Macross Δ (Delta) - Mission 12 - READ 1st POST

[azrael]

Welcome to the Macross Delta Episode 12 Talkback Thread

Guidelines:

• Macross Delta episode file requests, file offers or any audio/video sharing links of any kind or format are not permitted anywhere on the forum except by Boinger in the iMacross thread. This is 2016, not 2007. They know about us and how the 'Net operates now. This includes, but is not limited to BitTorrent files/links, YouTube, Nico, related video-sharing or video streaming site links, File sharing links, full audio soundtracks, etc.. Any user-post in violation of this rule will be deleted without notice. Repeated offenses may result in a ban. DISCUSSION ONLY. Send a PM to Boinger with a link to the file to be added to iMacross.
• This thread only covers the episode listed in the subject. Do not post comments about another episode not covered by this thread. (i.e. References are OK, but do not post a critique about episode 1 when this thread covers episode 999).
• This thread(s) is about current episodes only. Please reserve mecha talk and news talk for their respective threads. Do not cross-post.
• Please reserve all talk about future episode spoilers for the News thread.
• Do not ask when an episode will be aired or released (this includes fansubs).

  Raw files will be release shortly after broadcast. Subtitled versions will be released when they are ready.

• Please use spoiler tags for the first 24-hours after an episode airs. There will be consequences if you don't

New episode threads and polls opens Sundays, 9:00AM EST/6:00AM PST (22:00, i.e. 10:00PM JST), 30 minutes BEFORE the broadcast.

Broadcast schedule:

Sunday: Tokyo MX, 22:30 JST

Monday: TVQ Kyushu, 26:30 (2:30 AM) JST

Tuesday: MBS, 27:00 (3:00 AM) JST / BS11, 24:00 (midnight) JST

Wednesday: d anime store, 12:00 JST / TV Aichi & Television Hokkaido, 26:05 (2:05 AM) JST

(Broadcast times subject to change, Check listings.)

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Congrats to Mirage on promotion to Delta 2

The sequence of Elysion taking off was absolute gorgeous!

[CRYO]

No valk action again.

Roid's still don't want Heinz die from drained his song power, may be he will later take Heinz and switch side to Chaos?

Elysium takeoff and transformed, but seems Windermere just start to fold to another location when Chaos fold out to Al Shahal?

[Graham]

Congrats to Mirage on promotion to Delta 2

You mean she inherits Messer's VF-31F? Or just the title of Delta 02?

[Graham]

So is there a new opening animation yet this week, or are they still showing Messer?

[eko.prasetiyo]

No valk action again.

Roid's still don't want Heinz die from drained his song power, may be he will later take Heinz and switch side to Chaos?

Elysium takeoff and transformed, but seems Windermere just start to fold to another location when Chaos fold out to Al Shahal?

so its just a bait? winderemere real target is not al-shahal then? they just show of force at al-shahal. perhaps they target ragna?

[seti88]

why hello there!

[kalvasflam]

is that Milia? I know, can't help hoping

Edited June 19, 2016 by kalvasflam

[seti88]

the old kings jet's fold quartz array and the VF31s look similar!

is that Milia? I know, can't help hoping

hehe tho thats a nice idea...she cant be unless that's some magical botox treatment in the future!

[CRYO]

so its just a bait? winderemere real target is not al-shahal then? they just show of force at al-shahal. perhaps they target ragna?

They had already taken control of Al Shahal in no time, sing a song than the planet is mine.... so they must go for taken the last Protoculture ruin in Ragna, but King of wind did have perfect timing to attract Chaos out of Ragna.

[eko.prasetiyo]

They had already taken control of Al Shahal in no time, sing a song than the planet is mine.... so they must go for taken the last Protoculture ruin in Ragna, but King of wind did have perfect timing to attract Chaos out of Ragna.

so if macross elysion leave ragna who will defend ragna? where's battle class NMCV on ragna? we only saw island class there

[seti88]

[Marzan]

Seeing Macross Elysium take off and transform was nothing short of arousing

[SebastianP]

the old kings jet's fold quartz array and the VF31s look similar!

