Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

On 9/3/2020 at 12:23 AM, slide said:

if you hook a broad-spectrum jammer up to a powerful enough generator, isn't that exactly what would happen [in theory]?

Assuming you had a transmitter that could actually handle that level of power without going up like a roman candle, yeah... the amount of power it'd take to induce disabling voltage spikes in a shielded military aircraft at a range of hundreds of kilometers would be incredible though.  Way beyond anything we'd call ECM.

 

On 9/3/2020 at 12:23 AM, slide said:

Also, since they're space bugs that evolved [presumably] into their current form; that's either a hell of a hide-and-seek adaptation [which it can't be, because they're emitting energy at a high intensity], or that's Humans mis-interpreting a "hey, stay the F away from me" communication ["vocalization" seems like the wrong way to characterize it, but they communicate with fold waves, which means energy], so the "jamming" may have been the Vajra equivalent of a growl, or cat hissing.

I can only imagine any other space-borne life form would get the message after entering their electrical/energy field... even a space-whale might take notice!

Now that's an interesting thought... did the Vajra independently evolve their active electronic countermeasures in their natural environment as a defensive or offensive measure or did they evolve that capability later on after making contact with the Protoculture and/or Zentradi in order to be left alone?

Actually, that's kind of a frightening line of thinking in its own right.  The ancient Protoculture created a lot of their overtechnology based on what they learned from studying Vajra biology and bio-technology, which suggests the Vajra ALREADY HAD things like energy conversion armor and heavy quantum beam weaponry when the Protoculture discovered a space-faring intelligent species already existed.  Why did the Vajra need such incredibly powerful combat capabilities?  Did the Vajra evolve these weapons and defenses to prey on some other naturally spacefaring species in their native habitat?  Is there some other species out there in the Vajra's natural habitat that's nasty enough to prey on the Vajra despite their incredible combat abilities?  Do the Vajra occasionally fight each other the way rival swarms of social insects do?

It'd make sense if the Vajra evolved their powerful ECM after making contact with the Protoculture and their Zentradi, who are dependent on things like radar systems to detect and track objects in space, though I do rather like the idea that there might be some naturally spacefaring species out there that evolved a biological radar system similar to how animals here on Earth use echolocation.

 

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

It would seem to me like a drink mixer that pours out what used to be pilots O.o

Given what happened to Guld when he disabled the safety limiters in the YF-21's airframe control AI software, that's not even an exaggeration.

Poor bugger turned himself into a flight suit full of chunky salsa in order to save the day.

(Made somewhat less poignant by Macross Plus: Game Edition having Isamu run into another Sharon Apple-controlled, next-generation unmanned fighter on his way to the Macross not long after leaving Guld to take care of the Ghost X-9.)

[pengbuzz]

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Assuming you had a transmitter that could actually handle that level of power without going up like a roman candle, yeah... the amount of power it'd take to induce disabling voltage spikes in a shielded military aircraft at a range of hundreds of kilometers would be incredible though.  Way beyond anything we'd call ECM.

They do have a device in Macross that can induce "voltage spikes" of that caliber in shielded aircraft: heavy quantum beam weaponry. :P

Seriously though, I would say the level of power needed to do that would probably be better spent on directed energy weapons to take out said craft, considering at that power level, you'd probably vaporize the pilot in the process. For all that energy, iIwould think it'd actually be an energy savings simply shooting them with energy weapons rather than a broadcast-induced energy spike.

  

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Now that's an interesting thought... did the Vajra independently evolve their active electronic countermeasures in their natural environment as a defensive or offensive measure or did they evolve that capability later on after making contact with the Protoculture and/or Zentradi in order to be left alone?

Actually, that's kind of a frightening line of thinking in its own right.  The ancient Protoculture created a lot of their overtechnology based on what they learned from studying Vajra biology and bio-technology, which suggests the Vajra ALREADY HAD things like energy conversion armor and heavy quantum beam weaponry when the Protoculture discovered a space-faring intelligent species already existed.  Why did the Vajra need such incredibly powerful combat capabilities?  Did the Vajra evolve these weapons and defenses to prey on some other naturally spacefaring species in their native habitat?  Is there some other species out there in the Vajra's natural habitat that's nasty enough to prey on the Vajra despite their incredible combat abilities?  Do the Vajra occasionally fight each other the way rival swarms of social insects do?

It'd make sense if the Vajra evolved their powerful ECM after making contact with the Protoculture and their Zentradi, who are dependent on things like radar systems to detect and track objects in space, though I do rather like the idea that there might be some naturally spacefaring species out there that evolved a biological radar system similar to how animals here on Earth use echolocation.

I think it would be a pretty interesting story to see a species that could wipe the floor with the Vajra come looking for them...and happen upon NUNS.

  

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Given what happened to Guld when he disabled the safety limiters in the YF-21's airframe control AI software, that's not even an exaggeration.

Poor bugger turned himself into a flight suit full of chunky salsa in order to save the day.

(Made somewhat less poignant by Macross Plus: Game Edition having Isamu run into another Sharon Apple-controlled, next-generation unmanned fighter on his way to the Macross not long after leaving Guld to take care of the Ghost X-9.)

That's the exact thing I was thinking when I was wondering about the "flight simulator" Isamu was in that was on the armatures in M+. And the scary thing about the YF-21 is that Guld was half-Zentraedi (at least somewhat more durable than a baseline human), and the unlimited YF-21 did THAT to him.

Think about what it wold have done to someone like Isamu, or even a regular pilot.

Edited September 4, 2020 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Seriously though, I would say the level of power needed to do that would probably be better spent on directed energy weapons to take out said craft, considering at that power level, you'd probably vaporize the pilot in the process. For all that energy, iIwould think it'd actually be an energy savings simply shooting them with energy weapons rather than a broadcast-induced energy spike.

Probably, yeah... like how the UN Forces weaponized the overpowered radar system on the SDR-04-Mk.XII Phalanx Destroid.

At the very least, short-burst irradiation at that level would make the target pilot horribly ill.

 

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

That's the exact thing I was thinking when I was wondering about the "flight simulator" Isamu was in that was on the armatures in M+. And the scary thing about the YF-21 is that Guld was half-Zentraedi (at least somewhat more durable than a baseline human), and the unlimited YF-21 did THAT to him.

Think about what it wold have done to someone like Isamu, or even a regular pilot.

