The Newbie and Short Questions thread

[SMS007]

http://www.macross2.net/m3/macrossga/yf-11-m3.htm

Who is this U.N.G. Chairperson "Lawrence Yun Kemal" featured in Macross M3?

Edited March 29, 2018 by SMS007

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, SMS007 said:

http://www.macross2.net/m3/macrossga/yf-11-m3.htm

Who is this U.N.G. Chairperson "Lawrence Yun Kemal" featured in Macross M3?

It's been a dog's age since the last time I played Macross M3, but I think that's the Prime Minister of the New UN Government c.2030.

[kajnrig]

Was the VF-4 always the Lightning III, or was it retconned to the Lightning III after the IRL completion of the JSF program? If the former, what is the Lightning II in the Macross world? If the latter, does Macross canon assume that fifth-gen fighter development was underway leading up to the introduction of Overtechnology?

[Seto Kaiba]

17 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Was the VF-4 always the Lightning III, or was it retconned to the Lightning III after the IRL completion of the JSF program?

Originally, the VF-4 was just "VF-4".  Best Hit Series: Macross Flash Back 2012 Graffiti refers to it at one point as "VF-4 Valkyrie" (pg25, in the bottom right corner) but otherwise refers to it only as the VF-4.

IIRC, the first time the VF-4 was given a proper name was in Masaya's 1992 TRPG and Macross II: Lovers Again prequel story Macross: Eternal Love Song.  The name it was given for that game was VF-4 Siren.  (Prior to 1994, new VF designs were principally given mythological reference names as in the case of the VF-X3 Medusa from Macross: Remember Me, or the VF-2JA Icarus from Macross II: Lovers Again itself.)

I'm not sure when precisely the "Lightning" name was first applied to the VF-4.  The oldest book in my collection that refers to the VF-4 as "Lightning" rather than "Lightning III" is This is Animation Special: Macross Plus (OVA ver.) from 1995.  The earlier Bandai Entertainment Bible volumes (#27 and #51) don't name the VF-4 at all.  The Variable Fighters Aero Report article in the book briefly covers the VF-4 and refers to it only as "Lightning".

The "Lightning III" version of the name came in with Macross Digital Mission VF-X in 1997, which was the debut of its Kawamori-designed transformation as well.  

The reason for the name change was a real world development, but it wasn't because of the Joint Strike Fighter program.  It was Lockheed's YF-22 prototype in the US's Advanced Tactical Fighter program in the early 90's.  

 

17 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

If the former, what is the Lightning II in the Macross world?

Presumably the Lockheed YF-22.  It was semi-officially known as the Lightning II during testing in 1990 until the rollout of the first few F-22A and F-22B units in April 1997 when they were formally named F-22 Raptor.

The VF-4 would probably be Lightning II if only Macross Digital Mission VF-X hadn't come out a bit over a month before the F-22's rollout and official naming.

 

17 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

If the latter, does Macross canon assume that fifth-gen fighter development was underway leading up to the introduction of Overtechnology?

I don't know if the question was ever directly addressed, but it ought to have.  Macross's version of Earth history is basically the same as ours until mid-July 1999.  The US's ATF program kicked off in 1981 and had competing prototypes in 1990-1991, and trial production models were already flying by the end of 1997.  

Whether anyone else got their 5th Generation fighter jet development off the ground before OTM made it irrelevant is anyone's guess... but it seems unlikely.  Apart from some failed programs the Russians had going in the 90's that were all superseded by the PAK FA program in 2001, no other country even started their 5th Generation development prior to 1999.

Presumably widespread adoption of 5th Generation fighter jets was scrubbed in favor of adopting OTM updates to existing 4th Generation models after the formation of the Unification Government and the kickoff of the 1st Generation Variable Fighter development that led to the VF-0, Sv-51, VF-1, and Sv-52.

[JB0]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Presumably widespread adoption of 5th Generation fighter jets was scrubbed in favor of adopting OTM updates to existing 4th Generation models after the formation of the Unification Government and the kickoff of the 1st Generation Variable Fighter development that led to the VF-0, Sv-51, VF-1, and Sv-52.

Understandable, given the VF-1 turned out cheaper than the F-22 as well as far superior.

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, JB0 said:

Understandable, given the VF-1 turned out cheaper than the F-22 as well as far superior.

