Macross Frontier Episode 15 Talkback Thread *READ 1st Post*

[Final Vegeta]

Clones cells have shorter telomeres, so they age faster... Maybe Sheryl is indeed a clone...

I've seen gg fansub, and I've concluded that there's no line that actually suggests that Sheryl is an artificial human being of any sort. Just wild fan imagination, as I guessed.

FV

[tankf77]

Ha! I called it last week.....I knew Alto would get a promotion.

To what rank? He was warrant officer right? But Mr. Bilra also called him Warrant Officer. Strange??

[RedWolf]

People they did mass cloning to stablelize the human population so telemeres problem no.

Sheryl didn't have a problem till Grace gave those pills.

[VF-25 Messiah]

To what rank? He was warrant officer right? But Mr. Bilra also called him Warrant Officer. Strange??

The subs that call him warrant officer in episode 15 are mistaken.

And his new rank is 少尉 2nd Lieutenant/Ensign

EDIT: Thought I recalled someone mentioning this earlier, and right as I was Shun mentioned it 2 pages back.

Edited July 19, 2008 by VF-25 Messiah

[tankf77]

Despite footage recycle (and badly drawn Sheryl) this is really a good episode. Since episode 12 we got tons of plot twists and emotionally significant scenes per episode. If this keeps up this Macross Frontier will be the best series ever.

I just hope that Bilra will be able to outsmart Galaxy at the end. I will laugh if that happens.

By the way, I don't think that Sheryl is necessarily an artificial human. It could be that she was seen as a good singer and then adopted as Fairy 9. Only her success would be slightly manifactured. As for the other fairies, they aren't necessarily killed. To better explain: Sheryl was #1 singer for 17 weeks. The ones that were #1 singer before her were the other fairies. They just stopped being #1.

Since I don't think Sheryl is an artificial human I also don't think Sheryl is going to die. I think there were only some side-effects from Grace's pills, nothing too bad.

FV

What's the intended purpose for Sheryl that Grace's faction had in mind? Manipulating the Vajra??

[VF-25 Messiah]

What's the intended purpose for Sheryl that Grace's faction had in mind? Manipulating the Vajra??

Unknown. But as far as they're concerned she's outlived her usefullness, going so far as to call her a failure. They intended to have her killed when they activated the dimension eater in episode 13. Manipulating the Vajra seems plausible, almost a given, but to what end?

[Keith]

I'm actually starting to believe Graces faction could be the Protoculture related groupo (instead of the Vajra) in the series. When you look at their crazy level of technology, cyber-conciousness, replacement bodies & the know-how to re-integrate into them, and of course, the dimension eater itself, that just seems a bit too far ahead of what Earth has developed.

I'm not going to say SA, since really, their purpose would have been filled with the exiting fo the Protodevelin, and their mission would have been the capture of, not destruction of a human-like race. But at this point, It looks to me like the current state of the Vajra may have been a result of normal members of hte 117th foiling an earlier plot.

Current theory is that they are remnats of one side of the Protoculture conflict who see humans as too close to the "lighter" side of the Protoculture, or perhaps just another PC influenced world (lost member of the Stellar Republic) who are some really tweaked mofo's. And really, all they'd have to do is sneak in as a Rogue Zentradi group to go unnoticed.

Mind you, all I really have to base this on, aisde from their insane level of technology, is the comment about "500 thousand years of Protoculture history", which could be a translation error. But if that actually is the line, it seems a bit out of place for a normal "bad" human group.

[Radd]

The others are just the CF VF-25's we've seen before--always sitting in the hangar undergoing repairs. That's the only time we've seen them fly I think.

What about episode 7? We see a bunch of armoured VF-25s flying escort for the Quarter while all the main characters are otherwise occupied. I rewatched the episode yesterday.

As for this episode, ja like some other people mentioned, the clip-show aspects made me think I was going to give it my first neutral review, despite all the new information. But by the end of the episode, so much new stuff had been brought into play that I was pretty well stoked to find out more. All in all, I'd have to say this is by far the most impressive clip-show episode I've seen for a series. They managed to get away with a lot of recycled and rearranged footage (a nice touch, if you ask me) while dangling enough new animation, and dangling enough new story elements to really make it an integral episode.

