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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    There was one weird moment with the subtitltes when Alto is visiting Ozma in the hospital. Most of the conspicuous English is subtitled... but when Canaria shows up in her first scene and says "disassociated amnesia" in English, there are no subs, and the subs come back when she says it again in Japanese.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    They dropped the ball pretty hard... the ad reel from Fathom that was supposed to be on loop before the screening started pounded home the subject of Part 2 on the 30th with all the subtlety of a piledriver, at intervals of about once every three minutes. It doesn't, but that's by design. The False Songstress and The Wings of Farewell changed the plot up quite a bit and the Vajra are more active participants in the story. The series never really depicted the Vajra as the massive threat they were talked up to be. The movies fixed that, so part 1 is basically introducing the key players and having the Vajra set up their badass credentials by supposedly destroying the entire Macross Galaxy fleet but for a handful of refugee ships. Admittedly for good reason... You have to remember these are effectively compilation movies. The movies are taking it as read that you've already seen the series. Right before the climax, when they try to arrest Grace, it does come out that Frontier and Galaxy are seeking the Vajra homeworld for its resources... meaning fold quartz, though that'll be discussed in more detail in part 2 and the movie assumes you'd already know that from the series. The Vajra are big and dangerous, and the audience knows that Galaxy did something to piss them off, but the movie does set the Galaxy fleet up as the greater scope villains for Part 2.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, just a jab at the terrible ergonomics of general-use corporate office furniture. It's awkward, uncomfortable, lowest-bidder garbage even if you're not a Zentradi-sized bloke like me. (At my job, I have seldom felt as much kinship for Zentradi Regult pilots as when I had to pretzel myself into a Fiat 500e.)
  4. Seto Kaiba
    The screening just ended here in my corner of MI. It went extremely well, though the audio mix felt a bit wonky. All in all, I'm extremely happy I went. To think I'd be able to see these in an actual theater. It's positively cause to be giddy.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    A line of reasoning which suggests the Protoculture didn't go extinct, they merely went undercover among humans as manufacturers of cubicles and other office furniture.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    The kanji they use for it is 重攻撃機 (Juu kougeki-ki), "Heavy Attack Aircraft". It's not a fighter pod, it's more analogous to an attack plane like the A-10A Thunderbolt II or an attack gunship like the AC-130 Spectre/Spooky.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Pretty much, yes... though that was the defense force of an established colony from a 1st or 2nd Generation emigrant fleet. Each successive generation got much larger. Macross M3 introduced a class of space stealth cruiser in the Dancing Skulls mothership Algenicus. Since its class was never identified, most fans refer to it as the Algenicus-class or Algenicus-type. Max's service history also mentions one other cruiser he served aboard, the Haruna (class unspecified). There were also cruisers among the ship designs used by the Varauta colony, which would/should have been a contemporary of the Spica III colony. (The only one mentioned after is the Northampton-derived stealth cruiser from Macross Frontier and later which has never received a class name. It has an informal nickname of the Osaka-class thanks to Circle FANKY's Battleships of the Galaxy doujin.) It's actually considered an Armored Pack, not a Super Pack. It's pretty minimal, just some extra armor to protect the legs/engines with some verniers built in and an armored segment to protect above the cockpit with some micro-missile launchers. It's not explicitly said whether or not the AAS-171 Armored Pack could be taken by the base model VF-171 Block II model, but in the Macross Frontier movies the improved Block IIIF (3F) model that is outwardly identical to the Block II is shown using it so the answer is probably yes. Armaments-wise, it's just a couple micro-missiles in the launchers on either side of the cockpit. Nothing major. It's mostly about improving defensive ability. There's a Regult converted for operation by three miclones in the original series... that's how the Zentradi spy trio get away after their mission is done and carry all the stuff they've bought or nicked back to the Vrlitwhai Branch Fleet. That said, given the (comparatively) low level of automation and low survivability of the Regult, the complexity of the Queadluun-Rau's control system, and the usage of the military as a sort of halfway house for Zentradi who had trouble adjusting to Earth's culture, there probably wasn't a lot of demand for miclone-pilotable versions. It's actually a bit surprising that the Zentradi were willing to keep using the Regult given that it's described as being a bit of an ergonomic nightmare... but a dose of the familiar probably went a ways towards keeping them calm.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    That's one of the bigger problems with estimating the exact size of the New UN Forces and New UN Government... good luck determining what constitutes a "typical" fleet past about the mid-2020s.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    It's a weird place to end a season, that's for sure. With a closing title card like that, I wonder if they'll do a season four or not. Esp. since the light novel doesn't end on such a sad note at that point. It veers more or less straight back into comedy when she meets her new adoptive families and parks there for the duration as she begins a printing-focused rampage with blueblood financial clout behind her. Especially once Karstadt's wife gets involved. If they do pick up from there, it'll be interesting to see how far they run with it... it kind of bogs down after the timeskip between parts 3 and 4. That said, I am glad for a few omissions in the anime version...