1466348642366.jpg

That's just a sensor array, I think - nearly all of the VFs have something similar, at least from Macross Plus onwards. Real fighter jets tend to have their IFF interrogation equipment mounted in that general area. The "fold quartz" on the VF-25 super parts, YF-29 and YF-30 was all in the chest/mid dorsal region, not the nose.

[Nazareno2012]

so if macross elysion leave ragna who will defend ragna? where's battle class NMCV on ragna? we only saw island class there

They should have the Battle section in orbit, and it possibly appeared in an earlier episode in cruiser mode

[eko.prasetiyo]

Seeing Macross Elysium take off and transform was nothing short of arousing

question remain, where's the main cannon? is it hid under the deck of two carrier ? the frontend of those carrier are always closed

Edited June 19, 2016 by eko.prasetiyo

[This Confuses Gamlin]

So is there a new opening animation yet this week, or are they still showing Messer?

Still the first OP and ED including Messer. And Mirage seems to keep her own Siggy.

Edited June 19, 2016 by This Confuses Gamlin

[CRYO]

so if macross elysion leave ragna who will defend ragna? where's battle class NMCV on ragna? we only saw island class there

Next ep trailer showed Hayahaya and Miramira dogfighting with Keith, so I think at lease Macross Elysion can quickly 2nd fold back to Ragna. The next 2 ep should be the mid season climax.

[SebastianP]

Something that kind of makes me wonder, now that we've seen that Ernest actually commands the whole shebang, not just the Aether: Just who *is* the captain of the Aether? Also, are the funny bridge bunnies part of the Aether crew, or the Elysion crew? (I don't remember if we've seen them deploy with the Aether, or if they were always on Ragna with the Elysion).

The transformation sequence was awesome, and the source of many, many screencaps. I need to find a video player that allows me to step backwards though.

Here are the weapons I found while counting turrets and other systems visible during the sequence (and from various pics in episodes 2 and 3):

Large twin tuning-fork type turrets: 12 confirmed - two on each knee, two on each shoulder, four on the chest. In ship mode, ten of these turrets can fire forwards, two astern, and three (or five) to each broadside.

Twin shrouded barrel type turrets: 13 on the Aether itself - five on each of the gun spires (facing up in in robot mode, and aft in ship mode), 3 on the centerline (two on the front, one on the back; all face down in robot mode and forward in ship mode); and four on each carrier (at least one of which is incapable of firing while docked). There may be a fourth turret on the centerline - it's really hard to make out and may be a figment of my imagination, but it'd be on the bottom, facing aft in ship mode. Figuring out how many can fire broadside is going to get interesting, but I'd hazard a guess and say five, due to their placement.

Large missile tubes: 8 - four in each gun spire, facing up in robot mode or aft in ship mode.

Large fixed guns: 8 - four in each gun spire, see above.

Twin anti-mecha turrets: 16 confirmed, six forward-facing and two upward-facing on each leg in robot mode, which translates to four forward-facing turrets (total) and six to either broadside in ship form.

[eko.prasetiyo]

can somebody create gif from elysion launch & transformation?

[UN Spacy]

Positive for the HOT new Chaos pilot...throw HER into the love triangle.

[Moosey]

can somebody create gif from elysion launch & transformation?

As requested....

[Gerli]

Amazing chapter... we're gonna discuss all the details across the week

[RedWolf]

The Sigur Valens can generate its own Fold Fault barrier like the Vajra. Just to show the Protoculture were Varjra fanboys. We've seen such technology on Ouroboros and perhaps with the Bird Human. There is a means to break through it the Fold Wave System and Fold Wave Resonance System from the YF-29 and YF-30. The VF-31 Seigfried as shown with Hayate and Messer resonating with Freyja and Kaname it is possible. LAI Super Fold Booster is another posibility but we've never seen it used on artificial Fold Faults.

So most likely the dimension barrier around Windemere is because of Sigur Valens. The MDE that hit Carlisle is most likely somebody messing with its systems.

Heinz's song took over the Al Shahal NUNS fleet.

Windermere two ship classes are variants of the ones Macross Galaxy uses. Makes you wonder if Macross Galaxy has links to Epsilon Foundation.

