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Everything posted by Seto Kaiba
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Climaxes don't come much more explosive than "One Way Out". I'm half tempted to check that my eyebrows are still on. Now that is some damn fine writing and acting on display. If they'd had that level of talent on display in the sequel trilogy then movies 7, 8, and 9 would've made roughly all the money. This is headed towards displacing Rogue One as my all-time best Star Wars title.
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True, but the beauty of the Ghost X-9 was that it was able to operate fully autonomously... and with human levels of unpredictability. One of the major casualties of the Sharon Apple Incident was the idea of a fully-autonomous unmanned fighter. The New UN Gov't felt the technology wasn't ready for primetime and pulled the plug, leading to another generation of less capable but still eminently deadly semi-autonomous unmanned fighters like the AIF-7S Ghost used by the Frontier fleet's New UN Forces and the customized version LAI loaned to SMS to protect Luca Angeloni.
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Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
Of course, the other big question is long-term sustainability. When you start drawing comparisons between the conditions on the Macross and regular cities, the comparison is already skewed by the fact that the cities you're comparing the interior of the Macross to are meant to be comfortable places to live long-term. The city inside the Macross was an ugly compromise meant to give the population of South Ataria somewhere to live and something to do while the Macross made the return trip to Earth by conventional means. Neither the ship nor the island had the resources to sustain those people long-term, so the ship had to stop and raid the proverbial (and literal) pantry at Mars Base on its way home in order to keep the people fed and watered and then take on an additional quantity of supplies when it was briefly sent back into space. The city inside the Macross was a cramped, unpleasant affair that beat a poke in the eye with a sharp stick or a slow death from asphyxiation in an air raid bunker inside a small island-turned-asteroid at the fringes of the solar system. It wasn't a place you would want to live long-term... which is probably why the first thing the ship's population did when they got back to Earth was throw a raucous party outdoors. Ships meant to be long-term sustainable are MUCH larger and/or have much smaller permanent populations. Long-term sustainability for a Macross-class ship meant a population of about 10,000 according to Macross Chronicle. The Megaroad-class was 50% larger than its predecessor and devoted most of its structure to a cityscape, but for long-term sustainability the population was constrained to about 25,000 at launch. Even then, the living conditions those early emigrant ships offered were uncomfortable enough in the long term that rioting on emigrant ships occurred often enough for the New UN Government to launch a program dedicated to developing countermeasures for it (the Sharon-type AI). The quest for improved quality-of-life for space emigrants meant building ever-bigger, ever more-advanced emigrant ships that offered progressively more of the comforts of home. There was the City-class that offered highrise living to a population of ~350,000 and a bevy of auxiliary ships joined by the Milky Road system allowing emigrants to literally get outside and go somewhere else when the cityscape started to pall. That was followed by the larger and more advanced Mainland-type and then the complete ecosystem-in-a-bottle that was the 5th Generation Island Cluster-class where the New UN Gov't pulled out all the stops and started maximizing comfort by overbuilding the hell out of its emigrant ships until they were launching at barely a tenth of their nominal capacity while still carrying millions and millions of people. This is true... though it's worth noting that the Federation Starfleet of Star Trek justifies this in much the same way as Macross's emigrant fleets. Most of the Starfleet ships we see in the various Star Trek shows and movies have such small crews relative to their size because they're designed for long-duration deep space exploration and absolutely packed to the rafters with all of the scientific equipment, lab spaces, workshops, fuel, and miscellaneous supplies needed to operate away from support for long periods while ensuring their crews have at least a moderately comfortable standard of living. Even then, we periodically see that rank still hath its privileges in terms of living space with a few ships depicting communal bunkrooms for enlisted personnel and junior officers doubling up in small cabins. -
