Seto Kaiba

I am somehow not surprised that it was One Piece that ultimately broke the "western anime adaptations suck" curse... or that season two has been approved. I guess all it took was an author with sufficient clout to veto any of Netflix's attempts to Netflix up the series.

That's the standard MO for Robotech licensees in general, TBH... they do the most popular/main character designs and move on. The farthest afield they've really gone is the "stealth" paintjob that was just Roy's VF-1S with the white swapped for black and dark gray for yellow. Or maybe that "YF-1R" that only got made by Toynami because it was the signature ride of the MC in a then-new Macross Saga videogame.

Macross's active stealth technology is an anti-radar countermeasure only. It works basically the same as noise-cancelling headphones do. It leverages wave superposition principles to make the aircraft invisible to enemy radar through destructive interference. Basically, it analyzes the incoming radar wave, calculates how it's going to reflect off the airframe and back towards the enemy aircraft, then sends a precisely timed radar beam back to the enemy aircraft that has the same frequency and amplitude as the reflected radar beam but is 180 degrees out of phase with it. The enemy radar receives both its reflected radar wave and the active stealth system's antiphase radar wave at the same time and because those two radar waves have the same frequency and amplitude but opposite phases the two waves cancel each other's amplitude out and the total amplitude of the radar waves that the enemy radar receives is zero... making it look like there's nobody out there. Even if it's not perfectly aligned, it can still greatly reduce the amplitude of the radar return to the point of potentially being dismissed as noise on the signal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_interference?wprov=sfla1 Infrared emission mitigations would be binned under passive stealth, since the focus is on suppressing the aircraft's own emissions rather than evading detection by countering the emissions of enemy aircraft. VFs have a bunch of different passive stealth measures. The heat sequestration I described previously is one that's used to reduce the aircraft's infrared profile. Others include the use of radar-absorbent materials to absorb radar waves so less energy is reflected and the use of airframe shaping and internally stored weapons to minimize the amount of radar waves that can bounce back to an enemy radar or even deflect them off in a different direction. The VF-25 Master File mentions the addition of passive stealth coatings meant to defeat fold wave radar by absorbing part or all of an incoming fold wave radar pulse to prevent it from being reflected. The VF-22 Master File also makes mention of materials the VF-22 used in conjunction with its ability to freely change the shape of certain portions of its airframe in order to reduce light reflections and thus make it harder to detect using a LADAR system or optical camera.

So, further to this... yeah, the next section of the book does mention (in passing) the (movie) Queadluun-Rau's (cybernetic) brainwave control system and video-brain feedback setup that General Galaxy's engineers were unable to analyze or reproduce at the time. It seems that they just straight-up used the system from the Queadluun-Rau for video-brain feedback setupi, since they were categorically unable to reproduce it satisafactorily themselves. The YF-21's BDI is subsequently explained as an attempt to speed up a Valkyrie's response time by making that VF an extension of the pilot's body directly controlled by the brain instead of routing control information through an airframe control AI. (Which explains why Col. Johnson said that the issue analysis on the YF-21 was problematic because half of the unit's computer was Guld's brain... it's not a figure of speech, it's literally true.) Apparently switching to the more reliable but less invasive Brain Computer Interface led to more than a 20% loss of performance in terms of system reaction time though it's said that it's considered easier to use by the pilots. (Which is perhaps understandable, given that the next section makes the BCS-based control setup sound twitchy as hell with an end-to-end reaction time of under 10 milliseconds and 200 hours of training required just to prepare the pilot and collect the data necessary to set up the brainwave control system for them to use!)