Even with the limiters in place, the New UN Forces had so many problems with loss of control accidents thanks to the excessively high performance of the VF-19 and VF-22 that they had to abandon them in favor of something less insane.

[Seto Kaiba]

So, I got a little bored today after some plans fell through and decided my unprofitable boredom could be spent sussing out something that's bugged me since it first appeared in the first volume of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie.  Namely, why the VF-1 is described as having three different engines during its mass production run and what the differences between them are according to Master File.  This information came to us in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Battroid Valkyrie.

As you know, in the official setting the VF-1 Valkyrie only had the FF-2001 engine during its mass production run (2008-2015) but picked up several performance improvements starting with Block 6 upping its maximum output to 240%.  I was given to wonder if these new engine types were an attempt to explain why these performance changes occurred.

 

 

One nice touch I noticed is that this diagram of the internals of the Shinnakasu/P&W/Roice FF-2001 thermonuclear reaction turbine engine is an updated version of the diagram from the original Macross Journal Extra: VF-1 Valkyrie Special Edition "Sky Angels" book.  It's a much higher quality drawing, but mechanically they preserved the original engine design the 1984 doujinshi presented.

The engine-savvy among us might notice that the engine is actually missing its turbine stage and is therefore not technically a thermonuclear reaction turbine engine.  They actually make an effort to explain this, both in terms of the reason for the lack of a turbine and WHY it's still called a turbine engine.  Specifically, their stance is that the manufacturers didn't have access to a suitably strong heat-resistant material to make turbine blades from, and that it's still called a thermonuclear reaction turbine engine because later improvements to this design that made up the majority of the production run did add a turbine stage.

This art, like the original art, omits the superconducting ram-air precompressor stage that's farther up the VF-1's leg.  We can see that the secondary high-pressure compressor there is driven by an electric motor, which runs off electricity generated in the MHD dynamo farther back in the engine.  The reactor sits directly behind that, allowing compressed air from the intake to pass over the reactor housing and then into the accelerator stage where it can pick up heat from the reactor and from the reactor's waste plasma (which is confined by Gravity and Inertia Control systems).  Thrust control is achieved by vanes that control the amount of air directly exposed to reactor housing and plasma exhaust.

Master File contends that the FF-2001 was only used on the very earliest blocks of VF-1 Valkyrie (Blocks 1-5, AKA the "TV" version) and was hastily replaced because it wasn't very good in space operations.

 

 

When the VF-1 Valkyrie was updated to Block 6 - AKA the "Movie" VF-1 Valkyrie - in Master File's account it received a new engine: the FF-2006.

This engine is presented as a derivative/improved version of the FF-2001 that could be called a continuing parallel development that went on while the FF-2001 went into production on the Block 1-5 VF-1 Valkyrie.  How did it improve on the FF-2001?

• To improve control in low output scenarios, they reduced the number of blades in the secondary high pressure compressor from 6 to 4.
• Adjustments were made to the volume of the compact thermonuclear reactor and thrust-increasing stage to more efficiently transfer heat to the intake air.
• To address durability/lifespan issues in the original FF-2001's MHD dynamo resulting from its continuous exposure to high-temperature plasma, the MHD dynamo inside the thrust-increase stage was replaced by a thermoelectric converter.
• A secondary air inlet was added behind the second compressor stage, allowing the engine to function like a ramjet in high speed flight by bypassing the compressor to allow ram air to enter the engine directly without passing through the compressor.  This is noted to have improved the top speed and high altitude performance of the VF-1, to the extent that it actually increased the VF-1's service ceiling.

 

 

Then there's the FF-2008, the engine that Master File asserts was the standard for the VF-1 from Block 9 to the end of mass production.

As you can see, the FF-2008 keeps a lot of the refinements introduced on the FF-2006 and finally adds that long-missing turbine that makes it a turbine engine.  Master File calls this the true start of the history of the full-scale thermonuclear reaction turbine engine.

• The superconducting motor to drive the high pressure compressor was abolished and the compressor is now driven directly off the turbine stage.
• Improvements made to the compact thermonuclear reactor and GIC maintain plasma containment more effectively even at hypersonic wind speeds, allowing the FF-2008 to operate as a scramjet in addition to its existing low-bypass turbofan jet engine, ramjet, and fusion plasma rocket modes.
• Improved GIC function allows the engine to retain plasma-heated air for longer, allowing the thermoelectric converters to collect more energy and reducing the temperature of the engine exhaust in battroid mode (and the potential danger to the surrounding environment and nearby ground personnel).

 

My next little boredom-motivated investigation is gonna be how exactly thermonuclear reaction burst turbines and Stage II engines differ from the standard thermonuclear reaction turbine engine nominally embodied by the FF-2008.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[Bolt]

Very informative mate. We get to benefit when you're bored

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, Bolt said:

Very informative mate. We get to benefit when you're bored

It's a dangerous condition... fortunately, I have a LOT of books standing between me and doing something crazy like building a death ray and trying to conquer the world.

Based on a quick skim, the thermonuclear reaction turbine engines do seem to involve pulsed output... but surprisingly it's not from the thermonuclear reactor.  It's pulsation in the GIC system that handles plasma containment in the thrust increase section of the engine.  There are a few other minor details where the writers seem to have come down with a spot of amnesia and forgotten they weren't working on Gundam, like misattributing the fuel material of previous-gen engines as deuterium and helium-3 instead of the slush hydrogen that earlier books cited. 

[pengbuzz]

49 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's a dangerous condition... fortunately, I have a LOT of books standing between me and doing something crazy like building a death ray and trying to conquer the world.

Based on a quick skim, the thermonuclear reaction turbine engines do seem to involve pulsed output... but surprisingly it's not from the thermonuclear reactor.  It's pulsation in the GIC system that handles plasma containment in the thrust increase section of the engine.  There are a few other minor details where the writers seem to have come down with a spot of amnesia and forgotten they weren't working on Gundam, like misattributing the fuel material of previous-gen engines as deuterium and helium-3 instead of the slush hydrogen that earlier books cited. 

ROFL! Well, if you do build a death ray, let me know. There's a few individuals in my life that such a device would...erm... anyways...

Interesting to see these engine cutaways; ideas for the tech manual I have for my project.

[Bolt]

Your hangar factory growing @pengbuzz ?

[slide]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's a dangerous condition... fortunately, I have a LOT of books standing between me and doing something crazy like building a death ray and trying to conquer the world.

