Zinjo

I've always felt the VF-9's transformation sequence was the most awkward and unruly of all the sequences conjured up by SK. I swear, in a combat situation the VF-9 would be cannon fodder because of how long it would take to transform as well as how vulnerable it would be during that time. Definitely one of those "Designed the fighter before the battroid" situations... The fighter is beautiful, the battroid looks like it was "literally" built with lego! Maybe it gave him the inspiration to start using lego...

Considering how much of a HUGE difference the remastering made with the Mac Plus discs, the DYRL release should be pretty amazing!!

Prolly no one, it's a TV special. I expect to see it on torrents or stage six first, however Stage 6 still doesn't have the second commercial for the series...

Nah! His stuff is all from the RPG games, not accurate at all....

I wouldn't go so far as to compare them to the mercenaries in Iraq, however in the most simplistic terms that is what they are: mercenaries. However from a Japanese point of view they could actually be more like the JSF which is a military set up like a volunteer public service branch (if I remember correctly). It's a civil servant job not contractual servitude to the military like it is in the West. It is entirely possible that this was intentional to demonstrate the differences between the JSF and modern Western militaries, through the differences between the SMS and Spacy. Just a theory of course. I am wondering if they are going to tie the games in closer to the anime canon of the show with this series, by drawing from what was established in the games and importing elements into the new series?

I knew I saw that skull somewhere!!!

You're prolly right Keith. The squadron logos do resemble the ones from SDFM eventhough it is most likely they are not the same names (particularly since the featured pilots don't belong to Spacy, but a private defense contractor...

EXACTLY! SK has never allowed himself to be bound by previous continuity and prolly never will. A simple Retcon and away he goes... I tend to believe all VFs including the SV series had active stealth which rendered them invisible to standard radar (except the colony world aircraft as Graham has mentioned as quite likely), doubtless Spacy was "hoping" the aliens would use standard RADAR and thus the stealth system would allow them some sort of tactical advantage. It would also give them a tactical advantage over the AUN Army, that is until they discovered the SV series had the same capabilities as the VF series... I suspect the fighters may have limited range Cyclops radar as well, but it's power is limited by it's size. This explains the need for Elint Radomes needed even in the mid 2040's for long range detection. As already stated, the stealth's effectiveness is dependent on many internal and external factors, such as tech level of both the fighters and the detection equipments. One thing about the VF-25 that has occured to me is that the energy discharge is most likely a visual representation of the SWAG system's energy arcing between contact points during transformation (just a thought).

Nuh uh...

The active stealth abilities of all VFs work primarily on RADAR, which is why the Cyclops sensors were developed. The Cyclops sensor system "sees" the variable fighters that RADAR cannot, which is the likeliest reason why Isamu and Guld had to resort to "dirty tricks" to fool the planetary defense platforms. I would expect by the 2040's that some form of limited range Cyclops sensors would have been developed for aircraft, but it is doubtful it would be as sophisitcated or have the same range as what would be found aboard cap ships and defense platforms...

Mylene is the VF-19Kai? That could be fun!

Some Light Reading for those interested in the principles of stealth Their physical properties have a low side profile and their top shape resembles that of a flock of birds or bird once their radar signature is reduced by approximately 85%. That is where the "flock of birds" comes from. At the time of their roll out, the media repeated this aspect of the aircraft's passive stealth design...

The profile will give off the smallest signal, the shape is meant to fool radar with its silloutte hence the shape of the B1 and the B2 (to an extent).. However, it has been proported that the VF aircraft have stealth characeristics that render conventional radar useless, thus the Cyclops sensor system was born to accomodate. Essentially from a design point of view the VF-17 didn't have to resemble the F117 to be stealthy..

"Stealth" in space doesn't necessarily require internal weapons bays, especially due to the Cyclops sensors. The VF-17 was designed after the F-117 that had a shape to fool radar into showing the signature of a flock of birds. Birds don't fly in space... With VF's, the stealth is implied active stealth AFAIK so it's silloutte is essentially irrelevant. The internal bay fighters are probably expensive to produce and the main benefit of internal missile racks is to allow for additional missile ordinance to be available after the wing mounted ones are spent. If any "Ghosts" appear they'll be derivatives of the Mac Plus and Macross VF-X2 ones. Prolly not in the new series since the fighters are the mecha stars of the show these days. I suspect they still exist in the universe as mecha for Marine divisions, but nothing has been officially stated either way AFAIK.

The PC were the ones who invented the term "Cruel to be Kind"...

I am convinced the "bugs" in Frontier are bio-mecha, the only question is who's?

Well boss, you may have to do some surgery on that magazine to produce a complete picture.... Yeah, the face that isn't a face. Very gundam like, but hey I can live with it better than the Sound Force fighters...

Finish the series it gets even more confused...

The transformation sequences in Mac II are fairly simple, unlike Kawamori's post SDFM and DYRL designs. Basically if you compare the shapes in the battroid with the corresponding shapes in fighter mode you will get a pretty good idea of how it transforms which really isn't that complex. The component shapes only make it "seem" complex. Because the VF-XX in Mac II was only a background fighter with very short screentime, no real lineart of it's transformation process has ever been published as far as I know.

That is a fairly high probability. Considering the existence of the VF-5000 and other fighters designed as a cheap colonial defense fighters. The VF-25 is a "licensed" derivative of the Spacy VF-24 and the VF-171 could be a "licensed" derivative of the VF-17. These fighters were not built by the military contractor who builds the Spacy VF-24, but built by different contractors with "licensed" designs. This is very similar in concept to the real world relationship between the General Dynamics F-16 and the Mitsubishi F-2.

The nature of the bio-mecha is going to be the enigma that will be revealed through out the series I'm sure. What sub-plots outside the love triangle aren't really clear and won't be until the show begins to air.

I've found that is more an American thing. European countries and internationally exposed nations tend to be more respectful of other languages, probably because they find themselves exposed to it a lot. Ever hear how "raison d'être" is pronounced in the Ergo Proxy dub? It's very much phonetically spoken without any of the French accents that distinguish the word in it's original pronounciation. "Hikaru" is another example from the ADV SDF Macross dub. You listen to Mari pronounce the name and then the American cast say the same name and the two are noticably different.

Unfortunately, Yes.... Its a result of flying with musical instruments as controls....

That could take a while to get everything working right...

if you look at it from a purely capitalistic point of view, there is no profit in transporting 10 million people to "somewhere" in the cosmos. They wouldn't be using a City ship, more likely only the "Pill" ships (which would probably be cheaper to produce). It also flies in the face of the UNG's mandate of sending out emigration fleets. Using civilian contractors (mercenaries) to defend the fleet on it's journey is very probable, but a privately funded fleet of that size is not something any corporation or corporate group could possibly profit from. A private defence group would also allow for wing art and custom paint schemes for the fighters, as opposed to the strict military approved paint schemes...