Back when the Sky Angels VF-1 technical manual that cost figure comes from was written, even the newly-launched ATF program wasn't projecting per-unit prices anywhere near that high.  A modern fighter jet typically cost ~$28 million per unit back then.  The estimated unit cost for the ATF sat at $35 million until a program review in 1990.  I think what they were getting at back then, before the movie Macross: Do You Remember Love? came out, was that the VF-1 was supposed to be a vastly more expensive aircraft than anything in the air, at four and a half times the average fighter's price tag.

[Sildani]

What did the entire VF-1 program end up costing, again? I think you mentioned it before. 

[JB0]

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Back when the Sky Angels VF-1 technical manual that cost figure comes from was written, even the newly-launched ATF program wasn't projecting per-unit prices anywhere near that high.  A modern fighter jet typically cost ~$28 million per unit back then.  The estimated unit cost for the ATF sat at $35 million until a program review in 1990.  I think what they were getting at back then, before the movie Macross: Do You Remember Love? came out, was that the VF-1 was supposed to be a vastly more expensive aircraft than anything in the air, at four and a half times the average fighter's price tag.

I was just poking a bit of fun at that misalignment between the fiction and reality for a time period that's supposed to closely match the real world.
But you have to admit, it DOES make the "abandon the Raptor in favor of Valkyries" decision easier if the real-world fighter costs showed up in the Macrossverse.

[HardlyNever]

I'm sure this has been answered several times, but I've always wondered what is going on with the TV sdf-1 vs the DYRL sdf-1.  

My understanding is that the TV show is the "official canon" of the events of SDF Macross, and the movie is just a retelling of those events (and even exists as movie within the Macross universe).  Yet in all the later series (Macross Plus for example), you see the SDF-1 look like how it looked in DYRL.  

So, why is the DYRL SDF-1 the "canon" SDF-1, when the TV show is supposed to be the primary source of "canon" material regarding SDF Macross.  Do they ever explain this discrepancy anywhere?  I've also seen the notion that the "official canon" is somewhere in between the TV show and DYRL, and what exactly is true is a bit subjective, in some cases.

Anyhow, I'm mainly wondering why the SDF-1 is always represented as the DYRL version in later Macross, and if there is any explanation for this besides "they liked the movie SDF-1 more."

[camk4evr]

In 2012(?), after Kamjin and Lap Lamis killed themselves attacking the Macross, in the last episode of the original series, she underwent a refit (the first of many that she'd undergo between then and the current time in the Macross franchise)  which made her look like the DYRL version.

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, JB0 said:

But you have to admit, it DOES make the "abandon the Raptor in favor of Valkyries" decision easier if the real-world fighter costs showed up in the Macrossverse.

Really, I'd think the VF-1 would sell itself beautifully well even without that.

It's the aircraft equivalent of the slogan they had for the Henry repeating rifle back in the American civil war... it's the plane you fuel on Monday and fly all week long.  (Well, more like all month long, but hey.)  Plus having an air-to-air gun that doesn't use bullets, high supersonic cruise capabilities, SSTO capability, and an active stealth system that makes it effectively invisible to search radars on modern conventional fighter jets... I could go on.

 

 

3 hours ago, HardlyNever said:

I'm sure this has been answered several times, but I've always wondered what is going on with the TV sdf-1 vs the DYRL sdf-1.

Between Facebook and here, variations on this one usually pops up about once a month if not more often.

 

Quote

My understanding is that the TV show is the "official canon" of the events of SDF Macross, and the movie is just a retelling of those events (and even exists as movie within the Macross universe).

"Canon" is probably not a word we should be using when it comes to Macross.  Shoji Kawamori has little use for the idea of a firmly defined canon, and prefers to connect Macross works with a broad strokes continuity.  His view is that all (official) versions of a given Macross story are equally "true", which he has occasionally expanded on by suggesting that all of them are dramatizations of a true history.

Big West, the owners of Macross, tend to go a bit firmer on the subject of continuity and favor the TV versions and certain endings in stories with multiple endings when it comes to order of events shown in official timelines.  That said, things from the movie versions will usually still be a thing in the Macross universe accompanied by an explanation of how they fit.  More on that in a moment.

 

So... the TV series is, you might say, the First Among Equals when it comes to order of events for the official Macross chronology.  DYRL? exists as both an alternate version of those events and as the in-universe movie Do You Remember Love? that came out in 2031.  The in-universe version is not exactly the same as the one fans have seen though, scenes in Macross 7 suggest that it had a Max-Milia wedding scene and a few other things that weren't in the real world movie.

