Macross Δ (Delta) - NYE Special Talkback - READ 1st POST

[Raptor One]

I assume that Macross 30 is an in-universe video game that retells (with artistic license) a story from the Macross universe? The video game company probably just found the source code for it on some remote server and adapted it for our earthly technology.

Haha! Definitely my new headcanon

I'm still wondering if Michel is dead or not... and if Brera is alive or not... and basically everyone from Frontier could be dead or alive depending on how Kawamori's feeling that day.

Schrodinger's Anime Cast. Everyone is both dead and alive until you observe this particular retelling and the (fold) waveform collapses.

Edit:

Let's hope that he doesn't have a cat....

Ninja'd

Edited January 29, 2016 by Raptor One

[JB0]

Luca's sibling has it worse. In the TV series he had an unseen older brother heading LAI. In the movies he had a older sister who was Leon's fiance.

Easy answer: Luca has a brother AND a sister. He's the youngest of three.

[Dio]

Has it been at all posited that Lady M might be Myung? It would make sense for her to be involved with behavior-influencing music targeted at calming down Zentradi, given her past, and a position in charge of Walkure seems like a logical progression from a promoter/producer 30 years prior.

Also, if we take into account that SK wants Delta to be a mashup of Plus and 7 (figuratively), Myung would be an interesting callback. Of course, she would be aged appropriately just like Mao was for Frontier.

I know it's high-school-lunch-table level speculation, but sometimes Macross likes to surprise us with out of the box thinking.

[Edited heavily due to being completely wrong about Lady M's position... serves me right for watching the raw version once and commenting an hour before seeing the subbed version. Still, after being corrected I think there might be more validity to the theory than before.]

Edited January 30, 2016 by Dio

[Saruta]

If Lady M is Myung, and her husband Isamu is known to work for SMS (Wings of Goodbye), this would mean there is probably some link between SMS and the Walkure?

[Sildani]

Where is it written that Myung and Isamu got hitched? I'm genuinely curious.

[kajnrig]

You might think so just because they're the two left standing at the end of M+, but yeah it doesn't seem like something the two of them would do, or if they did, not something that they could maintain.

[Saruta]

Sorry - I seemed to have seen this somewhere in some source, but I can't find it now, so I guess it was my mistake.

(That's about them getting hitched. Isamu in SMS is in the movies - though I do wonder how this plays out in M30 where there is apparently a past version of Isamu - does any of the SMS people recognize him as their brother-in-arms?)

Edited January 31, 2016 by Saruta

[ManhattanProject972]

Komillia would've been what, then... nearly fifty when Mirage was born?

Not impossible, but it seems unlikely to me...

At first I thought Mirage was Mylyne's kid because at the end of Dynamite 7 Ray tells Mylene that she should go and live on Zola, a planet in the outer ring where Delta's story takes place and also where Delta's Chuck comes from as well. And that could explain Mirage's very long Zolan like ears. Though we don't actually know for sure if Mylene actually did, but what really debunked the idea of Mirage being Mylene's daughter is age, Delta only takes place ~20 years after the events of Mac7 where Mylene was only 14-15 years old and Mirage is confirmed to be 18 so Mylene would've had to have her at 17 which I HIGHLY doubt is the actual case.

So that pretty much leaves the rest of Max and Millia's kids as the potential mother.

• Komillia would be 37 at the time of Mirage's birth though at that point she could have had as many kids as her mother at this point.

• Miracle would be 31 and the same hold true for her as well.

• The twins Muse and Therese would be 26 and I think are the best candidates for mother of Mirage as the three of them have Purple-ish hair.

• Emilia would be 24 and her freebird gung-ho attitude would probably give some reasoning as to why a young Mirage would grow up to be so serious to contrast her potential mothers disposition.

• Miranda would be 22, the seemingly normal one in the family with brown hair could also be a potential candidate?

If she were a direct daughter of Max and Millia, those two wouldve had to have her close to their 60's. Despite looking young Max & Millia are quite old indeed and by the time of Delta are in their mid 80's.

Edited February 1, 2016 by ManhattanProject972

[RedWolf]

At first I thought Mirage was Mylyne's kid because at the end of Dynamite 7 Ray tells Mylene that she should go and live on

Zola, a planet in the outer ring where Delta's story takes place and also where Delta's Chuck comes from as well.

