Nied

The version of the story I had heard is that the Red Air that got the kill had already been killed itself, but the general running the exercise "respawned" him. The Raptor pilot missed that radio message and thus didn't realize the previously dead aircraft was alive and well and setting up for a kill on him. It's still an unfair situation since generally speaking enemy aircraft don't come back from the dead after they've been shot down.

As I originally said, I don't have any problems with it outside of my usual thrust against marketing in general being used as "entertainment". I work in marketing and have designed and scoped many campaigns and point of sale spreads. I guess as an insider I have a slanted look on things like this, they just don't strike me as "entertainment"... I lump them in the same group as captain midnight decoder rings and burger king xbox games, it's all to sell product.

I voiced my opinion and as usual I seem to be the only one who feels this way. Rather than continue to ruin the thread I'll just wander back out.

Oh I didn't mean to try to drive you away, I just didn't want to stray to far out of the box on an already borderline topic (though stupid me I forgot you were a Mod). I see your point about "entermarketing" (the Burger King X-Box game is actually a really good comparison), but personally I just can't get too worked up about something that ends up entertaining me. Besides, like I said, all this stuff makes for great supplemental materials for the album.

::edit::

I should add that it I am jumping the gun a little in assuming that all of this will tie into the album pretty tightly. If it does than I think it makes for an awesome bit of supplementary material that also happens to build buzz for the release. If it only loosely ties in then I think you've got more of a point since it really wouldn't be anything more than a cleaver marketing campaign. I guess we'll see in April.

Ummm... that ideal was dead before you were born and was dying when the Beetles hit TV. The last 'good' album I heard was from the early 80's.

As to the oddity of the advertising. Trent & CO. has already realized how poor the idea is or there wouldn't have been intentional leaks.

Actually the intentional leaks are part of the campaign. Half of these websites were found by decoding various bits of information embedded within the leaked MP3s themselves.

Tool is not pretentious because they DON'T do all this crazy ninja marketing stuff. Music is about music, playing it, listening to it and enjoying it. To "market" a good album all you should have to do is play the people a snippet of the music, let them say "cool" and watch them buy it. I feel that most people are like me, all they need is to hear a few pieces of a few songs from an album and they can usually say "that's great! I'll take it!" or they'll say "hmmm... not really what I want to hear, sorry!" and they don't really need all these website games and other subversive "pre release" marketing mumbo jumbo. THAT stuff is standard SOP of big corporate music trying to sell you something before you even know what it is.

The bulk of the pretentiousness I am talking about comes from the galactic success of bands. When they are small, unrecognized indie acts they have to work for their money... they have to turn good albums that sell on the strength of the music... but when some of them get so big and popular they get sucked into the music biz mentality and it becomes more about that sizzle than the steak, more about the "sell" and ramping up interest in the music than it is about the actual music.

I made a promise David not to let this turn into a general music discussion thread so try to keep this pretty specific. Speaking of which while I agree that a marketing campaign shouldn't overshadow the work itself I'd disagree about that being the case here. One: releasing some of the music from the album is integral to the campaign (the USB keys in bathroom stalls), and two: all the material in the campaign ties into the album itself (according to Reznor it's a concept album about totalitarianism and the end of the world). Now is that pretentious? Of course it is, but this is NIN we're talking about here, every album or single is a numbered "Halo" (Year zero will be Halo 24), and every single album says "Nine Inch Nails IS Trent Reznor" pretension is just part of the experience. Besides the game is fun and interesting, I can't get upset if Trent is entertaining me with something other than music.

I just realized the RS article left out two sites. This one went up right after the academy awards. Poor Martin Scorsese, he would have gotten a second Oscar!

Also NIN has three of the leaked tracks up on their myspace page.

don't drink the water eh.

so does this mean were all going to die?

and what is the damn remote system access password?

matt26:45-46 You can see it beeing typed in as you move that section of the login box into place. It actually references a bible verse Mathew 26:45-46 in which Jesus tells his disciples he's about to be arrested, literally "Behold the hour is at hand."

