Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

Veering back for a moment to this strange statement from the translation of the Macross 30 novelization...

This at least partly aligns with material from Macross Frontier, wherein Luca's three QF-4000 series Ghosts were also equipped with a fully autonomous air combat AI albeit under restraints and only with the special permission of the New UN Government.  (It pays to be the heir to a megacorporation, I guess?)  A production version of the Ghost X-9 would be under the same, or even stricter, restrictions.  

That said, to call it a strategic weapon with impact rivaling that of an ICBM is exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness.  It's a high-performance unmanned fighter with mobility exceeding 10G, but it's still only armed with like two dozen missiles and five laser machine guns.  It has low operational versatility and low endurance (because of its small size, high propellant consumption, limited armament, etc.).  It could probably destroy a few buildings, but it's nowhere near the threat level of even a tactical reaction warhead never mind a strategic one.

 

That said, it's also a rather odd thing for Havamal to have... in Macross 30 it's kind of a plot point that they've gone off the grid a bit because they're acting outside their orders and are using whatever resources they can borrow from the local NUNS or use their clout to have manufactured locally.  I think the AIF-7S actually makes more sense, esp. since Leon shoots down like half a dozen of the bloody things in short order, where four was a damn near insurmountable task for the most elite Special Forces of the previous generation.

[pengbuzz]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That said, to call it a strategic weapon with impact rivaling that of an ICBM is exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness.  It's a high-performance unmanned fighter with mobility exceeding 10G, but it's still only armed with like two dozen missiles and five laser machine guns.  It has low operational versatility and low endurance (because of its small size, high propellant consumption, limited armament, etc.).  It could probably destroy a few buildings, but it's nowhere near the threat level of even a tactical reaction warhead never mind a strategic one.

That could be changed if we:

Spoiler

Arm it with amplified recordings of Mylene's constant whining and complaining in M7!

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:27 PM by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

That could be changed if we:

  Reveal hidden contents

Arm it with amplified recordings of Mylene's constant whining and complaining in M7!

 

Surely you jest. 😜

Mylene is Fire Bomber's Only Sane Woman!  She does more to keep Basara on task than anyone else in the band or in the series as a whole.  Ray's too burned-out by a decade-plus of Basara's BS to muster a decent response half the time, Veffidas is too lost in the rhythm to participate in a conversation, and their label's manager Akiko is never around.  She's the lone breakwater preventing Basara's madness from sweeping the band away... and also the best character in the series.  (That she at no point attempts to garrote Basara with his own guitar strings is a testament to her sheer focus, commitment, and force of will.)

 

Mylene is seemingly so good at wrangling weirdos and eccentrics that she's briefly able to keep Quamzin Kravshera himself on-side and on-task in Macross 30.  Even Vrlitwhai Kridanik and Moruk Laplapmiz struggled at that, arguably making her better qualified to claim strategic weapon status than the Ghost!

[pengbuzz]

26 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Surely you jest. 😜

Mylene is Fire Bomber's Only Sane Woman!  She does more to keep Basara on task than anyone else in the band or in the series as a whole.  Ray's too burned-out by a decade-plus of Basara's BS to muster a decent response half the time, Veffidas is too lost in the rhythm to participate in a conversation, and their label's manager Akiko is never around.  She's the lone breakwater preventing Basara's madness from sweeping the band away... and also the best character in the series.  (That she at no point attempts to garrote Basara with his own guitar strings is a testament to her sheer focus, commitment, and force of will.)

 

Mylene is seemingly so good at wrangling weirdos and eccentrics that she's briefly able to keep Quamzin Kravshera himself on-side and on-task in Macross 30.  Even Vrlitwhai Kridanik and Moruk Laplapmiz struggled at that, arguably making her better qualified to claim strategic weapon status than the Ghost!

Of course I jest, but don't call me Shirley.

[PixelatedShinobi]

16 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That said, to call it a strategic weapon with impact rivaling that of an ICBM is exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness.  It's a high-performance unmanned fighter with mobility exceeding 10G, but it's still only armed with like two dozen missiles and five laser machine guns.  It has low operational versatility and low endurance (because of its small size, high propellant consumption, limited armament, etc.).  It could probably destroy a few buildings, but it's nowhere near the threat level of even a tactical reaction warhead never mind a strategic one.

