Chronocidal

I think the colony unrest angle only came out in the Mac+ OVA, and was the background for the combat in the opening scenes. As for Sheryl, I think the Galaxy Network is just the name for the media communications network between the colonies/fleets. The Galaxy is probably the colony ship or fleet where Sheryl started her career. As for her being virtual or not, we don't see a separate name for the girl with the beret and the fanservice girl, so if she is virtual, she's still using her real name, as opposed to an alias. The scenes in the trailers so far have shown pretty clearly that the beret girl is human (no reason for a hologram to be taking a transport, walking through a crowd, etc.). Whether she has a virtual twin that has it's own personality is another story though (this far after Mac+, they may have fixed the bio-neural chips that sent Sharon off the deep end).

I really doubt they're twins, the two character sketches in that last page don't even look alike, proportion-wise or even age-wise. They may be related, but I think there's a definite Misa/Minmay parellel with the two of them (speaking of Minmay though, didn't she wear almost identical clothes at one point or another? they look really familiar, just different colors). Whether or not they're two sides of a triangle is up for grabs, but they've got the military/singer situation covered. I'm wondering about the other characters there, they sure seem to be introducing a lot of them early on. I'm guessing the guy in the chef's hat works at the restaurant, and the one on the bottom right is probably another student.. but no idea about the one in the middle. I'd almost guess a mechanic or pilot, based on the clothing

You know, the more I look at it, that SMS insignia really looks like a corporate logo.. How many countries/governments do you know that have letters in their national insignia, or much less, stylized letters like that?

Omg.. for a second I thought that was the worlds most ridiculous mid-air collision ever seen. So let's see.. recipe calls for 2 F-16s, 3 Gripens, 2 choppers, and a smattering of artillery. Add 2 teaspoons wtf, and blend for 2 minutes on puree.

I think it's cause of the way it transforms.. the body folds in on itself several times, and the final configuration is all mounted at angles. In that sense, it really looks like the SV-51.

I'm pretty sure they're mountable without the FPs.. if you look at the gerwalk pics, there're slots in the belly plates right where they should go, and they look to be the same size as the mounting slots in the FPs.

<darthvader>Noooooooo!</darthvader> As long as they redesign it to remove the speaker boobs, maybe... but I really hope they stay away from anatomically correct mechs this time. Hmm.. VF-24... Actually, that could fit with the VF-25 as a home-grown valk. Say the VF-24 is used by the UNG, but they don't want to manufacture them for all the fleets. So the fleets play with the design, and come up with their own variant. Could be similar to the relationship between the F-16 and the Japanese F-2. Almost identical designs, but with the F-2 being built independently, and with several changes in the design.

I really hope this doesn't turn into some thing where they discover the bugs to be semi-intelligent, the UN Spacy wants to wipe em out, and the colonists want to protect them. I could probably deal with that though.. just as long as no one is flying and singing at the same time. Fortunately so far, all the ships we've seen have been armed with real weapons, not rocket-powered subwoofers.

I'm pretty sure they're not the same person, since there's at least one picture of them walking past each other in one of the trailers. Different eye colors as well. Speaking of eyes though... are they so far in the future that most people have developed square pupils?

Remember, there is at least one custom paint scheme.. the Roy-ish VF-25 has that skull logo splashed fully across the top of the plane. Now that I think of it, I wonder if they're going off the example set by Mac7, at least in terms of defense. Mac7 was completely separated from the military for some time, and had to drum up it's own defense force. After that experience, it would make sense for each city ship to have a local defense group in case contact with the UNG was lost. As for the VF-171s, I'd guess they're the main defense force for the fleet, garnered from refurbished military hardware. The VF-25 might actually be a home-grown fighter, designed and built by the colony. If the VF-171s aren't holding up well, and the UNG can't spare any newer hardware, the fleets may have taken matters into their own hands, and started designing/producing their own defense fighters. The SMS logo may actually be for the company that designed the fighter. It is pasted on the plane in quite a few places, looking almost like an advertisement more than an insignia.

I'm not sure it'd be possible for it to be her, considering Mac7 was a colonization fleet.. my general impression was that those kinda stayed out in space, unless they didn't find any place to settle. Now, if they didn't, and Mac7 eventually returned to Earth, I guess it's possible. She could have become a pop star there, and started traveling, but I think touring several interstellar fleets would be one hell of a trip. Personally, I think it'd be funnier if the fleet officer was actually the flower girl, and Sheryl was her younger sister (haven't checked the names recently, so don't know if that's possble or not).

He's not the only one. Think wings flapping down. You want a real fun one, try asking him how it affects Dutch Roll. And no, it's not a pastry. Your head may explode in a horrible cataclysm of math.

I know this is probably out of place, but given the current conversation I find it amusing.

Hmm... just a thought, do we know for sure if Sheryl is real? That glowy ghost shot reminded me a little of the way Myung generated Sharon. Considering how relatively prim/properly dressed the character is shown in all the other available pictures, I wouldn't have a hard time at all believing the fan-service version is a simulation. Not betting on it, but it would explain the glowy shot. As for fan service though, I think it goes a little farther than some may have first thought.. Anyone else notice the thigh-highs, and riding crop?

I'm an aircraft fanatic first, and this'll go nicely next to my YF-23 display model. So, really, I don't care as long as it looks good in fighter. Btw, anyone else notice the fold booster attachpoints on the back plate?

I think Hasegawa left that hole open so people could use the Macross display stand set they put out.. there are a couple of extra parts included that slip into that rear area for mounting. (given the recent conversation, I can't believe I just said that.) Aerodynamically speaking, that whole rear area is a bad deal, since it's not streamlined at all. So I guess the question is, why else would it be there, except to make room to store the feet/legs? If it wasn't needed, it probably would've been streamlined in the original design. There could have been a fancy sliding cover for it in "reality," but that probably would've been too complex for a toy this size, and it's not even in the anime to begin with.

