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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Someone tried a few years back... it was a toy bootlegger looking to go legit that apparently pitched the idea before ever getting a license, and then kind of quietly folded after doing some draft work. I forget the name of the outfit. They struggled quite a bit to get something that actually looked good.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Given how little information there is about the Queadluun-Nona, it's difficult to say. Macross Chronicle mentions that it's a mass production version of the Queadluun-Rau that shares, approximately, the armaments of the Queadluun-Rau... but nothing more. If we assume that the Queadluun-Nona lacks the Inertia Vector Control System that makes the Queadluun-Rau, Queadluun-Rhea, and VF-22 Sturmvogel II difficult to mass produce, it would not have that main roadblock to production at any scale. Of course, its performance would be significantly lower because it would lack the IVCS's ability to protect the cockpit from high g-forces and the propulsion efficiency improvements that system conferred. That extreme maneuverability is the cornerstone of the Queadluun series combat performance, so it would be a much less effective unit even if upgraded... something analogous to the Regult Type-106 seen in Macross Delta.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Not "no one"... just an audience far too small for the mainstream toy and model kit companies to be bothered with. That's why Toynami passed on Southern Cross when they were Robotech's toy licensee during its brief resurgence in the early 2000s. The projected return on investment just wasn't good enough to justify the initial expense. Southern Cross fans are finally having their day now that Robotech's fortunes have fallen to the point that only indie outfits are willing to shell out for licenses. These smaller outfits are willing to deal with production runs an order of magnitude or two smaller than what Toynami and co. planned around.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Unclear. It is noted that several Oberth-class ships did escape destruction due to having been deployed to defend bases like Apollo Base or the L5 Manufacturing Station. That's the last we really hear of them officially. There is a ship in Macross Flash Back 2012 that looks similar to an Oberth-class shown as part of the Megaroad-01's fleet that may be a post-war improved type but no information on that exists. It's possible that there was some limited production of the Oberth-class immediately after the war that was subsequently ended as new ship designs like the Algenicus-type stealth cruiser and Northampton-class stealth frigate were introduced.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Nope. Presumably she had a distinguished career in the New UN Spacy Special Forces. The only members of the Jenius family to have significant/noteworthy appearances outside the titles they debuted in are Max, Milia, Komilia*, and Mylene. * Via Macross 2036, a canonical game in the Macross II parallel world timeline in which a 17 year old Komilia is the main character, and later a supporting character in its TRPG sequel Macross: Eternal Love Song.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Probably because the Neo Glaug was meant to be an unmanned fighter. Most of the Master File books are written from the perspective of writers on Earth or Eden. In Master File's take on history, the new emblem was not a product of the reorganization of the government and military after the Second Unification War. It apparently predates both, but was not widely used because Earth and the older extrasolar settlements doggedly held onto the old roundel. The novels take the perspective that the change came in with the Second Unification War.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    It did and it didn't... in a sense, it continues on as the Battroid mode of the VBP-1/VA-110 Variable Glaug. Other materials much more commonly depict the Spacy Marines as using predominantly Valkyries... if anything, the Zentradi marines in the anime seem to be the odd men out. No production obstacles are mentioned in terms of the (manned) Neo Glaug used by the Zentradi NUNS Marines in the Frontier novelization and Macross R. The Queadluun-Rhea/56 is probably subject to the same production obstacles as the Queadluun-Rau. Namely, the Inertia Vector Control System is complex and difficult to make, greatly limiting the production volume. IIRC, Master File alleges that the production rate is so poor that only a few dozen working units can be delivered every year. We know the NUNS makes use of Zentradi ships, though incidences of use of Zentradi mecha have been relatively sparse for the reasons previously mentioned (WRT survivability, operator comfort). Partly... it's also modeled on real-world flying wing aircraft, which are very flat by nature. I don't recall, honestly... the CG model used from the games is actually somewhat purplish in the artbooks. ... there are no "abandoned clone cities" in Macross Plus.