Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, George Yamamori said:

Just noticed there are no naval torpedos for the VFs. Maybe the VA-3M fulfills the ASW role?

Why would there be?

While VFs can operate underwater to very limited depths for short periods of time, they are by no means intended to do so.  The VA-3M is a very specialized exception to that rule and the only known craft of its type.  Anti-submarine warfare wasn't exactly a concern after the Unification Wars ended and the First Space War revealed the shape of wars to come was all about space-based defense.  Air-to-surface and anti-submarine missiles had already largely replaced air-launched torpedoes in almost every role decades before the Unification Wars too, for that matter.  The only ones using submarines are humans, come to that, so a hostile submarine is a vanishingly rare thing on its own.

[sketchley]

3 hours ago, George Yamamori said:

Just noticed there are no naval torpedos for the VFs. Maybe the VA-3M fulfills the ASW role?

The VA-3M was equipped with torpedoes in the underwater level set on Eden 3 in VF-X2.

So, it's not quite 'they don't exist', and more like 'we haven't been shown them'.

[pengbuzz]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Why would there be?

While VFs can operate underwater to very limited depths for short periods of time, they are by no means intended to do so.  The VA-3M is a very specialized exception to that rule and the only known craft of its type.  Anti-submarine warfare wasn't exactly a concern after the Unification Wars ended and the First Space War revealed the shape of wars to come was all about space-based defense.  Air-to-surface and anti-submarine missiles had already largely replaced air-launched torpedoes in almost every role decades before the Unification Wars too, for that matter.  The only ones using submarines are humans, come to that, so a hostile submarine is a vanishingly rare thing on its own.

The only Zentraedi subs I ever knew of were the ones Guld Goa Bowman ate for lunch at The New Edwards Base Subway™ on Planet Eden.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

The only Zentraedi subs I ever knew of were the ones Guld Goa Bowman ate for lunch at The New Edwards Base Subway™ on Planet Eden.

 

Eden's such an upscale place, I doubt it'd be Subway... they've gotta have at least a DiBella's or a Firehouse Subs.

 

 

10 hours ago, sketchley said:

The VA-3M was equipped with torpedoes in the underwater level set on Eden 3 in VF-X2.

Like I said, the VA-3M is a special case... being essentially the only known model of VF actually intended to operate underwater.

The few VFs with submergence ratings are rated to only 30-100m underwater.  Even a World War II-era submarine could go almost three times as deep, and modern classes like the Los Angeles-class and Seawolf-class have an official test depth of almost 500m and a theoretical maximum operating depth of somewhere around 750-900m.  Imagine what overtechnology-based submarines could do with the far-superior materials like hypercarbon and energy conversion armor.  A VF would be a pretty awful choice in anti-submarine warfare unless they were either dropping depth charges or attacking a sub near the surface with guided missiles.  

(Even the Octos, a Unification Wars-era light submarine-slash-destroid, could submerge to 375m... almost 4x as far down as a VF could go.)

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

Eden's such an upscale place, I doubt it'd be Subway... they've gotta have at least a DiBella's or a Firehouse Subs.

 

 

BTW: if you have a birthday coming up, sign up for Firehouse and Jersey Mike's subs' online clubs! You'll get a free regular sub at each of them for your birthday, but you have to do it at least a couple of weeks before your actual b-day!

[darkranger12]

Would submarines even be effective on a colony world in Macross?

 

[Seto Kaiba]

22 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

Would submarines even be effective on a colony world in Macross?

Hard to say... but my inclination would be "probably not".

The Earth UN Forces built their planetary defense strategy around the belief that a war against aliens would take the form of a classic alien invasion scenario with troops landing to seize territory and resources.  Those theories turned out to be pretty wide of the mark when the Zentradi rolled up and revealed that their approach to dealing with enemy planets is right out of Ellen Ripley's playbook of "nuke the whole site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure".  After the war, the newly-reorganized military did reestablish a traditional Air Force and a blue-water Navy, but the main burden of defense seems to have shifted to the space forces as part of a space-oriented overall defense strategy.  (We know part of this due to remarks in Isamu's service record as seen in Macross Plus, including a notation of him having served a brief period aboard the (New) UN Navy ship Enterprise.)

Something like a ballistic missile submarine might have some limited use in planetary defense as a surface-based platform to deploy high-yield thermonuclear reaction missiles to orbital targets, but it's nothing a space-based ship couldn't do faster and better.  The only submarines that've appeared in the story after the Unification Wars are unmanned ones in the Critical Path corporation's security force protecting its facility on Eden 3.  Five of them are wiped out in pretty short order by the Ravens VA-3M, so they don't seem to be all that effective.  