So, there may be an explanation for that as well... admittedly in one of the sections I've only skimmed so far. Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II makes several references to the YF-21/VF-22's origins as an outgrowth/rethinking of General Galaxy and the New UN Forces plan to restore the Queadluun-Rau's factory satellite and produce an improved version of the battle suit. While this much is also in the official setting, Master File adds a new aspect of the plan by suggesting that (in its version) the YF-21 grew out of plans for a Variable Glaug-esque miclone version of the improved Queadluun Rau. They make a couple mentions of the (movie) Queadluun-Rau's cybernetic control interface, which they describe as an unreproducable "black box" system at the time (the mid-to-late 2030s). I'll have to dig into that section properly to verify, but the implication thus far seems to be that the Brainwave Control System of the YF-21 is an attempt to reproduce that black box system from the Queadluun-Rau or at least duplicate its functionality using Human technology. Well, it was a prototype... those aren't generally known for being entirely stable or reliable. The intention was that the manual controls were there purely for emergency use, should something go awry with the Brainwave Control System. There's mention that the restraints locking the arms and legs in place automatically release if the BCS connection deteriorates to a certain level to allow the pilot to switch to the manual controls easily. However, it's definitely a testament to Guld Goa Bowman's physical and mental discipline that the first testing accident connected to the YF-21's BCS was the one in Macross Plus where Guld's YF-21 experienced a (recoverable) loss of control after almost colliding with Isamu's VF-11B. It's noted that they did address the alignment issues when they switched to a laser-based brainwave monitoring system for the reduced-capability Brain Computer Interface on the production VF-22. (Of course, that was also after the brainwave system was made a support system for the regular controls, so it was a lot more fault-tolerant anyway.) Nope... that's Fold Dimensional Energy Conversion. It's a technology the Protoculture probably developed by studying the Vajra and requires extremely high purity fold quartz to pull off. Some of the Protoculture's most advanced constructs had that ability - like the Birdhuman, the Fold Evil on Uroboros, and the Protodeviln's Evil-series bodies - but that's something that was beyond Human technology until the development of the Fold Wave System for the YF-29 Durandal in the late 2050s. We've previously touched on how even building a fold wave system is nearly impossible because the quantity and purity of fold quartz needed to make it work at an acceptable level are prohibitively high. The YF-21's about twenty years and two generations* before that technology became available. * The YF-29's Fold Wave System was such a massive game-changer that Master File reclassified the YF-29 as a 6th Generation VF prototype. Macross Delta's Blu-ray extra features appear to imply the same happened in the official Macross setting, with the VF-31 Siegfried being classified as a Gen 5.5 VF apparently because of its adoption of the Fold Wave System. Nope. Not aware of any VF that can do that. I haven't gotten far enough into the VF-22 book to see if it says anything about that, but in other Master File books the subject of waste heat management in space does come up (esp. the VF-25 book). The approach they describe involves the VFs using their cryogenic fuel slush as a system coolant, cycling that coolant back into the vacuum-sealed tanks where it's both less detectable and eventually dealt with when the fuel is used in the compact thermonuclear reactor or the verniers. Outside of combat, it's mentioned that they don't bother with heat sequestration and use the surface of the wings as a radiator for cooling the VF... assuming it's not equipped with FAST Packs that have their own heat sink systems like the VF-25's Armored Pack. I'm not sure it's even his ego... his hyperfixation on music makes me think he's just high functioning autistic and has trouble with social cues.

I have to admit, the more I read of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II, the more I'm convinced I've done the book a disservice by describing it as one of the less-good installments of the series. It's got quite a bit of good material, it's just the original variants are largely stupid. The section on the VF-22's cockpit makes it sound like the YF-21 prototype would've been an absolutely miserable aircraft to operate. It describes the original BCS control system as having such tight tolerances that the pilot was basically not allowed to move at all. We're talking way beyond normal levels of restraints, to the point of immobilizing the pilot's entire body via a Houdini-like system of restraint straps and clamps in normal operation. All of that was in service of keeping the EEG sensor hood from shifting, since moving as little as 10mm from its ideal position would cause the system to lose 40% or more of its accuracy and send the aircraft to emergency recovery mode. The connected Brain Direct Image system required measures nearly as severe, basically requiring the pilot to fly with their eyes closed and wearing sound-damping headphones. The description of the Sync Pod chair that grips the pilot's entire body instead of using conventional restraints sounds uncomfortable as hell too. There's also a mention that the pilot suit also includes a version of the metabolic booster system that's the only mentioned feature of the VF-15, which uses lasers, electromagnetic fields, etc. to stimulate the body's metabolic stress responses as an anti-g measure. It's said that it can provide the wearer with the endurance to temporarily handle g-force load of +20 for nearly three minutes. The same system is also used for life support, slowing the pilot's life processes down in the event of an emergency escape of the aircraft to allow the pilot to survive up to 70 days in space.

... so that's where the inhabitants of the Discovery and Picard writer's rooms went.

Just the one so far... the only Valkyries to get multiple volumes thus far have been the VF-1 (five volumes) and the VF-31 (two volumes).

Master File's Structure and Systems area for the VF-22 goes with an interesting take... asserting that, since the book was written shortly after materials regarding the VF-22 began to be declassified, that there are still many unclear areas regarding its systems and performance. With the last operational VF-22 unit - SVC-665 - officially retiring its VF-22s in March 2061, the VF-22 seems to have had an unusually short service life in Master File's view. They were only active for around 19 years due to their high operating costs and high difficulty of maintenance and operation. They do acknowledge that some private companies may continue operating them, in a possible nod to the Macross Frontier novelization where the Macross Frontier fleet's SMS branch had three VF-22S's. There's an interesting note in the introduction that claims the YF-21/VF-22 started out as a Queadluun-Rau for miclones and changed partway into development into a new model VF for Project Super Nova. It's noted that the aircraft ended up becoming larger than originally planned in order to accommodate the New UN Forces stealth requirements so that all necessary arms and tanks could be stored internally. There's also an explicit reference to the VF-22's brainwave control system being an obstacle to widespread adoption to a degree that it was considered a "pilot selection system" because not everyone was compatible with it and training to operate the system takes a lot of time and a statement that the actual performance of the aircraft varied greatly depending on the pilot's overall level of compatibility with the system and thus its versatility was VERY low. The section on the nose has an unusual statement about the VF-22's radar and its interaction with the energy conversion armor. Apparently the VF-22's synthetic aperture radar extends outside the aircraft's nose and into the sides of the fuselage, dorsal frame, and beavertail as an extremely large synthetic aperture radar. In practice, it sounds similar to what General Galaxy's SV Works would later develop in the Sv-303's Mirage Package system. Though in this case, it's said that the synthetic aperture radar stops working if the energy conversion armor is energized due to electromagnetic interference. General Galaxy asserts (via the author) that this is a non-issue since during close-range combat the primary detection system switches to the optical cameras and LADAR system. There's also an interesting (and prophetic, considering this book was written in 2014) statement that the YF-21 concept was originally aiming for a completely opaque armored canopy relying entirely on the projecting data direct to the pilot's brain with only a single monitor within the cockpit as an emergency backup. The test pilots objected to this plan, and further difficulties with the original BDI system led to the introduction of more transparent canopy sections and internal monitors to ensure the pilot had an adequate fallback field-of-view. Even more interesting, these transparent canopy sections are not covered in battroid mode. The armor shutters protecting the pilot are on the inside of the canopy, not the outside.

