No Love for Southern Cross?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, Podtastic said:

I mostly used the colour scheme from the RT Crisis Point board game, then added more black as I felt it needed it. I'm not familiar with this Gundam mecha posted.

For the record, just as the Late Period Bioroid Type I and II would have replaced the Middle Period models, the MS-09B Dom was basically the third main enemy mecha used by the Principality of Zeon in the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series.  

 

1 minute ago, Podtastic said:

Debatable, but you will at least acknowledge that it is usually the humans or "good guys" whose stuff is mostly all angular  while the aliens or "bad guys" stuff has more flowing curves.

Eh... it goes the other way as often as not.

For instance, in Super Dimension Century Orguss the mecha developed by the Emaan who the protagonist is allied with have more of a rounded and streamlined aesthetic where the mecha developed by the hostile Chiram have very jagged, angular mecha designs and the genocidal Mu are quite angular as well.

The way it usually shakes out is that the more rounded and streamlined a design is the more advanced it is.  Sleek just seems to equal advancement and chunky equals primitive.  The technology of the Southern Cross Army is all square edges and angles, while the technology of the vastly more advanced Zor is more rounded and streamlined by design.  The same goes for my earlier example.  The Chiram are the least advanced, technologically, of the factions in Orguss and all their stuff is hard edged.  The Emaan's more advanced tech is more streamlined, and the very advanced Mu are very streamlined but with lots of sharp angles in the streamlined plates.  Reconguista in G is another good example, where the mecha that are used by the Amerians and the G-Self are more rounded and streamlined and the more hostile the Capital Army gets the more angular its mecha become.

[tekering]

1 hour ago, Podtastic said:

I mostly used the colour scheme from the RT Crisis Point board game, then added more black as I felt it needed it. I'm not familiar with this Gundam mecha posted.

Whoever chose the color for the cards was likely familiar with the Dom; the purple seems an unlikely coincidence. 

Is that what Crisis Point calls the "Engineer Bioroid?"

[Podtastic]

2 hours ago, tekering said:

Whoever chose the color for the cards was likely familiar with the Dom; the purple seems an unlikely coincidence. 

Is that what Crisis Point calls the "Engineer Bioroid?"

Yes. 

If it were me I would have made them the Elite Bioroid Praetorian Guard for the Zor Lords, or something.

Because purple.

[derex3592]

It's an Invid Bioroid! That's why it's purple!  

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, tekering said:

Whoever chose the color for the cards was likely familiar with the Dom; the purple seems an unlikely coincidence. 

I'd still be prepared to bet money it was pure coincidence.

Even Robotech's die-hard Masters Saga fans know virtually nothing about the original Southern Cross beyond what was in the animation itself.  Most of what they "know" beyond that is pure fanon or stuff Palladium came up with for the old Robotech RPG.  The staff managing the Robotech brand know even less, because Southern Cross-based merch doesn't sell, so they've never had a reason to consider it beyond rejecting a few obviously out-there theories like the one claiming the Sylphid is a VF.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Seto Kaiba

[Podtastic]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

claiming the Sylphid is a VF.

The Sylphid is actually a nice looking little fighter. It needs the transformation gimmick about as much as the Lancer 2 does.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, Podtastic said:

The Sylphid is actually a nice looking little fighter. It needs the transformation gimmick about as much as the Lancer 2 does.

Granted, it's not a bad looking little aircraft.  I know there were originally some plans for a model kit of it, though I don't know if anything ever came of it before the series was canned.

It accumulated a number of crackpot fan theories over the years because the animators working on the series did such a poor job drawing it that it was off-model at least as often as it was on.  That led to some bizarre assumptions among western fans familiar with it from Robotech, like that there were multiple variants of it or that it had a variable-sweep wing which could switch between straight, swept, and forward-swept.  (All three are technically wrong, it has a compound delta wing with "dogtooth" leading edge extensions.)  The fan theories about the Sylphid being transformable were inspired by a throwaway line in the Robotech dub and the position of its gunmount making it look like it had a VF-1-esque ventral "head".

[jenius]

I think Robotech fans were so hungry for new content they started making broader back stories and new interpretations of tertiary mecha to sate their hunger. Most knew it was for fun but some got a little too invested in the exercise.

[pengbuzz]

47 minutes ago, jenius said:

I think Robotech fans were so hungry for new content they started making broader back stories and new interpretations of tertiary mecha to sate their hunger. Most knew it was for fun but some got a little too invested in the exercise.

Maybe they should consider Macross then and abandon RT!

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

I think Robotech fans were so hungry for new content they started making broader back stories and new interpretations of tertiary mecha to sate their hunger. Most knew it was for fun but some got a little too invested in the exercise.

That's part of it, for sure... but I think the lion's share of the blame definitely belongs to other parties.

