Seto Kaiba

Isn't that pretty much the reason for half of the attendance at any given Robotech panel?

Granted... but it can't be denied that the use of super parts as standard hardware on variable fighters operating in space was apparently on the decline, given what we've seen of the models rolled out after the VF-11 Thunderbolt. One can only assume that the increase in airframe size in most cases included not only space for internal armaments, but increased fuel tankage. It'd certainly explain why the space-optimized VFs (VF-4, VF-14, VF-17, VF-19F/S) either don't have super parts or, in the case of the -17 and -19, why their super parts are only equipped on the rare occasion when extremely heavy combat is expected. With the notable exceptions of the VF-11 and VF-25, it looks like the generations following the VF-1 were largely designed not to need the added fuel and firepower of super parts under normal operating conditions. There's still a niche for them, but prior to Macross Frontier (and the VF-25 in particular) it looked like they were rapidly becoming hardware intended for use in exceptional circumstances only. Definitely befuddling... if it doesn't need them for routine operations in space, why is it they're constantly equipped with them? All things considered, with almost all of its weapons tied up in super parts, it feels like a step backwards compared to its predecessor (VF-4A) and its successor(s) (the VF-19 and VF-171). Still, my one gripe with the whole affair is its lack of a forward-facing beam gun, forcing it to depend exclusively on its gun pod (and its rather limited ammo supply) for dogfighting, whereas many other VFs have more than one forward-facing gun system. Still, I suppose the reduced complexity probably helped keep costs down, which along with its all-regime performance no doubt helped it win out over the heavier but better-armed VF/VA-14. Indeed... which is why I'm still wondering if there's anything to tell us if those VF-5000G and VF-5000T-G Star Mirages used by the Zola Patrol were new variants produced specifically for the Zola Patrol (or colony market) or if they're upgrades made to VF-5000Bs that were surplussed by the U.N. Spacy and sold to the Zola Patrol. If they're independently produced, that could speak to the VF-5000's low cost having made it an attractive option for colonies with tight budgets, which was a strong selling point in the VF-9's favor. Or, at the very least, a space-optimized variable fighter maximizing its versatility by having the option to carry a wide array of ordinance. To me, the VF-4 certainly feels like a fighter developed to be a jack of all trades for colony operations where space is at a premium. It has everything it needs for space and atmospheric operations built right into the airframe, with a set of main engines and a set of supplementary engines for each regime and most of its weapons mounted internally or at least conformally. Once space and resources weren't at a premium anymore, they could afford to take fighters that had optional external equipment to improve their capabilities again.

Eh, was it ever in any doubt? Most of this noise about the convention panel being a spectacular event and the site of the next big reveal was coming from Maverick_LSC and MEMO1DOMINION, a duo known for being habitual liars and shameless Harmony Gold apologists. After all, Maverick is an emasculated husband who ardently desires to be a "big name fan" to compensate for the fact that his wife treats his hobby as something shameful to be concealed from their friends, and MEMO is probably still operating under the assumption that if he sucks up to Tommy enough and continues to purge his critics from the fanbase, Tommy'll offer him a job at Harmony Gold. They tell lies like that in a desperate attempt to make it look like they're insiders, and as part of a rather unsuccessful bid to keep what's left of the online fanbase from realizing that the franchise is going nowhere and has been for a long time. So, in short, Harmony Gold continues to live down to our expectations by accomplishing nothing and telling the fans bugger all, then attempting to disguise their lack of progress and talent by endlessly hyping the same repackaged goods from five years ago. It's nice to know that even after 25 years of ineptitude and failure, Harmony Gold hasn't changed a bit.

It was meant to be... after all, the only reason the "Space" channel exists is because the CRTC wanted to stop Canadian cable and satellite providers from importing the SciFi Channel, done in the name of maximizing the amount of "Canadian content" on the air. Rather a pointless gesture, since a lot of what they're running is shows purchased from the SciFi/SyFy channel and run in a delayed airing.