Kodachi just tends to like being very dramatic with his wording, I wouldn't put too much stock into it. The way it's presented in Plus, it is in fact a very powerful weapon so a bit of exaggeration is whatever imo.

 

16 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That said, it's also a rather odd thing for Havamal to have... in Macross 30 it's kind of a plot point that they've gone off the grid a bit because they're acting outside their orders and are using whatever resources they can borrow from the local NUNS or use their clout to have manufactured locally.  I think the AIF-7S actually makes more sense, esp. since Leon shoots down like half a dozen of the bloody things in short order, where four was a damn near insurmountable task for the most elite Special Forces of the previous generation.

Thanks for reminding me of the 9B flight patterns in VF-X2... god those things are a niiiightmaaaaaaaareeeeeeeeeee

[PixelatedShinobi]

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/373974751561?_skw=Macross+30+Complete+Visual&itmmeta=01JR9K47P233Z5SX4QR18GV1A1&hash=item5712a1d949:g:~qIAAOSwFVlkiBx5&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA0FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1dYk6r4Z0lm4Od%2FduNfKLDLrJfTY8uhbuV95esAP1Skm1%2BlvHvfYp5Y3Kz6w9n6xJQR%2FAwPk%2FioUnXX9PIhzkVcctc3OqneZBbo8LeBy6XcyenxHUksyoCN7RpDvwY%2FMBPHu9X2x0Bo1TYRIHu%2B72L6OQieMxFHUySIln%2FBo92YMuZjK7j2A9wQ72YRWLCxfNRSFdqrRgq9qiC8OlHolAIEVMvH541XNQ0ECTM0VdwE9AgOTDVFp%2B6xu3B4F1EW%2BOo%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR5T7kLPCZQ

https://www.ebay.com/itm/405011821668?_skw=Macross+30+Complete+Visual&itmmeta=01JR9K47P2ADE1WGWVSRZ93395&hash=item5e4c95f464:g:8g0AAOSw9iBmW98d&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1e7I3fQaTqtjloRPqB%2B0tSfLkoTHr9OEjHoNLj%2FD1xNvNFlNCOWd3cdX0l3%2BGlTCmsJVVmr7zUsnGDEtcxFzsP4c1abDI9Vz6X1Ah1qQ2y%2BhfrJXDd%2BfN%2Bq80KQwdolW%2BTKPEs1ZNCCis3jC2aJSCGHRkRpfLtR%2FfH20aSV%2B%2F78uyrU77%2BGvfxrifktWJcYyd%2F5hNVSh4RQ%2FOGh6KD996y6%2Bgr8fnWyqaf1K3KkybW3WAkHHc6xIp75Fp%2BIkqguqeo9DtJEKoiy6yD%2BvkHdSmdyrjMFvLrP%2FXpVOqAPZHUfTw%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR5T7kLPCZQ

There are a couple copies floating around for actually-pretty-reasonable prices on eBay.

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1292489743&ref=list&keyword=Macross 30 Visual&lang=en

And one on Mandarake too, in the Nagoya store.

Thanks. I need to start working again...

On that note, do you know of any places where I can find Ukyo Kodachi's short story collections for Frontier? That's the one thing I don't currently have locked down either digitally or physically in some form.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

On that note, do you know of any places where I can find Ukyo Kodachi's short story collections for Frontier? That's the one thing I don't currently have locked down either digitally or physically in some form.

So... that's a bit tricky, since the short stories were run in several different publications including the Macross Frontier novelization (in Vol.4), the Macross Frontier visual collection books, Macross Ace, and in Kadokawa's bimonthly magazine The Sneaker.

The easiest way to get almost all of them is to get the two anthologies: Macross Frontier: Frontier Memories and Macross Frontier: Frontier Diaries.  Each volume had a new short story written exclusively for it, and between the two of them they collect all but one of the short stories that were published in Macross Ace and The Sneaker as well as the one that got published in the Sheryl Nome Visual Collection.  IIRC, the only one that isn't in either volume is Cosmic Egg, which is in the 4th volume of the Macross Frontier TV novelization and in Macross Ace Vol.1.