Mostly, I think you could lay the blame on Tatsunoko Production and its Ammonite design group for so completely half-assing the development of Southern Cross.  If they'd put in the same kind of effort other studios were putting in they'd have left more for the parties downstream to work with.  Most of the Southern Cross misinformation comes from Robotech fans who got their information from the Palladium Books Robotech RPG that based itself on what information it could glean from the Japanese publications it could find.  There was nothing for them to find, information-wise, for Southern Cross so they had to BS their way through it and that BS lives on as misinformation.

[CoryHolmes]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

stuff Palladium came up with for the old Robotech RPG.  

Hey now!  Some of us also incorporate stuff from the newer version of that RPG  

[CoryHolmes]

3 hours ago, jenius said:

I think Robotech fans were so hungry for new content they started making broader back stories and new interpretations of tertiary mecha to sate their hunger. Most knew it was for fun but some got a little too invested in the exercise.

Yes, but I'd like to point out that Macross also went back and redid the Monster Destroid as a transforming mecha for... um... reasons.  Along with several of the more ludicrous FAST pack designs for the Valks.

 

Besides, MY fan-made mecha is perfectly acceptable and not to be doubted at all!! 

[Podtastic]

5 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

Besides, MY fan-made mecha is perfectly acceptable and not to be doubted at all!!

Nothing wrong with using your imagination.

I remember when I was a kid before pcs and we had... sticks... imagination was all you had.

[vladykins]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's part of it, for sure... but I think the lion's share of the blame definitely belongs to other parties.

Mostly, I think you could lay the blame on Tatsunoko Production and its Ammonite design group for so completely half-assing the development of Southern Cross.  If they'd put in the same kind of effort other studios were putting in they'd have left more for the parties downstream to work with.  Most of the Southern Cross misinformation comes from Robotech fans who got their information from the Palladium Books Robotech RPG that based itself on what information it could glean from the Japanese publications it could find.  There was nothing for them to find, information-wise, for Southern Cross so they had to BS their way through it and that BS lives on as misinformation.

You mean the EBSIS and their "mechs" aren't canon?

I kid, I kid. The misidentifications in there did get cleaned up a little bit with the new edition Palladium books at least. I do imagine Kevin sitting there going "I don't know what this drawing is, so I'll just make up some Soviets".

Edited March 5, 2021 by vladykins

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

Yes, but I'd like to point out that Macross also went back and redid the Monster Destroid as a transforming mecha for... um... reasons.  Along with several of the more ludicrous FAST pack designs for the Valks.

I'm mildly curious which ones you mean.  The only FAST Pack designs I'd really consider ludicrous would be unofficial ones like the Wyvern Pack from Macross Ace that turns the VF-25 into a propeller-driven biplane.

Of course, none of those will ever get dragged quite as hard as the Auroran does for being a "space helicopter"... even though it technically isn't one.

 

2 hours ago, vladykins said:

I kid, I kid. The misidentifications in there did get cleaned up a little bit with the new edition Palladium books at least. I do imagine Kevin sitting there going "I don't know what this drawing is, so I'll just make up some Soviets".

That wasn't even because of misidentified material.  Evil Russians were just the ultimate low-hanging fruit in the 80's, and Kevin used them liberally throughout multiple Palladium game lines incl. Robotech in order to add variety.  

Various flavors were added to add an antagonist to the otherwise substantial stretches of time where precisely bugger-all was happening.

Southern Cross itself wasn't exactly RPG-friendly... Glorie is a barren wasteland being dragged kicking and screaming out of a nuclear winter by terraforming, it has a one world gov't and only a few actual cities, and is sparsely populated.  It's not even clear why Glorie has a standing army at all since humanity hadn't encountered any aliens at all and there weren't any rival nations to fight with either.  There's no catalyst for drama there until the Zor show up... and the same is true of the Robotech adaptation.  

[captain america]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Glorie is a barren wasteland being dragged kicking and screaming out of a nuclear winter by terraforming, it has a one world gov't and only a few actual cities, and is sparsely populated.  It's not even clear why Glorie has a standing army at all since humanity hadn't encountered any aliens at all and there weren't any rival nations to fight with either.  There's no catalyst for drama there until the Zor show up... and the same is true of the Robotech adaptation.  