Also, I called it. Galaxy seems to be perfectly fine. The Vajra attack was probably entirely fabricated. Send out a couple ships to stir up a wasp's nest, and have them fold from there to meet up with Frontier's forces, and the resulting battle sets Frontier and the Vajra head on into war.

The resource elements, and showing the affects of that last battle on Frontier really helped add a little post-episode oomf to it. Also nice to see that the suspicious elements of regarding Brera aren't escaping characters like Ozma and Kathy who were both privy to flight footage and first hand accounts of Brera's VF-27 appearing in earlier encounters (not to mention Kathy knowing what Leon knew because she was feeding him the information). That all seems like something most series would get a little sloppy on in the writing department. It's also interesting that there seems to be a connection between Mr. Bilrer and whoever Grace is working for, yet he seems something of an unknown factor to them as well. I wonder where that thread is leading?

I also thought the tidbits of background info were interesting, such as Frontier apparently being rare in it's lack of cybernetics. Also, they haven't gone far at all into revealing what all this "V-type infection" business is all about. I'd almost forgotten until this episode brought it right back to centre stage.

Combined with statements from that Kawamori/Kanno interview, I really can't wait to see where they're going with this. I've had my complaints regarding the pacing of the series since the second episode, but I gotta admit things seem to really be coming together. If the story holds up once all the cards are revealed, this will be one fantastic ride.

On the other hand, I'm still a bit sad because of

Raramia! D:

[manwiththemachinegun]

So, it turns out much of Sheryl's talent DOESN'T come from her. I wonder how she'll react to the news that much of her life, and success has been a lie.

[Keith]

I got more of the impression that Mr. Bilrer was someone who was aware of, and is opposing Grace's group. Making Alto undetectable to them once entering his house was the big tip off. As well as how the SMS have been a thorn in Grace's groups sides, complete with adopting the apparently unexpected VF-25.

[dreamweaver13]

as for sheryl's condition, i don't think grace will actively set out to kill her. maybe as far as grace is concerned, sheryl is dying anyway. my speculation is that the poison is still lingering in her system. and if left unchecked, it would eventually kill her. thus, by stealing sheryl's blood sample, grace made it sure that traces of the poison would not be detected in time.

Unfortunately for her, grace doesn't know that michael is already suspecting posion. if sheryl's condition continues to deteriorate, then we could count on michael to put 2 and 2 together, and shout BINGO! of course, that's assuming that the pineapple stuff klanklan crammed down his throat will not affect him yet. hehe.

[dreamweaver13]

So, it turns out much of Sheryl's talent DOESN'T come from her. I wonder how she'll react to the news that much of her life, and success has been a lie.

huh? all i hard from the episode is that she was fairy9. didn't hear anything to hint that she had no talent of her own at all, or that her talents were given to her. unless i missed something?

[Sulendil Ang]

I got more of the impression that Mr. Bilrer was someone who was aware of, and is opposing Grace's group. Making Alto undetectable to them once entering his house was the big tip off. As well as how the SMS have been a thorn in Grace's groups sides, complete with adopting the apparently unexpected VF-25.

Yeah, makes you wonder what Bilrer's big dream that he's going to tell Alto, huh?

"My great wish to spread to the entire galaxy the wonder of train modeling, but those Cylon thinks playing with bugs are much more fun, so I create a paramilitary group to tell those cyborgs that bugs are lame toys, even underperformed plane can owns them big time..."

[Gubaba]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Bilrer = Isaac from Escaflowne...i.e., the old guy whose job it is to watch the plot unfold on a monitor while his eyes grow big and he says, "OHHHH..." in a gravelly voice...?

[sdf2501]

I got more of the impression that Mr. Bilrer was someone who was aware of, and is opposing Grace's group. Making Alto undetectable to them once entering his house was the big tip off. As well as how the SMS have been a thorn in Grace's groups sides, complete with adopting the apparently unexpected VF-25.

