Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

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.

For the record, nobody has done a complete translation - or even a more than fractionally-complete translation - of Macross Chronicle.

At almost 2,600 pages (counting the table of contents and introduction), it's too big for any one translator working in their free time to do in a reasonable span of time.  The original edition was 1,600 pages and the expanded revised edition was 2,560 if you didn't count the table of contents in Vol.81.

AFAIK, my group are the only ones insane enough to have actually announced that we're going to attempt a (mostly) full translation.  That's five of us, and we still expect it to take six months or more.  We're skipping the Goods sheets, but we're planning to do everything else.

I'm very excited for October 7th.  That'll mark the end of the ridiculous work schedule that's kept me from working heavily on Macross Historica and the start of me having nothing but four day work weeks for the entire rest of the calendar year.  I'm gonna be making SO MUCH headway on the site.   Literally all that's standing between me and that wonderful world of slacking off with official sanction for the rest of the year is a pair of network spec releases for Jeep programs.

[pengbuzz]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

For the record, nobody has done a complete translation - or even a more than fractionally-complete translation - of Macross Chronicle.

At almost 2,600 pages (counting the table of contents and introduction), it's too big for any one translator working in their free time to do in a reasonable span of time.  The original edition was 1,600 pages and the expanded revised edition was 2,560 if you didn't count the table of contents in Vol.81.

AFAIK, my group are the only ones insane enough to have actually announced that we're going to attempt a (mostly) full translation.  That's five of us, and we still expect it to take six months or more.  We're skipping the Goods sheets, but we're planning to do everything else.

I'm very excited for October 7th.  That'll mark the end of the ridiculous work schedule that's kept me from working heavily on Macross Historica and the start of me having nothing but four day work weeks for the entire rest of the calendar year.  I'm gonna be making SO MUCH headway on the site.   Literally all that's standing between me and that wonderful world of slacking off with official sanction for the rest of the year is a pair of network spec releases for Jeep programs.

Ok; I thought Sketchley's was complete. Thanks for the update! I just want to be a bit better informed on Macross, as this was a bit embarrassing for me (not counting the time I glued my fingers together building an SDF-1 model kit, but that's a story for another time).

4 day workweek: lucky you!

[sketchley]

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Ok; I thought Sketchley's was complete. Thanks for the update! I just want to be a bit better informed on Macross, as this was a bit embarrassing for me (not counting the time I glued my fingers together building an SDF-1 model kit, but that's a story for another time).

4 day workweek: lucky you!

It's as complete as I've been able to make it (time, and motivation permitting )

Nevertheless, go read it.  Sooner or later myself, or someone else, will fill in the parts that haven't been touched yet (which is pretty much all of the character sheets )

[JB0]

19 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

AFAIK, my group are the only ones insane enough to have actually announced that we're going to attempt a (mostly) full translation.  That's five of us, and we still expect it to take six months or more.  We're skipping the Goods sheets, but we're planning to do everything else.

I salute you, you glorious madmen.

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Ok; I thought Sketchley's was complete. Thanks for the update! I just want to be a bit better informed on Macross, as this was a bit embarrassing for me (not counting the time I glued my fingers together building an SDF-1 model kit, but that's a story for another time).

Like I said, nobody's got a complete translation... because nobody has THAT kind of free time.

It's not that Macross Chronicle is a difficult publication to translate, it's that it's so bloody huge.  2,560 pages is going to take a long damn time to get through even if it's no more complex than Dick and Jane just because of how much of it there is.

 

15 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

4 day workweek: lucky you!

In any other year, that'd be the time I took off to go to Super Dimension Con and see a bunch of fellow fans in the SoCal area for an annual get-together... but since the panedemic canceled that, I had a choice between either divvying it up or just taking the entire month of December off. 

 

 

7 hours ago, sketchley said:

Nevertheless, go read it.  Sooner or later myself, or someone else, will fill in the parts that haven't been touched yet (which is pretty much all of the character sheets )

Workin' on that.

My group is rolling through Macross Chronicle in series-production order.  We've done almost all of the sheets for Super Dimension Fortress Macross so far (excl. the Goods sheets we don't care about), though I won't get to post our work until I finish with ironing the bugs out of my website's design.  Once we're done there, we'll do DYRL, FB2012, II, Plus, 7, D7, Zero, Frontier, and the Frontier movies.  Then it's off to the artbooks and Blu-ray liner notes, Master File, etc.