[pengbuzz]

46 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Your hangar factory growing @pengbuzz ?

Yeah... may have to expand it soon. I made a scaffolding for a repair crew, and the current set is getting a bit crowded.

[Seto Kaiba]

So... looking into the FF-2550 and FF-3001...

 

Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur has some interesting things to say about how the FF-2500 series.

One interesting detail that's mentioned is that the FF-2500 series was described as being developed with practicality of maintenance and servicing in mind.  Shinnakasu, P&W, and Roice apparently packed the design team off to a New UN Forces warship to work on maintenance of engines in the field.  It does erroneously describe VF engines as being fueled with deuterium and helium-3 in the engine section, where in other sections it correctly mentions they're using slush hydrogen.  I wonder if the writers goofed and forgot that they weren't working on Master Archive Mobile Suit.

Among the mentioned improvements made in the thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engines are:

• Higher-purity fold carbon produced using an improved synthesis process allows for higher reaction temperatures.
• A next-generation OTM alloy-based thermoelectric cooler/generator system - the HamiltonX-Ash4 power generation system - was implemented to offer improved generator output and engine cooling.  (Interestingly, this technology was noted to have been discovered in 2020 but not implemented until the late 2030s.)
• In addition to containing the fusion plasma with artificial gravity fields, a cyclic gravitational field produced by the GIC is used to artificially extend the thrust-increase stage by slowing down the plasma and air moving through it to allow it to pick up more heat from the plasma stream until it's able to escape the gravitational field, where it meets the airflow that bypassed the thrust-increase stage and triggers a second explosive pressure increase while also reducing the temperature of the exhaust to a level that the heat-resistant turbine blades can withstand.  (This may be the "burst" in "thermonuclear reaction burst turbine".)
• The engine used for the 2nd Mass Production-type VF-19 is noted to have had further improvements made to its cooling systems and improved heat-resistant materials are used for its turbine blades, allowing for even higher temperatures inside the thrust-increase stage.

 

 

Somewhat interestingly, Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah's coverage of the FF-3001 engine mentions that the thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engines were a third generation engine design.  One has to wonder what technically constituted the second generation, since in official materials there are only three types of engine mentioned: the initial-type thermonuclear reaction turbine that was the standard from the VF-1 to VF-17's first variants.  One thing that is again noted as a key to breakthroughs in thermonuclear reaction engine technology is improvements in the purity of synthesized fold carbon.  It's noted that the development plan had three basic steps/goals:

• Phase 1: Development of improved heat-resistant materials to facilitate increased reactor temperatures.
• Phase 2: Development of a more efficient thrust-increase stage using GIC.
• Phase 3: Review and revise the propellant inflow inside the engine.

Apparently one of the things that caused issues for the YF-24 program was the lack of a method to synthesize fold carbon at the requisite level of purity.  LAI made the breakthrough they needed with the development of FC.5 fold carbon that enabled the production of the more powerful GIC system.  The improvements in the GIC system apparently required that the design of the interior of the engine be revised.  Improved engine control systems were needed to moderate the significantly increased output, necessitating the installation of a transmission on the high-pressure turbine.  Other noteworthy changes include:

• Secondary compressor increased from two blades to four, with a larger leading blade used to propel bypass air for cooling the exterior of the engine.
• Compact thermonuclear reactor size was decreased, but reaction temperature was increased to 400MK.
• The thrust-increase section is enlarged relative to previous generation engines.
• Reintroduction of the MHD dynamo as a secondary power generation system to supplement the H-APG thermoelectric generator/cooler.
• The thrust-increase section contains multiple, separate airflow paths.  The flow path closest to the core is hotter and drives the high-pressure turbine and the outer flow paths help reduce the temperature of the exhaust drive the low-pressure turbine.  (This is apparently where "Stage II" comes from.)
• Two separate turbines, one high pressure and one low pressure, are connected to a transmission to allow for fine adjustments in the intake air pressure rather than allowing just the high pressure turbine to drive the compressor, making output more stable.

 

[sketchley]

32 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

... were a third generation engine design.  One has to wonder what technically constituted the second generation, since in official materials there are only three types of engine mentioned: the initial-type thermonuclear reaction turbine that was the standard from the VF-1 to VF-17's first variants. 

...

What about the one in the QF-3000E?  My impression is that it is an earlier model than the one found in the VF-1.  (If I was being generous, I'd say the ones in the VF-1 are the "finessed" versions.)  Thus making the VF-1~VF-17 the second generation.

The other possibility is the "burst" engines that appeared in Macross the Ride—they're kind of a step between the earlier versions and the Stage II that appeared in the VF-24 and it's descendants.

[Seto Kaiba]

53 minutes ago, sketchley said:

What about the one in the QF-3000E?  My impression is that it is an earlier model than the one found in the VF-1.  (If I was being generous, I'd say the ones in the VF-1 are the "finessed" versions.)

Yeah, the FF-1999 thermonuclear reaction turbine engine has the dubious honor of being the first actual production-model thermonuclear reaction engine to be mass produced for the Earth UN Forces.  I'm inclined to doubt that it's different-enough from the FF-2001 that was used in the VF-1 Valkyrie to constitute a different generation of engine since their adoption is separated by less than two years (2006 vs 2008) and Master File's take seems to be leaning hard towards Sky Angels's old stance that they were very similar engines (to the point that early VF space tests used the FF-1999 when the FF-2001 was delayed).

 

53 minutes ago, sketchley said:

The other possibility is the "burst" engines that appeared in Macross the Ride—they're kind of a step between the earlier versions and the Stage II that appeared in the VF-24 and it's descendants.

Nah, as noted in my last post those are described as 3rd Generation engine technology... that's what set me wondering what the 2nd Generation was.

Initial-type thermonuclear reaction turbine engine (1st Gen) -> ? (2nd Gen) -> thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engine (3rd Gen) -> Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engine (4th Gen)

There's gotta be a missing piece to the puzzle here somewhere, since Master File's writeup of the FF-2550 talks about the engines of the 2nd and 3rd Generation VFs (the VF-4's FF-2011 and VF-11's FF-2025) as being mechanically the same as the VF-1's final FF-2008 engine but different-sized to suit the needs of the target aircraft.

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Nah, as noted in my last post those are described as 3rd Generation engine technology...

What's the original statement in Japanese?