Depends on what sort of events may have transpired pre-Gloire. Humanity isn't renown for its long periods of warless tranquility.  The newly-colonized planet you're on is a borderline hostile wasteland, your homeworld is faaaaar away and may take a long time to send help if something goes pear-shaped, or may not be able to send help at all, so it actually makes sense to have an important segment of the population be of fighting standard. The pseudo-alien Zor may not have been an anticipated threat, but that doesn't preclude the possibility of other renegade humans/pirates (from earth, Liberté, etc.) coming to the colony and causing trouble. 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, captain america said:

Depends on what sort of events may have transpired pre-Gloire. Humanity isn't renown for its long periods of warless tranquility.  The newly-colonized planet you're on is a borderline hostile wasteland, your homeworld is faaaaar away and may take a long time to send help if something goes pear-shaped, or may not be able to send help at all, so it actually makes sense to have an important segment of the population be of fighting standard. The pseudo-alien Zor may not have been an anticipated threat, but that doesn't preclude the possibility of other renegade humans/pirates (from earth, Liberté, etc.) coming to the colony and causing trouble. 

All things considered, Glorie having a significant military space fleet and a sizable standing army despite being recently colonized and essentially barren makes even less sense in the context of the threadbare backstory to Southern Cross.

It was the accumulated environmental damage from wars and reckless pollution that forced humanity to abandon Earth in the first place.  You'd think after all that they'd be strongly opposed to the idea of maintaining a large military force like the ones whose cumulative recklessness imperiled the entire human race by rendering its homeworld unlivable.  They'd found no indication of intelligent life in the universe besides themselves.  Their spaceflight technology isn't much more advanced than our own, barring the introduction of stuff like artificial gravity and the somewhat unreliable and dangerous warp drive technology that seems limited exclusively to government ships, so there's no indication of space pirates or a hostile space-based power.  Liberte was backing the colonization effort on Glorie, so they wouldn't have attacked it either.

There's no clear reason for Glorie to maintain a force like the Southern Cross Army... especially not a force with so many terrain-specialized units given that Glorie is presented like it's a single-biome planet consisting entirely of tundra.

Frankly, the only justification I can think of for the Southern Cross Army's existence is that it was established as a chocolate box regiment writ large... a way for the well-to-do to keep their bored kids out of trouble and hopefully teach them some discipline.

[jenius]

Saying that their thirst for war is what led them to a new planet as an argument against them having a standing army doesn't seem rock solid. By anime standards, saying they needed an army because there had been lots of fighting is more than sufficient.

[Big s]

The idea of having an army to keep the kids out of trouble sounds like the most likely reason. They even tempted the kids with some of the coolest looking body armor, speeder bikes and even rideable Transformers. Honestly, I can’t imagine a kid turning that down especially if they’re thinking that there’s no chance of getting into a real war. All that adds to the reason the Spartas don’t have a closed cockpit in 2 out of 3 modes. Everything was designed for children to think the military is fun and cool.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, jenius said:

Saying that their thirst for war is what led them to a new planet as an argument against them having a standing army doesn't seem rock solid. By anime standards, saying they needed an army because there had been lots of fighting is more than sufficient.

More like saying their thirst for war left them trapped on a dying planet.

Having a standing army doesn't make sense when the only enemy humanity faces is the environmental consequences of its past folly.  There are no rival nations left to face, nobody who is "other" left to demonize and take up arms against.  There's not even any dangerous wildlife.  Even if you wanted to argue that the infantry could supplement the police in an emergency like a natural disaster or a riot, that doesn't explain the heavy weapons, the surface to air missiles, the fighter planes, the armored fighting vehicles, and the giant robots. 

ESPECIALLY the giant robots... what are those even FOR?

Normally, the story of a mecha anime includes some kind of justification for the giant robots becoming an accepted military technology.  In Gundam, they were a high-performance derivative of the construction equipment used to build and maintain space colonies.  In Macross, it was because Earth was preparing for a possible conflict with alien giants.  Genesis Climber MOSPEADA justified them via the Inbit's own bio-technological mecha that overpowered conventional weapons.  But Southern Cross never offered any justification for there being giant robots... never mind such a profusion of them in the armed forces or the existence of multiple transforming models.

 

3 hours ago, Big s said:

The idea of having an army to keep the kids out of trouble sounds like the most likely reason. They even tempted the kids with some of the coolest looking body armor, speeder bikes and even rideable Transformers. Honestly, I can’t imagine a kid turning that down especially if they’re thinking that there’s no chance of getting into a real war. All that adds to the reason the Spartas don’t have a closed cockpit in 2 out of 3 modes. Everything was designed for children to think the military is fun and cool.

A lot of their gear is definitely impractical enough to give off the vibe that it was meant to look impressive more than being actually useful.

The Arming Doublet is a clunky and impractical form of body armor that's effectively forcing every infantryman to wear a spacesuit... but only the space forces models are actually a sealed system, so it can't even function as an environmental suit.  I can't think of any practical benefit to wearing a big metal swan on one's head either, come to that.  The designers just really didn't want to let go of that Ō-yoroi they designed for the series when it was a space fantasy retelling of the Sengoku period.  

