The Newbie and Short Questions thread

[jenius]

Did the legal goings on of the last few years clarify the merchandising rights to Do You Remember Love? There was a stint during the Great Recession that was a bit like the wild west where HG claimed they could do whatever they wanted (and so Toynami made a lot of DYRL toys). I know Tatsunoko and BigWest went to court since then so I'm curious if Tatsunoko has since dropped any pretense of having DYRL merchandising rights they could extend to HG. I think the biggest clue that HG doesn't claim to have merchandising rights for DYRL any more would be what KitzConcept is up to. When they acquired the third party SD VF-1 mold it was from a company that was producing DYRL VF-1A Hikarus but KC made a lot of SD VF-1 toys and never made any for DYRL, nor have they ever teased a DYRL design and they have to know those schemes are pretty popular. 

[Seto Kaiba]

It wasn't the merchandising rights to Macross: Do You Remember Love? that had unclear ownership... it was the distribution rights that nobody's really clear on the ownership of.

Tatsunoko does still have the merchandising rights to the movie outside of Japan, and Harmony Gold licensed those rights c.2001 after their failed bid to stop Macross toy imports with cease and desists claiming they owned the rights to all Macross titles.  They were basically trying to ensure that their then-forthcoming Toynami VF-1 toys wouldn't be competing against higher-quality import toys from Japan.

They did briefly experiment with making Do You Remember Love? merchandise of their own and importing toys from Japan, but it seems to have been a failure in no small part because they were Robotech.com store exclusives... Robotech fans have little to no interest in non-Robotech merchandise, and Macross fans were generally averse to the site itself to say nothing of the buying from the same idiot brigade responsible for preventing Macross distribution in the west.  Nowadays, with their brand having fallen even farther into obscurity and ineptitude, they and their bargain basement licensees are unwilling to gamble on any but the most sure bets when it comes to saleable Robotech merchandise.

[jeniusornome]

Where do factory satellites get the raw materials they need to keep on rolling out fresh zentradi?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, jeniusornome said:

Where do factory satellites get the raw materials they need to keep on rolling out fresh zentradi?

Macross Chronicle's Mechanic Sheet for the factory satellite seen in the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series indicates that factory satellites have a fleet of robot ships they use to mine the necessary resources to facilitate continued production.  Presumably there is some "recycling" involved as well, given Quamzin's allusions to "retiring" elderly Zentradi and what we see of biomatter recycling in Macross Frontier.  

[Bolt]

Biomatter recycling is borrowed Zentradi tech?

[jeniusornome]

Hmm. Automated ships prowling the galaxy for resources for factory satellites to keep churning out ships and soldiers... sounds like a Von Neumann problem in the making. I'd guess the protoculture never expected they'd go extinct and didn't put any kind of "stop at X point" programming in place.

Almost seems like NUNS would want to actively seek out and destroy these.

[sketchley]

1 minute ago, jeniusornome said:

Hmm. Automated ships prowling the galaxy for resources for factory satellites to keep churning out ships and soldiers... sounds like a Von Neumann problem in the making. I'd guess the protoculture never expected they'd go extinct and didn't put any kind of "stop at X point" programming in place.

Almost seems like NUNS would want to actively seek out and destroy these.

Well, they are actively seeking them... just not to destroy them—to exploit them for their own uses!

Of course, due to age, a lot of them are breaking down.  Not to mention being deliberately targeted and destroyed by the Inspection Forces (E.g.: the Guraji producing Factory Satellites have all been destroyed).

However, the remaining question is: are there Factory Satellites making Factory Satellites?  If so, have they already started breaking down or been destroyed by the Inspection Forces?  Or were the Protoculture producing them themselves? (thus, no neverending supply of those things)

[joscasle]

Just a questions.

 

Any one knows why Hikaru's VF-4 have the number 101 instead of 100? He was the Squad Leader (CAG) 

 

Thanks

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, joscasle said:

Any one knows why Hikaru's VF-4 have the number 101 instead of 100? He was the Squad Leader (CAG) 

Macross borrows a lot from US Armed Forces practices and systems, but it doesn't always follow those systems to the letter.