[Seto Kaiba]

Got my copies of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1S Roy Focker Special today... and there's some good sh*t here.  

The book's basically mistitled, there's only about 20 pages about Roy and his aircraft.  The rest is tech bits omitted from other VF-1 books.  I did a full review in the Master File thread in the Books section, but the bits I'm REALLY looking forward to doing are the ones about the actuators in the VF-1's tranformation system, the bits about the structural materials used in various parts of the VF-1, the section about ANGIRAS, and especially the section about the BLCS sub-intakes.

[Master Dex]

30 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Got my copies of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1S Roy Focker Special today... and there's some good sh*t here.  

The book's basically mistitled, there's only about 20 pages about Roy and his aircraft.  The rest is tech bits omitted from other VF-1 books.  I did a full review in the Master File thread in the Books section, but the bits I'm REALLY looking forward to doing are the ones about the actuators in the VF-1's tranformation system, the bits about the structural materials used in various parts of the VF-1, the section about ANGIRAS, and especially the section about the BLCS sub-intakes.

That's awesome it ended up being an actually good edition instead of the blandness we've been seeing recently. Your little sneak peak at stuff from existing books earlier had me salivating as it was lol.

[Seto Kaiba]

23 hours ago, Master Dex said:

That's awesome it ended up being an actually good edition instead of the blandness we've been seeing recently. Your little sneak peak at stuff from existing books earlier had me salivating as it was lol.

Yeah, I'm pretty damn pleased with what we got.  I was expecting something more along the lines of Master Archive Mobile Suit: MSV Pilot Log, a book that has majority biographical content and only marginal levels of detail about the mecha those pilots famously used.  

I've got some time tomorrow, so I'll be taking a whack at several small sections of the new book then.

I really wanna do the ANGIRAS section, but it's kinda long and detailed... definitely more than I can tackle in an afternoon.  

[Seto Kaiba]

On 9/7/2020 at 5:15 AM, sketchley said:

What's the original statement in Japanese?

Quote

VF-19及びVF-22に搭載するために開発されたFF-2200 / FF-2550系熱核タービンエンジンは第3世代型熱核タービンエンジンとして広く普及した.

That's the first sentence of the first paragraph under the header "Development of the FF-3000" on page 058 of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah.

I'm fairly sure what that says is that the FF-2200/FF-2550 series thermonuclear turbine engines which were developed for use on the VF-19 and VF-22 saw widespread use as 3rd Generation thermonuclear turbine engines.  You're a more proficient translator than I am, so if I've got it wrong I welcome the opportunity to learn.

(One thing to note WRT the above statement about the FF-2200/FF-2550 series being mentioned in connection with the VF-22 is that Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur has a brief section at the bottom of page 057 where it's mentioned that the YF-21's (and VF-22's) FF-2450B engines can be considered a tuned-up/production-ized derivative of the FF-2200B series engine that was used on the initial spec YF-19 before being abandoned for the FF-2500 series engines it had in Macross Plus.  Apparently the implication here is that both Project Super Nova prototypes originally used the FF-2200B series engine in initial testing, and that the FF-2450B is considered to be part of the FF-2200B series.)

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm fairly sure what that says is that the FF-2200/FF-2550 series thermonuclear turbine engines which were developed for use on the VF-19 and VF-22 saw widespread use as 3rd Generation thermonuclear turbine engines.  You're a more proficient translator than I am, so if I've got it wrong I welcome the opportunity to learn.

 

Thanks for providing the statement, and I'm honoured that you think so.

You got the translation right.

It is odd that VFMF doesn't expand on what the earlier versions are (unless if they're copying from another source/writing based on Kawamori-san's requests).  I wonder if any of the other books mention anything about the 1st and 2nd generation engines...?  (nothing comes to my mind.  However, I don't believe I've ever attempted to translate one of the thermonuclear turbine engine sections so far... )

 

On the other hand, we all know that those VFs carry the 3rd generation Active Stealth.  So, there's always the possibility of a brain fart in the writer...

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, sketchley said:

Thanks for providing the statement, and I'm honoured that you think so.

Sorry it took so long.  They cut my staff at my day job, so these days I've got so much nonsense going in parallel that it feels like I've got an attention deficit disorder going on.

 

1 hour ago, sketchley said:

It is odd that VFMF doesn't expand on what the earlier versions are (unless if they're copying from another source/writing based on Kawamori-san's requests).  I wonder if any of the other books mention anything about the 1st and 2nd generation engines...?  (nothing comes to my mind.  However, I don't believe I've ever attempted to translate one of the thermonuclear turbine engine sections so far... )

It's possible that it's in one of the previous books in a section I haven't gotten to yet.  That's a LOT of ground to cover.  I only did the very specific engine sections of those three books because the differences between the three engines listed in the block list of the VF-1 Vol.1 Master File was something that'd been bugging the hell out of me since the series started.  (Doubly so since I noticed a number of our T/W ratios on M3 were wrong given that Block 6's upgrades improved the VF-1's maximum engine output from 200 to 240%, as seen on the throttle lever markings in the official line art.)

 

1 hour ago, sketchley said:

On the other hand, we all know that those VFs carry the 3rd generation Active Stealth.  So, there's always the possibility of a brain fart in the writer...

It wouldn't be the first time... like the aforementioned gaffe in the VF-19 book where the fuel described is inexplicably changed to a mixture of deuterium and helium-3 (as in Gundam's Minovsky reactors) instead of the hydrogen slush fuel mentioned everywhere else.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well, I am slightly disappointed in the QF-3000 section of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1S Roy Focker Special.

Despite correctly describing the QF-3000 as using the initial-type FF-1999 thermonuclear reaction turbine engine in several previous volumes, this book inexplicably describes it as being powered by a combined-cycle conventional jet engine that is set up to operate as a turbine engine, ramjet, scramjet, and rocket motor burning jet fuel and when necessary carrying onboard oxidiser.  Talk about a critical research failure, esp. after spending so much ink in the VF-0 book about how VF-0s were retrofitted with the FF-1999 engine to conduct space testing.

[Knight26]

On 9/14/2020 at 1:47 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, I am slightly disappointed in the QF-3000 section of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1S Roy Focker Special.