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Hard to say... but my inclination would be "probably not".

The Earth UN Forces built their planetary defense strategy around the belief that a war against aliens would take the form of a classic alien invasion scenario with troops landing to seize territory and resources.  Those theories turned out to be pretty wide of the mark when the Zentradi rolled up and revealed that their approach to dealing with enemy planets is right out of Ellen Ripley's playbook of "nuke the whole site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure".  After the war, the newly-reorganized military did reestablish a traditional Air Force and a blue-water Navy, but the main burden of defense seems to have shifted to the space forces as part of a space-oriented overall defense strategy.  (We know part of this due to remarks in Isamu's service record as seen in Macross Plus, including a notation of him having served a brief period aboard the (New) UN Navy ship Enterprise.)

Would it be fair to say that the Zentraedi glassing Earth from orbit instead of landing and conducting the "classic invasion" scenario the Unity Gov't was expecting was a trope subversion?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlienInvasion

Edited July 5, 2022 by pengbuzz

[sketchley]

35 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Would it be fair to say that the Zentraedi glassing Earth from orbit instead of landing and conducting the "classic invasion" scenario the Unity Gov't was expecting was a trope subversion?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlienInvasion

Nah.  It was just a logical extension of the Zentrādi modus operandi as a space-based armed forces.

In short: "nuke the sight from orbit" is not only the only way to be sure, it's also a lot easier and will cost a lot less resources (as in lost personnel and equipment).

[Seto Kaiba]

40 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Would it be fair to say that the Zentraedi glassing Earth from orbit instead of landing and conducting the "classic invasion" scenario the Unity Gov't was expecting was a trope subversion?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlienInvasion

By their terms (see the PlayingWith tab), they've already got it listed correctly as a deconstructed trope because the Zentradi had no interest at all in Earth itself or invading it until they decided to destroy the planet from orbit.

The Earth UN Government and Earth UN Forces, however, spent ten years being Wrong Genre Savvy with a massive military buildup aimed at resisting a classic Alien Invasion with huge underground command bunkers, giant anti-orbit beam cannons, and plans for five planetary defense fleets centered on Daedalus-class and Prometheus-class warships and the hundreds of mecha they carried.

[pengbuzz]

4 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

By their terms (see the PlayingWith tab), they've already got it listed correctly as a deconstructed trope because the Zentradi had no interest at all in Earth itself or invading it until they decided to destroy the planet from orbit.

The Earth UN Government and Earth UN Forces, however, spent ten years being Wrong Genre Savvy with a massive military buildup aimed at resisting a classic Alien Invasion with huge underground command bunkers, giant anti-orbit beam cannons, and plans for five planetary defense fleets centered on Daedalus-class and Prometheus-class warships and the hundreds of mecha they carried.

You know... I ended up getting lost at TV Tropes and reading just a few moments ago about how the invasion in SFDM was a deconstructed trope! Then I thought to come back here and check in, and sure enough!

It makes me wonder though: how would Macross have been different if they somehow had guessed correctly the type of forces and strategy and prepared for that?

[Seto Kaiba]

11 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

It makes me wonder though: how would Macross have been different if they somehow had guessed correctly the type of forces and strategy and prepared for that?

All in all, I don't think it would have made much difference in the course of the war itself.

An enemy force the size of the Boddole Zer main fleet simply isn't something you can prepare for with resources on the level of a single planet.

There would have been some minor differences.  The Valkyrie would likely have been a much larger aircraft closer in size to the VF-0 and SV-51 so that its internal fuel tanks could hold enough fuel for extended operations in space without FAST packs.  The space forces would likely have invested much more heavily in the QF-3000 series Ghost than they did in the SF-3 Lancer II space fighter.  It's possible they might've rushed out the fold systems for the first few ARMD-class space carriers and had a more mobile space fleet, but they wouldn't have been able to build nearly enough of them to make a difference against the sheer size of the Zentradi forces arrayed against them.  I think the most effective thing to do would probably have been to simply build absurd numbers of thermonuclear reaction warheads and either try to mine high Earth orbit with them or establish clusters of missile batteries in orbit to rapidly target enemy ships en masse since you don't even necessarily need a direct hit to sink an enemy ship with one due to the huge amount of heat energy a detonation produces.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

All in all, I don't think it would have made much difference in the course of the war itself.

An enemy force the size of the Boddole Zer main fleet simply isn't something you can prepare for with resources on the level of a single planet.

