Seto Kaiba

Well, there is the case of Macross 30 where the Protoculture left emergency measures in place so that they could come back and finish the job of safely disposing of the Fold Evil they sealed there at a later date. They may have had similar designs on the Protodeviln for a future where their civilization recovered from the mass casualties of the Supervision Army's invasion. They just never managed to recover, and slowly went extinct without the resources to properly dispose of a lot of extremely dangerous, ill-considered constructs and had apparently decided the next best thing was to make any planet they'd sealed something on incredibly inhospitable. Either by messing with the universe's fundamental forces in ways that left the planet uninhabitable or installing swarms of technorganic bugs to make the overly curious the extremely dead. Some of the others... well... dismantling the delta wave system clearly wasn't an option considering it comprised a fair part of at least six separate planets throughout the Brisingr cluster. Destroying it would effectively require one to destroy the entire planet. Not beyond their capabilities, but blowing up the planet you're currently standing on is generally considered to be A Bad Idea. Maybe, maybe not. Gigil's self-destruct does suggest a dimensional warhead could kill the Protodeviln and Gepernich's reaction to the thermonuclear reaction weapon suggests a thermonuclear reaction warhead could probably hurt or kill them too if they didn't take action to protect themselves. Sealed and deprived of spiritia, the Protodeviln were likely a lot more vulnerable than usual.

I threw the Birdman on there because it was a derivative of the Evil-series and the UN Forces did a number on it with four low-yield reaction weapons... y'know, evidence that "just shoot it" works pretty well against the Protoculture's eldritch abominations in general.

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” - Douglas Adams

After a while, you start to wonder. The extreme lengths the ancient Protoculture went to in order to seal and bury some of their more irresponsibly dangerous creations on various remote planets starts to feel a bit like wasted effort when you consider how many of them have ultimately proven to be quite vulnerable to "just shoot it".

In general terms, I'd agree with your assessment. In this specific case, I'd disagree on the grounds that omitting them kind of hinders the ability to show the chain of design progression for the GG side of things and leaves the VF-17 and YF-21 looking like they just kinda came out of freaking nowhere instead of being developed by Shinsei Industry's chief rival. *checks the math* So... um... what would you say if I told you they're actually good for it? The VF-9E, with the identified carryover engine improvements, has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 17.386. That's higher than the VF-22's. (13.960), the VF-19A's (12.914), or the VF-19F's (16.959). Of course, it is noted that this improvement of engine thrust well beyond the original design tolerances led to significant control stability issues and few VF-9Es were built. There is precedent for evolutionary upgrades being applied to older models of VF like VF-1X+ and X++, the VF-4G, the VF-11MAXL (not the Mylene Custom, the regular one), the VF-17D/S type, the VF-22HG, and so on. There is a point where upgrading an existing VF is no longer practical or economical but if the Frontier novelization is any indication that point either hadn't been reached yet for the VF-9 in normal use against Zentradi or the Galaxy fleet is incredibly stubborn. The SV-51α actually doesn't have a different head... just a different paintjob and one fewer rotary gun. The VF-27β actually does have a character associated with it: Grace O'Connor. She doesn't fly one in the game, but she's the only character known to have operated the CF VF-27β. The VF-25A is the odd bird out. That's a bit of an exaggeration. Items that were the focus of particular scenes got drawn up in detail, but only enough to get the job done. Many background designs have no stats at all, just names, even in the original series and DYRL?. Blame the focus being somewhere else... since the protagonists aren't NUNS.

Yup... he does have basically the same paintjob as Milia's, complete with the gold trim. Sort of. Uroboros is a planet where the Protoculture buried a Fold Evil they built that was capable of time travel that the story's antagonists, a rogue NUNS Special Forces unit, want to use to alter history. As a result of events, versions of characters from other shows are pulled to Uroboros at points in their relative stories where they were traveling by space fold. Which was a source of considerable frustration to many... esp. the people who were writing licensed RPGs.

