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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    As I noted previously, that is basically all stealth means in Robotech. The problem with that, as also noted previously, is that the technology to actually achieve that stealthiness was explicitly the exclusive domain of the Haydonites and not shared with any outside power until the 2040s. Even then, it was beyond the understanding of the top Human and Tirolian engineers and they literally had to take it on faith that it would work as described when it was given to them by the Haydonites (both times). It wasn't something the Masters had.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    There are two basic kinds of stealth: Passive stealth, what most people think of when they think of "stealth technology", relies on a combination of specially-designing the shape of the craft so that as much of the energy from a radar wave is deflected away from the sending radar as possible and metallic powder-based paints that absorb electromagnetic waves in radar frequencies and convert them into heat. It's absolutely not suitable for use on something like a giant robot, and is reaching the limits of its capabilities on conventional aircraft. Active stealth, which currently exists as an impractical experimental technology and in the realm of sci-fi, is a broad term for various technological macguffins that can be turned on or off that interfere with detection. Macross's relatively realistic take involves active cancellation, the same basic principle used in noise cancelling headphones applied to radar waves. More commonplace, but exotic, takes are things like cloaking devices, invisibility screens, thermoptic camouflage, and the like that render a craft invisible, warp space to make sensor beams pass around or through the craft, etc. Basically, the entire idea of a "stealth" giant robot is pretty ridiculous on the face of it. Giant robots are big, heavy things. Even if you can literally turn one invisible like the Arm Slaves in Full Metal Panic!, it's still going to give its presence away the minute it moves because even if you discount motor noise a multi-tonne armored fighting vehicle walking, running, and jumping makes a LOT of noise. Slathering one in radar-absorbent material won't do much because that's designed for active and semi-active anti-aircraft radars, which don't operate at altitudes of just a few meters, and it won't do a damn thing against beam-riding radar guided munitions launched by infantry. There's no hiding a giant robot's approach either... a 6-18m tall man-shaped war machine walking around is going to be visible. Over clear and level ground, visibility tops out at 4.5km for ground-level objects. A giant robot is going to be visible much farther away to the naked eye at ground level, never mind elevated observers. It's like having a building walk around, and painting it dark gray will only make it more conspicuous against the skyline and terrain. A groundbound "stealth" giant robot like this supposed stealth Bioroid is like Grand Galactic Inquisitor from The Venture Bros... its approach to "stealth" is functionally equivalent to walking down the middle of the street screaming "IGNORE ME!" at everyone who looks at you. Your at-best token attempt to be inconspicuous makes you MORE conspicuous, not less, y'know? Then, of course, there's the problem that stealth technology wasn't a thing in Robotech until Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles when it was introduced as an ultra-advanced alien technology analogous to a REALLY limited cloaking device that didn't work in the visible spectrum. Nobody had it except the Haydonites, who only shared it with humanity as a part of a secret test of character that humanity absolutely ****ing failed immediately, prompting the Haydonites to decide humanity had to go. Throw-it-ins like this are basically telegraphing that the company making the new Robotech RPG is massively phoning it in.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    The difference between this and Discovery is like night and day. The Strange New Worlds crew are gathered around the captain's chair comfortably, and they're smiling. So many of Discovery's promotional photos are of the crew standing stiffly or sitting awkwardly together, oozing the misery and discomfort of the show's plot as they stare into the middle distance with a neutral expression like they're trying to remember whether they turned off the stove before they left home that morning and would rather be anywhere else. Discovery's crew look like sulky teenagers reluctantly posing for a photo on a family vacation they didn't want to come on. Anson Mount's Pike and his crew for Strange New Worlds look like they WANT to be there and are having FUN. Like night and day. This picture alone feels more like Star Trek than any damn thing that Kurzman, Chabon, et. al. have done since taking stewardship of the franchise.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Posting is SUPER slow. Like "let me go boil an egg and see if it posted after" slow.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    That's not peak fanfic cringe, but it's up there. Painting a 6m tall robot dark gray doesn't make it stealthy. Nor does painting it black, or slathering radar-absorbent coatings onto a fundamentally unstealthy design. You see this kinda thing a lot in fanmade designs, inevitably made by people who don't have a freaking clue how stealth works. Stealth variant = dark paintjob seems to be a trope HG is really fond of, I guess. They approved a "Stealth" paintjob for Battlecry that was just black, they had a "stealth" VF-1 toy that was also just a regular VF-1 painted black, and they tried to present the Alpha as a passively stealthy aircraft to the amused derision of almost everyone.