Seto Kaiba Posted March 9 Posted March 9 6 hours ago, pengbuzz said: I would imagine that they could develop something were the the need to do so. Perhaps... though I see two potential problems with it: Scaling a warhead like that down will result in a considerable loss of power. The GU-11A's 55mm bullet is a bit less than 1/8th the size of the Javelin's tandem shaped charge warhead. The armor technology that the Javelin's tandem warhead was designed to defeat - explosive reactive armor - isn't used by the Zentradi and hasn't been used on a VF or other advanced weapon since the Unification Wars. (The only known OTM weapon to use it was the VF-0's Armored Pack.) Just now, TG Remix said: Now I'm wondering what was the references for the SVMF-42 Blue Phoenix VF-4s, until Frontier's 33rd Marine Battalion there wasn't really any indicator of the Marine branch of the NUNS. I thought the same thing about the VF-2 Sonic Birds squadron for the VF-1, but that was understandably connected to the CVN-101 Prometheus before the plot literally connected it to the Macross. Macross Frontier may have been the first onscreen mention of the Spacy's Marine Corps, but mentions of them in official publications go back to the 90's in publications released for Macross Plus and mentions of VFs being intended for all branches of service with aviation arms go back even farther to '84. The VF-1 is said to have been developed to meet the needs of the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Space Forces. I'm not sure what the Sonicbirds or Blue Phoenixes are in reference to. I'd have to do some research (I'll get there eventually). A lot of the early VF squadrons mentioned in older publications are named for (or in some cases implied to be direct continuations of) real world fighter squadrons. They get progressively less so the farther down the timeline you go. Just now, TG Remix said: Around 776 meters long and can accommodate up to 4500 people, I'd imagine so. It seemed more like a cruise ship then just a something of an airliner like Plus more or less painted it as. Yeah, its Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet even describes it as a luxury cruise ship (豪華客船 Gouka kyakusen) in the sheet's title: "A luxury space cruise ship for tourists that connects resort planets with Earth." The inclusion of airline-like seating arrangements seems odd when you consider the ship is said to be able to sail continuously for 30-60 days, that the trip supposedly takes 3-4 days, and that the ship includes restaurants and a shopping mall. The area from the bow to the mast and antenna section is said to be made up of passenger rooms and living spaces. 4,500 people is a comically small number for such a big ship in airline-like seating. The Stellar Whale's passenger section is something like 500m long and is 148m wide at the widest point. A Boeing 787-10 has a cabin about 50m x 6m and holds about 300 people in mixed seating. If you put 16 787-10 cabins side-by-side across the waist of the ship (50m x 96m) you'd have over 25m to spare on either side at the ship's widest point, and a seating capacity of 4,800, and be using about 1/10th the total length of the ship on a single deck. The only way I can think of that the Stellar Whale makes sense is if its interior is set up with mixed accommodations like a long-distance train. Regular commuter seating for the folks taking only a short leg of the trip, and sleeper cabins for people on longer trips. Then the size of the ship makes sense. (The largest conventional cruise ship currently in service is the Icon-class, which is about 1/2 the length and 1/3 the width of the Stellar Whale and has 2,805 passenger cabins, over 80% of which can accommodate 3+ people.) Just now, TG Remix said: On more unknowns of the UN sphere, I know I asked about how Apollo Base and the lunar colony would be like in Macross, and from what I remember there's more colonized moons like Ganymede. Though what got my attention was the other settlements in the rest of the solar system. Miho Miho was said to have been born on a satellite city named "White Flora" that was in Jupiter's orbit, and it seems that Neptune and Venus has their own as well. I'm assuming we don't know much of them as well, but I was imagining something like the City-class ships as a frame of reference, unless they were something more typically designed like O'Neil Cylinders and the like. We've never seen a "Satellite City", so it's hard to say. Artificial gravity is a thing, so they could be building Star Trek-style space stations in orbit of these planets. My personal mental image, apropos of nothing in particular, is something akin to a Sunny Flower-class environment ship or a group of same in orbit of a planet. https://www.macross2.net/m3/macross7/sunnyflower.htm We know O'Neill cylinders are also a thing in Macross, with some of the First Space War survivors and manufacturing facilities servicing the rebuilding of Earth being located in space colonies at the Lagrange points (even called Bunches, in Gundam tradition). Just now, TG Remix said: Wondering for the VFs who have internalized beam guns like the VF-17 could have paint or training rounds stored inside them, since of course the ammunition wouldn't be physical. Based on Macross Delta's second movie, the answer appears to be "Yes"... as we inexplicably see Max's YF-29 firing paint rounds from its beam gunpod. Quote
sketchley Posted March 10 Posted March 10 (edited) 10 hours ago, TG Remix said: Around 776 meters long and can accommodate up to 4500 people, I'd imagine so. It seemed more like a cruise ship then just a something of an airliner like Plus more or less painted it as. That was my initial impression of the vessel as well. However, after moving to Japan, and seeing a certain volume of domestic travel shows (and etc.), it now looks closer to the larger ferries that they use here (on what amounts to overnight ferry trips) than to a cruise ship. On those ferries you get 3 types of seating: airline-style chairs (what is depicted in M+) futon-sized areas to lie down on, sit cross-legged, etc. (relatively soft floors - akin to carpeted ones with underlay) individual cabins (akin to the private rooms on overnight trains) This is consistent with both the depiction in Macross Plus and the Macross Chronicle description. In that context, it is plausible that on the shorter runs, the lower decks of the vessel are for 'vehicle' storage—up to 1/4 to 1/3 of the internal volume. That's a not insignificant number of 'cargo' trucks, in other words! 8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Yeah, its Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet even describes it as a luxury cruise ship (豪華客船 Gouka kyakusen) in the sheet's title: "A luxury space cruise ship for tourists that connects resort planets with Earth." Would just like to point out that 豪華客船 can be translated 2 ways: luxury cruise ship luxury liner/passenger boat Digging a bit deeper on Japanese websites, it seems to be an equal 50/50 split, with some people referring to (E.g. Princess Cruise's) cruise ships as both クルーズ客船 and 豪華客船, and other types of ships, such as ocean liners (E.g. the Titanic), as 豪華客船. The meaning also includes "state ships" (E.g HMY Britannia)! 😵 In general, the meaning appears to be mostly "a luxury vessel people use for transportation", and has much less of the "a luxury vessel people vacation on" nuance. Edited March 10 by sketchley Quote
pengbuzz Posted March 10 Posted March 10 13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Perhaps... though I see two potential problems with it: Scaling a warhead like that down will result in a considerable loss of power. The GU-11A's 55mm bullet is a bit less than 1/8th the size of the Javelin's tandem shaped charge warhead. The armor technology that the Javelin's tandem warhead was designed to defeat - explosive reactive armor - isn't used by the Zentradi and hasn't been used on a VF or other advanced weapon since the Unification Wars. (The only known OTM weapon to use it was the VF-0's Armored Pack.) Yeah; I was thinking more along the lines of missile ordnance than gunpod ammo myself. But that being the case, it would probably just make more sense to just target the craft for general destruction than to "nip off parts", right? Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 10 Posted March 10 9 hours ago, sketchley said: In that context, it is plausible that on the shorter runs, the lower decks of the vessel are for 'vehicle' storage—up to 1/4 to 1/3 of the internal volume. That's a not insignificant number of 'cargo' trucks, in other words! The more I look at it, the more clear it becomes just how unreasonably huge the Stellar Whale really is. If that thing is JUST a luxury ferry, it's operating WAY under capacity carrying just 4,500 people. You could comfortably park TWO Icon-class cruise ships in the area we're told is reserved for passengers, and each of those has a nominal capacity of 7,800 plus amenities like pools, a water park, a theater, a dance hall, multiple restaurants, etc. If just the parts of the hull below the dome are for cargo, a single Stellar Whale can laugh the world's largest container ships out of town without trying. 9 hours ago, sketchley said: In general, the meaning appears to be mostly "a luxury vessel people use for transportation", and has much less of the "a luxury vessel people vacation on" nuance. In general, sure... though considering the sheet describes the trip as taking multiple days and the sheer size of the ship, it feels like there might be a bit of room for overlap there. 4 hours ago, pengbuzz said: Yeah; I was thinking more along the lines of missile ordnance than gunpod ammo myself. But that being the case, it would probably just make more sense to just target the craft for general destruction than to "nip off parts", right? When it comes to missile warheads, I'd expect they'd just go for one really big warhead since ERA isn't a thing... though "general destruction" is more "I'll keep poking holes until I find something that goes 'boom'". Quote
pengbuzz Posted March 10 Posted March 10 1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said: When it comes to missile warheads, I'd expect they'd just go for one really big warhead since ERA isn't a thing... though "general destruction" is more "I'll keep poking holes until I find something that goes 'boom'". In that case, they should have made a missile that specifically targeted Isamu Dyson; with his ego, that explosion could have taken out Boldoza's entire fleet! Quote