Despite correctly describing the QF-3000 as using the initial-type FF-1999 thermonuclear reaction turbine engine in several previous volumes, this book inexplicably describes it as being powered by a combined-cycle conventional jet engine that is set up to operate as a turbine engine, ramjet, scramjet, and rocket motor burning jet fuel and when necessary carrying onboard oxidiser.  Talk about a critical research failure, esp. after spending so much ink in the VF-0 book about how VF-0s were retrofitted with the FF-1999 engine to conduct space testing.

Could they have meant earlier, pre-Space War 1 models?  Or, are there strictly atmospheric models to which that engine system could have been applied?

[Seto Kaiba]

19 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

Could they have meant earlier, pre-Space War 1 models?  Or, are there strictly atmospheric models to which that engine system could have been applied?

Nope, they do mention the QF-2200 series and the Superbird lifting body aircraft the Ghost was based on but it's separate from these remarks about the QF-3000's alleged combined-cycle conventional engine that somehow works in space.

It appears to be an honest goof on the part of the writers.

[Seto Kaiba]

To address @pengbuzz's unanswered questions from another thread that recently got locked for unrelated reasons:

 

Quote

So basically, anyone who was on-planet who wasn't something like a mile down into the crust was pretty much toast, right? I had always thought that perhaps there were some areas that the Zentraedi hadn't heavily concentrated on, being sparsely populated (Siberia, American Southwestern desert, Australian outback, Outback Steakhouse).

Pretty much, yes.  The Zentradi were bombarding the planet with heavy quantum reaction beam weapons and high-yield conventional anti-warship missiles.  Between the average yield and sheer weight of fire from 4,795,122 warships, there wasn't much difference between what they did and a planet-wide thermonuclear saturation bombardment.  Each of those heavy quantum reaction beam cannon strikes was like a nuclear bomb going off, with the heat and shockwave from the strike causing far more destruction than the direct hit itself did.  If any people on the surface escaped immediate death or lingering lethal injury as a direct result of the bombardment would have quickly succumbed to indirect consequences of such a vast orbital bombardment if they were on the surface.  All of the debris kicked up into the atmosphere by the blasts would've turned the atmosphere into an unbreathable mess full of dust, ash, and other unwholesome substances like organic decay products, smoke from burning toxic waste, and particulate radioisotopes from destroyed nuclear reactors.  If that didn't get you, the ensuing dust storms and shortages of food and potable water would have in the space of a few short days if you didn't drown in a flash flood caused by the weeks of unbroken torrential poison rain caused by the bombardment.

In short, Earth's surface was a distinctly unhealthy place to be.

 

Quote

That leads me to another question: how would it have affected the battle if all the cannons were up and operational? I'm thinking that the Zentran fleet pretty much had Earth surrounded, so all the cannons would have been able to lock onto a portion of the fleet.

The Boddole Zer main fleet got the drop on Earth, and the UN Forces brass never did take Global's report about the size of the Zentradi fleet seriously, so it probably wouldn't have affected the final battle TOO much... unless a cannon was undamaged enough to fire and had a clear shot at Boddole Zer's mothership.  THAT would have won the fight outright by removing the apex of the Boddole Zer main fleet's chain of command, forcing a retreat.

 

Quote

On that note: with cloning and the other technologies available by the time of Macross Delta, had they actually done anything to rehab the environment of Earth? I know in Macross Plus, we see scars on the planet from the bombardment (Guld and Isamu's duel on Earth), and that's around 2040 (?), so about 28 years after SW1 we see that. Macross Delta is circa 2067, so now we're 55 years out from SW1.

Just curious if anything is mentioned at all about terraforming or trying to revitalize Earth?

Yes, the New UN Government did start a major project called the Nature Regeneration Project to mitigate the consequences of the orbital bombardment and begin repairing Earth's obliterated ecosystem.  

Macross Chronicle notes that the Boddole Zer main fleet's bombardment had pretty catastrophic consequences for Earth that are going to take a VERY long time and a downright colossal investment of time, money, energy, and technology to mitigate, never mind repairing.  The bombardment destroyed Earth's ecosystem, resulted in a spike in global carbon dioxide levels and a decline in global oxygen levels, raised the average temperature all over the planet, caused a significant increase in humidity due to the mass vaporization of the world's oceans, and spread all kinds of nasty toxins and contaminants all over the planet.  

The New UN Government implemented a number of different measures to maintain Earth as a habitable planet.  They erected a 500km-diameter sun shade to block sunlight to help mitigate global warming caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.  They deployed genetically engineered bacteria to contain and clean up radiological hazards caused by breached reactors and waste stockpiles, and engineered phytoplankton to stabilize the planet's atmospheric composition and start reversing the increase in carbon dioxide.  Seed banks that survived the cataclysm were tapped and used to start rebuilding the ecosystem with support from cloning and genetic engineering tech.  The manufacturing muscle from factory satellites was put to use providing materiel for the planetary terraforming work.  All in all, they went to some pretty extreme lengths to keep Earth livable, but it's going to be thousands of years before the planet is restored to the point that it resembles our Earth at all.  That damage is just THAT severe.

 

Quote

Agreed. Although it would be interesting to see/ read the reactions of a survivor of both the Unification Wars and SW1 to what they had done and how that nearly spelled the end of the planet. As it stands, Admiral Hayase admitted to his daughter Misa that "maybe you were right after all" a moment before he died, so with hindsight being 20/20, it would be an interesting perspective.

Well, Alexi Kuryakin was one such individual, an engineer from the SV-51 project  who defected from the Anti-Unification Alliance to the Unification Government when the Alliance started falling apart and was lucky enough to dodge the bullet by being on the moon when the Zentradi rolled up and flattened Earth.  He seems to have been a pessimistic person given that he seems to have considered renewed civil war an inevitability and established a special design group within General Galaxy to focus on VFs designed to fight other VFs (the SV Works).  

[Lexomatic]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

it's going to be thousands of years before the planet is restored to the point that it resembles our Earth at all.  That damage is just THAT severe.

Why not just move the center of human civilization to Eden, which has a functioning biosphere? (Presumably with human-compatible Protoculture-standard biochemistry.)

• Sentiment for Sol System?
• By the time Eden had been located by the earliest fleets, the mass cloning efforts had produced too much population to relocate?

The Protoculture itself didn't manage projects on that timescale, if I understand the Stellar Union timeline correctly. (Human xenoarchaeology probably didn't know that quite yet.)

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, Lexomatic said:

Why not just move the center of human civilization to Eden, which has a functioning biosphere? (Presumably with human-compatible Protoculture-standard biochemistry.)

