The VF-0s, what happened to them?

[Letigre]

It's just sad that such beautiful designs (both the VF-0 all variants and the SV-51) were 'one time use only' so-to-speak.

DO we even know that's the case with the SV-51?

It was combat-ready unlike it's adversary, after all. The AUN did survive the Mayan Island incident.

That's an interesting fact I didn't know. Makes sense too.

In the case of Macross, the mass availability of cheap OverTechnology probably made producing lots of prototypes a reality again. At least in the short term. The Super Nova AVF competition seemed to produce only two prototypes of each variable fighter.

Well that is largely since Project Supernova was based on the real life competition between the YF-22 and YF-23, where there were also two prototypes of each plane. But that was because the competiition also involved what engines would also power thew winning fighter, so each competitor had a plane using a pair of each of the two competing engines as well.

[Vostok 7]

DO we even know that's the case with the SV-51?

It was combat-ready unlike it's adversary, after all. The AUN did survive the Mayan Island incident.

Indeed, we don't know what really happened to the SV-51. It definitely didn't seem to be a test vehicle like the VF-0. But Canon states that only 32 of the CFs were made and probably only a handful of the 'Gamma' Ace variants (I think the Macross Compendium states there were four VF-0S' made, so probably a similar amount of 'Gamma' SV-51s were built). That's why I say that probably not every single SV-51 was in AUN service, but we don't know. When Macross Zero came out while I was designing my MiG-45 project (which I haven't moved further on ), the fanon I came up with said that the Soviet Union was so angry at Sukhoi for selling the SV-51 to the AUN that they canceled the SV-51 project and instead gave everything to Mikoyan i Gurevich to make a variable fighter, which became the MiG-45, NATO Reporting name: Valhalla. Then, when the Soviet Union was approved to license build VF-1s for the UN, this was also given to MiG. Though I'm working through the fanon that there was a little more to the situation than was on the surface and that the Soviet Union was actually getting money from the AUN AND the UN to fund several overtechnology projects (not just variable fighters and mecha) at the same time, all of which benefited the Soviet Union and the UN Spacy in general once SW1 started (since the AUN sorta died off when SW1 started).

Vostok 7

[akt_m]

What i'm trying to say is why try to find any logic in a fiction universe when you know the real reason. As if Kawamori thought in any excuse to do a VF-0 besides selling more toys.

Edited December 23, 2008 by akt_m

[SchizophrenicMC]

What i'm trying to say is why try to find any logic in a fiction universe when you know the real reason. As if Kawamori thought in any excuse to do a VF-0 besides selling more toys.

Well, either way, Zero was gonna have a VF-0. That was the point of the OVA. Originally, the Phoenix was gonna look a lot like an F-14. Then, Kawamori said he wanted it to look more like a modernized VF-1. And there you have it.

[Letigre]

Indeed, we don't know what really happened to the SV-51. It definitely didn't seem to be a test vehicle like the VF-0. But Canon states that only 32 of the CFs were made and probably only a handful of the 'Gamma' Ace variants (I think the Macross Compendium states there were four VF-0S' made, so probably a similar amount of 'Gamma' SV-51s were built). That's why I say that probably not every single SV-51 was in AUN service, but we don't know. When Macross Zero came out while I was designing my MiG-45 project (which I haven't moved further on ), the fanon I came up with said that the Soviet Union was so angry at Sukhoi for selling the SV-51 to the AUN that they canceled the SV-51 project and instead gave everything to Mikoyan i Gurevich to make a variable fighter, which became the MiG-45, NATO Reporting name: Valhalla. Then, when the Soviet Union was approved to license build VF-1s for the UN, this was also given to MiG. Though I'm working through the fanon that there was a little more to the situation than was on the surface and that the Soviet Union was actually getting money from the AUN AND the UN to fund several overtechnology projects (not just variable fighters and mecha) at the same time, all of which benefited the Soviet Union and the UN Spacy in general once SW1 started (since the AUN sorta died off when SW1 started).

It only makes me wish more was covered about the UN Wars..