No problem... I didn't like Macross 7 Trash very much either, but I've got a good memory for details, and it just sort of jumped out at me when I read it, along with the classic ARMD in the 37th Colony Fleet and Mahara's partner's converted QF-3000E. Inferences nothing, we have hard facts about the weapons... and the ability to carry a diverse assortment of munitions for a wide variety of operations was one of the major selling points of the main VF that replaced the VF-11 too... the VF-171 Nightmare Plus. Now you're injecting an unsupported inference onto what the sources actually say. Yes, the VF-4 was found to be lacking in atmospheric performance, but as Chronicle said it was a fighter that was geared towards space combat anyway... so I guess you could call it deficient by design. The VF-4 and VF-5000 were, as Chronicle said, replaced not because they were bad or inadequate, but because the U.N. Spacy wanted to have an all-regime fighter again. It's just that simple. One could argue that the move toward internal munitions bays and micro-missile launchers was in all likelihood a move intended to eliminate, or at least reduce the need for, super parts. They do go so far as to point out that (conventional) super parts were considered undesirable on the VF-19 prior to improvements in the active stealth system that relaxed the restrictions a bit. Indeed... that's the VF-4{S/SP/ST} Siren from Macross: Eternal Love Song, one of the two NEC PC Engine games created to fill in part of the gap between the Macross: Do You Remember Love? movie and Macross II: Lovers Again OVA. It did, as you've said, have a set of optional FAST packs where it kept (among other things) its funnels. (Yes, you read that right, the VF-4 Siren's super parts had Gundam-style funnels, though computer-controlled like the GN Fangs from Gundam 00 instead of by psycommu like normal funnels in the Universal Century) No, the VF-4 Siren never had dual gunpods... it did, however, have a VERY large beam rifle oddly reminiscent of the Zeta Gundam's hyper mega launcher... (possibly brought about by the fact that the OVA's mechanical designers had worked on Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, and Char's Counterattack before working on Macross II and its prequel games)

Well, I'm glad you appreciate my candour... though make no mistake, I prefer to tell it like it is whenever possible, so I'll probably say something that'll piss you off sooner or later. Perhaps "object to" is insufficiently strong for what I'd intended. There aren't many people in the Macross fandom who actively dislike Robotech as a whole. There are plenty of people, even in the Robotech fandom, who dislike part of Robotech. The Shadow Chronicles movie is only the most recent example of this principle. It doesn't necessarily mean those people hate and/or look down on the whole thing. If I might draw on an example, the podcaster Zen72/JT strongly objects to Shadow Chronicles, and we've spent many an hour bagging on it together... yet that doesn't mean he dislikes the rest of Robotech. There will also be people who object to rewrites like Robotech, but on the whole there aren't many people who actively dislike the entire thing and choose to make a fuss about it instead of just ignoring it. This makes a sharp contrast to Robotech fans, who are being actively encouraged to take umbrage over anything to do with Macross... to such an extent that they all too often go so far as to label anyone who disagrees with them and happens to like Macross as a "Macross purist troll". If we take McKeever at his word... yes, it is too hard. The official line on the matter is that they can't (or won't) make a new TV series unless they can first get an episode commitment from a network. Since Robotech is obscure and fairly unpopular in anime circles, no network wants anything to do with it. Even Canada's SyFy channel knockoff dropped Robotech pretty quickly after only allowing it to run in the nosebleed timeslot of 7:00am Saturday morning. And it is awesome! It's a nice suggestion in theory... but unfortunately due to copious sucking-up and being in the right place at the right time, the guys who've sold their souls for what they fondly imagine is insider status are the ones who have largely been entrusted with maintaining the fan community, so the passionate-yet-sane fans are a dwindling band who are increasingly being labeled outcasts and heretics in their own fandom... it's quite sad.