 

Quote

Yet in all the later series (Macross Plus for example), you see the SDF-1 look like how it looked in DYRL.  

So, why is the DYRL SDF-1 the "canon" SDF-1, when the TV show is supposed to be the primary source of "canon" material regarding SDF Macross.  Do they ever explain this discrepancy anywhere?  [...]

Anyhow, I'm mainly wondering why the SDF-1 is always represented as the DYRL version in later Macross, and if there is any explanation for this besides "they liked the movie SDF-1 more."

Yep, there's an explanation for that.

The SDF-1 Macross wasn't exactly in great shape before the end of the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series, having been shot up pretty bad fighting the Zentradi Boddole Zer main fleet in orbit and surviving the explosion of Boddole Zer's mothership.  Ep36 didn't help its state of repair, taking a direct hit from the main converging beam cannon of Quamzin's salvaged gunboat, it also suffered a complete structural failure of its own main converging beam cannon after firing it once, and subsequently took a fair amount of turret fire from Quamzin's ship before losing the right arm entirely to Quamzin's suicidal ramming attack and being caught in the ensuing explosion.

The New UN Government decided to completely overhaul the Macross after the battle, and bring it up to the same technological standard as the mass production Macross-class ships that were being constructed in its factory satellites at that time.  The DYRL? appearance is essentially the design of the mass production version which the SDF-1 was upgraded to during its ~8 month refit in 2012, being completed shortly before the launch of SDF-2 Megaroad-01 in September 2012.

The DYRL? VF-1's different appearance has a similar explanation... the TV and Movie versions were simply different production block variants, making both versions correct.  The TV VF-1 Valkyrie was representative of VF-1s produced in Block 1 thru Block 5, and the Movie VF-1 Valkyrie was how the VF-1s looked from Block 6 onwards.

 

EDIT: That said, the creators do seem to vastly prefer the more detailed movie SDF-1 to the TV one.  These days, even when a scene calls for showing events from the TV series they usually use the movie version.   The one exception that I recall is the model on Ernest Johnson's desk aboard the Macross Elysion, which was VERY badly drawn.

Edited April 13, 2018 by Seto Kaiba

[Focslain]

I kind of like this 'propaganda' explination for fitting the movies and TV series together in the larger canon.

Would it be fair to say that in the case of Delta that the Movie version is more true to the events and the series is just a bad soap series based on said events?

[Seto Kaiba]

55 minutes ago, Focslain said:

I kind of like this 'propaganda' explination for fitting the movies and TV series together in the larger canon.

The propaganda angle wasn't really related to the TV series... it was that the DYRL? in-universe version played up the threat of the Zentradi (as if such a thing were necessary) by showing two fleets instead of one.

@Talos put forward a fun theory about the Macross Frontier movies that they were also in-universe propaganda, with the changes in the story being meant to throw all the blame on the civilian Galaxy Fleet executives and exonerate the New UN Forces personnel who'd directly or peripherally played a role in furthering Galaxy's plot. (e.g. Leon Mishima, Grace O'Connor)

 

55 minutes ago, Focslain said:

Would it be fair to say that in the case of Delta that the Movie version is more true to the events and the series is just a bad soap series based on said events?

Almost invariably the official chronologies favor the "series" version of a given story.

My guess would be that will probably hold true when we get the next official Macross chronology in, say, Macross Chronicle 3rd edition?

[sketchley]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

My guess would be that will probably hold true when we get the next official Macross chronology in, say, Macross Chronicle 3rd edition?

It doesn't help that Kawamori-san himself has said something along the lines of: if I tell the story as a TV series, it looks like this, if I tell it as a movie, it looks like that.  All of them are dramatizations of *real* historical events.

The implication being that the reality is something different from what we've been told.  Compare it to the "Saving Private Ryan" movie and the real D-Day invasion.  The condensed form of the movie is what "DYRL" essentially is.  (By extension, the TV series is also a condensed form...)

[JB0]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Really, I'd think the VF-1 would sell itself beautifully well even without that.

It's the aircraft equivalent of the slogan they had for the Henry repeating rifle back in the American civil war... it's the plane you fuel on Monday and fly all week long.  (Well, more like all month long, but hey.)  Plus having an air-to-air gun that doesn't use bullets, high supersonic cruise capabilities, SSTO capability, and an active stealth system that makes it effectively invisible to search radars on modern conventional fighter jets... I could go on.

Oh, definitely. Especially once wars start breaking out and there's significant pressure to have the latest and greatest fighter again.