For instance, the SVF-1 Skulls have a weird aberrant modex number set that starts with a leading 0.  The Destroid formation markings are borrowed from World War II-vintage US Army regulation AR-850-5, though they're missing division-level numbers.  

As to why Hikaru's VF-4A and Roy's VF-1S had a squadron commander's modex (x01) instead of a modern CAG modex (x00)... Macross's usage of the term CAG seems to be more in line with the original context of the title from World War II.  Back then, the CAG was simply the most senior squadron commander currently embarked and functioned as a department head under the ship's captain while continuing to lead their squadron directly.  It was after the war that the post of CAG evolved into a dedicated administrative billet for a senior officer who had "graduated" from squadron command on a career path towards being made captain of an escort vessel.

[blackconvoy_D01]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross borrows a lot from US Armed Forces practices and systems, but it doesn't always follow those systems to the letter.

For instance, the SVF-1 Skulls have a weird aberrant modex number set that starts with a leading 0.  The Destroid formation markings are borrowed from World War II-vintage US Army regulation AR-850-5, though they're missing division-level numbers.  

As to why Hikaru's VF-4A and Roy's VF-1S had a squadron commander's modex (x01) instead of a modern CAG modex (x00)... Macross's usage of the term CAG seems to be more in line with the original context of the title from World War II.  Back then, the CAG was simply the most senior squadron commander currently embarked and functioned as a department head under the ship's captain while continuing to lead their squadron directly.  It was after the war that the post of CAG evolved into a dedicated administrative billet for a senior officer who had "graduated" from squadron command on a career path towards being made captain of an escort vessel.

So does this apply as to why there are no S or J variants for the VF-11 and 171's?

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, blackconvoy_D01 said:

So does this apply as to why there are no S or J variants for the VF-11 and 171's?

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking?

The presence or absence of a dedicated unit command variant doesn't really have any implications for squadron or air wing organization, modex numbers, etc.  In the real world, all that sets a CAG bird apart from the rest of the squadron is that (if certain permissions are obtained) it can have the squadron colors instead of the standard low-viz paintjob.  Macross is a bit more lax about low-viz paintjobs and such, so all that would really set a CAG bird apart would be its modex number.

[blackconvoy_D01]

10 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross is a bit more lax about low-viz paintjobs and such, so all that would really set a CAG bird apart would be its modex number.

My mistake. I didn't know the term modex and thought it referred to the head variant. Thanks for the knowledge, I also looked it up now.

Edited May 27, 2020 by blackconvoy_D01

[TehPW]

I thought the career path for Naval Aviators (from the VFA community, as a example) was Pilot/XO-Squadron/CO-Squadron/XO-CVN/CO-CVN/CAG or Wing/Flag? 

 

Rarely does much about Macross follow the proper organizational schemes of actual military formations (in fact, I always though, if anything, any thought into it would be based on JSDF methods over anything else... I mean, unless the UN Spacy of 2009 used insignia other than a Japanese Rising Sun and Diamond? 

Edited May 28, 2020 by TehPW

[Seto Kaiba]

46 minutes ago, TehPW said:

I thought the career path for Naval Aviators (from the VFA community, as a example) was Pilot/XO-Squadron/CO-Squadron/XO-CVN/CO-CVN/CAG or Wing/Flag? 

When Macross was made, the US Navy's career path for pilots was Pilot -> XO -> CO -> CAG -> CO of a high-draft support ship -> CO of a larger ship

Max's career followed a similar trajectory from pilot to squadron leader to XO and CO on an escort ship to CO of a Battle-class.

 

46 minutes ago, TehPW said:

Rarely does much about Macross follow the proper organizational schemes of actual military formations (in fact, I always though, if anything, any thought into it would be based on JSDF methods over anything else... I mean, unless the UN Spacy of 2009 used insignia other than a Japanese Rising Sun and Diamond? 