Bloody hell, I just realized I never actually responded to the thread topic post... better late than never, right? (and I promise I won't multipost like this again... having kind of an airhead afternoon) Now, I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion that the VF-11 Thunderbolt is almost certainly the most widely produced VF out there. It did, after all, have the good fortune to enter service right around the time Earth started launching the large-scale long distance colony missions. If we take the 37th to be typical of those fleets, most of the ones launched before the VF-171 was put into production probably had upwards of 1,500 VF-11's... and that's not even close to their theoretical maximum capacity. (Given the carrying capacity numbers in Chronicle and elsewhere, it would appear that they're operating at about a fifth of their maximum capacity) Likewise, I agree that the second most successful VF is probably the VF-171 Nightmare Plus, but I'm hesitant to estimate the numbers that high since it was introduced in that era where colony fleets were allowed to determine their own defenses. Some fleets nominally went for an all-Ghost approach, and presumably others opted to continue producing the fighters they were already in the process of introducing (like the VF-19). I'd agree with the VF/VA-14 wholeheartedly, since that supposedly enjoyed a great vogue with the colony market as a space fighter, and was used on survey missions and whatnot as well. Not my favorite VF, but undeniably effective given that it lost out in Project Nova and STILL managed to do extremely well for itself... even after being captured and jammed full of alien hardware. The one area where I'd probably differ is in the VF-5000... it was a lost-cost atmospheric counterpart to the VF-4, which means that since they seem to favor repulsing the Zentradi in space, stocking up on 'em probably wasn't a high priority. It makes me wonder if the VF-5000G and T-G used by the Zola Patrol are upgraded military units that were surplussed out, or new models made for the colony market.

Well, clearly that's going to have to be updated/corrected with the new information, now isn't it? Makes me wish I was a faster translator, but you can't have everything in life... Refer to my previous post... I was talking about the mind system from Macross 7 Trash, which is either a spirita weapon or at least extremely close to one in principle, being that it's a system for collecting and weaponizing negative emotional energy. It's from Macross 7 Trash, one of the canon manga titles from the main continuity. Nothing at all... except, y'know... the Macross Compendium, Macross Chronicle, Macross 7 Trash... quite a list when you think about it. It wasn't the MAIN variable fighter, but there's no denying that it was still in service as late as 2047. You might want to check your facts before posting so we don't have to wade through a big list of corrections each time. Does it say "exceeds in every category" or "completely surpasses"? No. It doesn't. In fact, it's quite vague about how the VF-11 supposedly surpasses the VF-4 and VF-5000, though the previous paragraph seems to imply it surpasses them in flight performance, not necessarily other fields like armament. As such, most of my points still stand. Also, it doesn't help to throw something sketchley pointed you to earlier today at me and act as though you'd known it all along. Isn't it? It makes the fighter a bigger target, impairs stealthiness (of course that kind of goes out the window anyway when you're talking giant robots), and without them the VF-11C is armed only with a gunpod and rear-facing laser. Compare that to the fighters that don't need super packs to carry a normal combat load, like the VF-4, VF-5000, VF-14, VF-17, VF-19, VF-22, etc. Ooookay... so your assertion here is that a fighter that doesn't have/use wing hardpoints and relies exclusively on micro-missiles stored in its super packs is less versatile than a fighter that has semi-conformal missiles recessed into the airframe AND multiple hardpoints for carrying a wide variety of munitions? To quote an old robot phrase... "Does not compute". Anyway, the idea that the VF-4's guns are insufficient falls flat on two fronts. One, there is another, rather successful fighter that also relied on beam armaments... the VF-27. Also, there are VF-4 variants that can (and do) use 30mm gatling guns instead of beam cannons. Though I'm not sure how credible it is (and would suggest treating it as unfounded speculation until such time as we source it), I've also heard some noise about some sources saying the VF-4 can also take a gunpod. Maybe sketchley can shed some light on that last note, since he's done a few of the Great Mechanics articles. As a side note, the Zentradi Army might also want a word with you for your "beam guns alone won't cut it" position... Not to rain on your parade, but your self-congratulations here seem somewhat premature. Just because the VF-11 eventually replaced the VF-4 as the main variable fighter doesn't necessarily mean it was better in every way... just that it was an improvement in the fields the U.N. Spacy felt needed improving or focusing on. (Which, of course, the kind people at Chronicle have helpfully pointed out for us)

