The Newbie and Short Questions thread

[Bolt]

And if you don't know, now you knowww miclone! Thanks guys. I've certainly heard of Shinsei. Should've done some looking before i asked. Although I certainly wouldn't have come up with so much info! I was watching the English version of M+ and Millerd , as he's introducing project Super Nova to Isamu, mentions "Industry " as a new company..

[Master Dex]

5 hours ago, Bolt said:

And if you don't know, now you knowww miclone! Thanks guys. I've certainly heard of Shinsei. Should've done some looking before i asked. Although I certainly wouldn't have come up with so much info! I was watching the English version of M+ and Millerd , as he's introducing project Super Nova to Isamu, mentions "Industry " as a new company..

It's a dub flub, it's supposed to be Shinsei Industries, and is in the sub. In English the script must have been messed up cause he just says Industries.

[Bolt]

Absolutely. That's what i get for being lazy!

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by Bolt

[Seto Kaiba]

29 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

It's a dub flub, it's supposed to be Shinsei Industries, and is in the sub. In English the script must have been messed up cause he just says Industries.

At least a semi-understandable flub... the "shin" in Shinsei is the kanji for "New" (新).

"Shinsei" itself is the word for a nova, literally "new star" (新星).

[sketchley]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

"Shinsei" itself is the word for a nova, literally "new star" (新星).

Yes, and no.  The most common meaning is "nova" (as in a super nova's less destructive sibling).  The second most common meaning is "new face, new star" (as in the new starlet was on the talk show last night).

However, knowing that "Shinsei Industries" means "Nova Industries", it does put a new spin on "Project Nova" and "Project Super Nova", no?  Was General Galaxy ever not the underdog??

[sketchley]

10 hours ago, Bolt said:

I was watching the English version of M+ and Millerd , as he's introducing project Super Nova to Isamu, mentions "Industry " as a new company..

Going back to this - it's definitely odd that they did it that way.  It's almost like they didn't have access to the (Japanese) shooting script, and based the English dialogue on what they heard.

As for where the 'new company' comes from, all of the following are read as "shinsei":  新生 (rebirth, new birth), 新制 (new system), 新製 (new make).  There are other possibilities, too.  So, the error is understandable.  But, again, it boggles the mind that they either didn't have access to or just ignored the Japanese production materials (script, promotional artwork, line art, etc...)

[Bolt]

I like the voice acting for the English version, but, as with most, it falls short of a true translation. 

[Seto Kaiba]

11 hours ago, sketchley said:

Yes, and no.  The most common meaning is "nova" (as in a super nova's less destructive sibling).  The second most common meaning is "new face, new star" (as in the new starlet was on the talk show last night).

However, knowing that "Shinsei Industries" means "Nova Industries", it does put a new spin on "Project Nova" and "Project Super Nova", no?  Was General Galaxy ever not the underdog??

I'm not sure it's necessarily a new spin... it's more like a nod to the Advanced Valkyrie: the original, non-Macross, draft of the story from 1985.

In Advanced Valkyrie, the name of the organization testing the variable fighter prototypes was NOVA.

[darkranger12]

Someone elsewhere noted that General Galaxy had a hand in Latence and Fasces as well as the Epsilon foundation being a shell/front for them too. Any merit to this?

Edited September 28, 2021 by darkranger12

[Seto Kaiba]

7 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

Someone elsewhere noted that General Galaxy had a hand in Latence and Fasces as well as the Epsilon foundation being a shell/front for them too. Any merit to this?

So... not really?  I feel like they might have their chronology or relationships a bit muddled?

I don't believe General Galaxy has ever been (directly) connected to the authoritarian movement Latence that caused the Second Unification War.  Their main backer, as established in the Macross VF-X2 game itself, was another defense industry company called Critical Path.  Macross Frontier's novelizations do draw some minor connections between the Critical Path corporation and General Galaxy, but none that connect directly to Latence.  Critical Path were pioneers in the study of fold quartz and bankrolled Dr. Mao Nome's expedition to study the Vajra.  They also did some research into cybernetics and digitization of consciousness, and a digital copy of their CEO's mind recorded before his death fighting the VF-X Ravens became one of the "Cyber Nobles" who rule Macross Galaxy.

Fasces... almost certainly not.  I'd imagine General Galaxy probably wanted them gone, considering they were raiding the Macross Galaxy fleet to steal ships, fighters, and supplies to sustain their terrorist activities.  Their final shenanigan was to hijack one of the Macross Galaxy fleet's residential ships, a Riviera-class resort ship named Evouna, in order to capture a secret Macross Galaxy Corporate Army research facility hidden in its sublevels.

