Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours 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. 

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

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!

Yeah, if this new bird is 5th Generation - or possibly even 6th given that an extra feature in the Macross Delta blu-rays attempts to classify the not-actually-production VF-31 custom Siegfrieds as "Generation 5.5" - then it has an inertia store converter system able to buffer at least 27.5G for at least two minutes if it's manned.  Otherwise the massive thrust that its Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines produce would do unpleasant things to the meatbag in the cockpit.

 

 

3 hours ago, jenius said:

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. 

If that is its head amidships, it's going to have a weird-as-hell transformation to make that work.

(Which would also not be beyond reason, given the weird-as-hell transformation the Draken III had... unconventional transformation designs seem to be another hallmark of General Galaxy/SV Works designs.)

 

 

1 hour ago, Captain Global said:

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. 

The ancient Protoculture were way, WAY beyond building conventional aircraft when their civilization collapsed.  Their mecha designs were inspired by Vajra biology, including the fully restored design of the Birdhuman that was based on a Vajra Queen.

The head does kind of evoke the Birdhuman's face with its big single monoeye that takes up the entire "face"... though that was also a feature of the SV-51's design in Macross Zero.

The closest we've had to a Protoculture aircraft are the Protodeviln reworked versions of the New UN Forces' VF-14, VA-14, and VAB-2.  Those were Earth VFs upgraded with some of the advanced tech from the arsenal world where the Protodeviln were sealed away.  It's known (see Macross R) that some of that technology wound up in the hands of the remnants of Latence, the Earth supremacist group that staged a coup in Macross VF-X2, and that leftover splinter groups of Latence like Fasces were using upgraded Elgersoln units for some of their forces c.2058.  

This new VF absolutely has humanity's fingerprints all over it.  Given that Absolute Live!!!!!! is advertised as having an all-new story, it seems unlikely that it's a new Windermerean VF (which would mean it was actually just sold to Windermere by a General Galaxy affiliate or middleman under the table).  Maybe Macross Galaxy's cyber-nobles are having another go at galactic domination, or selling arms to someone who fancies a go themselves.

 

 

1 minute ago, pengbuzz said:

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).

Yup... the VF-27's used the Brain Direct Interface to project the composite sensor image of the VF's surroundings directly into the pilot's brain, like the YF-21 was supposed to do when the BDI was working properly.  The Sv-262 seems to have used a more conventional holographic projection system similar to the footwell displays on the VF-19.  In the VF-27's case, it was shown that the armored cover was ejectable and a conventional canopy was underneath.  

I'm not sure if this one has enough clearance for that kind of redundancy.  The cockpit area looks rather flat, similar to the reduced visibility the VF-17 had.

[pengbuzz]

19 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, if this new bird is 5th Generation - or possibly even 6th given that an extra feature in the Macross Delta blu-rays attempts to classify the not-actually-production VF-31 custom Siegfrieds as "Generation 5.5" - then it has an inertia store converter system able to buffer at least 27.5G for at least two minutes if it's manned.  Otherwise the massive thrust that its Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines produce would do unpleasant things to the meatbag in the cockpit.

  I still laugh about the "chunky salsa" comment I read somewhere a while back. Seriously though, something like this would be useful for the YF-19 (and Dyson's aging bones).

 

19 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

If that is its head amidships, it's going to have a weird-as-hell transformation to make that work.

(Which would also not be beyond reason, given the weird-as-hell transformation the Draken III had... unconventional transformation designs seem to be another hallmark of General Galaxy/SV Works designs.)

I've noted that as well: their transforms use some really strange concepts that I would have to venture require a considerable amount of maintenance, as well as place certain parts under some phenomenal stresses as well. I can imagine even being robustly built, some of those parts are going to have "mean times to failure" that are considerably shorter than standard transforms.

Also: would it be fair to say that some of those transformation schemes could conceivably leave exposed weak points. I know the way the arms transform on the Drakken have them on one "spar" that rotates (if memory serves) and that puts a lot on one part.

  

19 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The ancient Protoculture were way, WAY beyond building conventional aircraft when their civilization collapsed.  Their mecha designs were inspired by Vajra biology, including the fully restored design of the Birdhuman that was based on a Vajra Queen.

The head does kind of evoke the Birdhuman's face with its big single monoeye that takes up the entire "face"... though that was also a feature of the SV-51's design in Macross Zero.

The closest we've had to a Protoculture aircraft are the Protodeviln reworked versions of the New UN Forces' VF-14, VA-14, and VAB-2.  Those were Earth VFs upgraded with some of the advanced tech from the arsenal world where the Protodeviln were sealed away.  It's known (see Macross R) that some of that technology wound up in the hands of the remnants of Latence, the Earth supremacist group that staged a coup in Macross VF-X2, and that leftover splinter groups of Latence like Fasces were using upgraded Elgersoln units for some of their forces c.2058.  

This new VF absolutely has humanity's fingerprints all over it.  Given that Absolute Live!!!!!! is advertised as having an all-new story, it seems unlikely that it's a new Windermerean VF (which would mean it was actually just sold to Windermere by a General Galaxy affiliate or middleman under the table).  Maybe Macross Galaxy's cyber-nobles are having another go at galactic domination, or selling arms to someone who fancies a go themselves.

That piques an idea I had in the back of my mind: what would craft developed by a joint venture with surviving Protoculture designers/ New Unity Govt look like?

  

19 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yup... the VF-27's used the Brain Direct Interface to project the composite sensor image of the VF's surroundings directly into the pilot's brain, like the YF-21 was supposed to do when the BDI was working properly.  The Sv-262 seems to have used a more conventional holographic projection system similar to the footwell displays on the VF-19.  In the VF-27's case, it was shown that the armored cover was ejectable and a conventional canopy was underneath.  

I'm not sure if this one has enough clearance for that kind of redundancy.  The cockpit area looks rather flat, similar to the reduced visibility the VF-17 had.

Ah, thanks for the heads- up on that (pun intended! ). And yeah: the 17 seems to use a faceted panel design; I don't recall f the 17 had the wraparound holographic viewpanels in-cockpit, but I imagine it would be sorely needed for such lack of visibility.

[Sanity is Optional]

6 hours ago, Captain Global said:

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. 

That was my initial thought as well. Especially the "eye" detail.

[Thom]

If it's Protoculture-based, then it may still be human-built, especially with the shape of the exhausts as noted previously. Plus, Protoculture-tech usually has a far more organic element to it, whereas that is really only seen in the day-glow coloring.

[Seto Kaiba]

11 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I still laugh about the "chunky salsa" comment I read somewhere a while back. Seriously though, something like this would be useful for the YF-19 (and Dyson's aging bones).

Drawn from a common RPG meme... the so-called "Chunky Salsa Rule", that any hit that would reduce a character's head to the consistency of chunky salsa is fatal no matter what other rules say.