[CoryHolmes]

20 hours ago, Podtastic said:

Nothing wrong with using your imagination.

I remember when I was a kid before pcs and we had... sticks... imagination was all you had.

We had two sticks, for the whole family!  And we had to share the rock!

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm mildly curious which ones you mean.  The only FAST Pack designs I'd really consider ludicrous would be unofficial ones like the Wyvern Pack from Macross Ace that turns the VF-25 into a propeller-driven biplane.

Of course, none of those will ever get dragged quite as hard as the Auroran does for being a "space helicopter"... even though it technically isn't one.

 

The Stampeed Valkyrie is the most egregious example that springs to mind, though I'm not as up to par on Macross mecha.  And as for the Auroran, I really like the justification they came up with in the 2nd Ed RPG: it was a multibranch mecha, designed for both the air and space forces.    It's a kludge-y justification, but it works for me.

 

I liked the idea of the EBSIS.  Part of what I like about Robotech is that after the Rain of Death things didn't just magically Come Out For The Best (tm) and various new nation-states sprung up and didn't quite like the idea of a one-government world; which lead into the more eclectic Armies of the Southern Cross.  But that's veering dangerously close to fan-wanking the story, so I'll leave it at that.

[pengbuzz]

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

More like saying their thirst for war left them trapped on a dying planet.

Having a standing army doesn't make sense when the only enemy humanity faces is the environmental consequences of its past folly.  There are no rival nations left to face, nobody who is "other" left to demonize and take up arms against.  There's not even any dangerous wildlife.  Even if you wanted to argue that the infantry could supplement the police in an emergency like a natural disaster or a riot, that doesn't explain the heavy weapons, the surface to air missiles, the fighter planes, the armored fighting vehicles, and the giant robots. 

ESPECIALLY the giant robots... what are those even FOR?

All of it is to protect Glorie from Jeanne Françaix's utter idiocy (which they fail at often!). They were hoping the giant robots could step on her if she got too out of hand.

  

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Normally, the story of a mecha anime includes some kind of justification for the giant robots becoming an accepted military technology.  In Gundam, they were a high-performance derivative of the construction equipment used to build and maintain space colonies.  In Macross, it was because Earth was preparing for a possible conflict with alien giants.  Genesis Climber MOSPEADA justified them via the Inbit's own bio-technological mecha that overpowered conventional weapons.  But Southern Cross never offered any justification for there being giant robots... never mind such a profusion of them in the armed forces or the existence of multiple transforming models.

In all seriousness, seeing that they half-ar$$ed the series, they probably never developed a salient point to that.

  

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

A lot of their gear is definitely impractical enough to give off the vibe that it was meant to look impressive more than being actually useful.

The Arming Doublet is a clunky and impractical form of body armor that's effectively forcing every infantryman to wear a spacesuit... but only the space forces models are actually a sealed system, so it can't even function as an environmental suit.  I can't think of any practical benefit to wearing a big metal swan on one's head either, come to that.  The designers just really didn't want to let go of that Ō-yoroi they designed for the series when it was a space fantasy retelling of the Sengoku period.  

Pretty much "parade armor on steroids" without even the parade armor's usefulness. As I noted before, the helmets ensure that if anyone falls down head first, they just became a lawn-dart. All I can think of for it is that they were expecting to meet the enemy and have a pose off to determine who won by "coolness".

[Big s]

I win all my fights with a pose off. I just put one hand on my hip and give a half smile and point to the ladies. That usually gives the other guy enough time to think “what the hell” and walk off in confusion.

[Seto Kaiba]

17 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

The Stampeed Valkyrie is the most egregious example that springs to mind, though I'm not as up to par on Macross mecha. 

Ah, I see.  That's fair... especially since that one was kind of meant to be over-the-top in the game it was created for. 

 

17 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

And as for the Auroran, I really like the justification they came up with in the 2nd Ed RPG: it was a multibranch mecha, designed for both the air and space forces.    It's a kludge-y justification, but it works for me.

In all fairness, absolutely everything in the 2nd Edition Robotech RPG's Masters Saga sourcebook was a kludge-y mess.

It's terribly difficult to build an official setting on existing OSM material when you could fit most of it on a paper napkin with room left over for some rude caricatures of Southern Cross's creators.

One of the weirdest things about Southern Cross isn't just how stupidly large Glorie's totally unnecessary standing army is... it's how ridiculously inefficient the whole thing is.  Each of the eight branches of service¹ and each of the eight types of infantry squad operating under the auspices of the Tactics Corps² (the ground infantry) is equipped differently.  The Southern Cross Army has basically no two units sharing any equipment in common.  Each has its own variant of the Arming Doublet, its own small arms, its own robot design, and duty uniform.  Even the designation system used for the mecha is based on what branch of service they were intended for use by.³  The Auroran was developed exclusively for the Tactics Armored Space Corps, which does admittedly give a little legitimacy to the folks dragging it for being a space helicopter.