Okay, on review of the material I may be slightly mistaken. It's somewhat unclear whether or not the so-called "mind system" in Macross 7 Trash is a spirita weapon or if the technology's just similar. Either way, it's basically a beam weapon that runs on emotional energy. The system was apparently installed on a flight of VF-4's for testing, where it resulted in the destruction of one of the aircraft and the death of its pilot. The manga's kind of vague as to dates, but as it was what prompted 1st Lt Mahara Fabrio to retire at the start of the manga, it was presumably in either early 2046 or late 2045. Either way, they didn't exactly have as shortage of VF-4's if the test flight was anything to go by. There were a good two or three dozen of 'em out at once. (Not quite as bizarre as seeing the classic ARMD design mingling with other ships in the 37th Colony fleet, or a QF-3000E converted into a two-seat leisure spacecraft... but it's close)

But that, in and of itself, raises another question... why would the U.N. Spacy return to using a jack-of-all-regimes fighter like the VF-11 when they know the vast majority of the combat the fighters would see would be in space? One can only wonder why they went with an all-regime unit like the VF-11 and then went right back to regime-optimizing variants in the next generation of main VFs. Perhaps the VF-11 was every bit as underwhelming in other space conflicts as the ones attached to the 37th Colony Fleet were against the Varauta Army's VF/VA-14-derived mecha, designs based on a fighter that excelled in space performance. As far as I know, the whole business about the VF-4 having an unacceptably high cost-performance ratio is a Robotech-ism... their explanation for why the VF-X-4 (which they call YF-4) is conspicuously absent after the "Macross Saga". On reflection, I think he probably got that idea from the VF-5000 entry on the Compendium Wiki. It doesn't look like the article's been updated to account for the fact that the VF-5000 shared the main fighter designation with the VF-4 due to their being regime-optimized. Right now, it's still using the statement that the VF-5000 ousted the VF-4 as main VF due to its lower costs. (For me, it's kind of strange seeing all this stuff that's come to light in Chronicle about the VF-4 and VF-5000 being a space-and-atmosphere tag team like the VF-2SS and VF-2JA, since I don't recall seeing anything explicit to that effect prior to Chronicle... of course, it could just be that the focus of my research was on the parallel world continuity exclusively until recently.) I definitely agree that the VF-11 and VF-171 are probably the most prolific VFs out there in the main continuity, though I wouldn't be so hasty to discount the VF-14, since it supposedly enjoyed a great vogue with colony planets, emigration fleets, and survey fleets after its introduction.

It is a bit ugly, isn't it? I'm not too fond of the VFs that transform such that the shoulders don't look like they have a full range of motion... the Pheyos is another one that's on my list for that. Still, the current VF-4 battroid mode isn't the original one... it used to look a lot more like a VF-1 battroid, with a head turret similar to that of the VF-1SR Attack Valkyrie. Isn't that a Robotech-ism? It might just be that I'm exhausted after a long day at work, but I don't remember any Macross publication that calls the VF-4 too expensive as a main VF or not capable enough to cover a variety of mission roles. Just going by what we see of them in the canon depictions, the U.N. Spacy seems to like them just fine all the way up through the 2040s. Hell, they were even used as a test platform for newly developed spirita weapons during the war with the Varauta Army. The U.N. clearly still thought they were useful, since they did keep upgrading them to keep them in service as late as 2047. (This is, of course, to say nothing of the parallel world continuity of Macross II... in which the VF-4 Siren was enormously successful. It remained in frontline service for over fifty years with evolutionary upgrades, and it made several technological "firsts"... including being the first VF in all of Macross to canonically mount a beam rifle, and the second to have its own complement of pilot-controlled drone craft, the first being the VF-2SS Valkyrie II from the same continuity) EDIT: To clarify the above, I'm talking production order in terms of shows... chronologically the VF-4ST Strike Siren was first out with pilot-controlled drones Clearly superior in all areas? That's going to be a hard sell to make... after all, the VF-11 only carried missiles in its super parts, while the VF-4 didn't need super parts at all. Plus the VF-4 also had, by all accounts, six hardpoints for under-wing munitions, of which we never really see the VF-11 with any. Of course, there's the issue of the VF-11 having somewhat more main engine power, but the VF-4 also has two other sets of engines for which thrust ratings aren't known at the present time (a set of ramjets and a set of rocket boosters). The VF-4 has integrated forward-facing guns, while the only beam gun on the VF-11 faces rearward and it has to use its gunpod for any close-range engagements in all modes. There ya go... I've poked a couple pretty sizable holes in the VF-11's alleged superiority in all areas, and I'm not even trying yet.

