoming... so I'm not surprised that they have almost nothing to say about it. The main thrust of the piece is exactly as sketchley summarized in the SCOOPDA thread... it's a new valkyrie made for the 2nd Macross Frontier movie, supposedly piloted by Alto, and Bandai is tentatively making a 1/100 scale model of it to sell for 1260 yen. That's all there is (of significance) in there... there ain't no more. So far, the only screen captures from the movie that we've seen have shown Alto still flying his Tornado Messiah.

It does... but the odd part is that it really looks like a SW-XAII Schneegans from VF-Experiment.

One or the other... I don't recall having seen that in his post at the time I posted. It might've been blocked by my IP range filter if it was running when I made that post. Oh well...

There's also concept art of what appears to be an early version of Basara's Fire Valkyrie modeled on the VF-11 with a guitar on the contents pages of Kawamori's Macross Design Works book...

Yes, that would seem to be the case... and was also apparently the genesis of research into better anti-g-force measures that culminated in the YF-24 Evolution and its inertia store converter.