The Newbie and Short Questions thread

[Bolt]

I thought it was the boomerang looking drones that , in addition to other things like shielding, allowed for holographics .

[RaisingCane]

36 minutes ago, Bolt said:

What was set in motion  ,primarily, was planetary defense. They were pretty sure someone was gonna come looking for their gunboat toy. I'm sure there was already talk of some kind of space exploration. Probably even outside the system, as fold capability was an option.

Imagine if the Zentradi hadn't shown up for a few centuries though.  And if humanity had all that time to improve and refine their new technology on a planet that hadn't been devastated by an alien attack.

Wasn't construction of the Megaroad already underway before the Zentradi showed up?

[Bolt]

7 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Imagine if the Zentradi hadn't shown up for a few centuries though.  And if humanity had all that time to improve and refine their new technology on a planet that hadn't been devastated by an alien attack.

So they would have tightened up Earth defense (and a good portion of the system) enough to withstand much more of an attack than SW1. And probably gone out into the galaxy. Once humans attained the technology to go beyond the solar system (like way beyond) , there's little doubt they would have just hung around. And they probably would've run into the Zentradi anyway. Just on different terms.

 

12 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Wasn't construction of the Megaroad already underway before the Zentradi showed up?

Of that, i have no idea what you're talking about. 

[Master Dex]

56 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

I have a question about the walkure....did they use some sort of special simpilfied ex gear for their concerts......no one knows how they can produce holographic clothes like sheryl's suit did right?

 

They do wear holographic suits but they are more advanced than Sheryl's (seen only properly in Frontier episode 1 and kinda just ignored later as if it has an internal projector).

Walkure's suits though are more.... Flattering.... Cause they aren't really suits but actually a form of gel application onto their body that covers their skin and the only real clothing they wear are their underwear and gas jet clusters used for their flying maneuvers. You see them applying these "suits" in a late episode of the show and in a few short movie scenes in which they literally rub them on. When not active and projecting they leave very little to the imagination. 

29 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Wasn't construction of the Megaroad already underway before the Zentradi showed up?

They were working on early construction of the SDF-2, a duplicate of the Macross by the time of Kamjin's final attack on Macross City in the last episode. I don't know if it was planned before Space War 1 but it might have been. It was just before that attack they'd decided to retrofit it into the Megaroad 1, which of course was completed later. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Master Dex

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

What was the original UN plan for the Macross before the Zentradi arrived?  What if they never showed up at all?

Depends which version of the story you're looking at.

The Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series presents the SDF-1 Macross as having been a ship (re)built as the flagship of Earth's UN Spacy defense fleet.

The Macross: Do You Remember Love? movie presents the SDF-1 Macross as having been intended for deep space exploration and space emigration, with a purpose-built city in its interior instead of an improvised one.

Had the Zentradi not shown up, Earth would likely have continued to build up its defense forces for some time before beginning to expand into the greater galaxy.

 

 

1 hour ago, darkranger12 said:

I have a question about the walkure....did they use some sort of special simpilfied ex gear for their concerts......no one knows how they can produce holographic clothes like sheryl's suit did right?

Nothing so fancy.

The Macross Delta Blu-ray extra features explain Walkure's equipment in some detail.  It's mostly the same technology we see in Macross Frontier for Sheryl and Ranka's concerts, but a more fanservice-friendly version that looks like underwear rather than a wetsuit.

Walkure's field gear is a multi-layered undersuit with several additional accessories.  The base layer is essentially body armor... a body gel that offers some defense against laser weapons and a bullet- and shrapnel-resistant body stocking made of "bio-silk".  The actual holographic projector units are a part of the underwear they wear over that, which also has mounting points for a belt of nitrogen gas jets that they can use to hover or fly for short periods.  There is a microcomputer built into several of their press-on nails to control the costume, monitor local bio-fold wave levels, and control the Multi-Drone Plates that provide larger-scale holographic projection for their concerts and also generate pinpoint barriers to protect them from enemy fire.  All of that equipment is hidden by the holographic projections that restore their normal skintone and conceal the gas jet clusters.