I only managed to score my copies very recently... my main copies have been the ones in Macross Ace and The Sneaker.

 

3 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

Kodachi just tends to like being very dramatic with his wording, I wouldn't put too much stock into it. The way it's presented in Plus, it is in fact a very powerful weapon so a bit of exaggeration is whatever imo.

There's dramatic and there's that. lol

 

3 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

Thanks for reminding me of the 9B flight patterns in VF-X2... god those things are a niiiightmaaaaaaaareeeeeeeeeee

That's to be expected... it's a boss machine and the most advanced VF in the game that you get is one that canonically can barely keep up with it because there's nothing to keep the fleshy meats in the seat from feeling the g-forces.

Edited Tuesday at 11:28 PM by Seto Kaiba

[PixelatedShinobi]

30 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

So... that's a bit tricky, since the short stories were run in several different publications including the Macross Frontier novelization (in Vol.4), the Macross Frontier visual collection books, Macross Ace, and in Kadokawa's bimonthly magazine The Sneaker.

The easiest way to get almost all of them is to get the two anthologies: Macross Frontier: Frontier Memories and Macross Frontier: Frontier Diaries.  Each volume had a new short story written exclusively for it, and between the two of them they collect all but one of the short stories that were published in Macross Ace and The Sneaker as well as the one that got published in the Sheryl Nome Visual Collection.  IIRC, the only one that isn't in either volume is Cosmic Egg, which is in the 4th volume of the Macross Frontier TV novelization and in Macross Ace Vol.1.

I only managed to score my copies very recently... my main copies have been the ones in Macross Ace and The Sneaker.

I've managed to find /alright/ priced listings on Amazon for both of them, so it'll probably just be an impulse purchase when I have some spare cash. I have actually read "A Day in Alcatraz" from Sheryl Nome Visual Collection Final since it's gotten a very nice translation - excellent story.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

I've managed to find /alright/ priced listings on Amazon for both of them, so it'll probably just be an impulse purchase when I have some spare cash. I have actually read "A Day in Alcatraz" from Sheryl Nome Visual Collection Final since it's gotten a very nice translation - excellent story.

There's some really good worldbuilding in some of those short stories.  

The audio dramas have some interesting stuff too.  It's actually kind of weird how many random civvies SMS is willing to take on and train for yuks.  Not just the actor who plays Shin Kudo in Bird Human, but even Sheryl Nome does a stint as an SMS trainee in the drama CDs as prep to play a pilot in a TV drama being produced in the Frontier fleet.  (Kinda-sorta explaining how she's able to do a passable job of maneuvering Michel's VF-25G when he gets hurt.)  Then there's the bit where Luca and L.A.I. are training to solve the whole Sharon Apple problem by creating a stable AI for unmanned fighters by basing them on the personalities of Luca's classmates.

Edited Wednesday at 02:41 AM by Seto Kaiba

[JB0]

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Surely you jest. 😜

Mylene is Fire Bomber's Only Sane Woman!  She does more to keep Basara on task than anyone else in the band or in the series as a whole.  Ray's too burned-out by a decade-plus of Basara's BS to muster a decent response half the time, Veffidas is too lost in the rhythm to participate in a conversation, and their label's manager Akiko is never around.  She's the lone breakwater preventing Basara's madness from sweeping the band away... and also the best character in the series.  (That she at no point attempts to garrote Basara with his own guitar strings is a testament to her sheer focus, commitment, and force of will.)

 

Mylene is seemingly so good at wrangling weirdos and eccentrics that she's briefly able to keep Quamzin Kravshera himself on-side and on-task in Macross 30.  Even Vrlitwhai Kridanik and Moruk Laplapmiz struggled at that, arguably making her better qualified to claim strategic weapon status than the Ghost!

Is Mylene truly the strongest character in the franchise? Signs point to yes!

[TG Remix]

On 4/5/2025 at 11:12 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Unless it's not really coal as we know it, but fold carbon which is sometimes (rarely) called "fold coal".  Naturally occurring deposits of high purity fold carbon left over from a past supernova would be worth mining and have practical applications.  (It's implied this is also why Galactic Whales are hunted.)

