The Newbie and Short Questions thread

[Seto Kaiba]

38 minutes ago, TehPW said:

So NOBODY even wants to try to change the Zentradi MO (aka Mission Statement: We get out of the anti-Supervision business and get into the Destroy really, really dangerous Protoculture stuff (to protect the galaxy)? Give them a new mission? There is no chance of diplomacy with the Badolzas that all run their fleets?

The main issue there seems to be the inherent risks in actually making contact with a Zentradi main fleet.

Due to the circumstances in which the ancient Protoculture lost control of them, Zentradi adherance to the directives the Protoculture issued them before the Supervision Army's emergence like "Do not interefere with the planets inhabited by miclones" is spotty at best.  Boddole Zer destroyed Earth's surface and wiped out most of humanity because he'd seen what contact with Earth's culture was doing to his troops and was deeply concerned by, or even afraid of, it.  The Zentradi attack emigrant fleets and planets when they find them for whatever reason and most emigrant defense forces only have the defensive ability to deal summarily with a branch fleet-sized force if things go south.  Nobody seems like they're in a rush to gamble an entire fleet or a colonized planet, or potentially the entire human race, on making intentional contact with a Zentradi main fleet in the hopes of finding a commander who won't mistake their overtures for a Supervision Army attack and attempt to kill them.

(Even in Master File, fending off even a very small main fleet 1/40th the size of Boddole Zer's required the New UN Forces to gather every available warship and fighter within 300 light years of Earth at the time.  The taskforce mobilized to drive off the Zentradi main fleet included the newly-completed but unlaunched Battle 7 and many other warships from Earth and emigrant defense forces, as well as over 2,500 Valkyries drawn from 120 different squadrons.  We're talking a New UN Spacy force larger than the Macross 7 fleet and much more heavily armed, given that it's said that 90% of the total reaction weapon stockpile held by the New UN Forces was used for this one engagement.  Master File claims this battle had such a profound impact on the New UN Gov't and New UN Forces leadership that it directly gave rise to Project Super Nova and the nextgen Ghost program that produced the Ghost X-9 and Neo Glaug.)

[TG Remix]

1 hour ago, TehPW said:

So NOBODY even wants to try to change the Zentradi MO (aka Mission Statement: We get out of the anti-Supervision business and get into the Destroy really, really dangerous Protoculture stuff (to protect the galaxy)? Give them a new mission? There is no chance of diplomacy with the Badolzas that all run their fleets?

In all fairness considering how much Zentradi that fought alongside the SDF-1 Macross turned against humanity who were unable to get over their programming, the UN wouldn't bet to try to do this to every fleet they come across, least they end up with more glassed planets. Though I don't think it'd be impossible if more "culture-shock" incidents like the Chlore Fleet happened semi-frequently in the colonization in space.

[darkranger12]

Hypothetical question here...what would the Macross universe be like if the Sharon Apple incident didn't happen.   Sharon Apple still exists but she doesn't take over the SDF-1 and hypnotizes the populace.

[Bolt]

AI utopia

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, darkranger12 said:

Hypothetical question here...what would the Macross universe be like if the Sharon Apple incident didn't happen.   Sharon Apple still exists but she doesn't take over the SDF-1 and hypnotizes the populace.

A different ending for Macross Plus?

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, darkranger12 said:

Hypothetical question here...what would the Macross universe be like if the Sharon Apple incident didn't happen.   Sharon Apple still exists but she doesn't take over the SDF-1 and hypnotizes the populace.

Assuming that this means the bio-neural chip was never installed into Sharon...

• Sharon Apple would have given a very visually-impressive performance at the New UN Government's 30th anniversary of the First Space War armistice.
• "Her" career would likely have continued for some time, to continue the development and field testing of the Sharon-type AI.
• Assuming no issues cropped up in future testing, the Sharon-type AI would have been released to emigrant fleets for its intended purpose of population management and emergency backup command and control.  Each emigrant fleet would have a Sharon-type AI supporting its government and defense forces, able to assume control of the fleet's defenses if an emergency deprived the fleet of coherent human leadership and acting to help the populace remain calm and unstressed during the emigrant fleet's mission in deep space through a mixture of entertainment and (in emergencies) mild audiovisual manipulation.  (The system was originally conceived as a way to assist emigrants in coping with the often stressful living conditions aboard early emigrant ships and prevent the riots that occasionally occurred as a result.)
• The Ghost X-9 would have probably been selected as the Next Main Fighter of the New UN Forces and begun to replace the VF-11 in that capacity in the early 2040s.  Some emigrant governments would likely have purchased the VF-19, VF-22, or another 4th Generation VF either to supplement the Ghosts or out of distrust for them.
• First contact with the Vajra would have driven the New UN Government to pursue an even more advanced and powerful Ghost to effectively combat the Vajra, leading to the development of something akin to the SV-303 Vivasvat becoming the New UN Forces 5th Generation main fighter.
• PMCs like SMS and Xaos would find themselves out of a job, since Ghosts are significantly less expensive than manned Valkyries and there would be no need to hire PMCs for their expendability in order to test next-gen manned fighters in live combat.
• The Second Unification War may or may not happen, since manned forces would be unlikely to be able to keep the pace with unmanned fighters and emigrant governments would have been able to provide a lot more support to Vindirance without the need for pilots and it would be harder for Latence to manipulate the VF-X Special Forces if the forces consisted of unmanned fighters and easier for Vindirance to obtain support since you wouldn't have to convince pilots to defect.  The Jamming Sound also wouldn't be nearly as effective, since autonomous Ghosts can dogfight at levels far above humans.
• Macross Galaxy's plans would hit a significant snag, since there would be much less justification for cybernetically-enhanced soldiers with fully-autonomous unmanned fighters as the standard.  However, SMS wouldn't be there to stop them since they were on Frontier mostly so Richard Bilra's private army could protect his interests and conduct testing on the anti-Vajra VF-25.  Ultimately, the Vajra may end up massacred by swarms of high-powered unmanned fighters when they attack the New UN Gov't.
• Macross Delta largely wouldn't happen.  Without demand for Fold Quartz to power ISCs, its value would be a lot less and Windermere IV would likely have found it a good deal less worth going to war over.  Never mind that the Aerial Knights would have been absolutely mulched by unmanned fighters that are immune to Var syndrome.