And yeah I got a kick out of the water thing too, shades of my sig.

So Nine Inch Nails has a new album coming out in April. Unlike other bands that might be content with a TV commercial or an add in Rolling Stone Trent Reznor has gone and created one of the most bizzare viral marketing campaigns I've ever seen. Rolling Stone actually does a pretty good rundown of the thing (Marketing campaign? Game?) here I would also watch the Year Zero trailer first (watch it at night with all the lights out to get the full effect. Also note that since that RS article was written a new website was found that suggests that what we are looking at are websites FROM THE FUTURE! (you have to say this in your best 1950's sci-fi film announcer voice) sent back in time somehow using quantum computers. This is also the only reason I think I can get away posting this in the "Anime or Science Fiction" forum.

So to open this up, has anyone else been following this? What the heck is this presence thing? And is Trent Reznor brilliant, crazy, stupid or all three?

*note that this thread is to discuss the whole Year Zero phenomenon, it's not a general NIN discussion thread, there's a perfectly good Music superthread in here if you want to do that.

The VF-11 stores its missiles inside the forward section of its FAST pack boosters. It hasn't been shown in an anime but according to the Macross Compendium it has underwing hardpoints to carry missiles as well. Here's a good rundown of how the VF-11 transforms:

MATS says 37 new build F-14Ds vs 18 re-builds. You might be thinking of F-14Bs, of which the majority were re-built F-14As (48 vs 38). I specifically remember reading an article in Combat Aircraft with quotes from maintainers saying the F-14D's APG-71 radar was significantly harder to keep FMC than the AWG-9 on F-14As and Bs so it's not just the systems that weren't upgraded that were a problem.

All aircraft, given age, time, use & abuse, will wear and tear. Just like cars, they will demand more attention and maintenance.

I used to know a Master Gunnery Sergeant (retired now) who was around when the USMC accepted the-then-new F/A-18 Hornets. They were told that the Hornets are easier to maintain and won't break much.

Right.

That's because they were new. Most things you get brand new you expect to be pretty reliable and hassle free. Yes, I know there's bugs and such which require airframe changes & modifications over an aircraft's service life.

Well, fast forward to 2007. The Hornets require alot of maintenance now. They're about 20 years old and have seen alot of rigorous life on the carriers, and the maintenance hours to flight hours are going higher.

Sounds familiar?

That's just what the Tomcat went through. (As far as the "moron" that canceled the Tomcat and scrapped tooling for its parts, that's Dick Cheney when he was Sec.Def. years ago)

I have some Sailor buddies who are Super Hornet maintainers. They like it, it hardly breaks. Of course, the thing is new. We'll see years down the road after the rigors of carrier life.

As for the "Ease Of Maintenance," as a maintainer myself, that's a load of bulls**t. Given time and modifications, there will be all sorts of parts crammed into every space available to get in your way. If it's already like that when the aircraft just began production for the military, then I feel sorry for those guys that have to work on it There's always going to be something more complicated than it needs to be, on any aircraft (seriously, how complicated do you REALLY need to make an exterior lighting system? ).

When I first entered service in the USMC, I was a KC-130 Electrician. Yes, we had our share of problems as maintainers, especially since some of the aircraft were approaching 40 years of service.

Later, for a variety of reasons (and a looooonnngg story) I ended up being a Marine F/A-18 Electrician. It's not "easier." I gave up one set of problems maintaining a Hercules for another new set of problems on the Hornet... even if the Hornet was decades younger.

To be fair brand new Tomcats were known to be maintenance nightmares as well. The F-14D was supposed to be a hangar queen like the A and most of them were built between 1990 and 1992. I'm sure old Hornets are getting to be PITAs now that they're getting on in years but every thing I've read says the F-14 was that much worse at the same age.