During Walkure's original field trials, they wore actual body armor to sing on the battlefield but apparently that was killing the vibe and they decided to sacrifice defense for more freedom and aesthetics.  (This would appear to have been less than a great decision in some cases, since the actual protection offered by their field gear is rather negligible as Makina found out when she got shot.)

 

 

52 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Wasn't construction of the Megaroad already underway before the Zentradi showed up?

She was, but she was being built as a second Macross-class ship with a slightly different design from the SDF-1 Macross at the time.

[RaisingCane]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Depends which version of the story you're looking at.

The Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series presents the SDF-1 Macross as having been a ship (re)built as the flagship of Earth's UN Spacy defense fleet.

The Macross: Do You Remember Love? movie presents the SDF-1 Macross as having been intended for deep space exploration and space emigration, with a purpose-built city in its interior instead of an improvised one.

If the latter is a dramatized retelling of the former, couldn't it be a bit of both?  Or maybe the UN never publicized that they knew the Zentradi were coming.  At first to avoid panic, and then later to avoid blame.

[sketchley]

4 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

If the latter is a dramatized retelling of the former, couldn't it be a bit of both?  Or maybe the UN never publicized that they knew the Zentradi were coming.  At first to avoid panic, and then later to avoid blame.

As Kawamori-san has said on numerous occasions: each and every Macross production we have seen is an in-universe dramatization of real events.  While they are each "true" to themselves, the real story is something else.*

So, the best way to 'read' the depiction of the SDF-1 in SDFM vs DYRL is as a reflection of the in-universe priorities at the time of their production.  SDFM apparently being produced shortly after the end of the First Interstellar War (2012-ish), and DYRL being produced roughly 20 years later (in the mid-2030's).

 

* Like how Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbour are dramatizations of real events.

[Seto Kaiba]

16 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

If the latter is a dramatized retelling of the former, couldn't it be a bit of both?  Or maybe the UN never publicized that they knew the Zentradi were coming.  At first to avoid panic, and then later to avoid blame.

It's worth noting that no version of the story thus far has presented the Earth UN Government as having had any foreknowledge that an encounter with the Zentradi was imminent prior to detecting the Vrlitwhai branch fleet's defold reaction during the launch day festivities.

They expected contact would happen eventually, but it seems that none of them expected it to be so soon and they did not expect it would immediately result in hostilities (thanks to the booby trap).  As General Global notes, the crew of the Macross had orders that on no uncertain terms they were NOT to fire the first shot.

Since DYRL? is, in-universe, a 2031 docu-drama intended to draw a line under the scale of the Zentradi threat and the fact that it was ongoing, the change to depicting the Macross as an emigrant ship may have been driven by the era's emphasis on emigrant fleets and/or the fact that the Macross-class ship they used was designed for emigrant fleet use.  (Unless you count Master File's take, where there was a prior film called The Booby Trap that depicted the events before the start of DYRL?.)

[RaisingCane]

10 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 (Unless you count Master File's take, where there was a prior film called The Booby Trap that depicted the events before the start of DYRL?.)

That sounds like the animated intro to the DYRL game for Saturn/PlayStation.

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by RaisingCane

[TG Remix]

9 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

That sounds like the animated intro to the DYRL game for Saturn/PlayStation.

 

Right, this game does have unique animated cutscenes. In the first level it even shows the SDF-1 and the Skull  Squadron leaving earth right before the Zentradi glassed it from high heavens. I dunno how much it lines up with the movie (and, at least to me, it's implied Minmay has a sense of what happened on the planet), but I know the whole thing of "Zentradi having a jamming device to block out music specifically" doesn't at all, lol.