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    It's possible the individual locations jumped the gun on announcing it... that's a pretty common way for leaks to occur these days.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Q's real lesson apparently being "give your first edible a bit of time to kick in before you decide to have another, or you're in for a bad trip". I could absolutely believe Star Trek: Picard is actually a bad trip Jean-Luc is having after the replicator accidentally served him a steak with "non-regulation" mushrooms... Seriously though, what a mess. I thought the Borg couldn't possibly suffer more "badass decay" than they had by the end of Voyager, when Janeway and Janeway all but wiped out the Collective. Now Starfleet is just making the Borg clinically depressed by giving them Dr. Jurati.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Considering the showrunners for Picard spent a lot of their time promoting the series as focusing on the original characters and would absolutely NOT become a TNG cast reunion... that the series has had the actors of all but two of the original characters leave and are turning the third season into a TNG cast reunion is a pretty damning indictment of the show's concept, creative staff, and direction. Now we have one final season of Patrick Stewart directing the Federation Starship Titanic's dance band as the show slowly sinks without trace and they draw his curtains for good. Eh... personally, I didn't find Great Value Han Solo from the United Federation of Latinx Stereotypes all that engaging TBH. Why build a diverse cast if the characterization is mostly racial stereotype-tied tropes? The problem with Q in this season is that Q is a top tier threat. He is A-plot material. You don't involve Q in your story unless Q is central to your story because he is just THAT big of a presence in Star Trek. If he's trying to teach Picard and his crew a lesson, he's up in their faces about it and the stakes are as high as stakes can go. What they did is the same thing Discovery's second season did with Spock. They dangled him in front of the audience as the bait in a bait-and-switch, with him throwing Picard and his merry band of Great Value-brand ethnic stereotype stock characters into a scenario that he was all but completely uninvolved with. The end, where he reveals his motivation and the "lesson" he was supposedly trying to convey with this season-long plot tumor is an embarrassing excuse that had NOTHING to do with the story arc at all. It feels almost like an excuse, a last second "throw it in" because the writers forgot to come up with an actual coherent motive for Q's behavior. I get the feeling that she was intended to be another "strong female character" like Dahj and Soji, but they couldn't work in any way to justify her being superhuman without outing Soong as a rogue geneticist immediately in a way that'd result in him being thrown in prison until doomsday. The whole season is a plot tumor that has nothing to do with what is ostensibly its main plot, and this is just a plot tumor ON the plot tumor. It's metastasized. I'm wondering if season three will follow suit, and the writers will forget or "Threshold never happened" their way out of the events of the past two seasons. It wouldn't be the first time... like when the ENT relaunch spent the entire introduction taking the piss out of "These are the voyages".
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Discovery was pretty ridiculous... even from the outset, but it got worse when it got to the 32nd century and literally became Bigger on the Inside. The Constitution-class is big for her era, but Strange New Worlds seems to be doing that same thing as the Abrams movies where the ship is seemingly two or three times its listed original size.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    That is a muddier topic... as there are two separate and distinct aircraft that are both called "Variable Glaug". The former is the captured enemy Valkyrie from Macross M3 that the New UN Forces reproduced in limited quantities, and the latter bis-type is a manned derivative of the Neo Glaug with much higher performance. It does have a very basic transformation, yes.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    The Queadluun-Alma... eh... Chronicle claims it's a pre-fall design, but it's pretty obviously not given that 80-90% of it is a Feios Valkyrie.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    That's an unofficial/non-canon design done for yuks in Macross Ace. There's no data.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Seems like everyone's bailing out of this one... Alison Pill, Santiago Carbrera, Isa Briones, and Evan Evagora have all been indicated to be leaving the series as of season two's conclusion. That leaves Michelle Hurd and maybe Orla Brady as the only cast members left who are playing original characters. I kind of expect to hear Michelle Hurd is also not coming back in the next few days.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, it's not the basic structure... it's the inertia capacitor system that allows the pilot to withstand the suit's excessive acceleration and maneuvering g-forces that made it too complex and costly for true mass production in the Protoculture's era and made it all but impossible for the New UN Gov't to replicate it until they seized a factory satellite that manufactured them and studied it during its restoration. (It's implied in Master File that the primary sticking point is the fold carbon. The IVCS needs very pure, very high quality fold carbon to work. Much more so than any other reactor or system used by the Zentradi. Even humanity didn't have the means to synthesize fold carbon at the requisite purity until they captured a Queadluu-Rau production line.) The Queadluun-Rau's performance was so over-the-top that regular Zentradi pilots had severe difficulty handling it even with the IVCS. The Protoculture's solution, other than the decision to restrict it on a cost basis to certain roles analogous to special forces was to build a better pilot (the females). The Nousjadeul-Ger, on the other hand, was made for general use and while it is not as heavily armed or fast and maneuverable as the Queadluun-Rau it is a unit even average pilots can operate well and is simple enought to be mass produced in gargantuan numbers. I think that's the VA-14.