Did anybody notice the references and easter eggs of Megazone 23 & The Sentinels in Shadow Chronicles? Like the number 86 on Vince's ship Icarus & his Cyclone Ride Armor. That represented 1986 when the Sentinels went into production. Also, when the Haydonites attacked to extract Janice the operator radioed there was an explosion in sector 7G. In MZ23, Shogo Yahagi was the operator of sector 7G. Lastly, Janice EM was originally supposed to a downloaded version of EVE(from MZ23) in the original Sentinels draft.

Didn't notice the MZ23 references. However I thought the sector 7G reference to the Simpsons, Homer has worked in Sector 7G of the Springfield Nuclear power plant for years now. Of course it could be both.

I knew someone would misinterpret that comment. The point was only that the style of the two is radically different... It just seems like it'd look very funny having them fly off into combat together.

Edited - my post sounded a bit pissy.

There's actually a brief glimpse of an Alpha prototype in the "From the Stars" comic that does a decent job of bridging the stylistic gap between the two, complete with "screw" style multipurpose hook/handle vernier thrusters and a more rounded VF-1 like nose.

Speaking of SC I have yet find it near me here in San Francisco. Granted I haven't been looking to hard (mostly stores near my office in the financial district), but so far I haven't seen it in two Borders, a Virgin Megastore, and CompUSA. Makes me miss the Tower Records that used to be less than a block from my apartment. Any Bay area MWers seen it in the city?

You will never, except in extreme circumstances, see any foreign aircraft actually land on a US carrier. They can do touch and goes to their hearts content so long as the ship allows it but to actually trap, nope. The main reason for this is that unless it is an american built plane it probably does not use the same carrier launch hardware. The Rafale might, but earlier Dassault carrier birds used that launch strap instead of a launch bar and no carrier maintains them.

I believe the Rafale has a launch bar specifically so that it can cross deck with US carriers, though I'm having a batty of a time finding a photo to illustrate this.

I'm pretty sure the ASRAAM was designed to use the exact same rails as the Sidewinder so I don't think there's any need for different rails. Here's a good rundown of the HUG program. I'm not seeing any engine upgrades, just structural and avionics, I could have sworn I read about the RAAF buying new engines too, though it may not have been part of the HUG program. There's some good shots of ASRAAMs mounted on RAAF Hornets here. I'm sure more can be found at places like airliners.net but I'm at work so I don't have a lot of time to look them up.

The lower torso of the EB doesn't amount to much more than a small wedge and now that you mention it, that resembles the single wedge shaped flap on the Q-Rau. The head is definitely a minor detail as it pertains to the overall structure and silhouette of the mecha. Like most Zentradi mecha, the head is very small. Thouhg I agree, it's a defining N-Ger trait. But it doesn't change the structure so significantly that the mecha doesn't look more Q-Rau in design than N-Ger. The missile pods are a major detail that affects overall structure, just like the torso and legs IMO.

Ah but it isn't a minor detail because it's telling of the internal structure of the mecha. The N-ger has a head because the pilot has his head inside it while his arms stick into the upper arms of the mecha. The Q-rau is sans head because the pilot keeps her arms inside the torso of the mecha. The EB's shoulders are way to low to have the same cockpit scheme as the Q-rau.

The torso of both N-Ger's leads to a center point that is no wider than the barrel of the medium bore cannon in the center. The EB torso is far flatter, wider, and has no such central point. ALso if you look at the top view, the EB torso widens in the middle only slighty and actually tapers to the same width as the front when approaching the rear. The massive missile pods are what make up the backward width, not the torso. The internal layout is something I'm loathe to comment on and really doesn't matter much for external relevance IMO.

That's exactly my point. The EB's torso doesn't taper in the front because the chest cannon has been replaced with a missile launcher. And as you yourself pointed out it's quite narrow in the center, far to narrow to use the same kind of cockpit scheme as the Q-rau which is a good indication that it isn't based on it. How the pilot sits in the mecha is a good indicator of it's internal structure and thus a good indicator of what mecha it's based on, if any.

