New Macross TV Series in 20xx (sometime this decade)

[Zx31]

35 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

en the New UN Forces approved the plan to attack and destroy the Protoculture ruins and Sigur Berrentzs, the Kingdom of the Wind had been at war with the New UN Government for 8 months.  I would call declaring war on the New UN Government and then spending eight months shooting at the New UN Forces reasonably clear evidence of hostile intent.

Force-ably occupying a planet when the native government doesn't want you there seems like a pretty good reason to go to war to make them leave. I don't recall the exact cause of the war being mentioned, but if the stated facts about the NUNS forces on Windermere are true it could be inferred that NUNS activities didn't help disarm the situation and may have in fact made them worse. Windermere didn't start using the VAR outbreak as a weapon until after NUNS dropped the warhead and forced a cease fire. Windermere didn't even know it could be used as a weapon until they did their own research after the end of the war.
 

I'm also more inclined to believe the stated intent that Wright was attempting to get as far away from populated areas as possible based on the flight data shown in the show at face value than the nebulous idea that he was loitering over a city. 

Do the decisions made by NUNS make sense in the context of all that happens in Delta? Yeah, probably, but I very much doubt that those decisions were driven by a desire to protect the Globular Cluster.

[Seto Kaiba]

11 minutes ago, Zx31 said:

Force-ably occupying a planet when the native government doesn't want you there seems like a pretty good reason to go to war to make them leave.

... what?  Nothing like that was EVER in Macross Delta.  Where did you even get an idea like that?

Windermere IV willingly joined the New UN Government in the late 2020s after they made contact with the 4th Long-Distance Emigrant Fleet.  They were a proud member world for thirty years, and their agricultural economy fed a number of other worlds in the Brisingr cluster.  The Aerial Knights participated in the defense of several other member worlds, and IIRC in the novels King Grammer himself was held in high regard because he fought for the NUNG in the Second Unification War.

 

11 minutes ago, Zx31 said:

I don't recall the exact cause of the war being mentioned, but if the stated facts about the NUNS forces on Windermere are true it could be inferred that NUNS activities didn't help disarm the situation and may have in fact made them worse.

The reasons were principally economic... Windermere IV was one of the most isolated worlds in the already-isolated Brisingr globular cluster, so it was having trouble growing its economy.  They were doing a brisk trade in foodstuffs, but their only other major commodity was fold quartz.  They were unable to fully exploit it due to restrictions the New UN Government assembly imposed on it as an attempt to slow the proliferation of dimensional weapons.

King Grammier VI was unsuccessful in his attempt to renegotiate his planet's trade agreements, so instead of trying again to reach a negotiated settlement he jumped straight to declaring secession from the New UN Government and trying to force the Megaroad-04 colony the previous king had invited to settle there off the planet by force of arms.  (I guess having such a short lifespan makes the scale of patience a bit different...)

 

11 minutes ago, Zx31 said:

Windermere didn't start using the VAR outbreak as a weapon until after NUNS dropped the warhead and forced a cease fire. Windermere didn't even know it could be used as a weapon until they did their own research after the end of the war.

Var syndrome was already a known concern before the first war with Windermere started.  The New UN Spacy garrison on Windermere IV was involved in clandestine efforts to contain its spread even before the war.  (Which, unfortunately, irked the locals a bit since some of it involved inventing not terribly good cover stories like training accidents for destroying tainted crops.)

Weaponizing Var syndrome and weaponizing Var syndrome for mind control are two very different propositions.  We don't know when they hit on the idea of weaponizing Var syndrome itself, but if the gaiden manga is a fair indication it was probably the Epsilon Foundation who clued them in to the possibility of using it for mind control following their 2062 experiments on Pipure.

 

11 minutes ago, Zx31 said:

I'm also more inclined to believe the stated intent that Wright was attempting to get as far away from populated areas as possible based on the flight data shown in the show at face value than the nebulous idea that he was loitering over a city. 

... generally speaking, if you're trying to get as far away from populated areas as you can, holding a course directly over a major population center is not the way to do it.