NUNS thinks by destroying the ruins on Ragna it can prevent Windermere's plan. Probably won't work as those things reach to the core. Lady M whom the NUNS reps doesn't know her looks manage to convince NUNS not to do it. I'm starting to suspect it's actually Maria Fokina Barnrose aka Therese Jenius to have that political pull. She saved Earth and the NUN from Lactence's plot in VF-X2 as leader of Vindirance. Staying separate from NUNS with Kaos while having the interests of the citizenry of the NUN.

Now it is Mirage's turn to be jelly. Unlike Sheryl and Ranka who are obvious in their affection for Alto, Mirage and Freyja are not and is just beginning to have those feelings. Of course Hayate wouldn't have a clue as they are keeping it to themselves. Freyja being a strong fold receptor may have felt Mirage's emotions a bit.

Gramia felt Ernest coming so just as they defolded Sigur Valens and fleet would fold to Ragna. Leaving the Macross Elysion.

On Kaos they are using the same type of ships as NUNS. Unlike SMS that uses Quarters on screen. Though SMS Ouroboros does use a a modified Northampton class the Gefion.

Edited June 19, 2016 by RedWolf

[Seto Kaiba]

the old kings jet's fold quartz array and the VF31s look similar!

1466348642366.jpg

That's just a sensor array, I think - nearly all of the VFs have something similar, at least from Macross Plus onwards. Real fighter jets tend to have their IFF interrogation equipment mounted in that general area. The "fold quartz" on the VF-25 super parts, YF-29 and YF-30 was all in the chest/mid dorsal region, not the nose.

Those aren't fold quartz... those are "sensors windows", to use the term from Variable Fighter Master File.

Essentially, they're protective covers over a cluster of various optical, infrared, and laser sensor systems which are used for things like space navigation, non-radar sensing, long-range imaging, non-cooperative target recognition.

They're basically what the infrared sensor blisters on the side of the VF-1's nose cone evolved into.

Something that kind of makes me wonder, now that we've seen that Ernest actually commands the whole shebang, not just the Aether: Just who *is* the captain of the Aether? Also, are the funny bridge bunnies part of the Aether crew, or the Elysion crew? (I don't remember if we've seen them deploy with the Aether, or if they were always on Ragna with the Elysion).

Ernest Johnson's official bio on Macross.jp identifies him as the Macross Elysion's captain.

[UN Spacy]

That's friggin

[SebastianP]

Ernest Johnson's official bio on Macross.jp identifies him as the Macross Elysion's captain.

Not sure if spoilers are necessary given that it pertains to info from the website and previous episodes, but I'll keep them anyway.

That still doesn't tell me what the rest of the chain of command looks like. Does Aether actually *have* it's own captain? Hemera surely must have, given that it went on an op alone, but how does that person fit into the general command structure of the ship? One option I'm looking at is that Johnson's 2IC commands Hemera (and the whole Elysion when Johnson takes Aether out on a mission), but we've never *seen* said 2IC.

Then again, we only saw Global's 2IC in meetings and when he and Misa went to Alaska anyway. (Misa being the ship's actual XO is preposterous in general, at least until after the Rain of Death when the other senior officers aboard moved on to bigger things).

Edited June 19, 2016 by SebastianP

[RedWolf]

Not sure if spoilers are necessary given that it pertains to info from the website and previous episodes, but I'll keep them anyway.

That still doesn't tell me what the rest of the chain of command looks like. Does Aether actually *have* it's own captain? Hemera surely must have, given that it went on an op alone, but how does that person fit into the general command structure of the ship? One option I'm looking at is that Johnson's 2IC commands Hemera (and the whole Elysion when Johnson takes Aether out on a mission), but we've never *seen* said 2IC.

Then again, we only saw Global's 2IC in meetings and when he and Misa went to Alaska anyway. (Misa being the ship's actual XO is preposterous in general, at least until after the Rain of Death when the other senior officers aboard moved on to bigger things).

Global though was an admiral. He had colonels under him. Max Jenius was colonel in rank but was overall commander of military forces of Macross 7. He is still called captain as he commands Battle 7.

Ernest is higher up the chain of command sitting on Elysion's chair. We never seen him on Hermera or Aether's chair himself.

[Seto Kaiba]

OK, sittin' down to watch this one now...

OK, am I the only one getting really sick of Windermere winning every fight they start offscreen and apparently without any significant resistance?