Regarding arms, I'm speaking upper arm ONLY. If you're talking about the WHOLE arm, yes the EB is a three-segment unit...in which case the WHOLE N-Ger arm would be a four-sgement unit (arguably five for both versions). And actually the Q-Rau arms have no inward wrist curve like the N-Ger. When you look at the schematic fronts views (which I admit, most people do not have acces to yet, I promise they will appear on the M3) the Q-Rau arms are straight and the N-Ger has inward curvers. The EB features straight. The oblong bulge is also prominent on the N-Ger, but the EB, like the Q-Rau, has no such feature. It is smooth and straight.

I'm sorry I'm just not seeing it. You're the one with the high quality scans, any chance you could whip up an illustration?

Personally, I don't think the hip vanes look much like either N-Ger or Q-Rau, but one could infer stylistic similarities with a bit of wiggling Like the Glaug inspired aft pelvis thrusters on the EB, the vanes look more like vectoring panels on a Gnerl or Power Up Glaug or even the folded wings on the YF-19/YF-21 battroid mode.

Agreed, but stylistic similarities don't really point to structural similarities, and that's what we're discussing here. If someone (Supervision Army, Anti-UN forces or whatever) reverse engineered another mecha stylistic similarities aren't going to give you much of a clue as to what they started with.

Taking a step back, there are many traits of both Q-Rau and N-Ger in the Enemy Battle Suit. There are some obvious minor N-Ger traits like head, hands and thruster groups, just like some obvious minor Q-Rau traits like feet, torso guns and arm guns. For me, the overall structure is Q-Rau with major traits like the massive missile pods, flat/wide torso, and long legs, but it's clear the mecha is an almalgamation of design motifs.

I would say that whoever built the EB started with the frame of an N-ger but then gave it an armament closer to the Q-Rau's (possibly to combat it?) which happened to give it some stylistic cues that makes it look similar. To take my Supervision Army theory further, perhaps the SA only had access to N-gers when they started building their forces, and to counter the Q-rau forces they faced during the war they fitted it with a large missile armament and an extra set of cannons making it look somewhat superficially like the mecha it was meant to face.

The A can be upgraded to the A+, which actually makes it the best of the Legacy Hornets according to some.

Avionics of the latest-version C, but lower weight, and the latest engines means it has the best avionics+best thrust/weight ratio. The US was quite late in switching over to the better engines, so not many USN C-models have them. But the A's engines are getting old, so they need new ones--so they get the latest version.

Basically--while your average C model has the original avionics, plus dozens of new little black boxes stuffed in every cavity they can find with not an inch to spare--the A+ model basically has "every upgrade the C model ever had" in a single box.

While it was originally believed the A+ could be easily identified by the IFF bird slicers on the nose, VFA-201's A+'s do not have them. Might be the only squadron like that, or they had an "incomplete" upgrade.

A big part of the reason for the A+ program is that the C models are actually getting old---due to so many combat ops in recent years, many of the C models are running out of trap-life----carrier traps are far harder on a plane than flying hours. But with so many of the A's sent to the reserves at a relatively young age due to the introduction of the C model--they may have more hours than the C's, but far fewer carrier landings. And so they're thinking about converting even more A's to A+'s, and using them to replace some C models. Very few C-model squadrons are getting E models, the few that are generally have very late-model C's that will get passed down to the not-so-late C squadrons, and the oldest C squadrons will get the A+.

Also (if Mislovrit was asking specifically about RAAF legacy Hornets) the RAAF put it's F/A-18As through a similar programme which IIRC was called HUG (Hornet UpGrade). It's broadly similar to an F/A-18A+ but with some added structural strengthening and ASRAAM support.

Well we can only speculate what the SA mecha would look like.