 

11 minutes ago, Zx31 said:

Do the decisions made by NUNS make sense in the context of all that happens in Delta? Yeah, probably, but I very much doubt that those decisions were driven by a desire to protect the Globular Cluster.

TBH, you seem to be doing a fair bit of headcanon-ing to vilify the NUNS here.

Even Xaos comes to the conclusion that the NUNS dropped the dimensional warhead to prevent an ultimate weapon from ending up in enemy hands near the end of the series, based on Wright's own log recorder.  Berger Stone's explanation that it could wipe out the galactic population kind of puts the cherry on it.  The difference between protecting the globular cluster and keeping an apocalyptic superweapon of galaxy-ending proportions out of the hands of a deranged xenophobic cargo cult hopped up on delusions of manifest destiny is pretty much purely semantics.

(Which, it must be admitted, finally got Xaos on the same page as everyone else since virtually all of the NUNS's exposition was basically that.)  

(Considering the NUNS's past history with the ancient Protoculture's abandoned weapons projects, the decision to blow it to smithereens with maximum overkill straightaway rather than risk it being activated shows remarkably genre-savvy thinking on their part.)

[charles88]

Quote

As noted in the preceding paragraph, your contention that it was an unprovoked attack is false... the Kingdom of the Wind had declared war on and attacked the New UN Forces on Windermere IV over 8 months before and had been in a state of open warfare ever since.

As to the illegality of the dimensional weapon.  Treaties prohibit their transportation and use in the normal course of operations, but as we see later in the series the New UN Forces may deploy them under extraordinary circumstances with the appropriate approvals.  (The bit about it being illegal is from something Arad said, before the cast learned the truth about the op.  Arad was a junior officer, so naturally he wouldn't have had any way of knowing the NUNS internal cover story that Wright'd stolen an undocumented warhead was a cover for an approved mission to destroy the ruins.)

Also, as noted in my previous reply, the only reason the dimensional warhead was detonated over a population center was that Wright Immelmann disobeyed orders and deliberately loitered in a city's airspace while carrying a WMD.  His orders were to proceed to an unpopulated location and bomb that.

Whether Wright Immelmann actually stole the Star Singer DNA or simply found it before the locals did while investigating the ruins is unclear.  It would hardly be the first time that anti-government forces made a claim like that to vilify their opposition in Macross.¹  Given that we're shown that the ruins/ship can conceal or reveal information selectively, that he simply found the system that DNA was kept in first seems reasonably likely.

Seito, you have confirmation biased on NUNS, did you even watch ep 25? Black box from Wright VF-22 already shows that  Wright are UNDER ORDER to bomb Sigur which already confirm at that time RIGHT UNDER capital which Major population center.  Wright already figure out what type of bomb he carry and caught win on his corrupt boss scheme , Try to drop to isolated area. Unfortunately his boss caught wind Wright intention and ARMED BOMB remotely and take control of Wright VF. . With  little time left, Wright tries his best to drop the bomb on most less population area which end up casualties which include Bogue entire family. If Wright FOLLOW his boss order which you suggest, EVEN more casualties. Obviously you did not watch ep 25 delta or confirmation bias if you missed out that revelation!

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by charles88

[Zx31]

32 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

King Grammier VI was unsuccessful in his attempt to renegotiate his planet's trade agreements, so instead of trying again to reach a negotiated settlement he jumped straight to declaring secession from the New UN Government and trying to force the Megaroad-04 colony the previous king had invited to settle there off the planet by force of arms.  (I guess having such a short lifespan makes the scale of patience a bit different...)

 

I recall them talking about fold quartz being an export, but I don't remember the part about renegotiation and Grammier starting the war over it, though the issue with trade restrictions does ring a bell since they mentioned they thought the Earth Government had given them a bad deal. So I defer to you on that issue, since that sounds plausible and my memory isn't as good in this instance.

Still think NUNS actions were questionable, but agree to disagree on that point.

[kajnrig]

To be fair to all sides of the war, it's really entirely the writers' fault.

[Seto Kaiba]

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by Seto Kaiba
Trying to delete this one, accidentally posted before I'd typed more than like two words of my reply.