Macross actually does an OK job of following formation organizations nicked from the US Armed Forces... there are fairly few distinctly Japanese touches to its organization, it's mostly American.  

[Brofessor]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

For instance, the SVF-1 Skulls have a weird aberrant modex number set that starts with a leading 0.  The Destroid formation markings are borrowed from World War II-vintage US Army regulation AR-850-5, though they're missing division-level numbers.  

Very cool. Was this information discovered and worked out by fans, referenced in a published book, or revealed in interviews with creative staff? Where do you feel these markings on the Destroids are most prominent? In the SDFM Episodes 1 to 36, in toys, or fairly equally represented throughout the franchise?

I hope you are getting paid by the franchise. I am so impressed with your expertise and availability to answer questions. You deserve a throne and crown as King of Macross. :)

[joscasle]

Thanks for your help to all.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Brofessor said:

Very cool. Was this information discovered and worked out by fans, referenced in a published book, or revealed in interviews with creative staff? Where do you feel these markings on the Destroids are most prominent? In the SDFM Episodes 1 to 36, in toys, or fairly equally represented throughout the franchise?

Only one small portion of it was mentioned in a marginal note on one piece of line art from the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross.  I noticed the connection during a discussion on another forum about Macross drawing inspiration from the US armed forces for much of the UN Forces.  While I was looking for a picture to show an example of the old school Army bumper numbers I happened upon a picture that also had the AR-850-5 1942 formation markings visible and it just clicked.

 

4 hours ago, Brofessor said:

I hope you are getting paid by the franchise. I am so impressed with your expertise and availability to answer questions. You deserve a throne and crown as King of Macross.

There are several other members here who have a better claim to that title than I do... and a few folks who don't come here anymore who'd also have a pretty good claim on it as well.

[Heron]

On 5/25/2020 at 7:02 PM, sketchley said:

Well, they are actively seeking them... just not to destroy them—to exploit them for their own uses!

Of course, due to age, a lot of them are breaking down.  Not to mention being deliberately targeted and destroyed by the Inspection Forces (E.g.: the Guraji producing Factory Satellites have all been destroyed).

However, the remaining question is: are there Factory Satellites making Factory Satellites?  If so, have they already started breaking down or been destroyed by the Inspection Forces?  Or were the Protoculture producing them themselves? (thus, no neverending supply of those things)

Thanks for sharing this info, Sketchy. I doubt I'd ever have asked that question. Which brings to mind another question, Did Grace's shenanigans and to a lesser extent, Roid, alert the Inspection Forces of NUNS space/existence?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Heron said:

Did Grace's shenanigans and to a lesser extent, Roid, alert the Inspection Forces of NUNS space/existence?

There's been no mention of any consequence like that... though the Supervision Army has more pressing concerns, like the Zentradi who've been hounding them with the intention of exterminating them for the last 500,000+ years.

[blackconvoy_D01]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

There's been no mention of any consequence like that... though the Supervision Army has more pressing concerns, like the Zentradi who've been hounding them with the intention of exterminating them for the last 500,000+ years.

The Supervision Army is controlled by the Protodevlin, correct? If so; why was Exodole so scared when he saw them in M7? Can the Zentradi manage the SA but not the Protodevlin?

Edited May 29, 2020 by blackconvoy_D01

[sketchley]

9 hours ago, Heron said:

Thanks for sharing this info, Sketchy. I doubt I'd ever have asked that question.

The only reason it came to mind is while I was translating the relevant pages in the Master Chronicle, it mentioned that not only are there various sizes to the Factory Satellites (E.g. the one we saw in SDF-1 is one of the smaller ones, as it produces the Rigado), the largest—which produce the Mobile Fortress class of vessel used by Bodoru—are the size of small moons.

Nevertheless, in looking up the relevant page, I kinda discovered I had already translated the answer to the question I asked in my preceding post.  Old age...