PixelatedShinobi Posted March 10 Posted March 10 On 2/5/2025 at 4:31 PM, Seto Kaiba said: Yeah, the Macross Frontier novelizations (TV and Movie) make this connection quite explicit. Reveal hidden contents First contact with the Vajra occurred in 2040 even in the animation's backstory materials, but the novels reveal that the Critical Path Corporation and its CEO Manfred Brando (who serves as a level boss later in VF-X2) were instrumental in researching fold quartz and experimenting with possible applications of it. Critical Path sponsored Dr. Mao Nome's expedition into Vajra space with the 117th research fleet, and Manfred himself was a part of the military's board of inquiry that was convened to investigate the loss of the 117th research fleet in 2048. In the TV novelization, Ozma got kicked out of the New UN Forces for losing his cool and punching Manfred during the investigation because of how he was treating Ranka. The seminal research paper on fold quartz is called the "Manfred Thesis", and an uploaded copy of Manfred's consciousness is one of the Galaxy Fleet executives who is either a minion of Grace's or one of the ones pulling Grace's strings depending on whether it's the TV or Movie version. Aegis Focker also puts in a small appearance, noted to be one of Col. Wilder's proteges and at one point one of Ozma's seniors in the NUNS who assists SMS with their investigation into Leon Mishima. Oh crap, I didn't realize the VF-X2 connections went *that* deep. Guess I should get back to reading those. I'd love to get a proper translation of them at some point down the line as well. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 11 Posted March 11 On 3/10/2025 at 1:32 PM, PixelatedShinobi said: Oh crap, I didn't realize the VF-X2 connections went *that* deep. Guess I should get back to reading those. I'd love to get a proper translation of them at some point down the line as well. Yeah, FWIW Macross VF-X2's events - called the Second Unification Wars in later works - turned out to be a pretty important time for the setting and a lot of connections are drawn back to it. It's particularly blatant in the Macross Frontier novelizations but as I understand it it spills over into the Macross Delta ones too with some of the older characters in the story having had their lives and careers shaped by the conflict incl. King Grammier and Ernest Johnson. Since I am home sick today, I've decided to spend a bit of that time poking at Variable Fighter Master File: VF-11 Thunderbolt. It's kind of disappointing that the book covers so little. The foreword from MBS Publishing's Rodolgo Ivoke (dated Feb 2066) attempts to excuse it as there being simply too much to cover in the space of the book's page count, but that's a pretty weak in-universe excuse. The book starts off with a comparison between the VF-11A and VF-11B/C type seen in Macross Plus and Macross 7. There's very little official info about the VF-11A. What little is out there mostly talks about how few were built because the military wasn't satisfied and asked to change the design, and how the main visual distinction is that it had a two-pane cover on the monitor turret's sensors. It's said to have less engine thrust than the B-type, and Master File at least lines up neatly with that in most respects. The reason that I said "most" is because Master File asserts over 2,000 VF-11As were built... not exactly the "small number" official sources mention. The only real differences are it's heavier by 280kg, that it has a less powerful FF-2025B engine (25,500kgf), and that as a result it's slower at altitude by 0.2 Mach. Where it starts to get interesting is that it posits more than basic performance differences between the B-type and C-type. Macross Chronicle deviates a bit from previous material and presents the VF-11B and VF-11C as having essentially identical performance. It mentions both versions as having the same dimensions, performance, mass, etc. and the same thrust of 28,500kgf from their FF-2025G engines. Master File, I think, is going back to some older material like the This is Animation Special book for Macross Plus and the Bandai 1/144 VF-11C kit. TIAS and various toys and plamodels of the VF-11B mention the VF-11B as using a FF-2025G engine at 28,000kgf, while IIRC the Bandai 1/144 VF-11C mentions that same FF-2025G engine as producing 29,500kgf. So what Master File did there is they reclassified the VF-11B engine as FF-2025C, -D, or -E and used the thrust value from TIAS and kept the VF-11C's engine as FF-2025G. There are some fun easter eggs hiding in the text of the DEVELOPMENT OF VF-11 THUNDERBOLT section. Particularly noteworthy is a mention that the Space Forces grouped all of the various VF development plans under a single collective header: Advanced Valkyrie. That was the name of the non-Macross project that gave us a lot of the designs from the 2020s and 2030s like the VF-9, VF-3000, and VF-X-10/11. Apparently the Advanced Valkyrie Planning Office made the final decision on each project during that period, based on advice from a newly formed advisory body called the VF Technology Research and Evaluation Agency (VTREA). The VTREA was headed up by a First Space War veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Binkerkin (sp?), and operated out of a small borrowed office in the Joint Forces HQ in Macross City. It was Lt. Col. Binkerkin's office that analyzed reports of VF losses due to field issues, maintenance issues, and combat and formulated proposals to improve VF designs. His office, and its handful of staff, are apparently the ones who proposed the project that would become the VF-11 under a proposal with the uninspiring name/number "N-ADV-01A Draft Specifications for Next Main VF". Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 12 Posted March 12 So delving a bit deeper... the N-ADV-01A Report is described in the next section as summarizing the performance needs for a next-generation Valkyrie in four points: The next-generation (3rd Gen) main VF should be a simple design that inherits/prioritizes the highly versatile concept of the original VF-1. Infrastructure improvements necessary to support the adoption of a next-generation thermonuclear reaction engine. Atmospheric flight performance of new main VF designs should not be neglected. Infrastructure and logistical needs to support mass production and mass adoption of a next-generation fighter. The second and fourth points are particularly interesting. The second point, about infrastructure improvements, talks briefly about the need to improve runways and various other facilities to withstand the greater heat produced by more powerful thermonuclear reaction engines. This seems to be tying into what prior books have said about the engines that, incremental improvements aside, the first three generations of VF were essentially using the same basic engine design scaled up or down to meet the needs of each program. To get more power, you needed to make the engine bigger and run the engine hotter, and that had implications for runways and carrier decks and other spaces and things that might be exposed to the exhaust in normal operation. The fourth point is even more interesting, talking as it does about the need for the New UN Forces one generation removed from the First Space War to start changing its mindset from the immediate postwar manpower shortage mindset that prioritized quality over everything to a more growth-oriented philosophy that acknowledged that quantity mattered just as much if not more in the face of a foe like the Zentradi. The next section that talks about the actual start of VF-11 development paints an interesting picture of the 2010s. There's a bit of talk about how the generation who were kids during the war began entering the military workforce and the emergence of civil servants as the government began to grow leading to organizational changes in the military. It notes that there was a lot of internal (inter-generational) conflict in the armed forces at that time due to differences in ideals about how things should be run. So much so that, when the 2020s rolled around, the bean counters started calling a halt to what'd been a sort of VF development free-for-all up to that point. Advanced Valkyrie's VF-X-11 design is presented in that section as a technology demonstrator Stonewell and Bellcom produced in the 2010s, which was subsequently reused to evaluate the FF-2025 engine design. (The book goes out of its way to note that the VF-X-11 and VF-11 are technically not related at all, design-wise, with the VF-X-11 being a proper X-plane not a military prototype.) Quote
PixelatedShinobi Posted March 12 Posted March 12 5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Yeah, FWIW Macross VF-X2's events - called the Second Unification Wars in later works - turned out to be a pretty important time for the setting and a lot of connections are drawn back to it. It's particularly blatant in the Macross Frontier novelizations but as I understand it it spills over into the Macross Delta ones too with some of the older characters in the story having had their lives and careers shaped by the conflict incl. King Grammier and Ernest Johnson. Ukyo Kodachi evidently loves the game, as shown by the Macross 30 novelization, and I did generally know about its mentions in the Frontier novels. A really interesting one that made me do a spittake is, I believe in either the final Delta TV Mini-Theater or the Passionate Walkure mini-theater, Ernest is talking about the conflicts he's served (and lost) in, and mentions Black Rainbow as one of them. That one nearly made me choke on my drink, it was so out of left field. Quote
Shawn Posted March 13 Posted March 13 I found some pics of a Doujinishi I got a few years ago, and while it's not Macross "Canon" (Seto will cry Blasphemy! ) it certainly can be classified as Super Macross Mecha Fun with the fan-made designs of what might have been. Point that Google Translate phone app to the text to read some fun tidbits. It you think the VF-1A Cannon Fodder was bad, imagine being strapped into the Regult-H "Iron Can" with reduced armor and firepower! The commanders get the Zark Regult with additional firepower and thrusters that make it comparable with the Q-Rau. I dig the GFP-1S, we finally ditch the 'wings' for a true space-based fighter. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 13 Posted March 13 1 hour ago, Shawn said: I found some pics of a Doujinishi I got a few years ago, and while it's not Macross "Canon" (Seto will cry Blasphemy! ) it certainly can be classified as Super Macross Mecha Fun with the fan-made designs of what might have been. Thanks for sharing this piece! This is some awesome old fan material. I don't know what it is about the older Macross fan material. Maybe it's the influence of Sky Angels, but so much of it ends up being so well-considered that it ends up predicting stuff that would make its way into canon later. Like the Drive Valkyrie here: 1 hour ago, Shawn said: This VFS-1SD "Drive Valkyrie", for example. On the one hand, it's weirdly heartwarming to know that fans on both sides of the ocean inevitably looked at the Strike Valkyrie and said "What if it had MORE beam cannons?". What makes it even better is that this one's basically canon. There was never anything saying you COULDN'T stick a Rö-X2A beam cannon on both sides of the Super Pack... though it wasn't until Macross 30 that someone actually depicted it officially as the "Double Strike Valkyrie". (Its SP attack is Dragonball Z levels of beam spam, which doesn't hurt any feelings either.) It's especially cool that the writer thought it out as far as the practical problems it might cause too, like reduced ability to engage multiple enemies and the additional burden that operating two high-powered particle beam cannons would put on the Valkyrie's reactors. The Buster Valkyrie (Engrish ensued?) is another particularly neat idea... in part because the author thought out how it would sound cool in concept but also be problematic in a practical setting. It's presented as a post-war design, and meant as an improvement on the Super Valkyrie... but its main mode of operation is to essentially repeat the Macross's attack on the Boddole Zer fleet mothership on a smaller scale by using a barrier to ram its way through the hull of enemy ships, drop reaction missiles, and bug out. Yeah, I can definitely understand why pilots might balk at the idea of being told "You're riding in an armor-piercing bullet, not a Valkyrie". Looks pretty darn cool though, with those outboard vernier pods replacing the wings it kind of feels like an earlier version of the Valkyrie II's Super Armed Pack. 1 hour ago, Shawn said: VFS-3S, eh? Ah, they're playing with the design from Macross Perfect Memory's "Outside Story" section on page 68. That's a bit that's pretty telling about when this was printed, since the VF-X-3 was subsequently retconned into having been lost during the bombardment. Their version has only ten made and deployed for testing, due to issues with their transformation system and engine problems leading to a lack of thrust. Nevertheless, it's nice to see someone remember that one-sketch wonder. GBP-2S Armored Valkyrie II... hmm... an equipment variation that installs a Rö-X2A beam cannon on the Strike Pack. This one's borderline official. Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.2 mentions a beam cannon based on the Rö-X2A as an option for the GBP-1S Armored Pack on page 36. On page 38 it also mentions a GBP-1S/C variant that has a gunmount there with four RöV-20 laser cannons, and that there is a successor to that type known as the GBP-2S. 1 hour ago, Shawn said: VF-1A II Shadow... a next-generation main fighter that is basically a VF-1A with a Gundam-style sub-camera on the crown of the head and the laser offset to one side. Nothing too remarkable, but the asymmetrical head design looks cool. Not too many of those in Macross as a whole. VF-1N (VF-1S II)... another asymmetrical head, this time an S-type with only three lasers and an improved sighting mechanism for Fighter mode. Presented as being a test unit not approved for production. Zaruk Regult. "MORE DAKKA" was alive and well in the fanbase even then. 🤣 Can't argue with the description that, from the outside, it looks like a Regult-type battle pod with twice the usual armament. Presented as a high-mobility version of the Regult with mobility comparable to the Queadluun battle suit series, used mainly by commanders and a more popular option than the Glaug. Looking at it, it feels less like a high mobility option and more like a "If I fill the intervening space with enough heavy fire I will hit something" option. 1 hour ago, Shawn said: Holto Regult... or "How to know your commander REALLY hates your guts". A machine that largely removes the armor and weaponry of the Regult series to focus on mobility. "It was used for the purpose of one-hit kills in fleet battles". A largely unarmored, unarmed Regult... I can only imagine it was on the receiving end of "one hit kills". The description really takes the cake by noting that its very poor defensive ability saw soldiers derisively nickname it an "Iron can". Quote
Shawn Posted March 13 Posted March 13 THANK YOU for all the great translations!!!! I too love finding these old imaginative designs, especially when they are thought through a bit more than normal. The Buster Valkyrie as a flyable bullet punching through hulls is a crazy crazy idea-can you imagine a few squadrons of these on an attack run? You could just equip ghosts like this and it would be extra fun. I would imagine a fighter version of this lol Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 15 Posted March 15 On 3/13/2025 at 1:27 PM, Shawn said: THANK YOU for all the great translations!!!! They're more like vague summaries... but let's run up some quick full ones for everyone to enjoy. DRIVE VALKYRIE Like the Strike Valkyrie, it is a derivative of the Super Valkyrie. The Strike Valkyrie has one of the missile pods (HMMP-02) removed from the FAST Pack and a twin beam cannon attached, but this type takes this a step further and attaches beam cannons to both FAST Packs, making it a quadruple beam cannon. However, compared to the conventional Super Valkyrie, it is inferior in its ability to engage multiple enemies, so it is common to install a missile pod in the center of the FAST Pack. Also, as discovered in actual combat, the engine overload caused by the rapid firing of the four beam cannons was far greater than expected and the combat time was inevitably shorter than the conventional type's. BUSTER VALKYRIE Before the Super Valkyrie's armament was planned, there was a Valkyrie mission-specific armament called the Buster Valkyrie, but this ended up being completely an armchair theory. The GFP-1, now called the Buster Valkyrie, is based on that idea and has been significantly improved to emphasize the high mobility of the Super Valkyrie as a fighter. It was designed and tested onboard the Macross, but it was not actually used in military service until after the SDF-2 Megaroad was repaired. The most typical tactic is to use overtechnology to generate a simple barrier over all of the Armored Parts, turning the Valkyrie itself into an armor-piercing bullet and firing a reaction shell (micro-missile) inside the enemy ship before withdrawing from the front lines. However, it's said that pilots were initially instinctively repulsed by this tactic, which ignores the concept of a fighter plane by ramming the entire aircraft into a ship's side. VFS-3S It was designed to be the next generation's main fighter, but due to some issues with its transformation system and a major problem of a lack of sufficient thrust, only 10 completed VF-3s were deployed for testing. What we present here is the VFS-3S, equipped with Super Parts to make up for the lack of thrust. This is the machine of Hikaru Ichijo, the "Terrible Skull" squadron commander's machine, but is has only seen combat on one occasion. GBP-2S(C) A Protector Weapon System manufactured by Shinnakasu Heavy Industries. Essentially, there are few changes from the standard Armored Valkyrie, but the main difference is that the missile pod on the right side shoulder has been removed and a large-caliber beam cannon has been installed in its place. This allows the GBP-2 to fire at long ranges, making it a much more practical (operationally versatile?) weapon than the GBP-1, which has the greatest loss of time due to the need to replenish missiles. VF-1A II (Shadow) The next generation main fighter of the New Unification Forces. The main change is that the laser machine gun, which was previously installed in the center of the head of the VF-1A, has been moved to the side of the head and a sub-camera has been installed in its place. This aircraft has excellent visibility and transformation capabilities, and the New Unification Forces are currently planning to gradually replace the VF-1J, which had a small defect in its transformation system, and the current main fighter VF-1A with this "Shadow". VF-1N (VF-1S II) The favorite machine of Major Nasuka of the Arc Skull platoon. There are three laser machine guns on the head, which were designed as the VF-1S II. A feature of this new head is that it is equipped with a line-of-sight synchronization targeting system when in Fighter form. The VF-1S II is still in the testing stage and has not been mass-produced, but one of the extra prototypes was deployed to Major Nasuka for practical testing. ZARUK REGULT It looks just like a Regult-type battle pod with double the armament from the outside, but its internal technology is incomparable to the Regult's. The ultra-high mobility thrusters on its back have thrust several times greater than that of the Regult, and it was the only battle pod that could compete on equal terms with the Meltrandi powered suits. It was mainly used by Commander-class soldiers, but it was said to be more popular than the Glaug-type battle pod. There are very few of these units left in the current New Unification Forces, but they are still used by squadron leader-class Zentradi soldiers. The boarding and disembarking system is also fundamentally different from the Regult, allowing for smoother boarding. HOLTO REGULT A Regult with most of the machine's armaments removed, prioritizing maneuverability. It was used for the purpose of one-hit kills in fleet battles. Because the weight of its armor was also stripped away, this machine had very poor resistance to bullets, with soldiers disliking it and dubbin it the "steel coffin". On 3/13/2025 at 1:27 PM, Shawn said: I too love finding these old imaginative designs, especially when they are thought through a bit more than normal. The Buster Valkyrie as a flyable bullet punching through hulls is a crazy crazy idea-can you imagine a few squadrons of these on an attack run? You could just equip ghosts like this and it would be extra fun. It's a crazy idea... and not the Spacy's first flirtation with a "manned missile"-type aircraft either. The SF-3A Lancer II from Super Dimension Fortress Macross is a similar concept. It's not meant to ram an enemy ship, but it is a super-high velocity manned missile of a "fighter" meant for anti-warship operations. It's designed to use a short-burn thermonuclear rocket to come screaming in for a strafing run at 7 kilometers per second, blazing away with beam cannons and low-yield tactical reaction missiles and then exiting the fight from the enemy's back line in order to be recovered on the next orbit. On 3/13/2025 at 1:27 PM, Shawn said: I would imagine a fighter version of this lol We've seem something similar in two other Macross titles: Macross II and Macross 7. In Macross II's sixth episode, Cpt. Nex Gilbert's Metal Siren blasts its way into a Mardook battleship and blowing it up from the inside with some unspecified weapon. Cpt. Kinryu does something similar with his "borrowed" VF-11C Armored in Macross 7, ramming his way into a Varuta ship and destroying it from within. The Buster Valkyrie's meant to do the same, but in Fighter mode with a tactical reaction warhead... and then leave intact (which Kinryu didn't exactly manage). I can definitely understand why pilots would balk at that. "You want me to ram the enemy ship. With my fighter. And survive. And THEN fire a thermonuclear bomb at point blank range. And survive. Have you been to see the therapist? The chaplain? The inside of this lovely padded cell in the sanitarium?" Quote