  10. Seto Kaiba
    For what it's worth, we do see some features that suggest the first few New Macross fleets used the old ARMD II-class as well... so it may be close to the mark. It's probably just an eccentricity of the Northampton-class itself... even in the Macross 7 Trash manga, the docking umbilical's connector is on the side of the bridge tower.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    There is that, yes... but what I was getting at has more to do with the problematic writing in Macross Delta. Namely, the tendency of the show's writers to toss out dramatic plot twists and reveals with significant implications and completely forget about them by the end of the episode or even the end of the scene. My favorite example of this being late in the Macross Delta TV series when the main trio are captured and put on trial. Mirage tries to invoke prisoner of war protections under the spacefuture equivalent of the Geneva Conventions and is told flat out she can't because, as a mercenary, she's not a lawful combatant. She is somehow surprised by this despite the fact that that should be common knowledge in her line of work, that she should have learned as much in officer training in the Spacy, and that it is not exactly a new legal development being that laws to that effect have been on the books since 1978's Protocol I almost 90 years previous. The story tries to play this decision off as unfair despite presenting it as legally correct and then it is promptly forgotten as soon as the courtroom drama is over and never mentioned again. It's the same deal with Wright. Yeah, the series harps on at great length about what a great guy he was and that he was the one who unintentionally bombed Carlyle off the map... but it tries to hastily change the topic anytime the subject starts to stray towards Wright's own major contributions to the disaster. He waited until he was in the air with an armed dimensional warhead to start refusing orders and stalled for time by refusing to leave a holding pattern over a major population center and arguing with flight control. Wright may not have pulled the trigger, but he was the one who recklessly gambled with the lives of everyone in Carlyle and lost. The series tries to put all the blame on the Spacy brass who overrode Wright's controls at the last second, but forgets that it established that it was at the last second and that Wright was the one who decided to do circles over a city while carrying the bomb.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    There is a saying... "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Wright Immelmann was a good man trying to do what he thought was right. Meaning well is no guarantee that what you want to do to help is necessarily actually helpful or the right thing to do in that situation. He tried to save as many lives as possible because he cared about the Windermereans, but his well-intentioned interference ended up getting millions of civilians killed because of how he went about it. He waited until he was in the air with an armed dimensional warhead to object, which is very much too late to have a good way out. Dropping the bomb would make him a war criminal because those weapons are banned except under very special circumstances (that the situation met, but this was being done covertly). Surrender would leave a dimensional bomb in the hands of an unstable, highly irrational, and increasingly desperate autocrat on the losing side of a war and either get him tried for war crimes, treason, or both if he was still alive after the New UN Forces eventually won by attrition. Not dropping it meant that he was playing the galaxy's most dangerous game of hot potato until one or both sides got sick of his antics and decided to shoot him down. He waited until there was no good answer to have his particular crisis of conscience. Like several other areas (e.g. Xaos unlawfully participating in a declared war) the series is kind of in a rush to skip past the unfortunate implications surrounding the designated heroes. The series did make an effort to drive home that it was a tragedy and a totally senseless loss of life in general. I'm not sure it necessarily tried to make the audience feel bad for Wright or Hayate given that the Windermereans suffered far worse, and they do go out of their way to show Hayate what happened. The Sv-303 Vivasvat is probably not all THAT uber... after all, while it does take out both the Aerial Knights and Delta Flight initially, neither side are exactly first-rate forces. The Aerial Knights were almost entirely combat virgins prior to the 2067 war with the NUNG and all their most