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah. In Master File, even 5th Generation VFs like the VF-25 are mostly assessed in terms of their survivability when fighting outnumbered against the Zentradi. The Barbarossa's VF-25s scoring several dozen kills each with no losses was considered a HUGE achievement and a ringing endorsement of the VF-25's abilities. That's more a concern regarding cultured Zentradi defecting. The biggest concern seems to be preventing the Zentradi from acquiring any information about Humanity and its growing interstellar civilization. So much so that, in Master File, the NUNS was ordered to destroy emigrant ships that could not escape from an approaching Zentradi fleet in order to prevent any information on humans from falling into that main fleet's hands. Macross Chronicle leans towards the idea that the "Enemy Battle Suit" from Macross Plus is also 500,000+ years old... that it's possibly a design that was unique to a particular region in the Protoculture's vanished civilization.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Not as such, no. When the ancient Protoculture designed the battle pods and battle suits that the Zentradi have been using for the last 500,000 years, little things like survivability or operator comfort weren't priorities. They're uncomfortable to use, they have only the minimum amount of automation necessary, and their defensive capabilities are fundamentally poor because their pilots were considered at least as expendable as the mecha. There's only so much that can be done to address that fundamentally callous design philosophy. The New UN Forces did make limited use of newly built and captured Zentradi mecha after the First Space War and after a while started developing improvements. That said, a lot of the improvements are focused not on improving performance but on improving things like survivability and ease/comfort of operation. The first one we were introduced to seems to have also been the most extensive improvement: the Queadluun-Rhea/56 seen in Macross Frontier. That's a reproduction Queadluun-Rau that's been improved by changing out the weapons, giving it an active stealth system, beefing up the armor, adding redundancy to the control system, improving the control system to accept NUNS munitions and even fold boosters, redesigning the cockpit interior to accept even male pilots, etc. It's also the only one that is really kept pace with VFs because the performance of the original was just so high. We were introduced to several more in Macross Delta via the NUNSM Al Shahal garrison force, though their Regult Type-104, Regult Type-106, and Super Glaug are noted to have only modest performance improvement over the originals. In a word, "Yes".... with a "but". During the First Space War, the VF-1 Valkyrie is said to have downed twelve enemy battle pods/suits for every one Valkyrie lost. Later models improved upon that considerably. Where the "but" comes in is that VFs may far outclass a Regult, a Glaug, or even a Queadluun-Rau one-on-one... but the Zentradi seldom go anywhere in ones and twos. More commonly, it's that one battle pod/suit pilot and anywhere from several hundred to several thousand of his best mates. Quantity has a quality all its own and the Zentradi are big believers in quantity. That, far more than the individual performance of their mecha, makes them a force to be reckoned with. This doesn't do a hell of a lot for the Zentradi in the New UN Forces, but many of them use Valkyries of one type or other rather than remodeled battle pods or battle suits. (The novelization of Macross Frontier and Macross the Ride both suggest that the actual main mecha of the NUNS Marines are the manned Neo Glaug and Queadluun-Rhea/56.)
  10. Seto Kaiba
    The VF-31AX Master File has a so-so shot of it in the writeup of Max's YF-29. It's only a couple inches across, but it is a clean printing of the image. EDIT: It's on page 107.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    We haven't seen a broad enough sample of Zentradi fleets to know one way or the other. Based on the very limited sample we have, it seems likely that having a records officer/archivist is a perk of rank for the commanders of branch fleets and larger formations. Vrlitwhai had a records officer, but a division commander like Quamzin doesn't appear to have been extended the same privilege given that he was accompanied by the similarly gung-ho but not terribly bright Oigul instead. Ogotai in Macross Frontier was the same type as Vrlitwhai and presumably a former branch fleet commander, and he also has a records officer.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Between December 23 2022 and January 15 2023, they apparently did some kind of write-in campaign for fans to suggest new Macross model kits as part of an event to celebrate the 7th anniversary of Let's Talk at Macross Modelers. The results of the write-in campaign/voting are being announced at 2200 on February 2nd.