There would have been some minor differences.  The Valkyrie would likely have been a much larger aircraft closer in size to the VF-0 and SV-51 so that its internal fuel tanks could hold enough fuel for extended operations in space without FAST packs.  The space forces would likely have invested much more heavily in the QF-3000 series Ghost than they did in the SF-3 Lancer II space fighter.  It's possible they might've rushed out the fold systems for the first few ARMD-class space carriers and had a more mobile space fleet, but they wouldn't have been able to build nearly enough of them to make a difference against the sheer size of the Zentradi forces arrayed against them.  I think the most effective thing to do would probably have been to simply build absurd numbers of thermonuclear reaction warheads and either try to mine high Earth orbit with them or establish clusters of missile batteries in orbit to rapidly target enemy ships en masse since you don't even necessarily need a direct hit to sink an enemy ship with one due to the huge amount of heat energy a detonation produces.

I also think they may not have focused so heavily on Destroids, have bothered much with the Prometheus or Daedalus classes, and maybe have had a different attitude about completing the Grand Cannons.

That said: with what NUNS knows now about Fold Faults and whatnot, do you think a possible direction they may be seeking with research into this is a way to stop Zentraedi Main Fleets assaulting Unity colonies by creating artificial Fold Faults (like the ones that cause so many headaches for Windermere IV)?

And on the note of the VF-1 being larger: hmmm... a VF-1 designed from "go" for that would be an interesting project.

Edited July 5, 2022 by pengbuzz

[darkranger12]

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

That said: with what NUNS knows now about Fold Faults and whatnot, do you think a possible direction they may be seeking with research into this is a way to stop Zentraedi Main Fleets assaulting Unity colonies by creating artificial Fold Faults (like the ones that cause so many headaches for Windermere IV)?

I'd be worried that that might frakk up the universe locally and might make it impossible for commerical vessels to bring goods to the colonies...and vice versa?

[twich]

A bigger VF-1? It was called the VF-3000, the joints slipped, so it wasn’t mass produced. So, we got the surviving concept of the VF-4, which was space oriented and the VF-5000, which was kinda a refined VF-3000 concept for atmosphere.

Twich

[pengbuzz]

39 minutes ago, twich said:

A bigger VF-1? It was called the VF-3000, the joints slipped, so it wasn’t mass produced. So, we got the surviving concept of the VF-4, which was space oriented and the VF-5000, which was kinda a refined VF-3000 concept for atmosphere.

Twich

I meant the same original airframe, but if they had considered larger fuel capacity and thrust.

5 hours ago, darkranger12 said:

I'd be worried that that might frakk up the universe locally and might make it impossible for commerical vessels to bring goods to the colonies...and vice versa?

Well, considering that a Main Fleet showing up would pretty much do that for you anyways, at least with the Fold faults, you might have a way to disperse them once you deploy them.

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I also think they may not have focused so heavily on Destroids,

I suspect they'd still have had the Destroids, but they'd be more focused on the air defense role for space warships.  Possibly replacing the Tomahawk with something along the lines of the Maverick from the FamilySoft games as a complement to the Monster.

 

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

 and maybe have had a different attitude about completing the Grand Cannons.

The Earth UN Forces were pretty serious about completing the Grand Cannons... they had problems because some of them had only recently been started when the Zentradi first arrived, and at least one was damaged in the Unification Wars.

 

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

That said: with what NUNS knows now about Fold Faults and whatnot, do you think a possible direction they may be seeking with research into this is a way to stop Zentraedi Main Fleets assaulting Unity colonies by creating artificial Fold Faults (like the ones that cause so many headaches for Windermere IV)?

I'd imagine there is a more immediate interest in the military applications of fold faults... that being generating dimensional faults for use as a barrier the way the Vajra do and the Protoculture ship Sigur Berrentzs did.

Surrounding planets with artificial fold faults would have some pretty awful consequences for interstellar commerce and travel until humanity can mass-produce fold quartz and super-fold drives.

 

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

And on the note of the VF-1 being larger: hmmm... a VF-1 designed from "go" for that would be an interesting project.

That's the VF-0 or VF-3000, basically.

 

 

17 minutes ago, twich said:

A bigger VF-1? It was called the VF-3000, the joints slipped, so it wasn’t mass produced. So, we got the surviving concept of the VF-4, which was space oriented and the VF-5000, which was kinda a refined VF-3000 concept for atmosphere.

The VF-3000's issue was that they basically tried to just scale the existing VF-1 design up without respect for its greater mass, etc.

Being purpose-built at a specific size, the way the VF-0 was, eliminates the issue.

[pengbuzz]

12 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I suspect they'd still have had the Destroids, but they'd be more focused on the air defense role for space warships.  Possibly replacing the Tomahawk with something along the lines of the Maverick from the FamilySoft games as a complement to the Monster.