experienced pilots died in the war including the White Knight and the knight commander. That Bogue is their top ace says a lot, given that he had never seen unstimulated combat before the events of episode 1 and he was the youngest and the least experienced member of Keith's unit. Delta Flight is similarly bereft of its top ace's skills since Messer died in the war, and its elite troops are mostly washouts from local NUNS forces (not exactly top tier). The unmanned Vivasvat has the advantage of being controlled remotely by a quantum supercomputer AI, so even if it doesn't outclass them too badly on specs it has reaction time and coordination ability in its corner. The YF-29 supposedly stomps them, but then that's with Max at the stick... which goes beyond his usual one man army status to feeling like bullying, with The Strongest Pilot piloting The Strongest Valkyrie.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Diamond Force didn't do much better... not being a main character is a real occupational hazard. That's an excellent question with no clear answer... the circumstances of the development of the new ship classes first seen in Macross Plus and Macross 7 are unclear to the say least. The Elysion-type, no. In Macross Frontier, the Macross Quarter-class was a very recent development. The Macross Quarter in the TV version of the story was the prototype and sole example of the class. It was built at Island-1's pier, with construction starting in December 2055. It was completed at some point in 2057 or 2058, and after some minor retrofits was approved for SMS's use for operational evaluation purposes in c.2059 May. In the movie version it was similarly a very recent addition that only entered service shortly before the story.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    The series really doesn't talk about the implications much. They opened by hinting that it was a stupendously bad idea for Hayate to go anywhere near Windermere IV because he was Wright's son, but when it became important to the plot it was mainly focused on the fact that it was the NUNS, not Windermere, who dropped the bomb. The series somewhat understandably avoids an in-depth examination of the fact that Wright's irresponsible and unprofessional behavior got a few million people killed and started a second interstellar war.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Major Wright Immelmann's final (and fatal) mission was supposed to be to drop the dimensional warhead his VF-22S was carrying on the Protoculture ruins near Darwent. Had he followed orders, he could potentially have prevented the events of Macross Delta from occurring at all by disabling or destroying the Delta Wave System and Sigur Berrentzs. There may have been some casualties from dropping a WMD near, but not on, a city... but a lot fewer than what his actions caused. Instead, he deliberately dithered in enemy airspace hoping to be intercepted because he was worried about the risk to Darwent, and he got his wish. He was intercepted. While he was loitering over the city of Carlyle. Yes, this bright spark of a man decided the most appropriate thing to do while carrying an armed dimensional warhead was to fly in circles in the airspace over a major city. His superiors ordered him to proceed to target and he refused, so they overrode his controls but too late to do any good. The bomb ended up being dropped by remote control for reasons unclear - possibly the NUNS brass were worried it would fall into Windermerean hands, or that the crash might cause it to detonate on the ground and cause more damage than the planned airburst - and Wright was subsequently shot down and killed. So his well-intentioned idiocy not only prevented the military from destroying a Protoculture relic that could potentially kill the entire galactic population by accident even if it worked correctly, it also cost the lives of millions of Windermereans in Carlyle when the city was destroyed in the dimensional warhead's detonation, inflicted heavy casualties on the New UN Forces on the planet, blew up into a major scandal which caused both sides to label him as a war criminal, and directly motivated Windermere's subsequent invasion of the Brisingr cluster and all the death and destruction that followed. If he'd followed orders, or even just objected on the ground and been replaced by another pilot, the events of Macross Delta would probably have never come to pass and many of the characters (esp. on the Windermere side) would not have grown up the horribly broken people they were since Keith's mentor and Bogue's family wouldn't have died. "Nice job breaking it, hero."