The first workable ISC prototype wasn't available until around 2057, when Shinsei Industry revived the YF-24 program on their own and completed it as the YF-24 Evolution.  Back during Project Super Nova, the New UN Forces did have access to what you might call a low-performance economized version of inertia capacitor technology via the Queadluun-Rau's inertia vector control system.  It did the same job, but because it used high-purity fold carbon it wasn't as effective and was still very expensive.  General Galaxy, who'd been contracted to restore and renovate the captured Quimeliquola factory satellite after it was moved to Eden, incorporated an inertia vector control system into the YF-21.

Great Mechanics DX.9's article on VF Evolutionary Theory does mention that it would be economical to equip the VF-19 with an ISC system.  They went ahead with developing new VFs around it instead because the Vajra's abilities were projected to exceed even the VF-19's performance and to preserve defense sector jobs.  (Kind of paralleling the way that the development of the F-22 and F-35 plowed ahead despite many design problems to preserve defense industry jobs in the real world.)

Given the diverse variations of local specification we've seen from various emigrant governments so far, I would not be even slightly surprised if someone out there were operating ISC-equipped VF-19s.

 

Quote

I've noted that as well: their transforms use some really strange concepts that I would have to venture require a considerable amount of maintenance, as well as place certain parts under some phenomenal stresses as well. I can imagine even being robustly built, some of those parts are going to have "mean times to failure" that are considerably shorter than standard transforms.

Also: would it be fair to say that some of those transformation schemes could conceivably leave exposed weak points. I know the way the arms transform on the Drakken have them on one "spar" that rotates (if memory serves) and that puts a lot on one part.

As long as they're designed around those stresses it should be fine... if a pain in the butt to maintain because of the complexity.

You run into problems with greater than average frequency when you start exceeding the design tolerances of the airframe on a regular basis.  This was/is a noted problem for both the VF-31 custom "Siegfried" and the Sv-262Hs Draken III command type in Macross Delta, as a consequence of the upgrades made to the base VF-31A Kairos and their respective pilots being rough with them while using performance enhancement systems like the Siegfried's fold wave system or the Draken III's fold reheat.

 

Quote

  That piques an idea I had in the back of my mind: what would craft developed by a joint venture with surviving Protoculture designers/ New Unity Govt look like?

Probably a lot like the Varauta forces mecha from Macross 7... because that's basically what they were.  They were New UN Gov't mecha upgraded with, and adopting some design stylings of, the Protoculture overtechnology the Protodeviln had appropriated or created for their own use.

 

11 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Ah, thanks for the heads- up on that (pun intended! ). And yeah: the 17 seems to use a faceted panel design; I don't recall f the 17 had the wraparound holographic viewpanels in-cockpit, but I imagine it would be sorely needed for such lack of visibility.

They do, it's hard to see in many shots but there are several viewscreen panels filling in the footwell similar to the VF-19's (albeit without seamless coverage) and rearview displays to make up for the limited rear visibility.

 

6 hours ago, Thom said:

If it's Protoculture-based, then it may still be human-built, especially with the shape of the exhausts as noted previously. Plus, Protoculture-tech usually has a far more organic element to it, whereas that is really only seen in the day-glow coloring.

Well, I mean, everything is technically Protoculture-based since overtechnology is something humanity inherited from the Protoculture via that Supervision Army derelict that made an unplanned crash landing on Earth in 1999.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[Bolt]

Looks awesome.  Very intrigued..

[slide]

On 11/7/2020 at 6:47 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

As long as they're designed around those stresses it should be fine... if a pain in the butt to maintain because of the complexity.

You run into problems with greater than average frequency when you start exceeding the design tolerances of the airframe on a regular basis.

My fondest memory of an airshow is watching an F-14 do a max-G turn and the Lt.(JG) on the mic saying: "Now watch as the Tomcat performs a max-power sustained turn at 7 G's _{or 6.5 if the Skipper or Crew-chief are asking!!}"

 

Over-G'ing your airframe typically results in bends/curves in parts that shouldn't have them, which is a huge problem for a terrestrial fighter, let alone a transforming one!

 

Quote

Maybe Macross Galaxy's cyber-nobles are having another go at galactic domination, or selling arms to someone who fancies a go themselves.

So Galaxy has become Space-France? Interesting...

 

speaking of that, what's the link (if anything beyond the use of the word "Galaxy") between General Galaxy and Macross Galaxy?

Are GG the ones who own the fleet?

If so... are they making a play at becoming Macross' Weyland-Yutani?

Edited November 9, 2020 by slide

[Seto Kaiba]

41 minutes ago, slide said:

My fondest memory of an airshow is watching an F-14 do a max-G turn and the Lt.(JG) on the mic saying: "Now watch as the Tomcat performs a max-power sustained turn at 7 G's _{or 6.5 if the Skipper or Crew-chief are asking!!}"

 

Over-G'ing your airframe typically results in bends/curves in parts that shouldn't have them, which is a huge problem for a terrestrial fighter, let alone a transforming one!

Yup, though it takes some pretty astonishing forces to do that to a VF given that their structural materials are at least a hundred times stronger than steel and later models are often stressed for a G-limit in the dozens.

 

41 minutes ago, slide said:

So Galaxy has become Space-France? Interesting...

That's an interesting way to think about it.

Macross the Ride does kind of paint a picture of Macross Galaxy as a place of rather surprising inequality and poverty.  Its government is a corporation, effectively making the fleet a subsidiary of General Galaxy and in a lot of ways a flying extralegal research and development facility.  The wealthy and powerful like the Galaxy executives have access to the fleet's best technology and lead very comfortable lives both in the virtual domain and in the flesh.  The fleet's lower level employees live in fairly uncomfortable or even harsh conditions that are made less unpleasant for them by implant-induced augmented reality.  Their perceptions are filtered and modified by the their implants in some full on Ghost in the Shell-levels of mind screw to do things like make an unused urban space appear to be a beautiful park or make the unpleasant synthetic foodstuffs taste delicious.  Unlike the peasants in France during the French Revolution, these folks don't really properly appreciate that they're living in poor conditions because of their implants.  Folks without implants, including a very high (compared to other fleets) number of people who've been left unemployed by the fleet's obsession with labor-saving automation, live in harsh conditions and fully appreciate the fact but don't really have a chance at overthrowing the government due to the superhuman abilities of the cyborg soldiers there and the mind control the fleet's executives wield against the populace.

 

41 minutes ago, slide said:

speaking of that, what's the link (if anything beyond the use of the word "Galaxy") between General Galaxy and Macross Galaxy?

Are GG the ones who own the fleet?

General Galaxy sponsored the Macross Galaxy fleet, and the corporation that serves as the fleet's government is effectively a subsidiary of General Galaxy.

 

41 minutes ago, slide said:

If so... are they making a play at becoming Macross' Weyland-Yutani?

It's questionable how much direct control General Galaxy had over the Macross Galaxy fleet, but all in all I don't think so.

Macross Frontier's story had some fairly blunt points to make about corporate corruption and capitalism's influence on politics, with the two main emigrant fleets in the story both being manipulated, overtly or covertly, by corporate sponsors in a bid to locate and monopolize a precious new resource (fold quartz).