 

 

4 hours ago, JB0 said:

I salute you, you glorious madmen.

Many hands make light work.

I'm the one holding up the party since I'm way behind on the website development.  I hate CSS.

[pengbuzz]

16 hours ago, sketchley said:

It's as complete as I've been able to make it (time, and motivation permitting )

Nevertheless, go read it.  Sooner or later myself, or someone else, will fill in the parts that haven't been touched yet (which is pretty much all of the character sheets )

Thanks, will do. I would very much like to fill in the missing gaps in my own knowledge base and stop embarrassing myself. lol

  

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Like I said, nobody's got a complete translation... because nobody has THAT kind of free time.

It's not that Macross Chronicle is a difficult publication to translate, it's that it's so bloody huge.  2,560 pages is going to take a long damn time to get through even if it's no more complex than Dick and Jane just because of how much of it there is.

Quite a bit of information...admirable indeed that several of y'all are taking on the challenge. If I were any good at translations (which I'm not!), I'd offer my help!

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Many hands make light work. I'm the one holding up the party since I'm way behind on the website development.  I hate CSS.

Yeah, CSS is a royal pain; I was training in it before switching to fixing computers instead of writing stuff for them. I despised CSS3 and HTML5!

Edited September 26, 2020 by pengbuzz

[Knight26]

Spotted these on FB today, anyone know where they came from?  Looks like it is from some animation.

[Seto Kaiba]

22 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

Spotted these on FB today, anyone know where they came from?  Looks like it is from some animation.

I've never seen them before.

The 4:3 aspect ratio and unevenness of the images makes me suspect these are screen captures taken from an old VHS tape.

[Knight26]

21 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I've never seen them before.

The 4:3 aspect ratio and unevenness of the images makes me suspect these are screen captures taken from an old VHS tape.

I'm assuming that as well, just curious as to the source since it is shows so many technical details (though there are some serious inaccuracies in the design).

[Seto Kaiba]

56 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

I'm assuming that as well, just curious as to the source since it is shows so many technical details (though there are some serious inaccuracies in the design).

Some of it, at least, like the ejection seat diagram seems to be based on materials published in Sky Angels.

[Seto Kaiba]

Just throwing out a fun little tidbit I found while I was working on a translation during tonight's stream session of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood...

Macross Chronicle has the VF-1B down as an unofficial/informal designation for the so-called "half-S" retrofit where the Kyusei S-type monitor turret was installed on otherwise A-type spec airframes.  That neatly clears up a conflict with Master File in which it listed a VF-1B as a pre-First Space War regional variant from Britain's "Devilland" corporation (bland name de Havilland Aircraft) in a similar vein to Japan's VF-1J.  

[Seto Kaiba]

It's only now that my group has started seriously translating all of Macross Chronicle that I'm starting to appreciate just how many little errors there are strewn around this book.  There are a lot of instances where Shinsei Industry and General Galaxy are mentioned as developing particular models of VFs before they were founded... Shinsei Industry was created by the merger of Stonewell, Bellcom, and Shinnakasu in 2012 and General Galaxy by the merger of OTEC and several other manufacturers in 2017.  There are also quite a few cases where the developer listed is just plain wrong, like listing the VF-4 as a General Galaxy product instead of a Stonewell/Bellcom product.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's only now that my group has started seriously translating all of Macross Chronicle that I'm starting to appreciate just how many little errors there are strewn around this book.  There are a lot of instances where Shinsei Industry and General Galaxy are mentioned as developing particular models of VFs before they were founded... Shinsei Industry was created by the merger of Stonewell, Bellcom, and Shinnakasu in 2012 and General Galaxy by the merger of OTEC and several other manufacturers in 2017.  There are also quite a few cases where the developer listed is just plain wrong, like listing the VF-4 as a General Galaxy product instead of a Stonewell/Bellcom product.

I really appreciate that your group is translating this stuff; on that note, it's a good thing you folks picked up on those errors!

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's only now that my group has started seriously translating all of Macross Chronicle that I'm starting to appreciate just how many little errors there are strewn around this book.  ...

Writers/Publishers not having access to the materials aside (E.g. the combiner Zentrādi battlesuit from M3 doesn't appear in MC), how many of those alleged errors were authorized by Kawamori-san himself?  If memory serves, Kawamori-san was given some kind of leadership or 'last word' control over the publication.