[Seto Kaiba]

48 minutes ago, charles88 said:

Seito, you have confirmation biased on NUNS, did you even watch ep 25? Black box from Wright VF-22 already shows that  Wright are UNDER ORDER to bomb Sigur which already confirm at that time RIGHT UNDER capital which Major population center.

Yes, I did see episode 25... but did you watch episode 11, which shows us where the Sigur Berrentzs was buried.  It's not under the Kingdom's capital of Darwent or even particularly close to it.  It's buried in the mountains at least a couple dozen kilometers away from the capital.  When we see it launch, the entire capital and castle are in the background at a fair distance away.

 

26 minutes ago, Zx31 said:

I recall them talking about fold quartz being an export, but I don't remember the part about renegotiation and Grammier starting the war over it, though the issue with trade restrictions does ring a bell since they mentioned they thought the Earth Government had given them a bad deal. So I defer to you on that issue, since that sounds plausible and my memory isn't as good in this instance.

It's discussed in more detail in the gaiden manga The White Knight of the Black Wing, which I highly recommend as it's about the only time the Aerial Knights get proper character development.  His sounding board for Windermere's casus belli?  None other than Ernest Johnson.  (The manga shows us more of Grammier's reasonable leader side, even being kind of enough to dismiss Ernest from his service so he won't have to fight his own countrymen.)

 

26 minutes ago, Zx31 said:

Still think NUNS actions were questionable, but agree to disagree on that point.

Regardless of the facts, that's clearly the intention the writers wanted the audience to get, so I can't argue it too strongly.

They gave poor Major Marin about the most untrustworthy weaselface they could.

 

6 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

To be fair to all sides of the war, it's really entirely the writers' fault.

Yep... which is why I'm not going to get my hopes up until or unless I see the Delta movie #2 has a different writing staff from the previous installments.  

[SMS007]

I still don’t fully understand the bombing of Carlyle because the TV series’s writing was a complete mess. Multiple episodes’ details don’t line up to me even in the plot context of secrets. Did Wright sympathetically contact the Windermerians? Did command know specifically about the Sigur Berrentzs underneath Derwent? How did Wright get ahold of the Dimension Eater? Was it outright theft or did he trick his way into a mission from his superiors? And if command could remotely operate a VF-22, then why didn’t they just use a Ghost to deploy the Dimension Eater?

Edited September 25, 2018 by SMS007

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, SMS007 said:

I still don’t fully understand the bombing of Carlyle because the TV series’s writing was a complete mess. Multiple episodes’ details don’t line up to me even in the plot context of secrets. Did Wright sympathetically contact the Windermerians?

The New UN Forces seem to have had more than one layer of cover stories for the Black Storm at Carlyle.

Publicly, their official story was that Windermere's Aerial Knights bombed Carlyle to wipe out the New UN Forces base and New UN Government colony there.

The surviving troops from the Windermere IV New UN Spacy garrison force seem to have a different understanding of the events, which may have been an early cover story or maybe it's just the New UN Spacy's working hypothesis from their official investigation of the disaster.  They know that the one who dropped the bomb was Major Wright Immelmann.  What they believe happened was that Wright Immelmann was a Windermere sympathizer who betrayed the New UN Spacy and tried to win the war for Windermere and cripple the NUNS's chain of command by destroying the NUNS garrison HQ in Carlyle with a stolen dimensional warhead.

The truth, or at least as much of it as was revealed to the audience, is that Wright Immelmann was fond of the Windermereans and balked when he was given a top secret mission to drop a dimensional warhead on the Protoculture ruins near the planetary capital of Darwent.  Wright tried to sabotage his own mission by loitering and making a variety of excuses to not advance to his target, to ensure that he would be detected and intercepted by the Aerial Knights.  HQ tried to force him to proceed by overriding his controls, but due to his interference he was intercepted and the warhead was accidentally deployed over the city of Carlyle, wiping it off the map.

 

Just now, SMS007 said:

Did command know specifically about the Sigur Berrentzs underneath Derwent?