Later explanations, esp. WRT the DYRL? versions, suggset that Zentradi are anatomically and biochemically different as giants vs. as miclones. IIRC, that was basically what the explanation of Exsedol's changing appearance hinged on. That his TV appearance was what he looked like as a miclone, with his role-specific enhancements disabled/removed, and that his movie appearance was what he looked like "on the job" as a giant. Considering rule of thumb is that Zentradi are generally 1/5th their giant height as miclones, Cromwell's grandpappy must've been a senior commander-class Zentradi like main fleet commander Boddole Zer. He'd be 16.5m tall as a giant, around the same height as Boddole Zer who towered over the 13m+ commanders. (Either that or he's More Machine Than Man and entirely too preoccupied with size.) The average Zentradi is said to be approximately 2m tall as a miclone... on the tall side but not unreasonably so for a human (says the nearly 2m tall guy writing this)... but they're also big believers in Large and In Charge with their leaders being substantially larger. Vrlitwhai's 1354cm tall as a giant, meaning he'd be 271cm tall as a miclone (a whopping 8ft 10 inches) if his height isn't an enhancement that can be removed in micloning. One can only assume the Zentradi have done amazing things for the sport of basketball. The New UN Spacy 7th Fleet is one of the fleets from the central New UN Spacy, according to what little commentary there is on it. Cromwell's Battle Astraea was its flagship, which he and his crew stole when they deserted and disguised its disappearance as a fold navigation accident. I don't think there's been any statement connecting it to the Battle Galaxy, which was destroyed utterly in the movie version of Frontier. It just seems to be a modified reuse of Battle Galaxy's CG model, with the hull number presumably being a coincidence. Master File also presents the YF-21-2's BDI control architecture as so radical and so unprecedented that even General Galaxy was hesitant to actually authorize mass production of it because of how finicky and immature the technology was. For what it's worth, Master File does indicate that the VF-22 had similar problems to the VF-19 but on a smaller scale since there were fewer of them and the pilots being recommended to fly them were already the military's elite. So while the VF-19 was making the Earth NUNS's rank-and-file very nervous with its peaky, unstable performance the VF-22 was struggling with compatibility issues in terms of pilots who could get the best out of the BCI system. Ironically, Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II was written several years before Delta came out... but by an amusing coincidence lists the final year of the VF-22's use by the New UN Forces as early 2061, not long after Wright Immelmann's ill-fated flight that resulted in the destruction of the city of Carlyle by (illegal) dimensional weapon. The one you're thinking of is a fan design from a 2003 issue of Model Graphix magazine as a part of its recurring feature series "Advanced Valkyrie in Action". It was inspired by the proposed, but never built, Lockheed Martin FB-22 light bomber variant of the F/A-22. There are only three or four official versions of the VF-22: VF-22 initial type (impl. VF-22A) VF-22S - the type seen in Macross 7 and Macross Dynamite 7 VF-22HG - experimental Galaxy fleet version with improved specs for cyborg use VF-22 Manfred custom - VF-22S w/ Di Zauberflote & ISC VF-22 Todo custom - based on VF-22HG or separate cyborg custom of VF-22S

After six episodes, I'm strongly considering proposing a new title... Yuri for Fun and Profit. Yeah, I definitely got that vibe too... especially considering she can't seem to remember that her arm is actually injured half the time despite the wrap.

