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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Or simply that we're looking at snapshots of what they could do at radically different points in their history. Unlike many ancient precursors in fiction, they don't seem to have hit a technological plateau and stopped advancing even after their civilization started falling apart. They kept building newer, more advanced, and more irresponsibly dangerous nonsense.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Mind you, watching Macross in chronological order is inadvisible... production order provides more consistency. But, all in all, it's not like Protoculture society was monolithic either and we mostly see them through the lens of what they did to someone else... be it leaving the Birdhuman behind to destroy humanity if we didn't develop as planned, accidentally trapping energy beings in prototype bioweapons, or creating massive clone armies, so the inconsistency there that reflects their tech level is also partly influenced by what time in their history those things were created as well.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Kinda, yeah, if you were to watch Macross in chronological order. The Birdhuman in Macross Zero borders on indistinguishable from magic when it regenerates itself rapidly after activation. They're talked about in totally mundane terms in SDF Macross and DYRL?. Then in Macross 7 the Protodeviln are products of their technology whose abilities again veer heavily into indistinguishable from magic, between vampire-like feeding on people's mental energy, biological beam weapons, biological reactionless space flight without protective equipment, etc. In Frontier, they're mundane scientists copycatting Vajra biology. Then in Delta they veer back into indistinguishable from magic by hiding massive constructs in higher dimensions, buildings made of glowing rocks that respond to songs, and a dangerous forbidden ritual that could create a human hive mind.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    OK yeah, Love After World Domination is my #1 for this season. I lost track of time after I decided to watch one episode over lunch and ended up watching the rest of the available episodes. Can't even recall the last time I was so engrossed in a series that I lost track of time! I'm not sure what's better...
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Episode 5 of Love After World Domination. There's a scene where Fudo gets sick and collapses during a date with Desumi and ends up in the hospital with appendicitis. I lost it when I read the note on the boquet of flowers in his hotel room. It's a get-well letter from the head of the evil organization GEKKO wishing him a swift recovery, and expressing the hope that if he were to perish that it would be at his organization's hands. I have Coke up my nose and my sides hurt.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    The Protoculture like hopping back and forth across the border of "Sufficiently Advanced", but humanity... yeah they're kinda just tossing algae and plankton at oceans and hoping for the best.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    I can only watch Attack on Titan's last few episodes in fits and starts... not just because it's ridiculously grimdark, but because it's so incredibly DUMB. I'm still not caught up there because I can't stop cracking up at how everyone's horrified looks come off as DULL SURPRISE! and how insanely lame the plot is. Thankfully, there is an overabundance of good stuff this season. I've got no less than eight main shows I'm following and a bunch more I've only just started. Love After World Domination is rapidly becoming my contender for this season's #1 though.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    OK, a couple episodes into Love After World Domination and I'm genuinely surprised by how much fun I'm having with this series. Not just because Fudo and Desumi are painfully earnest people... but because, as a result, absolutely everyone else ends up entertainingly wrong about their motives and actions as they increasingly twist their respective day jobs into excuses to see each other and abscond for some alone time.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Not necessarily just the ruins... there's no natural explanation for the Yuria Archipelago on Uroboros having islands in the sky and various orphaned floating rocks, for instance. Of course, we are also seeing the galaxy as it is approximately half a million years after the Protoculture's civilization was wiped out so it's moderately likely that quite a few of the allegedly natural Class A worlds weren't like that when the Protoculture originally found them. Not the ruined settlements, but the massive fold wave resonators hidden alongside them in fold space...