The Epsilon Foundation absolutely had ties to General Galaxy, but it's a major conglomerate megacorp in and of itself with subsidiaries in all kinds of fields from consumer electronics and tourist-y knickknacks all the way up to military hardware.  The military hardware they sell definitely has some connections to General Galaxy, though.  The ships they sold seem to be derivatives of the ones used by Macross Galaxy and the fighters are designed by a design team founded at General Galaxy and built by an Epsilon Foundation subsidiary.

[darkranger12]

Okay thanks. Is Latence still operational after the end of the Second Unification war?  Like is the galaxy still in a bit of chaos or what?

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

Okay thanks. Is Latence still operational after the end of the Second Unification war?  Like is the galaxy still in a bit of chaos or what?

Latence was defeated and disbanded after their failed coup d'état in 2051.  There are some splinter groups like Fasces that carry on their ideals, but things have largely settled down in the wake of the Second Unification War.

Which isn't to say it's entirely peaceful.  Kaname Buccaneer's home planet Divide is implied to basically be Space Northern Ireland living its own version of The Troubles in the form of an ongoing civil war between pro- and anti-autonomy supporters.

[darkranger12]

11 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Latence was defeated and disbanded after their failed coup d'état in 2051.  There are some splinter groups like Fasces that carry on their ideals, but things have largely settled down in the wake of the Second Unification War.

Which isn't to say it's entirely peaceful.  Kaname Buccaneer's home planet Divide is implied to basically be Space Northern Ireland living its own version of The Troubles in the form of an ongoing civil war between pro- and anti-autonomy supporters.

Ah. Okay.  I guess its all up in the air with the VAR syndromes though eh?

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

Ah. Okay.  I guess its all up in the air with the VAR syndromes though eh?

Well, we'll find out what other surprises the galaxy has in store when the new movie drops...

As far as Var syndrome goes, I'd expect outbreaks have either sharply declined or ceased altogether after the events of Macross Delta now that the Windermereans have more or less lost the means to weaponize it.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, we'll find out what other surprises the galaxy has in store when the new movie drops...

All it takes is the appearance of a Zentraedi Main Fleet (one of millions, as you've previously mentioned), and everything goes into instant panic mode. I wouldhave to suspect, given even money here, that someone in the Zentran command structure (whatever that is at the moment) might be wondering why Bodolza hasn't checked in for some time now...

[darkranger12]

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

All it takes is the appearance of a Zentraedi Main Fleet (one of millions, as you've previously mentioned), and everything goes into instant panic mode. I wouldhave to suspect, given even money here, that someone in the Zentran command structure (whatever that is at the moment) might be wondering why Bodolza hasn't checked in for some time now...

I wonder how a colony world like windmere or ragna would react to a Main fleet. 

[Bolt]

They would be wiped. 

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

All it takes is the appearance of a Zentraedi Main Fleet (one of millions, as you've previously mentioned), [...]

One of thousands... there are, according to Exsedol, somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 main fleets still active in the present day. 

Macross Chronicle suggests that there may have been 5,000 or more main fleets at the apex of the Protoculture's civilization.

Where "millions" comes into it is the number of ships each main fleet theoretically has, assuming its logistical backbone is mostly intact and they haven't been too badly depleted by combat losses.

 

5 hours ago, darkranger12 said:

I wonder how a colony world like windmere or ragna would react to a Main fleet. 

Well, we can say with some confidence that clean pants would temporarily be in short supply.

Being discovered by a Zentradi formation as small as a branch fleet (~1,000 ships) is Serious Business for an emigrant fleet or planet.  The local New UN Forces protecting an emigrant fleet or planet are, at least in theory, equal to the task of containing a branch fleet-sized threat and either destroying it outright or convincing it to defect using the Minmay Attack.  It's mentioned in passing in the Macross Delta gaiden manga White Knight of the Black Wing that there's an obligation for nearby fleets or planets to reinforce a neighbor under attack by the Zentradi or some other threat.  (The losses sustained by the Aerial Knights reinforcing one of Windermere IV's neighboring systems against a rogue Zentradi attack was one of the things King Grammier felt made their membership in the New UN Government an "unequal treaty", since it didn't directly benefit Windermere.)

It's doubtful the local New UN Forces of any fleet, planet, or region save perhaps for Earth could successfully repel a main fleet.  

Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah, though not official setting material, relays a story about the Macross Valiant emigrant fleet finding itself in close proximity to a main fleet and executing an emergency fold to escape.  From that story, it seems like the New UN Forces or New UN Government may have something similar to the Cole Protocol from Halo... given that the New UN Forces ordered that one of the fleet's environment ships that was unable to escape be destroyed with MDE weapons to prevent it from giving up any info on humanity.  (That story is mainly about the daring solo rescue mission by the carrier Barbarossa to evacuate the 1,200 civilians and one dog aboard that ship before destroying it, and the critical role the VF-25 played in that mission.)

