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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    This is far from the first time someone in Hollywood has floated the idea of doing a Warhammer 40,000 adaptation. The idea usually never gets very far, typically because the WH40K franchise is considered too niche to have serious mainstream appeal and too edgy and too cliche to be taken seriously. Now that someone seems to actually be taking the idea of an actual WH40K adaptation seriously, I have a feeling the biggest roadblock they're going to run into is the setting itself... and how much of it is derivative of other properties which the creators of the game were parodying at the time. The risk of a faithful WH40K series losing its audience to darkness-induced audience apathy is very real. On the few prior occasions that there's been serious talk of developing a WH40K movie or series, it's always focused on adapting the franchise's most celebrated novels. Typically the talk about adaptations revolves around Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy (Xenos, Malleus, and Hereticus). The other series that usually comes up in those discussions in Gaunt's Ghosts, also by Dan Abnett, though far less frequently than Eisenhorn. Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain series has been bandied about a little bit too. I think what we're seeing here may actually be the fruition of an announcement made back in 2019. Producer Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files, The Man in the High Castle) announced his intention to have his studio, Big Light Productions, work on a live-action adaptation of the Eisenhorn trilogy. Big Light Productions has a history of working with, and distributing its films through, Amazon including The Man in the High Castle and Leonardo. Now there are actual contract negotiations in progress, Spotnitz's studio has only one other project that current is in the works (a second season of Leonardo), and Henry Cavill's suddenly voicing interest in doing a WH40K series. It'd be a good starting point, since Eisenhorn set up a lot of the modern WH40K setting and is less involved in the massive pitched battles side of things and it has two sequel trilogies that could be adapted as well should the series take off. The Ravenor trilogy (Ravenor, Ravenor Returned, Ravenor Rogue) starring Eisenhorn's star pupil and the new (and rather more overtly lovecraftian) Bequin trilogy that's styled as the final third of a trilogy of trilogies that also features a final showdown between Eisenhorn and Ravenor.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    If it's the same one used on the VF-31 Siegfried, then that'd be a "No". One of the few interesting and surprisingly well thought-out original details in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31 Siegfried was the explanation of how the economized version of the Fold Wave System used in the Siegfried custom differs from the full spec version of the technology used in the YF-29. The Siegfried's Fold Wave System uses less fold quartz at lower purity, so it's much less expensive to produce and they can make and maintain several of them. The downside is that the performance improvement is much less, and the FWS needs an external source of powerful fold waves (e.g. a powerful fold singer) to activate where the YF-29's FWS has no such activation restriction. It neatly explains why the Siegfried is only about on par with the VF-27 performance-wise and why Delta Flight can't simply spam the FWS to beat the Aerial Knights any time they want. The VF-31AX Kairos Plus from Absolute Live!!!!!! is noted to have been improved through the adoption of more fold quartz - not necessarily higher purity fold quartz, just more of the stuff - so the performance of the FWS may have improved somewhat. Whether it has overcome the restrictions on activation of the Fold Wave System, we'll probably find out in the finished manuscript.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    For the record, Amazon.co.jp lists a street date of December 29th 2022 for this 128 page joke at our expense.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Well, now we know they're officially taking the piss. Amazon.co.jp's listing for Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31AX Kairos Plus has the stat block for the VF-31AX on one of the preview images. To call it "underwhelming" is excessively generous. If this weren't on an official listing on Amazon, I'd think I was being trolled. The specs are barely different from the stock Surya Aerospace VF-31A Kairos. The wingspan's a bit narrower (13.53m vs. 13.70m), it's a bit flatter but that might be a typo (3.58m vs. 3.85m), the weight is exactly the same at 8,250kg, the ISC rating is the same as the stock VF-31A's at 28.0G, and its engines have the same rated output as the VF-31A's at 1,645kN/ea. The ONLY noteworthy detail is that engine model changed. Instead of using the stock FF-3001A engines the VF-31 inherited from the VF-25, the detuned version of the YF-30's FF-3001/FC2 engine the Siegfried custom used, or even a fully tuned FF-3001/FC2 engine, they have a FF-3001/FC3 engine that has the same output as the stock FF-3001A engine the mass production type uses. This POS really is just a ****ing VF-31A a Fold Wave System and some cosmetic modifications. I feel so goddamn trolled right now. That's what I get for daring to have expectations of basic competence for a Macross Delta title.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    To be honest, I've not seen that in any of the teased pages of the book thus far. From where did that come?