Weyland-Yutani used its massive influence to effectively become the government in reality if not in name, where General Galaxy seems uninterested in anything except the business of building things like ships, fighters, gravity control systems, and the like.  It was a group of other individuals who kind of hijacked the Macross Galaxy fleet and turned it into a fleet bent on galactic domination via mind control.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, slide said:

Over-G'ing your airframe typically results in bends/curves in parts that shouldn't have them, which is a huge problem for a terrestrial fighter, let alone a transforming one!

It would certainly give a whole new meaning to the term "fold", now wouldn't it?

[pengbuzz]

On 11/7/2020 at 7:47 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Drawn from a common RPG meme... the so-called "Chunky Salsa Rule", that any hit that would reduce a character's head to the consistency of chunky salsa is fatal no matter what other rules say.

 Except for Homer Simpson.

 

On 11/7/2020 at 7:47 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The first workable ISC prototype wasn't available until around 2057, when Shinsei Industry revived the YF-24 program on their own and completed it as the YF-24 Evolution.  Back during Project Super Nova, the New UN Forces did have access to what you might call a low-performance economized version of inertia capacitor technology via the Queadluun-Rau's inertia vector control system.  It did the same job, but because it used high-purity fold carbon it wasn't as effective and was still very expensive.  General Galaxy, who'd been contracted to restore and renovate the captured Quimeliquola factory satellite after it was moved to Eden, incorporated an inertia vector control system into the YF-21.

Great Mechanics DX.9's article on VF Evolutionary Theory does mention that it would be economical to equip the VF-19 with an ISC system.  They went ahead with developing new VFs around it instead because the Vajra's abilities were projected to exceed even the VF-19's performance and to preserve defense sector jobs.  (Kind of paralleling the way that the development of the F-22 and F-35 plowed ahead despite many design problems to preserve defense industry jobs in the real world.)

Given the diverse variations of local specification we've seen from various emigrant governments so far, I would not be even slightly surprised if someone out there were operating ISC-equipped VF-19s.

  Yeah; it makes me wonder if Isamu eventually had that installed into his craft, of if part of the thrill for him was testing himself against the g-forces (although I suspect as he gets older, that will become an issue for him).

 

On 11/7/2020 at 7:47 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

As long as they're designed around those stresses it should be fine... if a pain in the butt to maintain because of the complexity.

You run into problems with greater than average frequency when you start exceeding the design tolerances of the airframe on a regular basis.  This was/is a noted problem for both the VF-31 custom "Siegfried" and the Sv-262Hs Draken III command type in Macross Delta, as a consequence of the upgrades made to the base VF-31A Kairos and their respective pilots being rough with them while using performance enhancement systems like the Siegfried's fold wave system or the Draken III's fold reheat.

 and:

41 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yup, though it takes some pretty astonishing forces to do that to a VF given that their structural materials are at least a hundred times stronger than steel and later models are often stressed for a G-limit in the dozens.

 While these are good points, I also know that when it comes to moving parts, any joint is going to be a weak spot due to its' nature.  When you're talking about parts that have to bear considerable amounts of weight, deal with other stresses such as torque, shear stress, deformation and several other issues being put through the added stress of flight maneuvers, missile, beam and projectile strikes as well as "blunt force trauma" of combat, that's a lot for materials to withstand. I can recall the Hind D helicopter having a "strike reinforced hub" for it's main rotor assembly, so that the main blades didn't get shot off in combat. It just makes me wonder exactly how strong the materials are and what their inherent limits are?

 

On 11/7/2020 at 7:47 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Probably a lot like the Varauta forces mecha from Macross 7... because that's basically what they were.  They were New UN Gov't mecha upgraded with, and adopting some design stylings of, the Protoculture overtechnology the Protodeviln had appropriated or created for their own use.

 Ah... that's an excellent point.

While we're on the topic: I wonder what Protoculture would make of humanity and our progress at that point? It would be interesting to see a NUNS Fleet encounter the last survivors of Protoculture and actually interact with them (possibly this was the fate of Megaroad 1?)

 

On 11/7/2020 at 7:47 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, I mean, everything is technically Protoculture-based since overtechnology is something humanity inherited from the Protoculture via that Supervision Army derelict that made an unplanned crash landing on Earth in 1999.

  Y'know...I don't really think most ships plan a crash landing most of the time.

 

  

 

[Seto Kaiba]

9 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah; it makes me wonder if Isamu eventually had that installed into his craft, of if part of the thrill for him was testing himself against the g-forces (although I suspect as he gets older, that will become an issue for him).

You mean the "Isamu Special" from Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye?

Macross Chronicle identifies it as an extensively modified VF-19EF, a monkey model VF-19E that was used for evaluating some next-gen technologies like EX-Gear but was not outfitted with the very expensive ISC system.  The improved engines and rolled-back airframe control AI software with less performance smoothing never did quite cross the line into being an aircraft that could inflict instantaneous G-LOC like the 5th Generation VFs with 30G or more of acceleration.  It's something beyond the reach of the merely average pilot, but an aircraft that a highly skilled and thoroughly experienced pilot can conceivably manage without killing themselves horribly. 

(Even with the stability improvements removed, it's still got all kinds of safeguards in the control AI intended to prevent the aircraft from outright endangering the life of its pilot via its high performance.)

 

9 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

While these are good points, I also know that when it comes to moving parts, any joint is going to be a weak spot due to its' nature.  When you're talking about parts that have to bear considerable amounts of weight, deal with other stresses such as torque, shear stress, deformation and several other issues being put through the added stress of flight maneuvers, missile, beam and projectile strikes as well as "blunt force trauma" of combat, that's a lot for materials to withstand. I can recall the Hind D helicopter having a "strike reinforced hub" for it's main rotor assembly, so that the main blades didn't get shot off in combat. It just makes me wonder exactly how strong the materials are and what their inherent limits are?

There is that, yeah, though the introduction of linear actuator technology in the 5th Generation probably did a lot to reduce that risk as well.

I doubt we'll ever get a proper official setting comparison of the materials to real world equivalents.  Unofficial or "expanded universe" type works have given some direction there but that's just round number figures like "100x the strength of an equivalent thickness of steel".

 

9 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Ah... that's an excellent point.

While we're on the topic: I wonder what Protoculture would make of humanity and our progress at that point? It would be interesting to see a NUNS Fleet encounter the last survivors of Protoculture and actually interact with them (possibly this was the fate of Megaroad 1?)

Given that humanity is still a fractious, occasionally violent species that hasn't resolved its internal differences despite expanding across a fair portion of the galaxy in a terrifyingly short time and managed to do ridiculous things like defeat a Birdhuman with crude reaction weaponry, score a pyrrhic victory over a Zentradi main fleet, accidentally release and then defeat and befriend the Protodeviln, release the Fold Evil, or accidentally activate the Delta Wave System... I'd expect them to be a little horrified at our ignorance and a LOT horrified at our tendency to behave violently.  There'd probably be some very panicky Protoculture explaining as quickly as possible all the things humanity needs to stop doing right the hell now before they repeat the Protoculture's mistakes.

 

9 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

  Y'know...I don't really think most ships plan a crash landing most of the time.

A good landing is one you can walk away from.  A great landing is one where you can reuse the spaceship later.