Are you sure about that? It could be that Richard is just paranoid about security; doesn't necessarily mean he's explicitly anti-Galaxy or that he's aware of Galaxy's activities. It could just mean that the efficiency of SMS affecting Galaxy's plans are a coincidence; one that Galaxy didn't count on and now they'll have to do something about it.

Also, not related, but the show did say that LAI developed the VF-25, correct?

[dreamweaver13]

Are you sure about that? It could be that Richard is just paranoid about security; doesn't necessarily mean he's explicitly anti-Galaxy or that he's aware of Galaxy's activities. It could just mean that the efficiency of SMS affecting Galaxy's plans are a coincidence; one that Galaxy didn't count on and now they'll have to do something about it.

Also, not related, but the show did say that LAI developed the VF-25, correct?

well it sure seems to me that they're on opposing factions. or at the very least, they don't get along that well.

first hint was when the grace AIs were discussing that their plan was not 100% successful because they underestimated the power of the SMS, the same SMS that bilrer owns.

next was, as you mentioned, when grace couldn't access infor from inside bilrer's mansion. to do something like that, bilrer must know that someone was watching him, and it's not someone you can easily give the slip to without superior security technology.

and lastly, again the grace AIs were discussing that bilrer is making a play for alto, and they're discussing the possible ramifications of bilrer's move against their own plans.

so now i'm getting the impression of a cat and mouse game, with bilrer as the man going up against the conspirators connected with grace.

and also, i'm not entirely sure we should completely equate the actions of the grace AIs with the Galaxy fleet as a whole. maybe they're a civilian group inside galaxy, much the same way SMS is inside the Frontier.

[Mr March]

So it appears Grace is some kind of multiple-entity, but was born on Gallia 4 suggesting she wasn't always this ephemeral being but once was human. Still not sure the nature or purpose of this cyberspace cabal, but I guess we're being fed only enough until the plot reveals more. Grace is also messing with Sheryl's blood analysis, suggesting she's hiding something about Sheryl. But it appears whatever her purpose, she's had enough of Sheryl and is now onto a plan to manipulate Ranka.

If Grace is to be believed it appears cybernetics is not the exception, but the rule. She seems to imply the Macross Frontier fleet is some kind of colony that is sans-cybernetics and that such a thing is an oddity. This is certainly a 180 turn from the way the UNG policy was portrayed in Macross Plus, but I suppose a lot can change in almost two decades. It's also interesting that now the SMS is clearly being portrayed as a wild card, something not intricate to the plans of Grace and her cohorts. Looks like Grace and Co. were counting on the New UN Spacy to remain relatively ineffective and based on the SMS's YF-24 design, they figured the VF-27 would steamroll over any opposition. But it looks like the SMS, their ships and especially the VF-25 has proven to be a stumbling block for the Macross Galaxy forces.

So Leon Mishima is pulling even more strings behind the scenes than I thought. Looks like Brera is getting away with his actions in previous episodes due to his involvement with Leon and Grace. Those two certainly get around. I still think the Leon isn't as aware of how far gone things are. He is definitely much more influential than I originally thought, but he still doesn't appear to be doing anything that isn't being orchestrated by Grace and her cohorts.

Well, just have to watch more I suppose.

[Batou]

discarded as in abandoned isn't it ? she is a failure to their scheme, isn't that why she is being abandoned. i think if sheryl can overcome the effects of the "witchcraft" poison she would live and even grace won't bother her no more.

I agree. My take was that Sheryl just outlived her usefulness as a "failed experiment". As far as "fanning the flames of hatred" or whatever it was, I would guess Grace's intention was to stir up the hornets' nest, as it were, by setting off the dimension eater. Grace knew would trace the attack back to the Frontier fleet, who they would subsequently blame and attack. Sheryl getting blown to atoms was just killing two birds with one stone, possibly with the assumption that the Frontier fleet would blame her death on the Vajra: If no one had actually managed to survive that explosion (which, let's face it, the odds were very much against it), the Frontier fleet would only know that Galia 4 was blown to bits along with Sheryl, Alto, and the 33rd Zent Marines, see the Vajra immediately jump from there to attack the Frontier, and then things just escalate further.