 

17 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

I liked the idea of the EBSIS.  Part of what I like about Robotech is that after the Rain of Death things didn't just magically Come Out For The Best (tm) and various new nation-states sprung up and didn't quite like the idea of a one-government world; which lead into the more eclectic Armies of the Southern Cross.  But that's veering dangerously close to fan-wanking the story, so I'll leave it at that.

Things didn't magically turn out for the best in Macross either... there was a whole story arc about that beginning at episode 28.

The whole idea of EBSIS was a terrible attempt by Kevin to shoehorn in generic evil Russians to pad his page count.  In Macross, Southern Cross, and Robotech, there's effectively a world government.  There's not enough people to have nation-states springing up... especially not Evil Russian™ ones.  There were about 9 million people on Earth after the war in the original Macross, but in Robotech the Zentradi were all wiped out and the human population was just what was on the SDF-1.  How d'you have multiple nation-states when the total population of the planet could fit comfortably in Michigan Stadium with seating to spare?⁴  Moreover, how did nobody on the SDF-1 notice there were so many Evil Russian™ agents aboard, talking in stereotypically exaggerated Russian accents, calling everyone "Comrade", and trying to order borscht and vodka at the ship's Japanese restaurants while telling everyone how much better things are "in Soviet Russia"?

(It's all so hammily done by Kevin that this is the only way I picture EBSIS and its various spinoffs in the later parts of the Robotech RPG... so hammy they might as well rename themselves the Honey Glaze Union.)

 

 

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

All of it is to protect Glorie from Jeanne Françaix's utter idiocy (which they fail at often!). They were hoping the giant robots could step on her if she got too out of hand.

As a character, Jeanne never really made a ton of sense...

Marie mentions Jeanne is 17 years old while teasing her after discovering she'd been reading a fashion magazine during an important briefing instead of paying attention.  Jeanne's rank, pre-promotion, is 曹長 (Sōchō, translated as Sergeant Major.)  She's just 17, and she holds the highest possible rank for enlisted personnel.  A rank that, in a real military, you'd only achieve if you had a decade of service under your belt with a near-spotless disciplinary record.⁵  Jeanne's a frequent flyer to the stockade on disciplinary matters, and a repeat AWOL case.  Somehow, AWOL, brawling in public, etc. is less severe of an offense than hitting on a superior officer's wife?  The latter got Charles busted all the way down from 1st Lieutenant to Private,  They even promote her to 2nd Lieutenant after Charles gets demoted.  It's enough to make you wonder what General she's secretly related to.

 

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

In all seriousness, seeing that they half-ar$$ed the series, they probably never developed a salient point to that.

Probably.

It must've been something they developed before plans to colonize Glorie got underway... otherwise it's kind of weird that the Zor coincidentally have giant robots at exactly the same size after being thrown back in time.

 

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Pretty much "parade armor on steroids" without even the parade armor's usefulness. As I noted before, the helmets ensure that if anyone falls down head first, they just became a lawn-dart. All I can think of for it is that they were expecting to meet the enemy and have a pose off to determine who won by "coolness".

They must be confident to give everyone on their side a handicap of wearing what looks like a colossal metal diaper. 

The last thing you want to do in a unit that's meant for actual combat is wear a nice big sign that says "Shoot me, I'm an officer".  

 

1. The Tactics Corps (ground infantry), Alpha Tactics Armored Corps (armored cavalry), Cities Defense Unit (militia?), Tactics Air Force, Cities Defense Flying Corps (Air National Guard?), Tactics Space Corps (the fleet), Tactics Armored Space Corps (space mecha pilots only?), and Glorie Military Police.

2. The Tactics Squads, Reconnoitering Party, Cold Squad, Desert Squad, Mountains Squad, Forest Squad, Marsh Squad, and Navy Squad (a slightly misleading name, they're basically the SEALs)

3. The Spartas being ATAC/01-SCA, the Logan being TASC/01-SCF, and the Auroran being TASC/02-SCF.

4. Robotech sources typically put the population of the SDF-1 at about 70,000.  The official rated capacity for Michigan Stadium in its current form is 107,601.

5. The minimum time-in-service requirement for promotion to Sergeant Major in the US Armed Forces is 9 years.

[CoryHolmes]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Things didn't magically turn out for the best in Macross either... there was a whole story arc about that beginning at episode 28.