[TG Remix]

Sorry for doubleposting, but I got curious of the existence of the VF-19/MG21. It's the Macross Galaxy licensed VF-19 yes, though that also means it was made by General Galaxy. Unless I'm overthinking this, but would they have the legal rights to make something their rival Shinsei Industry has made? Would this mean theoretically General Galaxy could make, I dunno, something like a Zentradi-type VF-11 then? Then again this is the Macross Galaxy, illegal operations is just how they roll.

Edited October 18, 2022 by TG Remix

[azrael]

54 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

Sorry for doubleposting, but I got curious of the existence of the VF-19/MG21. It's the Macross Galaxy licensed VF-19 yes, though that also means it was made by General Galaxy. Unless I'm overthinking this, but would they have the legal rights to make something their rival Shinsei Industry has made? Would this mean theoretically General Galaxy could make, I dunno, something like a Zentradi-type VF-11 then? Then again this is the Macross Galaxy, illegal operations is just how they roll.

They licensed the rights to produce it...or to take a C-version and modify it to their specifications. Yes, they have the legal right to do that because they licensed it. Companies do this all the time. For example, the RAM in my computer is made by Micron but is branded and sold by Corsair. I could have bought directly from Crucial but Corsair offered the same thing at a lower price at the time. Want another example? Look at your car. Or that van parked down the block. There's another version of it produced by a rival company somewhere else. I remember a Toyota car plant use to manufacture not only Toyota cars, but also GM cars out of the same plant because GM licensed the plant to produce a few lines of a model. There is nothing stopping Shinsei from licensing a VF-22 production at one of their manufacturing plants. Like I said, companies do this ALL THE TIME. Even in the real world. 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, TG Remix said:

Sorry for doubleposting, but I got curious of the existence of the VF-19/MG21. It's the Macross Galaxy licensed VF-19 yes, though that also means it was made by General Galaxy. Unless I'm overthinking this, but would they have the legal rights to make something their rival Shinsei Industry has made? Would this mean theoretically General Galaxy could make, I dunno, something like a Zentradi-type VF-11 then? Then again this is the Macross Galaxy, illegal operations is just how they roll.

General Galaxy sponsored the construction and mission of the Macross Galaxy emigrant fleet, but its day-to-day operations of their roving deep space company town are managed by the subsidiary corporation that General Galaxy established as the fleet's government and the chief employer of the fleet's population.  Despite being a corporation, the fleet's still considered a New UN Government member state and the Macross Galaxy Corporate Army operates under the auspices of the New UN Forces.

The VF-19C/MG21 is a product of licensed manufacturing.  It's one of the two main ways that governments that don't develop their own military aircraft outfit their forces with new models as time goes on.  They either purchase completed aircraft from one of their allies directly, or they purchase a license to have a manufacturer in their country build that new model of fighter.  Until recently, licensed manufacturing was Japan's favored method for acquiring new fighters.  The Japanese government purchased licenses from the US so its domestic manufacturer(s) (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) could produce a limited quantity of a particular variant of an American-designed fighter aircraft.  The F-15J and the F-16-derived Mitsubishi F-2 are examples of this practice.  The distances between the farthest-flung emigrant governments and Earth being what they are, building under license does appear to be the Macross setting's favored approach for new model VFs most of the time.  Macross Galaxy reached out to Earth and bought a license to build their own VF-19C's domestically.

That said, the VF-19C/MG21 is also a bit different in that the Macross Galaxy corporate government didn't buy that license because they actually needed the VF-19.  They more or less did it to troll their parent company's rival Shinsei Industry by building a "better" VF-19 and showing it off at airshows as a taunt... a "we can build your aircraft better than you can" sort of thing.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Seto Kaiba

[RaisingCane]

Wouldn't the VF-1J be the earliest in-universe example of that?

[Seto Kaiba]

13 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Wouldn't the VF-1J be the earliest in-universe example of that?

That is a simple question with a complicated answer.

It's "Yes" with a "but..." and "No" with a "it's technically different".