Yeah, he had potential. It's a bit of a shame that, after the Ferengi flopped, the TNG writer's room never really settled on a second candidate to take over the role the Klingons has previously occupied as the Federation's primary antagonist. They toyed with the Romulans and they toyed with the Cardassians - both debuts featuring future Gul Dukat actor Marc Alaimo - before they ultimately kinda gave up. Jean-Luc Picard not really having a signature villain besides Q definitely worked against Picard in the writer's room since the Romulan connection that drove season one was entirely offscreen and then they just did the Borg twice. TBH, while I've seen this particular complaint a number of times I honestly can't say that I see it myself. Both Discovery and Picard are very badly written and definitely suffer a fair amount of "protagonist-centric morality" as a result being Main Character-driven shows instead of Star Trek's usual ensemble-driven format, but apart from a few brief and terribly hamfisted moments I don't recall them getting overtly political. They're preachy as hell, but that's just what happens when you have a writer's room that doesn't really "get" Star Trek trying to make DSC and PIC sound a bit more like classic Trek by having the main charater deliver a filibuster-length speech. Jean-Luc may be memetically famous for them in-universe and out, but they lose a certain je ne sais quoi with the show making his positions hypocritical, clueless, or just plain wrong half the time. In all fairness, that's a topic that certain Trek characters have struggled with in TNG, DS9, and ENT. Some of those are at least as cringeworthy in terms of execution, despite the showrunners having the best of intentions. Comes up a fair bit in the relaunch novelverse too... albeit mainly because of species that are androgynous, hermaphroditic, undergo some kind of metamorphosis that causes them to change biological sex at a certain point in their life cycle, or have more than two biological sexes like Species 8472 (5+) or the novelverse version of the Andorians (4). The Trill in general seem to exist to invoke this, considering how often people stumbled over Jadzia's pronouns WRT her symbiont's switch from a legendary dirty old man to a relatively more reserved young lady. (They at least seem to be good sports about it, though.)

I am not much of a toy collector, so please take this as vague guidance at best, but I found them to be a little on the stiff side. The range of articulation is not quite what I would have liked. I'm not sure about the endurance, since I just posed them once and put them on a shelf as knickknacks.

Macross's sequels have zigzagged the idea of whether the Zentradi stand out or not quite a bit... The idea that part-Zentradi have issues managing the elevated physical aggression the ancient Protoculture designed their Zentradi ancestors with was a new idea brought in with the Macross Plus OVA and subsequently abandoned not long after it. I guess Master File felt compelled to explain why this supposedly widespread problem that was regarded as an obstacle to the YF-21's adoption as next main fighter was never mentioned again... both in terms of it being a widespread but not universal issue and the introduction of a cure that permanently resolved the issue. Zentradi in subsequent sequels always blend into the population perfectly until the story needs them to not. I guess that's the benefit of them being an amazing technicolor population with a much greater range of normal body types than humans. You can have most Zentradi look identical to humans and still have a bunch of them be green, ghastly pale, seven feet tall, and so on. Like how Milia looks completely human except for her green hair (and that may be excusable by rule of anime), while the inhabitants of Macross 5 are mostly the ghastly pale type of Zentradi to make it obvious to the viewer Macross 5 is an all-Zentradi fleet. Looking a little more into Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II... the events of the Macross Plus OVA's final episode are glossed over for in-universe reasons. It's said that there was an official announcement shortly after the incident to the effect that "a super-AI system went berserk" but that most of the information about the incident remains under seal so all people can do is speculate and theorize. Interestingly, the Master File actually takes the view that the BDI-equipped YF-21-2 was objectively superior in terms of specs due to the incomplete nature of the X-9 Ghostbird's AI and that it should have had an advantage despite having used up most of its ammunition fighting the YF-19-2. The thing that made it an even fight was that the DECU6000/Sharon Apple had self-evolved to a "super AI" thanks to the illegal bio-neural chip installed by Marj. From there, it returns to toeing the official line by indicating that the incident proved the dangers of AI technology and the continuing usefulness of manned fighter aircraft which prompted the New UN Forces to abandon the X-9 and quietly resume Project Super Nova as though it'd never been cancelled. General Higgins's pro-AI faction apparently lost an enormous amount of influence and their rivals had a field day crowing about the insufficient anti-hacking measures in the X-9 program among other things like smugly indicating that you can't hack an organic pilot. (Which the Macross Galaxy fleet apparently later took as a challenge.) While hypnosis proved to be at least partially effective against Isamu and the YF-19-2, it's noted that the YF-21-2 proved to be completely impervious to Sharon's attempts to infiltrate its systems due to the BDI's radically different architecture. The section talking about the decision to reinstate Project Super Nova mentions that while the military went with the more conventional design in the YF-19, they persuaded the New UN Gov't's assembly to approve limited requisitions for the YF-21 as well as a special forces fighter despite its higher production and operation cost. Development of the YF-21 restarted in November 2040 using the YF-21-3 that had been in storage on Earth. The Brain Direct Interface (BDI) was scaled back to become the BCI (Brain Computer Interface) that operated as a support system for the manual controls. The new system required a new airframe control AI designated ANGIRAS-BRAIN-2, which combined with the other refinements led to the military issuing YF-21-3 a new provisional designation as YF-22. Two more units (YF-22-2 and YF-22-3) were produced and later tested at New Edwards in the first half of 2041 and approval for mass production was granted after space trials ended. The first mass production VF-22 rolled off the line to the Earth NUNS in 2042. Having switched from pursuing the next main fighter role to a special forces role apparently hurt GG quite a bit financially too, since that sharply reduced expected production volumes by order of magnitude... from "tens of thousands" to just a few hundred. General Galaxy was apparently struggling at the time due to having taken many contracts for things like spacecraft and stardrive systems for the New UN Forces and civilian enterprises. They got a bit of a shot in the arm when the UN Spacy Weapons Test Center proposed building the VF-22 in batches of 200 to "test the transition to a production design", allowing development of the VF-22 to continue using the budget that'd initially been earmarked for the X-9 Ghostbird. The concept Argus Selzer apparently developed from this was to customize the VF-22s to the needs ot the various local commands requesting them since no one location was expected to need more than about ten VF-22s including spares. This proposal ultimately led to the New UN Gov't parliament approving the purchase of 100 VF-22s, and later expanded by another 200 aircraft, but it's said that the number of aircraft actually produced and delivered might not have been accurately reported due to losses in development accidents and production of replacements. The last bit talks about the possibility that the VF-22's extremely high stealth performance was used for illegal operations... with the book's in-universe author presenting that as likely, but probably a necessary evil. The new variants described in the book are an odd bunch. The VF-22B is said to be a modified Block 5 VF-22 from 2045 that abolishes the vertical tail in order to reduce the burden on the energy-intensive active stealth system. It's said to have also adopted a new stealth paint based on carbon nanotubes that reduced reflected light, making the VF-22B stealthier at close range by making it harder to detect via LIDAR and optical cameras in addition to its improved radar stealthiness. It's said to pay for this via a reduction in maneuverability and top speed from the extra weight added to its wing surfaces. The VF-22D is an extended fuselage based on the VF-22B that abolished the BCI and adding a second crewman in order to operate as a dedicated attack aircraft able to carry a whopping ten large anti-warship reaction weapons. This unfortunately resulted in a significant loss of speed and maneuverability, so the end result was it was diverted to training use. The YVF-22E is a VF-22D modified as a side-by-side cockpit attacker with two BCI systems. It contained refinements to the system that prevented the operator's emotional state from interfering with the system's decision-making functions. The YVF-22U is another odd bird... the YVF-22E was further modified to attempt to use it as a forward drone control ship where the copilot could control multiple Ghosts using the BCI. It's said to have been able to control up to six Ghosts and 24 target drones, though the handling is noted to be VERY dependent on the individual operator. The YVF-22VG is a fairly straightforward case of GG attempting to swap the extremely expensive flexible wing material for a traditional variable geometry wing. The YVF-22SA is an attempt to address a defect in the VF-22S in which its laser cannons could accidentally damage the airframe itself in high-g maneuvers by introducing a set of movable dorsal laser cannons. Next change I get, I'll have a look into the Structure and Systems section.