The first time it happened, it was impressive and threatening... now it's just starting to feel like the result of some seriously lazy writing. I mean, the entire New UN Spacy Al Shahal garrison got off one ineffectual shot at the Sigur Valens and its supporting fleet and were under mind control within the space of a minute! The whole mess, which can't be dignified with the term "battle", can't have taken more than five minutes of in-story time. Windermere conquered Al Shahal offscreen in less time than it takes to boil an egg. That complete prat Messer was able to resist the effects of Var syndrome and the Song of the Wind on multiple occasions, and in the end he was still able to make it for him against the enemy. If he can do that, why can't anyone in the New UN Spacy? Messer wasn't a special snowflake with a fold receptor factor or anything of that nature. He was just incredibly stubborn and disciplined... y'know, like the professional soldiers the NUNS are.

Kaos and Walkure staging a comeback from this nonsense is going to damned near impossible to present plausibly. They're up against the New UN Spacy forces from a dozen planets, when they apparently have one ship and maybe a dozen fighters. I could understand and excuse SMS being able to protect Macross Frontier from the Vajra with a few squadrons of the latest fighter because the Vajra demonstrably were not interested in destroying the fleet or doing anything besides rescuing what they thought was one of them (actually Ranka) for most of the series and the NUNS forces eventually stepped up and started kicking ass too. You're not gonna plausibly retake an entire mind-controlled star cluster with one ship and a dozen military washouts.

We get any more weaksauce like this, and I might just go off this series. It started strong, but it's started to get that same Macross 7 feel with too much episode left at the end of the story.

All that disgust and I haven't even gotten past the opening yet!

At least someone managed to get a good scan of the Sigur Valens before getting their arse kicked. No surprises about its capabilities though, it's built around the same bag of tricks the Protoculture copied from the Vajra in the Birdman and Evil-series. Sigur Valens is powered by a fold reactor, so it's basically got infinite fuel as generates power through fold dimensional energy conversion. That means it's probably something developed after the Schism War ended and the conflict with the Protodeviln ended, which means it's likely not actually a battleship.

Oh yay, let's have a good chunk of the episode devoting to upending a dustbin full of reiterated expository dialogue into the audience's face...

Mirage got promoted? Good for her... I wish I could say she got it on merit rather than to fill a rank gap on the roster. She hasn't really improved her piloting skills yet, so and even Messer thought she was a less able pilot than Chuck, so why didn't they promote Chuck instead? Is there some kind of rule that Delta Platoon's second in command must have a stick up their ass to counterbalance Arad's easygoing attitude?

Roid, I see, is still the only one who gives a toss about Heinz's health and happiness. If that guy keeps sticking his neck out, Keith or Gramia is likely to stick a knife in his back.

They picked a really flattering screen capture from Gramia's speech to make his file photo... I'm amazed the crew of the Elysion have refrained from turning it into a meme.

Huh... that's first sound bit of tactics we've seen the New UN Spacy exercise in this series. "The completely uninhabited ruins are the root of this problem, so let's just blow them up and knock off for lunch." The ruins might draw power from the planet's core, but if you take the ruins out of the picture then life should be dandy. Heinz can't transmit his song everywhere, and Gramia can't establish his Starwind Sector. The way he's drawn, we're clearly supposed to hate this guy, but he's the only one in this show who seems to have any actual interest in preventing Windermere from carrying out its plans. Lady M is off doing who-knows-what and apparently is too busy being mysterious to care what happens to the Brisingr star cluster so the NUNS is taking a well-thought-out preventative action. Good on them to avoid Windermere's apparent mistake by using an ordinary reaction weapon instead of a dimension weapon.

(Johnson's got a swanky office tho... makes Global's quarters on the SDF-1 Macross look positively humble.)

... ... ... has every scene on Windermere except the Aerial Knights hangar taken place aboard the Sigur Valens? Heinz's song room is apparently there, and now the king's bedroom too? How extensively did they remodel that ancient ship?

... and Lady M talked the NUNS into pulling the plug on a plan much better and more sensible than hers. Way to go. At this rate, you'd suspect she's on Gramia's side.

Hayate got his fold quartz pendant from his dad, and cue some minor romance drama between Freyja and Mirage.