TG Remix Posted March 15 Posted March 15 On 3/9/2025 at 4:41 PM, Seto Kaiba said: We've never seen a "Satellite City", so it's hard to say. Artificial gravity is a thing, so they could be building Star Trek-style space stations in orbit of these planets. My personal mental image, apropos of nothing in particular, is something akin to a Sunny Flower-class environment ship or a group of same in orbit of a planet. https://www.macross2.net/m3/macross7/sunnyflower.htm We know O'Neill cylinders are also a thing in Macross, with some of the First Space War survivors and manufacturing facilities servicing the rebuilding of Earth being located in space colonies at the Lagrange points (even called Bunches, in Gundam tradition). Would make sense if it was either or, though I'm wondering if Satellite Cities would only be a thing within Earth's Solar System, as I'd assume most emigrant fleets, long or short distanced, would prefer wanting to find or work with a planet that could be livable as opposed to a gas giant or somewhere as hostile as Venus. On the topic of colony ships, I've just recently learned that the Akusho/Acshio Area that's docked onto City 7 was a old generation self-propelled colony capsule, which was said in its concept art and repeated in the Macross Chronicle glossary, which would explain how decrepit it looked in the series proper. With it being stated to be around 300 meters, I'm kinda assuming that ships of its kind would've been for short range colony fleets back in the day, and with the timeline from the Macross 7 and Plus Movie Program book being the one that said they were from old cargo ships, it would match considering there's a leftover gas tank and container at the bottom as well. On 3/13/2025 at 12:37 AM, Shawn said: I found some pics of a Doujinishi I got a few years ago, and while it's not Macross "Canon" (Seto will cry Blasphemy! ) it certainly can be classified as Super Macross Mecha Fun with the fan-made designs of what might have been. Old doujin stuff like this is always fun, like a peek inside the obsessive fans of the old to see how they'd rationalize or further develop the world of a series with what they have at the time. The VFS-3S for example being a stand out with what Seto mentioned about what eventually happened to that lineage in modern official lore. It is kinda funny as a side note that it's more or less not just a pilotable bullet but like it's almost trying to miniaturize the Daedalus Attack into one single aircraft. 9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: ZARUK REGULT It looks just like a Regult-type battle pod with double the armament from the outside, but its internal technology is incomparable to the Regult's. The ultra-high mobility thrusters on its back have thrust several times greater than that of the Regult, and it was the only battle pod that could compete on equal terms with the Meltrandi powered suits. It was mainly used by Commander-class soldiers, but it was said to be more popular than the Glaug-type battle pod. There are very few of these units left in the current New Unification Forces, but they are still used by squadron leader-class Zentradi soldiers. The boarding and disembarking system is also fundamentally different from the Regult, allowing for smoother boarding. Aside from really wanting to believe (and finding amusement of) a Regult potentially being as maneuverable as a battlesuit, the boarding and disembarking system comment made me wonder how you're supposed to get into or get out of Delta's Regult Type 106, considering the hatch on the regular model is completely obscured by the Queadluun backpack. I'm also assuming it probably wouldn't go into its "resting" pose like that in the way as well, unless there was a still of it in the background I wasn't aware of where it does. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 15 Posted March 15 5 hours ago, TG Remix said: Would make sense if it was either or, though I'm wondering if Satellite Cities would only be a thing within Earth's Solar System, as I'd assume most emigrant fleets, long or short distanced, would prefer wanting to find or work with a planet that could be livable as opposed to a gas giant or somewhere as hostile as Venus. Hm. Given that emigrant fleets are dispatched into the greater galaxy in search of habitable planets first and foremost, I would assume something like a "satellite city" is probably a late-stage development? Earth had already begun the business of establishing permanent colonies on its moon, at its Lagrange points, and on Mars before the First Space War broke out. Satellite cities weren't mentioned for the first time until after the war ended, and we're never told what drove them to build them in orbit of Venus, Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn. It's understandable that people wouldn't necessarily want to live on Earth's surface after the war between the poor environmental conditions and the occasional strife with Zentradi who were left on Earth, but there presumably was also some practical reason to build orbital cities in those places. Spoiler Building a satellite city in Earth's orbit offers some pretty obvious utility for the planet. Earth's environment is a wreck and the planet is only being kept habitable through the strenuous efforts of those supporting the Nature Regeneration Plan. An orbital observatory to monitor and map the planet's environmental recovery would be ideal. That'd provide a permanent platform to monitor the growth of the regeneration areas with LIDAR arrays, to monitor atmospheric composition and radiation mitigation work being done using designer microorganisms, and to perform maintenance and repair on the "space curtain" solar shade keeping global warming under control. It probably would also be pretty useful as a base for patrols of near-Earth space like Apollo Base is, and possibly as a main shipping and receiving port for Earth as a whole. As for Venus... given the abundantly awful surface conditions and prevailing scientific theory, my theory would be that Henry Beggs satellite city was built there as part of a terraforming effort. Jupiter and Saturn, well... they're gas giants. With no prospects for surface settlement, the obvious answer as to why anyone would go to the trouble of building permanent orbital settlements there would be natural resources. Jupiter and Saturn's atmospheres are mainly hydrogen and helium, making them effectively giant balls of reactor fuel floating in space. Much of Saturn's ring system is made up of water ice, meaning it's a giant ball of reactor fuel surrounded by a giant stockpile of frozen propellant. Those satellite cities are very likely to be massive fuel depots like the Jupiter sphere in Gundam's Universal Century... albeit likely a much more safe, comfortable, and friendly take than the bitter and hellish Jupiter Empire thanks to Macross's vastly higher standard of technology and casual interplanetary/interstellar travel. Most emigrant fleets probably don't have quite the incentive to set up satellite cities, since they are often the only city on a given planet for a good while and the resources they'd require could also be obtained by processing ocean water or capturing and mining asteroids like we see them doing in Macross Frontier. Actually, we do see a giant space station or some kind in the Macross Frontier prologue... maybe that's a satellite city? 5 hours ago, TG Remix said: On the topic of colony ships, I've just recently learned that the Akusho/Acshio Area that's docked onto City 7 was a old generation self-propelled colony capsule, which was said in its concept art and repeated in the Macross Chronicle glossary, which would explain how decrepit it looked in the series proper. With it being stated to be around 300 meters, I'm kinda assuming that ships of its kind would've been for short range colony fleets back in the day, and with the timeline from the Macross 7 and Plus Movie Program book being the one that said they were from old cargo ships, it would match considering there's a leftover gas tank and container at the bottom as well. Y'know, I've never thought all that hard about the Acshio. It's just sorta... there. It's supposed to be an area separate and distinct from City 7, but Macross 7 spends so much of its time there that it doesn't really feel that way watching the show. The name is "slang"... but what is it slang for? The kanji they use is the same kanji used for Dejima (later known as Tsukishima), the artificial island that the isolationist Tokugawa shogunate had set up as a sole port of trade with the west. I guess they might mean the literal reading of the kanji ("exit island" or "protruding island") since it is both an Island-type colony module protruding from the side of City 7 and the exit from which Sound Force emerges when needed in battle. It's not unreasonable to infer that it might've been a design used in short-distance emigrant fleets. It may also have been developed as a supplemental craft to operate in support of larger fleets, if the design of Macross 11 is anything to go by. Maybe Megaroad ships in later fleets used these to supplement their capacity? 5 hours ago, TG Remix said: Aside from really wanting to believe (and finding amusement of) a Regult potentially being as maneuverable as a battlesuit, the boarding and disembarking system comment made me wonder how you're supposed to get into or get out of Delta's Regult Type 106, considering the hatch on the regular model is completely obscured by the Queadluun backpack. "Very carefully". Maybe the whole backpack lifts up or even detaches to allow access to the regular embarkation hatch? 5 hours ago, TG Remix said: I'm also assuming it probably wouldn't go into its "resting" pose like that in the way as well, unless there was a still of it in the background I wasn't aware of where it does. Yeah, it probably needs to sit differently, on account of how the backpack sits. Quote