Coming off an insane week... decided to watch something absurd. Yuri is My Job! is... odd. It's definitely unconventional as stories go. An incredibly vain and nasty high school girl who's put her all into a facade of being cute, innocent, and charming in order to bag a rich husband accidentally injures someone on the street and is dragooned into covering their shifts at a theme cafe modeled on a private girls school in which all of the staff are working in character as schoolgirls in various yuri relationships. For all the protagonist's confessions to scumbag motives early on, it's surprisingly easy to get invested in her peculiar struggle because she has absolutely no idea what's going on, her coworkers can't be arsed to explain anything properly, and so she's left to fake it 'til she makes it and hope that she doesn't piss her new coworkers off too badly. It might help a bit that I'm honestly as lost as she is... (Or maybe it's that a sympathize with her for having such a wildly irresponsible manager who waited until her third shift before bothering to explain even the basic rules of her new and very odd workplace?)

Making another valiant effort to get through Buddy Daddies... this show is absolutely awful. A similar premise worked in Spy x Family because the kid was intelligent enough to understand what was going on with both of her adoptive parents even if she didn't understand the implications every time. The kid in Buddy Daddies is beyond stupid. I don't know how old she's supposed to be, but she has an IQ like a basement apartment number and the self-preservation of a clinically depressed cartoon lemming. Worse, she's incredibly annoying and they keep trying to make her being annoying the focus of the comedy. 😕