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Started Love After World Domination today... It definitely has a lot of the same feel as Miss Kuroitsu of the Monster Development Department... except that it's aggressively, painfully cute. XD EDIT: OK Red's approach to a confession is a bit creepy... he read through her social media accounts to learn all about her first. That's a bit stalker-y.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Nope. Odds are if it was once a Class A habitable world, it's probably not one anymore thanks to the Zentradi and/or Supervision Army. Reminds me of the plot of Phantasy Star Online 2's 4th episode... the whole schtick there being that the Theia impact hypothesis for the moon's formation is correct, and that what crashed into Earth was a defective copy of the living planet Xion the Photoners (that setting's abusive precursors) had made in an attempt to access the akashic records. It eventually recovered from the crash enough to start steering the course of the planet's development...
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Google Play Books was offering a bundle on the light novels a bit ago... not sure if it's on offer, but the discount's pretty good.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Very safe bet they did... though they seem to have taken a slightly different, more long-term view. The official timeline mentions that Protoculture survey ships would stop on likely planets and reengineer the local life forms to ensure the emergence of a sub-Protoculture species that would prepare the planet for future colonization. Earth was one planet that was manipulated in that way, though the survey ship that did it was never able to report on its activities due to being attacked and destroyed by an enemy flotilla on its return flight.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Ascendance of a Bookworm continues to be a well-executed and fairly faithful adaptation of the light novel. It might actually be slightly better than the light novel in that it makes Myne a lot easier to sympathize with by cutting out a lot of the more selfish and manipulative moments in her internal monologue and the story in general. It looks like this season's probably going to adapt at least to the end of Part II of the light novel, and thus is probably going to end on a rather low note since that story arc ends with...
  15. Seto Kaiba
    I'd presume it depends on how far from Class A the planet actually is. Terraforming technology in Macross is pretty limited, with the only mentioned technologies being things the New UN Government deployed in Earth's postwar recovery plans like using designer bacteria to combat radioactive pollution and regulate atmospheric composition or building an orbital sun shade to mitigate global warming effects. On their own, these won't do anything to combat that consequences and side effects of something like changing the oxygen content of the atmosphere (which could cause die-offs of flora or fauna) or causing sudden worldwide global cooling, so their reliability is probably pretty hit-and-miss. It also won't do anything about discoveries like lethal infectious diseases (e.g. the ones on Zola that you have to be properly immunized against before visiting or you might die, as seen in Macross Dynamite 7), dangerous wildlife (like the dinosaurs on Pukirases IV or Lux), and the like, and could make other problems like severe weather worse. Humanity are still very much blindly stumbling around the cosmos throwing science at the wall to see what sticks. (Of course, there are probably also a lot fewer Class A planets than there used to be thanks to 500,000 years of the Zentradi and Supervision Army bombing the everloving hell out of each other.) I'd expect it depends on how habitable the planet is and the particular circumstances of the emigrant fleet in question. The newer, larger, emigrant ships are designed to operate for decades at a time while searching for habitable planets. If their hand is forced by damage or some other factor, they might settle on a less-than-Class A planet simply to minimize the risk to their populace like how the Macross Frontier fleet saw the Vajra planet as a do-or-die situation after being so heavily damaged in their war with the Vajra that the ship's bioplant environmental system was beyond self-repair. Macross 29 was noted to be in a rough patch itself thanks to damage it sustained from gravitational waves that would likely have made it VERY happy to find a habitable planet, esp. since its economy was collapsing. We haven't seen a big enough sample of emigrant fleets to really get an idea of what behavior is the norm, though since those fleets each have their own local governments there may not actually be a norm since each fleet is making its own determinations. We don't know how many emigrant fleets settled the Brisingr cluster, but with twenty or so inhabitable planets, many of which appearing to be Class A or close to it, some of those fleets may have split up their resources to settle multiple planets. The ones we've seen seem to mostly keep going until they find one inhabitable planet and go all-in