[pengbuzz]

58 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

One of thousands... there are, according to Exsedol, somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 main fleets still active in the present day. 

Macross Chronicle suggests that there may have been 5,000 or more main fleets at the apex of the Protoculture's civilization.

Where "millions" comes into it is the number of ships each main fleet theoretically has, assuming its logistical backbone is mostly intact and they haven't been too badly depleted by combat losses.

Ah, gotcha. My mistake. Still a nightmare to consider, given that one fleet alone practically glassed Earth.

[RedWolf]

On 9/29/2021 at 7:35 AM, darkranger12 said:

Someone elsewhere noted that General Galaxy had a hand in Latence and Fasces as well as the Epsilon foundation being a shell/front for them too. Any merit to this?

General Galaxy is pretty much the Anaheim Electronics of Macross. AE in UC timeline  of Gundam sells to both sides of the conflict.

Take the convoluted origin of the Zentradi Variable Glaug and Neo Glaug. It is said the Neo Glaug was developed from the  Variable Glaug  but it is also rumored the Neo Glaug was leaked to the Zentradi that made the Variable Glaug. General Galaxy manufactured the Neo Glaug.

Meanwhile the Quaedluun-Alma used by Fasces is another General Galaxy product was designed by the guys who made the Zentradi Feios  Valkyrie. Engineers who defected to Rogue Zentradi.

Manfred Brando CEO  of Critical Path Corporation and and Loschier of Loschier  Company  are black marketers that happen to sell General Galaxy gear. Manfred has links with Macross  Galaxy as he was an AI after his death.

Guld Works a General Galaxy subsidiary in Macross Galaxy had the YF-27 Shaher tested in combat unmarked with a cyborg teen girl during Macross the Ride.

Sv Works a subsidiary of General Galaxy at first had the stated goal to create Slayer Valkyries. VFs designed to kill VFs. As it's founder was the designer of the Sv-51. They made the Sv-154 and Sv-262 which Windermere uses. . General Galaxy  sold Sv Works to Dian Cecht  which is owned by Epsilon Foundation. 

[Seto Kaiba]

17 minutes ago, RedWolf said:

Take the convoluted origin of the Zentradi Variable Glaug and Neo Glaug. It is said the Neo Glaug was developed from the  Variable Glaug  but it is also rumored the Neo Glaug was leaked to the Zentradi that made the Variable Glaug. General Galaxy manufactured the Neo Glaug.

Eh... that claim was printed as speculation in the Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet for the Neo Glaug.

It's also kinda... demonstrably false.  Someone working on that sheet screwed up, bigtime.

The Neo Glaug was a prototype unmanned fighter developed at the same time as, and as a competitor to, the Ghost X-9 in Macross Plus: Game Edition.  Late 2030s development, with the prototype being demonstrated in 2040.

The UN Forces version of the Variable Glaug was a production aircraft in 2022, 18 years before the Neo Glaug's prototype debuted.

In production terms, yeah... Kawamori designed the Neo Glaug for Macross Plus: Game Edition first and worked backwards to create the Variable Glaug for Macross M3.  But in the actual Macross setting it's the other way around.  The Variable Glaug predates the Neo Glaug by a whopping 22 years.

 

17 minutes ago, RedWolf said:

Manfred Brando CEO  of Critical Path Corporation and and Loschier of Loschier  Company  are black marketers that happen to sell General Galaxy gear. Manfred has links with Macross  Galaxy as he was an AI after his death.

Let's not lump those two together.

Critical Path was a legitimate tech firm with defense industry connections whose CEO was a major backer of Latence and had connections to General Galaxy.  They're known to have sold weapons they developed to Latence-affiliated forces, but I don't believe they've ever been presented as an intermediary selling General Galaxy-developd weapons.

Roschier Company are (self-identified) smugglers who have black market arms sales a part of their portfolio and were seen with stolen(?) or unlawfully sold equipment from a number of different firms including General Galaxy and Shinnakasu Heavy Industry.

 

17 minutes ago, RedWolf said:

Guld Works a General Galaxy subsidiary in Macross Galaxy had the YF-27 Shaher tested in combat unmarked with a cyborg teen girl during Macross the Ride.

Macross Galaxy itself is a subsidiary of General Galaxy.

"Guld Works" is the nickname for the Macross Galaxy Variable Fighter Development Arsenal, an aerospace research facility devoted to advanced development work located in, and part of, Macross Galaxy.