To be honest, I can understand why Star Wars fans might struggle to enjoy Andor. Star Wars up 'til now has been almost entirely dominated by simple, straightforward narratives that depend heavily on action and are driven (literally and figuratively) by in-universe self-enforcing moral absolutes. Good things and good people are aligned to the Light Side of the Force. Bad things and bad people are aligned to the Dark Side of the Force. The audience doesn't have to invest any real time, energy, or thought into understanding the characters. It doesn't have to establish why the good guys are good and bad guys are bad, they just are. The Chosen One rises up to defeat the forces of Evil because Destiny Says So... which means they can skip directly to the exciting laser gun battles and swordfights between space wizards. It's storytelling at a level appropriate for all (read: "young") audiences. Andor is a much more mature story. It's looking at the why of the Rebellion and of Cassian Andor's involvement in it. Through Cassian Andor's eyes, we're seeing the cruelty and oppression of the Empire that begins to drive people normal people who were previously indifferent to, or ambivalent about, politics and the government to take action against a profoundly unjust system. We're currently watching Cassian's personal journey from being apathetic about the system of oppression he finds himself living under to being angry enough about the injustices he's seeing (and being subjected to) that he's willing to do something about it. It isn't a Good vs. Evil story with cosmological consequences like the nine main movies. This is Cassian Andor's journey from dissolute young man to driven revolutionary and, in parallel, the evolution of the Rebellion from a double handful of tiny, squabbling terrorist groups and ousted democratic ideologs to a serious and united movement bent on overthrowing an autocratic government. It's slow, yes, but right now it's gradually building towards critical mass and the eruption of organized rebellion. The drama's not basic, it's just not high stakes yet. After all, we're not yet to the point of "Cassian Andor, Rebel Intelligence". Right now, we're watching "Cassian Andor, Increasingly Pissed-Off Private Citizen".
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Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
Not to mention that both the "real" Macross and any recreations for in-universe docu-dramas were literally making the ship appear bigger on the inside through the strategic use of holograms. Holographic false skies concealed the fact that compartment ceilings were practically scraping the rooftops in most places, giving the illusion that there was only the one layer of city when in fact it was stacked 3-4 layers deep in places. -
Assuming that this means the bio-neural chip was never installed into Sharon... Sharon Apple would have given a very visually-impressive performance at the New UN Government's 30th anniversary of the First Space War armistice. "Her" career would likely have continued for some time, to continue the development and field testing of the Sharon-type AI. Assuming no issues cropped up in future testing, the Sharon-type AI would have been released to emigrant fleets for its intended purpose of population management and emergency backup command and control. Each emigrant fleet would have a Sharon-type AI supporting its government and defense forces, able to assume control of the fleet's defenses if an emergency deprived the fleet of coherent human leadership and acting to help the populace remain calm and unstressed during the emigrant fleet's mission in deep space through a mixture of entertainment and (in emergencies) mild audiovisual manipulation. (The system was originally conceived as a way to assist emigrants in coping with the often stressful living conditions aboard early emigrant ships and prevent the riots that occasionally occurred as a result.) The Ghost X-9 would have probably been selected as the Next Main Fighter of the New UN Forces and begun to replace the VF-11 in that capacity in the early 2040s. Some emigrant governments would likely have purchased the VF-19, VF-22, or another 4th Generation VF either to supplement the Ghosts or out of distrust for them. First contact with the Vajra would have driven the New UN Government to pursue an even more advanced and powerful Ghost to effectively combat the Vajra, leading to the development of something akin to the SV-303 Vivasvat becoming the New UN Forces 5th Generation main fighter. PMCs like SMS and Xaos would find themselves out of a job, since Ghosts are significantly less expensive than manned Valkyries and there would be no need to hire PMCs for their expendability in order to test next-gen manned fighters in live combat. The Second Unification War may or may not happen, since manned forces would be unlikely to be able to keep the pace with unmanned fighters and emigrant governments would have been able to provide a lot more support to Vindirance without the need for pilots and it would be harder for Latence to manipulate the VF-X Special Forces if the forces consisted of unmanned fighters and easier for Vindirance to obtain support since you wouldn't have to convince pilots to defect. The Jamming Sound also wouldn't be nearly as effective, since autonomous Ghosts can dogfight at levels far above humans. Macross Galaxy's plans would hit a significant snag, since there would be much less justification for cybernetically-enhanced soldiers with fully-autonomous unmanned fighters as the standard. However, SMS wouldn't be there to stop them since they were on Frontier mostly so Richard Bilra's private army could protect his interests and conduct testing on the anti-Vajra VF-25. Ultimately, the Vajra may end up massacred by swarms of high-powered unmanned fighters when they attack the New UN Gov't. Macross Delta largely wouldn't happen. Without demand for Fold Quartz to power ISCs, its value would be a lot less and Windermere IV would likely have found it a good deal less worth going to war over. Never mind that the Aerial Knights would have been absolutely mulched by unmanned fighters that are immune to Var syndrome.