Well, yes... but not underneath Darwent.  "With a scenic view of the valley including Darwent" might be more accurate.

 

Just now, SMS007 said:

How did Wright get ahold of the Dimension Eater?

Wright's VF-22 Sturmvogel II was armed with that dimensional warhead by the New UN Spacy airbase he was operating out of.

His mission was to use that warhead to destroy the Protoculture ruins and Sigur Berrentzs to prevent the Protoculture System from falling into the wrong hands.  Unfortunately, he screwed the pooch so hard the WSPCA had to intervene on behalf of a strictly metaphorical canine.

 

Just now, SMS007 said:

And if command could remotely operate a VF-22, then why didn’t they just use a Ghost to deploy the Dimension Eater?

Presumably because remotely operated aircraft are as vulnerable to jamming in 2060 as they were in 2059.

Windermere IV's Aerial Knights were probably smart enough to know that seeing an incoming Ghost meant time to turn up the ECM to max, whereas a human-piloted fighter would not lose control because of that.

[azrael]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

...

The truth, or at least as much of it as was revealed to the audience,

...

Yeah, that bit with Wright Immelmann never made much sense with me then and still doesn't today. In my head, I had a much more plausible story but oh well.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, azrael said:

Yeah, that bit with Wright Immelmann never made much sense with me then and still doesn't today. In my head, I had a much more plausible story but oh well.

You've piqued my curiosity.  Care to share?

[Podtastic]

23 hours ago, Jasonc said:

If we left it up to most here, it would be some gritty war drama with no character and soulless. 

SDFM , the best Macross, was a war drama.

[kajnrig]

50 minutes ago, Podtastic said:

SDFM , the best Macross, was a war drama.

"Gritty," on the other hand...

 

[azrael]

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

You've piqued my curiosity.  Care to share?

I don't remember all the details since they went a different route and I dropped it. But I envisioned a scenario where Wright was affected by a Var Syndrome test as it would have tied into whole bigger narrative about Var. He would have gone nutty and dropped his payload on Carlyle since the town was en-route to his actual objective. The Aerial Knights saw him coming, determined his actual target then decided to see if this singing and Var Syndrome-mind-control link was more than just a coincidence which led to nukin' of the city, compounding to the Windermere situation, yadda yadda yadda. To me, it would have made more sense to use Wright's caring personality and flip it to him being a monster and work in the Var Syndrome into the narrative since it's been introduced. The writers threw out a bunch of ideas at the beginning but then they failed to materialize later on in the series. It isn't my story since I'm just a viewer so que sera, sera.

[Bolt]

So, based on the past trend, this new series may take place the same amount of years after Delta, since it's real time release..?

[Seto Kaiba]

17 minutes ago, Bolt said:

So, based on the past trend, this new series may take place the same amount of years after Delta, since it's real time release..?

Assuming they're going forward.

They may go sideways or backwards, like they did with Macross Zero.

[Bolt]

58 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

They may go sideways or backwards, like they did with Macross Zero.

This would be cool. 

[Zx31]

Not sure if they'd go backwards. I imagine part of the reason for another movie is to keep the tie-in with the existing Walkure, so I'd bet on either something after or concurrent with the show.

[Bolt]

It seems they don't even need another series to keep the music going. with cross over concerts and new music even coming out of Frontier timeline, they could surely keep going with Walkure for a long time , I think..

but I do know Kowamori likes to keep going forward. (Was Zero a fluke??)

and Surely some form of Walkure would be part of that. 

It would be great to see Mirage leading her own Valkyrie squad. Matured into the ace pilot of her lineage. IF they had to incorporate Delta in the new series..

I always felt Mirage was understated..

[Master Dex]

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

It seems they don't even need another series to keep the music going. with cross over concerts and new music even coming out of Frontier timeline, they could surely keep going with Walkure for a long time , I think..

but I do know Kowamori likes to keep going forward. (Was Zero a fluke??)

and Surely some form of Walkure would be part of that. 

It would be great to see Mirage leading her own Valkyrie squad. Matured into the ace pilot of her lineage. IF they had to incorporate Delta in the new series..