Given the existance of the MiG I sometimes wonder if a rivalry, or politics were invovled surrounding the creation of the SV-51, Either internally with perhaps with Sukhoi falling out of favor with the Russian or UN government for selling their design to the AUN forces, or perhaps as the reason they sold the VF to them as well. It could just as well be some sort of Russian political turmoil, even though the country was part of the UN, there were perhaps politcal dissonance among certain factions of the country, or just that commercial interests that had other ideas that ran afoul of the governments agenda.

I do havea crazy idea that it's possible that the collaborating team designing and building the SV-51 was in competition with the team building the VF-1 for the UN's mainline fighter, and that either in scorn of losing unfairly( perhaps due to a contraversial decision or political manuevering) or plain bitterness, they took their toy elsewhere. The ailing AUN forces of course eagerly welcomed a potential advantage over their UN rivals.

[Mr March]

What i'm trying to say is why try to find any logic in a fiction universe when you know the real reason. As if Kawamori thought in any excuse to do a VF-0 besides selling more toys.

Uh, because suspending belief is actually part of enjoying fiction. And when people really enjoy fiction, they tend to imagine possibilities in their own minds and want to share them with other fans. Where Kawamori ends and the imagination of the audience begins is really the most enjoyable part of watching/interpreting the fiction.

[Kronnang Dunn]

Uh, because suspending belief is actually part of enjoying fiction. And when people really enjoy fiction, they tend to imagine possibilities in their own minds and want to share them with other fans. Where Kawamori ends and the imagination of the audience begins is really the most enjoyable part of watching/interpreting the fiction.

Indeed.

I think the VF-0 was used as basis for the development for more athmospheric-only valkyries. Maybe these and other variable fighters were influenced by it (and the anti-U.N. SV-51 too!). I know they aren't canon, but I find lots of similarities in them with the valkyries from Zero...

[IAD]

I think most of the VF-0s and SV-51s were shown being destroyed during the engagement against the Birdman... There's that zoomed-out scene where it's firing a sustained beam, and you see a whole bunch of small explosions... Just in that one-second clip, it looks like there are enough explosions to account for all the SVs.

~Luke

[JB0]

The YF-19 was damaged due to gunpod fire, right? It's been awhile since I saw Plus...

It depends on story version?

In both the OVA and movie, it was smashed into the ground by Guld and the YF-21 after Isamu caught Guld. Whereupon it plowed a lengthy trench into the ground and if I recall, left the GERWALK twisted and upside down.

From here, things diverge.

In the movie, that crash puts Isamu in the ER.

In the OVA, they slapped some bandaids on Isamu. He then bitched at Guld as soon as he was through the hanger doors(did he WALK home from the crash?).

Guld would subsequently engage in an elaborate ploy to assassinate Isamu that I don't fully comprehend, involving putting live ammo into Isamu's gun behind some paintballs and rigging a mechanism to make the gun jam when Isamu tired to shoot Guld but not when Guld tried to shoot Isamu.

And then he shot the YF-19 up with it's own gunpod, and Isamu went to the ER.

So.... yeah. It crashes quite impressively in both versions.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Wasn't it the VF-11 that crashes due to Guld? (I watched Plus ep 1, and that's what happened there...) No YF-19 there...

[JB0]

Wasn't it the VF-11 that crashes due to Guld? (I watched Plus ep 1, and that's what happened there...) No YF-19 there...

Doh!

Obviously, I need to watch it again too.

[anime52k8]

It depends on story version?

In both the OVA and movie, it was smashed into the ground by Guld and the YF-21 after Isamu caught Guld. Whereupon it plowed a lengthy trench into the ground and if I recall, left the GERWALK twisted and upside down.

From here, things diverge.

In the movie, that crash puts Isamu in the ER.

In the OVA, they slapped some bandaids on Isamu. He then bitched at Guld as soon as he was through the hanger doors(did he WALK home from the crash?).

Guld would subsequently engage in an elaborate ploy to assassinate Isamu that I don't fully comprehend, involving putting live ammo into Isamu's gun behind some paintballs and rigging a mechanism to make the gun jam when Isamu tired to shoot Guld but not when Guld tried to shoot Isamu.