While it is true that the VF-17 and VF-171 - and, indeed, practically all of General Galaxy's known VF models - have good reputations in-universe it would be incorrect to say they've never been antagonist Valkyries. One of two recurring boss or sub-boss battles in Macross VF-X2 is against Latence-backing Critical Path CEO Manfred Brando in his personal cherry-red VF-17S. He's fought three times: in Mission 3 "Die Zauberflote", in Mission 7 "Pinocchio", and for the final time in the decisive Mission 9 "Mary Poppins" where he is the boss fight that puts you on the path towards the game's good end (A-route). He's shot down and killed at Area ASR8283200 and information about the Jamming Sound System and Latence's plans for it are found in the wreckage. (The other is Black Rainbow's ace Timothy Daldhanton, whose Feios Valkyrie is fought in Mission 2 "Wizard of Oz", Mission 6 "Singin' in the Rain", and Mission 8 "King & I".) The VF-171 is used as an antagonist Valkyrie in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy. Self-proclaimed "Bandit King" Ganess Modora uses a VF-171EX as his personal Valkyrie and is fought on several occasions over the course of that game as the de facto leader of the bandits who operate on Uroboros with the secret support of Havamal. It was the New UN Forces chosen main VF, though not every emigrant government opted to go for it. Eh... we were talking more about official publications, which really don't have as good of a reason to skip over the entire 2nd Generation like that. Especially when they're talking about the history and development of VFs. If I were in a snarky mood there's a Luke Skywalker meme I could deploy here... Aaaaaaanyway, in a non-snarky manner, you'd be wrong to say so. The VF-9 may be 46 years old but like other models of Valkyrie such an expensive aircraft is not something you throw away lightly. General Galaxy was still developing updates and upgrades for it at least into the 2040s based on what we're told in Macross the Ride. The VF-9E was an effort by General Galaxy in the 2040s to adapt the next-gen thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engine tech developed for 4th Generation Valkyries, albeit with less than ideal results in testing. The VF-14 is noted to have been developed with longevity and easy upgrades in mind, boasting a roomy design that could accommodate mission-specific hardware and other upgrades beyond its original capabilities. The Macross Galaxy emigrant fleet was noted to still be using the VF-9 and VF-17 in 2059 alongside the VF-171 in Ukyo Kodachi's novelization of the Macross Frontier series. For its part, the VF-1 Valkyrie's enduring role has a lot more to do with decommissioned Valkyries being snapped up for use as civilian utility craft making Shinsei Industry realize there was a market for an inexpensive Valkyrie outside of the military than it does the VF-1's service history as a fighter. Decades of improvement in manufacturing technologies made the VF-1 cheap enough that it was nominally within the reach of private civilian owners. Quite a few others, actually... the big one being the SV-51α, which is not piloted by anyone in-game and has never had a named character pilot in the official setting. The same is true for the VF-25A. Ones that have no pilot in-game include the VF-0S, the stock VF-171, the VF-19A, VF-19F, VF-19S, and VB-6. The VF-0S was more or less exclusively Roy's ride, the stock VF-171's got several associated pilots but none featured in the game, the VF-19A which is exclusively Aegis Focker's ride (and seems to be in there solely to have a VF-X Ravens paintjob), and both the VF-19F and VF-19S are Emerald Force's signature ride but they're not in the game either. (That's not counting New Game+ stuff like the Zentradi mecha.) Though the VF-171 did try to double for the missing VF-17 in its alt paintjobs, which are VF-17 paintjobs from Macross 7. (You could say the VF-5000 made it on a technicality, as at least in the novelization the replica VF-0s used on Uroboros contain VF-1 and VF-5000 hardware.) That's different... those are meant to be background designs. Things that aren't subjected to scrutiny. Ship stats have always been kind of vague, with most being no more detailed than saying a ship has "many x" of a given type of weapon. Design-wise, they're what Star Trek producers used to call "Feinbergers" after property master "Irving Feinberg". They'd just include in the notes that the scene called for a "Feinberger" and let Feinberg figure out what the hell kind of prop needed to be made on his own.

Yeah, it's a good general overview of Macross as it currently stands. It's more broad than deep, as it touches on a lot of different topics but doesn't get heavily involved in any of them. The sections about the setting and stories are mostly the old familiar tune, though it does have a few minor points of interest. It doesn't draw a distinction between the Protoculture's different backstories from the TV series vs. Movie. There's also mention in the Macross Frontier section that the massive suborbital ring and Vajra nest over the surface of the Vajra's planet is actually composed of native plant life affected by fold quartz, which is a detail I don't recall ever hearing before.