  6. Seto Kaiba
    I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. The VF-25 Master File covered the YF-24 and VF-24A a little in passing because the YF-25 (and VF-25) are directly derived from the YF-24 Evolution specification. To get any more of it, I think we'd need a Master File for another direct derivative like the VF-27 or YF-29. The VF-31 Master File didn't really touch on the YF-24 because the VF-31 is several derivations removed from it. The VF-31 Siegfried that the Master File covered is an aftermarket customization of the trial production VF-31 Kairos, which was a production-intent version of the final YF-31, which was an economized derivative of the YF-30 Chronos. The YF-30 Chronos was developed from the YF-24 Evolution spec used in the VF-25, YF-26, and VF-27, with some elements of the YF-29 added in. It's a LOT farther removed, even though it's nominally the same generation of aircraft. The VF-31AX Kairos Plus is, depending on which source you ask, either a Siegfried repaired with Kairos parts or a Kairos upgraded using Siegfried parts, so it's arguably a parallel branch off the base VF-31. Yup, multiple copies here...
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Coming Late December.* Kinda expecting this one to be a massive waste of paper, considering the first VF-31 book was pretty weak and largely copied from the VF-25 book while ignoring the actual VF-31 in favor of the one of a kind ace custom one. * If Softbank feels like it.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Like most things in Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! the situation is rather vague, underdeveloped, and poorly described both in-story and in supplemental publications. Heimdall could probably best be described as "from all over". Like Vindirance in the Second Unification War, Heimdall is a nominally anti-government paramilitary force which was established to root out and destroy a source of corruption in the New UN Government and New UN Forces with the covert (and occasionally overt) backing of interested parties in the government, the armed forces, and private enterprise. Of course, where Vindirance was set against a fascist organization's attempted coup d'état, Heimdall aims to remove the incredibly ill-defined "Lady M" from her alleged role as a shadowy oligarch[1] ruling the galaxy in secret. The core of the organization - its founder and his flagship - originally belonged to the New UN Spacy's 7th Fleet and were therefore probably central New UN Spacy soldiers. That said, a lot of their support seems to come from emigrant governments and a mega-conglomerate that does most of its business selling to emigrant governments out on in remote areas like the Brisingr globular cluster. That's the price of "going off the grid", I guess. Battle Astraea was upgraded with a lot of bleeding-edge and/or illegal technology after the ship "disappeared" and was written off as lost, but in the absence of official specs for any of the new designs in the movie it's very difficult to say. If I had to guess, I would say that the Sv-303 Vivasvat is probably not Earth-level tech. Yeah, it outclasses the Aerial Knights in their Sv-262s and Delta Flight in their custom VF-31s but those are both confirmed bush league outfits. It's like testing out your new .50 cal sniper rifle by taking potshots at a cardboard box. Heimdall absolutely rolls them and takes over the Brisingr cluster in something like an afternoon instead of the multiple months Windermere needed. Of course, the Sv-303 is definitely outclassed by the YF-29 but seems about on par with a halfhearted upgrade to the Siegfried... which was not exactly an exceptional fighter even by the standards of production Valkyries. Of course, there is also the valid counterargument that the film also explicitly establishes that the protagonists are actually rather mediocre pilots... which has some pretty strong implications given that even the previous film and Macross Delta TV anime demonstrated that the quality of pilots can even overcome generation gaps in technology. It's possible that the Sv-303 simply looks like an unstoppable force because the protagonists lack the talent, skill, and experience to bring out the most in their custom 5th Generation VFs [1] Or, given how badly this story meshes with the rest of the setting, possibly a kakistocrat... most of the alleged bans on advanced technology can be demonstrated not to exist in the rest of the setting.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Even in the OVA, it was clear from the outset that Jan Neumann was a prodigy... he's sixteen and has a PhD. As I've said in other topics, the DYRL? designs and conventions seem to have largely retroactively replaced the TV series versions for no apparent reason other than that Kawamori et. al. seem to like them more. The idea that there are a bunch of Zentradi who are such Earth-culture otaku they change their names is a bit funny in the abstract. Quite a lot, the last time I compiled a list it ran to at least three dozen places explicitly mentioned in-series and that was before Delta added something like two dozen more. Eh... other way 'round. That kit is one of at least thirteen that I'm aware of that are based on Master File original squadrons or color schemes and profiles Master File picked up from other, older works like Model Graphix and This is Animation Special: Macross Plus. That kit's from 2021. Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur is from 2010. The what now? There've never been definite numbers posted for any of that, so that sounds like it was probably fan fiction. All we've had on that front is an approximate population of postwar Earth of 1 million humans and 8 million Zentradi c.2010, some approximate numbers for the populations of a few of the emigrant fleets seen onscreen (really only Megaroad-01, Macross 7, and Macross Frontier), and a statement that the Brisingr globular cluster is home to 8 billion people circa 2067. Fleet-wise, it's a similar situation. We have little notion of the strengths of planets like Earth or Eden, but we know there have been ~100 short-distance emigrant fleet launches and at least 59 long-distance ones based on the highest sequentially-numbered fleet to appear in a story thus far (Macross 29 in the stage play Macross the Musiculture). There should be more than that, but we don't know if the pace of launches slowed down, sped up, etc. in the 2040s. There's never been anywhere near enough information to even get close to a reasonable estimate of the total human population or the size of the New UN Forces. I'm particularly fond of how many nods it makes to obscure bits of trivia from previous decades. My favorites are terribly subtle ones in the VF-25 Master File. There's one image that shows a YF-29 with a white-and-green paintjob that is a nod to its inspiration, the SW-XA II Schneegans from Kawamori's VF-Experiment article in Model Graphix magazine. The other is Sheryl's version of the Minmay Guard, the Queen's Knights, who have MODEX numbers assigned that correspond to Sheryl and Alto's birthdays.