Macross Galaxy is arguably a "rogue" corporate state, though there hasn't been anything to directly implicate its parent company General Galaxy in its shenanigans since the Cyber Noble ruling class there keep everyone locked in augmented reality mind control and seem to be acting purely on their own desires.

 

17 minutes ago, RedWolf said:

Sv Works a subsidiary of General Galaxy at first had the stated goal to create Slayer Valkyries. VFs designed to kill VFs. As it's founder was the designer of the Sv-51. They made the Sv-154 and Sv-262 which Windermere uses. . General Galaxy  sold Sv Works to Dian Cecht  which is owned by Epsilon Foundation. 

"SV Works" is the nickname for a General Galaxy advanced development group and facility that specializes in the development of Valkyries designed to fight Valkyries.

Its founder, General Galaxy cofounder Alexei Kurakin, was a lead developer on the SV-51... before he defected to the UN Government and became a lead developer on the VF-4 for Stonewell and Bellcom, and going on to cofound General Galaxy.  He was a pragmatist, or maybe a cynic, who firmly believed that the day would come when Valkyries would have to fight other Valkyries and established the SV Works to develop "Slayers of Valkyries" in anticipation of that inevitability.  He was dead for a good while before General Galaxy got all Anaheim Electronics and the Epsilon Foundation started buying the rights to SV Works designs for sale to emigrant governments.  It's kind of unfair to put him in the same lot with the Macross Galaxy fleet's Cyber Nobles when he was, by all accounts, a decent human being.

[George Yamamori]

I've never seen the VF-19 (A-D) equipped with the NP-BAP-15c booster units in GERWALK and battroid modes. Are they mounted on the shoulders or back?

Do the super/FAST packs of the VF-11, VF-17, VF-25, VF-27, VF-31, Sv-262 have designations? What about the armored packs of the VF-25 and VF-31?

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, George Yamamori said:

I've never seen the VF-19 (A-D) equipped with the NP-BAP-15c booster units in GERWALK and battroid modes.

Odds are you never will... that particular configuration was something that Variable Fighter Master File's writers came up with, and doesn't appear in Macross's official setting.

 

2 hours ago, George Yamamori said:

Are they mounted on the shoulders or back?

It's difficult to tell, because the art really isn't easy to make out... but it looks like the attachment point is on the shoulders.  This'd probably prevent the VF-19 from transforming since the packs would end up facing each other.

 

2 hours ago, George Yamamori said:

Do the super/FAST packs of the VF-11, VF-17, VF-25, VF-27, VF-31, Sv-262 have designations? What about the armored packs of the VF-25 and VF-31?

Presumably they do... but individual pack model numbers are not usually given in favor of referring to the packs collectively by configuration.

I believe the only other model besides the VF-1 Valkyrie to have individual FAST Pack model numbers cited in official Macross setting materials is the VF-11.

Variable Fighter Master File offers unofficial designations for certain packs on other models of VF.

[George Yamamori]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Variable Fighter Master File offers unofficial designations for certain packs on other models of VF.

Can you post the designations?

Edited October 5, 2021 by George Yamamori

[Kakizaki2021]

This is embarrassing but I have to ask...

In what areas of the SDF are Macross City. Please forgive me as I don't have any of the line art books, but tried finding the info in the specification histories of the mecha postings on many of the Macross resource sites but it doesn't say. I will try to get my hands on books soon. I found member VF-1S (Pat) from Calgary's magnificent 1/2000 and 1/3000 Yamato model today.

It seems that the city encompasses the left leg, but I doubt that is actual fact. And if not, how did the citizens move about from one massive area to the other (leg)? There were no connecting tunnels shown in either the movie or show.

 

I can see that the end of "Main Street" has a tunnel, probably off limits to civilians, and military personnel can move about the rest of the ship. Lastly, I am curious about the what seems to be a ramp in the center of the second picture. I don't know what this is. It looks as if it is the area where Hikaru and Misa return to the ship and are watching the city from a vantage and he hears Minmay singing. If this is the case, the scale looks tremendous in the art. Please help. Thanks. Yes I will get my hands on books!

 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, George Yamamori said:

Can you post the designations?

I'll have to get back to you on some of them, since some of my books are up in my study.  

The VF-1 Valkyrie's Super Pack parts are numbered NP-BP-01 (boosters), NP-AR-01 (arms), and NP-FB-01 (legs).  Master File asserts several variants of each, with the TV series version of the Super Pack being NP-BP-01A, NP-AR-01B, and NP-FB-01B and the movie version being NP-BP-01B, NP-FB-01B, and NP-AR-01C.