That's what I assumed, at least retroactively since fold carbon seemed like a thing made for Frontier's worldbuilding, mainly for its fold quartz. From what I've been told it's also been synthesized early on by the UN so there wasn't any reason to mine it extensively like fold quartz. Though of course it's right to assume that more of the natural stuff is more richer, hence the whale poaching. And with our own coal deposits one source would never be the exact same as another.

 

On 4/5/2025 at 11:12 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

It makes sense, considering the circumstances these colonies were set up under.

After all, Humanity's grasp of fold technology was not exactly great at the time of the First Space War.  Low purity fold carbon and an incomplete understanding of the mechanics of space folding left Human-made fold systems somewhat less precise and capable than they would have liked.  Planets that were days or weeks or even months away from the Earth became a lot more accessible as Humanity's grasp of fold technology improved.  Fold navigation became more precise and efficient, and fold communications networks were built up across Humanity's sphere of influence to make communication faster and more reliable.  Trips that used to take weeks or months were cut to days or even hours.  The kind of seismic shift in communication and transportation that occurred with the invention of things like the telegraph or steam ships that made it way more possible for a central government to keep tabs on things.

The scale of VF-X2's events, as future series (especially with Delta) always made it seem like it spanned all the way to even the deepest parts of the galaxy. Giving it the name of the "Second Unification War" also helps with that as well I'd assume. Kinda makes me wonder how some of the places we've seen before and after were effected by such a conflict?

Long range emigrant fleets seem like they'd be least involved, as they probably were cruising wherever in the galaxy. And even if the central UN knew where some were, I heavily doubt Latence would even DARE mess with the Macross 7 fleet considering they were quite literally in the center of a galaxy ending event and lived to tell the tale. That's probably how Max supposedly supported Vinderance (who's leader also may or may not have been one of his daughters that went incognito) behind the scenes without fuss. Planetary governments may vary; Eden may not have to worry as the first planet colonized and has previously mentioned direct relations with Earth, Zolan has it's bacteria as a factor that can't let humans live there long term, so insurrection probably wasn't an issue.

Considering how apparently corrupt the local NUNS government in the Brisingr Globular Cluster was, to the point that apparently in Delta's novelization they assassinated someone on Earth looking into the trade and negotiation with Windermere, it probably wasn't nice for them at all. iirc Kaname's home planet was still in a civil war because of it, and Windermerean's involvement in it was the catalyst for their first war of independence later on.

The Varauta system's government though....I'd assume they wouldn't have gotten off light at all when Blue Rhinoceros' interference with the ice planet is directly the reason why the Protodevlin were released to begin with, that'd be something the UN would hold them over until the heat death of the universe. As if their entire population of several hundreds of thousands of people being brainwashed for several years wasn't bad enough...

 

On 4/7/2025 at 10:50 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

This at least partly aligns with material from Macross Frontier, wherein Luca's three QF-4000 series Ghosts were also equipped with a fully autonomous air combat AI albeit under restraints and only with the special permission of the New UN Government.  (It pays to be the heir to a megacorporation, I guess?)  A production version of the Ghost X-9 would be under the same, or even stricter, restrictions.  

And of course the Galaxy Fleet threw caution under the wind and decided to mass produced their own take of Sharon's little nightmare with their AIF-9V (Ghost V-9/MG.) Not even the worst thing they did considering how the VF-22HG practically had the YF-21's BDI, proving more over time that there was no lessons from Plus learned. Though I'm assuming with the fleet's lost status, we won't have to worry about any surprise AIF-9Vs popping up, if the fleet was willing to share to begin with.

 

On 4/8/2025 at 3:51 PM, PixelatedShinobi said:

On 4/7/2025 at 10:50 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

That said, it's also a rather odd thing for Havamal to have... in Macross 30 it's kind of a plot point that they've gone off the grid a bit because they're acting outside their orders and are using whatever resources they can borrow from the local NUNS or use their clout to have manufactured locally.  I think the AIF-7S actually makes more sense, esp. since Leon shoots down like half a dozen of the bloody things in short order, where four was a damn near insurmountable task for the most elite Special Forces of the previous generation.