You see, when the Earth UN Government and Earth UN Forces decided to adopt the VF-1 Valkyrie as their first main Variable Fighter in 2007 there were exactly zero manufacturers with the production capacity to meet that demand on their own.  The Earth UN Government removed the production bottleneck by engaging multiple manufacturers to build VF-1's under license including the US's Northrom (Northrop) and Japan's Shinnakasu.  Master File mentions a few others like Britain's Devilland (De Havilland).  They were all meant to be used by the Earth UN Forces, it was more like decentralized production for a single armed force than production for a single member state.  Northrom did a couple of special duty variants like the VF-1S, VT-1, etc., and Japan tried an improved mass production type that didn't catch on.  

So, yeah it was built under license but at the same time it was different because all the different licensees were building for the same government and the same military.

[TG Remix]

19 hours ago, azrael said:

There is nothing stopping Shinsei from licensing a VF-22 production at one of their manufacturing plants. Like I said, companies do this ALL THE TIME. Even in the real world. 

18 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The VF-19C/MG21 is a product of licensed manufacturing.  It's one of the two main ways that governments that don't develop their own military aircraft outfit their forces with new models as time goes on.....(cont.)

Okay so I was just overthinking it the whole time. 😅It does make sense considering how huge the UN's sphere and control, much less the galaxy, is. Some parts of the galaxy wouldn't have Shinsei Industries to make stuff for them "in-house" so to speak. I think even on the Macross Mecha Manual page it's explained one of the reasons why the UN ships in Frontier look different then how they did in Plus/7 is because of different manufacturers, if not due to their date of construction. On a extended note it would definitely mean there's many, many, MANY more sub-variants of Valkyries, ships, etc. then we see onscreen.

[Seto Kaiba]

33 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

Okay so I was just overthinking it the whole time. 😅It does make sense considering how huge the UN's sphere and control, much less the galaxy, is. Some parts of the galaxy wouldn't have Shinsei Industries to make stuff for them "in-house" so to speak.

Even the ones that do don't always have the resources to do it alone.  Like in the Macross Frontier fleet, the local Shinsei office collaborated with LAI and the Macross Frontier Fleet Arsenal to develop the VF-25.  Or in the Brisingr cluster, Shinsei's local branch there collaborated with three other companies in a joint venture that created the VF-31.

Of course, developing your own new models of starship or VF costs A LOT of money and a lot of resources for manufacturing and infrastructure.  Some governments just don't have that kind of cash, so it's easier to buy from someone else who does.

 

33 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

I think even on the Macross Mecha Manual page it's explained one of the reasons why the UN ships in Frontier look different then how they did in Plus/7 is because of different manufacturers, if not due to their date of construction. On a extended note it would definitely mean there's many, many, MANY more sub-variants of Valkyries, ships, etc. then we see onscreen.

When you get down to it, the bare fact of the matter is that there really are no two ships that are exactly identical no matter how exacting the manufacturer tries to follow the spec... and because technology is advancing all the time, newer ships end up having many differences from the older ones.  The same is true for Valkyries, where the specification is revised frequently even during production in the form of production blocks that represent distinct "steps" in integration of upgrades, improvements, and refinements to the design that might or might not be able to be integrated into older models as well.  The VF-1, for instance, supposedly had SEVENTEEN distinct production blocks and we've only actually seen a couple of the most visually-distinct ones onscreen (Blocks 1-5 as the "TV" type and 6+ as the "Movie" type seen in almost every subsequent work).

So in essence, it's very true that there are a great many more sub-variants of Valkyries and so on than we see... or can visually distinguish, anyway, since many of those minor block improvements are not always something externally visible or easy to identify.  

The differences between the Macross Plus, Macross 7, and Macross Frontier versions of ships are more blatant improvements resulting from modernization of the design and various other perceived tactical or strategic needs... you'd probably call those subclasses of those classes.  There are probably similar micro-level differences between them based on which shipbuilding firm built them for which fleet using what technological limitations or proprietary technologies, etc.  

[NightmarePlus]

Were the MRV missiles from the new Delta movie supposed to be serve a similar role to the old AIM-54 Phoenix? They were used once (with poor results) and then never again.