I faintly recall those from the FamilySoft games (I'm old!).

 

12 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The Earth UN Forces were pretty serious about completing the Grand Cannons... they had problems because some of them had only recently been started when the Zentradi first arrived, and at least one was damaged in the Unification Wars.

Yeah... my question was would they have still bothered with them?

 

12 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'd imagine there is a more immediate interest in the military applications of fold faults... that being generating dimensional faults for use as a barrier the way the Vajra do and the Protoculture ship Sigur Berrentzs did.

That's an interesting point:  barriers that could bring a war fleet or other threat to a dead stop! Either protect a planet, or conceivably trap a fleet in deep space by surrounding them with a barrier.

12 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Surrounding planets with artificial fold faults would have some pretty awful consequences for interstellar commerce and travel until humanity can mass-produce fold quartz and super-fold drives.

Right; I wouldn't imagine trying to deploy anything like that unless they had a way to do so without effectively trapping themselves.

 

12 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's the VF-0 or VF-3000, basically.

Okay, I keep forgetting that the VF-0 even exists! O.o But on that point: I'm surprised that once UN Spacy ran into the fuel issues, they didn't simply start producing the VF-0 en masse.

(yeah, production wise, Macross Zero hadn't of come out yet IRL).

 

12 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The VF-3000's issue was that they basically tried to just scale the existing VF-1 design up without respect for its greater mass, etc.

I really dislike the VF-3000 nowadays; after carefully studying the design, it strikes me as clumsy looking and kinda dorky.

 

12 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Being purpose-built at a specific size, the way the VF-0 was, eliminates the issue.

For the sake of argument, how hard would it have been to change the VF-0 from conventional fuel to a fusion setup?

[Seto Kaiba]

20 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah... my question was would they have still bothered with them?

Almost certainly, yes.  Something THAT killy as a planetary defense weapon of the last resort?  They'd have been insane not to.

Grand Cannon 1 wiped out close to 800,000 Zentradi ships in ONE SHOT.  If they'd been able to fire all five, Boddole Zer could've found himself losing most of his fleet.

 

20 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Okay, I keep forgetting that the VF-0 even exists! O.o But on that point: I'm surprised that once UN Spacy ran into the fuel issues, they didn't simply start producing the VF-0 en masse.

That's OK, based on what's said in Master File and other publications, the New UN Forces kinda forgot the VF-0 existed for a while too.

As to why they didn't start producing the VF-0 in large quantities... the VF-1 had more new technology, and was designed around fighting Zentradi infantry.  The bias towards a ground-based defense made the VF-1's fuel issues less important.

 

20 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

For the sake of argument, how hard would it have been to change the VF-0 from conventional fuel to a fusion setup?

Not very.

Master File mentions that a modified VF-0 was used for the initial space testing of variable fighters while outfitted with the QF-3000E Ghost's FF-1999 thermonuclear reaction engines.  That was the VF-0-NF.

There is also the VF-0+ that is mentioned in some side story material that was a VF-0 retrofitted with the FF-2001 engine from the VF-1.  Plus the replica versions from Uroboros c.2060 that were equipped with engines from the VF-5000.

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Almost certainly, yes.  Something THAT killy as a planetary defense weapon of the last resort?  They'd have been insane not to.

Grand Cannon 1 wiped out close to 800,000 Zentradi ships in ONE SHOT.  If they'd been able to fire all five, Boddole Zer could've found himself losing most of his fleet.

That would have been a very interesting situation; although that might have led to him calling in other fleets.

 

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's OK, based on what's said in Master File and other publications, the New UN Forces kinda forgot the VF-0 existed for a while too.

As to why they didn't start producing the VF-0 in large quantities... the VF-1 had more new technology, and was designed around fighting Zentradi infantry.  The bias towards a ground-based defense made the VF-1's fuel issues less important.

And then they found out that was a mistake.

 

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Not very.

Master File mentions that a modified VF-0 was used for the initial space testing of variable fighters while outfitted with the QF-3000E Ghost's FF-1999 thermonuclear reaction engines.  That was the VF-0-NF.

There is also the VF-0+ that is mentioned in some side story material that was a VF-0 retrofitted with the FF-2001 engine from the VF-1.  Plus the replica versions from Uroboros c.2060 that were equipped with engines from the VF-5000.

Interesting; the VF-0 is coming up several notches for me in my view. I may have to obtain a model of that sometime. Thank you for the info on that!

[JB0]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

That would have been a very interesting situation; although that might have led to him calling in other fleets.