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Fortunately, Macross being Macross, the vast majority of people in the galaxy are actually pretty decent and just want to get along... so truly nefarious plots are few and far between. That said, when applied without malice, the advancements in technology humanity brought does have some pretty significant advantages. With the possible exception of Zola, none of the other sub-Protoculture worlds that've made contact with the New UN Government have to contend with the health and environmental consequences of an industrial age like deforestation, rampant pollution, exposure to toxic chemicals used in manufacturing processes, etc. They got to skip the nasty environmental consequences of things like fossil fuel pollution and radioactive waste management and go straight to high-efficiency wind, solar, and thermonuclear power. For a given value of "dangerous". It's not always immediately evident what insane nonsense they buried where. Like on Uroboros, where an extensive network of ruins were under investigation for ages despite being full of dangerous technorganic murder-bugs because (almost) nobody knew that they were looking at a vast dimensional lock keeping a weaponized time machine in out of anyone's hands. It can be said that the Protoculture gradually got better about their Keep Out signs. Leaving the 4th planet of the Varauta system an uninhabitable iceworld was a good start. When they buried the Fold Evil on Uroboros they left a self-replicating, aggressively territorial swarm of highly proactive Keep Out signs then broke spacetime around the planet to ensure that it stayed that way. On Windermere IV and the other worlds of the Brisingr cluster, they didn't just break spacetime they chucked the dangerous bits of their untested telepathy machine into another dimension. That last was enough for the New UN Forces to think "I know where this is going" and conclude that maximum overkill was the only way to keep whatever the Protoculture locked up from being messed with. (Unfortunately, Wright Immelmann screwed the pooch on that one and turned a bombing run on a museum piece into a war crime.)
  17. Seto Kaiba
    One related topic that is very pertinent to Macross Delta... humanity is sharing its advanced technology with the other sub-Protoculture species it encounters as it explores space. The Zolans were the next most advanced species behind Humans, and their society had only advanced to approximately equal humanity's level of development in the first half of the 20th century when they were suddenly catapulted into the interstellar age. Civilization on Windermere IV - and, it's implied, other Brisingr cluster worlds - skipped whole sets of eras in the natural course of their development and jumped from medieval civilizations to interstellar ones. We've already seen that Windermere IV didn't exactly do a great job adjusting, given that their cultural mindset was still heavily entrenched in the medievalness of one generation prior when they declared war in 2060. The New UN Gov't really freaking needs the Prime Directive.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    For now, the biggest obstacle to a human-built fold dimensional energy converter would probably be that humanity has yet to develop the technology to synthesize fold quartz the way they currently synthesize fold carbon. It's something they're working on (according to Macross Chronicle) but as of 2067 don't seem to have succeeded with yet. They're still dependent on the fold quartz they find in Protoculture ruins, old Vajra nesting sites, and Vajra carcasses. Even once they reach the point of synthesizing fold quartz, other uses for it will probably take priority for a good while. Like zero-time fold systems and inertia store converters for ships and fighters, high-performance GIC systems for thermonuclear reactors, improved holographic projectors, and the like. (Unfortunately it'll probably also mean a proliferation of MDE weapons, dimension cutters, and dimension eaters since fold quartz will be readily available.)
  19. Seto Kaiba
    So... if we're not limiting it to just human-designed mecha and such, then depending on how you want to define "mecha" the answer is potentially in the past. In Macross 7, the Evil-series bioweapons the Protoculture developed were powered by prototype biotechnological fold dimensional energy converters. A botched power test of the converters was what trapped energy beings from fold space in their bodies, forcing them to resort to preying on the Protoculture in order to survive. (The Protodeviln's origin story.) In Macross Zero, the Birdhuman the Protoculture left behind on Earth to destroy humanity if it made it to space without achieving a harmonious society was also powered by a fold dimensional energy converter. Macross Chronicle implied that the Protoculture acquired the technology by studying the Vajra, and that Vajra Queens and likely other Vajra forms power their energy-intensive biotechnologies this way. Its caliber has never been identified, officially. As far as we know, that brute force approach to greater defensive potential by doubling the armor thickness and doubling the power supply was limited to the YF-29. In hindsight, it's actually kind of odd that the YF-29 didn't adopt the Advanced Energy Conversion Armor used in the VF-25's antiprojectile shield and the VF-25's Armored Pack. It's actually kind of odd that those 2nd Generation energy conversion armor technologies aren't mentioned after Frontier either, though perhaps more understandable since the technology was mentioned to be very expensive and the Macross Delta VFs lack forearm shields.