[darkranger12]

Ah yeh.  I remember that the Sharon Apple program was gonna help emigrant fleets.  It kinda reminds me of EVE-1 from Megazone 23 in some ways.  Looking at this list theres some downsides...sorta......programs being dropped for the ghosts. 

[pengbuzz]

22 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Assuming that this means the bio-neural chip was never installed into Sharon...

• Sharon Apple would have given a very visually-impressive performance at the New UN Government's 30th anniversary of the First Space War armistice.
• "Her" career would likely have continued for some time, to continue the development and field testing of the Sharon-type AI.
• Assuming no issues cropped up in future testing, the Sharon-type AI would have been released to emigrant fleets for its intended purpose of population management and emergency backup command and control.  Each emigrant fleet would have a Sharon-type AI supporting its government and defense forces, able to assume control of the fleet's defenses if an emergency deprived the fleet of coherent human leadership and acting to help the populace remain calm and unstressed during the emigrant fleet's mission in deep space through a mixture of entertainment and (in emergencies) mild audiovisual manipulation.  (The system was originally conceived as a way to assist emigrants in coping with the often stressful living conditions aboard early emigrant ships and prevent the riots that occasionally occurred as a result.)
• The Ghost X-9 would have probably been selected as the Next Main Fighter of the New UN Forces and begun to replace the VF-11 in that capacity in the early 2040s.  Some emigrant governments would likely have purchased the VF-19, VF-22, or another 4th Generation VF either to supplement the Ghosts or out of distrust for them.
• First contact with the Vajra would have driven the New UN Government to pursue an even more advanced and powerful Ghost to effectively combat the Vajra, leading to the development of something akin to the SV-303 Vivasvat becoming the New UN Forces 5th Generation main fighter.
• PMCs like SMS and Xaos would find themselves out of a job, since Ghosts are significantly less expensive than manned Valkyries and there would be no need to hire PMCs for their expendability in order to test next-gen manned fighters in live combat.
• The Second Unification War may or may not happen, since manned forces would be unlikely to be able to keep the pace with unmanned fighters and emigrant governments would have been able to provide a lot more support to Vindirance without the need for pilots and it would be harder for Latence to manipulate the VF-X Special Forces if the forces consisted of unmanned fighters and easier for Vindirance to obtain support since you wouldn't have to convince pilots to defect.  The Jamming Sound also wouldn't be nearly as effective, since autonomous Ghosts can dogfight at levels far above humans.
• Macross Galaxy's plans would hit a significant snag, since there would be much less justification for cybernetically-enhanced soldiers with fully-autonomous unmanned fighters as the standard.  However, SMS wouldn't be there to stop them since they were on Frontier mostly so Richard Bilra's private army could protect his interests and conduct testing on the anti-Vajra VF-25.  Ultimately, the Vajra may end up massacred by swarms of high-powered unmanned fighters when they attack the New UN Gov't.
• Macross Delta largely wouldn't happen.  Without demand for Fold Quartz to power ISCs, its value would be a lot less and Windermere IV would likely have found it a good deal less worth going to war over.  Never mind that the Aerial Knights would have been absolutely mulched by unmanned fighters that are immune to Var syndrome.

And Lady M....would still be stuck in a fold fault.

 

[darkranger12]

On 11/8/2022 at 4:32 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross Galaxy's plans would hit a significant snag, since there would be much less justification for cybernetically-enhanced soldiers with fully-autonomous unmanned fighters as the standard.  However, SMS wouldn't be there to stop them since they were on Frontier mostly so Richard Bilra's private army could protect his interests and conduct testing on the anti-Vajra VF-25.  Ultimately, the Vajra may end up massacred by swarms of high-powered unmanned fighters when they attack the New UN Gov't.