No Ray told Mylene she should chase after Basara. Just as she arrived Basara left the planet with a stolen VF-19P and Gamlin right after him going pass her.

As of 2060 Mylene still has a music career.

[JB0]

If she were a direct daughter of Max and Millia, those two wouldve had to have her close to their 60's. Despite looking young Max & Millia are quite old indeed and by the time of Delta are in their mid 80's.

Remember, time flows slower* in a fold than normal space, and they've spent a lot of time in fold space over the years. Hours become days, weeks become months, and everyone winds up with a calendar age that's much larger than the time they've actually experienced.

Basically, they're both quite a bit younger than their dates of birth would suggest.

*Even after Frontier's big ugly retcon... it doesn't do much for Max and Millia, who have lived most of their lives in a world without fold quartz, dealing with fold faults and the associated desyncs. They have not lived a life with 1:1 fold-time:real-time** ratios.

**And Einstein is rolling in his grave at the proposition that a universal standard rate of time exists. But much of science-fiction sets him spinning, so meh.

Edited February 1, 2016 by JB0

[VF5SS]

but what really debunked the idea of Mirage being Mylene's daughter is age, Delta only takes place ~20 years after the events of Mac7 where Mylene was only 14-15 years old and Mirage is confirmed to be 18 so Mylene would've had to have her at 17 which I HIGHLY doubt is the actual case.

Oh I dunno. Milia herself was only 15 in SDF Macross, so she had Komilia at age 16 or 17.

[Saruta]

Sure...but they're also a century past those artists and, more importantly, beyond a huge upheaval that made them matter even less. Especially compared to an Idol that kinda saved humanity!

Ya gotta wonder how much of that stuff was actually saved from destruction aboard the Macross, right?

Sure, it wouldn't be surprising for a substantial amount of really popular music to be saved simply by coincidence of it being on some dude's harddrive as an MP3, so I give that a bit of a pass.

But the cultural destruction of the bombardment would have been astonishing. It would have very nearly been a complete reset on popular culture.

The Earth was destroyed in 2010, and we can assume that technology was generally at real life 2010 levels, correcting for bits of Overtechnology and impact of the global war raging 2000 to 2008. If anything, these changes would do more, not less, for durable data storage, at the cost of "flashiness" that is used for marketing at peace time.

I would expect that a lot of data, basically everything in serious storage, survived or was recoverable. Data is much sturdier than humans. So everything from music records to automobile blueprints (not to mention photos) is available all right, even if the automobile stock preserved on the Macross was of older types (and there is no guarantee of that either, the fact that it was like that animated in 1982 does NOT make it canon in Kawamori-world).

There would certainly be a reset of popular culture, but not so much of the classics. Compare lingering popularity of Strauss, originaly a popular artist, following two world wars that Austria lost, in one of them being subjected to considerable bombardment.

We know that, whatever DYRL shows, there were more survivors than just the Macross - because we know, at least, of Mao Nome and of the Saotome family. (What would a Kabuki school be doing on a remote "science-town" island? And who would place a schoolgirl from a war-ravaged remote archipelago there?). So, in the heads of botn Macross people and other survivors, Minmay would certainly be the "big idol of the time" following her role in the war, but the classics would remain classics. Not so for Zentradi, of course.

Then by Frontier times, Minmay herself joins the ranks of the classics. The majority of people alive have never seen her perform live. Records abound, name recognition abounds, Minmay herself is missing, presumed dead (not universally). So I think that for the young music fan she is a part of a line starting up there with Elvis - both exist, for the fan, only as records. The same line includes Fire Bomber - everyone is likely alive but the band is long gone and now a classic (compare present status of ABBA in our world).

So my understanding of Grace's PR trick in the concert is "see a new classic born right now".

I would expect any reset Sharon Apple NOT to exist at the time because otherwise Grace would be in all sorts of trademark trouble.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Saruta

[Raptor One]

Delta only takes place ~20 years after the events of Mac7 where Mylene was only 14-15 years old and Mirage is confirmed to be 18 so Mylene would've had to have her at 17 which I HIGHLY doubt is the actual case.

Not that far fetched.