Edited October 20, 2022 by NightmarePlus

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, NightmarePlus said:

Were the MRV missiles from the new Delta movie supposed to be serve a similar role to the old AIM-54 Phoenix? They were used once (with poor results) and then never again.

With the near-total lack of information for Absolute Live!!!!!! at the present time, we can't quite say.

As disappointing as the liner notes were, hopefully the Master File will pick up some of the slack.

[darkranger12]

So in Macross Frontier, we got to see the ....bridge? or CIC of Battle Frontier....it seemed different that the bridge of Battle seven.

[Seto Kaiba]

9 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

So in Macross Frontier, we got to see the ....bridge? or CIC of Battle Frontier....it seemed different that the bridge of Battle seven.

It's the CIC.  Macross Chronicle makes a big deal out of explaining the different acronyms used for it like CIC (Combat Information Center), CDC (Combat Direction Center), and C4 (Command, Control, Communications, and Computers) on its Mechanic Sheet.

In the Macross Frontier TV anime and movies, the Battle Frontier's captain and commander of the fleet are the same officer (Brigadier General Pelliot) who seems to prefer to lead from the CIC rather than the bridge of his ship.  In the novelizations, those two roles are divided between two separate minor characters.  The equivalent to Pelliot is a general by the name of Kevin Backflight who serves as overall commander of the Frontier New UN Forces and Battle Frontier's captain is one of his subordinates named Jean-Luc Tarkovsky.

[RaisingCane]

What is this ship supposed to be?  In an earlier part of the episode, it looks like it (or another ship of its class) is towing an asteroid.

[Seto Kaiba]

34 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

What is this ship supposed to be? 

If I had to guess, probably a cargo ship given that it looks like a space big rig?.

 

34 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

In an earlier part of the episode, it looks like it (or another ship of its class) is towing an asteroid.

Could we perhaps be a little less vague?

[pengbuzz]

39 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

If I had to guess, probably a cargo ship given that it looks like a space big rig?.

Is Isamu driving it? lol

[darkranger12]

10 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

What is this ship supposed to be?  In an earlier part of the episode, it looks like it (or another ship of its class) is towing an asteroid.

This design sorta makes a bit more sense for space travel than the cargo ship that we saw in the first episode of delta.   Unless they're using magnetic clamps I dunno how all those containers would stay in place during a space fold.

[Seto Kaiba]

11 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

This design sorta makes a bit more sense for space travel than the cargo ship that we saw in the first episode of delta.   Unless they're using magnetic clamps I dunno how all those containers would stay in place during a space fold.

Traveling by space fold doesn't entail any acceleration - or even movement - on the part of the folding ship.

Fold navigation is essentially a form of teleportation.  The fold system manipulates higher dimensional space using gravity control so that the volume of space containing the ship switches places with an equivalent volume of space at the destination.  Ships typically don't fold into or out of a planet's atmosphere because the gravity well of a planet can mess up the folding process and you're either teleporting a chunk of atmosphere into deep space or creating a massive region of vacuum that'll collapse inside the atmosphere with very destructive effect.)

[pengbuzz]

Just now, Seto Kaiba said:

Traveling by space fold doesn't entail any acceleration - or even movement - on the part of the folding ship.

Fold navigation is essentially a form of teleportation.  The fold system manipulates higher dimensional space using gravity control so that the volume of space containing the ship switches places with an equivalent volume of space at the destination.  Ships typically don't fold into or out of a planet's atmosphere because the gravity well of a planet can mess up the folding process and you're either teleporting a chunk of atmosphere into deep space or creating a massive region of vacuum that'll collapse inside the atmosphere with very destructive effect.)

That could make for a very interesting weapon...

Fold a large chunk of atmosphere (and/ or a target such as a military installation) right off the planet into deep space, like a fold bomb or something.

*Disclaimer: don't know if that's ever been developed in Macross; I know it did a number on South Ataria Island.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

That could make for a very interesting weapon...