Then again the Varja used ecm on the Ghosts and were shot up pretty good....so theres that. 😕

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, darkranger12 said:

Then again the Varja used ecm on the Ghosts and were shot up pretty good....so theres that. 😕

True, but the beauty of the Ghost X-9 was that it was able to operate fully autonomously... and with human levels of unpredictability.

One of the major casualties of the Sharon Apple Incident was the idea of a fully-autonomous unmanned fighter.  The New UN Gov't felt the technology wasn't ready for primetime and pulled the plug, leading to another generation of less capable but still eminently deadly semi-autonomous unmanned fighters like the AIF-7S Ghost used by the Frontier fleet's New UN Forces and the customized version LAI loaned to SMS to protect Luca Angeloni.

[TehPW]

a Couple days ago on FB, UN SPACY did a post about Isamu's call signs in the OVA and Movie of M+. In the OVA, when testing the YF-19, he was called Alpha-One. In the Movie, he was called Eagle-One (at least in the Spanish dub). I can't personally remember any difference (especially when i saw the movie last year with my kid) but was that dual designation an American script error or was that duality also in the original Japanese version?

 

and if that's true, why did the Japanese version do that?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, TehPW said:

a Couple days ago on FB, UN SPACY did a post about Isamu's call signs in the OVA and Movie of M+. In the OVA, when testing the YF-19, he was called Alpha-One. In the Movie, he was called Eagle-One (at least in the Spanish dub). I can't personally remember any difference (especially when i saw the movie last year with my kid) but was that dual designation an American script error or was that duality also in the original Japanese version?

 

and if that's true, why did the Japanese version do that?

Ah, this one's doin' the rounds again.

Yeah, for whatever reason the Movie Edition of Macross Plus changed Isamu's assigned callsign for YF-19 test flights from Alpha-1 to Eagle-1 but didn't change Guld's YF-21 callsign from "Omega-1".  No idea why, because they had a theme going with the OVA version having "Alpha-1" and "Omega-1".  Every bit of creator commentary I have on hand just goes on and on about the digital animation technology they used.

Isamu does briefly go by an "Eagle" callsign in the OVA version though.  It's when he's in his VF-11 on approach to New Edwards, and calls in a sighting of an unknown aircraft (the YF-21) using his assigned callsign of Eagle-107.

[TehPW]

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Ah, this one's doin' the rounds again.

Yeah, for whatever reason the Movie Edition of Macross Plus changed Isamu's assigned callsign for YF-19 test flights from Alpha-1 to Eagle-1 but didn't change Guld's YF-21 callsign from "Omega-1".  No idea why, because they had a theme going with the OVA version having "Alpha-1" and "Omega-1".  Every bit of creator commentary I have on hand just goes on and on about the digital animation technology they used.

Isamu does briefly go by an "Eagle" callsign in the OVA version though.  It's when he's in his VF-11 on approach to New Edwards, and calls in a sighting of an unknown aircraft (the YF-21) using his assigned callsign of Eagle-107.

OK so its a thing... as far as English and other translations... but when the movie premiered in Japan [in 1995], did the error originate in Japan? If so, Why?

I'm on the position that the error wasn't Japanese in nature (but later on) but it's intriguing if it did...

Edited November 11, 2022 by TehPW
Clarity

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, TehPW said:

OK so its a thing... as far as English and other translations... but when the movie premiered in Japan [in 1995], did the error originate in Japan? If so, Why?

I'm on the position that the error wasn't Japanese in nature (but later on) but it's intriguing if it did...

It's not an artifact of the translation process... it's in the original Japanese audio tracks for Macross Plus: Movie Edition.  I checked.

For whatever reason, the powers that be decided to record new dialog for the movie that changes Isamu's Project Super Nova callsign from "Alpha One" to "Eagle One".  The various subtitled and dubbed releases of the film then faithfully carried that change over into the subtitles and dub audio tracks.  It's used consistently through the entire film.

I just can't seem to find anything in the print materials that says why.

[RaisingCane]

Is it generally assumed that Altira actually existed in the "real" Macross continuity, but was destroyed under similar circumstances as in DYRL during Space War 1?

[RedWolf]

2 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

Is it generally assumed that Altira actually existed in the "real" Macross continuity, but was destroyed under similar circumstances as in DYRL during Space War 1?

Well SDF Macross and DYRL are dramatization of Space War 1. In Macross 7 we get a reference to DYRL as a movie when the Protoculture Ruins came up and Emilia talking what inspired her to be a singer. Macross Delta is a bit more vague with Berger Stone's exposition showing Altira in its heyday and suggests Ai Oboeteimasuka Protoculture plate is real as it was a popular song 500,000 years ago  The Song of the Stars sang by Mikumo seems to suggest it is in the original Protoculture language. 