*Even after Frontier's big ugly retcon... it doesn't do much for Max and Millia, who have lived most of their lives in a world without fold quartz, dealing with fold faults and the associated desyncs. They have not lived a life with 1:1 fold-time:real-time** ratios.

Less a retcon and more a new addition to the mythology.

[kajnrig]

Oh I dunno. Milia herself was only 15 in SDF Macross, so she had Komilia at age 16 or 17.

Wait, what????? That's... young. Isn't Max like 21?

[GabrielV]

Christ, they WOULD get that meta. Not like it's anything new to them, though. I'm still wondering if Michel is dead or not... and if Brera is alive or not... and basically everyone from Frontier could be dead or alive depending on how Kawamori's feeling that day.

"They're really not dead, as long as we never decide which bit of film is canon."

Hmmm. McCoy's line from the end of Star Trek II just doesn't have the same ring to it when you change it that way.

[Gubaba]

Wait, what????? That's... young. Isn't Max like 21?

No, he was 16.

[Raptor One]

Wait, what????? That's... young. Isn't Max like 21?

Lmao! No idea why you thought that

[GabrielV]

Lmao! No idea why you thought that

Possibly bad info from the Robotech RPG that has filtered through the ether. Like WEG's Star Wars RPG and the EU, Palladium filled in details of Robotech with their RPG. For instance, Lisa Hayes is in her 30s during the Macross Saga according to the RPG.

To be honest, I never thought Max was any less than 18 when we first see him. But considering characters of that age are a standard trope of anime in general, I'm definitely not surprised.

[kajnrig]

Huh. 16. Wow. Nothing from Robotech; I think I just sort of assumed his age from his looks. He doesn't look particularly young, though to be fair I can't imagine any of the SDFM characters save for Minmei as being younger than 18 either.

It doesn't surprise me, in retrospect. Anime tropes and all.

[RedWolf]

The destruction brought by Space War 1 and the reconstruction certainly affected demographics. Milia had 7 children herself but Shammy had 11. Mylene had her driver's license at age 10 and was being arranged by Milia for marriage at 14. Milia probably has the same sort of mentality as the Mayor Freyja was complaining about back home. Better get married when you are young. Freyja is also 14. I don't know if this is Windermerian cultural quirks or they got it from Humans and Zentradi.

On Earth one can join the military at 15 if given special permission like Gamlin.

Frontier's age of majority is 17 though so things could be different from fleet to fleet. Alto joined SMS at 17.

[Gubaba]

But considering characters of that age are a standard trope of anime in general, I'm definitely not surprised.

It doesn't surprise me, in retrospect. Anime tropes and all.

I thought it was fairly common the world over for stories aimed at young adults to feature young adults as the main characters...?

Otherwise everything from Harry Potter to The Breakfast Club to Catcher in the Rye have that particular "anime trope"...

[kajnrig]

I thought it was fairly common the world over for stories aimed at young adults to feature young adults as the main characters...?

Otherwise everything from Harry Potter to The Breakfast Club to Catcher in the Rye have that particular "anime trope"...

You do have a point there. I often forget that very basic thing. That said, I'd hardly call 15 "young adult." (Though I'm sure I would have ten years ago...)

[GabrielV]

I thought it was fairly common the world over for stories aimed at young adults to feature young adults as the main characters...?

I see the original Macross through the filter of Robotech if it makes a difference in this case.

When we're introduced to Rick Hunter at the beginning of the series, he is clearly independent and presumably has a pilot's license. For someone in my corner of the world, that seems to imply that he's at minimum 18. Although the show definitely doesn't give any reason to think he's much more than that.

Rick later enlists in the military. Once again, in my corner of the world that happens at age 18. Admittedly, an emergency situation is going on, but the emergency is presented very tamely, so it leads to the standard rules of my corner of civilization being inferred as still in use. So, Rick has to be 18 to enlist.

Max appears later, after the two year stretch of time heading back to Earth. He is obviously a new recruit. Once again, the automatic assumption on my end is to assume that he's recently 18 when he first appears.

No. It doesn't make a lot of sense given the situation that able bodied pilots would be ignored until their 18th birthday given the number of VFs we see blowing up, but neither does a Chinese restaurant in space.