[deathzealot]

43 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

(possibly this was the fate of Megaroad 1?)

You do know that there is a fanfiction about that right? 

[pengbuzz]

7 hours ago, deathzealot said:

You do know that there is a fanfiction about that right? 

Actually, no I didn't. O.o

 

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

You mean the "Isamu Special" from Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye?

Macross Chronicle identifies it as an extensively modified VF-19EF, a monkey model VF-19E that was used for evaluating some next-gen technologies like EX-Gear but was not outfitted with the very expensive ISC system.  The improved engines and rolled-back airframe control AI software with less performance smoothing never did quite cross the line into being an aircraft that could inflict instantaneous G-LOC like the 5th Generation VFs with 30G or more of acceleration.  It's something beyond the reach of the merely average pilot, but an aircraft that a highly skilled and thoroughly experienced pilot can conceivably manage without killing themselves horribly. 

(Even with the stability improvements removed, it's still got all kinds of safeguards in the control AI intended to prevent the aircraft from outright endangering the life of its pilot via its high performance.)

Yeah, that one (still wonder what poor Isamu will do once old age makes him arthritis-ridden).

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

There is that, yeah, though the introduction of linear actuator technology in the 5th Generation probably did a lot to reduce that risk as well.

I doubt we'll ever get a proper official setting comparison of the materials to real world equivalents.  Unofficial or "expanded universe" type works have given some direction there but that's just round number figures like "100x the strength of an equivalent thickness of steel".

That is a good point: the linear actuators do contribute a lot. Just don't fly anywhere near a degaussing machine :P

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Given that humanity is still a fractious, occasionally violent species that hasn't resolved its internal differences despite expanding across a fair portion of the galaxy in a terrifyingly short time and managed to do ridiculous things like defeat a Birdhuman with crude reaction weaponry, score a pyrrhic victory over a Zentradi main fleet, accidentally release and then defeat and befriend the Protodeviln, release the Fold Evil, or accidentally activate the Delta Wave System... I'd expect them to be a little horrified at our ignorance and a LOT horrified at our tendency to behave violently.  There'd probably be some very panicky Protoculture explaining as quickly as possible all the things humanity needs to stop doing right the hell now before they repeat the Protoculture's mistakes.

Not to mention hiding their silverware and other valuables. O.o Seriously though, I hadn't considered what you just mentioned, and it bears serious thought indeed!

Us: "We found your song and translated it--"

Them:"NEVER MIND THAT!!! What do you people THINK you're doing?! Seriously! You released the Protodevlin?! Do you know how much Spiritia it took to seal them off??!! Not to mention what you did to the Varuta?!! And that Zentraedi Main Fleet...hoo-boy did you ever saw off the branch from underneath yourselves!!! Y'all realize there's about 6,000 more of those fleets where they came from, right?!"

Us: "Er...we had no way of knowing--"

Them:" Tell THAT to the fleets when they arrive and turn your entire...whatits.."NUNS"?... into Plomeek Soup!!! And that's just for starters!! All of you...get yourselves into THAT briefing room NOW while we explain a few hundred details to you!!"

*Protoculture folks grab nearest humans and drag them by their collars to briefing room for what promises to be a LOOONNNG lecture*

 

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

A good landing is one you can walk away from.  A great landing is one where you can reuse the spaceship later.

A perfect landing is where you actually manage to get a valk in gerwalk mode through the drive-thru window of McDonalds without taking the awning off the building, knocking down their sign or crushing any other cars in the line.

[Andras]

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

While we're on the topic: I wonder what Protoculture would make of humanity and our progress at that point? It would be interesting to see a NUNS Fleet encounter the last survivors of Protoculture and actually interact with them (possibly this was the fate of Megaroad 1?)

 

 

Legend of the Megaroad on Fanfiction.net

There's a part II but AFAIK the author died so it will never be completed.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah, that one (still wonder what poor Isamu will do once old age makes him arthritis-ridden).

Knowing him, he'll either mutter mutinously as he's forced to accept promotion to a desk job or get himself killed in a crash.

It's with good reason that the usual career trajectory for a fighter pilot gradually trends away from actually flying and towards the administrative tasks that support squadron operations.

 

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Not to mention hiding their silverware and other valuables. O.o Seriously though, I hadn't considered what you just mentioned, and it bears serious thought indeed!

Given their love of song, I expect their reaction to learning what humanity is and what it's done in the not quite seventy years since they learned they weren't alone in the universe would go something like this:

 

 

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

A perfect landing is where you actually manage to get a valk in gerwalk mode through the drive-thru window of McDonalds without taking the awning off the building, knocking down their sign or crushing any other cars in the line.

Now that would be a real trick given the ten foot clearance most drive thrus have.

[JB0]

I suspect the first thing the protoculture remnant would tell them is "Look, when you find an inhospitable planet that seems like it couldn't be trying harder to keep you out if it was designed to, IT IS BECAUSE IT ACTUALLY WAS DESIGNED TO SO LEAVE IT ALONE! THE FOLD FAULTS AND TIME RIFTS ARE THERE FOR A GOOD REASON!"

[pengbuzz]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Knowing him, he'll either mutter mutinously as he's forced to accept promotion to a desk job or get himself killed in a crash.

It's with good reason that the usual career trajectory for a fighter pilot gradually trends away from actually flying and towards the administrative tasks that support squadron operations.

 

Given their love of song, I expect their reaction to learning what humanity is and what it's done in the not quite seventy years since they learned they weren't alone in the universe would go something like this

 

O.O

Er... if the Protoculture have a screaming old guy ghost, they could have used him to win the war!

(Cute girl though whistling in the video!)

 

  

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Now that would be a real trick given the ten foot clearance most drive thrus have.

Well hey... it could happen:

 

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

14 minutes ago, JB0 said:

I suspect the first thing the protoculture remnant would tell them is "Look, when you find an inhospitable planet that seems like it couldn't be trying harder to keep you out if it was designed to, IT IS BECAUSE IT ACTUALLY WAS DESIGNED TO SO LEAVE IT ALONE! THE FOLD FAULTS AND TIME RIFTS ARE THERE FOR A GOOD REASON!"

Unfortunately, the ancient Protoculture wasn't always that great about keeping people out of places.

Security on the 4th planet of the Varauta 3198XE system was more or less on the honor system unless you count the entropy control field the Protoculture set up to keep the Protodeviln confined also turning the planet into an uninhabitable iceball over the intervening millennia.  It might've been enough to keep the planet uninteresting to what remained of the Zentradi forces and Supervision Army, but the fact that its climate made absolutely no sense was always going to grab the attention of a scientifically-literate species like humanity and prompt an investigation.

The Protoculture did get better about their seals and Keep Out signs as time went on, though.  When they sealed the Fold Evil they'd created on Uroboros they used a multi-layered seal that could only be deactivated with fold songs, released self-replicating designer insectoid bioweapons into their abandoned facilities and the surrounding environment to repel intruders by force, and then isolated the planet behind impassible fold faults.  It still didn't do the trick, but it performed better than the "let's just cross our fingers and hope for the best" approach they tried in the Varauta system despite humanity's growing familiarity with the Protoculture's BS.  Their effort on Windermere IV and the other worlds of the Brisingr cluster actually worked pretty well, burying all their dangerous toys in higher-dimensional space and then burying the key on an isolated planet on the edge of the galaxy (and humans sensibly tried to blow it the hell up with a dimensional warhead instead of studying it, proving they're getting smarter).