And then there's this from the very first issue*:

"This "Macross Chronicle" is produced with the stance that it's a collection of records that bring together the interpretations by various personalities of the history that flows behind the Macross series. I hope that the readers will discover their own true "Macross" by using this book to take in the adventures that are among the 30 years of accumulated Macross history. "

Which—among other things—opens up the can of worms that the publications that are in conflict with MC are true onto themselves (in the context of their respective productions), and MC approaches things from the holistic (or big picture) perspective; tying into Kawamori-san's assertion that each production is an in-universe dramatization of real events, whereas the MC is the real events (or akin to an in-universe Janes defence publication/encyclopedia Britannica).

Note that I'm not fully disagreeing with your assertion that there are errors, just wishing to point out that we don't have access to the publisher's decision making processes or reasons behind certain choices.  Maybe the publishers had the 'correct' information, but they were told to change it to the allegedly 'incorrect' information by the powers that be?**

As MC was being released more-or-less concurrently to Macross Frontier, perhaps we should take the stance that MC is an in-universe publication correct only in the context of MF?

 

* http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/MCRseriesguide/SrsGuid.php#0203

** Access to materials aside, we have circumstantial evidence that Kawamori-san himself has forgotten/changed key details over the decades.  Then there are such things like the Earth Trekkers being written out when Macross Zero made it's debut, etc.

[Seto Kaiba]

27 minutes ago, sketchley said:

Writers/Publishers not having access to the materials aside (E.g. the combiner Zentrādi battlesuit from M3 doesn't appear in MC), how many of those alleged errors were authorized by Kawamori-san himself?  If memory serves, Kawamori-san was given some kind of leadership or 'last word' control over the publication.

My guess would be probably not a lot... it was a biweekly publication so it was produced on a fairly tight schedule, and Kawamori already had plenty of stuff on his plate when it was being published.  Fans always oversell Kawamori's involvement in new Macross productions, as if the franchise were a one-man show instead of him just being a supervising director, contributing mechanical designer, and "the idea guy" who pitches the series concept.  Like back when Macross Delta was airing and people were upset about the writing, folks on the boards here were blaming Kawamori for it even though he wrote exactly zero screenplays for the series.

Some fans seem to think Kawamori gets around as much as Tom Clancey's name does...

 

27 minutes ago, sketchley said:

** Access to materials aside, we have circumstantial evidence that Kawamori-san himself has forgotten/changed key details over the decades.  Then there are such things like the Earth Trekkers being written out when Macross Zero made it's debut, etc.

Rather more than circumstantial, I would say... like the Otona Anime #9 interview with Kawamori where he explicitly described changing the significance of Macross VF-X2's events to demote the coup attempt from the reason for the military and government decentralizing to just a symptom of it.

 

 

All told, a lot of these errors look like the writers mixing up one VF for another (e.g. the VF-4 and VF-14) or just fat-fingering the number keys on their keyboard.

It just means a bit more work for my group, since we're annotating our translations for use on the site we're developing.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[Tochiro]

58 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Fans always oversell Kawamori's involvement in new Macross productions (snip)

No, they really don’t. If anything, they undersell it in quite a few cases  

And I say that as someone who has seen him work in person and marveled at the sheer amount of involvement he has with pretty much everything. 

[Seto Kaiba]

Kinda snipped before the important bit, didn't you? 

 

 

Anyhoo, got some good details out of today's translation session that raise some interesting questions about VF service lifespans.

Fighter aircraft in the real world are usually expected to have a usable service lifespan of between 30 and 40 years.  There hasn't really been a definitive statement on how long a VF is expected to last in normal service in Macross, but there's been circumstantial evidence in a few stories like Macross 7 Trash and Macross the Ride that generally agrees with that 30-40 year service lifespan.  The 37th large-scale long-distance emigrant fleet was using VF-4 Lightning III's as training aircraft in 2045-2046, which would be 33 years in service at that point in time.  The Macross Frontier fleet was in the process of retiring its fleet of VF-11 Thunderbolts and selling them off in 2058, which would be the design's 29th year in service.  One of the more unexpected tidbits that got pulled in in today's work was the date when the military started phasing out the VF-5.  The VF-5 was one of those inexpensive postwar VFs which was run out to meet the needs of emigrant governments.  It had a weirdly short service life.  They started mass producing them in 2015, and started retiring them in 2029.  That's only fourteen years, weirdly short by VF standards.

[Bolt]

A fly on the wall would know..

[Knight26]

On 10/11/2020 at 10:03 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Kinda snipped before the important bit, didn't you? 