... and if you just go through the motions and do the bare minimum to make the story feel Star Trek-like as in Picard's third and final season, you might score some brownie points with the die-hard fans through fanservice but it won't make it an engaging or interesting series for the casual viewers who make up the majority of the audience. ... and this is why ever single origin story given for the Borg in Star Trek's 100% non-canonical "Expanded Universe" has been absolute garbage. First Contact already ruined the Borg by turning them from an inscruitable alien race who evolved into a symbiotic relationship with their technology and a completely alien set of priorities and benevolent (in their view) intentions into boring cyber-zombies led by an incredibly hammy and openly malevolent B-movie villain called the Borg Queen. The whole idea was incredibly stupid and they knew it, since it required them to repeatedly deny that the leader they'd created for the Borg was the leader of the Borg. It just got worse each time the Borg appeared, hitting its nadir in Picard's second and third seasons where the Borg Queen - who is definitely a personification of the collective and not at an individual being with its own agency according to the writers - is basically the last, lonely, pathetic survivor of the Borg collective. The last thing we need is another sh*tty origin story like Star Trek: Destiny to come in and reveal that humanity is responsible for creating the Borg. Yes, you read that right... in the relaunch novelverse the Borg were created as a result of something humans did. Specifically, the crew of the NX-02 Columbia. Ref. Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: Beyond, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard... All attempts to make Star Trek into something un-Star Trek-like... and all, notably, massive failures for the studio and the franchise. Best known in this franchise as "the crew of the USS Discovery".

One thing that Star Trek fans have that I consider an advantage over the Star Wars fans is we've always understood that our expanded universe is pretty awful and that most of us are pretty grateful that it's all non-canon and always has been. License novels, comics, video games, and so on never get great writing and honestly the stuff that does get put down in those has no business being in the TV shows because it's mostly awful fan service garbage. The Borg are a great example of that because a couple of different explanations for their history have been tabled over the years, and all of them are incredibly stupid. Without exception. Strange New Worlds would tend to disprove your argument by virtue of its very existence. The problem is what you're proposing here is, of course, that spin-offs focusing on all of the different alien races wouldn't really appeal to anyone except die hard fans. To have a successful series on streaming you need broad appeal. And, to be frank, you need a cast that the audience finds relatable and interesting. That's why the main characters of Star Trek are inevitably human. It's much easier for the audience to relate to them if they are either humans or human-like aliens with allegorical relationships to human culture. The only thing that was standing between the franchise and renewed success when the first new TV shows were being planned was their obsession with making everyone into a miserable bastard. Everyone on Discovery is miserable. Everyone on Picard is miserable. Everyone in the galaxy is miserable. They made things so dark and so bleak and so very unlike what audiences expect from Star Trek that nobody wanted to watch it. It says an awful lot that as soon as they put the optimism back in, all of the sudden people were tuning in in droves and lauding Strange New Worlds as a wonderful installment in the franchise. If the writers working on Picard had kept TNG's trademark optimism instead of bowing to Discovery's obsession with bleak and dark, the series would probably have been much better received... and likely would have joined SNW as one of the higher ranked shows instead of being the second worst by audience rating. That would have been harder to work with, since at the end of DS9 he had ascended to a higher plane of existence and gone to live with the prophets. They're pretty powerful, and it would take an awful lot of tension out of the series if the protagonist could simply stop time or teleport anywhere at will or step outside of linear time whenever something inconvenient happens.

I prefer to take the view that, in his prime, Picard was such a consummate diplomat that he just never made any mortal enemies. To me, this moment right here is peak Jean-Luc Picard. He never had any big bad who could come back in Picard and just try to ruin his life since 90% of his encounters with hostile aliens ended like that. So instead, most of his issues in the Picard series are self-inflicted.

Oh my, the Borg got it way worse than our boy Worf ever did. It's a hell of a downgrade to go from being the franchise's second-biggest threat to the Federation behind Q to being an enemy that could conceivably have been defeated by the Pakleds in a stand-up fight. That's why TNG's writers conceded that the Borg were simply Too Awesome to Use. When they were introduced, their technology was so far beyond what the Federation's best that a single Borg cube destroyed a fleet of 40 Starfleet ships at Wolf 359 without even breaking a sweat. That really hadn't changed by the time of First Contact either. A single Borg cube once again flew right through Starfleet's best defenses without issue and was right on Earth's doorstep before Starfleet brought it down using a weakness detected through Picard's link to the Collective. In order to be a recurring antagonist on Voyager, they had to be MASSIVELY downgraded and it got worse the more they showed up. They didn't just lose the mystique they had prior to First Contact, they were straight-up jobbing and by the end one rinky-dink Starfleet science ship that left BEFORE the events of First Contact had killed the entire Borg collective. Q should've been warning his kid not to provoke Janeway instead of not to provoke the Borg. The Borg got between Janeway and coffee, and Janeway removed the obstacle. I don't disagree... just, y'know, there's that very human tendency to link the protagonists to the most iconic of their antagonists as "their" villain even if the same enemy is fought by multiple crews/characters. The Borg Queen might've been introduced in First Contact, but Janeway's the Starfleet captain the Borg Queen absolutely hated and even feared. Jean-Luc was less a mortal foe than an old flame who dumped her. So, to me anyway, it really doesn't feel like season three's antagonists were an appropriate plot. The Changelings were always a DS9 thing, the Borg Queen was Janeway's archenemy not Picard's. Really, it's more an issue with TNG having not produced a signature antagonist for Picard due to it bouncing back and forth between several weak ideas.