on that. It's possible that marginally-habitable worlds may be tagged for future investigation either by that fleet and settled by volunteers or some kind of follow-on mission intended to settle worlds like that. Eden was discovered and first settled by a short-distance emigrant fleet in November 2013, over a year before Megaroad-04 was launched. (The year before Megaroad-02 and -03 were launched, in fact.) Entirely too many sidequests and at two or three main quests in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy involve someone in one of the arcology-cities on Uroboros asking Hunters Guild members to transport cargo from one city to another using their Valkyrie for some urgent purpose or other (often medicine). On a planet largely lacking overland routes to connect cities in the three regions thanks to insane terrain like floating islands, dangerous "wild"life like the technorganic Dyaus and a Vajra hive, and other dangers like the gangs of bandits and renegade Zentradi that attack transports to steal supplies and so on (made more dangerous by clandestine assistance from a corrupt NUNS VF-X Special Forces unit), Valkyries became the only way to get around large portions of the planet safely.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Not quite. The Macross Chronicle World Guide sheet in question uses the term "remote planet" specifically to refer to planets on the fringes of their star's habitable zone. Essentially, what it says is that because Class A habitable worlds (Earth-like planets) are so rare some emigrants have had to settle on worlds that are only marginally habitable. Whether it's a result of extreme weather, hostile terrain, or the planet just being on the edge of the star's habitable zone, those worlds are less-than-lovely places to live and are only lightly inhabited by those who are there to exploit their resources. They're mentioned to be used for things like mining, agriculture, and livestock farming. It never says that the New UN Government lacks influence there. What it does say is that the inhabitants of those worlds often have a bone to pick with the New UN Government because of the harsh conditions they live in, and that as a result those planets become hotbeds of anti-government sentiment and potentially breeding grounds for new terrorist organizations. EDIT: One would imagine Uroboros is a pretty good example of that, given its excessive problems with piracy and the whole "planet of floating rocks" terrain making it problematic enough to get around that many people have privately owned VFs for the purpose.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    RPG Real Estate defied my pessimism a bit. It's not as aggressively cutesy as I had feared, though it does devolve from a sort of biting satire of the real estate market in Japan to just a regular sort of sitcom about fantasy world real estate sales and the perils associated therewith. It's eminently watchable, but it's only so-so in my opinion. It's also kind of weird that every character is drawn with gradient-fill eyes. That's probably where a lot of the budget went.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, yes... it'd be far more accurate to contextualize that not as an actual emigrant fleet but as a bunch of Zentradi malcontents running as fast and as far as they could to avoid armed retribution after staging a terrorist attack on Macross City. They had good reason to run. They attacked the capital of the New UN Government and got mercilessly thrashed by the Earth New UN Forces. Zentradi New UN Forces ace Timothy Daldhanton was decorated for scoring an incredible fifty confirmed kills of rebel aircraft during that engagement. It'd be a terribly foolish thing to do if anyone were insane enough to make the attempt. Emigrant fleets and planets are dependent on each other for all manner of things, with the New UN Government acting as a sort of top-level mutual defense pact, trade agreement, and source of international law under which emigrant governments also formed smaller power blocs for mutual defense, trade, etc. to cover their own shortcomings and provide for the common good. Going it alone means cutting off trade, being locked out of the loop on technological progress, and having nobody to call on for help should your fleet fall under attack, among other things. When you hear mention of the "Brisingr Alliance" in Macross Delta, that's what they're talking about. Because the twenty or so worlds of the Brisingr globular cluster are located fairly close to each other in galactic terms - separated by a few dozen to a few hundred light years at most - but also partly isolated from the rest of the galaxy by the sheer remoteness of the cluster itself on the far side of the galaxy from Earth, they banded together under a local defense pact and trade partnership to protect and stabilize their local economy and also provide defense against the Zentradi and other threats. (One of the factors that contributed to Windermere IV's war of secession in 2060 was the Kingdom of the Wind being upset about having to send its troops to support its neighbors when there was an encounter with rogue Zentradi.)