Yeah, you and me both. My only real beef with Robotech is that in 25 years the people who "created" it never really managed to do anything original with it, and just keep milking the same three TV shows for a quick buck instead, which is really more a beef with Harmony Gold than it is with Robotech itself. Lots of folks in mecha circles object to Harmony Gold, even the ones who aren't Macross fans, because they act like apefaces. There are very few folks in the Macross fandom who genuinely object to Robotech itself, though it might not be their cup of tea. So, we just need to trick them into looking up when it's raining, right?

Oh, I'd say that happened right around the time Maverick and MEMO finished banning or otherwise driving fans away from the major online hubs of Robotech fan activity, leaving only those fans who agree with their views or are too scared or apathetic to voice a dissenting opinion and get properly banned like everyone else who genuinely gives a flip about Robotech. Indeed, that is strange... but let's not forget that many of those behaviors stem from the lies and exaggerations that Carl Macek and Harmony Gold were spoon-feeding the fans for something on the order of fifteen years. I think the reason these hostile behaviors are far more visible and even condoned and encouraged in the Robotech fandom is because these are people who have spent years or decades being told flat-out that the original shows are vastly inferior and that they have no value or merit outside of their inclusion in Robotech. In recent years, the lies coming from Macek and HG have expanded to the point where they've gone so far as to claim that Macross's creators think Robotech is better and sought to imitate it in the later Macross sequels. In the end, they're part of the "outlandish claim" set, but the outlandish claims they're basing their hostility on aren't their own... they're Harmony Gold's. Others adopt the practice of hating on the show's origins as a way to validate their own faith in the show in an industry that considers Robotech an example of practices that are now obsolete and unacceptable. They really don't NEED to do it, but I suppose they must feel a bit threatened when Macross fans bang on about all of its various sequels while the boys at Harmony Gold are still struggling to wrap up the overlong intro cut scene called Shadow Chronicles. Well, we'll find out sooner or later... from the tone of his coverage of the comics, I get the distinct impression it's more the "I feel obligated to do something special for the 25th" than genuine enthusiasm... but who knows, maybe this is like a bad movie marathon for him and he's enjoying the suffering? Y'see, the problem is that this sort of hostility is actually being encouraged by Harmony Gold and its volunteer staffers. So you've got the one side (Macross fans) that doesn't care much what the other says or days, and the other side (Robotech fans) that takes umbrage over every little thing that could be taken as a slight against their favorite show or those responsible for editing it together. For the most part, it's a one-sided vendetta. About the only thing we can really muster when they get going is a mixture of exasperation and a vague feeling of disgust.