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, I was a bit thrown by that too... though more because there was some timeline problem there. It seems that Andor did a bit more retconning of Cassian's background than it first appeared to. His homeworld being listed as Fest was retconned to being a cover story, but it looks like his birth year changed a bit too. The official website says that Cassian was 9 when he was taken off Kenari and that the flashbacks occur before the start of the Clone Wars. Rogue One material says Cassian was 26 when he died. With the Clone Wars starting 17 years before the series and 22 years before Rogue One, Cassian would have to be at least 31 for that timeline to work. If it was prior to the official outbreak of the Clone Wars, Maarva may have been mistaken about who the crew actually were. Maybe she assumed they were Republic because they were crewing a stolen Republic ship or something of that nature.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    One of them (YF-19-4) is day-glo orange? The rest are fairly subdued, with various camo patterns, mattes with bright trim, black-and-whites, and a few canonical paintjobs like Emerald Force and Basara's VF-19 Kai.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    I'm just skimming for now, but it's tipped as arguably the first official combat operation the VF-19 was used in. Long story short, in December 2041 a ferry carrying Zentradi workers from a resource asteroid in the Parkington system went missing. Four days later, the system's fourth planet Roger (yes that's the name of the planet) was attacked by a rogue Zentradi branch fleet that employed unusual tactics specifically targeting weak spots in the New UN Spacy's defenses. The prevailing theory for why being that the Zentradi workers who had gone missing had defected to the branch fleet attacking the system. The enemy fleet employed an extremely odd and unconventional strategem of dividing itself into three and rotating fresh forces onto and off of the front lines constantly. The defense fleet called for help from Earth as soon as the enemy were first sighted, and fearing another Spica incident the central NUNS dispatched forces immediately. The force dispatched included four VF-19As from the SVF-440 Dullahans fresh out of model conversion training aboard the Uraga-class carrier Grand Forks. Arriving 4 hours and 20 minutes after the battle started (nice?) the Grand Forks deployed the four VF-19s via fold boosters under active stealth concealment to fold into the midst of the three different enemy taskforces and destroy their command ships with reaction weapon strikes to sever the enemy's chain of command. Within nine minutes of deploying, the pilots from the Dullahans had identified the enemy command ships and the order was given to attack. Once the enemy command ships were downed, reinforcements folded into the battle area and a decisive fleet action resulted in the Zentradi branch fleet being decimated and eventually surrendering. The crews of the Zentradi ships that surrendered reported that they failed to detect the VF-19s attacking them until after the opening salvo (of reaction weapons) had been fired.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    As with all of the Master File books, they're not official setting material and carry a disclaimer to that effect but they are written under Kawamori's supervision and with the involvement of Macross mechanical setting coordinator Masahiro Chiba. Every now and again, the official setting materials pillage a detail here or there from 'em.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    It has one. It was released back in March of '19. For bonus points, it was the 11th book in the series... and while informative, was not quite up to the exceptionally high water mark set by the first five books, the Battroid Valkyrie book, or the VF-1S book. Backordered, but apparently still available, via CDJapan: https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEOBK-2323838 There are currently twelve Master File books for Variable Fighters: Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.1 "Stratospheric Wing" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur "Trail of the Holy Sword" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.2 "Space Wing" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah "New Messiah" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix "Phoenix of the Beginning" Variable Fighter Master File: SDF-1 Macross VF-1 Air Corps Variable Fighter Master File: VF-22 Sturmvogel II "Invisible Bird" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-4 Lightning III "The Start of the Revival" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31 Siegfried "The Dragon-Hunting Knight" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Battroid Valkyrie "Soaring Giant" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-11 Thunderbolt "Galactic Lightning" Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1S Roy Focker Special "Hero's Trail" Book 13, Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31AX Kairos Plus, is currently slated for a late December release after being delayed... I wanna say twice so far? It was originally positioned for a release alongside the home video release of Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! but got delayed to "early December" and then again to "late December". (I've got multiple copies on preorder, naturally... that's just how the Historica Project rolls.)
