The Newbie and Short Questions thread

[sketchley]

Artificial gravity is one of those things that Macross simply describes as "gravity control".  The specifics of how it works aren't clear.

DYRL, however, gives one concrete example that helps explain what's happening: the gravity emitters can fail, and when they fail, it isn't throughout the entire ship.  I'm referring to the scene where Hikaru has to transform to GERWALK and capture Minmei in mid-air as everything is falling "sideways" (due to the moon Titan's gravity), yet the bridge crew are still firmly rooted to the floor.

Therefore, in the scene you are looking at, we can infer that artificial gravity failed in the area where Minmei and Hikaru were found.  However, the people looking on are standing in an area where the gravity emitters are still working.  What we don't see is how strongly those emitters are pulling on the people.  Perhaps the people in the foreground are being pulled by 1 G, but the people further from the camera (and closer to Hikaru and Minmei) are only being pulled by 0.5 G.

 

While it's a different franchise, I think Star Trek sums up how artificial gravity works on a star ship: each deck has artificial gravity emitters, and they are all fairly localized.  There are certain points between decks (usually near the ceiling) where one can not only find an area with no gravity (0 G), but also a point where gravity reverses as one is pulled "up" by the emitters in the next deck.

It makes sense that a similar system is employed in the SDF-1 (least the bridge operators constantly float out of their chairs and the poor crew on the lowest decks are constantly being crushed under punishing gravity).  And thus, you get the striking image of Hikaru and Minmei floating as the localized emitter in their section has failed, but not in the neighbouring section.

Edited February 2 by sketchley

[treatment]

8 hours ago, Steady said:

I've always wondered...

When Hikaru and Minmay are found in DYRL, they are floating in zero gravity.  But all the people who find them when that massive door opens are clearly not floating.  Why is this?  I realize that there is a artificial gravity system inside the Macross ship, but all those people were in the same space as Hikaru and Minmay.  How could that be happening?

anime magic.  😄

fwiw, the arti-gravity was just kicking in and they were already descending, albeit slowly. 

Also, the reporters were not really directly underneath them and a bit far off just from the area perspective, so not exactly in the same spacing as the couple.

 

 

Edited February 2 by treatment

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, Steady said:

I've always wondered...

When Hikaru and Minmay are found in DYRL, they are floating in zero gravity.  But all the people who find them when that massive door opens are clearly not floating.  Why is this?  I realize that there is a artificial gravity system inside the Macross ship, but all those people were in the same space as Hikaru and Minmay.  How could that be happening?

Macross, being animation, isn't bound by a lot of the practical limitations that apply to live-action science fiction... so it's free to get weird with its setting-specific take on artificial gravity.

Gravity control technology in Macross is presented as being a lot more precise and flexible than your average SF artificial gravity system.  It's used in thermonuclear reactors as a way to provide fuel compression and plasma confinement, it's used to focus and collimate particle streams in beam weapons, it's used to tie spacetime in knots in order to make ships teleport interstellar distances, for reactionless flight in planetary atmospheres, and of course for providing artificial gravity for the living spaces in spacecraft.  In DYRL? and other titles we see them make gravity fields that intersect at 90 or 180 degree angles within the same space, creating an environment where "down" has more to do with where you're physically standing than the orientation of the ship as a whole.  This is really blatant in the Macross Frontier movies, where we see that Island-1 has three separate layers of cityscape at 180 degree angles to each other, with two facing "up" relative to the ship's orientation and the middle one being "upside-down" attached to the underside of the same bulkhead supporting the uppermost layer.

Because artificial gravity (and other gravity-control functions like reactionless flight) are created by a network of gravity control systems scattered throughout the ship, it's possible for two immediately adjacent areas to have completely different gravity levels.  The outage in the area where Hikaru and Minmay were trapped immediately adjoining the area that still has normal gravity is an extreme example (one repeated in Macross Delta's 14th episode), but this kind of thing is also done entirely on purpose for carrier recovery on ships like the Prometheus and Macross Quarter.  A low-power gravity field is projected up from the carrier deck to allow fighters to gently fall towards the deck for arrested recovery, and stronger living area-suitable gravity is available inside the adjoining hangars and the other areas of the ship.  We also see this in the very start of Macross Frontier, where a spaceport hallway gradually ramps up its gravity from 0g to 0.75g.