[TehPW]

at 3:51 THIS scene seems to be a scene very similar to the scrolling (from down to up) scene of fighters outside the SDF-1 in Episode 27. But its clear its supposed to be from DYRL but in every version i have viewed i never seen this before. was this made for a re-release?

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

Is it generally assumed that Altira actually existed in the "real" Macross continuity, but was destroyed under similar circumstances as in DYRL during Space War 1?

We - the viewers - have no real insight into the so-called "real" Macross continuity.  Nobody does, really.

Why?  Because it doesn't actually exist in any sense.

The notion that all Macross works are fictionalized dramatizations of a "true" Macross history is Kawamori's chosen/favorite metaphor for explaining to fans that Macross runs on broad strokes continuity.  "Broad strokes continuity" is, of course, an author's polite way of expressing to his or her audience that "It's my story and I'll do what I want".  The past, in any given Macross series, is whatever Kawamori wants it to be.  He has no qualms about completely changing the significance of events from past Macross works to suit his new story.*  He'll leave stuff out, add new stuff in, some characters get forgotten and others get the "remember this new guy who was definitely with us all along" treatment.

The metaphorical waters are further muddied by the existence of fictionalized dramatizations of past events within the context of individual Macross shows as well (e.g. the 2031 film Do You Remember Love?, the 2045 TV serial Lynn Minmay Story, the 2058 movie Birdhuman) that are all presumably taking their own liberties with history in general terms and specifically to the version of the backstory in that Macross series.**  Characters in-universe have their perceptions of history colored by these fantastic dramatizations of history's events, including Basara Nekki, Mylene Jenius, etc.  

 

Really, the closest you're going to get to an actual yes or no answer is the official series chronology maintained by Big West in official publications like Macross Chronicle.  For that specific purpose, the answer to your question is "No" because that official chronology bases its First Space War history on the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series and the events of Macross: Do You Remember Love? are an in-universe dramatization that debuted in in-universe theaters in 2031.

 

* As seen with the significance of Macross VF-X2's events changing in Macross Frontier and Macross the Ride and the story of Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! implying several technologies were banned that demonstrably were not so in previous works.

** For instance, the version of Do You Remember Love? seen in Macross 7 contains scenes not present in the real world film Macross: Do You Remember Love? including Max and Milia's wedding.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, TehPW said:

at 3:51 THIS scene seems to be a scene very similar to the scrolling (from down to up) scene of fighters outside the SDF-1 in Episode 27. But its clear its supposed to be from DYRL but in every version i have viewed i never seen this before. was this made for a re-release?

In all likelihood, it was either animated for the film and cut for some reason or animated for the original theatrical trailer.

[RaisingCane]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

** For instance, the version of Do You Remember Love? seen in Macross 7 contains scenes not present in the real world film Macross: Do You Remember Love? including Max and Milia's wedding.

Maybe those scenes were in the director's cut.

[SebastianP]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

We - the viewers - have no real insight into the so-called "real" Macross continuity.  Nobody does, really.

Why?  Because it doesn't actually exist in any sense.

The notion that all Macross works are fictionalized dramatizations of a "true" Macross history is Kawamori's chosen/favorite metaphor for explaining to fans that Macross runs on broad strokes continuity.  "Broad strokes continuity" is, of course, an author's polite way of expressing to his or her audience that "It's my story and I'll do what I want".  The past, in any given Macross series, is whatever Kawamori wants it to be.  He has no qualms about completely changing the significance of events from past Macross works to suit his new story.*  He'll leave stuff out, add new stuff in, some characters get forgotten and others get the "remember this new guy who was definitely with us all along" treatment.

The metaphorical waters are further muddied by the existence of fictionalized dramatizations of past events within the context of individual Macross shows as well (e.g. the 2031 film Do You Remember Love?, the 2045 TV serial Lynn Minmay Story, the 2058 movie Birdhuman) that are all presumably taking their own liberties with history in general terms and specifically to the version of the backstory in that Macross series.**  Characters in-universe have their perceptions of history colored by these fantastic dramatizations of history's events, including Basara Nekki, Mylene Jenius, etc.  

 

Really, the closest you're going to get to an actual yes or no answer is the official series chronology maintained by Big West in official publications like Macross Chronicle.  For that specific purpose, the answer to your question is "No" because that official chronology bases its First Space War history on the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series and the events of Macross: Do You Remember Love? are an in-universe dramatization that debuted in in-universe theaters in 2031.

 

* As seen with the significance of Macross VF-X2's events changing in Macross Frontier and Macross the Ride and the story of Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! implying several technologies were banned that demonstrably were not so in previous works.

** For instance, the version of Do You Remember Love? seen in Macross 7 contains scenes not present in the real world film Macross: Do You Remember Love? including Max and Milia's wedding.

So much this. 