sketchley Posted March 16 Posted March 16 (edited) 9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Y'know, I've never thought all that hard about the Acshio. It's just sorta... there. It's supposed to be an area separate and distinct from City 7, but Macross 7 spends so much of its time there that it doesn't really feel that way watching the show. The name is "slang"... but what is it slang for? I think I may have solved that riddle: in the bottom-most text (starting with the ※ symbol), Kazutaka Miyatake-san has written "アクショ (Akusho)". The romanization of the Katakana on a character-by-character basis is "Akushio/Acushio", and as the "u" sound is basically dropped in the Kanto dialect, that is further reduced to "Akshio/Acshio" (what appears in romaji at the top of the picture). When we change アクショ (Akusho) into kanji, we get "悪所": literally "dangerous area" (an alternative is "red-light district", but from the context in the show, this interpretation seems far less likely). Thus, the official name is "出島 (Dejima)" (unclear if it is a literal description or a reference to the historical island in Nagasaki), and the garbled "Acshio" (pronounced "Akusho") is the slang term for it. I don't know why the writers of that Japanese publication mistook Miyatake-san's note as the romaji name of the ship. 🤷♂️ Did they mistake Miyatake-san's intended "(this is a) slang (name)" for "(this means) slang"? This is also another instance where it's obvious that the staff working on the book at the publisher are not Macross fans... 🙄 Edited March 16 by sketchley Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 16 Posted March 16 12 hours ago, sketchley said: I think I may have solved that riddle: in the bottom-most text (starting with the ※ symbol), Kazutaka Miyatake-san has written "アクショ (Akusho)". The romanization of the Katakana on a character-by-character basis is "Akushio/Acushio", and as the "u" sound is basically dropped in the Kanto dialect, that is further reduced to "Akshio/Acshio" (what appears in romaji at the top of the picture). When we change アクショ (Akusho) into kanji, we get "悪所": literally "dangerous area" (an alternative is "red-light district", but from the context in the show, this interpretation seems far less likely). Thus, the official name is "出島 (Dejima)" (unclear if it is a literal description or a reference to the historical island in Nagasaki), and the garbled "Acshio" (pronounced "Akusho") is the slang term for it. I know it's probably not their intent - or at least I hope it's not because the joke is atrocious - but this would mean every time Mylene drives out to see Basara she's getting on the (literal) Highway to the (literal) Danger Zone. *Kenny Loggins intensifies* Jokes aside, that explanation makes good sense. The people living in City 7 proper and the other environment ships officially accompanying the 37th Fleet aren't likely to actually care enough about the rundown old colony module clinging to the side of City 7 without permission to call it by its proper name (if it even has one). To them, it's just the Bad Part of Town. The slums. A dangerous area with unmaintained and crumbling infrastructure. Quote
JB0 Posted March 16 Posted March 16 4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: The people living in City 7 proper and the other environment ships officially accompanying the 37th Fleet aren't likely to actually care enough about the rundown old colony module clinging to the side of City 7 without permission to call it by its proper name (if it even has one). To them, it's just the Bad Part of Town. The slums. A dangerous area with unmaintained and crumbling infrastructure. They're probably wondering why Captain Jenius keeps vetoing proposals to cut the illegally-docked slum loose from City 7. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 17 Posted March 17 49 minutes ago, JB0 said: They're probably wondering why Captain Jenius keeps vetoing proposals to cut the illegally-docked slum loose from City 7. Huh. Y'know, I'd never really thought much about that aspect of it either. The "Acshio" area is an unregistered emigrant ship that's attached itself to the City 7 without authorization and is apparently even linked up to the larger ship's public utilities. At least some of the people living there (e.g. Basara) are explicitly not registered as fleet citizens. The whole thing is basically a single large slum district full of squatters living in buildings in dangerous states of disrepair that nevertheless still have power, water, and even network/telecom access. At some point, the City 7 government probably had a lot of explaining to do. The fleet had been underway for seven years as of the time of the series, so surely in all that time at least a few people questioned why the ship was allowed to dock in the first place, why it hadn't been depopulated and decommissioned as unsafe, or why it hadn't been repaired inside and out to make it a safe living space. Considering emigrant fleet economies are to an extent designed to be deliberately inefficient to ensure consistent employment for emigrants, you'd think the city government would have been able to make an economic stimulus out of rebuilding the Acshio Area. It was clearly convenient for Project M later on in the 2040s, but one had to wonder what the original justification for it was. Quote
sketchley Posted March 17 Posted March 17 (edited) 3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: It was clearly convenient for Project M later on in the 2040s, but one had to wonder what the original justification for it was. Perhaps that was the justification all along? Macross 7 depicts Project M basically from its first combat sortie. The show doesn't go into much detail about that project's origins, or the amount of time it took to (secretly) manufacture Basara's Fire Valkyrie, set up the special arrangement with Ray Loverock, etc. And then there are questions about how long the idea behind it was gestating in the back of Captain Jiinasu's mind. If Captain Jiinasu was laying the foundation for such plans years in advance, it definitely puts a new spin on his "genius"! Edited March 17 by sketchley Quote
PixelatedShinobi Posted March 17 Posted March 17 15 hours ago, sketchley said: Perhaps that was the justification all along? Macross 7 depicts Project M basically from its first combat sortie. The show doesn't go into much detail about that project's origins, or the amount of time it took to (secretly) manufacture Basara's Fire Valkyrie, set up the special arrangement with Ray Loverock, etc. And then there are questions about how long the idea behind it was gestating in the back of Captain Jiinasu's mind. If Captain Jiinasu was laying the foundation for such plans years in advance, it definitely puts a new spin on his "genius"! In modern light of Lady M lore lot of long-term behind the scenes things like the Sound Project and Vindirance/Vindilance/romanizationsux seem to have the mystery woman's handprints on them. I don't personally buy the claim she's been involved in /every/ major galactic event but the idea of "what if we used music like this" feels like it very much could have been something passed along from the MGRD-1. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 17 Posted March 17 15 hours ago, sketchley said: Perhaps that was the justification all along? Macross 7 depicts Project M basically from its first combat sortie. The show doesn't go into much detail about that project's origins, or the amount of time it took to (secretly) manufacture Basara's Fire Valkyrie, set up the special arrangement with Ray Loverock, etc. And then there are questions about how long the idea behind it was gestating in the back of Captain Jiinasu's mind. If Captain Jiinasu was laying the foundation for such plans years in advance, it definitely puts a new spin on his "genius"! I dunno. Max is obviously no fool, especially in Macross 7 Trash where he's shown to be an extremely adept player of military office politics. Even so, explaining away the presence of a cruise ship-sized slum district full of unregistered persons that attached itself to City 7 without permission while posing enough of a safety risk that the citizens branded it the fleet's "dangerous area" and also leeching off the fleet's limited and tightly controlled resources without contributing anything itself would be quite the to-do. What kind of plausible explanation exists for something like that? It can't be to ring-fence the fleet's "rough" elements, since Rex's biker gang and the toughs Midou brawls with show up elsewhere all the time. It's not being redeveloped, since it's still a crumbling ruin in 2046. It's not a cover for Project M's research spaces, they're in City 7 and Battle 7. Can Max really have had THAT much faith in Basara that he kept up a slum district at the public's expense for seven years on the off chance he'd be suitable? I am absolutely (and unapologetically) overthinking this. 🤣 2 minutes ago, PixelatedShinobi said: In modern light of Lady M lore lot of long-term behind the scenes things like the Sound Project and Vindirance/Vindilance/romanizationsux seem to have the mystery woman's handprints on them. I don't personally buy the claim she's been involved in /every/ major galactic event but the idea of "what if we used music like this" feels like it very much could have been something passed along from the MGRD-1. I hate Lady M for exactly that reason. She's a lazy, and contradictory, plot contrivance for Macross Delta's story. She started out as the Omniscient Council of Vagueness directing Xaos from behind the scenes so that an otherwise unremarkable small-time PMC could flex on the NUNS, and the second Delta movie made her into the Macross Deep State secretly controlling the government from afar despite being unidentified. None of it makes sense. Some of it directly contradicts previous material. I have a feeling she's going to be forgotten about entirely in the future. Quote
pengbuzz Posted March 17 Posted March 17 1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said: I dunno. Max is obviously no fool, especially in Macross 7 Trash where he's shown to be an extremely adept player of military office politics. Even so, explaining away the presence of a cruise ship-sized slum district full of unregistered persons that attached itself to City 7 without permission while posing enough of a safety risk that the citizens branded it the fleet's "dangerous area" and also leeching off the fleet's limited and tightly controlled resources without contributing anything itself would be quite the to-do. What kind of plausible explanation exists for something like that? It can't be to ring-fence the fleet's "rough" elements, since Rex's biker gang and the toughs Midou brawls with show up elsewhere all the time. It's not being redeveloped, since it's still a crumbling ruin in 2046. It's not a cover for Project M's research spaces, they're in City 7 and Battle 7. Can Max really have had THAT much faith in Basara that he kept up a slum district at the public's expense for seven years on the off chance he'd be suitable? I am absolutely (and unapologetically) overthinking this. 🤣 My theory: attribute it to Kawamori-san's view of "canon" 1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said: I hate Lady M for exactly that reason. She's a lazy, and contradictory, plot contrivance for Macross Delta's story. She started out as the Omniscient Council of Vagueness directing Xaos from behind the scenes so that an otherwise unremarkable small-time PMC could flex on the NUNS, and the second Delta movie made her into the Macross Deep State secretly controlling the government from afar despite being unidentified. None of it makes sense. Some of it directly contradicts previous material. I have a feeling she's going to be forgotten about entirely in the future. Hopefully so; feels like an ar$e-pull of an idea. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 18 Posted March 18 Veering back towards the VF-11 Master File... it's interesting to note that its explanation for what got the New UN Forces off the dime and developing a next (3rd) generation main VF was the disappearance of Megaroad-01 in 2016. It's noted that a number of other incidents followed where research and emigrant fleets encountered unexpected new threats out in the greater galaxy in the 2020s. The military, and in small part naturalized Zentradi with combat experience, agitated for an improvement in the defenses of the large-scale emigrant fleets before scaling up Humankind Seeding Plan. Master File recontextualizes Project Nova a bit. In its view, Project Nova is commonly known as the design competition between the VF-11 and VF-14 but was actually a series of development plans that evolved from the Advanced Valkyrie Project including both the 2nd and 3rd Generation VFs from the VF-4 and VF-3000 up to the VF-11 and VF-14. It was, according to Master File, a program intended to develop a VF for large-scale emigrant fleets that saw its fulfillment in the VF-11. Interestingly, its description of the actual kickoff of the VF-11's development describes the military as not providing any concrete requirements to the developers. Essentially, the plan was just for the developers to come up with their concept for a next-generation main VF without any restrictions. It's said that two developers dropped out, and the military sweetened the pot for the remaining six companies by promising that it would adopt both of the designs that were selected for the final competition. Proposals were submitted after a two year grace period. The six competing proposals submitted were numbered YF-10 through YF-15. The military spent six months assessing the designs, and ultimately settled on Shinsei Industry's YF-11 and General Galaxy's YF-14. This, I guess, explains the plethora of skipped numbers in the early teens and I guess indirectly confirms that the (New) UN Forces weren't skipping "unlucky" numbers. (It's mildly amusing that, by this point in the narrative, the Advanced Valkyrie Planning office has become nicknamed the "VF Mafia".) In early 2025, the YF-11 and YF-14 officially entered development. There's a brief digression where they talk about the development of General Galaxy's YF-14, and how General Galaxy angled for a larger all-in-one aircraft concept with a large size and long operating range in space partly to accommodate the broadest possible assortment of pilots. It's mentioned that, because many Zentradi are unusually tall as miclones, the cramped cockpits of many VFs meant that a nontrivial percentage of applicants were unable to become pilots. Argas Selzer of General Galaxy apparently did a study and had found that around 2% of applicants were rejected for this reason, amounting to an estimated 40,000 potential candidates whom a larger VF could put on the front lines. Sorting this out was also expected to have the benefit of diminishing the number of Zentradi joining rebel groups by making it easier for them to pursue desirable careers. Thus, General Galaxy bet on a signficantly larger airframe in expectation of bringing in more Zentradi and part-Zentradi pilots. The YF-11, it's said, went in the opposite direction and focused on trying to reexamine and optimize the proven concepts behind the VF-1 Valkyrie. Honestly, my read of it is that General Galaxy was making an extremely posh, high-tech VF while Shinsei set out to make the most simple, rugged design they could be easily tuned to suit the preferences of a huge array of different pilots and organizations. Kind of an M-16 vs. AK-47 sort of moment. Apparently this period also saw a need to lay the groundwork for inter-fleet collaboration as humanity spread out into the galaxy. So the Macross Concern subsidiary Glory Earth Systems, General Galaxy, and Shinsei jointly developed a inter-fleet network standard to support fleetwide and multifleet theater control. Skimming ahead, the book describes the two official setting prototypes (the one with canards and the one without), but also finesses in a whopping SEVENTEEN incremental YF units for various purposes before the VF-11A was completed. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 18 Posted March 18 5 hours ago, pengbuzz said: My theory: attribute it to Kawamori-san's view of "canon" Probably. My guess is that the creative team working on Macross 7 never really expected anyone to question it. Then again, it does work pretty well as a way to justify Basara having a place that's big enough and isolated enough to rehearse a rock band. With his autism-coded difficulties in understanding other people and his hyperfocus on music, he's absolutely not the kind of guy who could hold down a 9-5 to make rent and utilities living in the city proper. 5 hours ago, pengbuzz said: Hopefully so; feels like an ar$e-pull of an idea. That's definitely how I see it, though I am known to be a cynical curmugeon. 😝 Until Absolute Live!!!!!!, Lady M's just this weirdly half-baked plot device the writers repeatedly drag out to justify Xaos acting independently all the time instead of doing the job they were hired to do: supporting the local New UN Forces. Quote
sketchley Posted March 18 Posted March 18 (edited) 7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: I dunno. Max is obviously no fool, especially in Macross 7 Trash where he's shown to be an extremely adept player of military office politics. Even so, explaining away the presence of a cruise ship-sized slum district full of unregistered persons that attached itself to City 7 without permission while posing enough of a safety risk that the citizens branded it the fleet's "dangerous area" and also leeching off the fleet's limited and tightly controlled resources without contributing anything itself would be quite the to-do. What kind of plausible explanation exists for something like that? It can't be to ring-fence the fleet's "rough" elements, since Rex's biker gang and the toughs Midou brawls with show up elsewhere all the time. It's not being redeveloped, since it's still a crumbling ruin in 2046. It's not a cover for Project M's research spaces, they're in City 7 and Battle 7. Can Max really have had THAT much faith in Basara that he kept up a slum district at the public's expense for seven years on the off chance he'd be suitable? I am absolutely (and unapologetically) overthinking this. 🤣 I think you may be—possibly me, too. Another explanation popped into mind: Max is the commander of the Unified Forces but Miria is the mayor of the city. There's a possibility that one or the other authorized the "Dejima" attaching to City 7, but due to their ongoing marital strife, that translated into neither side (UNS or municipal staff) getting around to properly fixing the "Dejima" (a frustratingly not-uncommon situation in Japan). In this scenario, Max merely took advantage of the situation and used it as the Fire Valkyrie's base of operations. Edited March 18 by sketchley Quote
rematron Posted March 18 Posted March 18 14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Honestly, my read of it is that General Galaxy was making an extremely posh, high-tech VF while Shinsei set out to make the most simple, rugged design they could be easily tuned to suit the preferences of a huge array of different pilots and organizations. Kind of an M-16 vs. AK-47 sort of moment. Thanks for this translation and information! (as well as all the others in this thread) Is there an image anywhere of the YF-14? Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 18 Posted March 18 13 hours ago, sketchley said: I think you may be—possibly me, too. Oh, I definitely am. I'm an engineer. I over-analyze everything. 🤣 13 hours ago, sketchley said: Another explanation popped into mind: Max is the commander of the Unified Forces but Miria is the mayor of the city. There's a possibility that one or the other authorized the "Dejima" attaching to City 7, but due to their ongoing marital strife, that translated into neither side (UNS or municipal staff) getting around to properly fixing the "Dejima" (a frustratingly not-uncommon situation in Japan). In this scenario, Max merely took advantage of the situation and used it as the Fire Valkyrie's base of operations. That's not a bad idea. If, say, the military approved it and the City 7 government didn't then it could be said to be unauthorized since the civilian government that's supposed to be in charge never OK'd it. The ensuing adminstrative dustup could easily end with neither side being able to authorize repairing it due to its unauthorized status and lack of budget. I'm only too familiar with that kind of administrative "Not my problem" situation. Alternatively, if the Dejima/Acshio area did dock without proper authorization it's possible there is some legal reason that the 37th Fleet can't cut it loose or rebuild it. If the ship's not able to support its unregistered population long enough to reliably return to a safe port or is no longer spaceworthy, then there are almost certainly military regulations and/or civilian laws and treaties prohibiting the 37th Fleet from de facto marooning the inhabitants in space. Quote