For at least as long as I've been involved, directly and peripherally, in the goings-on of the Robotech fanbase, the fans have always been slaves to trends. This recent trend of fans putting out blogs and podcasts is just the latest in a long line of things they've done to try and convince themselves they aren't flogging the bleached skeleton of a long-dead horse. Back when I first found Robotech.com, it was the forum-based RPGs that were really trendy. Everyone wanted to run their own, and it eventually turned into a fight. After that, it was the social "bar" threads, which predictably turned into a fight after choking the life out of the site's off-topic section. These days, it's blogs and podcasts. Ever since JT came onto the scene and garnered the favorable attention of voice actors and the like, every wanna-be big name fan in Robotech's fanbase is starting their own blog or podcast in the hopes they too will get recognized for it. Predictably, that also devolved into a protracted flame war between the guy who earned his kudos and the wanna-be bigshots. Like all other trends in the Robotech fanbase, this one proved to be short-lived. Just one or two credible folks hopped on the bandwagon before the idiot brigade rolled in with the drama and tried to ruin it for the sake of their own self-advancement. At least the sane ones freely admit that there's just not enough to talk about to keep going for long, and will stop once they run out of material. Part of the reason is, I think, that he's coming back to resume his blogging after having made all that noise about how he was going to quit because there was nothing going on worth talking about anymore. Now that he's come back, it's got people wondering why. Some of the fans that I talked to about it were speculating that he's worried JT is usurping his niche as the one sane voice among the vocal fans. On the other hand, the majority said that it feels like he's doing what he's doing because he feels obligated to do SOMETHING for the anniversary rather than out of any genuine renewal of interest in the franchise. In any case, slogging through the old comics that most of the fanbase hates and would like to forget has already been done to death by a dozen other defunct blogs and podcasts already. Ask Harmony Gold and their volunteer moderators... they're the ones responsible for stirring up most of the hostility. Unless they instill the remaining Robotech fans with a borderline militant devotion to the franchise, almost all of them would move on to other, far better shows in short order. It's that militant desire to defend Robotech from any and all criticism (legitimate or otherwise) and their bizarre conviction in Robotech's alleged superiority that ends up as the underlying reason for most of the conflict out there. Yes, you CAN love both... though good luck convincing the loyal Robotech fans of that. These days, they consider even the most innocent, well-intentioned statement of "Well I like something about Macross better" to be flame-bait and trolling of the worst order. In the eyes of the Robotech hardliners, yes. Despite knowing rather a lot about RT and cherishing a sort of bizarre nostalgia for the series, I'm persona non grata on virtually all surviving Robotech fansites because of my preference for Macross. Of course, a handful of Macross hardliners would say the same thing going the other way, but they're rarer and quieter than the Robotech ones.

Now, it's no secret that the Robotech graphic novel was the chief parts donor when Tommy Yune was stitching together the lurching Frankenstein's monster we know as the miniseries "From the Stars", but it would be unfair to the other "donors" to claim it was the only source he was treating with light-fingered contempt. Parts of the pre-Space War 1 Macross timeline got "sampled" as well, as did some Mospeada concept art, and some character designs from the Street Fighter arcade games. The creative process currently in use at Harmony Gold for the animated continuity could easily be summed up as a bizarre recursive form of plagiarism. Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was a film assembled almost entirely from bits and pieces of Sentinels and the remake of Battlestar Galactica, the former of which was also composed in large measure of material shamelessly lifted from Macross and given a minor and poorly done Southern Cross facelift, and a good deal of material "based on" content from contemporary sci-fi (Star Trek: the Next Generation being the most obvious "donor"). The next one, when they finally get to making it who-know-how-many years down the road, will probably be a ripoff of Michael Bay's 3rd Transformers movie done entirely with pre-established content from Shadow Chronicles. I wouldn't have expected him to. After all, Tommy's MO has always been to pander to the fanbase and string them along by playing on their desire to view more stories about the Macross Saga's cast without straying into actual Macross. If one thing has remained constant since the mythical entirely fictitious "glory days" of Robotech, it's that you'll have a hard time finding a group of people who hate Southern Cross more than Robotech fans. Why would he shoot himself in the foot by including something that the fans have been saying they don't want for the better part of 25 years now? Really? And here I was thinking that the main prerequisites to be a modern Robotech fan were to have eaten a lot of lead paint as a child and be the sort of gullible prat who would fall for a scam like "Double your IQ or no money back".