And then he shot the YF-19 up with it's own gunpod, and Isamu went to the ER.

So.... yeah. It crashes quite impressively in both versions.

um you're thinking of the VF-11

in the OVA, Isamu caught Guld with the VF-11 after gulds freakout. then (as it's most commonly interpreted) Guld thinks about forcing Isamu's valk into the ground and the YF-21 just does it.

after that Guld and Isamu go up on another test flight, with Isamu in the YF-19. then they fight and Isamu beats the crap out of Guld and then Guld pics up Isamu's gunpod and shoots him.

I think in the Movie they combined the two into one incident and cut out the whole YF-21 vs. YF-19 fight.

also I've always been under the impression that Guld loaded live ammo into the YF-19's gunpod because he was planing on forcing a fight with Isamu, at which point Isamu would end up shooting at him with live ammo so that it would look like Isamu tried to kill Guld and as a result be kicked from the project and probably court-martialed.

Edited December 24, 2008 by anime52k8

[JB0]

um you're thinking of the VF-11

Yup. I messed up pretty bad.

I think in the Movie they combined the two into one incident and cut out the whole YF-21 vs. YF-19 fight.

Yeah. The movie dumps Isamu where a crash like that should put him.

The OVA adds in the 21 VS 19 fight to pad length. And provide more wicked-cool giant robot action!

Remember, the OVA came out first, but the movie is the version that was originally scripted. Marketing forced them to make an OVA to build hype.

also I've always been under the impression that Guld loaded live ammo into the YF-19's gunpod because he was planing on forcing a fight with Isamu, at which point Isamu would end up shooting at him with live ammo so that it would look like Isamu tried to kill Guld and as a result be kicked from the project and probably court-martialed.

He hates Isamu SO MUCH that he's going to make Isamu kill him?

Yeah, that makes about as much sense as the convoluted Rube Goldberg scheme.

The whole 19vs21 fight is one of the scenes that was REALLY CLEARLY wedged in to extend the movie script.

Any way you slice it, it doesn't work.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Guld's plan: get Isamu to shoot at him with live rounds (AWAY FROM THE COCKPIT, might I add), getting him court-martialled. Not to mention, kicked from the project, and MOST importantly: Away from Myung.

"If the YF-21 creates a downward force... Yes."

[ChronoReverse]

While I agree that the OVA version of how Isamu got injured was rather forced there's still one thing about the VF-11 crash that lends it the tininess sliver of "credibility".

Basara did a similar crash down a mountain in the Macross 7 movie and didn't come out with a scratch. Of course, he's a freak who doesn't even need to wear a flight suit (and he was in a VF-19) so it's hardly the best evidence.

[RedWolf]

Well Basara didn't let himself hit his own cockpit jumpimg out of it.

As a miner said. Who is crazy enough to fold so close to the ground.

If you are going say Global he folded in not folded out.

[Zinjo]

I'd suspect any remaining operational VF-0s and SV-51s were used for planetary defense since they were not made (as far as we know) for space flight.

They may or may not have been fitted with the nuclear engines, however it would make more sense to utilize them on Earth as they are much larger and it is doubtful the ARMD carriers would have enough room to carry any large number of them to be effective or the Macross for that matter...

I suspect there were more that survived the Mayan Island incident since the VF-27 used a few design principles from the SV-51, giving me the impression that OTEC had the opportunity to examine the design at some point and record their findings for posterity.

[SchizophrenicMC]

My thinking is that the VF-0s, being heavily involved in the Mayan Island Incident (And they were top-secret, due to being variable fighters, anyway), were retired and placed in a top-secret facility. Nellis AFB, for example.

[JB0]

Guld's plan: get Isamu to shoot at him with live rounds (AWAY FROM THE COCKPIT, might I add), getting him court-martialled. Not to mention, kicked from the project, and MOST importantly: Away from Myung.

"If the YF-21 creates a downward force... Yes."

Because Isamu is going to be REALLY careful not to hit an armored chestplate with paint rounds, right?

Guld didn't come off as THAT crazy. He was seriously broke in the head, but he wasn't borderline-suicidal.