Trying to find the "real story" is an exercise in futility because everything is subject to change, even the stuff written currently in the Chronicle can be thrown out if Kawamori decides to write something set earlier in the timeline again, and introduce new mecha in the process. Like what happened with Macross Zero, which conflicted with a bunch of previously established lore and introduced the VF-0, which had to be given *that* particular non-sensical designation for reasons. 

Best answer to whether something is actually true is "does multiple sources agree on it"? 

So, we can say Frontier fought Galaxy and the Vajra in 2059, and landed on the Vajra planet after exhausting their resources, because all the sources agree. Sheryl and Ranka definitely exist, they're referenced as inspirations for the characters in both versions of Delta. The statuses of Sheryl, Alto and Michael? Take your pick, because this is one where the sources definitely disagree...

(Though it feels like Michael has more evidence supporting his survival than not, given that he lives through the movies, that Labyrinth of Time directly follows the movies, and he lives in Macross 30, in which the characters appear to come from a post-Vajra War timeline in which somehow everyone survived and are well. )

So yeah, broad strokes.

An alien starship crashed in 1999. There was a war in the 00s between people who wanted a unified government and people that didn't. The Zentraedi showed up and bombarded earth into a wasteland, and were defeated by the crew of the rebuilt alien starship and the civilians they'd rescued. Hikaru and Misa were heroes of the war, Kakizaki and Focker both existed and both died. Did the SDF really dock with the Daedalus and Prometheus though? We'll never know because the versions don't agree with each other. 

There was an incident involving Sharon Apple and a pair of hot blooded fighter jocks flying prototype machines in the early 2040s. Did it *actually* involve mind-controlling people to the point where they managed to launch the *Macross*? Normally I'd go "what are you smoking" if someone tried to tell me that thing was in any shape to fly after 30 years in a lake being used as an ornament. 

Fire Bomber became very popular in the 2040s. Whether they actually had any of the adventures from Macross 7 in the real timeline, or flew VFs with musical instruments for controls? Your guess is as good as mine.

Galaxy and Frontier both entered Vajra space and go their asses kicked by the Vajra until communications were established in 2059, Galaxy was destroyed in the process. Ranka made a name for herself. Frontier settled on the Vajra home planet. All agreed on in both versions and referenced in later material.

Is Sheryl still sick? No idea. Is Alto missing? No idea. Did Michael die? No idea. Given that official material exists that go both ways *and* there's what appears to be a "golden ending" referenced in Macross 30? Make up your own story. (Hell, aside from Sheryl and Ranka, who are named in Delta, do we even know if there was an Alto or a Michael at all...?)

And the reason all this ambiguity is a *good* thing is because Kawamori is not constrained by having to tell the same story twice, and can surprise us with some pretty choice twists. Like how, because watchers of the Frontier TV series knew that Michael died in it, they were able to fake us out with his apparent death in both movies and still have him alive at the end of it. Likewise the other fate-alterations from the second movie. 

To paraphrase Ramba Ral: These are no compilation movies! No compilation movies!

 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, SebastianP said:

Trying to find the "real story" is an exercise in futility because everything is subject to change, [...]

More importantly and fundamentally, trying to find the "real story" is an exercise in futility because there is no such thing and there never has been.

Anything beyond that very basic reason is overthinking it.  Macross runs on broad strokes continuity becuase Kawamori's not about to let continuity get in the way of telling a story the way he wants to tell it.  That "it's all dramatizations" thing is just a clumsy way of telling fans to stop expecting every little detail to join up neatly.

[TehPW]

12 hours ago, SebastianP said:

So much this. 

Trying to find the "real story" is an exercise in futility because everything is subject to change, even the stuff written currently in the Chronicle can be thrown out if Kawamori decides to write something set earlier in the timeline again, and introduce new mecha in the process. Like what happened with Macross Zero, which conflicted with a bunch of previously established lore and introduced the VF-0, which had to be given *that* particular non-sensical designation for reasons. 

Best answer to whether something is actually true is "does multiple sources agree on it"? 

So, we can say Frontier fought Galaxy and the Vajra in 2059, and landed on the Vajra planet after exhausting their resources, because all the sources agree. Sheryl and Ranka definitely exist, they're referenced as inspirations for the characters in both versions of Delta. The statuses of Sheryl, Alto and Michael? Take your pick, because this is one where the sources definitely disagree...

(Though it feels like Michael has more evidence supporting his survival than not, given that he lives through the movies, that Labyrinth of Time directly follows the movies, and he lives in Macross 30, in which the characters appear to come from a post-Vajra War timeline in which somehow everyone survived and are well. )

So yeah, broad strokes.

An alien starship crashed in 1999. There was a war in the 00s between people who wanted a unified government and people that didn't. The Zentraedi showed up and bombarded earth into a wasteland, and were defeated by the crew of the rebuilt alien starship and the civilians they'd rescued. Hikaru and Misa were heroes of the war, Kakizaki and Focker both existed and both died. Did the SDF really dock with the Daedalus and Prometheus though? We'll never know because the versions don't agree with each other. 