Don't worry... sooner or later Maverick_LSC'll cook up a rationale to ban you if you keep trying to question the Harmony Gold company line and his bullshit. Some of the reasons he comes up with to ban the people who disagree with him are quite amusing. After calling him out on the obvious lies he was posting in the Macross legal threads on RT.com, he snapped and accused me of doing so only to cause Robotech fans "pain and suffering", and banned me. That you've gotten away with it this long makes me wonder if Tommy's finally leaning on them to stop banning people right and left after realizing there's almost nobody left on the discussion boards at Robotech.com to discuss Robotech. If MEMO's agreeing with you, that means he's probably hoping he can suck up to you to get you to do something for him later. But they're the same damn character... Jack Baker is a blatant clone of Rick Hunter in the same way that his girlfriend Karen Penn was a blatant clone of Lisa Hayes.

To be blunt, any traces of a compelling story in Robotech are a byproduct of the original Japanese shows, not the work of Robotech's writers. They've proved that time and time again. The (relatively) successful comics were not those with the best of writing or art, but those which pandered the most to what the fans wanted to see... the ongoing story of the Macross Saga cast. Part or, to be honest, most of the reason the "new" comics were far better received than the "old" ones was that the quality of the art improved significantly. True, they're not up to the standards of mainstream comic book titles today, but they're a hell of a lot less offensive to the eye than the old ones were. Since the writing was also done under the supervision of Harmony Gold, there's also the added "bonus" that they supposedly fit into the canon story of Robotech these days. Of course, they also get a pass from many fans for the same reason Sentinels did... pandering to the fanbase's desire to expand on the Macross story and characters. I doubt it... but the possibility exists. Of course, this could all be in MEMO's head, like most of the news he reports. So, business as usual? Another inconveniently sharp Robotech fan catches the mods trying to resuscitate the community they've been suffocating with bullshit and calls 'em out on it, and gets marked for a ban. Truly, the only ones welcome in the Robotech fanbase anymore are those too stupid to see the writing on the wall. (Or, indeed, those too congested to smell it... since it's written in bullshit ON bullshit)

Quoted for Truth... also, that's bloody well going in my sig. As someone who used to be a fan of Robotech many moons ago, and someone who still spends a fair bit of time conversing with the more sensible remnants of Robotech's fanbase, I would be inclined to cast my vote for the present situation as being the more disappointing of the two. I think those Robotech fans that I still talk to, and a good many others who aren't sucking Tommy's dick in hopes of getting a job, would say the same. While there's no denying that virtually everything that came out with the Robotech name on it in the 90's was a badly written and/or badly drawn piece of poo not worth the paper it was printed on... at least something was happening in the franchise. Sure, those in charge were as inept as they are now (if not moreso), and there was no movement on the animated continuity, but at least they were getting SOMETHING out there on a semi-regular basis. Nowadays, the only signs of life the franchise shows are some embarrassingly lousy toys that trickle out at a pace of about one a year, import toys from Macross, and the occasional empty promise that they're still working on a sequel to capitalize on what they're still calling the smashing success of Shadow Chronicles. Well, what were you expecting? If you're going to run a blog or a podcast talking about Robotech, there's not a lot to talk about. There's been no movement on continuing the Shadow Chronicles story arc for at least three years, and there's nothing in the foreseeable future either, so once they've exhausted the series as a topic the only things they can fall back on are the old comics and novels that Harmony Gold and most of the fans would like to pretend never existed. What did you expect? Robotech was never a popular title, even during its "golden years" in the 1980s, so it never had the clout or the appeal necessary to attract a big name comic book publisher. The license changed hands between independent publishers for years before finally croaking in 1998. Many of the artists involved were clearly out of their depth, and frequently resorted to tracing characters and mecha out of other shows, art books, and magazine articles. Quite a few of the writers seemed to have, at best, a vague idea of what Robotech was about, and were clearly trying to make the story more appealing by imitating whatever anime title was popular at the time. The result of this mishmash was, more often than not, embarrassingly amateurish and almost completely unreadable. In the end, what it boils down to is these amateurs were given an unpopular title their bosses picked up for cheap and told "make this marketable". Needless to say, they failed quite spectacularly most of the time. I suspect the only reason that the Sentinels continuation comic by Jason and John Waltrip was somewhat well-received was because it's a pseudo-canon continuation of the story of Rick Hunter and the Macross Saga cast, which is what Robotech fans care about more than anything else. The decision to toss the lot of them from the continuity and pretend they were never made is one of the few major decisions of Harmony Gold's current creative team that I actually agree with and approve of. Rubbish belongs in the bin, after all.