  19. Seto Kaiba
    That's a very narrow topic, considering the only emigrant "fleets" we know of having done so were some renegade Zentradi who took off into deep space without any of the planning or preparation that normally goes into an emigrant fleet launch... and also without the flotilla of escorts and support ships necessary to sustain long-term operations in deep space. For better or worse, they are almost certainly dead. If not by their own hubris, then by the hands of their fellow Zentradi or New UN Forces pursuing them for their involvement in terrorist activities on Earth. As far as we know, no actual emigrant fleet has ever cut ties with the New UN Government. Emigrant fleets are big, resource-intensive, vulnerable things. They're autonomous to a certain extent, but as emigration into deep space has expanded they've become economically and militarily dependent upon each other for survival. An emigrant fleet attacked by a rogue Zentradi force is going to want to be able to call on other, nearby emigrant fleets for reinforcements rather than risk destruction. Likewise, inter-fleet and interplanetary trade enables fleets to acquire things they couldn't independently produce. Trying to cut ties with the New UN Government wouldn't be entirely synonymous with suicide... but on the list of dumb*ss stunts it'd rank pretty close to the top. There's only been one "emigrant" planet mentioned to have seceded from the New UN Government, and that was Windermere IV. They were New UN Government members in good standing for a bit over 30 years before things blew up (some literally) and they withdrew. All they really did there was reject their membership in the New UN Government and went isolationist. They kept their trade ties and diplomatic relations open. If they actually cut ties, they'd get nothing... because they'd have cut themselves off from the mandated technology-sharing policies of the New UN Government, as well as from all forms of trade with other governments. Cultural and technological exports are handled mainly via the Galaxy Network - the space internet connecting all the New UN Government's fleets and planets - and severing trade agreements and treaties means other fleets don't have to honor your fiat currency, engage in trade of real goods with you, respect claims your government makes on resources, or treat your soldiers as prisoners of war in the event of a conflict. You'd also be forfieting the New UN Government's protection in the event your fleet found a Bigger Threat or were attacked by another emigrant fleet. This is why Windermere IV's departure from the New UN Government in 2060 was a rather halfhearted one at best. While they rejected their membership in the New UN Government and its authority on their world specifically while withdrawing into self-imposed isolation, completely cutting ties with the New UN Government was completely unrealistic. They had cut off travel unrelated to trade and banned cultural imports, but there was no way to completely suspend trade with the New UN Government's member nations because they were dependent on that trade to keep their economy going and for all kinds of essentials. Windermere IV essentially jumped straight from a late medieval period civilization with absolute monarchies and knights dueling as mounted cavalry to a participant in a vast interstellar civilization in a single (30 year) lifetime. They skipped huge chunks of normal development and as a result lack the advanced industries necessary to maintain a modern standard of living. They were dependent on other New UN Government worlds for technology, medicine, weaponry, and the training to use it all. Without interstellar trade, Windermere IV's economy would've collapsed, they would've been unable to maintain their standard of living, and that would likely have led to another round of civil unrest that might've seen the Kingdom of the Wind's royal family overthrown. (You've no doubt seen in the news the havoc that a severance of even a majority of a nation's trade ties can cause in the nation losing the trade, with precipitous drops in currency valuation, nationwide supply shortages, and a near-total loss of access to information and new technology.) The Kingdom of the Wind was able to last as long as it did by keeping trade open with its New UN Government neighbors, and legally purchasing the needed technology through corporations in the New UN Government sphere of influence.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Y'know, I don't think I ever thought about it properly before... but most of this movie has the audience watching Kirk watch things on a succession of different viewscreens. We watch him watch things on the bridge viewscreen, on the recreation deck viewscreen, on the massive viewscreen in his office, etc. basically from the minute they leave spacedock until their encounter with the Voyager 6 probe at the movie's end. ... ... ... It would be amazing for someone to edit it to recreate the "You're looking at now, sir" scene from Spaceballs. I wonder how many episodes of TOS you could get through by inserting an entire episode every time the camera cuts to a viewscreen? I'm guessing at least a season.