Anyways...

[SchizophrenicMC]

Simple: He begins to fire paint rounds at the cockpit. YF-21's arms grab gunpod, shifting to side before live rounds begin firing. Isamu loses. Guld wins. The end.

However, it didn't work out, Guld went a bit off plan and grabbed the gun, shooting Isamu with it. Who's in trouble now?

[Gubaba]

Because Isamu is going to be REALLY careful not to hit an armored chestplate with paint rounds, right?

Guld didn't come off as THAT crazy. He was seriously broke in the head, but he wasn't borderline-suicidal.

Anyways...

Hmmm...having just re-read Watchmen, it makes me think of Veidt's "assassination plan"...in other words, if Isamu had shot at the cockpit, Guld would've had to catch the bullet...

But really, I agree with you on this one. The "live ammo" incident is so tangled, I'm not sure even the scriptwriter knew what was really going on.

(Reminds me of a story I heard about the film of "The Big Sleep"...the scriptwriters (whose number included William Faulkner) had untangled the various mysteries in the novel, but were still puzzled by the murder of the chauffeur that started a lot of the intrigue...so they called Raymond Chandler and asked him who had killed the chauffeur, and he replied, "How the hell should I know?")

I've (slowly) started looking through the Macross Plus novel...if that sheds any light on the incident, I'll be sure to mention it.

But hey, we're WAAAAY of-topic here. I kind of agree with everyone else...there were so few VF-0s that they could have been put pretty much anywhere (even on the Macross) and we'd never notice (or see them again). But whatever happened to them, photos, plans, and perhaps even an actual fighter or two must have survived, since the "Bird Human" movie in Frontier managed to get every detail exactly right. Plus, enough of them (and the SV-51s) must have survived to schedule the "All That VF" air show...which clearly must have happened AFTER the events of Macross Zero. (Hey, if we're going in-universe, why not go all the way, right? )

[SchizophrenicMC]

Exactly what I said, Gubaba. The Schematics survived. The VF-0s in All That VF-0 were built specially for the 50 year anniversary of the end of SW1. Same for the SV-51s.

I can't say for sure what happened to the VF-0Ds, but the VF-0A and S went back in time through a fold warp and Yamato saw them and made toys. The VFs were destroyed in the reverse-engineering process...

[JB0]

Simple: He begins to fire paint rounds at the cockpit. YF-21's arms grab gunpod, shifting to side before live rounds begin firing. Isamu loses. Guld wins. The end.

However, it didn't work out, Guld went a bit off plan and grabbed the gun, shooting Isamu with it. Who's in trouble now?

Hmmm...

Requires Guld to be keeping count of Isamu's rounds fired, but he might've been able to with the extensive computer assistance available.

...

I'd still like to know why the gun jammed when Isamu fired, then magically cleared when Guld fired. Nyah!

[SchizophrenicMC]

Paint rounds are famous for barrel clogging. They shatter in-barrel and it gums up the mechanism. Eventually, the rounds will force it out, due to sheer force... That's my story.

Computer assistance. "What would be the predicted attack pattern?"

[honkhet]

i can see why we all debate about the VF-0 or SV-51 transition to VF-1 so much....

i just wished that the VF-0 and SV-51 designs appeared in a story timeline AFTER SDF/DYRL.

That would have pretty much ended all debates in this thread.

reason is VF-0 and SV-51 looks and are more modern than the VF-1 no matter how hard they try to justify it.

"VF-1 has smaller size... better thrust to weight ratio..." yada yada its enough already.

even my grandma says VF-0 is more modern looking than VF-1.

[JB0]

i can see why we all debate about the VF-0 or SV-51 transition to VF-1 so much....

i just wished that the VF-0 and SV-51 designs appeared in a story timeline AFTER SDF/DYRL.

That would have pretty much ended all debates in this thread.

reason is VF-0 and SV-51 looks and are more modern than the VF-1 no matter how hard they try to justify it.

"VF-1 has smaller size... better thrust to weight ratio..." yada yada its enough already.

even my grandma says VF-0 is more modern looking than VF-1.