[JB0]

40 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Security on the 4th planet of the Varauta 3198XE system was more or less on the honor system unless you count the entropy control field the Protoculture set up to keep the Protodeviln confined also turning the planet into an uninhabitable iceball over the intervening millennia.  It might've been enough to keep the planet uninteresting to what remained of the Zentradi forces and Supervision Army, but the fact that its climate made absolutely no sense was always going to grab the attention of a scientifically-literate species like humanity and prompt an investigation.

That does explain nicely why they were wasting time on an uninhabitable ice planet.

 

"Entropy control field" sounds like something that is useful as hell as well as, well, the kind of physics-breaking crap one would need to seal up something like the protodeviln.

[slide]

On 11/9/2020 at 3:38 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross the Ride does kind of paint a picture of Macross Galaxy as a place of rather surprising inequality and poverty.  Its government is a corporation, effectively making the fleet a subsidiary of General Galaxy and in a lot of ways a flying extralegal research and development facility.  The wealthy and powerful like the Galaxy executives have access to the fleet's best technology and lead very comfortable lives both in the virtual domain and in the flesh.  The fleet's lower level employees live in fairly uncomfortable or even harsh conditions that are made less unpleasant for them by implant-induced augmented reality.  Their perceptions are filtered and modified by the their implants in some full on Ghost in the Shell-levels of mind screw to do things like make an unused urban space appear to be a beautiful park or make the unpleasant synthetic foodstuffs taste delicious.  Unlike the peasants in France during the French Revolution, these folks don't really properly appreciate that they're living in poor conditions because of their implants.  Folks without implants, including a very high (compared to other fleets) number of people who've been left unemployed by the fleet's obsession with labor-saving automation, live in harsh conditions and fully appreciate the fact but don't really have a chance at overthrowing the government due to the superhuman abilities of the cyborg soldiers there and the mind control the fleet's executives wield against the populace.

 

General Galaxy sponsored the Macross Galaxy fleet, and the corporation that serves as the fleet's government is effectively a subsidiary of General Galaxy.

 

It's questionable how much direct control General Galaxy had over the Macross Galaxy fleet, but all in all I don't think so.

Macross Frontier's story had some fairly blunt points to make about corporate corruption and capitalism's influence on politics, with the two main emigrant fleets in the story both being manipulated, overtly or covertly, by corporate sponsors in a bid to locate and monopolize a precious new resource (fold quartz).

Weyland-Yutani used its massive influence to effectively become the government in reality if not in name, where General Galaxy seems uninterested in anything except the business of building things like ships, fighters, gravity control systems, and the like.  It was a group of other individuals who kind of hijacked the Macross Galaxy fleet and turned it into a fleet bent on galactic domination via mind control.

So the "East India Companies" are a better, if imperfect, corporate comparison [and not just for GG or SMS]... Fascinating, and believable as we've made horrifying mistakes like that before.

 

On 11/9/2020 at 4:07 AM, pengbuzz said:

It would certainly give a whole new meaning to the term "fold", now wouldn't it?

Indeed.

On that point, I was just thinking that the G-forces under discussion here will lead to a new term: G-LOC is "G-induced loss of consciousness", but considering the ability to snap into a 25G+ maneuver, the new term will be G-LOL for "G-induced loss of life"

 

On 11/9/2020 at 5:08 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Given that humanity is still a fractious, occasionally violent species that hasn't resolved its internal differences despite expanding across a fair portion of the galaxy in a terrifyingly short time and managed to do ridiculous things like defeat a Birdhuman with crude reaction weaponry, score a pyrrhic victory over a Zentradi main fleet, accidentally release and then defeat and befriend the Protodeviln, release the Fold Evil, or accidentally activate the Delta Wave System... I'd expect them to be a little horrified at our ignorance and a LOT horrified at our tendency to behave violently.  There'd probably be some very panicky Protoculture explaining as quickly as possible all the things humanity needs to stop doing right the hell now before they repeat the Protoculture's mistakes.

I would expect the Protoculture to be very wary of a young version of themselves: they know the mistakes they made, and have at least one report [if not a specimen couple in Sarah/Shin] proving that we're very similar to them.

I had to laugh at "Horrified at our ignorance"... Imagine their surprise in discovering that beings created in their own image are imperfect... must be a real slap-in-the-face to their ego.

 

Actually, I'd be very concerned if the Protoculture were surprised that yet another of their attempts at playing God failed to pan-out as they intended, they should be used to that by now

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/10/2020 at 8:49 AM, JB0 said:

That does explain nicely why they were wasting time on an uninhabitable ice planet.

What's surprising is that it took the government of the Varauta colony eighteen years to get around to investigating the neighboring theoretically-habitable planet where the laws of thermodynamics were seemingly out to lunch.

Varauta was settled in 2025, but the Special Research Unit that investigated the system's 4th planet looking for the origin of the mysterious energy field didn't start work until 2043.

 

On 11/10/2020 at 8:49 AM, JB0 said:

"Entropy control field" sounds like something that is useful as hell as well as, well, the kind of physics-breaking crap one would need to seal up something like the protodeviln.

I'd imagine a LOT of the technology on Varauta's 4th planet would be pretty damned interesting to the New UN Government's research agencies.  

Undamaged Protoculture overtechnology in basically pristine condition would be a BIG draw.  (Especially given some of the nonsense of theirs we learn about later, like dimensional energy conversion technology or factory satellite manufacturing tech that can violate conservation of mass.)

 

 

20 hours ago, slide said:

So the "East India Companies" are a better, if imperfect, corporate comparison [and not just for GG or SMS]... Fascinating, and believable as we've made horrifying mistakes like that before.

Sort of... if companies like that hadn't had any indigenous peoples to enslave and abuse.

 

 

20 hours ago, slide said:

I would expect the Protoculture to be very wary of a young version of themselves: they know the mistakes they made, and have at least one report [if not a specimen couple in Sarah/Shin] proving that we're very similar to them.

I had to laugh at "Horrified at our ignorance"... Imagine their surprise in discovering that beings created in their own image are imperfect... must be a real slap-in-the-face to their ego.

Remember, they did leave a bio-technological weapon of mass destruction on Earth for the very specific goal of exterminating us should we repeat their mistakes and make it into space before settling our internal disputes.

They'd be pretty shocked to learn that not only did humanity NOT develop the way they'd hoped, but that we'd failed so hard we managed to cripple the weapon that was supposed to destroy us before it could do much of anything.

 

 

20 hours ago, slide said:

Actually, I'd be very concerned if the Protoculture were surprised that yet another of their attempts at playing God failed to pan-out as they intended, they should be used to that by now

Depending on the experiment, most of their stuff arguably went horribly right.  