Ah, they're finally launching the Elysion instead of just one of the arms. Flying that low over town seems kind of dangerous, especially considering those engines are spraying fusion plasma all over hell's half acre. I'm amazed they didn't burn the town down. My goodness that's a cluttered design though. It's even busier than the Macross Quarter-class. I know a spaceship doesn't have to be streamlined, but has so much extraneous surface detail that it brings to mind some of the worst artistic offenses of the Transformers comics, where every character had to be covered with eleventy billion panel lines, hairline cracks, chips, and nicks.

FINALLY! A look at a full hangar on the Aether. Still surprisingly light on fighter count. The Macross Elysion may only be carrying forty or so total fighters between the Aether and Hemera. That barely makes it an escort carrier by Macross's standards. Maybe that's why the New UN Spacy doesn't mind so much... it's a Macross all right, but it's hovering somewhere between being a cruiser and an escort carrier rather than a full-fledged carrier like the Macross Quarter-class or a supercarrier battleship like the Macross-class or Battle-class.

... and Gramia trolls Kaos again. I'm starting to think our protagonists might be Lawful Stupid. They're not gaining ground, or even holding ground. They're perpetually a day late and a dollar short. Gramia could fax them a copy of the Sigur Valens' flight plan and they'd still find a way to narrowly miss it.

This is going to be my first negative vote for this series. Try another condiment, Kawamori-san, because this weaksauce ain't workin.

[SebastianP]

Went over the transformation scene frame by frame (again), and noticed something that didn't pop in my head until now:

Hemera's hull number is visible on her deck, on the opposite side compared to Aether's. It is CV/C-110, which implies that there may be as many as 55 Elysion-type battleships...

Regarding the hangar capacity, we probably haven't seen the whole hangar; also, remember that the Elysion has more guns than basically any ship we've ever seen in the franchise and the captain himself calls it a battleship.

[Alberich]

OK, sittin' down to watch this one now...

OK, am I the only one getting really sick of Windermere winning every fight they start offscreen and apparently without any significant resistance?

The first time it happened, it was impressive and threatening... now it's just starting to feel like the result of some seriously lazy writing. I mean, the entire New UN Spacy Al Shahal garrison got off one ineffectual shot at the Sigur Valens and its supporting fleet and were under mind control within the space of a minute! The whole mess, which can't be dignified with the term "battle", can't have taken more than five minutes of in-story time. Windermere conquered Al Shahal offscreen in less time than it takes to boil an egg. That complete prat Messer was able to resist the effects of Var syndrome and the Song of the Wind on multiple occasions, and in the end he was still able to make it for him against the enemy. If he can do that, why can't anyone in the New UN Spacy? Messer wasn't a special snowflake with a fold receptor factor or anything of that nature. He was just incredibly stubborn and disciplined... y'know, like the professional soldiers the NUNS are.

Kaos and Walkure staging a comeback from this nonsense is going to damned near impossible to present plausibly. They're up against the New UN Spacy forces from a dozen planets, when they apparently have one ship and maybe a dozen fighters. I could understand and excuse SMS being able to protect Macross Frontier from the Vajra with a few squadrons of the latest fighter because the Vajra demonstrably were not interested in destroying the fleet or doing anything besides rescuing what they thought was one of them (actually Ranka) for most of the series and the NUNS forces eventually stepped up and started kicking ass too. You're not gonna plausibly retake an entire mind-controlled star cluster with one ship and a dozen military washouts.

We get any more weaksauce like this, and I might just go off this series. It started strong, but it's started to get that same Macross 7 feel with too much episode left at the end of the story.

All that disgust and I haven't even gotten past the opening yet!

At least someone managed to get a good scan of the Sigur Valens before getting their arse kicked. No surprises about its capabilities though, it's built around the same bag of tricks the Protoculture copied from the Vajra in the Birdman and Evil-series. Sigur Valens is powered by a fold reactor, so it's basically got infinite fuel as generates power through fold dimensional energy conversion. That means it's probably something developed after the Schism War ended and the conflict with the Protodeviln ended, which means it's likely not actually a battleship.

Oh yay, let's have a good chunk of the episode devoting to upending a dustbin full of reiterated expository dialogue into the audience's face...