The whole idea of EBSIS was a terrible attempt by Kevin to shoehorn in generic evil Russians to pad his page count.  In Macross, Southern Cross, and Robotech, there's effectively a world government.  There's not enough people to have nation-states springing up... especially not Evil Russian™ ones.  There were about 9 million people on Earth after the war in the original Macross, but in Robotech the Zentradi were all wiped out and the human population was just what was on the SDF-1.  How d'you have multiple nation-states when the total population of the planet could fit comfortably in Michigan Stadium with seating to spare?⁴  Moreover, how did nobody on the SDF-1 notice there were so many Evil Russian™ agents aboard, talking in stereotypically exaggerated Russian accents, calling everyone "Comrade", and trying to order borscht and vodka at the ship's Japanese restaurants while telling everyone how much better things are "in Soviet Russia"?

(It's all so hammily done by Kevin that this is the only way I picture EBSIS and its various spinoffs in the later parts of the Robotech RPG... so hammy they might as well rename themselves the Honey Glaze Union.)

  Honey Glaze Union, I love it!

 

I don't argue that it wasn't the lowest possible hanging fruit, and that it was hamfistedly done.  I just enjoyed the idea and what games it let me and my friends play about the world beyond just the main heroes.

 

I do argue that the surviving population was just on the SDF-1.  All the story notes say "70% were killed", so that leaves many other to try to pick up the pieces.

[Seto Kaiba]

17 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

  Honey Glaze Union, I love it!

Quick, we need stats for the elite Spiral Cut Spetsnaz.

 

17 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

I do argue that the surviving population was just on the SDF-1.  All the story notes say "70% were killed", so that leaves many other to try to pick up the pieces.

Not quite... they actually say over 70% of the Earth's surface was destroyed.  It's worth noting that only 29% of Earth's surface is land.  (They also refer to the bombardment as "total destruction".)

Sentinels increased the total official survivor count on Earth's surface by 100% in a retcon.  It increased from 1 to 2. 

Just like in Southern Cross, there was nowhere for rival nations to come from.  

[Dynaman]

22 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Jeanne's a frequent flyer to the stockade on disciplinary matters, and a repeat AWOL case.  Somehow, AWOL, brawling in public, etc. is less severe of an offense than hitting on a superior officer's wife?  The latter got Charles busted all the way down from 1st Lieutenant to Private,  They even promote her to 2nd Lieutenant after Charles gets demoted.  It's enough to make you wonder what General she's secretly related to.

In the real world hitting on a superior officer's wife is much more of a problem than brawling and maybe even going AWOL a couple of times (as long as it is not the I think I'm quitting AWOL and not the more forgivable late getting back from leave AWOL due to getting drunk and missing the transport - having forgotten nearly everything about the Southern Cross part of RT I have no idea what the character did).

[pengbuzz]

23 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

One of the weirdest things about Southern Cross isn't just how stupidly large Glorie's totally unnecessary standing army is... it's how ridiculously inefficient the whole thing is.  Each of the eight branches of service¹ and each of the eight types of infantry squad operating under the auspices of the Tactics Corps² (the ground infantry) is equipped differently.  The Southern Cross Army has basically no two units sharing any equipment in common.  Each has its own variant of the Arming Doublet, its own small arms, its own robot design, and duty uniform.  Even the designation system used for the mecha is based on what branch of service they were intended for use by.³  The Auroran was developed exclusively for the Tactics Armored Space Corps, which does admittedly give a little legitimacy to the folks dragging it for being a space helicopter.

Not sharing any common equipment has got to be a hindrance in some manner, seeing as the modern military (at least in NATO nations) has some interchangeability and commonality. Must make manufacturing, maintenance and repair an utter PITA for the crews. Probably demonstrates how many real combat scenarios they got into before the Zor (unless I'm misremembering Southern Cross).

 

23 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Things didn't magically turn out for the best in Macross either... there was a whole story arc about that beginning at episode 28.

The whole idea of EBSIS was a terrible attempt by Kevin to shoehorn in generic evil Russians to pad his page count.  In Macross, Southern Cross, and Robotech, there's effectively a world government.  There's not enough people to have nation-states springing up... especially not Evil Russian™ ones.  There were about 9 million people on Earth after the war in the original Macross, but in Robotech the Zentradi were all wiped out and the human population was just what was on the SDF-1.  How d'you have multiple nation-states when the total population of the planet could fit comfortably in Michigan Stadium with seating to spare?⁴  Moreover, how did nobody on the SDF-1 notice there were so many Evil Russian™ agents aboard, talking in stereotypically exaggerated Russian accents, calling everyone "Comrade", and trying to order borscht and vodka at the ship's Japanese restaurants while telling everyone how much better things are "in Soviet Russia"?

(It's all so hammily done by Kevin that this is the only way I picture EBSIS and its various spinoffs in the later parts of the Robotech RPG... so hammy they might as well rename themselves the Honey Glaze Union.)

Well...there was  that persnickety Captain...