 

 

Anyhoo, got some good details out of today's translation session that raise some interesting questions about VF service lifespans.

Fighter aircraft in the real world are usually expected to have a usable service lifespan of between 30 and 40 years.  There hasn't really been a definitive statement on how long a VF is expected to last in normal service in Macross, but there's been circumstantial evidence in a few stories like Macross 7 Trash and Macross the Ride that generally agrees with that 30-40 year service lifespan.  The 37th large-scale long-distance emigrant fleet was using VF-4 Lightning III's as training aircraft in 2045-2046, which would be 33 years in service at that point in time.  The Macross Frontier fleet was in the process of retiring its fleet of VF-11 Thunderbolts and selling them off in 2058, which would be the design's 29th year in service.  One of the more unexpected tidbits that got pulled in in today's work was the date when the military started phasing out the VF-5.  The VF-5 was one of those inexpensive postwar VFs which was run out to meet the needs of emigrant governments.  It had a weirdly short service life.  They started mass producing them in 2015, and started retiring them in 2029.  That's only fourteen years, weirdly short by VF standards.

Yeah, the bit of the VF-5 sounds like 50s fighter lifespan, when we were throwing everything at the wall to see what would work.  The VF-5 as a budget VF probably used inferior materials and more "off the shelf" components to try and get more mass produced VFs out there faster for all the various fleets.  IIRC wasn't also the only single engine VF?  It is likely that this left the fighter underpowered and unable to keep up.  All of that taken into account, the short service life makes sense.  Still curious what it looked like.

[Seto Kaiba]

15 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

Yeah, the bit of the VF-5 sounds like 50s fighter lifespan, when we were throwing everything at the wall to see what would work.  The VF-5 as a budget VF probably used inferior materials and more "off the shelf" components to try and get more mass produced VFs out there faster for all the various fleets.  IIRC wasn't also the only single engine VF?  It is likely that this left the fighter underpowered and unable to keep up.  All of that taken into account, the short service life makes sense.  Still curious what it looked like.

Hmmm... perhaps.

Somewhat frustratingly, all we know about the VF-5 is that it existed and when, and that it was a low-cost (2nd Generation) VF made for emigrant use.  It's said to be inspired by the Nothrop F-5E Tiger and Convair F2Y Sea Dart.

[Sildani]

I was about to say... VF-5? Cheap? Intended for export? Kawamori’s an airplane nerd? Look no further than a transformable Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter. F-20 Tigershark if you’re feeling it. 

[Knight26]

On 10/8/2020 at 3:48 PM, Knight26 said:

Spotted these on FB today, anyone know where they came from?  Looks like it is from some animation.

I found the source.  These come from the Macross SF Challenge Game on Laser Disc.  It's apparently quite rare, Shawn did a post on it years ago that had some additional images.
 

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Knight26

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Knight26 said:

I found the source.  These come from the Macross SF Challenge Game on Laser Disc.  It's apparently quite rare, Shawn did a post on it years ago that had some additional images.

Ah, interesting.

Thanks for your work in sourcing that.  

[Knight26]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Ah, interesting.

Thanks for your work in sourcing that.  

The images popped up again on Instagram, and mentioned the name.

[Seto Kaiba]

So, courtesy of @Tochiro on Twitter, we have our first real look at the new Valkyrie for Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!!.

@no3Ljm did a bit of color-tweaking on the image to make some of the surface detail more visible:

 

 

The original promotional piece from last year, for reference:

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, Seto Kaiba said:

So, courtesy of @Tochiro on Twitter, we have our first real look at the new Valkyrie for Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!!.

@no3Ljm did a bit of color-tweaking on the image to make some of the surface detail more visible:

 

 

The original promotional piece from last year, for reference:

So, first thoughts...

As with the initial promotional art from last year, this new Valkyrie's design fairly screams that it's a General Galaxy product... and likely from the SV Works design team.

One of the bigger giveaways in that respect is that its Battroid mode has the prominent "conehead" configuration common to almost all of General Galaxy's major VF projects.  The 2nd Generation VF-9 Cutlass, the 3rd Generation VF-14 Vampire and VA-14, and the 4th Generation VF-22 Sturmvogel II all have it.  It's also something that was present in the work of General Galaxy cofounder Alexei Kurakin before the company's founding (the SV-51 and VF-4 Lightning III) and in the works of the design team he established at General Galaxy to pursue his vision of anti-VF VFs (the Sv-154 Svard and Sv-262 Draken III).  Only the VF-17 Nightmare and VF-171 Nightmare Plus really buck that trend, and they were GG's least radical VF designs.  (The VF-27 was developed by a subsidiary, Macross Galaxy, based on rival Shinsei Industry's YF-24 Evolution, and so doesn't conform to this norm either.)