TG Remix Posted March 18 Posted March 18 On 3/15/2025 at 4:11 PM, Seto Kaiba said: Most emigrant fleets probably don't have quite the incentive to set up satellite cities, since they are often the only city on a given planet for a good while and the resources they'd require could also be obtained by processing ocean water or capturing and mining asteroids like we see them doing in Macross Frontier. Never really thought about that, but that seems to be consistent. Aside from Eden who's easily the most developed of the planets we've seen, like how Sephira from VF-X2 only seemed to have Hyde City, and from what I remember Al-Shahal only had its city. There are a few exceptions, such as Ouroboros in Macross 30, which aside from Britai City had towns spread throughout like Leopold City, Bowen, and Daoren. There's the multiple metropolis' in Digital Mission VF-X before they were mysteriously and appallingly abandoned. On 3/15/2025 at 4:11 PM, Seto Kaiba said: Actually, we do see a giant space station or some kind in the Macross Frontier prologue... maybe that's a satellite city? I remember someone saying that's a spaceport, but we wouldn't know for certain. It's an eyecatching design regardless. 15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: There's a brief digression where they talk about the development of General Galaxy's YF-14, and how General Galaxy angled for a larger all-in-one aircraft concept with a large size and long operating range in space partly to accommodate the broadest possible assortment of pilots. It's mentioned that, because many Zentradi are unusually tall as miclones, the cramped cockpits of many VFs meant that a nontrivial percentage of applicants were unable to become pilots. I know there are come cases with Zentradi unable to miclone properly (like Klan Klan) and their size becoming a factor when they do (notably as shown with Ernest Johnson's introduction in Delta,) but at least with SDF it seemed like many who went through the process blended in with humans just fine? And that's not factoring others like Guld, Micheal, Timoshie, etc. It does seem a bit more situational, at least with what the main animated series showed, unless it's just the franchise more or less making Zentradi conveniently different from humans when it calls for it. Maybe that's another reason in-universe to why the VA-14 was specifically made for Zentradi, but it would conflict MF's notion about fitting in the cockpit. Though I suppose Macross Chronicle said the VF-14 was popular with Zentran for a reason... 15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Sorting this out was also expected to have the benefit of diminishing the number of Zentradi joining rebel groups by making it easier for them to pursue desirable careers. Seemed like the NUNS battlepods wasn't that great of a selling point anymore lol. Jokes aside, this would be by the time when Queadluun-Raus were beginning to get rarer within the military. There was also the Variable Glaug stolen and reproduced by the UN, but the only thing we get to imply how common it's operational usage was is seemingly hard handling, and The Ride's Neo Glaug bis' notion on how it'd be difficult to pull out its full potential unless you're a small (aka, child sized) Meltran. 15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Honestly, my read of it is that General Galaxy was making an extremely posh, high-tech VF while Shinsei set out to make the most simple, rugged design they could be easily tuned to suit the preferences of a huge array of different pilots and organizations. Kind of an M-16 vs. AK-47 sort of moment. It's a bit ironic considering even though the VF-11 is essentially the second coming of the VF-1, the VF-14 was said to be built with the idea of being modified and upgraded through it's service due to it's larger airframe. 14 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said: Alternatively, if the Dejima/Acshio area did dock without proper authorization it's possible there is some legal reason that the 37th Fleet can't cut it loose or rebuild it. If the ship's not able to support its unregistered population long enough to reliably return to a safe port or is no longer spaceworthy, then there are almost certainly military regulations and/or civilian laws and treaties prohibiting the 37th Fleet from de facto marooning the inhabitants in space. Since it was conceptualized to be self-propelling, I wouldn't be surprised if sketchley's notion that it was specifically for Project M that something so nondescript or disused could be issued to be docked to City 7 without worry. Sound Project seemed to still have research being done by 2047, as the Milky Dolls were said to be a source of income for it. Not entirely sure how they fit into it all as I'm still in the process of MTL'ing the game in a exercise of endurance and futility (especially when the rogue Zentradi only seemed to kidnap and hold them as hostages as a distraction for Commander's true plan...No I didn't miss an "I" there, he genuinely has no name aside from his role in the story,) but I am a tad curious on how it could affect the franchise since Frontier and the franchise forward took a lot of elements from 7. 1 hour ago, rematron said: Is there an image anywhere of the YF-14? Nothing at all really. And you'd be hard pressed to have any additional material on the VF-14 in general; out of the "main lineage" of designed VFs, they're easily the most overlooked in the franchise despite being the competing design of the VF-11. They don't appear much aside from a few seconds of Spiritia Dreaming in 7 PLUS, and it was completely redesigned for M3, but that's very minuscule compared to even the VA-3. Not even their Varauta counterparts get the spotlight aside from The Ride, and despite 7 being the franchise's money maker of the time I don't even think they got any merchandise period. Even the Sv-51 had a bone thrown at it. Quote
pengbuzz Posted March 18 Posted March 18 1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said: Oh, I definitely am. I'm an engineer. I over-analyze everything. 🤣 That's not a bad idea. If, say, the military approved it and the City 7 government didn't then it could be said to be unauthorized since the civilian government that's supposed to be in charge never OK'd it. The ensuing adminstrative dustup could easily end with neither side being able to authorize repairing it due to its unauthorized status and lack of budget. I'm only too familiar with that kind of administrative "Not my problem" situation. Alternatively, if the Dejima/Acshio area did dock without proper authorization it's possible there is some legal reason that the 37th Fleet can't cut it loose or rebuild it. If the ship's not able to support its unregistered population long enough to reliably return to a safe port or is no longer spaceworthy, then there are almost certainly military regulations and/or civilian laws and treaties prohibiting the 37th Fleet from de facto marooning the inhabitants in space. Yeah, that explanation would solve a lot of issues, and (as you mentioned) a real-life thing. Quote
Areoborg Posted March 18 Posted March 18 On 3/10/2025 at 10:41 AM, Seto Kaiba said: The more I look at it, the more clear it becomes just how unreasonably huge the Stellar Whale really is. If that thing is JUST a luxury ferry, it's operating WAY under capacity carrying just 4,500 people. You could comfortably park TWO Icon-class cruise ships in the area we're told is reserved for passengers, and each of those has a nominal capacity of 7,800 plus amenities like pools, a water park, a theater, a dance hall, multiple restaurants, etc. If just the parts of the hull below the dome are for cargo, a single Stellar Whale can laugh the world's largest container ships out of town without trying. I'm thinking that they're designed to be extremely modular inside, so you can have your airline style seating for shorter flights, ocean liner style accommodations for longer flights, and plenty of room for cargo regardless of the configuration. Plus, I'm guessing that since this is the UN Government era, where everything was designed with an Earth First design philosophy, there probably isn't a whole lot of different options for ships. The Earth OKs any and all designs, and the designs themselves are made to be easily modified, depending on where it is going and what it needs to be doing once it gets there. By the time the New UN Government came around and the colonies worlds and fleets are given more independence, we're probably started to see more specialized ships that are optimized from the keel up for colony work, (much like how the VF-25 was optimized for use in the fleets, rather than the monkey model for fleets/colonies distribution of older designs). So instead of designs that are intended to be everything for all customers, specialized designs started appearing, like what we saw in Macross Delta. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 18 Posted March 18 4 hours ago, rematron said: Is there an image anywhere of the YF-14? Surprisingly, no. Given that the final form of Project Nova was a competition between the YF-11 and YF-14 for the role of next main fighter, you'd think the VF-11's Master File would have at least one picture of the bloody thing. Actually, looking over the whole of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-11 Thunderbolt, there's shockingly little variety in the book's art. The development history has very small bits of line art of the VF-1, VF-4, VF-3000, VF-5000, and VF-9, a half-page piece of the VF-X-11, and some full page fighter mode line art for the YF-11 prototypes and four other variants of VF-11 (D, MAXL, MAXL Custom, and VT-11). The 3D modeled art is all reskins of the same B/C type model. The only other fighter that's even in the color images is a VF-17 that I think was made for an earlier volume. Even the color schemes are kinda lazy... they're just the DYRL Skull squadron colors, Macross Plus colors, low viz grey, etc. The only one that's really breaking the mold is one that's allegedly from an acrobatic team on the planet Mystras. (It's kind of weird that it mentions two other variants, the VE-11 Thunderseeker from the Hasegawa model kit line and a VF-11E Advanced Thunderbolt, but never troubles itself to actually describe them.) 3 hours ago, TG Remix said: Never really thought about that, but that seems to be consistent. Aside from Eden who's easily the most developed of the planets we've seen, like how Sephira from VF-X2 only seemed to have Hyde City, and from what I remember Al-Shahal only had its city. There are a few exceptions, such as Ouroboros in Macross 30, which aside from Britai City had towns spread throughout like Leopold City, Bowen, and Daoren. There's the multiple metropolis' in Digital Mission VF-X before they were mysteriously and appallingly abandoned. Yeah, Uroboros seems to be especially strange in that regard in that it's the only world we've seen where multiple settlements aren't clustered together in the same region. They're spread across three distinct areas of the planet for some reason. 3 hours ago, TG Remix said: I know there are come cases with Zentradi unable to miclone properly (like Klan Klan) and their size becoming a factor when they do (notably as shown with Ernest Johnson's introduction in Delta,) but at least with SDF it seemed like many who went through the process blended in with humans just fine? And that's not factoring others like Guld, Micheal, Timoshie, etc. It does seem a bit more situational, at least with what the main animated series showed, unless it's just the franchise more or less making Zentradi conveniently different from humans when it calls for it. How well the Zentradi blend in seems to be something that varies from series to series. One point that Macross keeps coming back to is that Zentradi are supposed to be quite a bit taller than the average Human, averaging approximately 2m instead of 1.8m. Klan's quite a bit taller than the standard Zentradi in her adult form, and Ernest Johnson seems to be as well. We've also seen this with some of the Zentradi in Macross 7, like Veffidas and the rioters who try to take over city hall. Ernest has an explicitly given height, and he's a whopping 227cm (7 feet 5.4 inches). That'd make him as tall as some the tallest to ever play professional basketball, but rather than being gangly he's extremely broadly built. Guld is only half-Zentradi, but he's still well above average at 195cm (6 feet 5 inches). They do seem to lean towards making Zentradi very tall... unless they're girls, then they're Human-sized to keep them cute (unless they're Veffidas). Part of this is probably dependent on what type of Zentradi they are. There's a LOT of variability in the Zentradi height chart too, with records officers and so on being quite a bit smaller than normal soldiers (who average 10m) and commanders being Large and In Charge at as much as 13m. (Maybe that's why Milia's aide de camp is built like four brick sh*thouses stacked together... it's what she's used to, even though he's a standard human. He's probably meant to be American, given that he's like 7 feet tall and a blonde to boot.) 3 hours ago, TG Remix said: Maybe that's another reason in-universe to why the VA-14 was specifically made for Zentradi, but it would conflict MF's notion about fitting in the cockpit. Though I suppose Macross Chronicle said the VF-14 was popular with Zentran for a reason... We've never properly seen a VA-14, all we know it from its its Varauta derivative Az-130. Mind you, the VF-14 was also said to be very much favored by the Zentradi in official setting materials because of its size, simplicity, and sturdiness. 