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Since the sudden change in the weather has me feeling too cruddy to do the work I'd planned to, I decided to poke around a bit at the Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur on the off-chance it might provide more information about Groombridge 1816 since it was also curiously specific about other planets e.g. Spica. No such luck, but I did turn up some fun details I thought I'd pass along. Master File's take on the backstory of Macross Plus is interesting, and a bit different from what the OVA would lead one to expect. It presents an order of events where the Macross Concern's Ghost X-9 was already almost complete when the Zentradi destroyed the surface of Spica III in the Alpha Virginis system in 2037. Project Super Nova was, according to this history, green-lit in large part because the New UN Forces top brass were highly skeptical of the Ghost X-9's ability to make the highly situational judgement calls needed to capitalize on enemy weaknesses in an offensive. The requirements for the Project Super Nova Valkyries were based on benchmarking the Ghost X-9's capabilities with a number of extra concessions to survivability and operational flexibility. The upper management at both Shinsei Industry and General Galaxy were aware of the Ghost X-9 program, but kept the dev teams in the dark about the true nature of the program because there was some concern (on both sides) that one project or the other was really just a stalking horse there to justify the other. (Also interesting is that Dr. Jan Neumann's biographical extract suggests someone re-founded both Purdue and MIT after the First Space War. Jan's definitely a kid genius, noted to be a graduate of Neo Purdue and MIT with degrees in quantum mechanics at age 10 before joining the Aeronautical Institute of Technology on Eden and then taking a position as a lead design engineer with Shinsei Industry at age 15. Another interesting mention is that Toran 825 AKA Dr. Algus Selzer was personally scouted for General Galaxy by Alexei Kurakin, who co-founded General Galaxy and founded the SV Works.) They also put a round number estimate to the number of VF-11s that were produced during its mass production run. THIRTY THOUSAND. That's enough to equip all seven emigrant fleets with New Macross-class ships and leave over 17,000 left.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    And so, you understand my struggle... and why I'm shelving my pride and going to ask someone on the astronomy faculty at MSU or U-M.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Granted, I have not yet gone any farther with that investigation than confirming that Groombridge 1816 is a real star described in Stephen Groombridge's A Catalog of Circumpolar Stars. I'm planning to refer the matter out to the Astronomy department at one of the state universities I have ties to, though I haven't had an opportunity to do so yet due to some work complications.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Bear in mind, those measurements were taken in 1806-1816 using purely analog equipment so they're not going to align well with modern digital measurements taken two centuries later. Like I said, obscure... that one fan blog assumed, like you did, that the star didn't exist based on mainstream search engine results and nothing else. Eden's not in a binary system, so it's definitely not Groombridge 34AB.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    No, it's not a typo. It is Groombridge 1816 not 1618. You won't find much about it on Google or Wikipedia because it is a relatively obscure star, but it is a real star noted/codified on page 53 of Stephen Groombridge's A Catalog of Circumpolar Stars (1838). EDIT: It should be noted that only a tiny handful of Groombridge catalog numbers are well-documented under their original catalog numbers. Groombridge's catalog covers 4,243 different stars. Exactly two of them have Wikipedia pages.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    In a completely non-serious tribute to my childhood. "Trukk not munky". Who'd have thought the Transformers movies would be going on long enough to start mining Beast Wars and/or Beast Machines for content? XD
  21. Seto Kaiba
    ... I feel like this is one title that really won't make the transition to live-action gracefully. Kinda like Dragon Ball.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    "Hold on, it gets dumber" seems to be the theme for The Witch from Mercury. The entirety of the show's 7th episode can be summed up as Miorine pulling a K-2SO and saying "Congratulations, you are being employed. Please do not resist." At least when Wing and my boy Heero are involved, events have causes and consequences. In The Witch from Mercury, things just... happen. There's no rhyme or reason to it.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Now THAT is something I wasn't expecting! I guess now that Maurice Leblanc's works are in the public domain we can actually have the Arsene Lupin (the First) in Lupin III.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    The best part of "Rascals" isn't even in "Rascals"... It's in DS9's "Bar Association": Not only is "Rascals" the first TNG episode Odo references... Odo had that PADD just sitting there. WAITING. In case Worf came in to complain about security!
  25. Seto Kaiba
    I'm not sure interconnecting those two would work... they don't really have any themes in common except having been horror episodes. The parasites from "Conspiracy" were originally a part of a larger story arc, but they ended up orphaned from it because the budget wouldn't stretch to doing proper insectoid aliens and the idea was workshopped into the Borg. The aliens from "Schisms" were just this weird one-off thing that shows up, menaces a few crew members on the Enterprise, and then disappear and are never mentioned again.
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