 

23 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As a character, Jeanne never really made a ton of sense...

Marie mentions Jeanne is 17 years old while teasing her after discovering she'd been reading a fashion magazine during an important briefing instead of paying attention.  Jeanne's rank, pre-promotion, is 曹長 (Sōchō, translated as Sergeant Major.)  She's just 17, and she holds the highest possible rank for enlisted personnel.  A rank that, in a real military, you'd only achieve if you had a decade of service under your belt with a near-spotless disciplinary record.⁵  Jeanne's a frequent flyer to the stockade on disciplinary matters, and a repeat AWOL case.  Somehow, AWOL, brawling in public, etc. is less severe of an offense than hitting on a superior officer's wife?  The latter got Charles busted all the way down from 1st Lieutenant to Private,  They even promote her to 2nd Lieutenant after Charles gets demoted.  It's enough to make you wonder what General she's secretly related to.

Or dating.

Seriously though, it comes off as whoever was writing this was so compressed for time. that instead of throwing out all the bad ideas during development, they simply said "yup" to whatever they came up with.

It makes me wonder what Southern Cross would have been like had it been properly developed?

  

23 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Probably.

It must've been something they developed before plans to colonize Glorie got underway... otherwise it's kind of weird that the Zor coincidentally have giant robots at exactly the same size after being thrown back in time.

 

They must be confident to give everyone on their side a handicap of wearing what looks like a colossal metal diaper. 

The last thing you want to do in a unit that's meant for actual combat is wear a nice big sign that says "Shoot me, I'm an officer".  

 

  Well, it would explain why they made Jeanne an officer.

As for the "colossal metal diaper": I can imagine the nightly bouts of diaper rash! It would be a contest though as to whom the bigger PITA would be: the rash, or Jeanne?

 

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Dynaman said:

In the real world hitting on a superior officer's wife is much more of a problem than brawling and maybe even going AWOL a couple of times (as long as it is not the I think I'm quitting AWOL and not the more forgivable late getting back from leave AWOL due to getting drunk and missing the transport - having forgotten nearly everything about the Southern Cross part of RT I have no idea what the character did).

Well, that was a fun trip down the Google rabbit hole.

I suppose I should have known better... given that soldiers have been finding new and inventive ways to get into trouble for at least as long as there have been soldiers.  The UCMJ has a whole section on prosecuting extramarital sexual activity and indecent sexual conduct.

I still think Jeanne would've been in comparatively greater trouble... given that she was in the dock for multiple counts of assaulting an officer, breach of peace, resisting arrest, and AWOL, and they're pretty clear she spends a LOT of time in the stockade as it is.  (Dunno how you'd charge ramming a giant robot with a hoverbike.)

 

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Not sharing any common equipment has got to be a hindrance in some manner, seeing as the modern military (at least in NATO nations) has some interchangeability and commonality. Must make manufacturing, maintenance and repair an utter PITA for the crews. Probably demonstrates how many real combat scenarios they got into before the Zor (unless I'm misremembering Southern Cross).

The obvious out-of-universe explanation is they wanted to us all the weird laser crossbow things they made for Science Fiction Sengoku Saga.

 

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Or dating.

Now we know she's not doing that... because her career goal for joining the armed forces was to find a husband and quit.

"Marriage is a woman's happiness" feels a bit dated these days, but it was fair play back then.  Not much of a character arc tho, esp. when she goes all gooey over Siefriet's mullet and he kind of takes over as the main character for most of the rest of the show.

 

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

 

Well, it would explain why they made Jeanne an officer.

I guess there wouldn't have been as many shenanigans if they'd made a hardass like Sgt. Slawski the new CO.

I actually sympathize with the poor guy, since he's the one who has to explain away all Jeanne's more eccentric moments... which is admittedly totally on brand for an XO.  He's even comfortable enough around Jeanne to actually socialize instead of just snubbing her, like when they went to that movie together and he had a good time while she was sulking.

[JB0]

37 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(Dunno how you'd charge ramming a giant robot with a hoverbike.)

"We hereby find the defendant guilty of one count of reckless and awesome driving."

[CoryHolmes]

12 minutes ago, JB0 said:

"We hereby find the defendant guilty of one count of reckless and awesome driving."

That's what my brother tells the judge every time I get behind the wheel of a Warthog

[tekering]

On 3/7/2021 at 8:01 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Jeanne's rank, pre-promotion, is 曹長 (Sōchō, translated as Sergeant Major.)  She's just 17, and she holds the highest possible rank for enlisted personnel.  A rank that, in a real military, you'd only achieve if you had a decade of service under your belt with a near-spotless disciplinary record.

I think you'll find what defines "a real military" differs a great deal from country to country... and certainly doesn't reflect what the Army of the Southern Cross represents.