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    The more I think about it, the more I want to see this. They seem to be going to some pretty impressive lengths to be faithful to the art style of the original manga, and that means we are very possibly going to see some f***ed up Tim Burton-esque nonsense and some Bollywood action movie-grade CG at the same time. There's a very real possibility this will be like watching Dragonball Evolution on a literal gallon of acid. That's the problem... they're not afraid to do it. They should be, because every prior attempt has been a failure that finished tens of millions in the red, but they're not. The optimism on display would be inspiring if it weren't so obviously misplaced.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Almost certainly not. Concept art is development material. As far as any reliable source can prove, the proposed Robotech live action movie never got any farther than being a proposal. They paid out of pocket for a handful of story treatments in order to pretend that their writers were attached to write the movie itself, but those and all the other announcements of people being attached to write/direct/produce so far have all proven to be verifiably false. They're not at the point where they'd be producing concept art. There are a lot of other properties this could be from... the cancelled sequel for Edge of Tomorrow, any of a number of cancelled Transformers sequels and spinoffs, a cancelled G.I. Joe movie, etc. Nobody could call a Robotech movie "huge" with a straight face, which is one of the many reasons it's been in preapproval development hell for *checks* nearly 15 and a half years at time of writing.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Partly. There's quite a bit more to it than that, though. BattleTech/MechWarrior and Robotech both have a lot of legal baggage, particularly involving their use of third party intellectual property. BattleTech/MechWarrior in particular has a black mark on its name because of the many lawsuits it has faced for using copyrighted materials without permission. They're also old and rather obscure properties that never did quite "make it big". As such, they wouldn't really be likely to end up on a studio's short list of successful properties to adapt. They're basically looking for an instant win condition by adapting popular and celebrated shows. Macross had the legal obstacles put in place by Harmony Gold making it an unappealing prospect. It also suffers at bit from its approach to music not being something that would translate well to a live action format for western audiences. Plus the CG tech necessary to do it justice on the big screen is extremely expensive and relatively new. Gundam actually has a live action movie. It was a far future Universal Century sequel called G-Saviour, and it was... not well received. But for the most successful properties out there, the main obstacle is that there are some things about anime as a format that simply don't translate well (or at all) to a live action project written with western sensibilities in mind. One Piece is a prime example of that, with its strained-at-best relationship with realism, comedic tone, and unusual art style. It's not impossible... in the same way that my arse spontaneously sprouting wings and flying me to Europa isn't technically impossible. It's just so unlikely as to make no odds.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Wow. Just... wow. I'd like to be charitable and call this a bold move on Netflix's part. It's not, though. This is suicidal overconfidence at its finest. This is the "Hold my beer" moment at the beginning of a Florida man story that ends with the subject's hideous demise, a Darwin Award nomination, and a coroner's report that reads like a MythBusters insurance claim. This is just such an obviously terrible idea and so clearly doomed to fail that I have a hard time believing a human being is responsible for it. FFS, it's barely been a year since their live action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop got savaged so badly by critics and general audiences alike that they had to announce cancellation of all future plans for it not even three weeks after its premiere. This is going to be a beautiful disaster of such magnitude that it will make audiences look back on the 4Kids version of One Piece with genuine and heartfelt fondness. Far more so than Cowboy Bebop, I am absolutely fascinated by the prospect of how they might **** this up. The first couple story arcs were pretty heavy on the comedy with the big bads being fat!Alvida, Helmeppo and his dad, Buggy the Clown, and Jango and Kuro. They've shown a set for Baratie and Sanji's on the cast, so I'd guess they're going to end their first season with either Don Krieg or Arlong. Will we see some heavy and awful prosthetics work or some laughable uncanny valley CG? Which characters will get bowdlerized in the name of political correctness? (Safe bet Alvida will, but who else?)
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Speaking for the audience at the end, I see. "Are you enjoying this?" "No. Are you?"