Yeah, it's been a pretty good couple years for Lupin recently what with Lupin III: the First, Prisoner of the Past, Lupin III Part V, and Lupin III Part VI, and now Lupin Zero and now Lupin III VS Cat's Eye, the latter of which is, I guess, the 28th Lupin III TV special? I should get one for my desk at work... just because it'd be the one thing there that absolutely nobody would recognize as a piece of anime memorabilia.

Looks like a good year for Lupin.

I'm more or less with you on that one... Karn is a little too gung-ho about this and sooner or later he's going to get his chance. The more obsessive he gets, the more he becomes exactly the kind of psychopath the Imperials want. Either way, Javert your eyes... it's about to get awkward in there.

OK, "Nobody's Listening!"... that seems like a super-plausible thing to say when something like 1/2 the cast is either currently or about to be involved in the business of espionage. The walls have ears. Eyes too. Hell, Jabba's front door could talk... and the less conventional alien anatomy means the walls might have a few other organs of questionable and/or indeterminate purpose! Good thing this ain't Star Trek: Discovery, or they'd have to title it "Nobody's Watching!". All in all, a light episode full of mostly inconsequential goings-on that feels kind of scattered and directionless. They're building up to several different somethings this time, but it's spread so thin it doesn't build tension as effectively as the previous story arcs did.

It's worth remembering that Absolute Live!!!!!!, like the Macross Delta TV anime, contains many inconsistencies regarding Lady M and when she became active on the interstellar scene. It veers back and forth between "Lady M has been working behind the scenes since the end of the First Space War" and "Lady M only showed up after the events of the Macross Frontier series" without any apparent rhyme or reason... and the movie adds even more problems with inconsistencies regarding events in Macross Delta itself. We actually already knew it... Freya mentions in the very first episode of Macross Delta's TV anime that she's the ward of the village chief, and that she ran away from home due to him pressuring her to get married. Well, we'd still be biologically human... but this is a transhumanist group who've already elbow deep in Hans Moravec's philosophical quandries about the nature of artificial intelligence and the nature of postbiological humanity, chasing what was apparently the ancient Protoculture's definition of societal perfection to avoid what they saw as the inevitable self-destruction of the species if they didn't. The Vajra Queen. That's why Grace (TV) or the Cyber Nobles (Movie) connect themselves directly to the Vajra Queen in order to gain access to its ability to coordinate and route fold wave communications on a galactic scale. Trying to do it with a human brain would cause a "your head 'a'splode" rather like what the projected outcome of activating the Delta Wave System was and no computer was up to the job.

OK, now I'm impatient to watch the episode to figure out WTF the context behind this is.

The main issue there seems to be the inherent risks in actually making contact with a Zentradi main fleet. Due to the circumstances in which the ancient Protoculture lost control of them, Zentradi adherance to the directives the Protoculture issued them before the Supervision Army's emergence like "Do not interefere with the planets inhabited by miclones" is spotty at best. Boddole Zer destroyed Earth's surface and wiped out most of humanity because he'd seen what contact with Earth's culture was doing to his troops and was deeply concerned by, or even afraid of, it. The Zentradi attack emigrant fleets and planets when they find them for whatever reason and most emigrant defense forces only have the defensive ability to deal summarily with a branch fleet-sized force if things go south. Nobody seems like they're in a rush to gamble an entire fleet or a colonized planet, or potentially the entire human race, on making intentional contact with a Zentradi main fleet in the hopes of finding a commander who won't mistake their overtures for a Supervision Army attack and attempt to kill them. (Even in Master File, fending off even a very small main fleet 1/40th the size of Boddole Zer's required the New UN Forces to gather every available warship and fighter within 300 light years of Earth at the time. The taskforce mobilized to drive off the Zentradi main fleet included the newly-completed but unlaunched Battle 7 and many other warships from Earth and emigrant defense forces, as well as over 2,500 Valkyries drawn from 120 different squadrons. We're talking a New UN Spacy force larger than the Macross 7 fleet and much more heavily armed, given that it's said that 90% of the total reaction weapon stockpile held by the New UN Forces was used for this one engagement. Master File claims this battle had such a profound impact on the New UN Gov't and New UN Forces leadership that it directly gave rise to Project Super Nova and the nextgen Ghost program that produced the Ghost X-9 and Neo Glaug.)