I'll say it'd be very interesting. It'd be a planet-sized Death Blossom!

[pengbuzz]

57 minutes ago, JB0 said:

I'll say it'd be very interesting. It'd be a planet-sized Death Blossom!

LOL! Turn Earth into "Gunstar-1"!!!

The Zentraedi would probably need clean underwear if the entire planet started looping around their fleet taking potshots at them!

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

And then they found out that was a mistake.

At the very least, the overwhelming majority of them did not live long enough to regret the error in judgement.

 

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Interesting; the VF-0 is coming up several notches for me in my view. I may have to obtain a model of that sometime. Thank you for the info on that!

The VF-0 Master File is one of the better installments in the series.

It offers insight not only into the VF-0's development but also its brief postwar operation period between the end of the Unification Wars and the First Space War.  Macross the First threw it a nod too with the other VF-0 test carrier, CVN-100 Graf Zeppelin II being at South Ataria island for a final retaliatory attack by the Anti-Unification Alliance on Christmas 2008.

 

[Sildani]

As far as what Earth might have done with better knowledge of the Zentraedi, I think we see that in Macross Plus: layer upon layer of remotely-controlled, or perhaps semi-autonomous, defensive gun and missile satellites.

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Sildani said:

As far as what Earth might have done with better knowledge of the Zentraedi, I think we see that in Macross Plus: layer upon layer of remotely-controlled, or perhaps semi-autonomous, defensive gun and missile satellites.

You know: when I was thinking about all of this, that came to mind! That, with more emphasis on the Ghost fighter, a main fighter like the VF-0 only optimized for space, all five Grand Cannons operational (possibly more constructed) and more of the ARMD (with possible fold capability) may have made Boddole Zer a bit more hesitant to bombard Earth.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

You know: when I was thinking about all of this, that came to mind! That, with more emphasis on the Ghost fighter, a main fighter like the VF-0 only optimized for space, all five Grand Cannons operational (possibly more constructed) and more of the ARMD (with possible fold capability) may have made Boddole Zer a bit more hesitant to bombard Earth.

Since he wouldn't have had any way of knowing about the Grand Cannon systems, I doubt much of anything would have dissuaded him once he decided Earth's culture was a threat.

Even in the scenario we saw in the series and movie, there were over a hundred Oberth-class missile destroyers in orbit armed with thermonuclear reaction warheads and the single largest deployment of thermonuclear weaponry in human history was a practically beneath Boddole Zer's notice thanks to the sheer size of his main fleet.

[Bolt]

If a Zentradi fleet of that size were to stumble upon Earth, again.  I would imagine it being a hard pressed battle for Earth. The sheer number of defensive satellites and drones would be helpful, to throw at the Zen's. But Earth would need many big guns. How many Battle Class carriers  are even ready to defend Earth ? Like 200?🤔

I'm sure the VF-19's ,VF-22's ,And VF-24's (along with 171's backing them up) would be more than a match for Zentradi battlepods and battle suits. They would even kill some sizable ships.

(But such a massive aggressor needs many big guns!) 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Bolt

[pengbuzz]

On 7/6/2022 at 11:57 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Since he wouldn't have had any way of knowing about the Grand Cannon systems, I doubt much of anything would have dissuaded him once he decided Earth's culture was a threat.

Even in the scenario we saw in the series and movie, there were over a hundred Oberth-class missile destroyers in orbit armed with thermonuclear reaction warheads and the single largest deployment of thermonuclear weaponry in human history was a practically beneath Boddole Zer's notice thanks to the sheer size of his main fleet.

There is that, sad to say.

22 hours ago, Bolt said:

If a Zentradi fleet of that size were to stumble upon Earth, again.  I would imagine it being a hard pressed battle for Earth. The sheer number of defensive satellites and drones would be helpful, to throw at the Zen's. But Earth would need many big guns. How many Battle Class carriers  are even ready to defend Earth ? Like 200?🤔

I'm sure the VF-19's ,VF-22's ,And VF-24's (along with 171's backing them up) would be more than a match for Zentradi battlepods and battle suits. They would even kill some sizable ships.

(But such a massive aggressor needs many big guns!) 

It sounds like they would have to have turned the planet into one massive beam cannon to solve that.

(That, or find a way to get Reba West onto the main command ship and sing, so her grating voice causes Boddole Zer to beg for mercy! )

Seriously though: I know I keep revisiting this (and probably ad nauseum for some of the kind folks answering my queries). I just find the mass destruction of the planet a seriously horrific thing; I take it that was the whole point of it in the story, right?