Rick and Max are never portrayed as minors, therefore I never assumed they were anything but over the age of majority. They are portrayed as youthful. That is definitely true. But then again, 18 and 19 and even 21 are pretty wet behind the ears anyway.

[VF5SS]

If it makes you feel better, Hikaru and Max's ages are bumped up to 18 in DYRL.

[Rbstr]

I thought it was fairly common the world over for stories aimed at young adults to feature young adults as the main characters...?

Otherwise everything from Harry Potter to The Breakfast Club to Catcher in the Rye have that particular "anime trope"...

Sure, but those don't feature 16 year olds as active duty military pilots of all things! I think the west tends to be a bit less improbable as far as that goes. Harry Potter is about kids at a school, after all. Not kid wizards already employed by the Ministry of Magic.

I would definitely include "sub-18 year-olds operating military vehicles as a part of the military, and not in a child-soldier kind of way" as an anime trope. It's long-winded but it's a thing, for sure. In SDFM it's one thing, being all-out-war. But the kids in Frontier being SMS combat pilots...it's a stretch. (I don't particularly mind the trope, just saying it's certainly more prevalent in anime)

Edited February 1, 2016 by Rbstr

[Gubaba]

Sure, but those don't feature 16 year olds as active duty military pilots of all things! I think the west tends to be a bit less improbable as far as that goes. Harry Potter is about kids at a school, after all. Not kid wizards already employed by the Ministry of Magic.

I would definitely include "sub-18 year-olds operating military vehicles as a part of the military, and not in a child-soldier kind of way" as an anime trope. It's long-winded but it's a thing, for sure.

Good point, and I guess I mostly agree, although I will point out that in Macross (and First Gundam) it kind of is in a child soldier way, since in both of those world's, most of the able-bodied men have been killed off already...

That's probably after-the-fact justification to get characters the same age as their target audience into the cockpits, though.

(And hey, it makes more sense than 10-year-old Anakin being a master pilot...)

[Scyla]

If I understand the Macross canon correctly than every show/movie/comic/game is a retelling of an in-universe event. So I have no problem to believe that in the actual event the pilots where probably older and that the age for the pilots in the media was chosen to appeal to the target audience.

[JB0]

I, on the other hand, kinda prefer the stupidly young nature of the heroes in SDF, because when you stop and look at it, it emphasizes how screwed-up their situation is.

[GabrielV]

Sure, but those don't feature 16 year olds as active duty military pilots of all things! I think the west tends to be a bit less improbable as far as that goes. Harry Potter is about kids at a school, after all. Not kid wizards already employed by the Ministry of Magic.

I would definitely include "sub-18 year-olds operating military vehicles as a part of the military, and not in a child-soldier kind of way" as an anime trope. It's long-winded but it's a thing, for sure. In SDFM it's one thing, being all-out-war. But the kids in Frontier being SMS combat pilots...it's a stretch. (I don't particularly mind the trope, just saying it's certainly more prevalent in anime)

Yeah, that was basically what I was trying to say when I called it an anime trope.

[Nazareno2012]

Some real life militaries allow people ages 15 and up to enlist, so I don't think it is much of a stretch.

[kajnrig]

For my part, it's not so much a stretch as simply something I never considered. It does add a certain degree of desperation to the series.

[Zinjo]

Some real life militaries allow people ages 15 and up to enlist, so I don't think it is much of a stretch.

They wouldn't be located in Africa or South America would they?

[Nazareno2012]

They wouldn't be located in Africa or South America would they?

The Philippine military is one example of a decent military doing that.

[Marzan]

The Geneva Convention actually allows for 15 year old's and above to be recruited into the military.

Article 4.3.c of Protocol II, additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts, adopted in 1977, states "children who have not attained the age of fifteen years shall neither be recruited in the armed forces or groups nor allowed to take part in hostilities".

Having said that, the tendency in most military of functioning nation-states is to avoid using those under the age of 18 to take part in combat operations. I remember reading that, by mistake, the UK actually sent a couple of 17 year olds to Iraq and Afghanistan some years ago.

So th ages of Max and Hikaru, specially after the prolonged conflicts Earth has been through previous to the main story of SDFM, are not that much of an eye opener to be honest.

[Beltane70]

I don't remember how old he was, but my mother's father lied about his age so that he could enlist to fight in WW I.