Mirage got promoted? Good for her... I wish I could say she got it on merit rather than to fill a rank gap on the roster. She hasn't really improved her piloting skills yet, so and even Messer thought she was a less able pilot than Chuck, so why didn't they promote Chuck instead? Is there some kind of rule that Delta Platoon's second in command must have a stick up their ass to counterbalance Arad's easygoing attitude?

Roid, I see, is still the only one who gives a toss about Heinz's health and happiness. If that guy keeps sticking his neck out, Keith or Gramia is likely to stick a knife in his back.

They picked a really flattering screen capture from Gramia's speech to make his file photo... I'm amazed the crew of the Elysion have refrained from turning it into a meme.

Huh... that's first sound bit of tactics we've seen the New UN Spacy exercise in this series. "The completely uninhabited ruins are the root of this problem, so let's just blow them up and knock off for lunch." The ruins might draw power from the planet's core, but if you take the ruins out of the picture then life should be dandy. Heinz can't transmit his song everywhere, and Gramia can't establish his Starwind Sector. The way he's drawn, we're clearly supposed to hate this guy, but he's the only one in this show who seems to have any actual interest in preventing Windermere from carrying out its plans. Lady M is off doing who-knows-what and apparently is too busy being mysterious to care what happens to the Brisingr star cluster so the NUNS is taking a well-thought-out preventative action. Good on them to avoid Windermere's apparent mistake by using an ordinary reaction weapon instead of a dimension weapon.

(Johnson's got a swanky office tho... makes Global's quarters on the SDF-1 Macross look positively humble.)

... ... ... has every scene on Windermere except the Aerial Knights hangar taken place aboard the Sigur Valens? Heinz's song room is apparently there, and now the king's bedroom too? How extensively did they remodel that ancient ship?

... and Lady M talked the NUNS into pulling the plug on a plan much better and more sensible than hers. Way to go. At this rate, you'd suspect she's on Gramia's side.

Hayate got his fold quartz pendant from his dad, and cue some minor romance drama between Freyja and Mirage.

Ah, they're finally launching the Elysion instead of just one of the arms. Flying that low over town seems kind of dangerous, especially considering those engines are spraying fusion plasma all over hell's half acre. I'm amazed they didn't burn the town down. My goodness that's a cluttered design though. It's even busier than the Macross Quarter-class. I know a spaceship doesn't have to be streamlined, but has so much extraneous surface detail that it brings to mind some of the worst artistic offenses of the Transformers comics, where every character had to be covered with eleventy billion panel lines, hairline cracks, chips, and nicks.

FINALLY! A look at a full hangar on the Aether. Still surprisingly light on fighter count. The Macross Elysion may only be carrying forty or so total fighters between the Aether and Hemera. That barely makes it an escort carrier by Macross's standards. Maybe that's why the New UN Spacy doesn't mind so much... it's a Macross all right, but it's hovering somewhere between being a cruiser and an escort carrier rather than a full-fledged carrier like the Macross Quarter-class or a supercarrier battleship like the Macross-class or Battle-class.

... and Gramia trolls Kaos again. I'm starting to think our protagonists might be Lawful Stupid. They're not gaining ground, or even holding ground. They're perpetually a day late and a dollar short. Gramia could fax them a copy of the Sigur Valens' flight plan and they'd still find a way to narrowly miss it.

This is going to be my first negative vote for this series. Try another condiment, Kawamori-san, because this weaksauce ain't workin.

Basically this, also...

I implore to Kawamori not to use the cliche of an angry windermerean switching sides, that will laughable at the best. Still you know why we have this mess? Is because the same Kawamori and his "pacifism", that is why they are using the old mind control plot, this way they don't need to portray a real war an just troll us with the "war".

Also the NUNS in Ragna seems to be the only one with common sense and make something some steps ahead Windermere, but again is the big military and Kawamori is going to portray them as the baddies... but oh well I hope that something change in the next chapters, even if I know that is not going to happen.

Just give me some 25's and 27's with NUNS markings to secure them as DX releases down the road

[RedWolf]

OK, sittin' down to watch this one now...

OK, am I the only one getting really sick of Windermere winning every fight they start offscreen and apparently without any significant resistance?