Grace and the rest of her mystery conspirators seem to be very intentionally playing both sides against the middle, the purpose for which remains to be revealed. I strongly suspect the Vajra will wind up being innocent parties in all this, all along acting in what they believe to be self defense.

Still, Sheryl's survival may likely turn into an inconvenience for them, especially given whatever evidence her blood might betray (including, but not restricted to, the poison Grace was giving her). I would not be surprised if another manufactured "accident" or outright attempt on her was in the works, if only to clear up the loose ends. This would likely have to be pretty messy, as an autopsy might reveal some things the conspirators don't want out in the open, at least not yet.

Despite the "clip show" nature of a lot of this episode, this is the most plot revelation I think we've had so far in the series. Those hints as to the stage being set now really make me eager to see where this is going.

[travis2008]

dis episode kinda clear up some mysteries, but also reveal more...

big question now is

who is richard birla? is he part of the grace gang? or someone else?

n wat do they wan ranka for?

make another SOUND FORCE?

too bad dis epi has almost 60% of reused scenes

otherwise its still quite nice

[SpacePirateNeko]

Cause they all do it these days?

DT thats the best avatar ever!

[RedWolf]

dis episode kinda clear up some mysteries, but also reveal more...

big question now is

who is richard birla? is he part of the grace gang? or someone else?

n wat do they wan ranka for?

make another SOUND FORCE?

too bad dis epi has almost 60% of reused scenes

otherwise its still quite nice

More like Jamming Bird. Ever since Leon said that should they make the Vajra hear their songs to Pres. Glass I had the feeling Frontier has it's own Operation M.

Only that Galaxy Anonymous has it's own Operation Carnival.

[junior]

Still, Sheryl's survival may likely turn into an inconvenience for them, especially given whatever evidence her blood might betray (including, but not restricted to, the poison Grace was giving her). I would not be surprised if another manufactured "accident" or outright attempt on her was in the works, if only to clear up the loose ends. This would likely have to be pretty messy, as an autopsy might reveal some things the conspirators don't want out in the open, at least not yet.

I think you're right that Grace's gang needs to get rid of Sheryl. If Sheryl finds out that Grace is working with Ranka, then she's going to start asking inconvenient questions and poking her nose in places where it doesn't belong. Sheryl's demonstrated before that she's very independent when she feels the need to be, and an annoyed Sheryl angry over the fact that HER manager is working with her professional rival Ranka is not something that Grace needs or wants to deal with. It's far easier to keep Sheryl sidelined and in the hospital while possibly being slowly poisoned.

I don't think they need a messy "accident", though. So long as Sheryl's in the hospital, then she can't interfere. If they just slowly kill off Sheryl and keep interfering with any medical tests then they should be able to make it look as if anything that happened to her didn't have outside help.

[David Hingtgen]

DT thats the best avatar ever!

I agree---but I have little hope of anyone ever drawing Miang doing the pose for my avatar.

[RedWolf]

On Mr. Richard Bilrer.

I'm willing to bet Bilrer is the one who mostly funded Frontier.

It isn't enough that Frontier is a replica of San Francisco but also Tokyo.

Especially Akihabara!

This guy is far more cultured and enjoying it than Exsedol Folmo.:heh:

Exedol was satisfied with watching behind the monitor or is it behinds of those at the monitors? Bridge bunnies. Exsedol liked the bikini section of the Jammingbird auditions.

But Bilrer made his dreams come true. His own playroom, miclone maids and a private army.

He's not going to give up all that to Galaxy Anonymous' schemes.

Edited July 19, 2008 by RedWolf

[darkrealmbahamut]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Bilrer = Isaac from Escaflowne...i.e., the old guy whose job it is to watch the plot unfold on a monitor while his eyes grow big and he says, "OHHHH..." in a gravelly voice...?

He does seem like the watcher character. He might intereact but perhaps can't directly affect. I mean his sitting room gives that "god" feel since he is this massive figure over looking a world even though it is just a train set.