But if there's no cost disparity... why settle for already-obsolete garbage when you can have giant robots? If there IS a major cost disparity, it can be tempting to settle for second place(though Raptor vs Valkyrie would inevitably be "second place is the first loser").

[kajnrig]

Does the VF-1 have active stealth tech? I thought that was only introduced with the YF-19 and YF-21.

[sketchley]

2 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Does the VF-1 have active stealth tech? I thought that was only introduced with the YF-19 and YF-21.

Before Macross Zero was released, the VF-1 was never described as having stealth technology.  However, Macross Zero attributed a (how shall I put it?) less advanced form of active stealth into the first generation Valkyries.  Thus, the VF-1 was "retconned"* with active stealth.

* I don't like this term, as with all things Macross, unless something is specifically stated, it is a possibility.  Perhaps "it was clarified" would be better? 

 

See the following link (green text) for specific details of the pre-AVF version of Active Stealth: http://monkeybacon.mywebcommunity.org/Stats/Statistics/Avionics/Countermeasures.php#activestealth

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Does the VF-1 have active stealth tech? I thought that was only introduced with the YF-19 and YF-21.

As @sketchley said, the presence of active stealth systems on earlier models of VFs is something that emerged as a result of the VF-0 (and Sv-51) establishing that this technology was in widespread use on VFs from the word "go".

This was later finessed into an explanation that radar technology and active stealth technology are in an arms race of sorts.  The technique used to achieve the stealth effect is active cancellation, a destructive interference-based approach in which the VF has to generate a radio wave or pulse at the same frequency and amplitude as the enemy radar but with an opposite phase, by which the net amplitude of the returning radar wave/pulse is reduced to zero (or as close to it as possible if the antiphase transmitter can't match the amplitude of the enemy radar).  The more powerful the radar, the harder it is for an active stealth system to effectively zero the radar return.  As a result, when VF radars exceed the capabiities of active stealth systems, VFs are built with more passively stealthy designs (e.g. the VF-17, YF-19, YF-21), and when active stealth systems have enough power behind them that they can't simply be overpowered by VF-mounted radars then VF designs become less passively stealthy.  The VF-17, YF-19, and YF-21 were developed in a period where 2nd Gen active stealth systems had fallen behind radars in terms of power, and so needed to rely more on passive stealth to make up the difference.  Once the VF-19, VF-22, and VF-171 reached production readiness, 3rd Generation active stealth systems entered the picture and reduced the need for passively stealthy airframe shapes, allowing more wing-mounted ordnance to be used without compromising stealthiness.

 

2 hours ago, sketchley said:

Before Macross Zero was released, the VF-1 was never described as having stealth technology.  However, Macross Zero attributed a (how shall I put it?) less advanced form of active stealth into the first generation Valkyries.

I'm not sure "less advanced" is necessarily the right way to put it.  

The precision of the system is a factor, but it's got a lot to do with raw transmitting power.  Active cancellation is very much a brute force approach to stealth, the system has to be able to match the amplitude of the radar wave/pulse.  The more juice they can put into generating an antiphase wave/pulse, the more powerful the radar they can hide from.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Seto Kaiba

[sketchley]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

@sketchley

This was later finessed into an explanation that radar technology and active stealth technology are in an arms race of sorts.  The technique used to achieve the stealth effect is active cancellation, (...)

Curious - where was this explained?

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, sketchley said:

Curious - where was this explained?

The source with the greatest density of relevant information would probably be Great Mechanics DX 9.  It talks a bit about active stealth technology, mostly focusing on how the "arms race" between active stealth and radar systems tipping in favor of radar in the runup to 2040 and Project Super Nova, prompting a greater emphasis on passively stealthy designs until the next generation active stealth systems became available.  Some of the details are repeated in Macross Chronicle mechanic sheets like the ones done for Macross Frontier's VF-171s.  

There are brief descriptions of how the system functions in Great Mechanics DX 9, Macross Chronicle's VF Defenses technology sheet, and Macross R's chapter four glossary... which describe the active stealth technology in use as being one that deceives a hostile radar system by analyzing the incoming radar sweep and transmitting its own electromagnetic waves back to the hostile radar to mislead it into displaying incorrect data.  That's a pretty textbook definition of how active cancellation works, and they'd even correctly cited its achilles heel of losing effectiveness as the power of the hostile radar system increases.

[sketchley]

Thanks!