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    It's a decent drama-preserving handicap, if nothing else. The YF-29's drama preserving handicap was that the cornerstone of its amazing performance - the fold wave system - was absolutely impossible to mass produce because it was built around a prohibitively large amount of ultra-high purity fold quartz of a type that could only reliably be obtained from the carcasses of Vajra queen forms. That was how they justified there being only one of them in the entire Macross Frontier fleet, rather than having the Frontier NUNS flood the battlefield with uber-powerful anti-Vajra Valkyries. Giving the VF-31 Custom "Siegfried" a less capable fold wave system that uses less of that ultra-high purity fold quartz allows them to have a gimmick that ties into Walkure's singing in ways that allow Walkure to affect the battle without it becoming a story-breaker power the way the YF-29's fold wave system would have been or demoting the fold wave system itself to mundanity. Windermere IV has large reserves of fold quartz thanks to having previously been a world settled by the Protoculture, but fold quartz with the requisite size and purity to use in a fold wave system or similar technology is still quite rare. The Sv-262 Draken III has a more conservative take on the fold wave system concept called a Fold Reheat system. The operation of the system isn't described in detail, but it seems to do only one thing: improve engine output. The base Ba model's fold reheat produces a 25% improvement in total engine output, while the Hs command specification uses higher-purity fold quartz provided by the royal family to achieve a 30% output improvement. That improvement is quite substantial, but the Sv-262 itself doesn't seem to be quite capable of sustaining it given that there's one point in the series where it's mentioned that Keith's reckless use of "wind riding" inflicted enough damage to his Sv-262Hs that it needed a major overhaul. By contrast, the Fold Wave System used in the YF-29 and VF-31 Custom is a more multipurposeful system. It improves the performance of thermonuclear reaction engines that were designed to interface with it, but it also provides the Valkyrie with energy via fold dimensional energy conversion and facilitates the detection, interception, and amplification of fold waves. With an active fold wave system, a Valkyrie can draw out the full potential of its engines while also fully powering every other system like energy conversion armor, pinpoint barriers, and beam weapons. Even though the VF-31 Custom's cut-down fold wave system is less capable in terms of total thrust output than the Draken III's fold reheat, it's still noted to be far and away the superior system. (Being able to run the Siegfried's energy conversion armor at full power and activate the pinpoint barriers in fighter mode is itself a pretty huge advantage, since it makes the Siegfried WAY tankier than the Draken III.) It's noted to vary... the fold quartz used in the Ba type's fold reheat system is of a lower quality/purity than the type the royal family provides for the Hs type. How it compares to fold quartz used in the VF-31 Siegfried in absolute terms is unknown. We'll probably find out in September when the Blu-rays drop. I'm sure I'll have lots to rant about then. Mind you, 27mm is still pretty darn close to that territory. The VF-11's gunpod was a 30mm one.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    I'm rather curious as well... it's rather atypical for there to be this little coverage a new Macross movie's new mecha. Based on the available info, my assumption is that they're 1. waiting for the limited edition Blu-ray and will put those details in the booklet and 2. the actual difference isn't very large. What we've been told of the Kairos Plus is that it's an improvised upgrade to the stock VF-31A Kairos made after Delta Flight's Siegfried customs were destroyed, built using surviving VF-31A Kairos airframes and spare parts built for Delta Flight's Siegfried customs. I'd expect that the actual specs are largely the same as the Siegfried's, given that the Siegfried's one real area of difference from the Kairos was the adoption of a fold wave system and FF-3001/FC2 engines and the Kairos Plus's main noted difference is better fold quartz for their fold wave systems they acquired while in hiding. (One detail mentioned in Master File is that the VF-31 Siegfried was able to get away with using smaller, lower purity, and therefore much less expensive fold quartz crystals thanks to some optimizations in the fold wave system's design that sacrificed performance for less-tight tolerances on the fold quartz. The performance boost was less than the YF-29's and the Siegfried lacked the ability to trigger the system to activate at any time the way the YF-29 could, but it did still provide a respectable performance boost. Presumably adopting larger, higher purity fold quartz would improve the system's performance boost when active, though given how much of a role Walkure plays in the plot I'd assume it still won't be able to go forcibly activate without an external fold wave source.)