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Because the gravity is artificial and precise local control is nominally possible, gravity may be neither uniform nor fixed at any given point and as we've seen in some works even what constitutes "down" may vary depending on where you happen to be standing. This was demonstrated in the opening of Macross Frontier's first episode, when we see Sheryl and her entourage disembark a galaxy starliner in microgravity and pass into an area where the gravity is raised to 0.75G as they enter Island-1 proper. Most, if not all, of the Macross's interior seems to be kept at normal Earth gravity of ~1.0G during normal operations but this can fluctuate a bit or fail due to damage or the Macross's transformation state. The Prometheus, and later purpose-build space flattops like the Uraga-class and the Macross Quarter's ARMD-L use a lower intensity artificial gravity field that's projected up over the deck to assist in arrested recovery operations. The ARMD-class and its successor designs don't seem to follow this practice, however, since they adopt a more space-friendly approach of just kicking the aircraft out the door and either letting it do its trick unassisted or using a non-contact electromagnetic catapult to provide some initial acceleration.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    The writeups of the various 5th Gen VFs typically mention it: Queadluun-Rau IVCS: ~4.5-7G (unclear) YF-24 initial ISC prototype: 2.0G VF-25 ISC/TO21: 27.5G VF-27 ISC/TO21: 27.5G YF-29 ISC/TO22: 30.0G VF-31 ISC/TO21C: 28.0G VF-31 Custom ISC/TO21C?: 29.5G Sv-262 ISC/TO21G: 30.8G VF-31AX ISC/TO24V: 30.0G Macross Chronicle only ever mentions a specific protective inertial neutralization capacity of the system in the Macross Frontier TV Mechanic Sheet for the Queadluun-Rhea. Both the YF-21/VF-22 and Queadluun-Rhea are mentioned to use an improved version of the Queadluun-Rau's Inertia Vector Control System, though exactly how the system works is never properly described AFAIK. Macross Perfect Memory describes it as an inertia control system that is used to improve the Queadluun-Rau's acceleration performance and the propellant efficiency of its engines and verniers. Macross Chronicle describes it as related to or based on gravity control but otherwise declines to offer an explanation except to go on about how it's an essential part of the high maneuverability of the YF-21/VF-22 and Queadluun series battle suist. Even Master File largely evades the question. Its mentions of the IVCS are mainly related to how it impacts flight control. It notes that the Inertia Vector Control System can control the magnitude of an acceleration vector but not its direction, amplifying or diminishing the effects verniers and control surfaces have on the aircraft's inertia. Based on that, it seems like protecting the pilot from g-forces is actually either a secondary function or a byproduct of its manipulating the aircraft's inertial mass somehow.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    All 5th Generation VFs use fold quartz, albeit quite sparingly. It's the essential material needed to construct the core of the Inertia Store Converter that protects the pilot from their incredible maneuverability. It's doesn't need fold quartz of an exceptional size or purity, but it does need fold quartz. (It is possible to build an inertia capacitor with high purity fold carbon, but it's much less capable as a result. The Queadluun series battle suits and YF-21/VF-22 have one called the Inertia Vector Control System.) They put fold quartz to a bunch of different uses in the series... fold quartz-based fold communication systems to prevent jamming from disabling Luca's Ghosts, fold wave jamming systems and amplifiers, the prototype super fold booster, and of course the many different flavors of MDE weapons. Of course, the Fold Wave System and its accompanying engine mods became the most extreme application of the stuff short of the planet-killing Dimension Eater bombs.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Assuming the VF-31X, or whatever its actual/official designation ends up being (VF-31X was an informal one used because the VF-31 was the base design they started from) is an actual thing in-setting and not just an unofficial contrivance of Master File? Veeeeeery unlikely. The VF-31X proposed by Master File is an attempt to make a YF-29-esque 6th Gen VF economical and even the book about it suggests it failed miserably in that regard and became yet another unviable super prototype with a total galaxy-wide production volume in the low double digits. I'd assume whatever the next series is will either continue flogging General Galaxy's poor old VF-171 or we'll see a point where 5th Generation VFs are the norm and the only difference between hero and fodder Valks is paintjobs like in the original series. Sakuradite!