The actual design is strongly reminiscent of the VF-4 and VF-14.  The monitor turret appears to be stowed near the rear of the aircraft in Fighter mode similar to the VF-4, whereas on the VF-14 it was on the underside of the nosecone.  The big monoeye design of the monitor turret is strongly reminiscent of the SV-51's, as is the apparent slenderness of the limbs we can see in the second image.  The forward fuselage structure in Fighter mode is reminiscent of both the YF-27-5 Shahar Female type and the VF-14.

It's difficult to make out on the original image, but in @no3Ljm's brightened pics we can see something that looks like a gun port immediately adjacent to the canopy similar to the main fighter-mode guns on the VF-17 Nightmare and VF-171 Nightmare Plus.  There are two areas on the nacelle closest to the viewer that have surface detail that appears to be the mostly-standard stretched hexagonal shape used for internal micro-missile launcher firing ports.  You can see one very clearly on the outboard side of the port nacelle right near the leading edge and there looks to be another right near the border of light and shadow smack in the middle of the nacelle.  I don't see an obvious rear-facing gun despite that having been a standard feature for quite some time.  That doesn't mean one isn't there though, it may be a pop-up type or just a gunport we can't see.  

The base of the engine nozzle is sporting something that's either a thrust reverser collar similar to the ones on the VF-27, VF-27, YF-30, and VF-31 or a vernier ring similar to what General Galaxy pioneered on the VF-14 and carried over to the VF-17 and VF-171.  Given the structural similarities to the VF-4 and VF-14, I am inclined to suspect it's actually the vernier ring, esp. since those VFs it's most similar to were also VFs intended primarily for use in space combat.

Instead of a canopy, it appears to have a cluster of polarized sensor covers similar to the VF-27 or Sv-262 but much larger for some reason.  I suspect this is still a manned VF, but similar to the VF-27 or Sv-262 they've traded away the visibility of a canopy for the greater survivability of an electable energy conversion armor canopy cover and full 360 degree wraparound monitors.

[seti88]

Wow I need several rereads ur initial tots on this. But off hand...

I would tend to agree with kurasama’s take that the battroid head (monitor turret?) would be up front rather than on rear..

If so would signal a pilotless/AI drone, and be the first valk with head in the cockpit itself?

or an even more radical idea is a pilot in the head temple, which doesn’t make any sense from a pilot safety perspective.

Edited November 7, 2020 by seti88

[Sanity is Optional]

My personal thought is that we're getting a callback to AI-as-enemy from Plus after Macross 7, Frontier, and Delta focused on ancient aliens/bug aliens/humanoid aliens.

Not to mention modern combat aviation is starting to deal more in drones, and Kawamori is definitely a fan of real-world aircraft design as inspiration.

[Andras]

It really looks like a next gen Neo Glaug/Variable Glaug. 

Edited November 7, 2020 by Andras

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, seti88 said:

Wow I need several rereads ur initial tots on this. But off hand...

I would tend to agree with kurasama’s take that the battroid head (monitor turret?) would be up front rather than on rear..

It's possible, I suppose.

 

2 hours ago, seti88 said:

If so would signal a pilotless/AI drone, and be the first valk with head in the cockpit itself?

There's been at least one previous model that's had the cockpit in the head itself... the VA-3 Invader.

 

 

2 hours ago, Sanity is Optional said:

My personal thought is that we're getting a callback to AI-as-enemy from Plus after Macross 7, Frontier, and Delta focused on ancient aliens/bug aliens/humanoid aliens.

Not to mention modern combat aviation is starting to deal more in drones, and Kawamori is definitely a fan of real-world aircraft design as inspiration.

That'd be kinda boring, IMO... the enemy being a drone fighter in Macross Plus only worked because there was an insane AI directly controlling it.  Dogfighting against a robot is so impersonal.

 

1 hour ago, Andras said:

It really looks like a next gen Neo Glaug/Variable Glaug. 

It does a bit, which would play with the VF-4 resemblance since the Variable Glaug was developed from a stolen VF-4.