There was an incident involving Sharon Apple and a pair of hot blooded fighter jocks flying prototype machines in the early 2040s. Did it *actually* involve mind-controlling people to the point where they managed to launch the *Macross*? Normally I'd go "what are you smoking" if someone tried to tell me that thing was in any shape to fly after 30 years in a lake being used as an ornament. 

Fire Bomber became very popular in the 2040s. Whether they actually had any of the adventures from Macross 7 in the real timeline, or flew VFs with musical instruments for controls? Your guess is as good as mine.

Galaxy and Frontier both entered Vajra space and go their asses kicked by the Vajra until communications were established in 2059, Galaxy was destroyed in the process. Ranka made a name for herself. Frontier settled on the Vajra home planet. All agreed on in both versions and referenced in later material.

Is Sheryl still sick? No idea. Is Alto missing? No idea. Did Michael die? No idea. Given that official material exists that go both ways *and* there's what appears to be a "golden ending" referenced in Macross 30? Make up your own story. (Hell, aside from Sheryl and Ranka, who are named in Delta, do we even know if there was an Alto or a Michael at all...?)

And the reason all this ambiguity is a *good* thing is because Kawamori is not constrained by having to tell the same story twice, and can surprise us with some pretty choice twists. Like how, because watchers of the Frontier TV series knew that Michael died in it, they were able to fake us out with his apparent death in both movies and still have him alive at the end of it. Likewise the other fate-alterations from the second movie. 

To paraphrase Ramba Ral: These are no compilation movies! No compilation movies!

 

 

 

The makers of other IPs (Coff Star Trek) could have made use of the same advice... certainly the Continuity nerds wouldn't raged quite as much

Also your comment is Spot On.

[pengbuzz]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

More importantly and fundamentally, trying to find the "real story" is an exercise in futility because there is no such thing and there never has been.

Anything beyond that very basic reason is overthinking it.  Macross runs on broad strokes continuity becuase Kawamori's not about to let continuity get in the way of telling a story the way he wants to tell it.  That "it's all dramatizations" thing is just a clumsy way of telling fans to stop expecting every little detail to join up neatly.

 I just watch the various series' and movies; when it comes to continuity, that doesn't matter too much. As long as the story is good and the fights are amazing...

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, TehPW said:

The makers of other IPs (Coff Star Trek) could have made use of the same advice... certainly the Continuity nerds wouldn't raged quite as much

Perhaps... but then again, many Macross fans find Kawamori's take frustrating and ask questions like the above about the existence of an objective value of "truth" for the series.

Other franchises have run into outright fan rejection when attempting something similar.  Like when Star Wars's new owners declared the old EU apocryphal or when the Star Trek: Enterprise series ended its run with an episode that was actually a holodeck program, leaving the door open to hint that the entire series had been a holodeck recreation and not a true history.  It's an approach that tends to be found slightly frustrating whenever someone attempts it because people are hardwired to look for patterns.

 

36 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

 I just watch the various series' and movies; when it comes to continuity, that doesn't matter too much. As long as the story is good and the fights are amazing...

That's the intended approach.  

Though Big West, at least, seems to recognize that fans are often in the market for something a bit more connected and make the effort to join up the dots anyway for the people who care.

[SebastianP]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Perhaps... but then again, many Macross fans find Kawamori's take frustrating and ask questions like the above about the existence of an objective value of "truth" for the series.

Other franchises have run into outright fan rejection when attempting something similar.  Like when Star Wars's new owners declared the old EU apocryphal or when the Star Trek: Enterprise series ended its run with an episode that was actually a holodeck program, leaving the door open to hint that the entire series had been a holodeck recreation and not a true history.  It's an approach that tends to be found slightly frustrating whenever someone attempts it because people are hardwired to look for patterns.

 

That's the intended approach.  

Though Big West, at least, seems to recognize that fans are often in the market for something a bit more connected and make the effort to join up the dots anyway for the people who care.

Macross gets away with it by never having pretended that there's a single true depiction to be found, or that all the things across all media actually happened to the same characters. DYRL basically throwing the original SDFM story out with the animation set the tone for the entire franchise that way, and because it's *always been that way*, there's no fan backlash because the long-timers like us know and will inform the newcomers what the score is on that front.

Star Wars got backlash for deep-sixing the Expanded Universe because that had been the vast majority of the canon for quite a while - You can watch all the movies in a single day, but it would take a person literal years to go through all the books and comics. They kind of had to do it in order to make more movies in the first place without forcing movie-only fans to read thousands of hours worth of books to catch up and figure out what was going on (plus, by the time the main characters were the age of their actors, crap had *gone down* in the GFFA and Star Wars wasn't really recognizable anymore. Also, *so many things* happened to the main characters that you'd have to wonder when they had time to *sleep*). 

And Star Trek got backlash because the execs, on seeing that a lot of fans were raging against the inconsistencies in their unpopular Star Trek show and viewership were down to the point where the show was being cancelled, decided that "You know what, if the events in the show are this unpopular let's make it ambigous if they never happened in the first place" which enraged a *different* clique of fans.