I think I've seen at least one display where people mounted a load of missiles on white wire pipe-cleaners, and displayed them around a 1/48 GPB.

Actually, continuity is one thing that has bugged me for a while, across all the series. Which is canon history in the Macross universe, SDFM, or DYRL? The reason I ask is because we see a sort of mixing between styles of equipment, mecha, and characters. While it makes sense to update things to look more futuristic than SDFM, it's confusing in a few cases, Exedore being one of them. For instance, in the M7 episode where they have Basara dressed as Hikaru, he's got a DYRL flightsuit. Are they imitating the movie since that's what people in that generation remember? On the other hand, didn't Milia use her old SDFM flightsuit in a couple episodes? In terms of flightsuits, the only ones without the big shoulder pads and extra arm/leg equipment are the original SDFM ones. Even Zero had the shoulder pads (which made very little sense to me.. they should've had modern combat gear ). Are they trying to retroactively treat DYRL as canon?

Hmm.. so that's why the intakes looked so strange on the VF-25.. they're dual layered, with a splitter plate across the middle.

As far as leg room goes, I'm more concerned how you could fold the lower leg fins in, on top of the engine, combined with the missiles... I think the only logical way for all that to happen is some sort of portable hole they invented, or maybe a portal system (awesome game btw). Leave one portal on the ground, another on the plane, and you have a ground-launched system firing from an aircraft. Realistically though, I don't see why the engines have to be so huge anymore. There are good sized internal cavities in many aircraft not used for anything.. they're just left empty to save weight. As engines get more powerful, and probably smaller, the effects of overpacking an aircraft with heavy objects would not be as great. Shoot, the engines on the YF-19 could already reach near orbit in less than a minute. I magine by this point they could probably have shrunk those engines considerably.

For a high res logo, I tried tracing the image and enhancing it, but I can't tell if the layers are right for the underlying blue letter f. Color is a little off too. But I imagine a decent sized logo will come out very soon.

So far there's been two clear pilot characters, the Roy substitute, and the bluehair guy. There's probably a third for the Hikaru-like scheme, but I don't know if we've seen him yet. Since the scene changed after the transformation though, I don't think the VF-25 firing upwards was the blue striped one. It may have been the yellow one. Looking at the pilot's helmet might give a clue, since we've seen two (maybe three) separate styles of flight gear. What I wonder about is why so many styles of flight gear? There are three at least (the VF-171 DYRL looking suits, the yellow and black skull-type guy's suit, and the type of gear worn by blue-hair), and the Roy-substitute looks more like he's wearing an EVA plug suit than a Macross flight suit. Makes me wonder if he isn't some rogue element/pirate not affiliated with the UN... how they would get such good planes is beyond me though.. maybe they're special forces (Diamond force had different uniforms) ? Btw, I'm referring to the Newtype scan a few pages back. The red VF-25 in that shot also looks like it has a DYRL style pilot from the shoulder pads. As for the VF-25, it has ventral fins on the legs like the VF-1, although they're slightly bigger, and look to be shaped similarly to the tail. I'd think of them as a hybrid between the VF-1 and SV-51, which had almost twin fins in the rear. The VF-25 keeps looking more and more like a crazy blended version of every Valk ever made. I'm just glad they ditched the huge ankle cuffs from Mac7 in favor of something a little more streamlined. I can't wait for the line art for it to come out.

I need to stop reading everything about this game. I loved AC4, 5, and 0, and it just hurts not being able to play it. I keep holding out hope that since MS got the license on their system, they'll try a PC version. I'd be willing to fork over quite a bit to play any AC game on a PC with a full joystick/throttle/rudder pedal setup. Probably not likely though PC flight games get raked over the coals if they aren't real enough.. but I'm tired of consoles getting all the fun flight games, while PC's only get rivet-counter sims. There hasn't been a good fun-oriented air combat game on the PC since.. well, I would say X-Wing vs Tie Fighter or Freespace 2, but those are in space. There have been lots of sims with multiplayer, but the majority of them are WWII era. I know Novalogic had a series of multiplayer games with Mig-29s and F-16s, but that was 10 years ago now. I've tried coming up with more reasons to get a 360 than this game, but I just can't justify it yet.. hopefully somewhere along the way, I'll have the spare cash and boredom to get it. Btw, if it's anything like AC0, you should be able to unlock the schemes in free mission mode.

Lol.. you didn't see this one did you? VF-1S Really, that one was ridiculous, and shrinking things down really does help the strength. But as for them coming in kits with a pre-determined way of putting them together, I really have to disagree with you there, but, yep, it is getting off topic. My main concern with Bandai kits was the polycap joints, but it's true, the kits I have seen are much older, so they've probably gotten better. Hopefully they'll give this same treatment to any Macross kits, and they'll have sturdy joints to hold them together. I'm not so worried about internal details, but I guess what it boils down to is that I hope they don't overdo it, and make it overly fragile/complex. Considering the size comparisons, they could probably do a 1/48th Valk easy, with roughly the same amount of material as the average PG Gundam. Bigger would be better in this case, since the plastic is light enough not to get too heavy, and the extra room will make the joints bigger and tougher.

That's a beautiful job, the scheme really fits that plane well. I agree with the idea about the darker parts on the legs, but I'd compare it to the CF SV-51 pics just released.. they would look good dark, but blending them with the camo pattern would work just as well. Only big difference I notice is the overall amount of blue being less on yours, not in the amount of patches, but in the size of them. It'd probably be tough to add more now though, so don't risk it if you like it the way it is.