They're available on CDJapan and the like, and the secondhand sellers like Mandarake always end up with a few copies of books like this if it's a time thing. If there is any new or noteworthy information it's buried in the interview sections of the books. The only detail of note I saw on my skim through the rest of the books was that the events of Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! take place approximately 13 months after the end of Macross Delta in October 2068. Really, it feels like General Galaxy gets the short shrift anytime it's not talking about the VF-22 or VF-27. Even though the VF-9 and VF-14 were successful and popular VFs among emigrant governments, they get forgotten because the Main VF role is dominated by Stonewell Bellcom/Shinsei Valkyries most of the time.

Having some ship identification issues in the Macross Grand Analysis book. The Macross Elysion had the art for the Battle Galaxy, the Macross Quarter has the art for the Macross Elysion, and the Battle Galaxy has the storming attacker art for the Macross Quarter.

Nothing more than what's been said previously, sadly. I did notice some entertaining errors... the Macross Grand Analysis book has some images switched around in its ship section. The family tree of Macross-type warships has the art for the Macross Quarter, Battle Galaxy, and Macross Elysion switched around. The Battle Galaxy entry shows the correct fortress mode but the Macross Quarter's storming attack mode, the entry for the Macross Elysion shows the Battle Galaxy, and the entry for the Macross Quarter shows the Macross Elysion. Macross Super Encyclopedia's go at a VF family tree omits everything outside of the main/Shinsei line... so the whole second generation is just not present, as is the 3rd Generation VF-14 and it just goes VF-0 to VF-1 to VF-11, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, and 31.

Well, I got my hopes raised and dashed today. I got two new books today... Macross Grand Analysis and Macross Super Encyclopedia. Both are, on their own, fine high-level overviews of Macross as a whole with some interesting "how we got here" discussion. Worthy inclusions to any fan's collection. Grand Analysis has a family tree of main timeline VFs done in a similar style to the ones in Gundam's MS Bible series, which is a VERY nice touch and it's clear they put a lot of effort into it. Where my expectations were raised and then shattered is that they include basic stat blocks for many VFs on that family tree and the family tree includes the VF-31AX. The VF-31AX stats they printed are the ones for the stock VF-31A Kairos.

FedEx is on the ball this week. My copies of Macross Super Encyclopedia and the Macross Grand Analysis books rolled in moments ago. Macross Super Encyclopedia is a nice general reference but nothing to write home about... nothing new or particularly interesting pops out on a quick skim of its contents except for its timeline putting an approximate date to the events of Absolute Live!!!!!! in October 2068. Macross Grand Analysis is more of same, really, though its timeline omits Absolute Live!!!!!! and it has a bit more focus on how things fit together. There's a basic Valkyrie family tree done in a style similar to the MS Bible books for Gundam that joins up all the different main timeline VF designs and it's substantially accurate to previously published sources. It has one teensy-tiny problem that really irked me. It put in stat blocks for the VFs on that family tree... and the famiyl tree DOES include the VF-31AX... but the stats it lists are for the VF-31A. They raised my hopes and dashed them most expertly.

That's been the pattern with their dangerous toys since Macross Zero, at least.

Well, it's worked pretty well for the Vajra for millions of years and facilitated them developing into an intergalactic society completely free of internal conflicts. Small wonder, then, that the ancient Protoculture idolized and sought to emulate the Vajra. The Vajra weren't just more advanced than they are technologically, they had their societal sh*t together in a way the Protoculture very much didn't. The delta wave device they build in the Brisingr globular cluster was an attempt to reach what they'd come to see as societal perfection and fix what they'd broken when their civil war got out of hand and led to a literal Forever War between two inexhaustible clone armies. (And the Galaxy executives seem to have discovered the Protoculture's ambition, possibly from the New UN Gov't surveys of the ruins in the Brisingr cluster, and decided that Utopia Justifies the Means.)