3 hours ago, TG Remix said: Seemed like the NUNS battlepods wasn't that great of a selling point anymore lol. Jokes aside, this would be by the time when Queadluun-Raus were beginning to get rarer within the military. There was also the Variable Glaug stolen and reproduced by the UN, but the only thing we get to imply how common it's operational usage was is seemingly hard handling, and The Ride's Neo Glaug bis' notion on how it'd be difficult to pull out its full potential unless you're a small (aka, child sized) Meltran. One thing we know about the battle pods from a very early point: their ergonomics are hot garbage. The Regult is often singled out as being very uncomfortable and draining to operate for long periods because it has the bare minimum level of automation and its cockpit is very cramped and forces the pilot into an uncomfortable position. So much so that the still-cramped Glaug and Nousjadeul-Ger battle suit were seen as more luxurious. It's not hard to see why Zentradi might want the greater flexibility and defensive ability of the VFs and why ones raised among Humans would want a cockpit they don't have to pretzel themselves into. (As a man almost 2m tall myself, who has had to pretzel himself into more than one Fiat 500e, Abarth 595, or Alfa Romeo 4C for work, I can sympathize intensely.) 3 hours ago, TG Remix said: It's a bit ironic considering even though the VF-11 is essentially the second coming of the VF-1, the VF-14 was said to be built with the idea of being modified and upgraded through it's service due to it's larger airframe. Both the VF-11 and VF-14 are naturally designed to be upgraded throughout their service lives. The VF-14 is just a more extreme case, thanks to the abundantly roomy airframe General Galaxy designed it with in pursuit of a space-friendly VF that wouldn't need FAST Packs for extended operations. 3 hours ago, TG Remix said: Since it was conceptualized to be self-propelling, I wouldn't be surprised if sketchley's notion that it was specifically for Project M that something so nondescript or disused could be issued to be docked to City 7 without worry. The one nit I have to pick with that idea is that, by its nature, the Acshio area is not nondescript. The class of ship the Dejima/Acshio belongs to might be nondescript in its sheer ubiquitousness, but the contents aren't. The Acshio area is 300m of slums and urban decay that's parked right next to a fairly posh small city. It sticks out like a sore thumb the same way 300m of Gary, Indiana would if you deposited it on the outskirts of metropolitan Tokyo. 3 hours ago, TG Remix said: Sound Project seemed to still have research being done by 2047, as the Milky Dolls were said to be a source of income for it. Not entirely sure how they fit into it all as I'm still in the process of MTL'ing the game in a exercise of endurance and futility (especially when the rogue Zentradi only seemed to kidnap and hold them as hostages as a distraction for Commander's true plan...No I didn't miss an "I" there, he genuinely has no name aside from his role in the story,) but I am a tad curious on how it could affect the franchise since Frontier and the franchise forward took a lot of elements from 7. By all accounts, they were still doing research into the 2060s as Elma Hoyly is researching it in 2062 as part of anti-Var countermeasures based on what she learned from her mentor Dr. Lawrence, and he based his work on Dr. Chiba's. If you take Berger Stone's claims at face value, research has been going on in that field since the First Space War's conclusion. Quote
pengbuzz Posted March 19 Posted March 19 3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: The one nit I have to pick with that idea is that, by its nature, the Acshio area is not nondescript. The class of ship the Dejima/Acshio belongs to might be nondescript in its sheer ubiquitousness, but the contents aren't. The Acshio area is 300m of slums and urban decay that's parked right next to a fairly posh small city. It sticks out like a sore thumb the same way 300m of Gary, Indiana would if you deposited it on the outskirts of metropolitan Tokyo. Now, why do I have a running animation in my head of Michael Moore walking around the Achiso with a handheld camera trying to do his next "documentary", only to get stepped on by Basara's VF-19 Battroid? 🤣 Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 19 Posted March 19 3 hours ago, Areoborg said: I'm thinking that they're designed to be extremely modular inside, so you can have your airline style seating for shorter flights, ocean liner style accommodations for longer flights, and plenty of room for cargo regardless of the configuration. Plus, I'm guessing that since this is the UN Government era, where everything was designed with an Earth First design philosophy, there probably isn't a whole lot of different options for ships. The Earth OKs any and all designs, and the designs themselves are made to be easily modified, depending on where it is going and what it needs to be doing once it gets there. Eh, assuming it's designed anything like a cruise liner, ferry, or jet liner, it's probably more a case of the manufacturer providing a standardized hull design and leaving it up to the company operating it to customize the interior to their needs. That said, given that these ships are designed for a fairly specific and inflexible purpose of providing "luxury" ferry services to emigrant planets within the 100 light year sphere around Earth, I would assume the balance of the interiors is relatively standardized based on an average balance of passengers. WRT "Earth First" design philosophy, that's not really much of a thing prior to 2040 and the impromptu practical demonstration of the YF-19 and YF-21 over Earth during the Sharon Apple Incident. That led to the New UN Government's crackdown on exports of weapons technology to emigrant fleets and planets fearing that those new advanced weapons will be turned against them by anti-government militants. In the 2010s through the 2030s, it could be said that Earth's design philosophy was "Emigrants first". Not only did they put a fair amount of effort into trying to make emigrant fleets safer and more comfortable, the overriding priority in VF design for the 2nd Generation was developing VFs that were both easy to build and easy to maintain for the sake of emigrant fleet/planet defense forces upgrading their equipment. According to Master File, even the 3rd Generation's flagship VF designs were intended first and foremost to improve the defensive ability of emigrant fleets and research fleets that were stumbling into new threats as they spread out into the greater galaxy. 3 hours ago, Areoborg said: By the time the New UN Government came around [...] Fans often forget, the New UN Government was formed in April 2010. It's in the original series, after the timeskip. 3 hours ago, Areoborg said: [...] and the colonies worlds and fleets are given more independence, we're probably started to see more specialized ships that are optimized from the keel up for colony work, (much like how the VF-25 was optimized for use in the fleets, rather than the monkey model for fleets/colonies distribution of older designs). So instead of designs that are intended to be everything for all customers, specialized designs started appearing, like what we saw in Macross Delta. Thus far, the emigrant governments we've seen all use the same standard designs that are used basically everywhere with the exception of Macross Galaxy (which used its own designs) and Windermere IV which seems to be using derivatives of the Macross Galaxy fleet designs. With respect to the VF-25, while Master File asserts that some aspects of its equipment were intended to accommodate the resource priorities of emigrant fleets, the VF-25 as a whole wasn't really optimized for use in emigrant fleets in any sense. It was designed to be a general purpose next (5th) generation main VF that the Frontier Government could equip its own New UN Forces with for protection against the Vajra and also rake in money from export sales of their new fighter to allied governments without the resources to develop and/or build their own 5th Generation main VF. For its part, the VF-31 was developed primarily for economic reasons. Both to give the local economy of the Brisingr Alliance a shot in the arm and to hopefully make some cash selling their state-of-the-art 5th Generation design to nearby allied emigrant governments. (It broadly mirrors Japan's own efforts to develop a domestic next-gen fighter jet.) It's not a specialized craft by any means. If anything, it's meant to be a radical new approach to a highly generalized main VF. The ordnance container system the VF-31's designers inherited from the YF-30 prototype is meant to do away with specialized mission-specific aircraft variants in favor of a common airframe with hot-swappable mission modules to satisfy most role requirements. The Sv-262's not really a specialized design either. It reflects some weird cultural biases on the part of its operators (e.g. the sword) but it's just meant to be a general purpose Valkyrie with a design bias towards fighting other Valkyries (as a product of a design team that specializes in that exact mission profile). Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted March 19 Posted March 19 58 minutes ago, pengbuzz said: Now, why do I have a running animation in my head of Michael Moore walking around the Achiso with a handheld camera trying to do his next "documentary", only to get stepped on by Basara's VF-19 Battroid? 🤣 That's halfway to an actual episode of Macross 7, where that muckraking tabloid journalist was trying to find scandals on Basara and Fire Bomber and having not much luck. Quote
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