The first time it happened, it was impressive and threatening... now it's just starting to feel like the result of some seriously lazy writing. I mean, the entire New UN Spacy Al Shahal garrison got off one ineffectual shot at the Sigur Valens and its supporting fleet and were under mind control within the space of a minute! The whole mess, which can't be dignified with the term "battle", can't have taken more than five minutes of in-story time. Windermere conquered Al Shahal offscreen in less time than it takes to boil an egg. That complete prat Messer was able to resist the effects of Var syndrome and the Song of the Wind on multiple occasions, and in the end he was still able to make it for him against the enemy. If he can do that, why can't anyone in the New UN Spacy? Messer wasn't a special snowflake with a fold receptor factor or anything of that nature. He was just incredibly stubborn and disciplined... y'know, like the professional soldiers the NUNS are.

Kaos and Walkure staging a comeback from this nonsense is going to damned near impossible to present plausibly. They're up against the New UN Spacy forces from a dozen planets, when they apparently have one ship and maybe a dozen fighters. I could understand and excuse SMS being able to protect Macross Frontier from the Vajra with a few squadrons of the latest fighter because the Vajra demonstrably were not interested in destroying the fleet or doing anything besides rescuing what they thought was one of them (actually Ranka) for most of the series and the NUNS forces eventually stepped up and started kicking ass too. You're not gonna plausibly retake an entire mind-controlled star cluster with one ship and a dozen military washouts.

We get any more weaksauce like this, and I might just go off this series. It started strong, but it's started to get that same Macross 7 feel with too much episode left at the end of the story.

All that disgust and I haven't even gotten past the opening yet!

At least someone managed to get a good scan of the Sigur Valens before getting their arse kicked. No surprises about its capabilities though, it's built around the same bag of tricks the Protoculture copied from the Vajra in the Birdman and Evil-series. Sigur Valens is powered by a fold reactor, so it's basically got infinite fuel as generates power through fold dimensional energy conversion. That means it's probably something developed after the Schism War ended and the conflict with the Protodeviln ended, which means it's likely not actually a battleship.

Oh yay, let's have a good chunk of the episode devoting to upending a dustbin full of reiterated expository dialogue into the audience's face...

Mirage got promoted? Good for her... I wish I could say she got it on merit rather than to fill a rank gap on the roster. She hasn't really improved her piloting skills yet, so and even Messer thought she was a less able pilot than Chuck, so why didn't they promote Chuck instead? Is there some kind of rule that Delta Platoon's second in command must have a stick up their ass to counterbalance Arad's easygoing attitude?

Roid, I see, is still the only one who gives a toss about Heinz's health and happiness. If that guy keeps sticking his neck out, Keith or Gramia is likely to stick a knife in his back.

They picked a really flattering screen capture from Gramia's speech to make his file photo... I'm amazed the crew of the Elysion have refrained from turning it into a meme.

Huh... that's first sound bit of tactics we've seen the New UN Spacy exercise in this series. "The completely uninhabited ruins are the root of this problem, so let's just blow them up and knock off for lunch." The ruins might draw power from the planet's core, but if you take the ruins out of the picture then life should be dandy. Heinz can't transmit his song everywhere, and Gramia can't establish his Starwind Sector. The way he's drawn, we're clearly supposed to hate this guy, but he's the only one in this show who seems to have any actual interest in preventing Windermere from carrying out its plans. Lady M is off doing who-knows-what and apparently is too busy being mysterious to care what happens to the Brisingr star cluster so the NUNS is taking a well-thought-out preventative action. Good on them to avoid Windermere's apparent mistake by using an ordinary reaction weapon instead of a dimension weapon.

(Johnson's got a swanky office tho... makes Global's quarters on the SDF-1 Macross look positively humble.)

... ... ... has every scene on Windermere except the Aerial Knights hangar taken place aboard the Sigur Valens? Heinz's song room is apparently there, and now the king's bedroom too? How extensively did they remodel that ancient ship?

... and Lady M talked the NUNS into pulling the plug on a plan much better and more sensible than hers. Way to go. At this rate, you'd suspect she's on Gramia's side.

Hayate got his fold quartz pendant from his dad, and cue some minor romance drama between Freyja and Mirage.