[Steady]

Ok I have another one.  Ha ha.

In DYRL, when the Macross returns to Earth, virtually all life has been wiped out.  Hikaru found that weird fish, but that was about it.  Ha ha.  What's interesting though is that the citizens on the Macross appear to just go about their business like nothing has happened.  I figured there would be widespread panic or mass hysteria to find out that Earth has been transformed into a lifeless rock.  Was there some kind of media black out on the ship?  I'm guessing all of the observation decks were closed.  Ha ha  

I just like to think about this kind of stuff.

[Seto Kaiba]

40 minutes ago, Steady said:

Ok I have another one.  Ha ha.

In DYRL, when the Macross returns to Earth, virtually all life has been wiped out.  Hikaru found that weird fish, but that was about it.  Ha ha.  What's interesting though is that the citizens on the Macross appear to just go about their business like nothing has happened.  I figured there would be widespread panic or mass hysteria to find out that Earth has been transformed into a lifeless rock.  Was there some kind of media black out on the ship?  I'm guessing all of the observation decks were closed.  Ha ha  

I just like to think about this kind of stuff.

The movie never really touches on it.

We see something similar happen in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series, where we don't really get to see the trauma this literally world-changing event had on people until an episode or two after the timeskip.  One could say that everyone was so busy with the business of surviving that they didn't really have an opportunity to process the trauma of a near-total global apocalypse until things started the settle down.

There are a couple possibilities.  One, of course, is that the UN Forces kept as much information as possible about the state of Earth from the populace until after the fighting was over.  Another is that the populace already basically knew, or at least suspected the worst for the entire year they'd been sailing back.  Differences in the order-of-events in DYRL?'s version have the bombardment start before the Macross has even properly lifted off.  With no contact from Earth in the six or so months they spent sailing back to it, it's possible everyone had already assumed the planet had bit the big one.  It's also possible they were less concerned because, in DYRL?, the Macross was (re)built as an emigrant ship and it had been intended to leave the solar system.  Being aboard a ship designed for long-term habitation and having already resigned themselves to never seeing Earth again might've softened the blow a bit.

'course one could also say that, because it's a movie in-universe, the civilian reaction was simply omitted to avoid distracting from the love story and war story.

[robopolonius]

Where is the link to the Macross 30 novelization? I was told it was available on here, and I would like to read it. 

Edited February 12 by robopolonius

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, robopolonius said:

Where is the link to the Macross 30 novelization? I was told it was available on here, and I would like to read it. 

In the Macross 30 thread in the Game section: 

 

[Inferno's caress]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In the Macross 30 thread in the Game section: 

 

Maybe I should get around to translating The Ride someday as well.

[twich]

1 hour ago, Inferno's caress said:

Maybe I should get around to translating The Ride someday as well.

That would be awesome!

Twich

[Inferno's caress]

1 minute ago, twich said:

That would be awesome!

Twich

 

Hm.  I shall have to see if I can find new copies of the books. I wonder if they make them in digital format, easier to read on-the-go.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Inferno's caress said:

Hm.  I shall have to see if I can find new copies of the books. I wonder if they make them in digital format, easier to read on-the-go.

Not sure if "new" is still an option... that light novel's well over a decade old at this point.  You might have to resort to eBay or Yahoo Japan Auctions for a hardcopy.  I can see a few copies of each volume from Japanese sellers on eBay.

[Inferno's caress]

31 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Not sure if "new" is still an option... that light novel's well over a decade old at this point.  You might have to resort to eBay or Yahoo Japan Auctions for a hardcopy.  I can see a few copies of each volume from Japanese sellers on eBay.