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Wow. I really have to hand it to Paramount, season two of Star Trek: Picard truly surpassed season one... in all the worst ways. HEAVY-HANDED USE OF SPOILERS AHEAD. What IS it with these showrunners and having to make everybody miserable, morbid, barely-functional wrecks of human beings (or aliens) and why are they so completely and utterly opposed to Star Trek having any kind of hope, light, or joy? Seriously... the whole schtick underpinning the second season is... The one person upon whom the difference between the Even Worse Future™ and the Still Pretty Awful Future™ of Star Trek: Picard's 25th Century is conveniently one of Jean-Luc Picard's ancestors, and the man conveniently responsible for everything going wrong is Another Bloody Identical Soong. Except this Soong isn't an insane hermit like Noonin, an incredibly naive moron like Alton, or an unhinged but theoretically well-meaning eugenics-advocate like Arik. Adam Soong is just Saturday Morning Cartoon show levels of EVIL. As per the usual, anyone who's not a returning Star Trek character or a newly-created relative of same might as well have stayed home for all the use they were in the story. Even Seven of Nine's not really contributing much this time around, except to handle "As you know" regarding the Borg. The Borg Queen herself has it the worst of anyone, though. I'm actually kind of impressed by their commitment to this terrible storyline. The actors, writers, and directors are clearly out there trying VERY hard to take this seriously... which makes you wonder why nobody, at any point, put up their hand and said "Why are we doing this? This is terrible."
  16. Seto Kaiba
    There's damned by faint praise... but I guess that's more "praised by faint damning"? We aim to please. One thing I'll say for both this and DSC, the TOS-like props were pretty good.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    ... so, if I read that right, it sucks but it sucks a fair bit less than "sitting next to grandpa's corpse for hours after he violently sh*t himself and died on a family road trip" (AKA Picard) or "cornered at a social event by an increasingly drunk and aggressive bigot who won't stop trying to gaslight you and sincerely believes allegedly being a very distant relation of someone famous makes them fascinating" (AKA Discovery)?
  18. Seto Kaiba
    ... surprisingly apt, considering the plot of the game.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    I do find it rather amusing that the animation for firing the wing-glove guns on the YF/VF-19 in Macross 30 basically has the Battroid pelvic thrust at the enemy.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    ... there are no rotary cannons on the YF-19's chest. Its only weapons systems are the REB-30G laser gun on the monitor turret (head), the two cannon mounts on the wing glove that take either a REB-20G converging energy cannon or REB-23 laser cannon, the GU-15 gunpod, the internal weapons bays in the legs, and the underwing pylons.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    No, the guns mounted on the wing root of the YF/VF-19... the ones that end up on its hips in Battroid mode.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    I believe they were shown as single-shot weapons... they're definitely depicted that way in Macross 30.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    And "drunk while on duty" too... Maybe his maverick approach to tactics is enough to land him in the role of "a useful idiot" where they simply don't care if his unit is wiped out as long as they achieve their objective? I'm not sure it counts as firing, but Boddole Zer definitely had the authority to demote or promote commanders and execute them via "friendly" fire...
  24. Seto Kaiba
    In all fairness, Exsedol clearly considers Quamzin to be in the latter category. How much of an unstable mentalcase do you have to be for a warrior race that's indifferent to casualties consider you an excessively gung-ho psychopath?
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Actually, rather a lot of the older fans have seen it... there used to be a fairly brisk trade in bootleg tapes of the series back before Paramount reinstated the series into Star Trek's canon and made it available in a legitimate home video release and on streaming. All the fuss and noise they made to promote it did a lot to raise awareness of the series. That the articles covering the casting decision keep referencing TAS complete with screencaps will probably drive renewed interest in the series too. Ironically, the people dismissing it as a "nothingburger" are likely to end up convincing people it IS something via the Streisand Effect. Though considering how few Star Trek fans still follow the franchise after the messes that were Discovery and Picard, I guess it's possible it would be considered obscure by what little is left of the audience. (All things considered, the identity politics-driven fuss and noise over the casting decision will likely be the closest SNW gets to actual news coverage Paramount doesn't have to pay a shill for, though.)
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