• Sentiment for Sol System?
• By the time Eden had been located by the earliest fleets, the mass cloning efforts had produced too much population to relocate?

When the New UN Government launched these various emergency measures to preserve the habitability of Earth and begin the recovery of its ecosystem, the First Space War had only just ended.  They needed to take immediate steps to ensure that Earth would remain a planet capable of supporting life because the newly established New UN Government lacked the resources to carry out even a partial evacuation of the planet and they didn't have anywhere to evacuate the planet's population to either.  It wasn't until almost four years later that an inhabitable planet was discovered in another solar system (Eden) and trial emigration started.

Sentiment is certainly a part of it, but I'm inclined to argue that there were elements of a sunk cost fallacy involved.  The New UN Government had invested massive resources into the preservation of Earth's ability to support life and the beginnings of ecological restoration, mobilized the military to obtain unheard-of levels of manufacturing muscle to facilitate their plans to restore Earth, and started mass cloning to repopulate the planet.  Relocating became increasingly logistically complicated as time went on, so by the time Eden was identified and the first wave of emigrants confirmed the planet was generally safe for human life they'd already invested so heavily in restoring Earth that relocating would've slowed or stopped the all-important space emigration program and made all their efforts to keep Earth livable seem like a waste.  I think by the time they realized that it was a workable option and they actually had the resources to make it happen, the rebuilding had gotten far enough on Earth that nobody wanted to go through having to strike camp and rebuild society AGAIN.

(With the emigrant ship designs available, it would've taken over 300 round trips to get the original survivor population off of Earth, by which point they would've been playing a losing game against explosive population growth.)

[pengbuzz]

On 9/22/2020 at 11:54 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

To address @pengbuzz's unanswered questions from another thread that recently got locked for unrelated reasons:

 

Pretty much, yes.  The Zentradi were bombarding the planet with heavy quantum reaction beam weapons and high-yield conventional anti-warship missiles.  Between the average yield and sheer weight of fire from 4,795,122 warships, there wasn't much difference between what they did and a planet-wide thermonuclear saturation bombardment.  Each of those heavy quantum reaction beam cannon strikes was like a nuclear bomb going off, with the heat and shockwave from the strike causing far more destruction than the direct hit itself did.  If any people on the surface escaped immediate death or lingering lethal injury as a direct result of the bombardment would have quickly succumbed to indirect consequences of such a vast orbital bombardment if they were on the surface.  All of the debris kicked up into the atmosphere by the blasts would've turned the atmosphere into an unbreathable mess full of dust, ash, and other unwholesome substances like organic decay products, smoke from burning toxic waste, and particulate radioisotopes from destroyed nuclear reactors.  If that didn't get you, the ensuing dust storms and shortages of food and potable water would have in the space of a few short days if you didn't drown in a flash flood caused by the weeks of unbroken torrential poison rain caused by the bombardment.

In short, Earth's surface was a distinctly unhealthy place to be.

 

The Boddole Zer main fleet got the drop on Earth, and the UN Forces brass never did take Global's report about the size of the Zentradi fleet seriously, so it probably wouldn't have affected the final battle TOO much... unless a cannon was undamaged enough to fire and had a clear shot at Boddole Zer's mothership.  THAT would have won the fight outright by removing the apex of the Boddole Zer main fleet's chain of command, forcing a retreat.

 

Yes, the New UN Government did start a major project called the Nature Regeneration Project to mitigate the consequences of the orbital bombardment and begin repairing Earth's obliterated ecosystem.  

Macross Chronicle notes that the Boddole Zer main fleet's bombardment had pretty catastrophic consequences for Earth that are going to take a VERY long time and a downright colossal investment of time, money, energy, and technology to mitigate, never mind repairing.  The bombardment destroyed Earth's ecosystem, resulted in a spike in global carbon dioxide levels and a decline in global oxygen levels, raised the average temperature all over the planet, caused a significant increase in humidity due to the mass vaporization of the world's oceans, and spread all kinds of nasty toxins and contaminants all over the planet.  

The New UN Government implemented a number of different measures to maintain Earth as a habitable planet.  They erected a 500km-diameter sun shade to block sunlight to help mitigate global warming caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.  They deployed genetically engineered bacteria to contain and clean up radiological hazards caused by breached reactors and waste stockpiles, and engineered phytoplankton to stabilize the planet's atmospheric composition and start reversing the increase in carbon dioxide.  Seed banks that survived the cataclysm were tapped and used to start rebuilding the ecosystem with support from cloning and genetic engineering tech.  The manufacturing muscle from factory satellites was put to use providing materiel for the planetary terraforming work.  All in all, they went to some pretty extreme lengths to keep Earth livable, but it's going to be thousands of years before the planet is restored to the point that it resembles our Earth at all.  That damage is just THAT severe.

 

Well, Alexi Kuryakin was one such individual, an engineer from the SV-51 project  who defected from the Anti-Unification Alliance to the Unification Government when the Alliance started falling apart and was lucky enough to dodge the bullet by being on the moon when the Zentradi rolled up and flattened Earth.  He seems to have been a pessimistic person given that he seems to have considered renewed civil war an inevitability and established a special design group within General Galaxy to focus on VFs designed to fight other VFs (the SV Works).  

I really appreciate you taking the time to address my questions. Seito. These are things that had rolled around in my mind for some time, and my grasp of the events in Macross tends to be a bit narrower on the items involved in the main events.

 

Admittedly: if Earth had managed to take out Boddole Zer's (anyone ever notice it sounds almost like "Bulldozer"? As in, "what happened to Earth?"), that would make for an interesting "what if".

Edited September 23, 2020 by pengbuzz

[Bolt]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Admittedly: if Earth had managed to take out Boddole Zer's (anyone ever notice it sounds almost like "Bulldozer"? As in, "what happened to Earth?"), that would make for an interesting "what if".

A Flux-Capacitor in Isamu's  SMS VF-19 would fix that. 

[Seto Kaiba]

16 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Admittedly: if Earth had managed to take out Boddole Zer's (anyone ever notice it sounds almost like "Bulldozer"? As in, "what happened to Earth?"), that would make for an interesting "what if".

Eh... depends on the when.