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Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
... to be accurate, we see how one family lives in the city and it's over the restaurant that is their place of work. That is not enough to extrapolate the living conditions of everyone else on the ship. The same can be said for the soldiers, since we only ever see officers quarters, and most of those being senior officers quarters for top-ranking personnel like the CAG and the ship's Captain. The movie version, of course, is its own thing and an in-universe movie to boot. Its depiction is likely the city section of a Macross-class mass production type meant to hold only about 10,000. Realism is strained a bit, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out. That kind of depends on interpretation of individual shots, esp. once they've installed a holographic sky that makes it impossible to tell where the ceiling actually is. The military base is on the large side, but it's also a fairly densely populated thing by nature. The official art that's been published suggests that the areas where the ceiling wasn't practically brushing the rooftops were few and far between. Not just that, they built into every available space they could get including module articulations and airlocks, which is why they had such trouble with the transformation initially. Your premise also kind of ignores that the entire island these people were on wasn't much bigger than the ship and the entire city these people were already living in amounted to maybe 4 square kilometers counting the space occupied by the ship. -
Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
Given the ruthlessly economized nature of practically all Zentradi equipment, it strikes me as extremely unlikely that the ancient Protoculture would have engineered the motherships with a nature park the size of Milwaukee that recreated the conditions on their homeworld if they weren't going to have personnel aboard those ships on a regular basis and for long durations. If they were just popping in every now and again, you'd expect they'd just stay aboard the ships they came on, which were doubtless engineered with far more in terms of creature comforts than a Zentradi warship. And this has what to do with what now? Also, not a great example since this does actually work in terms of the ship's internal volume and it's well attested-to that the ship itself is mostly hollow... which enabled them to get all those people in there in the first place. (Not to mention it's also well established that it was a very suboptimal situation and the ship really didn't have the resources to sustain the population it was carrying... and that the mass-production type scaled its population back to around 10,000.) Mind you, this runs into the problem of the average person's inability to grasp the sheer scale of these ships... or even of our much smaller contemporary supercarriers. Few people have access to manmade structures large enough to be comparable. My workplace, for instance, is one such structure. You could park eight Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers in it and have room for three or four more if you parked them in the courtyards. It's square footage is approximately equal to just the footprint of the Macross (~501,700 square meters), and even with over 15,000 people and several hundred cars in it it's still pretty much empty. -
Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
Plenty, by all indications. The Birdman just messed with Sara's perceptions so she would direct it in battle, the actual combat direction appears to have been coming from her. The Fold Evil on Uroboros was being controlled by Colonel Todo. These weapons weren't designed with cockpits arbitrarily, they were designed to be piloted. Considering how ruthlessly the Protoculture economized everything else about the Zentradi's ships and equipment, it seems unlikely they would order such a thing be constructed in Zentradi fleet motherships unless they intended to actually make good use of it. -
Gundam Show Thread - MSG thru GQuuuuuuX
Seto Kaiba replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Really, the Gundam franchise as a whole kind of abandoned the entire notion of caring about serious storytelling about ten years back when Sunrise decided to see if its fans would accept a blatant, old-school, half-hour toy commercial in the form of Gundam Build Fighters. The Witch from Mercury's writing isn't quite that patronizing (yet), but the series feels very underdeveloped. It's not a good look when your writing is so sloppy and poorly planned that the only way for the story to continue is for it to break its own rules immediately after it established them for the audience. The last two episodes of G-Witch require over 150 extraordinarily wealthy and well-connected people with seemingly infinite resources who have been carefully scrutinizing everything that's happened in the story thus far to fail to spot the very thing they've been looking for in an already highly-scrutinized, regulated, televised public event... twice. TBH, I suspect a lot of the show's problems have a single root cause. It seems a fair number of the creative decisions being made in G-Witch are motivated by attempts to combat the perception that Gundam is for "old people", after Sunrise staffers got a nasty shock from an honest school tour group who told them they don't feel Gundam is relevant to them. Watching the series after learning that, you can practically see the Sunrise staff racking their brains in a messy conference room trying to figure out what appeals to "The Youth". It feels like Sunrise might've missed the point entirely. The cast are all