I always felt Mirage was understated..

Mirage is criminally underused... but not sure she should be an ace. It was a refreshing idea in the first half of the show that she was a Jenius who wasn't automatically exceptional and her character arc would be how she dealt with that and overcame her limitations... but she didn't have a character arc at all in the end.

[Bolt]

43 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

Mirage is criminally underused... but not sure she should be an ace. It was a refreshing idea in the first half of the show that she was a Jenius who wasn't automatically exceptional and her character arc would be how she dealt with that and overcame her limitations... but she didn't have a character arc at all in the end.

I agree completely. That's why a number of years later , IF she had her own squad and was an ace, it would be based on veteran experience and not out of the box talent. IMO..

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Bolt said:

but I do know Kowamori likes to keep going forward. (Was Zero a fluke??)

He likes to tell original stories each time... that's not necessarily the same thing as wanting to always move forwards in time.

 

2 hours ago, Bolt said:

It would be great to see Mirage leading her own Valkyrie squad. Matured into the ace pilot of her lineage. IF they had to incorporate Delta in the new series..

Maybe if they'd actually done something with the character arc they spent the first few episodes setting up vis a vis Mirage's feelings of inadequacy...

Such as it is, she quit the New UN Spacy and she's working for a private military contractor that apparently can only muster a single squadron's worth of VFs from their flagship.  Not a lot of room for advancement there even before you factor in the loss of contracts from their failure to defend the Brisingr cluster and having to drop over a year's operating capital on divesting themselves of Epsilon Foundation technology.  If it weren't for Walkure, they'd probably have gone out of business.

[Bolt]

13 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

If it weren't for Walkure, they'd probably have gone out of business.

Are you talking about Xaos or Big west!? 

JK lol!

14 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Maybe if they'd actually done something with the character arc they spent the first few episodes setting up vis a vis Mirage's feelings of inadequacy...

Just wishing out loud...

[Seto Kaiba]

12 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Are you talking about Xaos or Big west!? 

Xaos.  Macross still prints money even without Walkure.  

 

12 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Just wishing out loud...

As a fellow member of #TeamMirage, I understand completely.

[Sildani]

Oh yes. They could have done so much more with her. Damn shame. #TeamMirage

[charles88]

I have sneaky suspicious that movie 2 feature more clone of star singer as possible villain. In the series Mikumo flashback shows there 3 other Star singer. Most likely villain clone other star singer and use them for their plan.

Edited September 26, 2018 by charles88

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Sildani said:

Oh yes. They could have done so much more with her. Damn shame. #TeamMirage

Yup... though, from the production art and animation model sheets, one might get entirely a wrong idea of what they were intending to do with her.  (Someone on the art staff is definitely an ass man, and everyone on the writing staff is an ass, man.)

 

1 hour ago, charles88 said:

I have sneaky suspicious that movie 2 feature more clone of star singer as possible villain. In the series Mikumo flashback shows there 3 other Star singer. Most likely villain clone other star singer and use them for their plan.

... not sure that's really a flashback, since the same image shows up in Berger Stone's little "Uta wa heiki" Powerpoint slideshow in episode 19.  More an illustrative image, I expect.  Or, since Mikumo was effectively a bio-android, a genetic memory of her original purpose encoded into her program.

Still, that'd be hilarious.  People were already accusing Macross Delta of ripping off Macross II... and that would put it beyond any hope of claiming the resemblance was coincidental.

[Gerli]

Lady M HAS to appear in the second movie... it's just... logical I think...

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Gerli said:

Lady M HAS to appear in the second movie... it's just... logical I think...

First they'd have to actually sit down and decide who Lady M is... Delta's creators never determined an identity for her, Berger Stone's baseless rumor-mongering notwithstanding.

(Personally, my suspicion is that Lady M is the original Mikumo Guynemer, the genetic donor whose DNA was merged with the Protoculture ruins DNA to create the Walkure member Mikumo.)