The Varuta army doesn't automatically make it the designs of the SA. The SA would likely have evolved quite significantly over the half million years since thier last contact with the PD.

It isn't even revealed whether the ships in Mac 7 are vintage designs of the PD or some new "ideas" they came up with after they were awakened.

Anyway, I tend to agree that the Enemy Battlesuit looks like a "Franken-Rau"...

All true although it does bear a bit of a resemblance to the pre-crash Macross as well. Like I said it's just a personal theory of mine, one which I'd be happy to give up if some real info were to come to light.

*does double take*

What? The N-Ger and Q-rau are almost the exact same size. The N-Ger is 16.4 meters, the Q-Rau 16.75 meters. That's dead wrong.

Actually, if the RPG statistics are to be believed, at 18.1 meters the EB is larger than both of them (not counting the Q-Rau's height boosting antennae)

Fair enough I was going off the line art and show which have a sitting Q-Rau towering over both Zentrans and Meltrans, while a fully standing N-Ger is only a head or two taller than a Zentradi soldier. I wouldn't be surprised if Dave Deitrich pulled the 18.1m height from the same orifice he pulled the whole "Renegade power armor" back story from. In the opening of M+ it certainly doesn't look much bigger than a VF-11 which would actually make it smaller than a N-ger.

The Enemy Battlesuit has 11 thrusters, not 9 and the main thrusters are a central setup, not right/left fuselage like an N-Ger at all. And just like the Q-Rau, the thrusters are sandwiched between the missile pods and are much smaller than the three large boosters that dominate the back of either N-Ger.

Actually the N-ger has three thrusters on it's back in a right-center left configuration, the ones on the back of the EB while smaller are in nearly an identical configuration.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Enemy Battlesuit and Q-Rau are two-of-a-kind mecha. They share the same design silhouette and layout. They are definitely part of the same mecha group, just as the YF-21 battroid shares Q-Rau design lineage. I'm not going to be convinced the EB is anything other than a broad torso/long legged overall structure based on minor differences like head, hand or thruster groups.

The problem is that while the Q-rau and YF-21 are practically an upper chest with legs and arms sticking out, while the N-ger and EB both have an identifiable abdomen and pelvic areas. The fact that it has a head is far more than a minor detail, one of the defining features of the Q-rau family is how the main sensor is so deeply embedded into the front of the mecha, with the rest of the structure rising above it. The EB does exactly the opposite taking the N-ger's relatively narrow chest and adding three missile containers around the upper chest in a horizontal configuration.

The Enemy Battlesuit torso is indeed different from the Q-Rau in detail, but bears no resemblance to any N-Ger at all. This is hardly a point. Again, the Enemy Battlesuit is a wide torso mecha, like the Q-Rau, like the YF-21.

Actually if you look closely at the structure you can see that the EB has a relatively narrow torso with a much wider back (entirely made up of the missile containers). If you look at the top down drawings in the Miyatake design works it's more clear. There's nowhere near enough room for the pilot's arms to fit inside the chest like the do on the Q-rau, they'd have to stick them into the upper arms ala the N-Ger.

I'm looking twice at the forearms and not seeing anything but Q-Rau. The EB forearms are not wrist angled like both N-Ger's, nor do they feature the underarm "lump" like the N-Ger, nor are they cylindrical like an N-Ger. The EB arms are single lengths, straight like the Q-Rau, with underarm guns like the Q-Rau and rectangular oblong shaped like the Q-Rau. The one similarity I can see is the "bicep" of the EB is similar to the "bicep" of the DYRL? N-Ger. But again, the EB upper arms are two-segement joints just like the Q-Rau. Both the TV and DYRL? N-Ger's are three-segement joints.

Now it's my turn to do a double take. The I can clearly see three segments in the EB's arms. Further while you're right has straight hands, that actually makes it different from both the N-Ger and the Q-Rau as both have inwardly curving forearms. Other than that the big difference is that the EB has a big gun and a missile launcher jammed into it's bulged forearms, while the N-ger leaves it's blank.