  22. Seto Kaiba
    TIL Skeleton Knight in Another World's OP is by one of those YouTube anime music cover artists who's managed to transition to the supply side of his particular equation. Pretty cool.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Back when the series was first airing, I'm sure the reasoning was closer to it being a brand-new, ultra-high performance fighter and special forces pilots who'd already been used to a similar level of performance on an older model (the VF-17) being best suited to transition to it in a hurry. Post-Frontier, yeah that plus cost was likely the reason that the Macross 7 fleet only built ~4 VF-19s and a similar number of VF-22s. That's one of those nods to real world situations Kawamori likes throwing in. Lockheed Martin's prototype won the ATF program, but they awarded construction contracts to Boeing also so the two companies ended up collaborating on construction of the F-22. General Galaxy had already toyed with putting the Queadluun-Rau's Inertia Vector Control System into the VF-22. It just wasn't designed for the kind of sustained high-g punishment that the VF-22 (and VF-19) produced when operating to their full potential, so a better solution was needed. That's unrelated... the VF-31A does use fold quartz in its Inertia Store Converter and achieves performance comparable to the ISC used in the earlier VF-25 and VF-27. Where it adopts fold carbon is in the fold wave amplifiers on the dorsal fuselage. The Siegfried Custom version uses fold quartz in its amps instead. That's why it's listed as Special Equipment. While access to fold quartz is absolutely a major factor in the adoption of 5th Generation VFs, that has a lot to do with the financial and strategic concerns involved as well. The Macross Frontier and Macross Galaxy fleets rushed to develop their own 5th Generation VFs because they were deliberately heading into Vajra space for their own reasons (the fold quartz "gold rush" and Galaxy's implant network plan), so they needed a Valkyrie that could keep up with the Vajra in combat should the need arise. Other emigrant governments, especially those living well away from current or former Vajra space, would not have anywhere near the strategic incentive to adopt the 5th Generation VFs quickly. Those with limited or no access to fold quartz or more average economies would naturally have to balance their priorities rather differently. The Brisingr Alliance made the VF-31 not because they actually needed a 5th Generation VF right away but because they were looking to use exports to stimulate their economy. They were sitting on a small mountain of fold quartz and desperately needed something to get cash flowing into the cluster.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    The 2nd mass production type did attempt to address the handling issues and some other problems, but the cost and complexity issues were largely unfixable thanks to the high performance design and overall high complexity. Shinsei was still grapping with some of those problems even into the mid-to-late 2050s, well past the point that the VF-19's long term viability was no longer relevant. Based on the VF-171's development history, the issues with the VF-19A reared their ugly head very early and the New UN Forces quickly realized they needed to develop a 4th Gen VF that ease of operation and versatility mattered much more than simply having the highest possible performance. The cornerstone of the VF-171's success was that it had the best possible cost-performance thanks to being developed from a proven design, simplified to make it easier to build and maintain, and prioritized ease of handling to enable the average pilot to get the most out of it. It still met all the objectives of Project Super Nova, but it prioritized the end user over simply red raw specs.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Cost isn't purely a monetary function... it can also be expressed in terms of the amount of resources, labor, time, etc. needed to make something. Even the ancient Protoculture had to consider cost and economize when it came to the equipment the Zentradi use. The equipment the Zentradi use is ruthlessly economized for precisely that reason, and some high-performance weapons like the Queadluun-Rau battle suit never achieved widespread adoption in part because of their greater complexity or requirements for higher-than-typical grades of material. Of course, when it comes to weapons designed and built by humans, the costs don't stop at the initial cost to manufacture the vehicle. There are also maintenance costs related to operation both in terms of periodic maintenance and incidental damage repair. The VF-19 is an extremely complex aircraft with a lot of cutting edge high-tech systems, so it has a high initial cost in terms of manufacturing those systems and assembling them all, as well as a high cost of operation in order to maintain it. Even with the support of factory satellites, that's still a big investment of time, resources, and so on for such a complex build.
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