[Focslain]

24 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

First they'd have to actually sit down and decide who Lady M is... Delta's creators never determined an identity for her, Berger Stone's baseless rumor-mongering notwithstanding.

(Personally, my suspicion is that Lady M is the original Mikumo Guynemer, the genetic donor whose DNA was merged with the Protoculture ruins DNA to create the Walkure member Mikumo.)

I'm all for this. You can even use the same VA for her. Bonus points if she's tone deaf.

[GabrielV]

14 hours ago, Master Dex said:

Mirage is criminally underused... but not sure she should be an ace. It was a refreshing idea in the first half of the show that she was a Jenius who wasn't automatically exceptional and her character arc would be how she dealt with that and overcame her limitations... but she didn't have a character arc at all in the end.

I thought she did have a character arc in the series.  It just wasn't very well done.

Mirage's arc is that she doesn't feel anything.  She's not emotionless, she's just kind of someone who goes through the motions.  I think early on she's obsessed with regulations.  She's really only a pilot because she's a Jenius.  I think some character or other describes Mirage's flying as "like a textbook" or something like that.  She's not invested in anything.

Through the series Hayate gives her an example of someone who is truly passionate about things.  She has a crush on him, but it's clear he has no interest in her romantically.  She then sees Hayate and Freyja connect.  That frustrates her, and the two fumbling around romantically infurates her.  And that makes her really feel something.  That leads to the finale, where she admits her feelings, but it's more than that because she loves Hayate and wants him and Freyja to get together.  She's overflowing with emotion, and that's when everything clicks for her.

The rulebook said that if she confessed her love for Hayate, that the outcome was supposed to be that they have a happily ever after together.  She doesn't want that.  She wants Hayate and Freyja to get together.  Mirage finally fully realizes the rules are wrong.  She breaks them and shatters her own mask/facade concealing her inner self.

That's why Mirage is riding the wind with a glowy valkyrie in the final battle.  She finally unlocked her potential.  She's not flying it like a textbook anymore.  She's feeling it.

The last shot of Mirage with tears running down her cheeks combined with a smile while looking up at Hayate's VF-31 is because it's painful to be rejected, but she's also discovered herself, and she's finally happy.

Yes, she's criminally underused.  Yes, her whole arc is handled poorly.  But she did have one.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Focslain said:

I'm all for this. You can even use the same VA for her. Bonus points if she's tone deaf.

Oh hell yes.  They need to do this... complete with clone!Mikumo gritting her teeth and cringing at how bad of a singer her gene-donor "mother" is.  Bonus points if it occurs in a karaoke booth.

 

4 minutes ago, GabrielV said:

I thought she did have a character arc in the series.  It just wasn't very well done.

[...]

Yes, she's criminally underused.  Yes, her whole arc is handled poorly.  But she did have one.

... does it really count as an arc if it never actually comes up and 99% of it occurs offscreen and utterly without explanation?

[GabrielV]

30 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... does it really count as an arc if it never actually comes up and 99% of it occurs offscreen and utterly without explanation?

It does come up in the series.  There's some key dialogue.  It can certainly be argued that it's more of an outline than a fully fleshed out story.  But it is there.

Obviously I think there's enough there to support what I've presented as her arc.  All I've done is watch the series once, and that's what I came away with.

[Focslain]

34 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Oh hell yes.  They need to do this... complete with clone!Mikumo gritting her teeth and cringing at how bad of a singer her gene-donor "mother" is.  Bonus points if it occurs in a karaoke booth.

Double Jeopardy if all of Walkure are there for the revel. 

[Focslain]

13 minutes ago, GabrielV said:

It does come up in the series.  There's some key dialogue.  It can certainly be argued that it's more of an outline than a fully fleshed out story.  But it is there.

Obviously I think there's enough there to support what I've presented as her arc.  All I've done is watch the series once, and that's what I came away with.

Not so obvious to be honest. I've seen the series twice, plus the movie twice and didn't pick up on this and the movie it's more believable for her to develop a relation with Hayate as they have an assumed history prior to the start of said movie.

I can see why you would see this though the key dialog and scenes for this are about as long as a commercial break.