Ah, they're finally launching the Elysion instead of just one of the arms. Flying that low over town seems kind of dangerous, especially considering those engines are spraying fusion plasma all over hell's half acre. I'm amazed they didn't burn the town down. My goodness that's a cluttered design though. It's even busier than the Macross Quarter-class. I know a spaceship doesn't have to be streamlined, but has so much extraneous surface detail that it brings to mind some of the worst artistic offenses of the Transformers comics, where every character had to be covered with eleventy billion panel lines, hairline cracks, chips, and nicks.

FINALLY! A look at a full hangar on the Aether. Still surprisingly light on fighter count. The Macross Elysion may only be carrying forty or so total fighters between the Aether and Hemera. That barely makes it an escort carrier by Macross's standards. Maybe that's why the New UN Spacy doesn't mind so much... it's a Macross all right, but it's hovering somewhere between being a cruiser and an escort carrier rather than a full-fledged carrier like the Macross Quarter-class or a supercarrier battleship like the Macross-class or Battle-class.

... and Gramia trolls Kaos again. I'm starting to think our protagonists might be Lawful Stupid. They're not gaining ground, or even holding ground. They're perpetually a day late and a dollar short. Gramia could fax them a copy of the Sigur Valens' flight plan and they'd still find a way to narrowly miss it.

This is going to be my first negative vote for this series. Try another condiment, Kawamori-san, because this weaksauce ain't workin.

Going by what is said by Ernest when he was still Gramia's instructor he's good at one on one duels but suck at fleet battles. Gramia on the other hand knows Ernest won 100 battles and lost only 8. Gramia's as seen on this episode does his best to avoid a real fight particularly with Ernest as he knows he'll get rekt. Gramia went Nope in facing Ernest and Walkure as he'll be beat that way. He savvy enough to recognize further contact with Walkure can turn Heinz against him. Episode 13 could be the turning point of the war.

[Seto Kaiba]

Hemera's hull number is visible on her deck, on the opposite side compared to Aether's. It is CV/C-110, which implies that there may be as many as 55 Elysion-type battleships...

Regarding the hangar capacity, we probably haven't seen the whole hangar; also, remember that the Elysion has more guns than basically any ship we've ever seen in the franchise and the captain himself calls it a battleship.

I'd doubt there are that many Elysion-type ships out there. That CV/C sequence is probably assigned to every non-military carrier regardless of class... like how CV in the (New) UN Spacy is a sequence shared by at least five classes that we know about, and probably several more that haven't explicitly been confirmed to use it like the Dulfim-class and the carrier equivalent in the Varauta system defense fleet that was improved by the Protodeviln.

Basically this, also...

Just give me some 25's and 27's with NUNS markings to secure them as DX releases down the road

All the VF-27's already have NUNS markings... except maybe Mei Ririon's from Macross 30.

(Seriously. It's kind of hard to see on Brera's VF-27 because it's red on pink, but there is a NUNS insignia on the wings.)

[kalvasflam]

So is there a new opening animation yet this week, or are they still showing Messer?

Messer is still in the opening.

Hmmm, this is so strange, if this is how they are taking over NUNS, there should be a large contingent of NUNS ships under control of Windermere by now, unless there isn't much of a fleet at the rest of the planets conquered so far. Where are the Vajra when you need them? Would be a good time to remove a fold fault barrier.

Actually, I felt just a little robbed by this episode. We start off with a barrage, and then it became like a DBZ episode of power ups. And just as Elysion enter the battle field (alone???? where the hell are all of the ships on that came in at Ragna? The Windermeres run away.. Ernest ol' buddy, no time for a good old itano circus as you are passing by the old geezer?

Edited June 19, 2016 by kalvasflam

[RedWolf]

Messer is still in the opening.

Hmmm, this is so strange, if this is how they are taking over NUNS, there should be a large contingent of NUNS ships under control of Windermere by now, unless there isn't much of a fleet at the rest of the planets conquered so far. Where are the Vajra when you need them? Would be a good time to remove a fold fault barrier.

Gramia has acknowledged how strong Walkure is. The Earthers have tales of Basara freeing mind controlled Varauta soldiers. If anything Gramia is being savvy in that and in denying NUNS and Ernest a decisive battle.