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Maybe so, but Gene was veeeeeery good at self-sabotage... not as good as his freaking lawyer, but he could still have taught a master class in it. IIRC, I've always heard the movie's writing and pacing problems were down to two main factors unconnected to the release date: The script was a retooled rescue from the unproduced Star Trek Phase II pilot project... leaving the original 48 minute story spread painfully thin across two-and-a-quarter hours of feature film and necessitating nearly-daily rewrites that left the cast and crew barely aware of where the film was headed. The production's overspending on special effects making the director and studio execs hesitant to leave any of those extravagantly expensive shots on the cutting room floor. To be fair, that's gotta be the second or third time they've tried that for that one movie. It's just going to make them look silly if they can't scrape up the cash to meet Pine, Quinto, et. al.'s demands... which was the original problem after their financial backers pulled out in the wake of 1-3's underperformance.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Starting a series called RPG Real Estate now. The premise sounded suitably odd... the trials and travails of an urban real estate agency operating in the capital of a standard JRPG fantasy kingdom. On actually watching it, I've got a sneaking suspicion this is gonna be my first hard drop of the season. It's aggressively cutesy, and the introduction to the main characters involved one of them (some kind of demihuman) not wanting to get dressed. (Oddly, this is the first time I can recall a fantasy series establishing an exchange rate between yen and gold pieces... presumably for the sake of the cheap shots they're about to take at Tokyo's actual real estate market.) Cutesyness aside, as a satire of Japan's real estate market it's pretty on the nose so far. The thus-far unnamed (or did I forget her name?) witch moving into the city is looking for a house on a laughably small budget (equivalent to ¥36,000 / $283 US) and once the real estate agents are done feeling immense pity at her cluelessness they show her some pretty typical unpleasant cheap housing with a fantasy twist: The highrise apartment conveniently close to town that inconveniently has no elevators... in this case, being inside of a giant tree that is also a dungeon and full of slimes. The inexplicably windowless rental... in this case, a townhouse formerly owned by an elderly witch that had no windows "for black magic reasons". The one with no privacy AND the suspiciously nice one... in this case, a lovely flat in the city center that comes with the condition that adventurers are allowed to search your room for items at any time, JRPG style. The apartments catering to foreign expats... in this case, a tower in the city center used by the sentient monster population who can't or won't speak the local language. That last one is a bit surprising as a nod to the subtle racism that so often occurs in housing, but that's the one the protagonist ends up going with. And they end that little journey with the witch revealing she's the real estate agency's newest hire.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Just imagine what Roddenberry could've achieved if he'd spent less time on petty beefs and perving on actresses and female colleagues alike.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    ... 60 foot "miniature". That's 18.28m! A shooting miniature the size of the 1-scale Gundam statue in Yokohama! Positively gargantuan, considering the shooting miniature for the Enterprise was a "mere" 8 foot 4 (2.54m). No wonder they didn't have time to complete it. That would have taken ages. Wasn't the Enterprise herself CGI in this one? There was that big presentation at the start about the process of compiling the 3D model for it based on an earlier CG model and an up-close examination of the original model.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Skeleton Knight in Another World is really making my hope that we'll soon be free of the tyranny of the isekai genre once and for all. So much of that genre feels like mockbusters and shovelware that it's really worn out its welcome, IMO. Skeleton Knight stands out a bit by at least not being offensively bad. It's just incredibly derivative and makes only the most token effort to hide it. The first few minutes are pretty Goblin Slayer with the attempted rape scene and such, but the remainder feels like it occupies the middle of a venn diagram between Overlord's first few volumes and KonoSuba. Arc is basically just an actually-benevolent version of Momonga's knight alter ego Raven Black Momon (appropriately wearing white instead) who decides to engage in actual heroism instead of engineered heroics, but all with the same tone you'd find throughout KonoSuba. It's so OK it's average... which actually makes it upper-tier for the genre these days, which mostly has a few good titles and a LOT of trash.
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