Like, they created the Zentradi to be an unstoppable military force and were then subsequently disappointed to learn they could do nothing to stop them when they'd lost control of them during the war with the Supervision Army.

Or the Evil-series they designed to be civilization-ruining autonomous weapons of mass destruction with infinite endurance ending up operating as civilization-ruining autonomous weapons of mass destruction of infinite endurance under someone else's control.

[Master Dex]

The Protoculture are basically a treatise on bad ideas that seemed good at the time until they got overzealous.

Still they at least seemed to care a little about what people did after they were gone and avoiding repeats (even if they weren't very successful at that).

Thus I'd say they are still better than the ultimate Neglectful Precursors in fiction, The Ancients from Stargate, lol.

[pengbuzz]

39 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

The Protoculture are basically a treatise on bad ideas that seemed good at the time until they got overzealous.

Still they at least seemed to care a little about what people did after they were gone and avoiding repeats (even if they weren't very successful at that).

Thus I'd say they are still better than the ultimate Neglectful Precursors in fiction, The Ancients from Stargate, lol.

Or the Forerunners in Halo.

It's true what they say: hindsight is 20/20.

[Master Dex]

I dunno, I mean yeah they also left behind weapons of ultimate destruction anyone could accidentally trigger but the Forerunners were at least trying to give future life in the galaxy a chance, they just weren't around to decommission their stuff. The Ancients just littered doomsday devices everywhere and yeeted off to the next plane of existence to act like cosmic jerks.

In an attempt to not get too off topic though, I suppose that makes the Protoculture closer to Halo's example since they cared enough to try, however futile it might have been. When it comes to setting an example for later species such as humanity, that's something, and the humans of Macross at least on an organizational level are quickly learning some things are better left buried... Or detonated into a singularity just to be sure.

[slide]

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Remember, they did leave a bio-technological weapon of mass destruction on Earth for the very specific goal of exterminating us should we repeat their mistakes and make it into space before settling our internal disputes.

They'd be pretty shocked to learn that not only did humanity NOT develop the way they'd hoped, but that we'd failed so hard we managed to cripple the weapon that was supposed to destroy us before it could do much of anything.

Said BioTech-WMD apparently included some sort of "redeeming quality" failsafe programming: Sarah's love for Shin stopped the thing in it's tracks [redirected the weapons away from him]... then she made it absorb the nukes with it's shield instead of just deflect them in a self-sacrificial attempt at saving the home and people she loved...

If it's fold system worked after that, there's a fair bet the bird-human still could have obliterated us [or at least the Carrier-group that fired on it] if it really wanted to by overloading said system. It was able to regenerate after being decapitated and fossilizing for thousands of years... it likely could have just done it again, and kept right-on genociding us.

Shin and Sarah proved we're not possessed by Battle, at least not like the Zentran [after all: "it is in battle one finds life"], though conflict is an inescapable part of life itself. Hell, even plant species have self-defense mechanisms.

For all we know, that damned probe may have even figured out that we Humans generally fight out of fear-reactions, not because we actually enjoy battle.

I don't think they fully expected us to "stop fighting" [even though those were the exact words the probe used], but they did hope we wouldn't like it.

Had Sarah not stopped from obliterating Shin [ala Nora and D.D.] that certainly would've been all the proof needed to wipe us out because of our irredeemable nature...

 

aside question:

Did any of the other Protoculture-descendants we met in Delta have a Bird-human [or similar "nip that mistake in the bud" WMDs] on their planets? Or did the Protoculture only leave one on Earth? If only Earth, why?

 

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Depending on the experiment, most of their stuff arguably went horribly right.  

Like, they created the Zentradi to be an unstoppable military force and were then subsequently disappointed to learn they could do nothing to stop them when they'd lost control of them during the war with the Supervision Army.

Or the Evil-series they designed to be civilization-ruining autonomous weapons of mass destruction with infinite endurance ending up operating as civilization-ruining autonomous weapons of mass destruction of infinite endurance under someone else's control.

That's partly what I mean: In their own desperate and escalating attempts to settle their societal conflict by force, they quite successfully undertook a series of weapons programs that eventually threatened the entire universe, with seemingly little thought about what that really meant.

I'm assuming the following conversation probably took place:

Protoculture#1 "Hey, I created an unstoppable sentient-machine-of-death to use on our enemies!"

Pc#2 "What happens when it's done with our enemies, or some jerk gains control of it, or it just turns on us of it's own volition?"

Pc#1 "... Well, we'll have t--"

Pc#2 "You already released the  Kraken  Protodeviln, didn't you?"

Pc#1 ""

 

They made us in their image, and as you said, it worked out horribly right... we're not great at this whole 'peace' thing, but at least we aren't destroying a galaxy [or even the universe] because of our cultural differences. 

I'm forced to wonder if the Protoculture Schism may have been a complete over-reaction to the first major case of fundamental cultural discord within their society, and they simply didn't know how to handle it without progenerating entire species of slave-soldiers to do their bidding? [which was literally the least dangerous thing they did]

 

19 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

I dunno, I mean yeah they also left behind weapons of ultimate destruction anyone could accidentally trigger but the Forerunners were at least trying to give future life in the galaxy a chance, they just weren't around to decommission their stuff. The Ancients just littered doomsday devices everywhere and yeeted off to the next plane of existence to act like cosmic jerks.

 True.

 

4 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

some things are better left buried... Or detonated into a singularity just to be sure.

On that point: are Dimension-Eater weapons what Breetai was actually worried about at the beginning of Macross?

Or do we have a weapon in our hands that's beyond the arsenals of the Protoculture?

Are we actually capable of destroying the monstrosities they had to bury because even they couldn't destroy them?

 

14 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Sort of... if companies like that hadn't had any indigenous peoples to enslave and abuse.

Well... Macross Galaxy [or at least Grace O'Connor and the voices in her head] did try to mind-enslave all sentient life in the galaxy. 

We've already discussed Galaxy's treatment of those low on the societal/corporate ladder. 

Galaxy and Frontier were harvesting Vajra corpses for FoldQuartz...

"EIC in space" sounds about right.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, slide said:

Are we actually capable of destroying the monstrosities they had to bury because even they couldn't destroy them?

Destroying them doesn't seem to have been on their mind, if Delta's any indication. 

Build a battleship that can brainwash a galaxy, decide it is a bad idea, then sink it in fold space and leave the key in plain sight instead of "fill every open space in the thing with reaction weapons and drop the radioactive dust left over down a black hole".

 

I think the protoculture operated under the belief that it was better to have a doomsday weapon and not need one than need a doomsday weapon and not have one.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Master Dex said:

I dunno, I mean yeah they also left behind weapons of ultimate destruction anyone could accidentally trigger but the Forerunners were at least trying to give future life in the galaxy a chance, they just weren't around to decommission their stuff. The Ancients just littered doomsday devices everywhere and yeeted off to the next plane of existence to act like cosmic jerks.

As I understand it from a friend who is a big fan of the Halo franchise, the Forerunners aren't abusive/neglectful precursors so much as abusive/neglectful contemporaries... having apparently reverted humanity and other species to stone age levels after the early Flood containment efforts by those species were mistaken for acts of aggression.