What's there to be confused about? The cover shows us that protoculture fuel is made by giving a naked man with a bright purple mullet electroshock therapy while he lays on top of a roulette wheel and balances a terrarium on his stomach.

Hell, you don't even need to look anywhere outside the video to know it's a Pachinko game advertisement... if the large Pachinko machine in the background wasn't a tipoff, there's the prominent statement that it IS a pachinko game right in the voiceover, with the word "pachinko" clearly intelligible to even someone who doesn't speak Japanese. I wouldn't even bank on them thoroughly reading this thread before jumping to the wrong conclusion... remember that Captain Donovan guy?

There was some speculation either early on in this thread or in the last one about what would come next in the Master File series. It seems somewhat unlikely that they'll do a VF-4, -9, -11, -14, -17, or -22 Master File book, since those models were touched on in either the VF-1 or VF-19 Master File books, or didn't have enough exposure and backstory for them to devote a whole book to them. I'd suspect the next (and possibly final) VF Master File will be the VF-25, which'll talk about the VF-171 and VF-27 in passing.

Sure thing... have two: Where Robotech is concerned, the truth is the weakest joke of all... No, aside from the few squeaky farts that spelled the end of the Masterpiece Collection series and a vinyl battlepod model, pretty much nothing has happened with Robotech since 2007.

Now, if memory serves, it's been stated or at least heavily implied that at some point prior to Macross Frontier colony fleets obtained (or perhaps always had) some degree of autonomy in selecting what to equip their defense forces with. Macross Chronicle established that there are some fleets that forgo the use of manned fighters altogether and exclusively use the AIF-7 Ghost on said mecha's sheet. Also, weren't the VF-25 Messiah and VF-27 Lucifer supposed to be fleet-exclusive VFs? It may even go back as far as the Megaroad-13, since the colony that the fleet established was apparently using VF-14s when the main VF of the U.N. Spacy was the VF-11. Anyhoo, getting to the point... if my recall is good here, when was there ever anything to say the Macross-7 fleet COULDN'T continue production of the VF-19 Excalibur? I mean, sure... they would be faced with a choice between the expensive, complex VF-19 and the new cheap, versatile VF-171, but it wouldn't be that unreasonable for them to decide to go with the devil they know over the devil they don't, especially after you factor in retooling costs.

Your image post there doesn't work... care to link us to the page where the image is... or maybe just post the image itself as an upload so we can actually see it? Ah, you fixed it... thank you. Yeah, that definitely looks like a reasonable cross-section of the fandom, though not exactly a flattering one. The average age there's got to be what, mid 30's? Consistent with them having seen Robotech in 85 and having been old enough to actually remember it.

Issues of the Master File's unreliability aside, wasn't that already a long-established fact of life in Macross before Macross Frontier came out? The whole point of the Project Super Nova tests was to select the next main variable fighter, and the VF-19 won that. Prior to Macross Frontier establishing that the New U.N. Spacy adopted the VF-171 instead as a cost-saving move, the VF-19 was already slated to eventually replace the VF-11.