That said, I humbly recommend reading it... just for the sheer mind-boggling number of those things out in the galaxy (from Operation Record on the reverse side): http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/MCRmechanic/SDFMzent10aFactorySatellite.php

 

 

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, blackconvoy_D01 said:

The Supervision Army is controlled by the Protodevlin, correct? If so; why was Exodole so scared when he saw them in M7? Can the Zentradi manage the SA but not the Protodevlin?

In short, the Inspection Forces (aka Supervision Army) are basically brainwashed Zentradi.  Nothing really out of the ordinary about that.

On the other hand... well, put it this way, a mere 7* of them destroyed 85% of the population in a galaxy-spanning civilization in just nine months!

 

* The caveat is that the Protodevilun brainwashed Zentradi and Protoculture and formed the Inspection Forces, and the Inspection Forces assisted those 7 Protodevilun in all that death and destruction.  But by how much?  To put that into perspective: after the Protodevilun were sealed away, the Zentradi and Inspection Forces have been fighting for approx. 499,135 years without either side winning by the time SDF:M takes place...

[jenius]

Could the Supervision Army make a credible bad guy in a sequel to SDF Macross? Could we get a story about one of the earlier colonies encountering the Supervision Army and have it be interesting or is there some piece of information about the Supervision Army that would make this very unlikely? One would assume if they're a good match for the Zentradi they don't wander around like zombies, and we know they're fond of boobie traps... so they kind of sound clever. 

In M7, the awakened Protodevlin create a new Supervision Army out of a primarily Zentraedi colony group to assist them (IIRC), did the re-emergence of the Protodevlin impact the existing Supervision Army?

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, blackconvoy_D01 said:

The Supervision Army is controlled by the Protodevlin, correct? If so; why was Exodole so scared when he saw them in M7? Can the Zentradi manage the SA but not the Protodevlin?

Past tense... the Supervision Army was controlled by the Protodeviln.

After the Protodeviln were sealed away by the anima spiritia, the brainwashed members of the Supervision Army lost the highest level of their chain of command.  With neither side having anyone left who could call a halt to the conflict, the Zentradi forces and Supervision Army have continued to follow the last orders they were given and have waged 500,000 years of war against each other with no sign of stopping.

Exsedol was afraid of the Protodeviln because they were essentially terrifying, utterly unstoppable monsters by the Zentradi's standards.  It took anima spiritia, Protoculture who had special spirita like Basara's, to contain the Protodeviln and seal them away in the laboratory where they had been created.

Initially, the Zentradi were unable to effectively oppose the Supervision Army because they had standing orders to not "interfere with" the Protoculture... and the Supervision Army's troops included vast numbers of brainwashed Protoculture.  It wasn't until the order to not interfere with the Protoculture was rescinded that the Zentradi forces could properly fight against the Supervision Army.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, jenius said:

Could the Supervision Army make a credible bad guy in a sequel to SDF Macross?

I mean, we already kinda did that... it was called Macross 7.

The Varauta forces are basically a second Supervision Army, created by the Protodeviln to help Gepernich pursue his more humane (but still pretty awful) plan to make a sustainable spiritia farm instead of nearly obliterating all life in the galaxy (again).

 

2 minutes ago, jenius said:

In M7, the awakened Protodevlin create a new Supervision Army out of a primarily Zentraedi colony group to assist them (IIRC), did the re-emergence of the Protodevlin impact the existing Supervision Army?

Well, they used both the Megaroad-13 colony and later the captured Zentradi citizens of Macross-5... but as far as we know they never managed to link up with the Supervision Army they created in the ancient past.

[Heron]

7 hours ago, sketchley said:

The only reason it came to mind is while I was translating the relevant pages in the Master Chronicle, it mentioned that not only are there various sizes to the Factory Satellites (E.g. the one we saw in SDF-1 is one of the smaller ones, as it produces the Rigado), the largest—which produce the Mobile Fortress class of vessel used by Bodoru—are the size of small moons.

Nevertheless, in looking up the relevant page, I kinda discovered I had already translated the answer to the question I asked in my preceding post.  Old age...