 

4 hours ago, Master Dex said:

In an attempt to not get too off topic though, I suppose that makes the Protoculture closer to Halo's example since they cared enough to try, however futile it might have been. When it comes to setting an example for later species such as humanity, that's something, and the humans of Macross at least on an organizational level are quickly learning some things are better left buried... Or detonated into a singularity just to be sure.

TBH, I'm not sure the Protoculture's motives were anything like altruistic.

They were, according to the official timeline, re-engineering native species on planets they found to ensure the emergence of sub-Protoculture species who would prepare their worlds for future colonization.  

It's likely the Birdhuman was left by the Protoculture as insurance that humanity wouldn't develop into a species that could threaten the Protoculture when they returned to colonize the planet, rather than as a guarantee that we wouldn't repeat their own mistakes... since at the time it was left, they hadn't really realized the magnitude of their error yet.

 

 

36 minutes ago, slide said:

Said BioTech-WMD apparently included some sort of "redeeming quality" failsafe programming: Sarah's love for Shin stopped the thing in it's tracks [redirected the weapons away from him]... then she made it absorb the nukes with it's shield instead of just deflect them in a self-sacrificial attempt at saving the home and people she loved...

There is the (mythologized) mention that the Birdhuman was accidentally activated once before, and that its Kill All Humans program was interrupted by forcibly separating the Birdhuman's head from its body.

Given the Birdhuman's mission, "failing safe" would be destroying humanity rather than risk a violent species making it into space.  To me, it seems more like the pilot's influence on the system... esp. given that Sara was only able to steer its defensive fire away from Shin after breaking through its "kadun" brainwashing and seeing that she was firing on Shin and not some amorphous monster.  One has to wonder what its program dictated if humanity passed its test.  Macross Chronicle suggests that when Sara folded it away it went to Gallia IV.

 

 

36 minutes ago, slide said:

If it's fold system worked after that, there's a fair bet the bird-human still could have obliterated us [or at least the Carrier-group that fired on it] if it really wanted to by overloading said system. It was able to regenerate after being decapitated and fossilizing for thousands of years... it likely could have just done it again, and kept right-on genociding us.

It wasn't able to do that alone... it needed the songs of the Mayan priestesses who'd been engineered with the biological fold wave abilities necessary to maintain it in order to regenerate and sustain itself over the intervening millennia.

 

 

36 minutes ago, slide said:

Shin and Sarah proved we're not possessed by Battle, at least not like the Zentran [after all: "it is in battle one finds life"], though conflict is an inescapable part of life itself. Hell, even plant species have self-defense mechanisms.

That's not quite what the Birdhuman said, though... it asked if humans had stopped fighting amongst themselves, full stop.  

The answer was "No", so it decided to destroy humanity.

"Are you fighting for any reason?  Yes?  Then you're possessed by the Kadun of Battle and have to die for the sake of galactic peace."  

 

 

36 minutes ago, slide said:

Did any of the other Protoculture-descendants we met in Delta have a Bird-human [or similar "nip that mistake in the bud" WMDs] on their planets? Or did the Protoculture only leave one on Earth? If only Earth, why?

Birdhuman icons are present on several planets including the Vajra planet at the end of Frontier, but as far as we know the only Birdhuman found was the one on Earth.

(It's possible others were present, but unable to restore themselves or activate because the tribe tasked with maintaining them had died out or simply abandoned its traditional role.)

 

 

36 minutes ago, slide said:

That's partly what I mean: In their own desperate and escalating attempts to settle their societal conflict by force, they quite successfully undertook a series of weapons programs that eventually threatened the entire universe, with seemingly little thought about what that really meant.

I'm assuming the following conversation probably took place:

Protoculture#1 "Hey, I created an unstoppable sentient-machine-of-death to use on our enemies!"

Pc#2 "What happens when it's done with our enemies, or some jerk gains control of it, or it just turns on us of it's own volition?"

Pc#1 "... Well, we'll have t--"

Pc#2 "You already released the  Kraken  Protodeviln, didn't you?"

Pc#1 ""

The horrible part is that they don't seem to have had any of those conversations until AFTER the worst had already happened.

They went on their merry way creating weapons of the most atrocious destructive potential and only AFTER things went Tango-Uniform did they seemingly stop to think "Was that a good idea?".

 

 

36 minutes ago, slide said:

I'm forced to wonder if the Protoculture Schism may have been a complete over-reaction to the first major case of fundamental cultural discord within their society, and they simply didn't know how to handle it without progenerating entire species of slave-soldiers to do their bidding? [which was literally the least dangerous thing they did]

I'm sure it wasn't the first major case of cultural discord... given that, in Macross 7, the schism is described as a sort of Cold War-like condition where two different socio-political groups in the Protoculture coexisted but never reached any kind of accord until things blew up into a mutually self-destructive shooting war.  Even in DYRL?, it was the culmination of lifetimes of failure to sit down and talk out their problems.

 

 

36 minutes ago, slide said:

On that point: are Dimension-Eater weapons what Breetai was actually worried about at the beginning of Macross?

Nah, what Vrlitwhai was so stunned by at the start of Super Dimension Fortress Macross was that the supposedly primitive species he'd just discovered had opened fire on him with thermonuclear reaction weapons.

To the Zentradi, thermonuclear reaction weapons are long-lost technology.  The factory satellites that manufactured them were destroyed by the Supervision Army some 380,000 years before the series.

 

 

36 minutes ago, slide said:

Or do we have a weapon in our hands that's beyond the arsenals of the Protoculture?

Nope.

 

 

36 minutes ago, slide said:

Are we actually capable of destroying the monstrosities they had to bury because even they couldn't destroy them?

Yes and no?  It's more a question of scale than anything.

Humanity doesn't exactly have the firepower to be taking on Zentradi main fleets willy-nilly, but when it comes to isolated infrastructure-type atrocities humans c.2059 do finally have the firepower to safely dispose of a lot of the Protoculture's mistakes via dimensional warheads.  

 

 

23 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Destroying them doesn't seem to have been on their mind, if Delta's any indication. 

Build a battleship that can brainwash a galaxy, decide it is a bad idea, then sink it in fold space and leave the key in plain sight instead of "fill every open space in the thing with reaction weapons and drop the radioactive dust left over down a black hole".

 

I think the protoculture operated under the belief that it was better to have a doomsday weapon and not need one than need a doomsday weapon and not have one.

That does seem to be the case, given that we've seen that something like a dimensional warhead could potentially even kill a Protodeviln... at the cost of a planet.

Humanity's first attempt to dispose of the delta wave system after realizing how stupidly dangerous it was was more restrained, but still boasted enough firepower to erase a city from existence.

The second attempt was more extreme, but even less successful.

[Master Dex]

33 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As I understand it from a friend who is a big fan of the Halo franchise, the Forerunners aren't abusive/neglectful precursors so much as abusive/neglectful contemporaries... having apparently reverted humanity and other species to stone age levels after the early Flood containment efforts by those species were mistaken for acts of aggression.