(Yes, I can be a bit dense, admittedly. )

Edited July 7, 2022 by pengbuzz

[Bolt]

The implications of the Earth getting wasted so are quite horrific, indeed. Racial trauma , no doubt. Maybe even with the clones earth later produced. 
Even so, I'm not sure Earth could repel another such attack of that scale. Though we know it had in the M2 timeline. Granted Earth has prepared for such an attack. Presumably.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 7/6/2022 at 1:47 PM, Bolt said:

If a Zentradi fleet of that size were to stumble upon Earth, again.  I would imagine it being a hard pressed battle for Earth. The sheer number of defensive satellites and drones would be helpful, to throw at the Zen's. But Earth would need many big guns. How many Battle Class carriers  are even ready to defend Earth ? Like 200?🤔

To the best of our knowledge?  Only one operational Battle-class in-system, though it may be possible to obtain others by prematurely activating ships under construction or asking for reinforcements from nearby systems.

Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur mentions the Battle-7 having been appropriated for such a purpose before its formal launch, to destroy the Zentradi main fleet that glassed Spica III.

 

On 7/6/2022 at 1:47 PM, Bolt said:

I'm sure the VF-19's ,VF-22's ,And VF-24's (along with 171's backing them up) would be more than a match for Zentradi battlepods and battle suits. They would even kill some sizable ships.

(But such a massive aggressor needs many big guns!) 

By all accounts, the VF-1 had a K/D ratio of about 12 in the First Space War.

Master File has suggested that number has increased quite a bit with subsequent models.  The VF-25 Master File presents a story where VF-25s fought against a Zentradi force that outnumbered them more than 24 to 1 without any significant damage or losses.

 

 

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Seriously though: I know I keep revisiting this (and probably ad nauseum for some of the kind folks answering my queries). I just find the mass destruction of the planet a seriously horrific thing; I take it that was the whole point of it in the story, right?

Yup.  It's an odd touch of horror for what is otherwise an optimistic series... humanity is using emigrant fleets to spread itself throughout the galaxy precisely because the threat of planetary-scale annihilation at the hands of a Zentradi fleet is a remote but ever-present possibility.  It's all about preserving the species from extinction at the hands of an uncaring clone army.

 

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

The implications of the Earth getting wasted so are quite horrific, indeed. Racial trauma , no doubt. Maybe even with the clones earth later produced. 

That's Ushio Todo from Macross 30 right there... he was so traumatized by the events of the First Space War that he orchestrated the events of Macross 30 in the hopes of using the Fold Evil sealed on Uroboros to travel back in time and make the First Space War unhappen.

 

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

Even so, I'm not sure Earth could repel another such attack of that scale. Though we know it had in the M2 timeline. Granted Earth has prepared for such an attack. Presumably.

In Macross II's timeline, Earth was lucky in that most of the time they were caught between Zentradi and Meltrandi fleets and were able to tackle them while they were distracted by each other.  The occasions where they were fighting a single main fleet on its own were considerably more fraught, with the 2054 invasion leading to a year-long war that ended with the Spacy decimated but victorious.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

To the best of our knowledge?  Only one operational Battle-class in-system, though it may be possible to obtain others by prematurely activating ships under construction or asking for reinforcements from nearby systems.

Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur mentions the Battle-7 having been appropriated for such a purpose before its formal launch, to destroy the Zentradi main fleet that glassed Spica III.

I'm sure in an emergency, they may have reserves, though we don't know the extent of those reserves.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

By all accounts, the VF-1 had a K/D ratio of about 12 in the First Space War.

Master File has suggested that number has increased quite a bit with subsequent models.  The VF-25 Master File presents a story where VF-25s fought against a Zentradi force that outnumbered them more than 24 to 1 without any significant damage or losses.

On that note: Is there a kill ratio for the VF-O Phoenix available (any of the models)?

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yup.  It's an odd touch of horror for what is otherwise an optimistic series... humanity is using emigrant fleets to spread itself throughout the galaxy precisely because the threat of planetary-scale annihilation at the hands of a Zentradi fleet is a remote but ever-present possibility.  It's all about preserving the species from extinction at the hands of an uncaring clone army.

Makes me wonder what the NUNS forces would be like a century from Delta, fleet-wise (not to mention the colony situation). Admittedly, RT back many years ago made is seem like "mopping up the Zentraedi" was a minor thing. The truth is: SW1 was just the beginning.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's Ushio Todo from Macross 30 right there... he was so traumatized by the events of the First Space War that he orchestrated the events of Macross 30 in the hopes of using the Fold Evil sealed on Uroboros to travel back in time and make the First Space War unhappen.