OK... I translated that (Great Mechanics.DX #9) a while ago, but I don't remember it ever talking about there being an "arms race".  (Just checked too, and there's nothing about radar technology improving.  It's more like active stealth itself improved from being merely anti fighter aircraft radar (1st gen). to anti all sizes of radar (3rd generation) with a high degree of perfection (presumably the 2nd generation is the same as the 3rd, but has a flawed or significantly lower perfection level).

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, sketchley said:

OK... I translated that (Great Mechanics.DX #9) a while ago, but I don't remember it ever talking about there being an "arms race".

That was my effort to tidily sum up the way the available data points to the effectiveness of active stealth systems going up and down as technology advances.

 

4 hours ago, sketchley said:

(Just checked too, and there's nothing about radar technology improving.  It's more like active stealth itself improved from being merely anti fighter aircraft radar (1st gen). to anti all sizes of radar (3rd generation) with a high degree of perfection (presumably the 2nd generation is the same as the 3rd, but has a flawed or significantly lower perfection level).

They do actually mention that radar and other detection systems are improving/evolving on page fifteen... but in passing.  (Never mind books like Master File gushing about every little update the radar tech went through.)

Taken in context with relevant statements from other publications like the Mechanic Sheets for the VF-171, the picture it paints is of the effectiveness of active stealth systems gaining or losing some effectiveness as active stealth and radar technology advance.  By the time 4th Gen VFs were being drawn up in the late 2030s, 2nd Generation active stealth's effectiveness had degraded to such an extent that it became necessary to start designing passively stealthy VF designs that mounted the majority of their weapons internally or conformally to reduce the risk of detection.  A couple years later, 3rd Generation active stealth comes into use and the need for passive stealth is reduced via the more capable system, so we start seeing less stealthy designs and greater use of wing pylons again.

The nature of the technology means that they're not likely to ever be truly effective against a ship or ground-based radar installation at anything other than long range, it's much better suited to the kind of roles the DX article points to it being effective in... concealment from missile guidance radars and other aircraft, which are smaller, less powerful radars.

Macross Chronicle's VF-171 Mechanic Sheet does also point to anti-fighter use as the motivation for improving the VF-171's active stealth system from 2nd to 3rd Gen.  (In the "Fighter Mode" section.)

[kajnrig]

Is that their rationale for all the MMMs and Itanos?

[Seto Kaiba]

31 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Is that their rationale for all the MMMs and Itanos?

Y'know, I don't think I've ever seen an explicit in-universe rationale for all the missile spam.

VFs would be pretty hard to land a hit on with their high maneuverability, weapons able to intercept missiles, active stealth and other forms of ECM, and conventional countermeasures like chaff, flares, smoke, fiber optic towed decoys, and what have you. 

Then again, there's that old joke about there being a reason they're not called "hittles"... I suppose quantity has a quality all its own in situations like that.  "There's a missile here with your name on it and I'm going to keep firing them until I find it!"

 

[Focslain]

Well on the missile subject.

It might have to do with the quantity as well as the explosive payload. Even if the missile is intercepted if it explodes close enough it can still do damage. At least in atmosphere, not sure how that would play out in space.  

[Sildani]

They might also be used to “herd” the target to a firing solution with the gunpod or other weapon. 

[sketchley]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(...)

Taken in context with relevant statements from other publications like the Mechanic Sheets for the VF-171, the picture it paints is of the effectiveness of active stealth systems gaining or losing some effectiveness as active stealth and radar technology advance.  (...)

The 'arms race' analogy is a bit weak (TBO, it feels like your adding stuff* that wasn't in the original Japanese text), but is acceptable.

However, where did the explanation for how Active Stealth works appear?

 

*It's not explicitly stated that radar systems have improved, but that they've moved on to different detection means (and those have improved).  E.g.: Fold Wave or thermal detection systems.

[sketchley]

2 hours ago, Sildani said:

They might also be used to “herd” the target to a firing solution with the gunpod or other weapon. 

I think it's a little bit of both.  We've seen them used to overwhelm targets, as well as to herd them toward an optimal firing solution (or distract the target long enough...).

Though, this does raise the question of why don't we see more intermediate or long range missiles?  Yes, combat is highly stylized in Macross, but is passive and active stealthiness the Macross equivalent to Gundam's radar inhibiting Minovsky Particle?

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, sketchley said:

The 'arms race' analogy is a bit weak (TBO, it feels like your adding stuff* that wasn't in the original Japanese text), but is acceptable.

Not a perfect fit, but it did an OK job of getting the basic idea across.