Kawamori going "There is no canon. Even my own material is not "canon". There's a broad strokes timeline of events and a set of characters who may or may not have been involved in those events, but that's all we're willing to say is factual" (or words to that effect) may be hugely frustrating to Star Wars style fans who need everything to line up, but it's a massive boon to fanfiction writers who can basically say "Kawamori doesn't pay attention to canon so why should *I*, so event X that you're all worrying about didn't go down *either* way shown on screen, it went down *my* way." 

I just wish more fanfiction authors would take advantage in English, because there's really nowhere near the amount of fanfiction available for this setting as it deserves, IMO. 

Edited November 13, 2022 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Macross gets away with it by never having pretended that there's a single true depiction to be found, or that all the things across all media actually happened to the same characters. DYRL basically throwing the original SDFM story out with the animation set the tone for the entire franchise that way, and because it's *always been that way*, there's no fan backlash because the long-timers like us know and will inform the newcomers what the score is on that front.

That's not quite accurate.

Macross never really addressed the topic in any specific terms until 1992-1994.  Macross II: Lovers Again's creators chose to make Macross: Do You Remember Love? the "correct" version of the First Space War and then built their setting and story on top of that.  Then you had Macross Plus and Macross 7 coming along two years later along with the official statement that Macross II: Lovers Again was now a "parallel world" story and that Macross: Do You Remember Love? was really an in-universe historical drama from 2031 that had been filmed with real ships and mecha.  A fair amount of ink was then spent explaining how the various new designs in DYRL? actually fit into the setting.

The point really didn't end up in the spotlight until around 2008 and the launch of Macross Frontier for the 25th anniversary.  There were publications asking Kawamori about how the new series fit with events from works like Macross 7, Macross VF-X2, etc., and also fan questions at events that inquired about things like the status of Macross II.  That was around the time the "everything is a dramatization of a true history" thing really gained traction.

Spoiler

Some of those Q&A sessions caused quite the upset in the English-speaking fandom at the time.  Kawamori got asked about Macross II's legitimacy and he torpedoed the claim that Macross II had been disowned, insisting it was as valid as any other Macross title and that all Macross titles were effectively standalone stories in a shared setting.  It was shocking how quickly some of the OVA's most vocal critics reversed themselves after that... though it is laudable they accepted evidence that contradicted their view without complaint.

Of course, since Big West wants to sell artbooks and light novels and tech manuals and the like they're kind of having it both ways on the understanding that broad strokes is in full effect.

 

3 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Also, *so many things* happened to the main characters that you'd have to wonder when they had time to *sleep*). 

That's just the problem with Expanded Universes in general.  

As TV Tropes likes to say, "The Main Characters Do Everything".

 

3 hours ago, SebastianP said:

I just wish more fanfiction authors would take advantage in English, because there's really nowhere near the amount of fanfiction available for this setting as it deserves, IMO. 

That's the initial difficulties in localizing the sequels plus twenty years of the now-terminated Harmony Gold embargo.

The fanmade RPG supplement writers have had a field day, but the regular fic writers haven't quite caught up to it since Frontier and Delta only did the rounds via fansub.

[SebastianP]

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's not quite accurate.

Macross never really addressed the topic in any specific terms until 1992-1994.  Macross II: Lovers Again's creators chose to make Macross: Do You Remember Love? the "correct" version of the First Space War and then built their setting and story on top of that.  Then you had Macross Plus and Macross 7 coming along two years later along with the official statement that Macross II: Lovers Again was now a "parallel world" story and that Macross: Do You Remember Love? was really an in-universe historical drama from 2031 that had been filmed with real ships and mecha.  A fair amount of ink was then spent explaining how the various new designs in DYRL? actually fit into the setting.

The point really didn't end up in the spotlight until around 2008 and the launch of Macross Frontier for the 25th anniversary.  There were publications asking Kawamori about how the new series fit with events from works like Macross 7, Macross VF-X2, etc., and also fan questions at events that inquired about things like the status of Macross II.  That was around the time the "everything is a dramatization of a true history" thing really gained traction.

Official statements may not have been made until 2008, but I think the evidence was there to see much earlier. And when the statement *was* made, it made sense in the context of what was already out there, because of the problems fans had fitting things together as it was. 

At any rate, the fandom was more or less prepared to find out what Kawamori's thoughts were on the setting, hence the minimal backlash.

The Star Wars thing was because a huge amount of paying fans had invested a lot of money and a lot of time in the idea that the side materials were a coherent thing, and then had the rug jerked out from under their feet. That the whole Expanded Universe was a colossus built on feet of clay (the ever eroding lore from the older books where any statement that made Star Wars seem powerful was enshrined as gospel but entire sections of the same books were thrown out as inaccurate, to the point where I felt the only thing people even cared about from the Imperial Sourcebook was the definition of Base Delta Zero and that a Star Destroyer could pull that off solo, because it made the numbers big, or that the only statement anyone cares about from the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back is that the Avenger "vaporized" an asteroid, because it made the numbers big. etc.)