 

Well, yes. But the point is to support the creators of the work.

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, Inferno's caress said:

Well, yes. But the point is to support the creators of the work.

Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% behind supporting the original creators.  It's the reason I import multiple copies of all the books I translate.

I'm just saying, we're talking about a light novel that's been out of print for about ten years.  As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been any announcement of a re-release, so picking up a secondhand copy is probably your only real option.  

(Thankfully, most of the sellers I can see who have posted gently used copies aren't price gouging.)

[Inferno's caress]

I have only ever translated the one book, but when I did I bought a new copy of the book and of the limited edition of the game. I know that there are other ways to get a hold of them. I would just rather not to do it that way. Personal Preference.

[sketchley]

3 hours ago, Inferno's caress said:

Maybe I should get around to translating The Ride someday as well.

Speaking of Macross the Ride:

Over the past year, I've been going back and revising and completing my translations of the magazine articles (everything but the novelization snippets).  I've completed issues #1–3 so far (no ETA for #4~).

http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/OTdengekihobby.php

[Inferno's caress]

11 minutes ago, sketchley said:

Speaking of Macross the Ride:

Over the past year, I've been going back and revising and completing my translations of the magazine articles (everything but the novelization snippets).  I've completed issues #1–3 so far (no ETA for #4~).

http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/OTdengekihobby.php

 

Oh, hi.  I haven't seen you in a while, not since the old RP site shutdown. Not that I hang around forum much these days, but still.  How have you been?

[PixelatedShinobi]

On 2/12/2025 at 8:43 PM, Inferno's caress said:

 

Hm.  I shall have to see if I can find new copies of the books. I wonder if they make them in digital format, easier to read on-the-go.

I was able to purchase digital raw volumes of Macross Delta Gaiden: Macross E on sites like Bookwalker, and I also found the Macross Frontier and Macross 30 novelizations there as well. If there's a place to look, that might be it.

[Inferno's caress]

57 minutes ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

I was able to purchase digital raw volumes of Macross Delta Gaiden: Macross E on sites like Bookwalker, and I also found the Macross Frontier and Macross 30 novelizations there as well. If there's a place to look, that might be it.

 

Sadly, they do not. Plenty of other Macross properties, but not that set.  It was a good suggestion, though.  I appreciate it.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

I was able to purchase digital raw volumes of Macross Delta Gaiden: Macross E on sites like Bookwalker, and I also found the Macross Frontier and Macross 30 novelizations there as well. If there's a place to look, that might be it.

Thanks for the tip.  I'll keep that one in mind for filling in gaps in my collection. 😁

I'm kind of a stickler for physical media, though... so I'll doubtless end up chasing down physical copies of anything I get in ebook form anyway.😅

[Scream Man]

You might have luck on Mandarake?

[pengbuzz]

I found this (not physical media though):

https://m.manganelo.com/manga-hf122325

[PixelatedShinobi]

4 hours ago, Inferno's caress said:

 

Sadly, they do not. Plenty of other Macross properties, but not that set.  It was a good suggestion, though.  I appreciate it.

Just checked myself, and yep, nothing there on The Ride (and no Macross 30 novelization either, I must have misremembered). Damn shame, too, I was planning to peruse them myself at some point. At least my plans of looking through the Frontier novels remain unchanged (Gotta find that VF-X2 lore!). Wishing you the best of luck in getting physicals!

[PixelatedShinobi]

On 2/12/2025 at 11:00 PM, Inferno's caress said:

I have only ever translated the one book, but when I did I bought a new copy of the book and of the limited edition of the game. I know that there are other ways to get a hold of them. I would just rather not to do it that way. Personal Preference.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4048706543?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_0&storeType=ebooks
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4048861220?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_1&storeType=ebooks
 

If you're looking for physicals there seem to be some pretty decent copies being sold on Amazon for alright prices for a ten year old LN that's out of print.