It's a mix honestly. What you say (that they told you) is accurate, but Ancient Humanity in the Halo backstory and modern Humanity are distinct enough to be considered about as different as Protoculture and Humanity in Macross. They have matching genetics of course, but because of the aforementioned reversion the original society and culture was basically erased (and then the Halos removed any traces save for what the Librarian indexed that became modern Humanity later).

The thing with the Forerunner is, they were colossal jerks in their time exactly as you say, but after they realized they could not defeat the Flood conventionally a notable segment of them has a heel-face turn and realized they screwed up and sought to give a future Humanity post-firing a chance to succeed where they failed.

Now there were some Forerunner who had different ideas about that.. and that's how you get Halo 4....

38 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

TBH, I'm not sure the Protoculture's motives were anything like altruistic.

They were, according to the official timeline, re-engineering native species on planets they found to ensure the emergence of sub-Protoculture species who would prepare their worlds for future colonization.  

It's likely the Birdhuman was left by the Protoculture as insurance that humanity wouldn't develop into a species that could threaten the Protoculture when they returned to colonize the planet, rather than as a guarantee that we wouldn't repeat their own mistakes... since at the time it was left, they hadn't really realized the magnitude of their error yet.

I'll give you that one, I hadn't considered they might have ulterior motives for their practices before their dangerous tech got away from them. I suppose that offers some insight in why so much of their crap is hidden and not just completely decommissioned (provided they had any time to remove their muddy footprints before they died out), if it was indeed meant to benefit them later at the expense of indigenous life.

I'd still argue they are better stewards than the Ancients even so, lol.

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, Master Dex said:

I'll give you that one, I hadn't considered they might have ulterior motives for their practices before their dangerous tech got away from them. I suppose that offers some insight in why so much of their crap is hidden and not just completely decommissioned (provided they had any time to remove their muddy footprints before they died out), if it was indeed meant to benefit them later at the expense of indigenous life.

For what it's worth, the reasons behind the ancient Protoculture repeatedly deciding to bury and seal away the consequences of their folly probably have a lot to do with the swiftness of their civilization's collapse.  

The Protoculture lost 85% of their population in the space of a year when the Protodeviln appeared, and what was left when the dust settled was a slowly crumbling network of colonized planets, emigrant fleets, and space colonies out on the galactic rim.

It seems likely that the reason the Protoculture didn't destroy the delta wave system in the Brisingr globular cluster when their civilization entered the final phases of its collapse was because doing so would've probably entailed completely destroying at least half a dozen habitable planets they'd semi-recently created sub-Protoculture life on.  The system was so massive, and so integrated into the crusts and mantles of those planets, that destroying it would've had apocalyptic consequences for the planets even if they didn't outright destroy the planets themselves.  The relay station on Windermere IV seen in Macross Delta seems to have fold crystal "roots" spread throughout almost an entire hemisphere of the planet.

Why the Protoculture didn't go the extra mile and kill the Protodeviln once their anima spiritia had successfully captured them is a mystery.  Spiritia deprivation will absolutely kill a Protodeviln stone dead, and from what we saw when Gigile killed himself on Lux to save Sivil it looks like a dimensional warhead detonation of planet-killing scale might have been enough to do the job.  It's possible they were afraid the Protodeviln's seal wasn't strong enough to prevent fold-based shenanigans like Valgo being able to interrupt space folding or Gepernich space folding Max's reaction missile back to the Stargazer in 2046.  Perhaps they believed the only way to kill them would be to starve them to death, given how powerful they were even after 500,000 years of confinement without spiritia.  (A more ominous theory might be that they intended to starve the Protodeviln and then come back and reclaim the still-living bodies of the Evil series for use in rebuilding their civilization.)

[pengbuzz]

2 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

For what it's worth, the reasons behind the ancient Protoculture repeatedly deciding to bury and seal away the consequences of their folly probably have a lot to do with the swiftness of their civilization's collapse.  

The Protoculture lost 85% of their population in the space of a year when the Protodeviln appeared, and what was left when the dust settled was a slowly crumbling network of colonized planets, emigrant fleets, and space colonies out on the galactic rim.

It seems likely that the reason the Protoculture didn't destroy the delta wave system in the Brisingr globular cluster when their civilization entered the final phases of its collapse was because doing so would've probably entailed completely destroying at least half a dozen habitable planets they'd semi-recently created sub-Protoculture life on.  The system was so massive, and so integrated into the crusts and mantles of those planets, that destroying it would've had apocalyptic consequences for the planets even if they didn't outright destroy the planets themselves.  The relay station on Windermere IV seen in Macross Delta seems to have fold crystal "roots" spread throughout almost an entire hemisphere of the planet.

Why the Protoculture didn't go the extra mile and kill the Protodeviln once their anima spiritia had successfully captured them is a mystery.  Spiritia deprivation will absolutely kill a Protodeviln stone dead, and from what we saw when Gigile killed himself on Lux to save Sivil it looks like a dimensional warhead detonation of planet-killing scale might have been enough to do the job.  It's possible they were afraid the Protodeviln's seal wasn't strong enough to prevent fold-based shenanigans like Valgo being able to interrupt space folding or Gepernich space folding Max's reaction missile back to the Stargazer in 2046.  Perhaps they believed the only way to kill them would be to starve them to death, given how powerful they were even after 500,000 years of confinement without spiritia.  (A more ominous theory might be that they intended to starve the Protodeviln and then come back and reclaim the still-living bodies of the Evil series for use in rebuilding their civilization.)

So then without the incident with the Protodevlin, the Protoculture may have continued on (at least until their next doomsday weapon reared up to bite them in the unmentionables)?

[Seto Kaiba]

11 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

So then without the incident with the Protodevlin, the Protoculture may have continued on (at least until their next doomsday weapon reared up to bite them in the unmentionables)?

Without the Protodeviln throwing a wrench into the growing tensions between the Stellar Republic and the opposing faction, they'd have probably fought a long and bloody civil war instead of being nearly wiped out and having to join forces to oppose the third party (the Supervision Army) that attacked both sides.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Without the Protodeviln throwing a wrench into the growing tensions between the Stellar Republic and the opposing faction, they'd have probably fought a long and bloody civil war instead of being nearly wiped out and having to join forces to oppose the third party (the Supervision Army) that attacked both sides.

And earth most likely would never have had the SDF-1.

[slide]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(A more ominous theory might be that they intended to starve the Protodeviln and then come back and reclaim the still-living bodies of the Evil series for use in rebuilding their civilization.)

THAT sounds like precisely the kind of idiot idea they would have.

 

I wonder if it was one side coming up with these megaweapons, and the other side having to clean up the inevitable mess...

Edited November 13, 2020 by slide

[pengbuzz]

6 minutes ago, slide said:

THAT sounds like precisely the kind of idiot idea they would have.

 

I wonder if it was one side coming up with these megaweapons, and the other side having to clean up the inevitable mess...

Well, we found out that corporations predate humanity, now didn't we?

[Bolt]

As @DewPoint asked about gravity propulsion.. are there any examples of the Protoculture having used that method? They revered the Vajra so, one would assume the Protoculture would explore that method of propulsion.