The only realistic way for the Earth UN Forces of the First Space War to take out the entire Boddole Zer main fleet would be for all five Grand Cannons to be in working order and fire on the fleet unobstructed.  The problem there is that Boddole Zer's final offensive was a surprise attack that left only a couple of minutes tops to respond, so even if all five of Earth's Grand Cannons were in working order it wouldn't really change the outcome.  They wouldn't have been able to charge up and fire until after the Boddole Zer main fleet had finished destroying Earth's surface.  It might mean a few hundred thousand more survivors at the end of it all, and the land battle against the stranded/abandoned Zentradi troops might not have happened or might've been a much shorter affair, but it wouldn't have materially changed the story.

The only way to save Earth would be to have anticipated the surprise attack and kept the Grand Cannons on hot standby indefinitely, ready to fire at a moment's notice.  (It's doubtful you can even do that with a super dimension energy weapon.)

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Eh... depends on the when.

The only realistic way for the Earth UN Forces of the First Space War to take out the entire Boddole Zer main fleet would be for all five Grand Cannons to be in working order and fire on the fleet unobstructed.  The problem there is that Boddole Zer's final offensive was a surprise attack that left only a couple of minutes tops to respond, so even if all five of Earth's Grand Cannons were in working order it wouldn't really change the outcome.  They wouldn't have been able to charge up and fire until after the Boddole Zer main fleet had finished destroying Earth's surface.  It might mean a few hundred thousand more survivors at the end of it all, and the land battle against the stranded/abandoned Zentradi troops might not have happened or might've been a much shorter affair, but it wouldn't have materially changed the story.

The only way to save Earth would be to have anticipated the surprise attack and kept the Grand Cannons on hot standby indefinitely, ready to fire at a moment's notice.  (It's doubtful you can even do that with a super dimension energy weapon.)

Good points; I thought from the way the cartoon showed it (may be misremembering it), it took some time for all of the fleet to come out of fold around the planet. I didn't realize it was mere minutes.

The reason I was asking about all this is an idea I was considering on an "alternate history" of UN Spacy after Space War 1. The concept is that the main fleet had been defeated by Earth, and Earth began expanding as something of an empire. Powered by the technology they were able to glean from the Zentraedi, they began building more outposts and bases along with colonies and settlements. Overall, instead of colonizing out of a need to preserve humanity, they took instead to a somewhat more militaristic approach, and seeking to confront and destroy any other enemies out there before they could try another attack on Earth.

[Seto Kaiba]

58 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Good points; I thought from the way the cartoon showed it (may be misremembering it), it took some time for all of the fleet to come out of fold around the planet. I didn't realize it was mere minutes.

Yeah, the whole thing happened VERY quickly.

From the dialog in Ep27, it took less than five minutes for the Zentradi to destroy Earth's surface completely.  The Grand Cannon needed another five minutes (300 seconds) to finish charging before it could fire, and the Zentradi totally flattened the planet before it could even start the firing process.  There were still two minutes left on the countdown when they restarted after the bombardment.

 

58 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

The reason I was asking about all this is an idea I was considering on an "alternate history" of UN Spacy after Space War 1. The concept is that the main fleet had been defeated by Earth, and Earth began expanding as something of an empire. Powered by the technology they were able to glean from the Zentraedi, they began building more outposts and bases along with colonies and settlements. Overall, instead of colonizing out of a need to preserve humanity, they took instead to a somewhat more militaristic approach, and seeking to confront and destroy any other enemies out there before they could try another attack on Earth.

When you get right down to it, at no point in any Macross story so far have the UN Forces or New UN Forces had the kind of firepower to actually fight a Zentradi main fleet.  

They're just too big at ~5 million ships apiece.

The Grand Cannons were the closest that the Earth UN Forces ever came to having the firepower necessary to take on a Main Fleet, and unfortunately those weren't mobile (and thus were useless offensively) and were too slow and too lacking in versatility to be an effective defense against such a large force.  The Macross II UN Forces c.2092 had constructed ships with the firepower to effectively confront a branch fleet-sized (~1,200 ship) force with every expectation of annihilating their enemy, but even those Macross Cannon-class ships were way short of having the firepower to take on more than a few hundred ships each at any given time.  The main Macross timeline's Battle-class supercarriers have the firepower to take out a few dozen ships at a time at full power, and at least one system government (Varauta's) built a massive mobile fortress with the firepower to theoretically take down a Zentradi branch fleet on its own using a combination of eight Macross cannons and eight anti-fleet ultra-high-yield thermonuclear reaction missiles with cluster warheads, and the only one of those we know about fell into enemy hands.

The main Macross timeline New UN Forces' approach to dealing with Zentradi fleets is avoidance if at all possible, up to and including self-destructing ships with MDE warheads to prevent them from falling into Zentradi hands.  Macross II's UN Forces rely almost exclusively on the Minmay Attack to level the playing field and then go hog with the reaction warheads.

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, the whole thing happened VERY quickly.

From the dialog in Ep27, it took less than five minutes for the Zentradi to destroy Earth's surface completely.  The Grand Cannon needed another five minutes (300 seconds) to finish charging before it could fire, and the Zentradi totally flattened the planet before it could even start the firing process.  There were still two minutes left on the countdown when they restarted after the bombardment.

 

When you get right down to it, at no point in any Macross story so far have the UN Forces or New UN Forces had the kind of firepower to actually fight a Zentradi main fleet.  

They're just too big at ~5 million ships apiece.

The Grand Cannons were the closest that the Earth UN Forces ever came to having the firepower necessary to take on a Main Fleet, and unfortunately those weren't mobile (and thus were useless offensively) and were too slow and too lacking in versatility to be an effective defense against such a large force.  The Macross II UN Forces c.2092 had constructed ships with the firepower to effectively confront a branch fleet-sized (~1,200 ship) force with every expectation of annihilating their enemy, but even those Macross Cannon-class ships were way short of having the firepower to take on more than a few hundred ships each at any given time.  The main Macross timeline's Battle-class supercarriers have the firepower to take out a few dozen ships at a time at full power, and at least one system government (Varauta's) built a massive mobile fortress with the firepower to theoretically take down a Zentradi branch fleet on its own using a combination of eight Macross cannons and eight anti-fleet ultra-high-yield thermonuclear reaction missiles with cluster warheads, and the only one of those we know about fell into enemy hands.

The main Macross timeline New UN Forces' approach to dealing with Zentradi fleets is avoidance if at all possible, up to and including self-destructing ships with MDE warheads to prevent them from falling into Zentradi hands.  Macross II's UN Forces rely almost exclusively on the Minmay Attack to level the playing field and then go hog with the reaction warheads.