The VF-11 Thunderbolt's booster packs are listed as NP-SP-09, and the conformal leg tanks as NP-SF-09.

Master File lists the YF-19 and VF-19A-D's conformal packs as NP-AB-20b (legs) and NP-FB-FA07 for the upper arms, and the VF-19F/S type's as NP-BAP-21 (boosters) and NP-AR-24 (legs).

Master File lists the VF-25's booster as NP-FAD-23 and declines to name any of the other components.

The only component of the VF-25's Armored Pack to be given any kind of identification is a component omitted from the VF-25 configurations we've seen.  An armor piece for the nose with the part identifier P-011.

[Seto Kaiba]

19 minutes ago, Kakizaki2021 said:

In what areas of the SDF are Macross City.

Materials made for the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series indicated that the "general residential areas" where the city was reconstructed aboard the Macross were in both of the ship's "legs" and the lower levels of its "torso".  Basically everywhere south of the actual main gun system.

(Of course, those materials also show the sections of city in the "torso" stacked at least four layers deep in some places and it's not entirely clear how one would get around in there in something like a car since the roads are only shown at the lowest level in much of the art.  Presumably there are ramps or elevators offscreen.

[Kakizaki2021]

45 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Materials made for the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series indicated that the "general residential areas" where the city was reconstructed aboard the Macross were in both of the ship's "legs" and the lower levels of its "torso".  Basically everywhere south of the actual main gun system.

(Of course, those materials also show the sections of city in the "torso" stacked at least four layers deep in some places and it's not entirely clear how one would get around in there in something like a car since the roads are only shown at the lowest level in much of the art.  Presumably there are ramps or elevators offscreen.

Thanks...

I assumed that the city build was dispersed throughout the ship, particularly yes the legs and likely some of the torso area. The city is displayed in the models and artwork to reflect what can be observed through the transformation to attack mode. But was curious since the legs are not joined even in cruiser mode. 

Thank you again for clarification.

 

Looking at the model pic...the area I was unsure about (purple arrows) in line art, seem to be the wall and a door superstructure of the craft. Thus "End of Main Street."

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Kakizaki2021 said:

Looking at the model pic...the area I was unsure about (purple arrows) in line art, seem to be the wall and a door superstructure of the craft. Thus "End of Main Street."

Yeah, that bit they have marked "end of Main Street" is butting up against the actual thermonuclear reaction engine housings at the back of the leg.

http://www.macross2.net/m3/macrossdyrl/macross-dyrl/macross-dyrl-citycrosssection.jpg

[Kakizaki2021]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, that bit they have marked "end of Main Street" is butting up against the actual thermonuclear reaction engine housings at the back of the leg.

http://www.macross2.net/m3/macrossdyrl/macross-dyrl/macross-dyrl-citycrosssection.jpg

Gotcha.

Pretty awesome. Thanks for the link to the art. I completely overlooked it when browsing for something like this on macross2.net this morning. Apologies and thanks for the assistance and education.

[George Yamamori]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'll have to get back to you on some of them, since some of my books are up in my study.  

The VF-11 Thunderbolt's booster packs are listed as NP-SP-09, and the conformal leg tanks as NP-SF-09.

Looking forward to the rest.

Are the VF-11's NP-SP-09 and NP-SF-09 the ones from Plus or 7?

[Seto Kaiba]

6 minutes ago, George Yamamori said:

Looking forward to the rest.

Are the VF-11's NP-SP-09 and NP-SF-09 the ones from Plus or 7?

Macross Plus... so, the VF-11B type.

[George Yamamori]

Why is the VF-31 considered to have lower performance than the VF-25?

 

On 10/6/2021 at 2:34 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

I'll have to get back to you on some of them, since some of my books are up in my study.

Sorry to bug you about this. Are there more designations?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, George Yamamori said:

Why is the VF-31 considered to have lower performance than the VF-25?

Overall, the VF-31's performance is broadly on par with the VF-25's.

Mind you, there may be some disparity there because the stats we have are for the trial production VF-25 and VF-31 nearly a decade apart... the VF-25 has likely received upgrades in that time.

There's only a 1.5% difference in engine power between the VF-25A and VF-31A, but the VF-31A's weight is given without an ordnance container which adds quite a bit to its overall weight even without a gunpod, so the VF-31 is going to accelerate somewhat slower.

 

 

1 hour ago, George Yamamori said:

Sorry to bug you about this. Are there more designations?

Ah, no... I thought there were some given in the VF-31 book but I was wrong.

[George Yamamori]

Which are the VF-31A's Bifors CIMM-3B micro-missiles? The 6 internal launchers near the knees or the hatch on the back of the legs?