Thanks for reminding me of the 9B flight patterns in VF-X2... god those things are a niiiightmaaaaaaaareeeeeeeeeee

Aegis was certainly a trooper having to fend off 6-8 of those from the Macross 13, almost makes Tohma's VF-19 intervention seem elementary by comparison.

 

On 4/8/2025 at 1:00 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Ray's too burned-out by a decade-plus of Basara's BS to muster a decent response half the time,

As a side note, the one time he did lose his patience with Basara was when he got Mylene to leave the band for a stint over his stubbornness. If that doesn't say anything about Mylene's contributions, what really does lol.

[PixelatedShinobi]

On 4/8/2025 at 10:36 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

There's some really good worldbuilding in some of those short stories.  

The audio dramas have some interesting stuff too.  It's actually kind of weird how many random civvies SMS is willing to take on and train for yuks.  Not just the actor who plays Shin Kudo in Bird Human, but even Sheryl Nome does a stint as an SMS trainee in the drama CDs as prep to play a pilot in a TV drama being produced in the Frontier fleet.  (Kinda-sorta explaining how she's able to do a passable job of maneuvering Michel's VF-25G when he gets hurt.)  Then there's the bit where Luca and L.A.I. are training to solve the whole Sharon Apple problem by creating a stable AI for unmanned fighters by basing them on the personalities of Luca's classmates.

I've been listening to the audio dramas on nicovideo and rather enjoying them, even with my limited understanding of spoken Japanese. "Alto Meets Sky" was some really excellent character work for the boy.

[pengbuzz]

18 hours ago, TG Remix said:

As a side note, the one time he did lose his patience with Basara was when he got Mylene to leave the band for a stint over his stubbornness. If that doesn't say anything about Mylene's contributions, what really does lol.

Which episode was that?

[Seto Kaiba]

23 hours ago, TG Remix said:

That's what I assumed, at least retroactively since fold carbon seemed like a thing made for Frontier's worldbuilding, mainly for its fold quartz. From what I've been told it's also been synthesized early on by the UN so there wasn't any reason to mine it extensively like fold quartz. Though of course it's right to assume that more of the natural stuff is more richer, hence the whale poaching. And with our own coal deposits one source would never be the exact same as another.

Fold carbon is one of those things that has implicitly been around for a while, but was explicitly explained when it finally became relevant to the story.  Explaining it was necessary for the story of Macross Frontier because the plot revolved around a sort of unofficial gold rush for a better kind of fold crystal, and allowed them to also explain how/why human-made fold systems, reaction engines, beam weapons, etc. have gotten dramatically more capable over time despite Zentradi technology being static for millennia.

Most fold carbon in use is synthetic.  We're told in Macross Frontier that it does occur in nature as a product of supernovae.  While the Vajra are shown to mine naturally-occurring fold carbon for Queen forms to refine into fold quartz, the Protoculture developed the technology to create as much synthetic fold carbon as they needed to drive their expanding interstellar empire and its monstrously huge military.  Humanity's first encounter with fold carbon was with the synthetic fold carbon found in the ASS-1's systems, and from that they seem to have worked out how to reproduce the stuff on their own.  The Protoculture eventually worked out a method to synthesize fold quartz too, something Humanity has been hard at work on.  Frontier-era and later materials have used improvements in Humanity's synthetic fold carbon process as a way of explaining how systems that use super dimension spatial theory like fold systems, gravity control systems, reaction engines, etc. have gotten smaller, more precise, and more capable over the years despite all having started from analysis of the essentially-mature Zentradi equipment.

It seems likely that, since the Galactic Whales are living beings with fold capability, they're biologically synthesizing or at least purifying fold carbon to a level higher than what a Human ship or fighter might be using at the time of, say, Dynamite 7.  Thus making those "natural" fold crystals desirable as engine parts.

 

23 hours ago, TG Remix said:

The scale of VF-X2's events, as future series (especially with Delta) always made it seem like it spanned all the way to even the deepest parts of the galaxy. Giving it the name of the "Second Unification War" also helps with that as well I'd assume. Kinda makes me wonder how some of the places we've seen before and after were effected by such a conflict?