  22. Seto Kaiba
    I really do have to admit I appreciate the lengths the new Master File is going to to explain how and why the Kairos Plus is a flawed and improvised weapon instead of just painting it as an amazing new design. Yeah, it has improvements, but those improvements are either unsuitable for mass production or applied unevenly enough that the greater performance ended up being detrimental to the aircraft in many other ways.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Because it's been a rough week, I decided to take a bit of time to poke at Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31AX Kairos Plus again. It really is interesting, and a little bizarre, how fold quartz has become a swiss army molecule to the writers of Master File. Up to now, it's been officially used in place of fold carbon to generate fold waves and heavy quanta in gravity and inertia control systems and fold devices. The newest Master File alleges that it has yet another use besides as a fold wave version of a radio crystal and a catalyst for producing exotic particles: it can be used to make superefficient quantum processors too. Master File's explanation for the "ARIEL III" airframe control AI adopted by the VF-31 custom Siegfried and VF-31AX Kairos Plus is that it's essentially a version of the ARIEL II airframe control AI that's been modified to take full advantage of the significantly greater computation speed offered by fold quartz-based processing. They say it's four orders of magnitude faster, making it essentially 10x better than the improvement gallium arsenide offers over silicon semiconductors for switching speed. This seems to be subject to all the same issues with fold quartz scarcity that every other important system the VF-31AX has, so it's essentially unsuitable for mass production. It's that massive leap in processing capability that lets the system get away with calling itself a next-generation control system and not an improvement of ARIEL II like the system adopted by the Sv-303 and VF-31. Also of interest is an explanation for the VF-31 Siegfried's apparent fragility under high speed maneuvering. Master File describes a manufacturing difference between the VF-25 and VF-31 in terms of how weight reduction and armor mounting to the frame is managed. The VF-25 went for weight reduction by designing the airframe around molding/bonding the armor directly to the frame. The premise was apparently that the greater material strength of the HLC-1221 would resist damage and structural stress better this way, and that when the aircraft was damaged individual cast-in-piece segments could simply be exchanged. This apparently worked pretty well, except that the joints between the cast-in-piece parts of the aircraft suffered more from fatigue during high-g maneuvering. The VF-31 used the same frame and armor materials, but went for an easier-to-repair method of simply riveting armor to the structural frame at the expense of slightly increasing the total weight. This ended up causing unintended problems when it was combined with a design change to the ISC on the VF-31 Siegfried. The Siegfried's ISC function was expanded to protect the entire airframe instead of just the cockpit in the hope that it would reduce fatigue. It ended up having the opposite effect because the ISC's discharge behavior was altered from a continuous slow discharge to a periodic discharge when the g-load dropped below a threshold. This resulted in the unintended behavior where the ISC was both less effective and actually applying torque to the airframe in multiple directions during its intermittent discharge cycles, increasing the fatigue on the airframe as a result. This apparently explains why Hayate's VF-31J was something of a hangar queen, needing a lot more repair because of its rough handling. The VF-31AX apparently addressed that problem in two ways. It went back to the VF-25's approach of using molecular bonding to attach the armor to the frame, but also adopted a reinforced frame applying a new approach to energy conversion armor technology where the material was made directionally strong. As in, the material was made such that it could be reinforced to better resist g-forces along a single axis. That was then layered to provide a three-dimensionally-strong reinforced frame that could better resist the torque from its rapid maneuvering and the periodic discharge of the ISC. This new material resulted in the weight reduction we see in the VF-31AX stats. It's noted that because this new material is only applied in a haphazard manner to the repaired VF-31 Siegfrieds, the weight distribution and balance of the resulting aircraft is poor and maintenance requirements increased.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    A good read indeed. Nothing particularly unexpected among the subject matter, except for how surprisingly blunt he was about finding Netflix's adaptation of Cowboy Bebop distasteful. I figured it would come up, but I figured he'd be diplomatic about it and either sidestep the issue, give a noncommittal answer, or damn it by faint praise. For him to come right out and say he found it so unpleasant that he'd failed to get past the first scene and that it was not Cowboy Bebop and never would be was far more direct, unreserved, and openly negative than I'd expected.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Buddy Daddies can best be described in "Like X but Y" form. Like Spy x Family, but intensely irritating. Spy x Family's Anya was an adorably precocious kid who, in her own way, desperately wanted to help her adoptive father. The kid in Buddy Daddies is a few years younger, a fair bit more realistic, and as a result a LOT more annoying and detrimental to the story's entertainment value. It doesn't help that there's no real reason for the protagonists to keep the 4 year old kid around either. They're hitmen, not spies, and she's not a part of their cover. She's just a rather bratty four year old. (Let's be honest, the "major event interrupted due to kid needing to pee" gag is funny exactly once in a story. Past that point it's just grating.)
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