Then it seems I severely underestimated the Zentraedi Main Fleets. And apparently, there are at least several (if not hundreds).

So backing up here a bit: even if they had gotten lucky and taken out Boddole Zer's flagship with a grand cannon, that would have just signaled a retreat (as you previously mentioned), and ultimately would have screwed earth when they sent another fleet to take Earth out. Apparently, the Protoculture civilization was busy making Zentraedi fleets by the gross, and they are still out in the universe fighting wars. All of that would mean that Earth isn't going to be a galactic power anytime soon in the next 5000 years or so. :lol

Okay...back to the drawing board...

[Seto Kaiba]

33 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Then it seems I severely underestimated the Zentraedi Main Fleets. And apparently, there are at least several (if not hundreds).

Thousands, actually.

Macross Chronicle has indicated that, at the height of the ancient Protoculture's power, there were at least FIVE THOUSAND Zentradi main fleets.  Exsedol's remarks suggest there are somewhere between two and three thousand main fleets still operating in the galaxy after 500,000 years of continuous warfare with the Supervision Army.

Fortunately for humanity, space folding is an absolutely terrible FTL technology for actually exploring space.  Teleporting from place to place like that means you're never exposed to anything or anyone in the space between where you are and where you're going.  The only way to bump into someone is if you're so fantastically unlucky that you defold right on top of them.  (This has happened, but it's very VERY rare.)

 

33 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

So backing up here a bit: even if they had gotten lucky and taken out Boddole Zer's flagship with a grand cannon, that would have just signaled a retreat (as you previously mentioned), and ultimately would have screwed earth when they sent another fleet to take Earth out. Apparently, the Protoculture civilization was busy making Zentraedi fleets by the gross, and they are still out in the universe fighting wars. All of that would mean that Earth isn't going to be a galactic power anytime soon in the next 5000 years or so. :lol

Okay...back to the drawing board...

Yeah, that kind of thing actually became a plot point in Macross II's timeline.

Destroying Boddole Zer's mobile fortress and a bunch of lower-tier command ships forced a mass retreat, but it didn't really do anything to stop Boddole Zer's subordinate commanders from periodically coming back to have another go if they were feeling hard enough.  Most of Boddole Zer's subordinate commanders ran and kept running, but some were ballsy enough to muster their forces and return to try to finish the job.  That meant Earth's UN Forces had to deal with a steady trickle of rogue Zentradi at periodic intervals.  That was what led to Earth getting overconfident about its defenses and over-reliant on the Minmay Attack in Macross II.  They did face several very serious threats, thanks to escaping Zentradi alerting other main fleets to Earth's existence and location like the Neld main fleet that attacked Earth in 2036 and the Burado main fleet that attempted to weaponize Earth's culture against the Meltrandi in 2037.  An emigrant ship that blundered directly into a Zentradi main fleet also led to an invasion from an unnamed Zentradi fleet that lasted most of 2054.  It was after that occasion that they really stepped up their defense programs to create things like the Macross Cannon-class and next-generation warships like the Gloria and Heracles.

Earth in the main Macross timeline got luckier, in that Boddole Zer's subordinates mostly decided to not go back to that scary scary place... so encounters with rogue Zentradi fleets are mostly just examples of emigrant fleets blundering across the path of a branch fleet that's patrolling some forgotten backwoods sector of space for Supervision Army ships or the occasional case where a fleet will stumble upon an emigrant planet by coincidence, like the Macross Frontier fleet's run-in with a small Zentradi force back in 2058 at the start of Macross R or the Zentradi attack on the Brisingr cluster in 2060 that Windermere was salty about providing reinforcements for.

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Thousands, actually.

Macross Chronicle has indicated that, at the height of the ancient Protoculture's power, there were at least FIVE THOUSAND Zentradi main fleets.  Exsedol's remarks suggest there are somewhere between two and three thousand main fleets still operating in the galaxy after 500,000 years of continuous warfare with the Supervision Army.

Fortunately for humanity, space folding is an absolutely terrible FTL technology for actually exploring space.  Teleporting from place to place like that means you're never exposed to anything or anyone in the space between where you are and where you're going.  The only way to bump into someone is if you're so fantastically unlucky that you defold right on top of them.  (This has happened, but it's very VERY rare.)

 

Yeah, that kind of thing actually became a plot point in Macross II's timeline.

Destroying Boddole Zer's mobile fortress and a bunch of lower-tier command ships forced a mass retreat, but it didn't really do anything to stop Boddole Zer's subordinate commanders from periodically coming back to have another go if they were feeling hard enough.  Most of Boddole Zer's subordinate commanders ran and kept running, but some were ballsy enough to muster their forces and return to try to finish the job.  That meant Earth's UN Forces had to deal with a steady trickle of rogue Zentradi at periodic intervals.  That was what led to Earth getting overconfident about its defenses and over-reliant on the Minmay Attack in Macross II.  They did face several very serious threats, thanks to escaping Zentradi alerting other main fleets to Earth's existence and location like the Neld main fleet that attacked Earth in 2036 and the Burado main fleet that attempted to weaponize Earth's culture against the Meltrandi in 2037.  An emigrant ship that blundered directly into a Zentradi main fleet also led to an invasion from an unnamed Zentradi fleet that lasted most of 2054.  It was after that occasion that they really stepped up their defense programs to create things like the Macross Cannon-class and next-generation warships like the Gloria and Heracles.

Earth in the main Macross timeline got luckier, in that Boddole Zer's subordinates mostly decided to not go back to that scary scary place... so encounters with rogue Zentradi fleets are mostly just examples of emigrant fleets blundering across the path of a branch fleet that's patrolling some forgotten backwoods sector of space for Supervision Army ships or the occasional case where a fleet will stumble upon an emigrant planet by coincidence, like the Macross Frontier fleet's run-in with a small Zentradi force back in 2058 at the start of Macross R or the Zentradi attack on the Brisingr cluster in 2060 that Windermere was salty about providing reinforcements for.

Okay... I just looked to see what Macross Chronicle was, and Sketchley has translations of the book series on his site. Thanks for the discussion on this Seito; rather than continue on in ignorance (on my part), I think It's probably best on my part to go read the entries and put some solid in-world facts into my head for a bit.

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by pengbuzz

[Bolt]

There's A LOT of reading there..