How did he plan on doing that, seeing as one man could barely do anything against a fleet of 5 million ships?

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In Macross II's timeline, Earth was lucky in that most of the time they were caught between Zentradi and Meltrandi fleets and were able to tackle them while they were distracted by each other.  The occasions where they were fighting a single main fleet on its own were considerably more fraught, with the 2054 invasion leading to a year-long war that ended with the Spacy decimated but victorious.

Right; then again, I think having the Macross Cannons does make some difference. I know it's a cross-timeline thing, but aren't they even more powerful than a New Macross class? Or am I just assuming based on size?

Thanks for all the info Seto!

[Seto Kaiba]

On 7/7/2022 at 4:19 PM, pengbuzz said:

I'm sure in an emergency, they may have reserves, though we don't know the extent of those reserves.

One thing that has been repeatedly hinted at in Frontier-era and later material, and outright stated in Master File, is that the New UN Government member nations are expected to reinforce each other should one come under attack by a hostile alien/foreign power.  The Frontier movies referenced it with the Frontier Government declining to reinforce Galaxy because they believed the distress call they received was a deliberate act of subterfuge.  In Delta's gaiden manga Black-Winged White Knight, the Kingdom of the Wind c.2060 is salty towards the New UN Gov't partly because of the losses the Aerial Knights sustained fulfilling their obligation to support a neighboring world that was attacked by Zentradi.  For the Spica III incident in Master File, it's mentioned the New UN Forces called up every available ship and fighter squadron within reasonable fold distance to assist in making the attack on the main fleet that destroyed Spica III.

 

On 7/7/2022 at 4:19 PM, pengbuzz said:

On that note: Is there a kill ratio for the VF-O Phoenix available (any of the models)?

Not that I'm aware, though the VF-0 was not intended for use in live combat and the total number of engagements the handful of aircraft fought in was very small indeed.

 

On 7/7/2022 at 4:19 PM, pengbuzz said:

Makes me wonder what the NUNS forces would be like a century from Delta, fleet-wise (not to mention the colony situation).

Probably not THAT much bigger than what they are now... the miltary is overrepresented as a career path because of how important defense is, but as populations grow the actual percentage of the population employed by the military is likely to drop.

 

On 7/7/2022 at 4:19 PM, pengbuzz said:

Admittedly, RT back many years ago made is seem like "mopping up the Zentraedi" was a minor thing. The truth is: SW1 was just the beginning.

Well, yes... that other series we don't talk about wrote out the fact that there were thousands of other Zentradi fleets.  To that story, there was only ONE main fleet.

 

On 7/7/2022 at 4:19 PM, pengbuzz said:

How did he plan on doing that, seeing as one man could barely do anything against a fleet of 5 million ships?

By preventing the Supervision Army gunship from crashing on Earth in the first place.

Mind you, he was armed with what was essentially a weaponized time machine built off the same biotechnology as the Birdhuman and the Protodeviln's Evil-series bodies.

 

On 7/7/2022 at 4:19 PM, pengbuzz said:

Right; then again, I think having the Macross Cannons does make some difference. I know it's a cross-timeline thing, but aren't they even more powerful than a New Macross class? Or am I just assuming based on size?

In terms of the number of ships sunk in a single discharge, the Macross Cannon-class in Macross II does appear to be quite a bit more powerful... destroying hundreds of ships each vs. dozens, and across a much wider area due to having been designed for anti-fleet saturation bombardment.

[pengbuzz]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

One thing that has been repeatedly hinted at in Frontier-era and later material, and outright stated in Master File, is that the New UN Government member nations are expected to reinforce each other should one come under attack by a hostile alien/foreign power.  The Frontier movies referenced it with the Frontier Government declining to reinforce Galaxy because they believed the distress call they received was a deliberate act of subterfuge.  In Delta's gaiden manga Black-Winged White Knight, the Kingdom of the Wind c.2060 is salty towards the New UN Gov't partly because of the losses the Aerial Knights sustained fulfilling their obligation to support a neighboring world that was attacked by Zentradi.  For the Spica III incident in Master File, it's mentioned the New UN Forces called up every available ship and fighter squadron within reasonable fold distance to assist in making the attack on the main fleet that destroyed Spica III.

Gotcha.

 

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Not that I'm aware, though the VF-0 was not intended for use in live combat and the total number of engagements the handful of aircraft fought in was very small indeed.

I suppose it wouldn't have been fair anyways, seeing as Roy "god-mode" Fokker was piloting one of them.

 

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Probably not THAT much bigger than what they are now... the miltary is overrepresented as a career path because of how important defense is, but as populations grow the actual percentage of the population employed by the military is likely to drop.