Bringing back Jean-Luc Picard would have made a lot more sense either as some kind of political thriller with Ambassador Picard and his staff getting up to some kind of high stakes shenanigans, or Starfleet Academy Commandant Picard overseeing a training ship. Of course, any of that would depend on the creative staff being able to write compelling original characters... and as Discovery and Picard both attest, they just couldn't. S3 of Picard was less awful, but it's still a pretty weak exercise driven mainly by fanservice and a cast reunion IMO. Better by far than the previous two, but a terribly low bar to clear even on a bad day. Pretty much, yeah... I've watched a bit of S4 and it's less dreadful than S3 but not by much. Inscruitable aliens is definitely way better than Green Space Karen as an antagonist... but the main issue is still that the cast are just unlikeable and Burnham has too much Main Character Syndrome. In absolute terms I'd agree with you, but to many fans there's a certain sense of propriety involving which character a particular antagonist is most involved with. We've gone over that in previous posts, so I won't rehash it. The thing you have to remember about why the Borg are really more a Voyager villain than a TNG one is that as iconic as "Q Who" and "Best of Both Worlds" were, those were what set the Borg up as Too Awesome to Use in the minds of TNG's writers. They couldn't become a recurring nemesis because there was no way for the Enterprise's crew to plausibly win. That's why they only show up five times in 176 episodes and 4 movies with only three of those being actual confrontations. Compare that to Voyager, where 26 of the show's 172 episodes have appearances by the Borg (essentially one entire season) and across which the Borg are repeatedly humbled and outwitted by a much less elite and much less heavily armed Starfleet ship than the Enterprise-D or Enterprise-E. It's what took them from their status as The Dreaded in TNG to just another recurring Trek villain in Voyager, and the epilogue of Voyager is what put them at death's door in time for Picard. The Borg set some kind of all-time record for most profound Villain Decay, going from bodying whole fleets of Starfleet ships without breaking a sweat to having Janeway repeatedly outwit and defeat them with a tiny science ship and then in a one-two punch to being SO RONERY and just wanting friends before being revealed to be down to a single ship populated mainly by the corpses of cannibalized drones that gets destroyed by a bunch of elderly retirees in their restored classic car. No other antagonist in Star Trek - and few others in fiction - have gone through such profound villain decay. The Borg were THE DREADED in TNG, but by the time Voyager finished with them they were bordering on a lethal joke enemy, and when Picard rolled in they were on the brink of dying out on their own before Jean-Luc rolled up to take them off of life support.

Well, that's what happens when you launch a second series as a "saving throw" built around the Star Power of a single returning cast member because your original series flopped. Not Viacom/CBS/Paramount's finest hour. Especially considering the finale of season three is basically nicked from The Rise of Skywalker... which was not exactly a great moment for writing either. "Somehow, Palpatine returned" "Somehow, the Borg Queen returned and assimilated everybody" It's the same picture. No you would not. That is pretty much exactly what Star Trek: Discovery is starting from its third season to the end of its fifth and final season. That was their solution for the second time they retooled Discovery due to its poor viewership and worse reception among fans. They moved the whole affair almost 1,000 years into the future (from the mid-23rd century to the end of the 32nd century). It is even dumber than Discovery already was. Bruh, Star Trek has ALWAYS been political. ALWAYS. From the very start. And it was NOT subtle about it. Saying you want Star Trek with "no politics" is saying you want Macross without VFs and music or Gundam without Newtypes and Mobile Suits. ... that actually sounds worse. Like, "an original Star Trek novel by William Shatner" worse. Nearly as bad as that one time Shatner wrote a self-fic about how the Borg and Romulans brought his ass back from the dead post-Generations and he solo'd the entire TNG cast before defeating the Borg forever and dying a second time. I'mma take a hard pass, esp. since the Borg have already suffered so much villain decay that they were practically a joke by the end of Voyager. This was just an undignified end to an enemy that had already begun to feel like less of a real threat than the Pakleds. (Which makes it all the weirder that the Borg Queen's got it in for Picard when Janeway's the one who wrecked her sh*t.) In the future, they might retroactively write Discovery's 3rd-5th seasons out of the timeline as a parallel world but I think we're stuck with Picard. If only because it seems to mark the end of a brief dark period in the Federation's history that presages a more hopeful and positive era now that the Borg are officially done-for, the Federation's post-Dominion War isolationism is breaking down, and they've finally given civil rights to artificial life forms. Enterprise was doomed from the start and its showrunners knew it... its biggest opponent wasn't the network, it was that audiences were suffering fatigue from more than a solid decade of Trek on the air and losing interest. The franchise needed a break, but the network wasn't having it. Picard was also doomed from the get-go because it was built on the faulty premise that Patrick Stewart's star power would be enough to win back the fans even if all they did was start a second series using the same formula as the failing Discovery series and swap their OC out for a beloved established character. They didn't realize that forced Picard to be so wildly out of character most of the time that he hardly seemed like the same person.