[Inferno's caress]

On 2/19/2025 at 6:01 PM, pengbuzz said:

I found this (not physical media though):

https://m.manganelo.com/manga-hf122325

That is missing the last two Chapters.

 

On 2/19/2025 at 4:02 PM, Scream Man said:

You might have luck on Mandarake?

 

They have the Visual Books, which are not the novels. Those are pictures of models.

 

5 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4048706543?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_0&storeType=ebooks
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4048861220?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_1&storeType=ebooks
 

If you're looking for physicals there seem to be some pretty decent copies being sold on Amazon for alright prices for a ten year old LN that's out of print.

 

Indeed.  I know where to find Used copies. We were trying to find New ones.

 

[PixelatedShinobi]

7 minutes ago, Inferno's caress said:

That is missing the last two Chapters.

 

 

They have the Visual Books, which are not the novels. Those are pictures of models.

 

 

Indeed.  I know where to find Used copies. We were trying to find New ones.

 

I don't think it's physically possible to find a new book from an official retailer - even Japanese physical stores must have almost certainly sold out of their stock years ago.

[Inferno's caress]

13 minutes ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

I don't think it's physically possible to find a new book from an official retailer - even Japanese physical stores must have almost certainly sold out of their stock years ago.

 

It is just a personal preference.  I know that it is rare. The Macross 30 novel that I had bought was new, so it was worth looking.

[Seto Kaiba]

16 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

I don't think it's physically possible to find a new book from an official retailer - even Japanese physical stores must have almost certainly sold out of their stock years ago.

It's definitely an unrealistic expectation, yeah.

Given how long it's been out-of-print, any major/chain bookstore would've returned all unsold copies to the publisher for a refund many years ago.  There may be some unsold new (or "new") copies in the hands of the second- and third-tier retailers like the import hobby specialty stores in San Francisco's Japantown, that is kind of a long shot twelve plus years after initial publication.

Secondhand significantly lowers the difficulty.

[pengbuzz]

59 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's definitely an unrealistic expectation, yeah.

Given how long it's been out-of-print, any major/chain bookstore would've returned all unsold copies to the publisher for a refund many years ago.  There may be some unsold new (or "new") copies in the hands of the second- and third-tier retailers like the import hobby specialty stores in San Francisco's Japantown, that is kind of a long shot twelve plus years after initial publication.

Secondhand significantly lowers the difficulty.

Saw this, not sure how much help (if any) it may be:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375086549639

[Seto Kaiba]

43 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Saw this, not sure how much help (if any) it may be:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375086549639

That's the problem with the secondhand market... avoiding the price gougers.

That's a 20x markup over what those books cost new.😅

[pengbuzz]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's the problem with the secondhand market... avoiding the price gougers.

That's a 20x markup over what those books cost new.😅

Yeah; I suspected as much, but it was the only other one I could find.

[Inferno's caress]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's the problem with the secondhand market... avoiding the price gougers.

That's a 20x markup over what those books cost new.😅

 

10 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah; I suspected as much, but it was the only other one I could find.

 

 

Here you go:

 

https://bookwalker.jp/series/107388/list/

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah; I suspected as much, but it was the only other one I could find.

Yeah, like I said... perils of the secondhand market.  When I go looking for OOP books, I usually end up on Yahoo! Japan Auctions and Mandarake.  The risk of getting ninja'd on an item on the former is still somehow less problematic than the frankly absurd markups some of these small sellers on eBay get up to.  I've had the best results with Mandarake, at least in terms of looking for old doujinshi/fanzine titles like Sky Angels or Battleships of the Galaxy.

For new stuff, I usually decide discretion is the better part of valor and buy 2-3 copies as soon as a book that might be relevant to my translation projects comes out.

 

9 hours ago, Inferno's caress said:

Here you go:

https://bookwalker.jp/series/107388/list/

I'll probably pick up digital copies of several books from there, though I actually already have print copies of Macross E from when it first came out.  

The digital version'll definitely prove useful for getting clean art of the VF-171EX Kai though.