Fold a large chunk of atmosphere (and/ or a target such as a military installation) right off the planet into deep space, like a fold bomb or something.

*Disclaimer: don't know if that's ever been developed in Macross; I know it did a number on South Ataria Island.

Granted, fold bombs are a thing... but they work a bit differently from that.  They're called Dimension Eaters, and debuted in Macross Frontier.  They work by using the super-heavy quantum created by fold quartz to generate a super-intense fold effect that behaves like a short-lived miniature black hole, destroying everything in the blast radius with an ultra-intense gravitational field and pulling it all into fold space.

Master File alleges that the idea for the Dimension Eater originated from a General Galaxy transport ship that was attacked in the 2040s and, for lack of suitable weapons, created a space-time distortion bomb by weaponizing a Valkyrie's fold booster.

[RaisingCane]

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Could we perhaps be a little less vague?

I'm not sure.  It's in episode 9 of Frontier, but I don't know how else to describe what it was doing.  It was either towing the asteroid in some way or it was just flying directly above, matching the asteroid's course and speed for some reason.

[pengbuzz]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Granted, fold bombs are a thing... but they work a bit differently from that.  They're called Dimension Eaters, and debuted in Macross Frontier.  They work by using the super-heavy quantum created by fold quartz to generate a super-intense fold effect that behaves like a short-lived miniature black hole, destroying everything in the blast radius with an ultra-intense gravitational field and pulling it all into fold space.

Master File alleges that the idea for the Dimension Eater originated from a General Galaxy transport ship that was attacked in the 2040s and, for lack of suitable weapons, created a space-time distortion bomb by weaponizing a Valkyrie's fold booster.

Ah...I didn't know exactly how dimension eaters worked (now I feel really stupid!!) Sorry to come off like an utter dunce!

[DewPoint]

Could you fly a Ghost near your target of interest and then fold it into the near by star to make some nasty things happen?  Does such a thing already exist in the Macross universe?

 

And that ship doesn't seem to have anything to do with that asteroid.  It didn't seem to identify what type of ship it was when it call for help. 3 minutes into episode 9.

[RaisingCane]

8 hours ago, DewPoint said:

And that ship doesn't seem to have anything to do with that asteroid.  It didn't seem to identify what type of ship it was when it call for help. 3 minutes into episode 9.

Matching course and speed at such a close proximity?  Also, why would it be so far away from the rest of the fleet?  There are no other ships in sight, aside from the SMS team.

Couldn't it be a mining ship detached from the fleet's Three Star Factory Ship?  It must get its raw materials from somewhere.

[Seto Kaiba]

38 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Matching course and speed at such a close proximity?  Also, why would it be so far away from the rest of the fleet?  There are no other ships in sight, aside from the SMS team.

Macross Chronicle refers to it as a warship of the New UN Forces... though that seems rather odd as it has no evident defenses of any kind.

The Episode Sheet for that episode is the ONLY source I've found so far that refers to that ship at all.

 

38 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Couldn't it be a mining ship detached from the fleet's Three Star Factory Ship?  It must get its raw materials from somewhere.

The Macross Frontier fleet doesn't appear to have a Three Star Heavy Industries factory ship.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross Chronicle refers to it as a warship of the New UN Forces... though that seems rather odd as it has no evident defenses of any kind.

The Episode Sheet for that episode is the ONLY source I've found so far that refers to that ship at all.

 

The Macross Frontier fleet doesn't appear to have a Three Star Heavy Industries factory ship.

Guess they must have to use Amazon™ a lot...

[RaisingCane]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross Chronicle refers to it as a warship of the New UN Forces... though that seems rather odd as it has no evident defenses of any kind.

The Episode Sheet for that episode is the ONLY source I've found so far that refers to that ship at all.

Interesting.  I wonder what niche it fills that isn't already occupied by the other known classes.

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The Macross Frontier fleet doesn't appear to have a Three Star Heavy Industries factory ship.

Also interesting.  I wonder what they do have.