I see. Guess the UNS of that time period/ alt universe was pretty concerned about keeping numbers up.

 

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, yes... that other series we don't talk about wrote out the fact that there were thousands of other Zentradi fleets.  To that story, there was only ONE main fleet.

I can just imagine the folks in the Macross universe getting all excited about that one! "Just one fleet? WE"RE COMING OVER!!!"

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

By preventing the Supervision Army gunship from crashing on Earth in the first place.

Mind you, he was armed with what was essentially a weaponized time machine built off the same biotechnology as the Birdhuman and the Protodeviln's Evil-series bodies.

I foresee a possible flaw in his plan: even if he could prevent the crash, the Zentraedi would trace the signal to the proximity of the Sol system. If Boddole Zer even got a hint of the seed of protoculture (humanity) on the third planet, I'm not sure he would have spared it. And humanity would have zero defense.

Not sure on this one, since from what I recall, the Zentraedi tend to leave non-combatant worlds alone (if my wonky memory is correct O.o )

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In terms of the number of ships sunk in a single discharge, the Macross Cannon-class in Macross II does appear to be quite a bit more powerful... destroying hundreds of ships each vs. dozens, and across a much wider area due to having been designed for anti-fleet saturation bombardment.

I can see the reason for their design now... those would have been valuable in SW1.

[Seto Kaiba]

19 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I suppose it wouldn't have been fair anyways, seeing as Roy "god-mode" Fokker was piloting one of them.

Roy's good, but he's not Godmode good... that's Max.

Roy racked up quite the kill count in the Unification Wars according to the original series, but the events of Macross Zero are probably a pretty trivial part of that since the number of aircraft involved was only a few dozen in total and he probably wasn't allowed to officially add them to his score because the whole thing was classified top secret.

 

19 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I see. Guess the UNS of that time period/ alt universe was pretty concerned about keeping numbers up.

That's the thing about emigrant fleets... you've got a captive population, but in order to maintain a viably large defense force the military ends up being one of the largest employers in the fleet simply because of the number of people needed to support it both in the service itself and private enterprises supplying it.

 

19 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I can just imagine the folks in the Macross universe getting all excited about that one! "Just one fleet? WE"RE COMING OVER!!!"

They'd probably cool on that pretty quick when they realized there are only a handful of inhabitable planets in the entire galaxy, everyone's declaring genocidal war against each other, and what's left of humanity is ruled by something that's less a military dictatorship than it is a military-run kakistocracy.

 

19 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I foresee a possible flaw in his plan: even if he could prevent the crash, the Zentraedi would trace the signal to the proximity of the Sol system. If Boddole Zer even got a hint of the seed of protoculture (humanity) on the third planet, I'm not sure he would have spared it. And humanity would have zero defense.

Only if it defolded in the Sol system... if he moved it somewhere else, or destroyed it before it arrived, the Zentradi would never have bothered looking for it on Earth.

 

19 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Not sure on this one, since from what I recall, the Zentraedi tend to leave non-combatant worlds alone (if my wonky memory is correct O.o )

They have an ancient directive to leave miclone planets alone.

This directive is not always respected.

 

19 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I can see the reason for their design now... those would have been valuable in SW1.

Up until the main fleets rolled up, anyway.

The Macross Cannon-class were made to wipe out branch fleets in a single shot, since most of the Zentradi encounters the Spacy had were against scouting forces and remnants of the Boddole Zer main fleet.  Unfortunately, they weren't developed under after the 2054 Zentradi invasion that so badly hobbled the UN Spacy in that timeline, meaning that their first real trial by fire was in 2082.

[TG Remix]

On 7/8/2022 at 8:02 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

In terms of the number of ships sunk in a single discharge, the Macross Cannon-class in Macross II does appear to be quite a bit more powerful... destroying hundreds of ships each vs. dozens, and across a much wider area due to having been designed for anti-fleet saturation bombardment.

It seems Macross II's ships were a lot more designed around defense against Zentradi fleets compared to the main continuity's mostly frigates and carrier ships. iirc II had a lot more battleships and Zentradi vessels compared to the uncommon numbers we have now.

 

On a whole different note; I know it's probably never gonna happen, but if there was a Master File book of the VF-14 Vampire that not only includes both M3 and 7 designs, but also gives a (albeit unofficial) design of the VA-14 I'd be happy. Though it seems those books usually go for the more "big name" Valkyries then the cannon fodder or antagonist Valks (The VF-11 was an exception, though iirc people had found it more underwhelming compared to the rest.)

Edited July 10, 2022 by TG Remix