Mark Nguyen

I think he's referring to the explosion of the "Haruna-esque" ship that was shown in the pre-air advert - the one that we see destroyed in three big explosions. Lots of people, including myself, thought it was an Einstein-class science ship. We've since been corrected, or are we talking about a different segment? Macross 7 was quick to point out that there were several colony ships in their fleet. I'm a pretty firm believer that M-25 is a single-colony-ship that has expanded over time. City 7 has also expanded over time, but by adding additional ships as well as small "off the grid" Aschio-type pods. M-25 is one ship that has expanded by the addition of multiple large "pill" modules. Next bit: the original background information says that the Macross 7 fleet was the 37th long-distance emmigration fleet; Battle 7 is the name of the New-Macross class carrier, and City 7 is the name of the colony ship. MF posits that M-25 is indeed the 25th such fleet. However, the warship is clearly referred to as "Battle 25" and "Macross 25" in the aforementioned tactical view. The main city module is labelled simply "Frontier", and the "pill" modules are called "Islands". Discuss. Mark PS - Incidentally, the two closest modules that are directly attaced to the big city chip are called Island 2 and Island 3, the main module is directly called "Island 1" in dialogue.

Picking up about the M-25 fleet, that REALLY REALLY cool zoom-in showing the Ghost deployment on the tactical view shows clearly to me that Macross 25 is a single ship. The "pill ships" we're talking about seem to be oversized Aschio-type modules that were built, as needed, trailing from the main ship. There isn't much rhyme or reason to the number of modules, which seem built randomly with a different number of "pills" in each of the two branches trailing from the main City module. As to why M-25 doesn't have several colony ships like M-7, I figure it's just how the ships ergonmically grow out of neccessity and according to the needs of its colonists, rather than as a standard "fleet" deployment. It seems understood that transportation between the various fleets is possible, and in MF an even routine occurence. It would be astronomically expensive to ship someone from Earth, but all the various fleets would still in general be in contact with Earth unless Something Bad happens to them. Point being, that M-25 could be a simple colony ship not unlike Megaroad-01. It would be generally self sufficient, but would have all the life-support systems, recreation facilities, science labs, etc. contained within to begin with. Then there's other fleets like M-7, which have specialized ships giving some fleets some additional oomph in certain areas. So, M-7 might be more priviledged in having an entire ship dedicated to movies, or training, or what-have-you. Each fleet operates to an extent as a city-state, just as we have here; but Inasmuch as the United States all of Hollywood, Canada has part of Vancouver. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. But on that note, are there any shots of the tactical displays we see available, made by some of the folks here? I haven't seen any yet... Mark

Indeed. Welcome to anime fads of 2008 - where if a male lead character isn't all emo and vaguely effeminate, he just ain't cool. We're having just OODLES of fun trying to keep the fangirls at bay from Gundam 00 for just that reason. Mark

Well, people anyway. But they did the right thing sending the Ghosts in first. For all we know, the Ghosts ARE the frontline fighter for NUNS and everyone else; they would work perfectly fine against Zentradi or other conventional, known threats, before they got close to the fleet. When the Ghosts were innefective against the computer jamming of the enemy bio-machines, the wimpy and inexperienced (in REAL combat, anyway) pilots head in with their specialized VF-171s. Heck, it's entirely possible that the 171s ARE the specialized mecha already, and that it's the pilots who freaked out and were completely outmatched by the enemy. Thus, call in the civilian third wave and their really, REALLY powerful mecha. Mark PS - The phone frog is certainly not a bio-engineered life form. I'm sure it's just a regular cellphone for 2059, built into a cute squishy exterior. Call it a Tickle-Me Elmo with attitude and an actual practical USE.

Dynamite 7 implied that VF-17s are easy enough to fly & fight for a pilot not familiar with the controls. This may have something to do with its relative longevity... Also, MD7 showed that anyone with the right connections can get their hands on one. As special as they were in Macross 7, they may have been more common than we thought, even back then. While we're at it, I'm thinking about the designation itself... We Canadians operate a specialized variant of the F/A-18 Hornet, called the CF-118 on paper. Perhaps the VF-171 is a "foreign" variant of the ol' 17 licensed by some foreign manufacturer? Surely the universe is big enough that every single fighter design can't be built by the same two companies... Mark Nguyen <--- I'm back, baby!