[seti88]

36 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

There's been at least one previous model that's had the cockpit in the head itself... the VA-3 Invader.

 

Spot On! The invader, I forgot abt that valk.

Now thinking abt it, cant imagine any pilot in there dealing with any rapid head turns during any battroid fights. 

 

[JB0]

9 minutes ago, seti88 said:

Spot On! The invader, I forgot abt that valk.

Now thinking abt it, cant imagine any pilot in there dealing with any rapid head turns during any battroid fights. 

 

Ah, but modern valks have inertial dampers, so they can whip the head turret around all they want! The time has come for Mazinger-style head-cockpits to make a comeback!

 

[jenius]

If that's the battroid mode head... you really have to wonder what all that kibble is behind it. There appears to be gribbles of some kind going up well above it. 

[Captain Global]

Maybe I am the only one thinking this but, first thing that came to my mind when seeing the head was the bird human from M0. Also, the sensors and the overall shape seem quite alien to me. Maybe it's a wild thought but to me seems like some sort of protoculture aircraft. Would make sense as Delta has a lot of elements of the protoculture compared to F and Seven. 

[pengbuzz]

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

So, first thoughts...

As with the initial promotional art from last year, this new Valkyrie's design fairly screams that it's a General Galaxy product... and likely from the SV Works design team.

One of the bigger giveaways in that respect is that its Battroid mode has the prominent "conehead" configuration common to almost all of General Galaxy's major VF projects.  The 2nd Generation VF-9 Cutlass, the 3rd Generation VF-14 Vampire and VA-14, and the 4th Generation VF-22 Sturmvogel II all have it.  It's also something that was present in the work of General Galaxy cofounder Alexei Kurakin before the company's founding (the SV-51 and VF-4 Lightning III) and in the works of the design team he established at General Galaxy to pursue his vision of anti-VF VFs (the Sv-154 Svard and Sv-262 Draken III).  Only the VF-17 Nightmare and VF-171 Nightmare Plus really buck that trend, and they were GG's least radical VF designs.  (The VF-27 was developed by a subsidiary, Macross Galaxy, based on rival Shinsei Industry's YF-24 Evolution, and so doesn't conform to this norm either.)

The actual design is strongly reminiscent of the VF-4 and VF-14.  The monitor turret appears to be stowed near the rear of the aircraft in Fighter mode similar to the VF-4, whereas on the VF-14 it was on the underside of the nosecone.  The big monoeye design of the monitor turret is strongly reminiscent of the SV-51's, as is the apparent slenderness of the limbs we can see in the second image.  The forward fuselage structure in Fighter mode is reminiscent of both the YF-27-5 Shahar Female type and the VF-14.

It's difficult to make out on the original image, but in @no3Ljm's brightened pics we can see something that looks like a gun port immediately adjacent to the canopy similar to the main fighter-mode guns on the VF-17 Nightmare and VF-171 Nightmare Plus.  There are two areas on the nacelle closest to the viewer that have surface detail that appears to be the mostly-standard stretched hexagonal shape used for internal micro-missile launcher firing ports.  You can see one very clearly on the outboard side of the port nacelle right near the leading edge and there looks to be another right near the border of light and shadow smack in the middle of the nacelle.  I don't see an obvious rear-facing gun despite that having been a standard feature for quite some time.  That doesn't mean one isn't there though, it may be a pop-up type or just a gunport we can't see.  

The base of the engine nozzle is sporting something that's either a thrust reverser collar similar to the ones on the VF-27, VF-27, YF-30, and VF-31 or a vernier ring similar to what General Galaxy pioneered on the VF-14 and carried over to the VF-17 and VF-171.  Given the structural similarities to the VF-4 and VF-14, I am inclined to suspect it's actually the vernier ring, esp. since those VFs it's most similar to were also VFs intended primarily for use in space combat.

Instead of a canopy, it appears to have a cluster of polarized sensor covers similar to the VF-27 or Sv-262 but much larger for some reason.  I suspect this is still a manned VF, but similar to the VF-27 or Sv-262 they've traded away the visibility of a canopy for the greater survivability of an electable energy conversion armor canopy cover and full 360 degree wraparound monitors.

Essentially a "cyber canopy" that has no direct transparent feature, right? That would eliminate a considerable weak point, although taking the sensors out would effectively blind the pilot, so some redundancy would be needed for the sensor as well as an option to jettison the cover and rely on at least a small canopy transparency (i.e. the "dome" on the YF-21's cockpit).