Lastly, the EB does have a "tail", TWO in fact, both of which bear a striking resemblance to either side of the Q-Rau rear exhaust. They are wedge-shaped and tapered just like a Q-Rau, but IMO, they resemble more the vectoring vanes on the Gnerl or Glaug Power-Up.

Those tails are more hip amour than anything else, and while they stylistically mirror the Q-rau, structurally they're completely different in that they mount from a different location and appear to be actuated (vs the Q-raus fixed tail). The N-ger actually has a similar hip armor though it's quite a bit smaller on that mecha and lacking the vernier thrusters of the EB.

The size is too small to be a Q-rau for one. Also the thruster arrangement is nearly identical to that of the N-Ger (9 thrusters in groups of three spread across the back and legs, plus one 'crotch' mounted thruster vs the Q-Rau's two back mounted thrusters). It looks to me like whoever built the Enemy battlesuit took a N-Ger, replaced the chest and back mounted cannons with missile launchers and shoved some light cannons in the forearms (which are quite close in shape to the cannonless ones on the N-ger, they even have five fingered hands instead of the Q-Rau's three fingered claws). The torso is also completely differently shaped from the Q-Rau, it has a distinct head while the Q-Rau just has a main sensor embedded into the top of the torso, it lacks the Q-rau's distinctive "tail" nor does it have the Q-rau's big shoulders (where the driver puts her arms).

If you want a good candidate for the Supervision Army's version of the Quedluun-Rau look no further than the Queadluun-Quilqua.

Anyhoo I don't want to derail your thread as I'm actually quite interested in getting some hard info on the "Renegade Power Armour" myself. Perhaps we can take this discussion to another thread or PM?

I always thought it looked more like a Nousjadeul-Ger myself, structurally they look closer.

This isn't official but I always thought those suits were the Supervision Army's version of the Nousjadeul-Ger. A lot of the styling cues are similar to the (SA related) Varauted mecha, and it wouldn't surprise me if the SA reverse engineered the NG the same way they did the VF/A-14.

Doesn't matter - it was so bloody fast all you'd see would be a pretty streak of silver anyway.

That is until it ran out of gas three minutes into the flight.

I think one of the reasons the lightning has such popularity in the UK is that it was used as a great canvas for squadron markings. while most RAF planes were being painted in the same drab green/grey cammo, lightings were in the raw silver with brightly colored tails and spines, and massive high-vis roundels.

I hadn't thought about that. Lightnings rivaled the US Navy for striking paint schemes in that era.

IMHO the last really good looking military aircraft from the UK (discounting the Typhoon of course) would be the Avro Vulcan. Now there was a pretty aircraft.

English Electric Lightning was a beautifly aircraft, but not the 2-seater version.

Graham

Or the single seat version. Honestly with the engines stacked on top of each other, the weird cheek mounted missiles, the odd overwing tanks and that bulged belly tank making it look pregnant I have never understood why so many Britons think it's a good looking airplane.

Thx!

I still haven't found the lineart I was looking for, but then again the article is 1 or 2 years old and the mag is boxed up somewhere, so it'll take some time before I'll find it.

Anyway, here's an page from a more recent article.

It's from Combat Aircraft, nov '06.

I marked the paragraph that deals with the discussion wether or not the J-10 is a "carbon copy" or simply a reverse engineered and modified Lavi, or an original design.

I've added some Lavi line art as well.

It's funny that we're basing many of our judgments on the same article in Combat Aircraft. The writers use quite a few rhetorical flourishes to make the J-10 sound like an original aircraft but when you look at the actual facts presented in the article it's pretty clear that the J-10 is just a Lavi knock off.

The Typhoon certainly isn't ugly but I wouldn't say its the prettiest aircraft in the world. IMHO the Rafale definitely wins the prize for best looking eurocanard.