As far as we know, it reached all the way to the Brisingr Globular Cluster and Windermere IV on the edge of the galaxy.  

King Grammier is said to have participated in the Second Unification Wars somehow.

 

23 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Considering how apparently corrupt the local NUNS government in the Brisingr Globular Cluster was, to the point that apparently in Delta's novelization they assassinated someone on Earth looking into the trade and negotiation with Windermere, it probably wasn't nice for them at all. iirc Kaname's home planet was still in a civil war because of it, and Windermerean's involvement in it was the catalyst for their first war of independence later on.

We never really get a sense of the Brisingr Alliance's member governments being corrupt in the Macross Delta series or movies.  We're told they have economic issues because of the cluster's isolation and are trying to boost their economy with military exports, but we never really see any sign that they're not on the up-and-up aside from their willingness to listen to, and excuse the behavior of, Lady M and the protagonists.

I've got a copy of the novels on order, so I'll have to look into that when they arrive.  

 

23 hours ago, TG Remix said:

The Varauta system's government though....I'd assume they wouldn't have gotten off light at all when Blue Rhinoceros' interference with the ice planet is directly the reason why the Protodevlin were released to begin with, that'd be something the UN would hold them over until the heat death of the universe. As if their entire population of several hundreds of thousands of people being brainwashed for several years wasn't bad enough...

I'd assume that the New UN Gov't considers them to have already learned their lesson, since the entire colony was subsequently overrun and enslaved by the Protodeviln and the inhabitants spiritia-drained and brainwashed in a fairly traumatic ordeal.  Not to mention the fact that the party responsible for the whole mess, the rogue advsior Ivano Gunther, isn't around to take the heat (having fused with Gepernich) and most of his supporters died.

 

23 hours ago, TG Remix said:

And of course the Galaxy Fleet threw caution under the wind and decided to mass produced their own take of Sharon's little nightmare with their AIF-9V (Ghost V-9/MG.) Not even the worst thing they did considering how the VF-22HG practically had the YF-21's BDI, proving more over time that there was no lessons from Plus learned. Though I'm assuming with the fleet's lost status, we won't have to worry about any surprise AIF-9Vs popping up, if the fleet was willing to share to begin with.

It kind of depends which version of the Frontier story any subsequent work is treating as true at any given time... but Galaxy may also be off the hook on account of having f'ed around and found out with fatal results when it came to the Vajra.  The fleet of millions was reduced to a handful of refugees as of Frontier's second movie and many of those got wiped out because they were actually undercover agents.

 

23 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Aegis was certainly a trooper having to fend off 6-8 of those from the Macross 13, almost makes Tohma's VF-19 intervention seem elementary by comparison.

No kidding.  It's enough to make one assume the AIF-9B is similarly downgraded vs. the Ghost X-9.

 

23 hours ago, TG Remix said:

As a side note, the one time he did lose his patience with Basara was when he got Mylene to leave the band for a stint over his stubbornness. If that doesn't say anything about Mylene's contributions, what really does lol.

Well, yeah... he'd have to find a new bassist at that point.  He only got upset because it affected their meal ticket.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Most fold carbon in use is synthetic.  We're told in Macross Frontier that it does occur in nature as a product of supernovae. 

I gotta say, "forged in the heart of a supernova" is about as credible an origin as you get for an exotic material with extraspatial properties. Everything else about them beggars the imagination, I'm willing to accept they twist spacetime itself into knots and drill holes through it.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

I gotta say, "forged in the heart of a supernova" is about as credible an origin as you get for an exotic material with extraspatial properties. Everything else about them beggars the imagination, I'm willing to accept they twist spacetime itself into knots and drill holes through it.

It does make a certain amount of sense that a profoundly violent high-energy and high-gravity event like the collapse and explosion of a high-mass star might produce a material that is in some way connected to gravity as a force.

Doubly so if Master File's view of fold carbon and fold quartz is correct and the stuff is essentially a stable crystal made from higher-dimension gravity particles.