For starters, many Asian countries still enforce conscription, requiring at least two years of military service from every young man.  In Thailand, for example, the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) begin their training at 16, and receive the rank of Sergeant when they graduate high school.  In Asia, Jeanne's rank would not seem quite so ridiculous as it does in North America... particularly if the average soldier was only expected to serve for a couple years.

Furthermore, consider that compulsory education in Japan only extends to jr. high, and that many sr. high schools (particularly in rural areas) are more like vocational schools, like "engineering high schools" or "agricultural high schools."  Given the explicitly-stated ages of Jeanne (17) and Bowie (16), and that most of the other soldiers we see look and act like teenagers, I'd always assumed the TASC was more of a military school than what we'd consider an army.  Apart from upper echelon, there are only a few adult soldiers seen in the series.

And given that there doesn't seem to be much of a civilized culture on Glorie beyond the military (and no extant threat prior to the Zor's appearance), I would expect most young people would consider a brief military stint to simply be the last stage of adolescence... and certainly not the career choice that North Americans consider it to be.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, tekering said:

I think you'll find what defines "a real military" differs a great deal from country to country... and certainly doesn't reflect what the Army of the Southern Cross represents.

A fine and fair point.

Most of the mecha anime I've seen do still tend to follow the organizational logic of either the JSDF, the US Armed Forces, or a mixture the way Macross does.  I suppose I can't really take it for granted that it works the same way in Southern Cross even if it typically seems to.

 

2 minutes ago, tekering said:

Furthermore, consider that compulsory education in Japan only extends to jr. high, and that many sr. high schools (particularly in rural areas) are more like vocational schools, like "engineering high schools" or "agricultural high schools."  Given the explicitly-stated ages of Jeanne (17) and Bowie (16), and that most of the other soldiers we see look and act like teenagers, I'd always assumed the TASC was more of a military school than what we'd consider an army.  Apart from upper echelon, there are only a few adult soldiers seen in the series.

Somewhat unhelpfully, not every character bio lists the age of the character in question.

From the available bios, most of the ATAC 15th Squad's personnel have realistic ages for their ranks and positions.  Jeanne's three main male subordinates are all in the early-to-mid 20's.  Former 1st Lieutenant Charles de Etovard is 23, Sergeant Andrzej Slawski is 26, and Corporal Louis Ducasse is 21.  They're apparently ALL adults... just really undisciplined ones.  Which makes it a bit strange that Jeanne is so young and yet the most senior NCO of the lot.

I admit that, prior to looking into this, I'd actually assumed the same thing you had... that these were mainly teenagers.  Even Lana and Marie appear to be at least a couple of years older than Jeanne, given that Lana's backstory mentions an old romance she had at the age of 16, implying that she's at least a few years older than that, and Marie talks down to Jeanne about being a maiden looking for love at 17, contextually suggesting she's at least 18.  Seifriet Weiss is also implied to be a few years older than Jeanne.

The org charts published do definitely indicate the ATAC 15th Squad is a frontline combat unit, not a training group... so these are (mainly) adults in the business of killing.

 

2 minutes ago, tekering said:

And given that there doesn't seem to be much of a civilized culture on Glorie beyond the military (and no extant threat prior to the Zor's appearance), I would expect most young people would consider a brief military stint to simply be the last stage of adolescence... and certainly not the career choice that North Americans consider it to be.

I'm not so sure about that... they definitely have a fashion industry given how often Jeanne is busted for sneaking fashion magazines places and the fight she gets into over that dress.  A music scene too, with jazz clubs and the like where Bowie keeps sneaking out to play.  Jeanne gets involved with that lounge singer too.  

[Bolt]

8 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Seriously though, it comes off as whoever was writing this was so compressed for time. that instead of throwing out all the bad ideas during development, they simply said "yup" to whatever they came up with.

Ah..I miss the Golden age of anime..

 

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The UCMJ has a whole section on prosecuting extramarital sexual activity and indecent sexual conduct.

This is Sparta..?

 

3 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

That's what my brother tells the judge every time I get behind the wheel of a Warthog

Recently watch a trio of Warthogs coming in for landing in Tucson. So awesome..

 

1 hour ago, tekering said:

And given that there doesn't seem to be much of a civilized culture on Glorie beyond the military (and no extant threat prior to the Zor's appearance), I would expect most young people would consider a brief military stint to simply be the last stage of adolescence... and certainly not the career choice that North Americans consider it to be.

Interesting point. Still, i ponder the cultural considerations that spawned this hastily contrived work..

[Podtastic]

On 3/6/2021 at 7:26 PM, pengbuzz said:

They were hoping the giant robots could step on her if she got too out of hand

Obviously didnt work out.

Didnt work out with Min Mei either.