As I noted previously, this conclusion pulls from a number of different sources.  It's not spelled out in its entirety in any one book.

 

13 hours ago, sketchley said:

However, where did the explanation for how Active Stealth works appear?

The explanation of how destructive interference produces the stealth effect is all me.

As noted previously, Macross the Ride's glossary provides a description of the active stealth system as analyzing incoming electromagnetic (radar) waves and transmitting its own back to create false results.  Great Mechanics DX #9 describes it as "deceiving" the radar waves rather than disrupting them.  There's only one ECM-based (per Macross Chronicle) active stealth technology which works that way... active cancellation.  

Variable Fighter Master File has a longer explanation on page 54 of the VF-19 book, and its brief remarks on postwar retuning of the VF-1's active stealth system in the Space Wing book does fit neatly with the active cancellation method, noting that it needed software updates to cope with Zentradi Army radar systems that use different sweep patterns and modulations.  If this were a jamming based technology (DRFM jamming, for instance) this upgrade wouldn't be necessary.

 

13 hours ago, sketchley said:

*It's not explicitly stated that radar systems have improved, but that they've moved on to different detection means (and those have improved).  E.g.: Fold Wave or thermal detection systems.

It does explicitly state that the radars have been enhanced.

What's pointed to is more along the line of radars being improved AND supplemented with various other sensor systems like optical and infrared cameras, LIDAR arrays, fold wave sensors, and so on... full sensor integration was, IIRC, a major bullet point for the YF-24 and its descendants.

(Master File also, naturally, supports the idea of radars continuing to improve.)

[SMS007]

Which character is the one on the left on the Macross the Ride Visual Works Vol. 2 cover? The leader of FASCES?

Edited April 18, 2018 by SMS007

[sketchley]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The explanation of how destructive interference produces the stealth effect is all me.

As noted previously, Macross the Ride's glossary provides a description of the active stealth system as analyzing incoming electromagnetic (radar) waves and transmitting its own back to create false results.  Great Mechanics DX #9 describes it as "deceiving" the radar waves rather than disrupting them.  There's only one ECM-based (per Macross Chronicle) active stealth technology which works that way... active cancellation.  

Right.  Gotcha.  Thanks!

Quote

Variable Fighter Master File has a longer explanation (...)

 

As nice as those books are in technical detail, we must always keep in mind that they are glorified fanfiction (unofficial for those that don't like that description).

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, SMS007 said:

Which character is the one on the left on the Macross the Ride Visual Works Vol. 2 cover? The leader of FASCES?

Yes, that is Ogol 7312... self-styled as Naresuan after adopting Earth's culture in the wake of the First Space War.  Fun fact, he took the name of one of Thailand's most revered monarchs, also known as Sanphet II.  He's the leader of Fasces, and a former NUNS Special Forces squadron commander (of SVF-473 Etoile Filane - french for "Shooting Star") who mentored both Hakuna Aoba (right book left dude in the orange jacket) and Angers 672 (the one standing next to him).

 

 

1 minute ago, sketchley said:

As nice as those books are in technical detail, we must always keep in mind that they are glorified fanfiction (unofficial for those that don't like that description).

Very true... which is why I restricted referencing them to corroboration of things said in more official publications.  

(IIRC, doesn't your site list them as "Expanded Universe"?  Incidentally, you have a LOT of AwardZone broken link notifications on the Glossary pages.)

[sketchley]

23 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(IIRC, doesn't your site list them as "Expanded Universe"?  Incidentally, you have a LOT of AwardZone broken link notifications on the Glossary pages.)

Argh!  I thought I got all of them...

Apparently "Apple Incident" is on their forbidden list.  So, anything with "Sharon Apple Incident" in it results in a broken link.  And we all know how important the Sharon Apple Incident is to Macross!

[sketchley]

Fixed those Glossary pages.

[SMS007]

47 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yes, that is Ogol 7312... self-styled as Naresuan after adopting Earth's culture in the wake of the First Space War.  Fun fact, he took the name of one of Thailand's most revered monarchs, also known as Sanphet II.  He's the leader of Fasces, and a former NUNS Special Forces squadron commander (of SVF-473 Etoile Filane - french for "Shooting Star") who mentored both Hakuna Aoba (right book left dude in the orange jacket) and Angers 672 (the one standing next to him).

Gotcha. What about the two fighters on the Vol. 2 cover? The custom VF-1 and the.....what the heck is the one on the right? Is that the "YF-25 Paladin Prophecy"?