The worst thing that ever happened to Star Wars was not the decanonization of the Expanded Universe, it was that Disney allowed the same numbers to be regurgitated again in fresh books after they cleaned the slate. The new movies? They barely even rate...

 

 

[cheemingwan1234]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but was one of the reasons for why the YF-21 was passed over for the YF-19 (ignoring BDI/BDS) was that the way the YF-21 transforms makes it a maintenance nightmare* despite the fact that it was the most combat effective when compared to a traditional VF since it can fight with it's limbs blown off?

*Imagine having to unlearn your muscle memory and re-learn it again since the YF-21 transforms so differently from a typical UN/NUN variable fighter.

Edited November 18, 2022 by cheemingwan1234

[twich]

I don’t think that the way it transformed had anything to do with it:

the YF-21 blew up, the YF-19 survived….

the YF-21 had morphing wing and control surfaces that were very expensive to make and yes, probably a nightmare to maintain

the BDS/BDI system was also expensive and had some unforeseen side effects, I.e. the YF-21 forcing the VF-11B into the dirt with an errant thought, not the most stellar of Opsie’s

Twich

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but was one of the reasons for why the YF-21 was passed over for the YF-19 (ignoring BDI/BDS) was that the way the YF-21 transforms makes it a maintenance nightmare* despite the fact that it was the most combat effective when compared to a traditional VF since it can fight with it's limbs blown off?

The transformation is not, AFAIK, one of the factors listed that led to the New UN Forces deciding to adopt the YF-19.

There were many cost-related concerns involving the initial cost and maintenance cost of various aspects of the design like the high purity fold carbon used in the IVCS, the wing's special deformable material, and the costs involved in many high-performance systems like the new engines, the pinpoint barrier, etc.  There were also the stability and reliability concerns involving the BDI system, which were likely the bigger factor since the YF-19's design also shared many of those expensive systems and materials.

 

[azrael]

Transformation has nothing to do with it. It's an inherit cost of a variable fighter.

The YF-21 was significantly more expensive than the YF-19. The BDI/BCS primary control system was buggy and expensive. The morphing control surfaces was always intended to be a test and was not for final submission. The YF-21 was more expensive to maintain with its much more complicated systems. In order for the VF-22 to be accepted, the YF-21 had to be simplified to bring the costs down.

[cheemingwan1234]

55 minutes ago, azrael said:

Transformation has nothing to do with it. It's an inherit cost of a variable fighter.

The YF-21 was significantly more expensive than the YF-19. The BDI/BCS primary control system was buggy and expensive. The morphing control surfaces was always intended to be a test and was not for final submission. The YF-21 was more expensive to maintain with its much more complicated systems. In order for the VF-22 to be accepted, the YF-21 had to be simplified to bring the costs down.

But it does factor into increased costs since the YF-21's design compared to other VFs, including its competitor, the YF-19 is quite different in configuration from other more conventional designed VFs in layout  since I'm pretty sure that mechanics might have trouble unlearning and then relearning how to service components such as the engines and the legs.* Not to mention more newer jigs for maintenance that cannot be used for legacy VFs compared to the YF-19

*Especially since in the YF-21, the engines and legs are separate from each other unlike other VF designs.

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by cheemingwan1234

[sketchley]

5 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

But it does factor into increased costs since the YF-21's design compared to other VFs, including its competitor, the YF-19 is quite different in configuration from other more conventional designed VFs in layout  since I'm pretty sure that mechanics might have trouble unlearning and then relearning how to service components such as the engines and the legs.* Not to mention more newer jigs for maintenance that cannot be used for legacy VFs compared to the YF-19

*Especially since in the YF-21, the engines and legs are separate from each other unlike other VF designs.

 

I would mark the increased costs due to mechanics relearning and acquiring newer jigs as negligible, as that's something that still has to be done with similar models.  For a real world example, refer to the retraining required for pilots and maintenance personal for newer models of the Boeing 737 (E.g. the 737-900 to the 737-MAX].

Re: Engines

If anything, the YF-21's are arguably easier to service and remove, simply because they are placed in a single large component—compared to the VF-1/11/19 (etc.) where they are squeezed inside the relatively tight airframe that composes the engine nacelles/legs and requires a lot more heavy-duty reinforcement!

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

But it does factor into increased costs since the YF-21's design compared to other VFs, including its competitor, the YF-19 is quite different in configuration from other more conventional designed VFs in layout  since I'm pretty sure that mechanics might have trouble unlearning and then relearning how to service components such as the engines and the legs.* Not to mention more newer jigs for maintenance that cannot be used for legacy VFs compared to the YF-19

*Especially since in the YF-21, the engines and legs are separate from each other unlike other VF designs.

That would be why, as part of the process of transitioning from one model of fighter to another, the mechanics go in for retraining the same way the pilots do.