[Rookie_One]

or there might be more than the eye can see right now about him.

Bilrer is a cyborg(or at least a zentraedi with various implants), but he don't seem linked to the others on the Macross Galaxy, so its possible that in fact, he acted agaisnt them.

i guess we have to wait and see

Edited July 19, 2008 by Rookie_One

[Duke Togo]

On Mr. Richard Bilrer.

From now on, I am calling him "Dick Pillar".

[Sumdumgai]

The others are just the CF VF-25's we've seen before--always sitting in the hangar undergoing repairs. That's the only time we've seen them fly I think.

We can see some CF VF-25s flying in episode 11 with fast packs. Just before Mihail launches in front of Alto.

[NoNameSt11]

So it appears Grace is some kind of multiple-entity, but was born on Gallia 4 suggesting she wasn't always this ephemeral being but once was human.

I think Grace was "born" on the SDF Global, since the way they said it was like destroying the planet was an additional side effect. Also, this group on Galaxy working behind the scenes had to get the information from somewhere, so I'm betting they're survivors from the 117th Research Fleet with their own agendas.

I think there's a lot of things we can speculate about now but we'll have to wait until the series resolves them.

[DarkReaper]

Maybe Grace and the other AI constructs are like the computer on the old DYRL ocean city computer a protoculture relict and Gallia 4 was a protoculture colony a long time ago. Would also fit in with the "eye" thats jamming them, it looks like the birdman afterall.

[darkrealmbahamut]

This was one of those episodes that left more questions then answers and that is what made it interesting because it was partially a recap episode.

[Mr March]

From now on, I am calling him "Dick Pillar".

aka, Richard Branson...ahem, Sir Richard Branson

[Macross1982]

Finally watched it!! Good Episode, feels like something big is gonna happen soon

[s-girl]

Apart from the immediate conspiracy at hand with respect to the Fairy and the Q... Bilra vs. Grace...

I don't know if I understood the first half dialogue correctly. Galaxy was interested in Frontier because of it was clearly different in the AI/cyborg type restrictions, was following the same trajectory towards the middle of the galaxy.

It almost seems like there's a few possible underlying problems that Grace's group wants to possibly deal with--

*Frontier is a different type of class of colony from Galaxy. MOre self-sustaining, more integrated, more "natural" and has perhaps a better environment in terms of it being somewhat self-repairing and self-sustaining. The only robots we see are those that dispense drinks and clean the streets. Galaxy from what little we know loves technology, and people are enhanced, altered, modified, etc. It makes me wonder though if Galaxy is attempting to stage an opportunity for themselves to "destroy their ship" , be taken refuge aboard Frontier and take over? If your ship stinks, why not pull some pirate tactics and take over another one?

*They have the same destination, e.,g the center of the galaxy-- to seek out the answer to the mysteries that have underlaid the entire Macross Universe. If there is some desire for power or fame at play and your ship has the same path as another... why not try to knock that ship out? What if you don't like the fact that Frontier has found a way to peacefully coexist? I'm still bothered by Sheryl apparently having never seen non-micronized Zentradi. Is there some kind of weird societal construct on GAlaxy ? Different culture that woudl be threatened by what they see on Frontier should Frontier get to the perceived destination first?

Maybe I'm thinking much too large in terms of the larger conspiracy, but there have been hints already that people do not believe in peaceful coexistence and yet Frontier does it pretty seamlessly.

Anyways, rambling, speculating, and would love to know from those who are far more versed in Macross lore exactly what people have thought they are trying to attain in this long journey.

[junior]

Actually, Grace's group indicates that the bio-plant is important because it will easily allow them to modify the environment inside Frontier. Thus, from the sound of things, Grace's group needed a colony fleet that they could radically change, and Frontier fit the bill. The lack of cybernetics seems to be tied to this. As others have suggested, it might be that the presence of cybernetics would make it more difficult to carry out the changes that Grace's group has in mind.

The current guess is that Grace's group seems to want a colony that they can change in some manner to provide a friendlier environment to the Vajra.