students? Fine. That's relatable to teens, I guess. The cast is composed almost exclusively of spoiled, indolent children of the ultra-wealthy who attend Space Hogwarts where they learn of nothing except matters related to giant robots because that one industry drives the entire economy somehow and spend their days idly gambling on duels between students and harassing each other over differences in social status. Might just be me, but I don't think that is terribly relatable to teens. It actually kind of feels like mocking them and calling them sheltered brats for saying Gundam isn't relevant anymore. It's every bit as insane as Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, where an ultra-wealthy man set up a vast boarding school on a remote island to teach the finer points of a children's card game to a new generation of young people because a children's card game is somehow a spectator sport more important than politics or the economy. (And yes, I fully appreciate the beautiful irony that I was the one to make this comparison). Where G-Witch differs is that it takes itself completely seriously where Yu-Gi-Oh! GX was fully aware of how ridiculous its own premise was and engaged in ironic self-parody and lampshade-hanging at every opportunity. The worst part is she's a transfer student. She was attending some other school and apparently learned nothing there either. She's practically an idiot savant when it comes to Mobile Suit piloting, but she's completely inept at literally everything else and it seems like her mother Prospera might be too as she apparently sent her to Asticassia without any kind of preparation or any of the support that the rest of the student body takes for granted.- 3681 replies
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Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
Now, that was true up to a point... but even if we ignore clearly-armed constructs intended for Protoculture use like the Birdman, Fold Evil, and Sigur Berrentzs, the Protoculture did not have the luxury of leaving their defense exclusively to their clone armies of Zentradi once the Supervision Army emerged. They had to take a direct hand in their own defense because their Zentradi forces were hamstrung by the directive "Do not interfere with the Protoculture". Mind you, there is some evidence to suggest that the Protoculture took a direct role in the operations of their Zentradi forces even before the Supervision Army emerged and began decimating the Protoculture's population. The Fulbtzs Berrentzs-class motherships are noted to have amenities that are clearly intended for use by Protoculture stationed there, like a 250 square kilometer (61,776 acre) nature park that reproduces the conditions of the Protoculture's homeworld. Once the Protodeviln were sealed, there's no obstacle we know about that would have prevented them from simply solving the problem forever by dropping a dimensional bomb on the planet. Or doing the same to many of the other irresponsible inventions they created. -
Ernest Johnson was written out of Absolute Live!!!!!! because his voice actor Unshou Ishizuka passed away back in August 2018, about six months after Passionate Walkure came out. The in-universe reason for his absence - and that of his ship - is that Xaos is still repairing the battle damage the Macross Elysion sustained 13 months earlier during the events of the previous movie's climax. As a result, [...]
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Ah, so you're expecting him to survive Andor and the Original Trilogy so he can be digitally added into the sequel trilogy's Special Edition re-release ten years from now? Or become an Expanded Universe character until he's been worn down to a one-dimensional nub of the character he was onscreen? Syril Karn's so pompous and so self-important that the only truly fitting way for him to die in Andor would have to be a complete anticlimax. Something with no weight or significance to it that draws a line under how utterly inconsequential he is in the grand scheme of things. Like being the first mook to die in a firefight. Or dying in a car crash early in a long chase scene. Or getting shot by his own troops for ordering a suicidal charge because they don't like him. Y'know, that kind of thing.
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My money's on them finally squaring off, face-to-face, at the end of the series proper. Karn'll get to confront his nemesis and will be gunned down anticlimactically for it.
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Gundam Show Thread - MSG thru GQuuuuuuX
Seto Kaiba replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
What a disappointing show The Witch from Mercury is turning out to be. Six episodes in, and the writers have already basically thrown in the towel.- 3681 replies
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Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
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. -
Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
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
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Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
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". -
Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
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Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
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. -
Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
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. -
Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie Driver's topic in Movies and TV Series
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.