Master File certainly seems to lean that direction... or at least, the at-the-time unsubstantiated fear that this problem would be widespread and affect Zentradi and part-Zentradi was used as part of the justification for passing on the YF-21 in favor of the X-9 Ghost. That borders on an Obi-Wan Kenobi "Certain point of view". The most doggedly literal interpretation would be that Project Super Nova was officially a response to the increasing frequency of armed incidents between emigrant populations and the central military including civil wars, rebellions, and anti-government terrorist activity. A big part of the Advanced Variable Fighter concept involves making stealth attacks behind enemy lines to sever the chain of command and end conflicts with minimal casualties. The fear that the advanced technology of the VF-19 and VF-22 might be used in an attack on Earth by those anti-government elements also spurred arms export restrictions that contributed to the development and deployment of the VF-171.

I'm headed into a ten day "Death march" type release period, so I figured I'd relax and knock a bit more out before things go to pot. So... when Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II finally gets down to the actual fighter itself... it kind of skips right to the prototype phase, mentioning in passing that the General Galaxy design team produced thirteen experimental testbeds (XVF-21) before completing the initial YF-21-1 prototype in early 2038. The prototype was completed around three months ahead of Shinsei Industry's YF-19-1, and had its maiden flight on Earth at the General Galaxy headquarters before being sent to the New Edwards Test Flight Center over on Eden for evaluation. Its test pilot at the time was New UN Forces Cpt. Holks Benetosch. YF-21-1 had a completely conventional control system, and was used to test the prototype FF-2450A engine, the aerodynamics of the prototype aircraft, and the stealthiness of operations with a fold booster. It was the primary test aircraft until the BDI-based YF-21-2 was rolled out on 17 June 2039. YF-21-2 was ferried to Eden by a Uraga-class space carrier. On delivery, Guld Goa Bowman assumed the role of primary test pilot after two weeks spent conferring with NUNS Cpt. Benetosch on the progress of YF-21-1. The reason a civilian like Guld was made the primary test pilot is because the introduction of the radical new control system was beyond the expertise of any existing pilot and Guld was considered the only one who understood the system well enough to operate it in testing despite the evident dangers of having the team's lead developer also serve in a potentially fatal capacity as test pilot. The YF-21-2's BDI was specifically tuned to Guld's brainwaves for testing, so it was considered too dangerous to allow anyone else to operate it. Testing went so well that it was considered to be progressing almost too smoothly, and with the YF-19 program at a standstill after the loss of the YF-19-1 in a testing accident, it's said that the General Galaxy team believed that they had the Next Main Fighter contract in the bag and that soldiers on the base were betting that General Galaxy's YF-21 would win in the end. It's then briefly mentioned that what ultimately screwed the YF-21 out of what seemed a sure victory was that the BDI system's stability was dependent on the stability of the pilot, Guld Goa Bowman... The subsequent section "Fatal Error" gets into the circumstances of the Macross Plus OVA itself with the gunpod accident that disabled the YF-19-2 (on 6 February 2040). It's said that the official reason cited for the accident was an issue with the ammunition management program resulting in the accidental explosion of the YF-19's gunpod. The case is said to be officially resolved, but without a clear explanation for how the YF-19's gunpod came to be loaded with live rounds considering that the test plan only called for paint rounds. It's conjectured, based on testimony and the loss of log files from the YF-21 shortly before the accident, that it was intentional sabotage on the part of Guld Goa Bowman. (Which was the case in the OVA.) General Galaxy knew that General Gomez, leading the investigation, was a part of General Higgins's pro-Ghostbird faction and lobbied to have the investigation dropped before they could be implicated, reasoning that if the Ghost X-9 became the next main fighter the YF-21 would still be adopted as manned support. It's mentioned that, ultimately, uneasiness about the reliability of the BDI came about as a product of Guld's increasingly erratic behavior. There is an interesting discussion there about the issues Guld was experiencing. Master File rolls with the idea that Guld's issue was less psychological and more a consequence of his heritage. The Zentradi are said to have heightened aggressive impulses as a part of their design, and some peace children born after the First Space War essentially suffered from a sort of impulse control disorder caused by their Zentradi genes. It's said that, in the 2040s, this was treated with medication while the modern approach is gene therapy. The belief that this innate characteristic common to the Zentradi was causing the unexpected behaviors from the BDI system was ultimately what scuttled plans to adopt the BDI on a production basis... though it's also mentioned the whole question was arguably academic, as the New UN Forces had decided to go with the Ghost X-9 by the time these problems were uncovered. The next section deals with the Sharon Apple incident...

It's more detailed than Macross Chronicle's version, but if you discount the parts about the motivations behind Project Super Nova being phantom enemies and the Spica Shock, it's not exactly contradictory. Ludmilla Blackwood is a non-canon character invented for Master File, but General Higgins's role as the #1 supporter of the Ghostbird project is a part of the official setting as is Guld's educational background and the nature of his pilot license. Argus Selzer is also an official setting (mentioned only) character.