That said, I humbly recommend reading it... just for the sheer mind-boggling number of those things out in the galaxy (from Operation Record on the reverse side): http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/MCRmechanic/SDFMzent10aFactorySatellite.php

 

 

That explains so much how NUNS is able to field these massive migration fleets along with garrisons and the Earthspace Defense Fleets.  And man, your site is a rabbit hole of lore!

[Saruta]

Question: how are live concerts filmed?

There are many different takes of a stage that in some cases appears to be surrounded by people on all sides. Here is an example: 

So where do all those camera angles come from? Are there drones flying above the spectators? Are there some kind of long arms around the edges of the hall, with high-zoom cameras on them? And/or some other ways?

(I would expect camera isles in the crowd, but can't detect these on the video? besides some angles seem to be above the crowd?)

 

[Tochiro]

There’s normally 4 positions, often with multiple cameras.

 
-in the wings of the stage

-on a track that runs the length of the front of the stage. 
-on camera booms above or around the stage. 
-at the back of the hall (telescopic zoom). 

There’s also sometimes smaller camera at the back of the stage, near the drummer, etc. 

The ones in the wings film at angles to keep each other out of the shot. The one on the track is sometimes visible in boom shots. The booms are sometimes visible in telescopic shots. 
(it’s like camera Rock Paper Scissors lol)

[Scream Man]

Have they ever talked about how the missile launches work in Macross?
Like a trigger pull on the stick, doe sit fire a barrage of, say, 10 micro missiles at the enemy? Or is it always "FIRE EVERYTHING" and then we get the missile spam. 

I mean they have a limited supply of missiles, I would assume they dont want to run out to quickly....

[sketchley]

10 minutes ago, Scream Man said:

Have they ever talked about how the missile launches work in Macross?
Like a trigger pull on the stick, doe sit fire a barrage of, say, 10 micro missiles at the enemy? Or is it always "FIRE EVERYTHING" and then we get the missile spam. 

I mean they have a limited supply of missiles, I would assume they dont want to run out to quickly....

Macross Zero has a scene where the pilot tags incoming targets with eye movements before firing the gun pod and head lasers.  Presumably something similar is happening with the micro-missiles.

As for the quantity... RPGers have worked under the assumption that each missile launcher has a rate of fire (how many missiles can be fired per launcher per unit of time).  However, that doesn't exactly describe what we see in all examples from the various series.  So, my best guess at the moment is that it is like the firing selector on automatic firearms: single shot, burst (3–5 or whatever), continuous fire until trigger released—per missiles launcher.

[MechaManDan]

A bit of an odd question, but I was wondering. Does anyone remember what sub group did the subs for that infamous "get in the car" screenshot from Macross 7? IIRC They also translated Basara's name as "Boxana".

[Brofessor]

Hello. There is a famous character and mecha appearance by episode chart for Episodes 1 to 36 from the Macross Chronicle. Could someone translate the key for the mecha? It uses a three letter key of N, S, and A for the veritechs. I am curious what the N, S, and A indicates. Thanks.

[sketchley]

37 minutes ago, Brofessor said:

Hello. There is a famous character and mecha appearance by episode chart for Episodes 1 to 36 from the Macross Chronicle. Could someone translate the key for the mecha? It uses a three letter key of N, S, and A for the veritechs. I am curious what the N, S, and A indicates. Thanks.

Translations of the Macross Chronicle SDFM episode articles: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/MCRepisode/MCRepisode.php#SDFM

[Brofessor]

Ahhhhh. Thank you sir. Normal, Super, Armored. :)

[Saruta]

On 6/3/2020 at 1:04 AM, Tochiro said:

There’s normally 4 positions, often with multiple cameras.

 
-in the wings of the stage

-on a track that runs the length of the front of the stage. 
-on camera booms above or around the stage. 
-at the back of the hall (telescopic zoom). 

There’s also sometimes smaller camera at the back of the stage, near the drummer, etc. 

 

Thanks a lot! I wonder - are the cameras manned/staffed, or just controlled from a remote camera operator room?