The VF-0 is a VF-1 detail-up. That's the whole difference.

Personally, I've always been more of the smooth = modern attitude than the panel lines and vents out the wazoo = modern.

But... whatever.

[anime52k8]

The VF-0 is a VF-1 detail-up. That's the whole difference.

Personally, I've always been more of the smooth = modern attitude than the panel lines and vents out the wazoo = modern.

But... whatever.

smooth = retro = old. lots of panel lines and details = complex = modern.

[Gubaba]

Exactly what I said, Gubaba. The Schematics survived. The VF-0s in All That VF-0 were built specially for the 50 year anniversary of the end of SW1. Same for the SV-51s.

Whoops...sorry, I must've missed that. I think I started reading the post where you said that, but then saw the words "Robotech" and "art" used together, and my brain shut down from the paradox.

[Macross_Fanboy]

So I was thinking about this the other day.

We know that the VF-0s were a "test-bed" of sorts for the VF-1 and that they were both made pretty concurrently, but the VF-0 was made in much smaller numbers. In universe, it seems that the VF-1 just completely replaced all the VF-0s and all the VF-0s just "disappeared". But that's pretty wasteful for the UN to spend all that money making a variable fighter they only used for one year as a stop-gap before the VF-1 was released.

Well I wouldn't say it's a waste of money considered how real world militaries do that kinda thing also, like Russia and its SU-37 and a lot of concepts the US made on existing air frames or totally new ones. The tech just got thrown into fighters later on, like the Active Stealth the 0 had got thrown into the VF-17 and VF-19 and 22 as well as atmospheric FAST Packs even if they looked clunky. Merry Christmas!

[anime52k8]

Exactly what I said, Gubaba. The Schematics survived. The VF-0s in All That VF-0 were built specially for the 50 year anniversary of the end of SW1. Same for the SV-51s.

I can't say for sure what happened to the VF-0Ds, but the VF-0A and S went back in time through a fold warp and Yamato saw them and made toys. The VFs were destroyed in the reverse-engineering process...

but all the VF-0D's were done up with 25th anniversary markings. if we're saying it's for the anniversary of the end of SW1 then wouldn't that make it 2035, or 25 years before the VF-25, and 5 years before the YF-19/21 (which show up too)?

so dose that mean that they built the VF-0's and SV-51's for the 25th anniversary, mothballed them for 25 years, than restored them to active status for the 50th anniversary but forgot to change the markings form 25 to 50?

Edited December 25, 2008 by anime52k8

[SchizophrenicMC]

but all the VF-0D's were done up with 25th anniversary markings. if we're saying it's for the anniversary of the end of SW1 then wouldn't that make it 2035, or 25 years before the VF-25, and 5 years before the YF-19/21 (which show up too)?

so dose that mean that they built the VF-0's and SV-51's for the 25th anniversary, mothballed them for 25 years, than restored them to active status for the 50th anniversary but forgot to change the markings form 25 to 50?

No. It was an Engrish mistake. They meant "50th Anniversary" and "25 VF" and mixed them up. The second was Engrish, in and of itself.

[Letigre]

That or the event simply doesn't exist in-universe, and thus isn't really pertinent.

[Gubaba]

That or the event simply doesn't exist in-universe, and thus isn't really pertinent.

Well, yeah. I think it's pretty clear the air show didn't "happen"...we're just having a bit of fun (at least, I am; I can't speak for anyone else ).

That said, I really want Hasegawa to make a blue and yellow SV-51 model...Ranka and Sheryl VF-25s from Bandai wold also be nice.

[badboy00z]

Maybe why the VF-1 looks so much less like the VF-0 is because it was created much earlier? The 0 looks much more modern than the 1 because it was designed in 2004. Makes me wonder what the VF-1 would be like if Macross Zero was the first series production wise.

[badboy00z]

No. It was an Engrish mistake. They meant "50th Anniversary" and "25 VF" and mixed them up. The second was Engrish, in and of itself.

There's 2 anniversaries. The 25th year since Macross was first created and the 50th year of the variable fighter in-universe.